Chapter 35: The Second Death

Jiang Zhique knelt in front of the door, holding a straightened-out paperclip between her fingers.

Her expression was one of intense concentration. Holding her breath, she probed slowly. After some time, as if keenly sensing the final, faint click transmitted through the needle tip, she reached for the door handle. With a gentle twist, the locked security door swung open simply.

She dusted off her knees, stood up, and nodded to Qi Ran, who was leaning against the stair railing. “It’s open.”

“Whoa.”

Qi Ran wasn’t sure what to say, so she just expressed her amazement.

“—It’s not a difficult skill. If you want to learn, I can teach you,” Jiang Zhique said, a little hesitantly.

“No, I was just surprised. I thought the method you mentioned would be more… uh, more fitting for an Insider,” Qi Ran said, choosing her words carefully. “Like the method Li Siwen used to take me out of the School.”

In her imagination, Jiang Zhique should have walked through the wall or used some… more mystical, or perhaps unfathomable, method. She had never imagined Jiang Zhique would have her stand watch in the stairwell while picking the lock—their style seemed to have dropped in an instant from mysteriously powerful supernatural criminals to petty, sneaky thieves.

But then again, she’d never expected Jiang Zhique to possess such a seemingly proficient lock-picking skill. However, Jiang Zhique didn’t seem keen on discussing how she’d learned it, so Qi Ran held her tongue and didn’t ask.

Jiang Zhique understood her implication and shook her head. “It’s just an ordinary door. If it were a door equipped with Insider protective measures, then we’d need Insider methods.”

Qi Ran pushed the door open and walked inside. It was the familiar layout: an old but clean wooden table covered with a tablecloth, a vase sitting upon it. Every wooden chair had a cushioned seat cover with lace trim, and the aged sofa was no exception. The television screen, which had never been turned on, was covered by a dust cloth. Just looking at these things, one could clearly feel how much their owner adored lace-trimmed fabric decorations. Almost anywhere that could be covered with fabric featured that lace-trimmed white cloth.

After Jiang Zhique also entered the room, Qi Ran closed the door, a strange feeling in her heart. Of course, this wasn’t her first time in this house, but it was indeed the first time entering by picking the lock.

Jiang Zhique pulled open the bathroom door and stepped inside. After a while, Qi Ran heard her voice.

“Was your mother very hygienic? I mean, did she have a kind of pathological obsession with cleanliness?”

Qi Ran paused. “She was clean, but just within a normal range. Sort of average—why do you ask?”

Jiang Zhique sighed. “Then the problem is somewhat serious. Someone else has been here before us.”

“Why?” Qi Ran glanced curiously into the bathroom. She couldn’t see anything wrong with the room in front of her; everything seemed just as she remembered. “What’s the problem?”

Jiang Zhique nodded, placing a fingertip on the white porcelain sink counter. “Here. It’s been cleaned a bit too thoroughly.”

Qi Ran looked at the countertop, practically overflowing with bottles and jars, then back at Jiang Zhique. In no way did the layout of this bathroom counter have anything to do with the words “clean and tidy.” It could even be called messy and slovenly. A vast array of bottles and jars was piled up—many of them expired or used up, or simply never opened. But her mother liked this feeling of accumulation; it gave her a sense of abundance.

“No, you misunderstand me,” Jiang Zhique said, noticing Qi Ran’s confusion and shaking her head. “Look. There’s no water residue or dust inside the sink. These bottles and jars have also been wiped spotlessly clean. There isn’t a single fallen hair on the shower floor—and the mirror, the mirror also has no dust on it. It’s clearly been carefully wiped down.”

Qi Ran pressed her fingertip to the bottom of the white porcelain sink and lightly wiped it. Indeed, it was just as Jiang Zhique had said: excessively clean. No water stains could be explained if the faucet hadn’t been used recently, but in that case, there should be dust. Yet right now, it was so clean it looked like a display sample in a furniture store.

“The little thief girl has turned into a detective girl now,” she heard Miss Ah Qiao mutter beside her. “The peacock’s spreading its tail.”

Qi Ran knew what she was griping about. After leaving that coffin shop, Jiang Zhique had clearly made her choice and was very proactively demonstrating her value to Qi Ran—whether it was lock-picking or her observational skills. Just as Qi Ran had anticipated, the sparrow had completely entered the basket trap.

Honestly speaking, this young girl was a bit too earnest, making Qi Ran feel slightly guilty about scheming against her. She was trying so hard to show her worth, just like a peacock frantically displaying its feathers inside a cage, hoping to fetch a good price. Qi Ran could guess roughly why her personality had formed this way: she was subconsciously and deliberately imitating Li Siwen, but her own nature wasn’t suited for it, so it came across as particularly contradictory.

To put it simply, she was sincerely and diligently trying to act fake.

“In other words, the reason Qi Xin and Li Wanying are missing now is that they were kidnapped?” Qi Ran asked. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand—what kind of kidnapper would also help the victim tidy up?”

Jiang Zhique fell silent as well. She had discovered the suspicious point of excessive cleanliness but couldn’t fathom why such an anomaly had occurred.

“Crack!”

The crisp sound of shattering glass rang out, like a window being broken.

Qi Ran and Jiang Zhique exchanged a swift glance, then immediately retreated back into the bathroom. To avoid making any sound, they didn’t close the bathroom door, simply holding their breath against the inner wall, motionless, listening intently to the movements outside. Qi Ran winked at Miss Ah Qiao. Miss Ah Qiao sighed languidly and boredly poked her head through the wall, looking toward the living room beyond.

The unknown intruder sounded very tired, panting heavily as if they had just undergone intense physical exertion. The heavy footsteps walked toward where Qi Ran and Jiang Zhique were hiding. Just as the tension in Jiang Zhique’s mind stretched to its limit, the footsteps passed the bathroom and entered the bedroom on the right.

That’s Li Wanying’s bedroom. Qi Ran mouthed silently to Jiang Zhique.

Jiang Zhique hesitated for a moment, then finally made a decision, signaling to follow.

Qi Ran didn’t respond immediately, first looking at Miss Ah Qiao, who had pulled her head back. Only after receiving a nod from her did she follow Jiang Zhique silently out of the bathroom.

After leaving the bathroom, Jiang Zhique froze for a moment. Outside, on the floor where the intruder had passed, scattered spots of blood were very conspicuous.

The intruder was injured, and it looked like the injuries were serious. Jiang Zhique and Qi Ran exchanged another glance. This was good news. Perhaps they could subdue the person while they were still weakened. But before that, they needed to spy on what the person had come here for.

The bedroom door was ajar. When Qi Ran clearly saw the back of the person sitting inside, she abruptly froze.

The intruder was no stranger. It was the owner of this house—her mother.

But why would she enter her own house through the window? Qi Ran was puzzled. She saw Li Wanying’s right arm hanging limp and slack, twisted at an odd angle. Li Wanying took down a box from a high cabinet, unlatched it one-handedly, and took out something that looked like a bandage. When she placed the bandage near the cuff of her right sleeve, it slithered into the sleeve like a snake. Then she sharply inhaled cold air—it clearly wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Crisp sounds came from within the right sleeve. After a few twists and contortions, the arm was forcibly restored to its normal shape.

“Look out!”

Suddenly, she heard Miss Ah Qiao’s warning and quickly spun around to look behind her. Even though the warning was timely enough, a cold hand had already appeared out of thin air, clamping tightly around her slender neck and lifting her straight off the floor. Amidst the overwhelming suffocation, she saw Jiang Zhique, lying unconscious on the ground beside her at some unknown point.

The owner of that hand looked like she was draped in a paper-white bedsheet. Her slender arm was a ghastly pale, and her grip was as powerful as a steel hook. Qi Ran struggled, trying to pry away the thin fingers. Her legs kicked in the air like a hooked fish, but no matter what she tried, it was futile. A tremendous panic surged through her alongside her survival instinct. Her pale lips trembled slightly as she tried to force a sound out, to cry for help to her mother, who was just a door away. But the hand blocked nearly all airflow.

After struggling for a while, her arms went limp, hanging down without a trace of life left.

The figure draped in the paper-white bedsheet released her hand. The girl fell to the floor like a broken doll. The figure stared for a moment, as if confirming she was truly dead. Only after getting confirmation did she finally shift her gaze away.

She looked down at Jiang Zhique, who had been knocked unconscious. She seemed to hesitate, as if considering whether to do the same to her, but upon seeing the black snake markings between the fingers, she abandoned the idea. She simply pushed open the door and walked into the bedroom.

“You should have checked.”

She said to Li Wanying, her tone indifferent.

Li Wanying was still gasping sharply, clutching the arm tightly wrapped in the bandage. “What now, who else came looking? What a lively day it is.”

“I saw Black Snake Markings. Perhaps remnants of the Jiang Family. Eradicating them completely would be a bit troublesome; it’d cause too much commotion, so I just knocked her out,” the woman in the paper-white bedsheet said calmly. “The other one’s Shadow was somewhat strange. It looked like a Ghost Host. I snapped her neck; the ghost attached to her likely died along with her.”

“Thanks,” Li Wanying said weakly.

“Get your things and let’s leave quickly,” the sheet woman said, looking out the window. “We don’t have much time.”