The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 280 Poisoned by His Own

"How long have you kept those cardboard boxes in your shop?" Qi Fei continued to ask.

"Uh, it's been more than a month," Zhang Yingdi said.

"Do you keep your waste for so long before recycling it?" Qi Fei asked with some skepticism.

"Tianbao said he saw the news and that cardboard prices would rise in the next few months, so he told us to keep it and not sell it yet."

"Haven't you noticed how particularly smelly the room has been lately?"

Zhang Yingdi shook her head: "Those of us who do this job have less sensitive noses than others. We're in the garbage dump every day, so what's the smell? But our old lady, who hasn't been here long, complains that the station is getting smellier every day. Her dutiful son even tries to persuade her, saying that if you want to make money, you have to put up with it."

"Filial piety?" Zhong Kuido repeated sarcastically from the side.

Qi Fei recalled how Sheng Dazhi, for the sake of his son, had delayed his mother's treatment along with Zhang Yingdi, and he really couldn't understand how Zhang Yingdi could utter the word "filial piety."

However, no matter how much he disliked Zhang Yingdi, judging from the current situation, she seemed to genuinely be unaware of the matter of the rotting flesh, and naturally, he had no way of knowing from her why Sheng Tianbao did what he did.

However, the investigation into Sheng Tianbao's cause of death can now be concluded.

However, Zhang Yingdi in front of him still looked bewildered and asked blankly, "Officer, why are you asking if our shop smells bad? The doctor said we were poisoned. Did we collect toxic waste?"

“Sheng Tianbao poisoned himself to death,” Qi Fei said to Zhang Yingdi, word by word.

But Zhang Yingdi seemed not to understand: "What is Tianbao?"

"To put it simply, we discovered that Sheng Tianbao had hidden a lot of pig offal in the cardboard boxes you received. What you froze in the freezer was only a small portion of these offal. In the high temperatures of summer, this offal rotted rapidly, emitting a stench containing large amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which is the poisonous gas you mentioned. Because you had been running your business open all the time, and the shop was well-ventilated, the stench didn't accumulate. In addition, your sense of smell had become accustomed to the stench due to prolonged contact with smelly garbage, so you were fine for a long time."

However, that day you closed the shop and turned on the air conditioning. The closed shop caused the concentration of hydrogen sulfide released by these rotting organs to suddenly increase. Sheng Tianbao had been drinking and was emotionally agitated after arguing with Sheng Dazhi, so he became the one who was most severely poisoned.

This wasn't murder, nor could it even be classified as an accident. It's more accurate to say that Sheng Tianbao accidentally killed himself, but he didn't intentionally intend to kill himself, so it's difficult to say whether it constitutes suicide.

These words sounded completely confusing to Zhang Yingdi, but there was one thing she understood. She murmured, "Are you saying that my Tianbao was killed by the stench?"

"You could say that," Qi Fei nodded.

"What did you just say? You said Tianbao stuffed a lot of pig offal into those cardboard boxes, why?" Zhang Yingdi didn't even cry or make a fuss, she just stared blankly at Qi Fei, as if nothing she had learned from the short videos could help her understand all of this.

"To cover up something even more terrifying," Zhong Kui said coldly from the side.
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“Based on the receipt left in the refrigerator, we found the supermarket’s purchase record, and the buyer was Sheng Tianbao,” Wu Shanqiu said.

"The purchase date is the same as the date Huang Ruifen and her son went missing." Qi Fei frowned as he looked at the receipt. "Brother Fei, I have some bad news. The investigation of all the residents in Sister Wang's area is over, and no suspicious circumstances have been found." Wu Shanqiu said with a worried expression. "Moreover, I took Zhong Kui to check, and she said that only Sister Wang's room on the first floor has that stench of corpses; the other rooms on the other floors don't smell like it."

The property management also helped with the inspection, and only the exhaust damper in Sister Wang's house was broken. This means they still can't find the source of the odor. As for the crying, we took turns squatting at Sister Wang's house at night, but we didn't hear anything.

Qi Fei stroked the stubble on his chin and said, "Sheng Tianbao was probably trying to cover up the smell of corpses by using pig offal. So..." As he spoke, he suddenly stood up from his chair, grabbed a marker, walked to the whiteboard, drew a square, and tapped it with the marker, "The area where he discarded the offal was the recycling center shop, which means he knew that this was the place where he needed to cover up the stench."

In other words, the place where he hid the body was in this shop.

"But Sister Wang also smells the stench of corpses." He drew another circle behind the square, connecting the two shapes with a line. "Is it possible that there's a connecting space between this recycling center and Sister Wang's house?"

“You can contact the plumbing company. They have robots that can troubleshoot plumbing problems. Maybe they can find something in Sister Wang’s exhaust pipes,” Zhong Kui suddenly said from the side.

"Huh? How do you know about such trendy things?" Qi Fei was slightly surprised, after all, the Zhong Kui he knew was a fortune teller who didn't even know how to use a smartphone.

Zhong Kui pursed her lips and said, "I saw it on a short video platform."

"You don't even have a cell phone?" Qi Fei asked, puzzled.

Wu Shanqiu stuck out her tongue beside her: "I gave Zhong Kui an old cell phone, wasn't it to investigate Dr. Li's matter... Look, there's an extra bonus."

"Don't worry, I'm looking at this content with a critical eye. As long as it's human, no matter what medium it's expressed through, the humanity behind the facade is the same." Zhong Kui flicked her long hair and glanced at Qi Fei. "Instead of guessing here, let's have the robot climb into Sister Wang's pipes and take a look. I'm sure what I smelled wasn't pig offal."

"What are you all doing here?" When a group of fully equipped people appeared at her doorstep, Sister Wang seemed a little bewildered.

Zhong Kui patted her arm lightly: "They're here to help you catch the 'ghost,' the one hiding in the exhaust pipe."

The pipeline company technician skillfully opened the pipes in Sister Wang's house, and a probe robot with a telescopic arm was sent into the dark pipe.

On the computer screen, you can see real-time footage of the robot probing the pipeline.

At first, apart from the accumulated grease and soot in the pipes, there was nothing unusual to be seen.

Based on his previous speculation, Qi Fei suggested, "Look down and see where the pipes lead underground."

At the end of the pipe, an outlet can be vaguely seen, which seems to have been deliberately chiseled open. The direction is not clear in the shot, but some oil fumes have accumulated around the pipe, so it seems to still be used for exhausting oil fumes.

The investigation was long and tedious, and just when everyone thought they were going to return empty-handed, a black object appeared on the screen...