Chapter 82.2 – Abandoned Factory (2)
Glasses asked casually, wiped his sweat again, nodded, and suggested leaving this place.
He had thought he might meet his end here today, but unexpectedly, the shadow mysteriously disappeared on its own. Even though it had vanished, he didn’t want to stay here any longer.
Jiang Yujin said, “I just saw from the second-floor window that there’s a backyard behind.”
Glasses hesitated, his gaze shifting, but eventually, as if making a determined decision, he nodded.
Given the circumstances and the apparent fear of whatever the grudge spirit was, which seemed to avoid getting close again, it was now a matter of being bold or cowardly.
He was determined to find his lost belongings.
Glasses knew the way to the backyard, and Jiang Yujin followed behind him.
Struggling to open a door, light spilled in from outside. Glasses turned around and found the person behind him was actually looking down at his phone.
Noticing the person ahead was aware of his gaze, Jiang Yujin raised his head and smiled, saying, “It’s time for the morning news update. I’ll check the news for a moment.”
After glancing at the screen, he turned and walked through the door. The phone screen faintly illuminated, frozen on the news headline【Factory Employee Disappears on the Way Home】, dated a few years ago. The corners of the news were accompanied by a photo of the factory owner, a thin figure wearing glasses.
While Glasses searched in the bushes for the lost items, Jiang Yujin joined the search. In a corner of the yard, beneath a pile of discarded steel, he found fresh signs of disturbance.
Casually, he lifted a piece of steel and flipped it over.
Beneath it, something seemed buried, quite deep. However, probably because it had recently been buried and the soil hadn’t completely solidified, it didn’t require much effort.
As the steel encountered something, Jiang Yujin stopped. Squatting down, he looked into the pit.
A human arm was buried in the soil.
The moment he saw the arm, footsteps approached from behind. Glasses suddenly stood beside him.
Unfazed by the sudden appearance of a buried arm, Jiang Yujin raised his eyes and asked the person behind him, “Do you know what’s going on here?”
His words lacked any emotional tone, appearing purely curious.
“I killed him.”
Glasses continued to approach, speaking as he walked, “He threatened me with something from a few years ago, so he had to die.”
Compared to the previously frantic and somewhat innocent tone, his current voice was completely cold.
This factory had originally belonged to him, but due to financial difficulties, he sold it to the buried person. Just yesterday, the buried person called, claiming to have caught him in a compromising situation and demanding he repurchase this useless and hard-to-handle factory.
He expressed disbelief, and the other party invited him to this factory to witness the evidence.
The evidence turned out to be genuine, so the only option was death. He was buried here by Glasses.
What he said sounded like the truth, and Jiang Yujin nodded, acknowledging his sincerity. Then, as if having a casual conversation, he asked, “The leverage you had was the employee from the first-floor wall, right?”
The extra black thread that appeared looked unmistakably like a strand of human hair.
Glasses’ eyes lowered slowly, and he asked, “How much do you know?”
Jiang Yujin knew almost everything.
There had been an employee who died here. According to the news, he disappeared on the way home, but in reality, he probably died before leaving the factory.
And indeed, that was the case.
Glasses approached closer and began recounting the story of the employee who always contradicted him. After a quarrel following everyone else leaving, he killed the employee. Coincidentally, at that time, the factory was renovating a new office area, and he threw the employee into a powerful mixer. The mixer could blend a person so thoroughly that no traces were left. A few days later, when the employee’s family realized he had mysteriously disappeared, the wall was already constructed.
Originally, there shouldn’t have been any mistakes, but the problem arose when the buried person bought the factory and mismanaged it, accumulating a pile of debts. Eventually, when he came to the factory to see if there was anything valuable to sell, he noticed the abnormality in the concrete behind the damaged wall. Thinking he had found a way to get rich, he used this discovery to threaten Glasses into repurchasing the factory, intending to extort even more money from him later.
The phone and wallet Glasses was searching for weren’t actually his; they belonged to the buried person. The phone contained records of his calls, which couldn’t be erased. Keeping it would be a liability, so Glasses had to find it at all costs.
Until he was close enough, Glasses pulled out a knife from behind and suddenly stabbed towards the person in front, saying, “Since you’ve found out, you cannot leave.”
“Crack!”
The sound of a sharp knife cutting through the air and the sound of a wrist being twisted occurred simultaneously.
Unexpectedly detected and quickly suppressed, Glasses, holding the knife ready to strike, froze. Then the intense pain from his twisted wrist reached his brain, and he couldn’t help but scream, the sound tearing through the air.
After twisting the person’s wrist, Jiang Yujin reflexively threw him to the ground. Later, realizing he had used too much force, he politely apologized, “Sorry.”
Glasses: “…”
Experiencing waves of intense pain from his back, he opened his eyes and looked up at the person bending over him.
Jiang Yujin asked him, “Why can’t I leave?”
Glasses didn’t answer. His brain was frantically spinning in fear. He looked around, trying to find something usable. His trembling voice asked, “When did you figure all this out?”
From the moment they entered the office until now, they had been together most of the time. It was hard to imagine when this person had started to suspect him and discovered the details about the employee.
Glasses was stalling for time, and Jiang Yujin knew, but he didn’t mind. He kindly answered, “From the very beginning.”
This person had entered the office and immediately revealed numerous flaws in his story. Out of curiosity to see how far he could continue to fabricate, Jiang Yujin took on the case.
The man claimed he arrived at the factory in the afternoon and encountered the dark figure leaving the factory in the evening. When he encountered the figure, he heard the sound of water outside, and the figure was detained for a while before being able to leave.
Firstly, the timeline didn’t match. The sound of water he heard was during his fight with the big fish monster, but that happened well into the night. The man, however, claimed it was approaching dusk.
Before they engaged in the fight, the big fish monster noticed that the dark figure was rapidly growing in size. This client should have been burying the body at that time.
The vengeful spirit thrived on the resentment of the deceased, and the grievances of those who died unjustly directly reached the underworld, providing more than enough energy for its development.
During the fight, the vengeful spirit intervened by emerging and participating. Jiang Yujin casually threw it into the water, and the vengeful spirit remained submerged for a long time. After a while, it quietly left from the shore. This should be what was referred to as being “attracted by something” at that time.
It probably remembered him, so the vengeful spirit did not appear in the area where he was present.
Next was the issue of the cellphone.
Jiang Yujin reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone and a wallet, both of which were black.
After searching for the items all morning, Glasses couldn’t believe they were right in this person’s pocket. His eyes widened in astonishment.
Jiang Yujin chuckled, “Found it in the front yard.”
In reality, he had picked them up shortly after entering, taking the opportunity to appreciate the overgrown weeds in the yard.
While on the second floor, he had glanced at the cellphone and found it unlocked. There were no calls to the SIU in the call history.
To avoid being tracked by GPS, Glasses hadn’t brought his own cellphone. At that time, this cellphone was the only means of contacting the outside world. It can be imagined that making a call at that time would have been equivalent to giving yourself a silver bracelet.
Glasses didn’t call the SIU; Jiang Yujin helped make the call using his own cellphone. After providing the time, location, and details of the incident, he seemed in good spirits when hanging up. He even reminded, “Don’t forget to give me breakfast money and transportation fees.”
The frustration from being woken up early this morning dissipated.
His mood was quite good, while Glasses looked completely defeated. He had originally planned to reach for some debris not far away with his other hand, but that hand had also been broken.
When the SIU team arrived, they found the suspect with swollen wrists and possible injuries all over his body, and the victim, who was also the one reporting the case, looking fresh and clean.
— Even if the attack was unsuccessful, this fresh and clean man could still be considered a victim.
The SIU apprehended the suspect and dealt with the lurking vengeful spirit. Only then did they belatedly realize that the victim was a familiar person, the white-haired individual was Boss Jiang in a new appearance.
While the people from the police station came to dismantle the wall and move the body, White Hair stood by the riverbank, lining up with Vice-Captain Hu who was leading the team this time.
Hu Li looked at the river, which had inexplicably widened several times, and the surrounding tilted trees. He turned to the person next to him.
“Today’s weather is really nice,” said Citizen Jiang, shifting his gaze.
If it were anyone else, they could have easily fooled their way through with a vengeful spirit at this river. Unfortunately, the one who came happened to be this person.
“The river is not bad, spacious, and deeper than other places,” Hu Li fanned himself and sighed. “The bureau recently discovered Zero’s remnant, but we are short-staffed.”
He looked at the river and then at White Hair beside him. “The bureau is currently looking for temporary off-the-record personnel at a high price.”
So, he had been waiting here.
Jiang Yujin asked, “How much are they offering?”
Hu Li gestured with his hand. “This much.”
