The Red High Heel

I took the photograph and drove to the neighborhood where Meng Yifan lived.

When I arrived, he was waiting for me outside a small restaurant.

Even from a distance, I could see that he was frighteningly pale, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked exactly like me!

He was also carrying a black plastic bag, though I had no idea what was inside.

A bad feeling immediately crept over me.

"Chen Mo, we're in real trouble this time."

Meng Yifan spoke weakly as he hurried to show me what was in the black plastic bag.

One glance was enough to make my face drain of color. I instinctively took a step back.

"Th-this... whose is that?"

Inside his bag was a single red high heel.

"How the fuck should I know?"

Meng Yifan's eyes were bloodshot. "Someone knocked on my door last night, asking for Li Xiumei. They kept knocking all night long. How the fuck was I supposed to dare open the door again? It tormented me all night, and I didn't get any sleep. As soon as it got light, I decided to find a spiritual master, but when I stepped outside, I found this high heel on my doorstep."

My scalp prickled as I listened. It turned out that Meng Yifan had wanted to tell me about the very same thing.

"What a coincidence. Someone knocked on my door last night too, and they kept at it all night..."

When Meng Yifan heard that, he nearly lost his footing.

We both fell silent. Faced with something like this, neither of us had any idea what to do.

If we had run into some criminal, we could have called the police and asked for help. But how were we supposed to report something like this?

We had installed a surveillance camera in that house earlier and already handed the footage over to the police. They had questioned us too, asking why we had opened the door at midnight.

Naturally, Meng Yifan and I had told them the truth. They had promptly suggested that we see a psychiatrist.

"Wait a second."

I looked at Meng Yifan. "Isn't your girlfriend living with you now? Wasn't she there last night?"

His expression only grew worse. "She was, but she didn't hear anything the whole time. She even wanted to open the door to prove that no one was knocking. I refused to let her, no matter what. She said I was being paranoid."

"All I could do was hide in another room until dawn."

His story made my skin crawl. Even in broad daylight, I felt a chill.

So Meng Yifan and I were the only ones who could hear the knocking?

"Have you called Xie Peng and Li Xingyang...?" I asked.

Meng Yifan wiped his face. "Yeah. They're both completely fine. It seems like you and I are the only ones who can hear it. I suspect... this happened because I opened the door that night. Chen Mo, what are we supposed to do...?"

"It might not be that simple," I said. "Even if this happened because you opened the door, we would only have attracted one ghost. How could one ghost knock on doors in two places at once, all night long?"

As I spoke, I handed Meng Yifan the photograph.

His reaction was exactly like mine. The moment he saw what the woman in the photograph was wearing, he jolted as though he had been electrocuted.

His eyes widened. "Where did you get this photograph?"

"Same as you. I found it outside my front door."

I sighed. "I'm afraid we really have run into something supernatural. This ghost won't leave us alone. She left us this photograph and a high heel because she probably doesn't want us staying out of it."

Meng Yifan snapped, "We're real estate agents, not the fucking Black and White Reapers of the underworld. What does any of this have to do with us?"

"What's the point of trying to reason with a ghost?" I said. "Right now, the most important thing is finding out who that mummified corpse was. Otherwise, we might only have a few days left to live."

After just one night, we already looked half-dead.

If this went on, there was no telling what would happen next.

We went into the restaurant and each ordered a plate of fried rice, then discussed how to uncover the identity of the mummified corpse.

Only the police could investigate someone's identity and background, especially a dead person's. But why would they tell us anything?

"I remember the house you sold in Garden Cottage before. The buyer was a cop, wasn't he? Do you two keep in touch?" Meng Yifan asked.

I paused, then quickly remembered.

One of the houses I had sold before had indeed been bought by a police officer.

The owner had been in a hurry to move abroad, so he was willing to sell it cheaply, for just 900,000 yuan.

I had listed it for 1,050,000 yuan, then sold it to the officer for 1,020,000, giving him a 30,000-yuan discount. All told, I had made Meng Yifan 120,000 yuan, and he had given me half as my commission.

The officer had thanked me profusely afterward and said he wanted to be friends.

We had gone out for a meal together twice since then, but that was all.

We weren't particularly close, but with my life hanging in the balance, I had no choice but to ask him for help.

After we finished eating, I immediately contacted the officer and asked him to find out who the mummified corpse was.

I couldn't reveal his name, but he had a little authority at work. I called him Brother Liu.

After hearing my request, Brother Liu sounded troubled. "Brother, it's not that I don't want to help. I know the case you're talking about. It's already under investigation, and anyone who leaks information related to it could be dismissed."

"But you're my brother, so I have to do everything I can. It's just that greasing palms up and down the chain might cost some money."

I wasn't some naive rookie. I knew exactly what he meant.

I told him none of that was a problem. I had to find out who the mummified corpse was.

After flattering him for a while, I invited him to dinner that evening at the Jade Fragrance Pavilion.

It was an upscale restaurant. Brother Liu was probably an old hand at this sort of thing, so he understood what I meant.

That evening.

Meng Yifan and I arrived at the restaurant first and waited over an hour before Brother Liu finally showed up.

Of all the trades out there, none knew how to butter people up better than those of us in sales.

Meng Yifan immediately took out a carton of expensive cigarettes and respectfully offered it to Brother Liu. "Brother Liu, Chen Mo told me you're a heavy smoker. We'd like to be friends. This little introductory gift isn't much, so please don't mind."

Brother Liu accepted the carton and even hefted it in his hand.

Its weight seemed to satisfy him. He laughed and said, "You're too kind. Any friend of Chen Mo's is a friend of mine. It's the thought that counts. Consider yourself my brother."

Only after accepting the cigarettes did he say, "I found out what you asked me to look into. But this case... how should I put it? It's a major one, and it ties into another major case from years ago. So I hope you two brothers take what I'm about to tell you to your graves. Otherwise, you'll be putting me in serious trouble."

Meng Yifan and I hurried to assure him, "Once we walk out that door, neither of us will remember a word you said today, Brother Liu."

Brother Liu nodded, his expression suddenly turning serious. "The dead woman you asked me about was named Li Xiumei. She was one of the perpetrators in a case fifteen years ago where an entire family was murdered. The police have been hunting her for fifteen years, but no one expected that she had been dead all along."