The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 278 The Crying of the Female Ghost
In September, the scorching heat of Nancheng made a surprise comeback.

At the entrance of the Sheng family's scrap metal recycling station, heat rose from the cement floor, and through the surging air, the closed roller shutter door seemed to be swaying.

But everyone knows there's no one inside.

Qi Fei watched from behind the cordon as fully armed technicians pulled up the roller shutter door, and a pungent stench wafted out, which could be smelled even from several meters away.

"Hmm?" Zhong Kui, who was standing next to him, suddenly changed her expression. "This smell..."

Qi Fei said in a deep voice, "That's exactly what I was worried about..."

The two of them were speaking in cryptic language.

“The smell wasn’t this strong when I came last time,” Zhong Kui said with a gloomy expression.

“This only means that the item is still there,” Qi Fei said immediately.

The testing personnel emerged from the recycling station with their equipment and said to Qi Fei, "Your guess was correct; we detected a relatively high concentration of hydrogen sulfide gas inside."

"Can we trace it back to the source?" Qi Fei asked.

"We've already started using a leak detector; we borrowed an industrial-grade one from a chemical plant."

"Our colleagues who did the previous verification have already collected the certificates at the recycling station. They searched all over but didn't find any chemicals that emit hydrogen sulfide. Hopefully, we'll find something this time," Qi Fei said.

The inspector added, "Hydrogen sulfide isn't always produced by chemical products; there's a place where hydrogen sulfide can accumulate." He paused abruptly at this point.

"Where?" Qi Fei asked curiously.

"Slaughterhouse." The inspector's words weighed even heavier on Qi Fei's heart.

"The putrefaction of animal organs also produces large amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas," the inspector said.

Qi Fei took a deep breath and realized that Zhong Kui was gone. Looking around, he found that she had gone to a place not far away.

As time passed, a few passersby came to watch the commotion near the recycling station in the afternoon.

Zhong Kui somehow blended back into the group, chatting animatedly with them under the guise of fortune telling.

Qi Fei knew it was her "persona" that was causing the trouble, so he helplessly went over to pull her away, explaining to the crowd, "We are conducting a normal investigation, everyone please disperse."

But one of the middle-aged women jumped out and said, "This is a real fortune teller. You police officers should listen to her!"

Qi Fei was speechless and asked Zhong Kui, "What kind of bewitching potion did you give them?"

Zhong Kui raised an eyebrow: "When you came to investigate before, didn't you hear about the ghost story?"

"What the hell is going on?"

“Look, there are some things they will only tell this great immortal, not the police.” Zhong Kui said with no small amount of pride as she broke free from Qi Fei’s hand and instead pulled him to the middle-aged woman who had just spoken: “Sister Wang, tell him what you told me again.”

Sister Wang hesitated upon hearing this: "The police won't believe me, will they? They'll just arrest me as a lunatic." "It's okay, even if I am a lunatic, look, they haven't arrested me," Zhong Kui said with a wicked smile. "I'll make him believe you."

“Okay, Master, I believe you.” Sister Wang bit her lip as if she had made up her mind. “I have neurasthenia and I sleep lightly at night. For the past two months, I’ve been hearing crying sounds coming from my kitchen in the middle of the night, but when I get up to check, there’s no one there. I got divorced many years ago and used to live alone. After this went on for several days, I told my sister that I was really scared, so she said she would come and sleep with me. But strangely enough, after she came, the crying stopped at night.”

The fortune teller just said that my complexion looked off, indicating I must have encountered something unclean recently—and he was incredibly accurate!

Qi Fei was completely confused. This was just a trivial matter of a middle-aged woman being paranoid and hallucinating. He couldn't help but mutter to Zhong Kui, "What does this have to do with the case?"

Zhong Kui wasn't in a hurry, and the corners of her mouth curled up slightly: "Then you need to know where she lives."

"where?"

Sister Wang pointed and said, "That first floor is my home."

Qi Fei looked in the direction she pointed and saw that there was a green belt to the right and behind the recycling station. The residential area was separated from the recycling station by the green belt. Sister Wang lived on the first floor, which was separated from the recycling station by a wall.

“Most importantly, you need to know when her sister arrived,” Zhong Kui continued, “September 2nd.”

"Yes, I remember it very clearly. Wasn't it this family that had an accident that day? A lot of police officers came. I thought, this female ghost was probably scared away by the righteous aura of so many police officers." Sister Wang said with great seriousness.

Qi Fei was both amused and exasperated. He had never imagined that being a policeman would be praised for scaring away a female ghost, but the date was enough to raise his alarm: "The crying stopped the day the Sheng family had their accident?" he asked, looking at Zhong Kui.

"Isn't it a bit of a coincidence? I think I could visit Sister Wang's house." Zhong Kui said with a half-smile.

Perhaps because the female ghost was no longer a problem, Sister Wang seemed to be in a good mood. She took the initiative to lead Qi Fei and Zhong Kui into the community and went straight back to her home on the first floor.

The kitchen is right by the entrance, and you can see the back of the shop through the window, but these shops are all built next to the wall and none of them have a back door.

This kitchen is semi-open, with just enough space for one person to cook.

"Where did the crying come from?" Qi Fei asked as he opened the cabinet to check.

"It's this place where they cook," Sister Wang imitated with lingering fear. "Waaah, it's that kind of thing, wafting out from this stove in waves, so clearly, I'm sure I didn't mishear."

Zhong Kui suddenly grabbed Qi Fei's arm and pulled him out of the small kitchen. She then stood on the stove and remained motionless for a long time.

The room fell silent. Sister Wang looked at Zhong Kui's statue-like back and became nervous. She quietly asked Qi Fei, "Is the Great Immortal possessed?"

Qi Fei didn't answer. He wasn't afraid of being possessed, but he was worried that Zhong Xiaoyu might reappear in this situation.

Thankfully, when Zhong Kui's voice came through again, it was still her.

"Don't you think the house smells bad lately?" She turned around and looked at Sister Wang.

Hearing Zhong Kui say this, Sister Wang had something to say: "Now that you mention it, it's true. I thought it was because of the hot weather. You see, there's a green belt right outside the window. Who knows, some cat or dog might have died and rotted in the grass. But if you really want to say it smells bad, it's not that strong. It just comes in waves, and it's not very noticeable, so I didn't tell the property management. Anyway, the smell will probably be gone when the weather cools down."

“This smell isn’t coming from outside the window, it’s coming from this range hood,” Zhong Kui said, exchanging a glance with Qi Fei.

Qi Fei understood the message in her eyes, and knew that Zhong Kui was particularly sensitive to a certain smell—the smell of a rotting corpse…