A Good-for-Nothing

219. The Quadruple Orientation Mirror (I)

Translator: Dragon Rider

The apartment that Feng Ma had bought not long ago was located in this high-end residential district called Heavenly Fortune Town.

Arms crossed over his chest, Zhao Fei was leaning against the inside of the elevator which was steadily going upwards. “Feng Ma was not bad. It surprises me that an obscure agent could afford a house in this place. I think either he had rich parents or his wife does or he’d been doing some off-the-books work as a sideline.”

He Zheng and Chen Qianlin were astonished at the same time. Zu Zhichong also didn’t quite understand. He Zheng asked, “What do you mean?”

Zhao Fei smiled, “It seems that you rich boys really have no idea.”

Eyes on Luo Zhou, he tapped the elevator floor with the tip of his shoe. “Sergeant Luo, do you know the house price of Heavenly Fortune Town?”

Luo Zhou, a would-be “home mortgage slave” who had been meaning to buy a house and had made some inquiries, answered, “I think it’s somewhere around 50,000 yuan per square meters.”

Zhao Fei observed, “‘Talent scouts’ is just a euphemism for people like him who wander on the streets trying to get people enter the profession. To put it more truthfully, they are actually just errand boys. Feng Ma made 20,000 yuan a month at the most.

He was in his early thirties. His peers probably wouldn’t consider buying a house in a first-class residential district like this except for those from rich families.”

All the others caught on to it at Zhao Fei’s explanation.

He Zheng inquired, “People in this profession more or less have some sources of extra income, I suppose?”

“They do.” While talking, they arrived at Feng Ma’s new house, in which Luo Zhou’s colleagues were working. There were several cops in there, but the house didn’t seem crowded. Standing in the doorway, Luo Zhou flicked a quick glance inside and continued, “This apartment covers an area of over a hundred square meters, right? So the total price of it is in the seven-figure range. Even if he could make some extra cash from time to time, given that his contacts were all obscure trainees, how much money could he possibly have got from them?”

Zhao Fei gave a smile and added, “If my agent buys a house like this, I wouldn’t be surprised. As regards Feng Ma, he certainly shouldn’t have afforded it.”

He clearly had got a point, but somehow, all his listeners felt an urge to kick his ass after hearing these words.

Luo Zhou pondered for a moment and then said, “This is indeed a questionable point.”

He quickly fished out his cellphone and made a phone call to one of his colleague. “Send me an extra copy of Feng Ma’s financial records and the detailed information on this property of his.”

When his colleague sent the information over, Zu Zhichong and Zhao Fei had taken He Zheng and Chen Qianlin to check Jiang Shuanglin’s body.

Jiang Shuanglin’s body was placed on the carpeted floor. They walked over to scrutinize it. On the surface, there was indeed nothing out of the ordinary about the corpse. He was dressed in casual clothes, and there was no sign of misery on his face.

With his Divine Eye, He Zheng saw at a glance that Jiang Shuanglin’s body was indeed cloaked in faint black gas as Feng Ma’s body was.

“Are there any visible marks on him?” asked Zhao Fei.

Chen Qianlin’s ears slightly twitched and he instantly came to understand what Zhao Fei meant by this question. Jiang Shuanglin had a baby face and his looks were typical of the currently hottest pop stars. On top of that, Jiang Shuanglin had been on the margins of the show business when he’d been alive, so it was possible that the cause of Jiang Shuanglin’s death had been sexual abuse or something like that.

However, their guess turned out to be wrong. A cop on the side, after hearing him ask that question, replied, “There’s no mark on him. It seems as though he died an unnatural death in a dream.”

“I see.”

While making another phone call, Luo Zhou spared a few seconds and said to his colleagues who were still investigating the scene, “You guys may get out of here and have a break outside.”

Luo Zhou was a sergeant, so they all followed his orders and left the house, leaving only the four of them inside.

He Zheng, who was observing Jiang Shuanglin’s body carefully, suddenly muttered, “Eek?”

“What’s wrong, Cutie? You found something?” asked Zu Zhichong, crouching down beside He Zheng.

He Zheng was the only one present who had the Divine Eye and could see demonic Qi so distinctly as though he were playing a video game with a piece of third-party cheating software.

“There is a patch of gas of a slightly different color here.” He Zheng confusedly raised his hand to point at the middle of Jiang Shuanglin’s forehead.

“The middle of a person’s forehead is one of the spots where their spiritual power converges. That’s his soul.” Zu Zhichong squinted his eyes, the Taoist bun on top of his head swaying from side to side. He twisted his head aside and asked He Zheng, “Did you see a patch of gas like this above the middle of Feng Ma’s forehead?”

“No. Feng Ma’s soul was devoured, which was why I came to know his killer was a Demon’s Attendant.” Demon’s Attendants were fond of making dark magic tools by refining human souls, which was why devouring people’s souls was one of Demon’s Attendants’ common methods.

“This is weird. How come there’s some residue of Jiang Shuanglin’s soul left in his body when Feng Ma’s entire soul was extracted?”

“It’s not weird, because the killer didn’t have enough time to devour Jiang Shuanglin’s whole soul.” Standing beside the window, Chen Qianlin was scrutinizing something, propping himself up with his fingers on the sill.

“Um?” Zhao Fei raised his head to look in Chen Qianlin’s direction.

“Come here and check this out, guys.” Chen Qianlin pointed at a spot on the windowpane.

The others walked up and saw that it was a patch of a noticeably different color that Chen Qianlin’s finger was pointing at.

“He probably moved into this house not long ago. This window is facing the road, which is why it’s relatively dusty. Even if it’s cleaned daily, there would still be dust on it. But the layer of dust in this area is slightly thinner.” Surprisingly, though appearing rather irritable, Chen Qianlin was quite observant. “It seems to be a footprint or something.”

“Oh?” Zhao Fei lifted his eyebrows amusedly. “That means someone got out of this house through this window.”

“You can’t be serious. It’s not like this is the set of a martial arts film or something.”

“Why is this so hard for you to believe?” Zhao Fei chuckled. “For some reason, Feng Ma brought Jiang Shuanglin to his house, but Jiang Shuanglin was attacked here, and Feng Ma probably came back in time to witness the attack, which was why the culprit failed to devour Jiang Shuanglin’s entire soul, leaving some residue behind. As Feng Ma saw their face, they killed Feng Ma to make sure their identity wouldn’t be exposed.”

“This is just a speculation. It might not necessarily be the truth,” commented Zu Zhichong.