Chapter 34

Everything around was hazy. Before Song Wen’s eyes was a pitch-black corridor. At the end of the corridor, a door was ajar, emitting a chilly breeze, like an entrance to hell. The light inside the door was on, a somewhat human light. Step by step, he walked forward, as if he already knew what was about to happen. However, he couldn’t stop his own footsteps or his hands.

Outside, it was raining. He heard the rain and the thunder, the sound gradually approaching, as if a hammer was pounding the ground heavily. The sky and the earth seemed to burst apart because of the thunder. Song Wen almost suspected that a lightning bolt had struck nearby.

In his memory, in the depths of his rationality, Song Wen felt that this had happened before, as if a nightmare repeated countless times… The door opened, and in front of him were several decaying corpses. The air was thick with the smell of blood, nauseating. The corpses with open eyes seemed to be ready to sit up at any moment.

It was that dream again.

Song Wen suddenly opened his eyes. The curtain wasn’t tightly drawn, allowing a ray of sunlight to seep through the crack. Without this nightmare, it would have been an ordinary morning. Song Wen turned over in bed, and his heartbeat gradually returned to normal. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, gradually waking up.

Song Wen has always wondered if his life would be different if he hadn’t opened that door back then. This incident still had some impact on him. He disliked small, dark rooms, whether it was an elevator, a basement, entering such places triggered an instinctive repulsion. His heart would race, and breathing would become difficult—a sense of loathsome loss of control.

It happened when he was seven years old, and his whole family lived in Nancheng. Nancheng more than a decade ago was completely different from now. People dressed modestly, the internet wasn’t as developed, and mobile phones had just started to become popular. Only a small part of the city center was prosperous. The roads were chaotic and complex, the subway hadn’t been built yet, the old drainage system was long neglected, and every time it rained, half the city could be flooded.

Seven-year-old Song Wen, just like his nickname suggested, was at an age despised by pigs and dogs . He had a rebellious spirit, undefeated in the senior class, dominating the entire kindergarten. Teachers would call his parents for heart-to-heart talks every day. When the parents attended, Song Cheng used a ruler to give him a stern lesson, not stopping until his hands were swollen.

But Song Wen also had the same stubborn temperament as his father, deliberately opposing Song Cheng. He could admit to mistakes but refused to correct his faults. He even developed the bad habit of running away from home, infuriating Song Cheng, who drove his police car all over the streets looking for his son. In the police station, Song Cheng was praised as the deputy Commissioner, managing dozens of monkey cubs smoothly, but every time, his own son would outsmart him.

In this situation, Li Luanfang and Song Cheng had already enrolled Song Wen in the elementary school they wanted him to attend. They were just waiting for September to send him off to school, hoping to escape the torment of dealing with this bear child.

It was a May weekend. Suddenly, there was a severely injured patient in Li Luanfang’s hospital who had been in a car accident. Several interns were afraid to perform surgery, so she received a call at 4:30 in the afternoon and went out.

No one was preparing dinner, and the father and son stared at each other. By six o’clock, Song Cheng took Song Wen out for a meal.

Song Wen still remembers that evening they had meat buns with tomato and egg soup. The small steamed buns had a generous amount of meat, but they were exceptionally salty. Song Wen ended up drinking two extra bowls of soup. However, Song Cheng loved it and even packed a few for breakfast the next day. On the way home, while the two were driving, Song Cheng suddenly received a call from the police station.

Song Wen didn’t hear the specifics of the call but remembered that Song Cheng’s expression was unusually serious at that time. He explained to him, “Dad will take you somewhere later; you mustn’t wander around.” After saying that, he turned the car around and drove in the opposite direction of home.

The rain outside grew heavier. The tires swept across the road, making a constant splashing sound. In several places, the accumulated water had already passed the tires, and the car drove through the thick water like a boat, parting the water.

Song Wen didn’t know what had happened, but he could tell that his father’s expression was particularly solemn. The car continued to the outskirts of the city, and finally stopped in front of a dilapidated building. In the rain, Song Cheng comforted him a few times, then left him in the car and ran into the building.

After two minutes of Song Cheng’s departure, Song Wen began to regret it. On this dark and rainy night, the view outside the car window was pitch-black, and amid the rain, he seemed to hear the cries of wild animals. For a seven-year-old boy, staying alone in a car was terrifying. Lightning occasionally streaked across the sky, followed by muffled thunder.

“Dad… where are you?” Young Song Wen became increasingly scared. He opened the car door and, braving the rain, ran into the building. The living room floor of the building was covered in dust and dark red marks. Various lines were drawn on the floor, and people in police uniforms were discussing something seriously, paying no attention to him.

Song Wen couldn’t find Song Cheng anywhere. He kept walking inside, following a staircase down to the basement. It was an old basement with rough walls, seeping water, covered in dust and spider webs. No one had taken care of it for who knew how many years. There was a room inside with a light on. The voltage was unstable; the light bulb would sometimes dim suddenly and other times shine exceptionally bright. Song Wen was both afraid and curious, so he approached…

The rain fell steadily from the sky, and thunder rumbled outside. The air carried flashes, and the mottled shadows of trees were cast on the walls, resembling ghostly images from Liao Zhai.

The half-open door revealed a scene, and Song Wen, pushing the door, saw the same sight as in his dream…

That day, Song Wen was frightened, drenched in the rain, and ended up in the hospital. He had a prolonged high fever, only recovering after it subsided, and then he was discharged and returned home. The memories that followed were blurry. All he remembered was that during that time, Li Luanfang and Song Cheng argued every day because of this incident. Every time Song Wen woke up, he could hear them arguing loudly in the living room.

“How can you be a father? How could you take the child to the crime scene? If you didn’t bring him, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“Cry, cry, cry. Crying won’t change anything. It was a big case, the whole police station went there. Could I not hurry over? Besides, I had told him not to run around. How could I have known it would turn out like this?”

“You’re blaming the child for your responsibility. He’s only seven. What do you know at seven? Witnessing a crime scene leaves a lifelong shadow. And you dragged him into it! Why would you…”

Li Luanfang’s sharp voice mixed with Song Cheng’s roar, arguing for many rounds without a clear winner. The mother blamed the father for taking Song Wen to the crime scene, especially a crime scene involving a heinous crime. The father blamed the mother for leaving the child with him knowing how busy he was, not coming home every day.

It is said that the human brain selectively forgets things it doesn’t want to remember. Perhaps due to the continuous high fever, Song Wen forgot most of the other things he experienced during that time. Even thinking about it would give him a headache, except for the appearance of those few corpses, haunting him in his nightmares.

To prevent Song Wen from being psychologically affected, Song Cheng took him to see a few psychiatrists and tried so-called hypnotherapy. Song Wen just had to answer some questions and then sleep. Song Cheng would also show him a bunch of pictures and ask various questions, but the more he asked, the more impatient Song Wen became. His mind was blank, and he couldn’t remember anything.

That case seemed to involve many things. After that period, strange people would always appear in and around the house. Later, Song Cheng and Li Luanfang played a big game, and they got divorced…

This news was like a meteorite that suddenly struck, leaving the seven-year-old Song Wen confused. Moreover, Song Cheng went and modified his household registration and files, changing Song Wen’s records and applying for special protection. In all accessible information, Song Wen’s father was his distant uncle Song Tao. Song Wen could only address Song Cheng as Uncle. Later, Song Wen was sent to his grandmother’s house for custody, until he graduated from junior high school.

When he was young, Song Wen didn’t know why all this happened. He felt angry, complained, felt disappointed, cried, and made a fuss. As he grew older, he finally learned to face it all calmly.

Later, Song Wen found out that Song Cheng was dealing with an extremely dangerous case at that time, the 519 Special Case. He was afraid of implicating his family, so he made such arrangements. In his grandma’s house, there was a cabinet with his and his mother’s documents, including a handwritten letter from Song Cheng, ready to be used at any time.

The 519 Special Case Team was established for a year and was later disbanded for some reasons. The personnel at that time were dispatched to various places, and Song Cheng was transferred to the provincial bureau. Over the years, he has been promoted to the position of director of the provincial bureau. However, from Song Wen’s perspective, he believes that Song Cheng did not fulfill the responsibilities and duties of a father. He resents Song Cheng from the bottom of his heart. To this day, he still doesn’t call him Dad very often, and he can count the days until he sees him using one hand.

After high school, Song Cheng and Li Luanfang remarried. However, Song Wen’s household registration and files were never restored. They still remained under his distant uncle’s name.

As Song Wen grew up, he deliberately went against Song Cheng, following the same path as his father. Until he graduated from the police academy, Song Wen chose without hesitation to leave the wings of his father and return to his hometown in Nancheng. When Song Wen reported to the Nancheng Police Bureau, the bureau Commissioner interviewed him. At that time, the Commissioner looked at his file and asked, “Ah, your surname is Song, and the director of the provincial bureau also has the surname Song. Do you know Director Song?”

Song Wen shook his head. “I don’t know. According to the household registration, my dad’s name is Song Tao. Besides, if my family knew the director of the provincial bureau, I wouldn’t have started as a grassroots criminal investigator.” He knew that his household registration certificate and related information were modified by Song Cheng, with a level of confidentiality higher than the Commissioner’s, making it impossible to trace.

The Commissioner thought about it and didn’t suspect anything in that direction. So, he let the son of Director Song work under him for three years. The entire police station remained clueless, and to this day, only a few people know this secret.

After becoming a criminal investigator, Song Wen was still haunted by that nightmare. He had also wanted to know what happened that night, who those people were, and why they died in that old building. He only learned from the stories of the old detectives that the 519 major case was the most serious kidnapping and murder case in nearly twenty years in Nancheng. Three bandits kidnapped the richest couple in Nancheng at that time, the Ji family. After obtaining the safe password, they took out 3.28 million in cash and jewelry. However, the ruthless bandits were not satisfied. They tortured the hostages in the old building, trying to force them to reveal more of their wealth.

No one knew what happened during that time. Six days after the Ji couple went missing, someone anonymously reported finding traces of the bandits in the woods in the outskirts. However, mysteriously, when the police arrived, they found the bandits and the two victims dead in the old mansion. Based on the degree of decomposition of the bodies, it was determined that both the bandits and the hostages had died three days earlier, and the money was gone. The case was never solved, and even the city bureau remained silent about it. Everything became shrouded in mystery, submerged in the river of time.

In his rebellious adolescence, Song Wen was extremely daring. He often felt that he had seen the terrifying hell of the world, and there was nothing left to fear. Later, Song Wen realized that he was wrong. The truly frightening thing was not the dead but the living. There were no ghosts or monsters in the world. Those who had died couldn’t get up and stab people with knives, but the living… they could do anything.

He no longer feared corpses, but that dark basement remained in his subconscious. He rejected elevators and enclosed dark environments and still couldn’t overcome it.

Song Wen withdrew his thoughts. He suddenly remembered something and took out his phone to check the date. It turned out that it had been exactly seventeen years since that day. Seventeen years. He had grown from a naive child into a detective. Now, he was no longer afraid of those corpses, but this unsolved case might never find its perpetrator.

After finishing the previous case, the team led by Song Wen finally had some free time. Since that night, the sun hadn’t been seen in Nancheng.

As soon as Song Wen got dressed, his phone rang. He answered, and the voice of Zhou Yining came through, “Captain Song, it’s been over a month since that new recruit joined your team, right? How’s he been recently?”

Song Wen didn’t know why Zhou Yining suddenly called to ask about Lu Siyu, especially this early in the morning before work. While putting on his shoes, he replied, “He’s doing well, obedient, smart, and quite handy.” Pausing for a moment, he remembered some details from the two cases, “But… I do feel that he… is a bit different from normal people, somewhat peculiar.”

“I’ve had someone check his file recently.” Zhou Yining continued, “And found something.”

“What?” Song Wen asked with a furrowed brow.

“Generally, a person’s file reflects all aspects of their situation, and it’s challenging to fake a file. However, sometimes there are special circumstances.” Zhou Yining paused, “That is, files modified by the police. In order to protect witnesses, victims, related personnel, informants, undercover agents, etc., the police will modify their files. This kind of modification leaves no traces, and only those with high-level permissions can access the modification records. In my investigation, I found that his file might have been modified.”

Upon hearing this, Song Wen furrowed his brow slightly.

Zhou Yining continued, “The last time I discovered such traces was with you, Captain Song.”

Song Wen, of course, knew why there were modification records in his file. This meant that Zhou Yining had higher authority, possibly even above Commissioner Gu: “So, are you suggesting…”

Zhou Yining directly asked Song Wen, “Are you considering transferring him?”

Holding his phone, Song Wen thought for a moment, “Not for now. I’ll investigate thoroughly.”

TN:

Some jobs should have a “Don’t bring your child to work” rule. Although even without it, why the f*ck would you think that taking your 7 year old kid to the scene of the crime is in any way okay? Those people are already dead and you being a few minutes late won’t in any way affect them. It’s not like being there earlier will revive them. And then to blame the mother and child for it? Mschw. Reminds me of one scene from a movie I saw on YouTube shorts, can’t remember the name, the dad went to visit an inmate and left his daughter in the interrogation room with a SERIAL KILLER! WHO MURDERED AND ATE LIKE 30 PEOPLE!!! I should try to find it again and watch the movie.

See you in the next case~ FAMILY MASSACRE!!