Chapter 1

Zou Zhengze opened the door and saw his wife and neighbor lying together. Seeing him return, their wide eyes were filled with fear.

"You cheap woman! You're cheating on me behind my back?!"

Memories of oaths of eternal love and tender moments flooded his mind, and Zou Zhengze's eyes instantly turned red as he raised the kitchen knife.

The blade stopped in mid-air. Zou Zhengze took two deep breaths and put down the handle.

Not worth it.

"You dog of a man and woman, you can stay together forever."

Zou Zhengze angrily dropped the kitchen knife and closed the refrigerator door.

---

Cutting off the crab legs and large pincers, removing the crab apron, opening the shell, scooping out the crab stomach, enjoying the crab roe...

Li Ang's crab-eating technique was extremely skillful. He used only chopsticks and a spoon to achieve the effect of a refined scholar using crab-eating utensils. His elegance, his composed demeanor, and his graceful posture made Police Officer Wang Fengnian increasingly uncomfortable.

Even more absurd, this kid was telling jokes while eating, mastering various styles from highbrow to lowbrow, making Wang Congshan and her mother beam with joy, creating a very harmonious atmosphere.

"Ahem."

Police Officer Wang Fengnian searched his mind for a joke, deliberately coughed to attract attention, and then said in a deep voice, "Once upon a time, there was a young man who had never achieved anything in his life. As he was nearing death, he longed to be praised once. This obsession moved God, who sent a doctor to say, 'Your illness is really serious.'"

...The atmosphere in the living room suddenly became silent, with only the whirring of the electric fan blades.

"Haha, hahaha." Li Ang laughed a few times appropriately, and Wang Congshan and her mother also laughed.

To break the awkward silence, Wang Congshan handed over an empty bowl. "Dad, can you fill this with soup for me?"

Instinctively, Li Ang took the empty bowl and filled it with soup for Wang Congshan. By the time he realized what had happened, he saw Police Officer Wang Fengnian's hand frozen in mid-air, and the solemn expression on Wang's mother's face.

The atmosphere in the living room became even more solemn and oppressive, as if the air could drip with water.

"...Almost forgot, the Fangni's who live across the hall gave us some qingtuan (sweet green rice balls) last time. I'll take some crabs over to them."

Wang's mother stood up, went to the kitchen to get a large container, packed some crabs, and went out without closing the door, taking them directly to the neighbors across the hall.

"Fangni, Fangni? Are you home?"

Wang's mother knocked on the opposite door with her knuckles, while in the living room, Li Ang and Wang Congshan lowered their heads, enduring the serious gaze of Officer Wang.

"Why is no one there..."

Wang's mother sniffed strangely and said, "What's that smell? Is it coming from their balcony?"

In the living room, Li Ang, who was silently eating crab, suddenly looked up, and together with Officer Wang, looked at the opposite door.

There was a strong smell of...blood.

The two exchanged a look and stood up together, walking into the hallway.

"They might not be home," Officer Wang said with a smile to his wife. "Xinwan, you go back and eat with Shanshan. Little Li and I will have a cigarette in the hallway and chat."

"Chat?" Jiang Xinwan looked at her husband suspiciously, expressing with her eyes, "Don't scare the kid." She turned and went inside.

After his wife went inside, Officer Wang closed his own door and his expression instantly turned cold as he squatted down.

The couple living across the hall, Zeng Weiming and Wang Fangni, had placed a rubber mat outside the door to block dirt and other pollutants, and a cotton mat inside to provide slip resistance and isolate fine dust.

Meticulous.

Wang Fengnian saw a thick streak of blood extending from the threshold of the neighbor's door to under the rubber mat.

Lifting the mat, underneath was a sticky pool of blood, dried to a...

The amount of blood that flowed from inside the door...either the residents had accidentally spilled pig's blood that had not yet been made into pig's blood cake at the door, or someone had a major arterial bleed and was calmly watching their blood drain while leaning against the door.

Wang Fengnian pounded heavily on the door, calling out the neighbor's names. After receiving no response, he took out his phone to call colleagues from the police station for support, and called the property management of the complex, asking them and the security guards to come up.

Just as he was about to kick the door open, Li Ang leisurely took out a paperclip, twisted it a few times, and picked the lock.

"Officer Wang, please don't look at me with that 'criminal' look," Li Ang said, putting away the paperclip, scratching his head, and smiling. "Lock picking is just a hobby of mine. I even wrote a paper before discussing the security risks of the ten most common types of door lock cylinders on the market."

Wang Fengnian said with a straight face, "Don't call me Officer Wang."

Li Ang's face lit up with joy, and he followed suit. "Okay, Dad, I will take good care of Shanshan."

...If the time and place weren't inappropriate, Wang Fengnian was sure he would have let Li Ang know what military boxing was.

Huff, Officer Wang pushed open the door, only to see Zeng Weiming's house pitch black, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Li Ang took out his phone and used the backlight to slightly illuminate the dimness.

Wang Fengnian did not step directly into the house, but using Li Ang's phone light, he carefully flicked the switch on the wall for the living room lights, through his sleeve.

Light descended upon the living room, and Wang Fengnian couldn't help but gasp.

Blood, blood, blood, bloodstains everywhere.

Ceiling, lamps, walls, tables, floors, TV wall, shoe rack... everywhere you looked was covered in crimson.

Droplets, splatters, streaks, smears, contact marks... all kinds of bizarre bloodstains filled the house.

Like an abstract painting by a mad artist.

The overwhelming stench of blood assaulted his brain. Wang Fengnian's scalp tingled. In his more than twenty years as a criminal investigator, he had never seen such a bizarre and strange scene. Even in the recent seven months of strange occurrences, he had never encountered a case that could compare to the scene before him.

The total amount of blood in an adult human is about six to eight percent of their body weight, which means that a 70-kilogram adult male has a total blood volume of 4200ml to 5600ml, roughly equivalent to three 1.5-liter bottles of cola.

To create the spectacle in the room, Officer Wang quickly estimated the answer: about two people's blood volume.

"F*ck, what the..." Wang Fengnian gripped the door frame and cursed.

"Hiss..." Li Ang, like Officer Wang, took a breath and said in a deep voice, "This house's Nordic pastoral style decor probably cost a lot of money, right?"