Reborn in 97, I solved a cold case at the Municipal Bureau

Chapter 241 This neighborhood is deserted morning and night.
"Grandpa, do you remember me?" Zhou Yi asked from the window of the guardhouse.

The gatekeeper was listening to the radio as usual, as if nothing could shake his way of life.

Hearing Zhou Yi's voice, she looked up, squinted at him, and then pointed at him, saying, "You are...you are..."

After stammering for a while, the old man still couldn't get the answer out; he felt like he had a fishbone stuck in his throat.

Finally, the old man lowered his hand and said two words: "Familiar."

Zhou Yi wasn't too surprised, since he hadn't originally planned to ask the old man for information anyway, after all, the old man was just a mascot.

He went to the neighborhood committee to find out what was going on, only to find it closed.

It just dawned on me that today is Sunday.

After thinking it over, he went back to the guardhouse and asked the old man for the contact information of the person in charge of the neighborhood committee.

Zhou Yi immediately took out his identification and explained his needs.

After understanding, the old man began rummaging through drawers and cabinets looking for contact information.

After waiting for five or six minutes, Zhou Yi was about to give up when his gaze inadvertently fell on a calendar pasted on the wall next to him. The calendar was from 1995.

The blank space below the calendar read "Director Chen," along with an eight-digit phone number.

"Grandpa, is this it?" Zhou Yi asked.

The old man looked up in the direction he was pointing and was immediately overjoyed, like Columbus discovering a new continent, nodding repeatedly: "Ah, yes, yes, yes."

Zhou Yi immediately pulled out his mobile phone and dialed that number.

At this moment, the gatekeeper suddenly pointed at Zhou Yi and said with a sudden realization, "I remember now, you're from the food company."

Zhou Yi calmly replied, "Grandpa, listening to more operas can help prevent Alzheimer's disease."

"okay."

A dozen minutes later, a balding middle-aged man in his forties wearing glasses rushed in from outside the community. When he saw Zhou Yi standing at the gate, the two exchanged a glance.

"Is this... Officer Zhou?"

"Director Chen from the neighborhood committee, right?"

"Yes, yes, Officer Zhou, hello."

Zhou Yi pointed inside the residential compound and asked, "Doesn't Director Chen live in the Donghai residential compound?"

In Zhou Yi's memory, many neighborhood committee staff were recruited locally in the early years, so that they would be familiar with the work and it would be easier to carry it out.

Director Chen smiled sheepishly: "We...we originally lived here, but then that incident happened in the neighborhood. My wife is timid, and she works three shifts at the factory, so she's afraid to walk alone at night. We had no choice but to rent another place nearby."

These words immediately made Zhou Yi realize something was wrong, and he quickly asked, "Are there many families like yours who have moved away in this neighborhood?"

Director Chen nodded: "Quite a few. Especially in Xu Jiaguang's building, almost everyone who could afford it has moved out. Who would dare to live there? Even during the day, no one dares to walk through the stairwell; many people would rather take a detour."

This kind of thing isn't really the fault of the neighbors; anyone would be scared in that situation, especially those who have to pass by Xu Jiaguang's house to go up or down the stairs.

What if the door suddenly creaks open when I pass by one day? I'd be scared out of my wits!

"What about the original tenants? Were many of them also moving out?"

"Of course! Who would dare to rent a place in our neighborhood now? Most of the previous tenants have probably left. We've even mediated the issue of getting our deposits back several times."

Damn, the worst has happened.

The tenants were already prime suspects, and this situation undoubtedly made their investigation exponentially more difficult.

With no other options, Zhou Yi asked, "Director Chen, does your neighborhood committee have any information on tenants' residency registration?"

Director Chen shook his head: "There really isn't one."

Zhou Yi's heart sank, and she planned to continue to ask if there had been any tenants who had terminated their leases unusually in the past month or two, the kind who would suddenly say they were not moving out and might not even bother to ask the landlord about the deposit.

Before I could ask, Director Chen added, "However, we have done a population registration once before."

Zhou Yi's slump instantly lifted, but at the same time he felt strange. Why would they do population registration if they didn't even register the tenants?

When asked, Director Chen explained that it was because there had been an outbreak of dysentery in the community before, and because many people were infected at the time, the staff from the epidemic prevention station came to deal with it.

Since the cause was not found at the time, the epidemic prevention station was afraid that it would spread, so it asked the neighborhood committee to do a population registration for verification.

Zhou Yi was overjoyed and asked about the registration time, discovering it was at the end of February, about two weeks before Zhang Hui disappeared.

Follow Director Chen back to the neighborhood committee to get this registration record. With this record, we can compare it with the registered permanent residents and find out all the tenants who have moved out.

However, with about two thousand people in the community, it's a physically demanding job.

On the way to the neighborhood committee, Zhou Yi passed an open space and saw Qiao Jiali chatting enthusiastically with a group of elderly people.

"Officer Zhou, may I ask what happened? Has something else happened?" Director Chen asked fearfully.

Zhou Yi, not wanting to create panic, said, "No, there are still some things to investigate regarding that previous case. I can't tell you the specifics; we have regulations." "It's alright, I understand. As long as nothing else goes wrong," Director Chen murmured.

However, Zhou Yi felt that the Donghai residential area was probably beyond repair.

If we conduct a door-to-door survey today, all the residents of the community will immediately understand that something has happened again.

The Zhang Hui case alone caused many people in the community to flee.

If another case comes along, I'll probably have to run away.

This Donghai residential area will probably become a deserted place sooner or later. We can only wait for the real estate industry to develop and see if there will be an opportunity for demolition and relocation.

Upon arriving at the neighborhood committee, I received the population registration list that Director Chen had mentioned.

Zhou Yi flipped through the list. It had house numbers and names, but no other information such as ID card numbers. Its practical use was probably limited; it was better than nothing.

Zhou Yi noticed that many names on the list had a red checkmark next to them, so he asked, "Director Chen, do these red checkmarks refer to tenants?"

Director Chen glanced at it and said, "No, this is a mark made by the epidemic prevention station after verification for people who have dysentery."

Zhou Yi nodded and asked if he could take it first.

Director Chen said that this is no longer needed, and you can take it and use it.

Zhou Yi then asked him if there had been any tenants who suddenly moved out without reason in the one to two months before Zhang Hui disappeared.

Director Chen thought for a moment and said, "It seems that one household in Building 8 moved out. Apparently, it was their due date. The landlord went to collect the rent several times, but no one answered the door. The landlord felt something was wrong, so he used the spare key to open the door, only to find that the locks had been changed. He had to call a locksmith to open the door."

"What's inside?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly.

"Nobody's here. The furniture and appliances are all there, even the tenant's clothes are there, but nobody's here."

Zhou Yi immediately realized something was wrong and hurriedly asked, "Which apartment in Building 8 specifically?"

"I really don't know. How about I go ask around for you?"

"No need, I'll go myself. Director Chen, please think it over again. If you remember anything unusual, notify me immediately." Zhou Yi picked up a pen and paper from the table, left him a number, and then strode away.

Director Chen's heart suddenly pounded. Was this really just an investigation into Zhang Hui's matter? Or had something else happened?
Suddenly, he felt a chill in the room, and a sense of dread crept in.

Oh no, I'm afraid to come to work during the day anymore, what should I do?

After leaving the neighborhood committee, Zhou Yi contacted Shi Tao via radio and told him that there might be something unusual about Building No. 8.

The two quickly met at the entrance of the building and knocked on the doors of two households on the first floor.

No one was home; I wonder if they moved away.

There was someone at the other house; the head of the household was a burly man who watched the two men warily.

After the two men showed their identification and asked a question, the big man immediately pointed upstairs and said, "Upstairs, room 601 is still empty. I don't know what's wrong with the person who rented the room. I heard they didn't take anything with them."

Zhou Yi then asked him if he knew who the landlord of apartment 601 upstairs was.
The big man said the landlord lived in the building next door, and then provided a house number.

Before closing the door, Shi Tao asked a question: "Why didn't you move out?"

Clearly, they had already discovered during their door-to-door investigations that many people had moved away.

The big man said nonchalantly that he was a pig butcher and there was nothing to be afraid of.

Shi Tao nodded, and as he left, he said to Zhou Yi, "In ancient times, it was said that butchers had a kind of malevolent aura that even ghosts were afraid of."

The two found the landlords, an elderly couple, and confirmed that they were the landlords of room 601.

They told us that the previous tenant was a young man surnamed Meng, not a local, and probably under thirty years old. The original agreement was to rent for a year, with three months' rent paid in advance and one month's rent as deposit, but he suddenly disappeared after only three months.

Zhou Yi asked them if they had a photocopy of the tenant's ID card, and the old man said no, so he signed a handwritten contract.

Then they found the contract and showed it to Zhou Yi and the others. It was incredibly simple. It simply stated that they were renting apartment 601 in building 8 of Donghai Community for one year, with a three-month deposit and a one-month rent payment, and a monthly fee.

The signature was "Meng Qingtong," but no other information was provided.

The old man led the two to open the door of 601, saying that he didn't know when the tenant surnamed Meng had disappeared. He said that when he went to collect the rent on March 1, he found that no one was home, and he didn't see the person for several days in a row, so he used the spare key to open the door, only to find that the locks had been changed.

Zhou Yi asked if the house had been cleaned after Meng Qingtong disappeared.

The old man shook his head, saying that the people inside still had their things, and he hadn't dared to touch anything; he had only changed the lock.

I'm afraid that if someone suddenly comes back, it won't be clear what will happen.

It seems that the landlord is a fairly kind person.

"Sigh, I was hoping to rent this house out again sometime, but it seems unlikely now." The old man sighed, took out his keys, and opened the door.

As soon as Zhou Yi and Shi Tao entered the room, their expressions changed immediately.

Because they smelled a foul, rotten odor.

(End of this chapter)