Chapter 31: The Dead Beneath the Floor

2022-05-20

I honestly never expected Old Zhang to be this cautious. If I hadn’t made sure someone was keeping an eye on him right away, he’d probably have slipped away by the next day. But thinking about it, it makes sense—what regular old man would know how to set a dog trap?

I should’ve been more careful from the start, but it’s too late for what-ifs now.

“But if Old Zhang is hiding something, why did he call the police? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?” Guan Zengbin raised a critical question.

I thought it over for a moment before answering, “If Old Zhang didn’t call the police, it would’ve actually looked more suspicious. He waited all night before reporting and probably weighed the pros and cons. He’s here to watch over the construction site—there’s no way he could miss something this big. So he’s just trying to act normal, like any regular person…”

“So what do we do now?” Guan Zengbin pressed.

“We go to the recycling station,” I replied.

Qingcheng, Old Zhang’s rundown scrap yard.

When we saw the name of Old Zhang’s recycling station, we couldn’t help but laugh. The way Old Zhang names things is just as ‘unique’ as his father.

The recycling yard was surrounded by two iron fences and looked pretty spacious. It sat on the outskirts of Qingcheng, so deserted that half an hour could pass without seeing a soul. Right now, the main gate was locked up tight, the big padlock hanging from the bars was already thick with dust, like it hadn’t been opened in ages.

The chain was as thick as a finger. Breaking down the gate would take some time, so I just said, “These fences aren’t that high anyway, let’s just climb over.”

Gu Chen took a few steps back, got a running start, and practically danced up the bars, making it to the top in just a few steps. I helped boost Guan Zengbin up next, then climbed over with Gu Chen’s help, leaving Xiao Liu outside to keep watch in case anything went wrong.

We wandered around the yard, sizing the place up. Most of the space was taken up by towering stacks of wood, some piled so high they topped two meters. You couldn’t see the way left or right at all. The wood was stacked all over the place—messy and disorganized—so we had to squeeze through whatever gaps we could find. It didn’t take long before we felt completely disoriented.

“It’s like he built a maze in here,” Gu Chen joked, knocking on some of the wooden planks. “No wonder nobody comes by—customers probably get lost in here and need rations to make it out after three or five days. Why run a scrap yard? He should open an escape room.”

I snapped my fingers. Gu Chen actually hit the nail on the head. Even a kid would know this arrangement is strange. If Old Zhang insisted on stacking the wood this way, there had to be something fishy going on, maybe even the very clue we’re after hidden down one of these paths.

“Let’s split up,” I told the others. “There’s definitely a secret here, so check carefully. If you get lost, just climb up onto the wood—you’ll be able to see where you are.”

As the sun dipped towards the horizon, we finally made a discovery.

In one corner of the wooden labyrinth, Guan Zengbin spotted something—a hidden entrance on the ground, covered by a wooden board. When we pried it open, a hole revealed itself, leading to a slanting set of stairs that disappeared below.

“Think there’s anything dangerous in there?” Guan Zengbin hesitated, peering into the pitch-black opening.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Gu Chen stepped in without a second thought. “It’s not like zombies are gonna pop out at you.”

Guan Zengbin and I followed close behind. It was pitch black inside, and the air was thick and stifling. We hadn’t gone far when the unmistakable stench of rot hit us, stopping all three of us in our tracks. It was the familiar smell we’d encountered again and again over the past few days.

The sharp, cloying scent of decaying corpses.

“Keep your guard up,” I warned. “We have no idea what waited for us down here.”

We crept forward, relying on our flashlights to show the way. Suddenly, a burst of blinding light flashed before my eyes, leaving me seeing stars. I couldn’t see a thing. “Crap, we’ve got company—get out now!”

Gu Chen reacted fast, backing up too. “Flashbang! That was a flashbang!”

At that moment, I heard Guan Zengbin’s voice from up ahead. “Cough, cough—guys, I don’t think we have any enemies. I saw a switch on the wall and just pressed it. Pretty sure it’s just the light switch, so maybe take it easy on the freak-out…”

Gu Chen and I finally looked up, realizing the bright light came from nothing more than a bare bulb overhead.

Well, that was embarrassing. Turning away from the awkwardness, I quickly changed the subject. “Our eyes just got used to the dark, so when the light came on, it was like staring into the sun…”

“Yeah, these incandescent bulbs are just too harsh,” Gu Chen said quickly. “See how blinding they are? We should’ve gone with energy-saving lamps—more mellow lighting…”

“Can we maybe focus on what’s right in front of us?” Guan Zengbin interrupted with a wave. The two of us turned back to look.

And the sight nearly made my eyes fall out of my head. I’d never seen so many corpses in one place. They were laid out right there on the ground, not a single sheet covering them. I counted—there were at least ten bodies, some freshly dead, others already rotted beyond recognition.

“I’ll take a look, you two wait for me,” Guan Zengbin said, stepping in to examine the bodies.

Gu Chen shook his head, muttering, “She really wasn’t scared of anything just now.”

Guan Zengbin overheard and replied, “Dead people don’t scare me. What’s there to be afraid of? I’m just afraid of the dark—what girl isn’t?”

Gu Chen had nothing to say to that.

While Guan Zengbin checked each of the corpses, I carefully observed them too.

Just by examining the bodies, you could tell they’d died in all sorts of ways.

None of us expected to find this many bodies hidden in Old Zhang’s scrap yard, and none of us could guess what he was trying to do.

Guan Zengbin frowned as she examined the corpses. “The cause of death is different for almost every one of them. Some you can tell at a glance, others are harder to say. Even the time of death varies—look at this one, it’s been dead for two months. That one, maybe six months.”

She was right. I noticed it too. None of them wore jewelry. That was odd. These bodies hadn’t been cremated, so they were probably buried, but if they were buried, they should still have their rings or something.

Some of these corpses were old enough that it was hard to believe none of them had married.

With that, I took a closer look at the right ring fingers on a few of the better-preserved bodies. Sure enough, many had faint marks—a shallow indentation showing where a ring used to sit. But the rings themselves were missing. Someone had taken them off.

Suddenly, memories of stories I’d heard when I was a kid popped into my head. If I was right, Old Zhang was definitely mixed up in something incredibly shady.

“Where do you think all these bodies came from?” I asked.

Guan Zengbin considered the bodies. “With this many, there’s no way Old Zhang killed them all himself. I think he probably dug them up from other people’s graves. I saw dirt under their fingernails—looks like they were dragged out.”

“That’s what I think too,” I nodded firmly.

“But what would Old Zhang want with so many corpses?” Gu Chen looked uneasy. “And he left Qingcheng two months ago—so why leave the bodies behind?”

A dozen possibilities flickered through my mind. I said, “Lin Shu was arrested at the same time Old Zhang left Qingcheng. If the living can be used, so can the dead. Maybe Old Zhang fled because of this.”

“Guan Zengbin,” I turned to her, “start the autopsy.”

“Even if he used them for something, why leave the bodies lying around? Wouldn’t he just rebury them? No way he’s planning to use them over and over,” Gu Chen said, shaking his head.

Looking at the dead, the answer dawned on me. The value of these corpses was far higher than Gu Chen could ever imagine. Honestly, there are people alive who aren’t worth as much as these bodies.

I glanced at Guan Zengbin, then at Gu Chen, and spoke a single word: “Ghost marriage.”

“If I’m right,” I went on, “Old Zhang kept these corpses for ghost marriages. I think it’s time we paid someone a visit.”