The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 59 The House That Cannot Be Moved Away

Zhong Kui glanced at the street lamp not far away and said, "That lamp has finally been repaired."

"Yes, I've been calling for a long time, and it's finally been repaired." He Zhixin seemed relieved. "I was really worried that something might happen to her. I plan to buy a treadmill for her home next month so she doesn't run out every day for no reason."

"Isn't Yue Fengsheng dead? What are you afraid of?" Zhong Kui asked.

"Oh, didn't you say last time that the person who hit my wife on a bicycle was Yue Fengsheng? I'm worried again." He Zhixin sighed.

"By the way, who lives next door to Yue Fengsheng's house? I see there is no one here." Qi Fei asked.

"Oh, speaking of that..." He Zhixin knew there must be a story as soon as he opened his mouth. "Old Yu has been missing for six years. Strangely enough, Yue Fengsheng's ex-wife also disappeared at the same time..." He stopped talking here and said something cryptic, "Yue Fengsheng is very sensitive about this matter."

Zhong Kui and Qi Fei looked at each other. Although He Zhixin didn't say it explicitly, he could tell that the two had eloped.

As they were talking, the sound of running was heard in the quiet night. Zhou Li came back. When He Zhixin saw her, he immediately stepped forward and handed her her coat.

Zhou Li muttered a few words, saying that there was no need to be so nervous, and the two of them went back together.

"It seems like everyone in this apartment is living a miserable life. He Zhixin and Zhou Li are the rare ones who can be considered happy and harmonious." Qi Fei sighed as he watched their backs as they walked away.

"According to He Zhixin's suggestion, the name of Mr. Yu next door on the fourth floor should have an extra horizontal line added to it, and become Mr. Wang next door." Zhong Kui said jokingly.

"The person disappeared six years ago. If he or she has been missing for four years, he or she can be declared dead. Once the other half dies, one can remarry. Yue Fengsheng and Lu Xiuxia got married two years ago. I think his or her relationship with his or her original wife is just average." Qi Fei said.

……

"Brother Fei, we've investigated. After the whole family in Room 301 died of gas poisoning, the house has been left unattended. The key is said to have been lost for many years. You said someone went in and out of upstairs, but we don't know who it was..." Qi Fei was very disappointed with the result given by Wu Shanqiu.

"Then who inherited this house? If the whole family died, there must be some collateral relatives, right?" Qi Fei said, refusing to give up.

"Speaking of this, Brother Fei, you're going to be disappointed. Guiyue Apartments is a bit special. The houses don't have independent property rights."

"Oh? What does that mean?" This was actually an unfamiliar area for Qi Fei.

Wu Shanqiu proudly took out a set of photocopied materials and said, "Hey, this is the information I spent a lot of effort to get."

"Hmm?" Qi Fei looked at the thick file in Wu Shanqiu's hand. Just looking at the font on it gave him a sense of age. Wu Shanqiu stuffed the file into Qi Fei's hand and said, "Here! A copy of the document on the 1983 Nancheng International Trade Company's employee welfare housing allocation."

"What?" Qi Fei was confused. This unfamiliar term sounded distant and had nothing to do with the case at hand, but the moment he saw the content of the document, he suddenly understood.

Several names looked familiar: Chen Liangdi, He Zhixin, Wang Dakang... Qi Fei blurted out, "Aren't these all people who live in Guiyue Apartment?" Then he looked at the names of the apartments and became confused again. "Guomao Apartment? Is this the same place we're investigating?"

"It's the same place. In the 1990s, state-owned companies were transformed into private and privatized companies, and Guomao Company was one of them.

I've done some rough research, and I know that the Guomao Company was once a giant in Nancheng, with a vast business scope. It operated department stores, pork shops, pharmacies, leather goods stores...anything remotely related to commerce was run by its subsidiaries or branches. After restructuring, these businesses were split into separate companies. Over the years, the market has completely changed, and things like pork shops have become a thing of the past and disappeared. With the Guomao Company gone, the Guomao Apartments became the Guiyue Apartments. But the residents are still the same people—the same people who benefited from the welfare housing allocations back then.

Wu Shanqiu's words answered many of Qi Fei's questions: "No wonder these people's homes look so well-furnished. It turns out they all had stable jobs back then."

"And..." Wu Shanqiu deliberately dragged out her tone to keep the other person in suspense. "Brother Fei, have you noticed something special? It's been at least forty years since 1983, and the people living in Guiyue Apartment are still the same people. No one has sold or rented it out."

Qi Fei was also puzzled by Wu Shanqiu's words. "I was surprised when I first came to investigate. What good is there in this old, dilapidated apartment? It's as if these people have been tied to Guiyue Apartment their entire lives and just won't move."

"Hey, there's a reason for that." Wu Shanqiu was clearly pleased with her discovery. "Because these people haven't actually bought the house, they're only renting it. Like the pork shop, it's a product of the times. This is collective housing, with only one title deed for the entire apartment. There's no way to divide it up into separate titles for each household. In other words, all eight apartments in Guiyue Apartment share one title deed. Even if they're willing to pay, they can't buy the house. They can only rent it to these employees, but the rent is very low. The houses were originally allocated at a monthly rent of 8 yuan, a price that hasn't increased in over 5 years. As long as they keep paying that 5 yuan, they can live in Guiyue Apartment forever."

"Doesn't this sound good?"

"Hey, it just looks beautiful. Because they don't have their own property deeds, those living in Guiyue Apartments can't sell their houses or even sublet them for rent. They can only live in it themselves. Once they move out, the house will automatically return to the collective and have nothing to do with them anymore."

"In other words, as long as they leave Guiyue Apartment, it will be regarded as abandoning the house, right?" Qi Fei roughly understood.

"That's right. That's why no one has taken over Room 301 since the death of the old Lin family. In fact, no one will ever take it over. Firstly, it's a haunted house, yes, and secondly, this house can't be bought or sold."

"Then someone has to take care of this vacant house. Now that the International Trade Company is gone, who will own it now?"

"Hey, I've obviously found the source, otherwise how would I get these things and know the whole story?

I asked around for a while and finally found a small company of five or six people in a nondescript office building in the suburbs. They were supposed to be the company that had been retained by the International Trade Company to manage these collective assets. They collected a small amount of rent from the old employees, but they had no say in renting out the property.

"Huh? A company with management, wouldn't that mean they found the key?"

(End of this chapter)