The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 2 No such person found
Qi Fei said stubbornly: "Oh, he has lied to us many times about the burial location. There is no guarantee that he will not fail this time."

Zhong Kui suddenly put her hand on his shoulder, stood on tiptoe, leaned close to his ear and said, "You can't ask because you are missing a bowl of Meng Po soup." The breath she exhaled had an indescribable sweet smell, which brushed across Qi Fei's earlobe, making it itchy and making Qi Fei blush and his heart beat faster.

Zhong Kui raised his hand and, like magic, took out a business card and put it in Qi Fei's hand. He continued, "My address is on it. Remember to come find me."

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Qi Fei felt like he was being teased. The 27-year-old man blushed as red as a boiled lobster and sneered calmly, "Huh, fortune tellers also print business cards now?"

Zhong Kui pursed his lips and smiled, "I don't give this business card to everyone, handsome guy."

In order to mock Qi Fei, she picked up an anti-fraud brochure on the promotional stand, waved it in the air, and walked away in a swagger.

Watching Zhong Kui's graceful departure, Wu Shanqiu turned around and said to Qi Fei with a playful smile, "Brother Fei, is she flirting with you?"

"Stop making trouble. Why don't we arrange to dig up the body?" Qi Fei said unhappily, and threw the business card inside on the table in the observation room.

……

Under an old persimmon tree, the base of the earthen brick wall was dug up.

Zhu Qi, wearing shackles, watched as four wine jars that had been buried for thirteen years were dug out.

When the wine jar was opened, the strong aroma of wine hit everyone's senses.

Qi Fei knew clearly that the wine contained Chen Xiaojing's dismembered body, but the taste of the aged rice wine made his body instinctively intoxicated by it.

At that moment, his mind went blank. In the cold wind of early autumn, he felt his stomach churning - he was disgusted by his physiological reaction to the aroma of wine.

Qi Fei only found the answer to why Zhu Qi vomited in the interrogation room at this time. The broth stewed with rice wine by Zhong Kui undoubtedly hit the most horrifying memory deep in Zhu Qi's heart, causing his psychological defenses to completely collapse.

But how did she know?

……

The lights in the interrogation room came on again.

Qi Fei looked at Zhu Qi, who seemed to have lost his soul, and said in a deep voice: "Tell me, why did you kill Chen Xiaojing?"

Zhu Qi, contrary to his usual sophisticated demeanor, eagerly admitted: "Because she urged me to pay back the money, and I didn't have any, I wanted to kill her and put an end to it all. At that time, I failed in my investment and was in debt. When I was running away from my creditors, I met Chen Xiaojing. I often went to the small restaurant where she worked as a waitress to eat, and we became familiar with each other. I asked her to voluntarily take out the money in the name of a business partnership." Zhu Qi particularly emphasized the word "voluntary".

"Our investigation revealed that Chen Xiaojing transferred over a hundred thousand yuan to you. Her family wasn't wealthy, so this was a significant sum," Qi Fei said. "You've been committing fraud everywhere over the years. She wasn't your first victim, nor your last. Why did you single her out?"

When asked this question, Zhu Qi suddenly fell silent.

"We already know that you two later developed a relationship. You still have a wife and children here. So, did you kill her because of a debt or an emotional dispute?"

"I, I don't know. She pushed me too hard, so I thought, if she disappeared, I'd feel better..." "Then explain the murder, dismemberment, and hiding of the body?"

"It was actually very simple... I told her I planned to return to my hometown to get married, and asked her to come back with me to meet my parents first. I arranged to meet her at the apartment I bought in Nancheng. We drank quite a bit, and when I saw her passed out on the bed, I covered her head with a pillow. At first, she was still twisting and turning, but then she stopped moving."

"Why dismember the body?"

"Because it's difficult to move..." Zhu Qi's reason was simple and cruel.

"Why soak the body parts in rice wine?"

"I heard that the dead have a strong smell... I was afraid of being discovered. I knew there were several jars of daughter's red wine buried in my second uncle's old house, but my cousin died young and my second uncle's family moved away. At that moment, I suddenly had an idea and wanted to hide Chen Xiaojing there."

After hearing this, Qi Fei sneered: "Huh, you are quite creative."

Zhu Qi suddenly asked, "Who is that woman?"

Qi Fei knew that he was asking about the "witch" and asked in return, "What did she say in your ear?"

Upon hearing this, Zhu Qi's face turned pale again, and he stammered, "She said the wine was so fragrant, and she wanted to take me to drink with her..." When he said this, Zhu Qi suddenly looked at Qi Fei very seriously, "She is Chen Xiaojing. The way she braids her hair, and the song she hums, that's what Chen Xiaojing is like..."

Qi Fei and Wu Shanqiu looked at each other, naturally unable to believe Zhu Qi's weird words.

After the interrogation, Wu Shanqiu handed Qi Fei a cup of hot tea and said, "Brother Fei, you don't look well. Did you really believe Zhu Qi's lies?"

Qi Fei absentmindedly took a sip of tea, only to find it scalded and he quickly spat it out. "Isn't this Zhong Kui hired by Chen Xiaojing's family? She's familiar with Chen Xiaojing's habits, so there's nothing unusual about them."

"But I can't figure out how she knew about the rice wine? If she hadn't mentioned the wine to Zhu Qi, Zhu Qi wouldn't have confessed so easily... Well, I asked around, and I found out that Zhong Kui lives in the mountains more than ten kilometers away from the town. He rarely goes out, but it is said that he can communicate with the dead. Everyone in the town who has visited him says that he is very effective." Wu Shanqiu said seriously.

"Tsk, if it's really that effective, she could just ask the dead Chen Xiaojing where she is instead of putting on all this pretense to scare Zhu Qi?" Qi Fei still looked dismissive. "This woman is either lucky, or she knows something about Zhu Qi's case. I have to find out. Shanqiu, go look up Zhong Kui's address!"

"Alright!" Wu Shanqiu tapped away at the computer keyboard, then muttered, "Strange, I can't find any information about this person."

"Hmm? No household registration information?"

"According to the registration information, there's no one named Zhong Kui in Sanwu Town. If that doesn't work, I'll try asking the station for information on the floating population."

"No need, I know where she lives." Qi Fei slapped his head and remembered the business card that he had thrown away without even looking at it. He immediately got up and went back to the observation room to search for it. Fortunately, after a few days, the business card was still in the corner of the table.

However, when he picked up the business card Zhong Kui gave him, he couldn't help feeling disappointed. Apart from Zhong Kui's name, there was no address or phone number on it, only two lines of scrambled numbers.

Back in the office, Qi Fei threw his business card on the table, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: "As expected of a fortune teller, he's so good at playing mysterious tricks!"

(End of this chapter)