I searched the Internet.
Beef only takes 6 – 8 hours to be dried into beef jerky.
I thought, it probably takes about the same amount of time for a person to be dried into a mummy.
1
Before the story begins, please remember these two house layout plans and carefully study the information on them.
This is a rental house in a city in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
It is certain that this house really exists in reality. In this house, there is a corpse.
Please regard this story as a reasoning game.
Based on the clues, try your best to find that cruel truth.
“Readers who want to participate in the reasoning, please do not open the comment section to view spoilers.”
2
My friend recently wanted to rent a house. She had a favorite layout, a duplex apartment on the top floor, the seventh floor.
She seemed to have some concerns about whether to rent this house.
She knew that I was well – informed, so she wanted to consult my opinion.
She sent me the house layout plan and had the following conversation with me.
Friend: “Do you know Zhiyuan Middle School?”
Dian Deng: “Yes, it’s that wealthy private high school.”
Friend: “In order to improve the college entrance examination enrollment rate of prestigious universities, Zhiyuan Middle School looks for students with excellent grades among the junior high school graduates taking the high school entrance examination and spends a lot of money to invite them to study in their high school. Do you know about this?”
Dian Deng: “I know.”
Friend: “My colleague is from another place. Her son was the top scorer in the high school entrance examination in their city. Three years ago, her son was recruited by Zhiyuan Middle School in our city with a large sum of money to live on campus. But after only two months of living there, the child’s grades dropped significantly. When she learned about this, she was very angry. So she and her husband resigned and came to our city to rent a house to accompany their son in his studies.”
I was a bit confused.
Dian Deng: “What does this have to do with renting a house?”
Friend: “Of course it does. The colleague I mentioned is the current tenant of that house.”
I still didn’t see the connection between the two things, so my friend continued to explain.
Friend: “The rent of this house is paid annually. She rented this house in November 2018. Now it’s June 2021, and there are still five months until the lease expires. If she terminates the lease in advance, not only will the deposit not be refunded, but the rent will not be refunded either. My colleague, in order to reduce losses, intends to ask me to take over.”
Hearing this, I finally understood what my friend meant.
Dian Deng: “Oh, I see. If you move in now, your colleague will become your sub – landlord. Once your colleague’s lease expires, you are likely to have disputes with the original landlord. Are you worried about this?”
Friend: “No. Taking over and renewing the lease is a common thing. For the landlord, seamless connection of tenants means seamless connection of rent. Many landlords are happy for tenants to find the next tenant.”
I was taken aback.
Dian Deng: “Then are you worried about the area and rent of the house? After all, this is a five – bedroom house. If you live alone, the rent and the empty rooms will be big problems.”
Friend: “It’s not because of this either. I have a few friends who also want to move out and live together. The number of rooms is just right, and we can share the rent.”
Dian Deng: “Then… is it because of the floor? This house is on the top floor. You have to climb seven floors every day when you go home, and there is no elevator. It will be very tiring, right?”
Friend: “It’s just seven floors. I can consider it as losing weight.”
Dian Deng: “It’s not because of this either? Then what are you worried about?”
Friend: “In fact, there is a legend that this house is haunted.”
Dian Deng: “Haunted? Why do you say that? Is there any basis?”
Friend: “Yes. My colleague usually loves to gossip. She often talks about the strange things that happen in her house. I felt creepy several times when I heard her descriptions.”
Dian Deng: “Your colleague said something about the house that made you feel creepy, right?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “What did she say?”
Friend: “Let me give you a few examples. There is a Cainiao Station downstairs from her house. On the first day she moved in, the owner of the Cainiao Station told her that this building was haunted. Then my colleague asked the owner why he said that. The owner said that a few months ago, someone heard ghost screams while using the toilet. The voice was very vague, but it could be heard that someone was calling. The scariest thing was that the scream did not come from outside the window, but from inside the house. Many people in this building heard it. At that time, it caused a stir in the community. But this voice only lasted for a few hours and disappeared the next day.”
Dian Deng: “Huh? Ghost screams that only lasted a few hours in the building?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Hearing my friend’s affirmative answer, I quickly took out a notepad and started taking notes.
Dian Deng: “This is interesting. What was the specific date when the ghost was heard?”
Friend: “I don’t know about that. It should be July or August. But later, everyone didn’t take it seriously and just regarded it as a prank by the children in the community.”
Dian Deng: “July or August. Was it only heard in that building or throughout the whole community?”
Friend: “Only in that building, I think.”
Dian Deng: “Okay, I’ve written it down. Is there anything else?”
Friend: “Yes. Her family loves to keep clean. When they first moved in, there were no mosquitoes, flies, mice or ants in the house. But in the spring and summer of the next year, the toilet was full of flies, and sometimes the traces of mice could be found. In order not to affect the child’s study, my colleague specially hired a pest control company to deal with the pest problem. The effect was good in the first few days after the extermination. But after a few days, the number of flies in the toilet would increase again. The most strange thing was that this phenomenon lasted from June to October. The flies disappeared in November, and such a thing never happened again.”
Dian Deng: “Huh? Flies that couldn’t be killed completely? Was this situation serious?”
Friend: “Very serious. She even took pictures at that time. There were dozens of flies flying in that toilet of only a few square meters.”
Dian Deng: “I looked at the house layout plan. There are toilets on the first and second floors. Did this situation occur in both toilets?”
Friend: “Yes, both.”
Dian Deng: “Could it be that she didn’t close the doors and windows properly? I noticed that there is a window in the public toilet on the first floor leading to the corridor, and there is also a window in the secondary toilet on the second floor leading to the balcony.”
Friend: “It’s definitely not because of the doors and windows. Not to mention that there are screens on the toilet windows. Under normal circumstances, how could there be so many flies on the balcony and in the corridor? And she also asked the neighbors downstairs. Only her house in the whole building had this situation.”
It really sounded like a strange thing. I silently wrote down this point: Fly pest problem that only lasted for one year.
Then I continued to ask.
Dian Deng: “Is there anything else strange?”
Friend: “Um… yes. Their house steals electricity.”
Dian Deng: “Steal electricity? What kind of stealing?”
Friend: “I’ll explain it slowly. There is an electricity switch on the first floor of their house, on the wall to the right of the entrance door.”
I made a mark on the house layout plan according to what my friend said and sent it to my friend to see.
Dian Deng: “Is it here?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “Okay, go on.”
Friend: “On the first day my colleague moved in, the electricity switch and water valve of the house were both off. The landlord specifically told my colleague that the electricity and water bills had been settled and that he didn’t take advantage of her. He also asked my colleague to turn on the electricity switch and water valve by herself after moving in.”
Dian Deng: “Isn’t this normal?”
Friend: “There is nothing strange here. The key is what happened later. This year, because of the epidemic, they couldn’t go back to their hometown, so they planned to celebrate the New Year in the rental house. Then they planned to clean the house during the Little New Year. In the study on the second floor, there is a row of bookcases on the wall next to the door, filling the whole wall. When my colleague was cleaning, she moved the bookcase and then found another closed electricity switch behind the bookcase, next to the study door.”
After listening to my friend’s words, I was a bit confused, so I opened the second picture and drew on it according to what my friend said.
After drawing, I sent the picture to my friend.
Dian Deng: “Is this right?”
Friend: “Yes, that’s it.”
Dian Deng: “Why is there a second electricity switch here?”
Friend: “She doesn’t know either. This electricity switch is really strange because you don’t know which circuit it controls.”
Dian Deng: “What do you mean?”
Friend: “When they first moved in, didn’t they turn on the electricity switch on the first floor?”
Dian Deng: “Yes.”
Friend: “After turning on the electricity switch, she checked the lights, sockets, and air conditioners on the first and second floors and found that they could all be used normally. That is to say, the electricity switch on the first floor controls all the circuits on the first and second floors. Then which circuit does the electricity switch on the second floor control?”
Dian Deng: “Huh?”
Hearing her statement, I was suddenly stunned, and a chill rose from the skin on my back.
Dian Deng: “Did your colleague verify this?”
Friend: “She did.”
Dian Deng: “How did she verify it?”
Friend: “She turned on that electricity switch and then checked the circuits in the house one by one.”
Dian Deng: “What was the result of the verification?”
Friend: “The result was that except for the sharp increase in the electricity bill, there was no other discovery.”
Dian Deng: “The electricity bill increased sharply?”
Friend: “Yes. After my colleague turned on the electricity switch on the second floor, she first checked the other circuits in the house and found no abnormalities. The sockets were not short – circuited, the appliances were not broken, and neither of the two electricity switches tripped. So my colleague regarded this electricity switch as a decoration and left it alone. As a result, when it was time to pay the electricity bill a month later, she found that the electricity bill for that month was actually as high as 1,100 yuan.”
Dian Deng: “1,100 yuan? It sounds quite expensive, but considering that it was the end of winter and the beginning of spring during the Little New Year, the air conditioner should have been turned on at home, and the whole family spent most of their time at home. This electricity bill seems somewhat reasonable.”
Friend: “My colleague thought so at that time, so she didn’t take this matter to heart. But two months later, the electricity bill of the family basically remained at around 800 – 900 yuan. At that time, the weather was getting warmer, and there was no need to turn on the air conditioner anymore. My colleague really felt strange, so she downloaded a State Grid APP to check the electricity consumption of these months. She was shocked to find that the electricity consumption in February, March, and April was 1,800 degrees, 1,400 degrees, and 1,300 degrees respectively. These numbers are quite terrifying. Almost 1,000 more degrees of electricity were consumed each month. No matter how my colleague thought about it, she couldn’t remember having any appliances that consumed so much electricity at home. So she suspected the electricity switch in the study that had been left on.”
Dian Deng: “…”
Friend: “Hello? Why don’t you talk?”
Dian Deng: “It’s nothing. It just sounds strange.”
Friend: “Huh? What’s strange?”
Dian Deng: “After all, the electricity switch is just a switch. It doesn’t consume electricity itself. But after the electricity switch in the study was turned on, the electricity consumption at home soared, and the source of electricity consumption couldn’t be found. It feels like there is a hidden space in this house…”
Friend: “My colleague also thought about this, but it’s not realistic. She measured the area of the house, and it’s exactly the same as the area on the house layout plan.”
Dian Deng: “Can you be sure that the area on the house layout plan is true?”
Friend: “I think so. Because this house layout plan is drawn according to the house type on the property ownership certificate. According to the property ownership certificate, this house is like this.”
Dian Deng: “I see.”
Friend: “It’s not just the house type problem. The most important thing is that, as you said, the electricity switch is just a switch. It is only responsible for power – on and power – off. The real power – consuming things are the appliances. But generally speaking, what kind of appliances will automatically turn on after being powered on and consume a lot of electricity? Even for an appliance like a refrigerator that starts automatically when powered on, it only consumes 30 – 40 degrees of electricity a month. You would have to install more than 30 refrigerators at the same time to reach that level of electricity consumption.”
Dian Deng: “Home appliances that start automatically when powered on and consume a lot of electricity… The only thing I can think of is a small sun.”
Friend: “A small sun? The thing that looks like an electric fan and emits hot light when turned on?”
Dian Deng: “Yes. As long as it is adjusted to the on – gear, it will start automatically when powered on, and it also meets the condition of high power consumption.”
Friend: “Are you saying that the electricity switch in the study controls a small sun?”
Dian Deng: “No, I’m just making an assumption. And this assumption is obviously not reliable. A heating appliance like a small sun may short – circuit if it is turned on continuously for a day. It is almost impossible for the situation of not turning off the power for three consecutive months like your colleague’s to happen.”
Friend: “Indeed, the wear and tear of continuous operation of the appliance also needs to be considered.”
Dian Deng: “Could there be someone else living in this house?”
Friend: “It’s not very likely. Not to mention that there is no space, even if there is really someone else living there, it has been two years. How could he survive without electricity for two years?”
Dian Deng: “That makes sense. How did your colleague deal with this matter later?”
Friend: “My colleague told the landlord about this matter. The landlord said that he didn’t know about it either because he bought this house from a family of three. The other party said that their son had an accident and they needed money urgently, so they sold the house to the landlord at a 20% discount. The landlord rented the house to my colleague three days after the transfer. So the landlord didn’t know the internal situation of the house.”
Dian Deng: “How did this matter end up?”
Friend: “It ended with my colleague turning off the electricity switch in the study. Anyway, the electricity consumption returned to normal soon after the switch was turned off.”
Dian Deng: “Is there anything else?”
Friend: “There is one more thing. The State Grid APP can view the monthly electricity consumption in previous years. My friend found that in August, September, and October 2018, the electricity consumption at home was zero. That is to say, the house was unoccupied for three months before my friend moved in.”
After listening to this description, I also started to feel creepy.
Connecting the strange things that have happened so far.
The ghost screams that only appeared in the building for a few hours.
The fly pest problem that lasted for a whole summer in the toilet.
The electricity switch hidden behind the bookshelf in the study, and no one knows which circuit it controls.
The house that had been unoccupied for three months.
Looking at these things, I could imagine some possibilities for a while, but these possibilities were too far – fetched and couldn’t be confirmed.
So I continued to ask my friend.
Dian Deng: “Besides these things, are there any other problems with the house?”
Friend: “Um… basically nothing else. She also occasionally mentions some advantages of the house.”
Dian Deng: “Advantages? For example?”
Friend: “For example, when she first moved in, there was still a little formaldehyde smell in the house, as if it had been renovated. At that time, my colleague thought the landlord was a good person. Later, she found out that the renovation was done by the previous owner. Another example is that the top – floor houses are usually very hot, but the heat insulation of this house is very good. Even in summer, the temperature on the second floor does not rise significantly. And the rent is also very cheap.”
Listening to what my friend said, I couldn’t help frowning.
Generally speaking, some seemingly abnormal things can always be explained by very ordinary reasons.
Maybe the problems of this house are not complicated. We just complicated the problems.
I continued to ask my friend.
Dian Deng: “Regarding the things about this house, did your colleague talk to the neighbors?”
Friend: “Probably not. Because she has to take care of a high – school entrance examination student, she gets up at six o’clock every day and is very busy until going to bed at night. She hasn’t talked much with the neighbors in recent years.”
Dian Deng: “I see… Don’t promise to rent the house for now. Give me some time. I’ll study this matter further.”
Friend: “Okay.”
…
3
Starting from the next day, I began to study the strange things my friend had mentioned.
Just looking at these things alone, I didn’t find any obvious connection between them.
According to my friend’s description, her colleague lived in that house without any other discomfort. The overall living condition was good, except that some strange things happened occasionally.
For a renter, the house is not their own after all. It’s common to feel unaccustomed at first. Maybe they just mistook these unaccustomed feelings for supernatural events.
Just like when I rented a house before, I could always find long women’s hair at home. Later, I found out that my previous tenant was a long – haired woman. The reason why there was always long women’s hair in the house was that, on the one hand, the corners and edges were not cleaned thoroughly, and on the other hand, the broom used to clean the environment was stained with a lot of the previous tenant’s hair. These hairs fell off during the process of sweeping, giving me the illusion that there was always long women’s hair in the house.
Therefore, I believed that there must be a reasonable explanation for the series of strange phenomena in that rental house.
At least I didn’t believe my friend’s so – called “the house is haunted” statement.
Thinking like this, I continued to study the situation of the house based on my notes.
Two days passed, and I still had no clue until I suddenly noticed this position on the second floor.
Since I rarely dealt with these house layout plans, just looking at the pictures, I couldn’t tell what it actually looked like.
So I sent this picture to my friend with a message.
Dian Deng: “Do you have a photo of this position?”
My friend replied to me after a while.
Friend: “I’ll ask my colleague for it. She should be at home now.”
A few minutes later, I received the photo sent by my friend.
Friend: “She took it for me.”
Looking at the photo, I finally understood what the structure was like.
That area was an extension of the corridor on the second floor. The black – line part was actually the continuation of the stair railing.
Looking at this photo, I picked up the house layout plan again. Combining it with the conversation I had with my friend a few days ago, an outline emerged in my mind.
I overlapped the two house layout plans to prove my guess.
Looking at this picture, I came to a terrifying conclusion.
There was a dead person in this house.
…
4
“”Clues provided””
“”Before continuing to read, please try to reason on your own.””
“”Readers, based on the previous information, reason out the answers to the following five questions in order. If you can’t answer the previous question, the answers to all subsequent questions will not be valid.””
“”1. Please find the hidden space in this house and state the reasoning process.””
“”2. Please infer where the dead person is hidden in the house. Be specific about which space on which floor and explain the reason. What was the ghost scream that the Cainiao Station owner mentioned? Why was it only heard by the people in this building? Why did it disappear after a few hours?””
“”3. Please explain why the pest problem only appeared for a while in the second year after the colleague moved into the rental house and disappeared in the third year. Also, explain why only their house in the whole building had this problem.””
“”4. Please explain why the electricity switch in the study automatically consumes electricity after being powered on and why the owner designed it this way.””
“”5. Please analyze the identity of the deceased and give reasonable reasons. Note that only analyze the identity of the deceased, not the motive for murder.””
“”One point is added for each correct answer, with a full score of five points.””
“”This reasoning requires the use of a lot of common knowledge in daily life. Readers can use tools such as Zhihu and Baidu to search for common sense to prove their viewpoints.””
“”Readers can post their reasoning in the comment section and attach their final scores.””
“”Readers who haven’t completed the reasoning, please don’t open the comment section or bookmarks to avoid affecting this experience.””
“”The following is the revelation part of this article. Please make sure you have completed the reasoning before reading further.””
“”Dian Deng’s suggestion: Please pay attention to every piece of information in the previous text. There is no redundant information in the previous text.””
“”Hint: The title of the book is the first clue.””
5
“”Revelation part””
I sorted out the conclusion several times and then called my friend again.
Friend: “Hello?”
Dian Deng: “The house you told me about last time, you haven’t rented it yet, right?”
Friend: “No.”
Dian Deng: “It’s good that you haven’t.”
Friend: “Why do you say that?”
Dian Deng: “Um…”
I picked up my manuscript. After hesitating for a long time, I decided to tell my friend.
Dian Deng: “Next, I will talk about some of my own inferences. If there is anything wrong, please correct me immediately. If there are no problems with my inferences in the end, then…”
Friend: “Then what?”
Dian Deng: “Let me talk about my inferences first.”
Friend: “Okay.”
Dian Deng: “Let me start with the conclusion. I think there is a dead person in this house.”
Friend: “Oh.”
Dian Deng: “Oh?”
My friend’s reaction was even more ordinary than I thought, even a bit contemptuous. Did she think I was joking?
So I emphasized it again.
Dian Deng: “I’m not joking. I have evidence. Look at this house layout plan.”
Friend: “What about the house layout plan? Are you going to say that there is a compartment in this house and the dead person is hidden in the compartment? Come on, this is too cliche. Didn’t I say that the area of the room has been measured? So there can’t be a compartment in the house.”
Dian Deng: “There is really a hidden space in this house, but it’s not a compartment. Look carefully at these two pictures. Do you find anything?”
Friend: “I’ve looked at these two house layout plans many times and found nothing.”
Dian Deng: “What do you usually look at when you look at a house layout plan?”
Friend: “I look at the rooms and the layout.”
Dian Deng: “Don’t you look at the words?”
Friend: “Words?”
Dian Deng: “Each room on the house layout plan has a name, right? For example, the position on the first floor is marked as the living – dining room. Look below it, there are two lines of words, right?”
Friend: “I really didn’t notice that.”
Dian Deng: “Go and take a look now.”
Friend: “Okay… Hey?”
Dian Deng: “Did you find it?”
Friend: “Yes. Whether it’s the space on the first floor or the second floor, the ‘H’ written is 2800. Only the corridor on the second floor has an ‘H’ of 2500. I know ‘S’ is the room area. What does ‘H’ mean?”
Dian Deng: “H means the floor height.”
Friend: “Ah?”
Dian Deng: “Notice it? Only the floor height of the corridor on the second floor is different from other places. Generally, the floor height of each floor is the same. The floor height of other rooms on the second floor is 2.8 meters, but the floor height of the corridor is 2.5 meters, 30 centimeters less.”
Friend: “Come to think of it, the corridor on the second floor of his house does feel a bit more oppressive than the one on the first floor. It seems that the ceiling is relatively low.”
Dian Deng: “That is to say, the ceiling of the corridor on the second floor has dropped by 30 centimeters, right?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “Then what is this 30 – centimeter space used for?”
Friend: “Are you saying that the corpse is hidden in this 30 – centimeter ceiling?”
Dian Deng: “I had this idea at first, but after verification, I found it was unlikely. Even for a person with a thin body, the distance from the front chest to the back is about 25 centimeters. If it’s a fatter person, it will basically exceed 30 centimeters.”
Friend: “What if the thickness of the deceased is only 25 centimeters? 25 centimeters is smaller than 30 centimeters, which is enough to be hidden in the ceiling.”
Dian Deng: “This possibility does exist, but you can’t just think about the thickness of the person. You also need to consider the thickness of the wall. If there is really a corpse hidden in the ceiling, then in order to ensure that the corpse can be firmly fixed on it, the murderer needs to use lime and cement to fix it. If the amount of fixing is not enough, it is likely to cause the ceiling to collapse and expose the existence of the corpse. So I think this 30 – centimeter space is not used to bury the corpse. It should have other uses.”
Friend: “What use?”
Dian Deng: “This requires looking at another picture. Look at this picture.”
Friend: “It’s the picture of the stairwell. What’s wrong?”
Dian Deng: “Don’t you think there’s something strange?”
Friend: “Strange? Um… Is there?”
Dian Deng: “Look carefully at the right side of this picture. Don’t you think that P – shaped space is a bit strange?”
Friend: “P – shaped? Where?”
Dian Deng: “Right here.”
Friend: “What’s wrong with it?”
Dian Deng: “Generally, when a resident goes to the second floor, they usually go straight forward along the steps to the secondary toilet, storage room, or master bedroom, like this.”
Dian Deng: “They can also turn left to the balcony.”
Dian Deng: “Or turn to the study.”
Dian Deng: “These activity routes are all reasonable. But look at that extra position. The activity route to there is like this.”
Dian Deng: “This space is very abrupt, right? Would anyone usually go to this position? It’s both narrow and has a special shape. It can’t hold much, and it can’t be decorated much. Instead, it blocks the lighting on the first floor. If I were the owner, I wouldn’t design it like this.”
Friend: “When you say that… it really is. This P – shaped floor is really strange.”
Dian Deng: “So I was thinking that if it wasn’t designed by the owner, could it be that the house was like this when it was bought, that is, the developer designed it this way.”
Friend: “What’s the use of designing this?”
Dian Deng: “I don’t know either. So I asked my friend who works in civil engineering. He told me that the developer must have designed it for a reason. He also asked me if I noticed that the width of the P – shaped space on the left is the same as the width of the stairs, and the length is also similar.”
Friend: “What does that mean?”
Dian Deng: “He meant that that position should be used to build a staircase.”
Friend: “Staircase?”
Dian Deng: “This might be a bit hard to understand, so I prepared two pictures in advance. Look.”
Friend: “It’s the side view of the stairwell.”
Dian Deng: “Yes. If a staircase is built on this basis…”
Friend: “Ah!”
Dian Deng: “Understood?”
Friend: “That P – shaped space is the flat plate for building the stairs.”
Dian Deng: “That’s right.”
Friend: “Thinking this way, it really makes more sense.”
Dian Deng: “Thinking along this line of thought, if this position is really a staircase, doesn’t it mean that in this house, besides the first and second floors, there is also a third floor?”
Friend: “But there is no third floor on the property ownership certificate. Could it be that the previous owner built an illegal building on the roof?”
Dian Deng: “Regarding this, I also asked my friend. My friend said that it is possible that the third floor in this house is not a space similar to the first and second floors, but an attic.”
Friend: “Attic?”
Dian Deng: “According to the regulations of our country, buildings with a floor height of less than 2 meters cannot be sold as commodities and can only be regarded as a complimentary area, and the complimentary area is not recorded in the property ownership certificate. This is why there is no third floor on the property ownership certificate. So I think this house should originally have an attic, and the attic also has a stairwell. But later, during the renovation, the previous owner removed the staircase leading to the third floor and installed a ceiling to seal the stairwell of the attic. The extra 30 centimeters on the second – floor stairwell may be for this purpose. Didn’t you say that your colleague smelled the formaldehyde smell when she moved in? It shows that this house did have a renovation. Your colleague thought that the second floor was not as hot as she imagined. But no matter how good the heat insulation of the top – floor house is, the temperature will definitely rise significantly. If she felt that the temperature difference between the first and second floors was not obvious, could it be that the attic played a role in buffering and insulating? Wouldn’t this explain it?”
Friend: “But… this is too strange. My friend has lived there for so long. How could she not know the existence of the attic?”
Dian Deng: “Maybe your friend is living on the top floor for the first time. Living inside the house, it’s hard to figure out the overall structure. Standing downstairs, it’s difficult to see the height of the top floor clearly. Plus, your colleague doesn’t often communicate with the neighbors. Even if they communicate, few people will talk about how many floors there are in the house. That’s why she lived there for more than two years without discovering the existence of the attic.”
Friend: “My God. According to this statement, there is really a corpse in the attic?”
Dian Deng: “Yes.”
Friend: “If so, how do you explain the three strange things? The ghost scream that only lasted a few hours, the pest problem that only appeared in the second year, and the electricity – stealing switch in the study.”
Dian Deng: “Regarding these three things, I have found a reasonable explanation. Let’s start with the first one. You said that the ghost scream was told to your colleague by the owner of the Cainiao Station after she moved. The owner also said that the time when the ghost scream was heard was around July 2018, it only lasted a few hours, and only the people in this building heard it, and those who heard the sound were sure that the sound came from inside the house.”
Friend: “That’s right.”
Dian Deng: “Have you ever heard the neighbors quarreling at home?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “Which floor of the neighbors is it usually?”
Friend: “Usually… it’s the neighbors next door, or upstairs or downstairs.”
Dian Deng: “That is to say, the voices you heard were usually separated by only one wall, right?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “Then how penetrating do you think a person’s voice needs to be to spread the ghost scream throughout the building?”
Friend: “This… it really doesn’t seem possible.”
Dian Deng: “No, actually it is possible. Overlap the house layout plans of the first and second floors. There is a space where the whole building can hear the sound.”
Friend: “Overlap them? Let me see.”
Friend: “The place where the whole building can hear the scream… Could it be the toilet?”
Dian Deng: “Yes, it’s the toilet.”
Dian Deng: “It’s very difficult for sound to penetrate reinforced concrete, but there is a space that can connect the whole building, which is the water pipe in the toilet. The water pipe connects all the residents in this building, and there is only air and water in the water pipe, which can well transmit the sound.”
Friend: “I remember. The owner of the Cainiao Station did mention that someone heard the ghost scream while using the toilet. So this is the reason.”
Dian Deng: “Yes. Maybe there is also a toilet in the attic, and the deceased was calling for help there.”
Friend: “But why did the ghost scream only last a few hours?”
Dian Deng: “Maybe he only called for a few hours and then died.”
Friend: “How did he die?”
Dian Deng: “I think… he should have been roasted to death.”
My friend was too scared to speak. I continued to explain.
Dian Deng: “I remember that when your colleague checked the State Grid APP, she found that the electricity consumption in August, September, and October 2018 was zero for three consecutive months. That is to say, no one lived there for those three months, right?”
Friend: “Yes, but what does this mean?”
Dian Deng: “This alone doesn’t mean much, but if combined with another piece of information, it seems to be explainable. What was the first thing your colleague did when she moved into the new home?”
Friend: “The first thing? Turning on the electricity switch and water valve?”
Dian Deng: “Yes. I was thinking, could the day when the people in this building heard the ghost scream be the day when the previous owner turned off the electricity switch and water valve?”
Friend: “Huh?”
Dian Deng: “I said before that one of the functions of the attic is heat insulation. That is to say, the temperature inside the attic is very high, and the attic has no windows and is a completely enclosed space. For a person to live in the attic, an air conditioner is an essential item. But the previous owner turned off the electricity switch and water valve when leaving. So the electrical appliances in the attic became invalid. The incident happened in July, which was midsummer. The outer wall of the attic was baked by the sun and the temperature was already very high. Once the power was cut off, the air – conditioner couldn’t work properly, and the temperature in the attic would rise rapidly.”
Friend: “You… you mean…”
Dian Deng: “Yes. When the person in the attic found out that the power was cut off, they would surely want to leave the attic. At this time, they would find that the attic had been sealed. They couldn’t escape and couldn’t use water or electrical appliances to cool down. So that person was roasted to death in the toilet. The ghost screams that day might be him trying to use the pipes to call for help to the residents in this building. But because the pipes were too long, the sound became blurred, and the residents just regarded this desperate cry for help as ghost screams.”
Friend: “This… is really creepy…”
Dian Deng: “I also think it’s terrifying. What kind of feeling is it to be roasted to death alive? Even being burned to death might be less painful in terms of the time of suffering. The deceased must have been very desperate. But your colleague is also unlucky. They, a couple, should be living in the master bedroom on the second floor. Every time they got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, they probably never thought that there was a corpse right above them, just separated by one wall…”
Friend: “Oh my god, stop talking. Hurry up and move on to the next thing. What about the flies in the toilet?”
Dian Deng: “Those flies should have grown from the corpse.”
Friend: “Impossible.”
Dian Deng: “Huh?”
Friend: “According to what you said, that person died in July 2018. But the fly infestation started in June 2019, almost a year apart. Even if flies were going to grow, they should have grown in 2018. How could they appear the next year?”
Dian Deng: “Didn’t we just say that the deceased was roasted to death?”
Friend: “So what? High temperature should accelerate decay, right?”
Dian Deng: “You lack some common sense. You should know the process of grapes turning into raisins, right?”
Friend: “Usually by air – drying or baking… Ah!”
Dian Deng: “You finally got it. When the deceased died, the attic was in a state of water and power cut and continuous heating. The air in this space didn’t circulate, and it was very dry, like a large – scale dryer. I searched on the Internet. Beef only takes 6 to 8 hours to be dried into beef jerky. I think it probably takes about the same amount of time for a person to be dried into a mummy.”
Friend: “So this person turned into a mummy after death.”
Dian Deng: “Yes. Mummies usually don’t meet the conditions for maggots to parasitize. So from July, August, September, and October 2018, there was no pest problem in that house. And when your colleague moved in, it was already November. At this time, the temperature dropped sharply, which was not suitable for flies to survive either. So even if your colleague turned on the electricity switch and water valve at this time, it wouldn’t have any effect. After that, as time passed day by day, the spring and summer of the next year came. The temperature rose again. Because the water valve was opened, the environment in the attic changed from a dryer to a sauna room. The mummy then had the conditions to decay. Then flies entered the attic along the ventilation duct. The corpse soon became a breeding ground for maggots. As the maggots grew into flies, some flies entered the toilets on the first and second floors along the ventilation duct. This is why, even though the doors and windows of the toilets were closed, a large number of flies still grew in the toilets.”
Friend: “But why didn’t the neighbors downstairs encounter this situation?”
Dian Deng: “Do you know that when the developer laid the pipes, they would install filters on the pipes?”
Friend: “This… I really don’t know.”
Dian Deng: “The installation of filters is usually done by floor, but in the early years, there were also cases of installing filters by household. That is to say, in this top – floor duplex house, only the sixth and seventh floors have a filter, and there is no filter inside the house. So flies couldn’t enter the neighbors’ houses along the pipes, but they could shuttle back and forth in the toilets of your colleague’s house. This also explains why the pest control company couldn’t solve the pest problem, because they only disinfected the environment on the first and second floors, but the source of the pest problem was on the third floor. As for why the pest problem never happened again after the autumn of 2019, maybe the corpse had turned into white bones, and the maggots had no breeding ground, so there was no space for reproduction.”
Friend: “This… it can actually be explained… No, even if the water valve was opened, where did the water on the third floor come from? It couldn’t be from the faucet, right? If the faucet was open, my colleague’s water bill should be extremely high, but she didn’t mention the problem of the water bill.”
Dian Deng: “Regarding this, I also thought about it. I think like this. Didn’t this person die of heat?”
Friend: “Yes.”
Dian Deng: “Imagine yourself as this person. If you were locked in the attic and found that the room was suddenly heating up, what would you do?”
Friend: “Me? I should check the electrical appliances first.”
Dian Deng: “And then?”
Friend: “Then I would find out that there was no electricity.”
Dian Deng: “And then?”
Friend: “Then I would want to escape.”
Dian Deng: “And then?”
Friend: “Then I would find that I couldn’t escape…”
Dian Deng: “And then?”
Friend: “Because the attic got hot, I would want to find water to drink…”
Dian Deng: “What water to drink?”
Friend: “Maybe the water in the kettle…”
Dian Deng: “What if the water in the kettle was finished?”
Friend: “…”
Friend swallowed hard.
Friend: “Drink tap water…”
Dian Deng: “Where is the tap water?”
Friend: “Maybe… the faucet?”
Dian Deng: “But at this time, the water and electricity were cut off, so when you opened the faucet, you would find there was no water. What would you do then?”
Friend: “I would… I… I don’t know. What would I do?”
Dian Deng: “You would continue to look for water. You searched all over the attic and remembered a place where there might be water.”
Friend: “Where?”
Dian Deng: “The water tank for flushing the toilet.”
Friend: “You mean the cistern behind the toilet?”
Dian Deng: “Yes. There is water stored there. Even if the water was cut off, there was still some water left. At this time, the deceased would lift the lid of the cistern and start drinking the water inside. After the water inside was finished, he wouldn’t put the lid of the cistern back. After that, because the water was finished, he was roasted to death. In November, the tenant moved in and turned on the electricity switch and water valve. The cistern started to store water. This is where the water in the attic came from.”
Friend: “Why couldn’t it be that he didn’t close the faucet after opening it?”
Dian Deng: “I don’t know. I can only analyze the reasonable possibilities based on the existing conditions. Maybe he closed the faucet after finding there was no water. Isn’t this the habit of most people?”
Friend: “That makes sense.”
Dian Deng: “Up to this point, I had a question. Who was the deceased?”
Friend: “Why are you suddenly thinking about who the deceased is? We should quickly notify them to call the police.”
Dian Deng: “No, there’s one last point left. Let me finish the analysis.”
Friend: “Okay…”
Dian Deng: “Through the description of the previous two points, you should also understand the function of the electricity switch in the study. The electricity switch in the study should be used to control the electrical appliances in the attic.”
Friend: “Is there anything more to talk about this? It can basically be determined that the electricity switch in the study controls the circuit on the third floor. And I guess the extra electricity consumption of my colleague’s house during that period should be from an electrical appliance on the third floor, maybe the air – conditioner.”
Dian Deng: “I also think it’s the air – conditioner. Your colleague said that more than a thousand degrees of electricity were consumed each month. So I calculated. Assuming that a three – level energy – consuming air – conditioner is installed on the third floor, the power consumption per hour is 1.5 degrees, and 36 degrees a day, exactly over a thousand degrees a month.”
Friend: “Then it’s confirmed.”
Dian Deng: “But there is still a problem to be solved. Don’t air – conditioners automatically enter standby mode after being powered on? But when your colleague turned on the electricity switch, the power consumption started.”
Friend: “This… did you find the answer?”
Dian Deng: “I did. I found an old master in an electrical appliance store. The old master told me that in fact, an air – conditioner can be set to start automatically when powered on. As long as an additional transfer circuit is added, the electricity switch can be turned into the switch of the air – conditioner, controlling an ordinary air – conditioner like a central air – conditioner. That is to say, the electricity switch in the study doesn’t control the circuit, but the electrical appliances in the attic.”
Friend: “It sounds so complicated. Why can’t there be a central air – conditioner on it?”
Dian Deng: “Even the central air – conditioner with the lowest energy consumption would consume more than a thousand degrees of electricity a month. The setting of an ordinary air – conditioner is more reliable.”
Friend: “Then who did this? And why did they do it?”
Dian Deng: “I’m also thinking about this. And I’m a bit curious. The owner installed an air – conditioner in the attic, indicating that he hoped the deceased could live in the attic. Then why did he transform the air – conditioner switch? Was there any reason why the person inside couldn’t turn on or off the air – conditioner? Analyzing this behavior alone, it can be broken down into two parts. The first part is that the person outside didn’t want the person in the attic to control the electrical appliances in the attic. The second part is that the person outside the attic could control the electrical appliances in the attic, but he couldn’t enter the attic. Connecting these two points, I had this idea. Could the person in the attic be imprisoned?”
Friend: “Imprisoned?”
Dian Deng: “Yes. Through the two events of the ghost sound in the toilet and the fly infestation, it can be basically determined that there should be a toilet and even a bathroom in the attic. But the developer wouldn’t install a toilet in the attic. So the toilet in the attic must have been added by the previous owner. But there are already toilets on the first and second floors at home. Why add another toilet in the attic? Maybe it’s because the person in the attic couldn’t go downstairs. The previous owner hoped that this person could solve all daily needs in the attic. In other words, the person in the attic should be in a state of imprisonment. How could a imprisoned person have the right to control the electrical appliances in the attic? So the previous owner set the control of the attic electrical appliances outside.”
Friend: “It’s imprisonment! It must be imprisonment! The previous owner is really perverted… Could he have kidnapped someone to satisfy his unspeakable desires?”
Dian Deng: “…”
Friend: “Why did you suddenly stop talking? Did I say something wrong?”
Dian Deng: “I think it shouldn’t be kidnapping.”
Friend: “You can tell whether it’s kidnapping or not?”
Dian Deng: “The demolition of the stairs and the installation of the ceiling should have started in June. For such a project, the owner himself probably couldn’t do it. He needed to hire a decoration team. “
Friend: “What does this mean?”
Dian Deng: “If I were kidnapped, when the decoration team was doing the decoration next to me, wouldn’t I try my best to attract the attention of the decoration workers and ask them to rescue me? Judging from the house structure, this should be possible, right?”
Friend: “Could it be that the previous owner tied up the person in the attic before the decoration workers came to the house every day, and then went to the attic to untie him and bring him food after the decoration workers left?”
Dian Deng: “This statement has flaws. The demolition of the stairs and the installation of the ceiling have a sequence. The stairs need to be demolished first before the ceiling can be installed. The time difference between them is quite large. After the stairs were demolished, how did the owner go upstairs?”
Friend: “Could it be that on the first day of decoration, the owner tied up the person and then left him to fend for himself regardless of his life or death?”
Dian Deng: “Even more impossible. Demolishing the stairs and installing the ceiling takes at least two weeks. Without food and water for two weeks, the person upstairs would have died long ago and couldn’t have survived until the day when the water and electricity were cut off.”
Friend: “Oh my god, then what exactly is the situation?”
Dian Deng: “Sherlock Holmes said that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Let’s first combine the existing established facts.
“First, during the decoration period, the person in the attic didn’t attract the attention of the decoration workers;
“Second, during the decoration period, the previous owner couldn’t go up to the attic to deliver food;
“Third, until the day when the water and electricity were cut off, the person in the attic was still alive and could move freely.
“Connecting these three points, I came to such a conclusion: Maybe the person in the attic was the son of the previous owner.”
Friend: “What? How did you figure this out?”
Dian Deng: “Didn’t you mention before that the landlord bought this house from a family of three at a 20% discount? The other party said that their son had an accident and they needed money urgently. So it can be basically determined that this family of three is a couple and a boy. Then connecting with the points I just mentioned, could the person living in the attic be the son of that couple? Imagine, if these were a couple with extremely strong control – seeking desires, they locked their child in the attic, turned on the air – conditioner for him, and prepared food and water. Would this situation become more reasonable? Then before the decoration, the child’s parents prepared a large amount of food and put it in the attic, asking the child to take care of himself during this period. The child might have understood this, right?”
Friend: “This… this is such an outrageous idea. I can’t find any flaws for a moment. Let me think about it.”
Dian Deng: “I still haven’t figured out why these parents did this. They imprisoned their own child and finally sealed the child in the attic. With the existing information, I can only figure out this much.”
Friend: “You’re already amazing. You can analyze so many things from such little information. I really hope what you said is just a coincidence. If what you said is true, wouldn’t my colleague’s family have really lived with a corpse for three years?”
Dian Deng: “So far, do you think there are any flaws?”
Friend: “No.”
Dian Deng: “Since there are no flaws, then we should notify your colleague to call the police.”
…
6
My friend and I went to her colleague’s house together and told her colleague about the corpse in the attic.
At first, when her colleague heard this news, she thought it was a joke. It was not until we told her our analysis that she nervously contacted the landlord and called 110.
Soon, the police arrived at the scene.
Based on the house type survey, the police confirmed that there was indeed an attic in this house.
With the landlord’s consent, the police invited firefighters to remove the ceiling.
As a large piece of cement wall skin fell off, we really saw the attic stairwell hidden above the ceiling.
Then, the situation escalated, and the police asked us to leave the scene.
…
7
About a month later, my friend called me again.
She learned the follow – up of this matter from her colleague, as well as the truth that I had been puzzled about.
…
That day, the police broke into the attic and found the white bones in the attic bathroom.
The police quickly identified the identity of the deceased, who was indeed the son of the previous owner couple. So the police began to look for the couple.
After a month, they finally found them in the couple’s hometown.
To be exact, they found their remains.
When the police broke into their home, they only saw two sets of white bones on the bed and a letter on the table.
The letter recorded an extremely absurd experience.
…
8
“”Last words””
When someone sees this letter, my son will probably see the light of day again.
Maybe you’ll be wondering why we did this.
It was for atonement.
…
My husband and I are close relatives who got married. At that time, our families strongly opposed our marriage, but we didn’t listen and finally got together.
After marriage, I was pregnant several times, but every time during the check – up, we found that the child had limb deformities, and we had to abort the child.
This happened to three consecutive pregnancies, so that my husband and I almost gave up the idea of having children.
Until the fourth pregnancy, the child’s limbs seemed normal.
But the doctor told us that this child had super – male genes.
My husband and I didn’t understand what that meant. We just thought that we could solve the problem through future education.
So we still decided to give birth to this child.
After having this child.
My husband and I worked hard to build a good living environment for this child.
He also lived up to our expectations and was growing up healthily.
But as the child grew older, we gradually discovered the terrifying side of this child.
He got angry easily and liked to solve problems with violence.
Fortunately, the child was still young, and we could restrain and discipline him, so nothing serious had happened.
Until the year the child entered the first year of junior high school, everything changed.
He had a good physical development and was almost as tall as his father. Moreover, he entered the rebellious period.
Our persuasion to him was likely to lead to a direct conflict.
We had pinned our hopes on the school, expecting the school to give him the right guidance.
But in the first semester of the first year of junior high school, during the morning exercises, he had a conflict with another child and actually kicked and broke the classmate’s arm in front of all the teachers and students in the school. After going to the hospital for an examination, it was found that the classmate’s arm had multiple fractures. Finally, after negotiation, we compensated the other party 400,000 yuan.
After the incident, the child became much more subdued and no longer had direct conflicts with us.
We originally thought that he had learned his lesson. But in the second semester of the first year of junior high school, bad news came from the school again. He had a conflict with a male classmate in the same class and actually kicked and damaged the classmate’s testicle, causing the other party to have a fertility disorder and become disabled.
The parents of the other party claimed that they would kill my son. It was the school that tried its best to mediate, and finally, it ended with us compensating one million yuan.
But after this incident, the parents of other students began to worry about the safety of their children at school and demanded that the school expel my son.
The school couldn’t bear the pressure and notified us to go through the withdrawal procedures for the child.
We could only accept this fact and bring him back home.
However, because this child didn’t obey discipline, he had conflicts with us every now and then and often went out to cause trouble. We realized that if this continued, the child would surely cause a huge disaster sooner or later.
So my husband and I discussed and decided to renovate the attic and let the child live in it.
Even if we had to lock him up, we couldn’t let him harm society.
We spent some time renovating the attic. We installed water pipes, an air – conditioner, a bathroom, and a squatting toilet in the attic, making it an independent living space.
To restrain him, we installed the switches of these electrical appliances elsewhere.
Only by controlling his living resources could he behave himself.
Subsequently, we let the child move into the attic, and the child seemed to be quite willing.
For him, moving into the attic meant that he didn’t have to meet or even talk to us.
It’s quite frustrating, but this is the reality.
We gave him some extracurricular books and a game console so that he could kill time inside. And we installed a small window under the door through which we could deliver food and change of clothes to him every day.
Such a life lasted for about a month.
One day, the child suddenly pleaded with us to let him out. He said that he knew he was wrong and would change in the future. He now wanted to go out and breathe fresh air.
After all, he was our own child.
We softened our hearts.
So we opened the door. He gave us a hug and said he wanted to go out for a walk and asked us for 200 yuan.
We agreed.
I really couldn’t believe that the child could change so much.
As it turned out, my suspicion was right.
He hadn’t changed at all.
When he went out, it happened to be the time when school was over at noon. He harassed a beautiful female student, saying that he wanted the female student to be his girlfriend. When the female student ignored him, he got angry and dragged the female student into an alley and raped her in the alley.
After the rape, he suddenly became scared. He was afraid that this matter would be exposed.
So he had the idea of killing and disposing of the body.
He picked up a stone beside him and smashed it hard on the female student’s head.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Fortunately, the female student had a strong will to survive. At the moment when the fourth blow was about to fall, she broke free from his restraint and escaped from the alley, thus saving her life.
After that, the police quickly found us and caught him.
The police told us that the female student had been admitted to the ICU.
When my son heard this news, he showed an indifferent expression. The police asked him why he had such an expression.
He said, “Because I’m 13 years old.”
My god.
These were actually the words my son said.
…
Because the child was under 14 years old, he didn’t need to bear criminal responsibility, but what was waiting for us was a sky – high civil compensation of 1.2 million yuan.
Last year alone, just from compensating those two families, our family had emptied our savings.
Now we really couldn’t afford so much money.
We were worried, but more than that, we were terrified.
Just thinking that this child would cause us more trouble and do more heinous things in the future made us scared.
So, my husband and I made a difficult decision.
We wanted to kill this child and then commit suicide.
Although it was suicide, we couldn’t just die like that. We had to find a way to compensate that girl.
After much thought, we formulated a sad plan.
First, we locked the child in the attic and prepared a large amount of food for him, telling him that he needed to lie low for a while, and that our family was going to renovate the house, so he should live in the attic by himself and not make any noise.
After that, we hired a decoration team to knock down the stairs from the second floor to the third floor and completely seal the entrance to the attic.
At first, the decoration team asked us why we wanted to seal the attic.
We told the decoration team like this.
“For heat insulation and to prevent pests.”
After the decoration was completed, we paid the workers the final payment.
Then my husband and I lived in the house for the last day.
Early the next morning, we hired a moving company to move all the things that could be moved in the house.
On July 28th.
My husband and I walked around the empty house again and again.
Then, we turned off the electricity switch in the study, and then went to the first floor to turn off the electricity switch and water valve.
After doing all this, my husband and I hugged each other and went out.
We knew that this child was about to die.
But we had to do this.
Well, it’s useless to say so much.
We rented a house outside and waited for a few months until autumn, and then we decided to sell the house. Then we gave all the 1.6 million yuan from selling the house to the family of the victimized female student.
Subsequently, we threw away our luggage and the two of us returned to our hometown together.
Our hometown is in a mountain gully. Over the years, the relatives in our hometown have gradually left the mountains, and there is no one left here.
We returned to our overgrown home, lay on the bed where we got married back then, and wrote this suicide note.
The relatives were right back then.
Close relatives should not get married.
Our union was a mistake.
Today, we want to end this mistake.
We bought a bottle of pesticide.
Each of us drank half of it.
This is our atonement.
…
9
After hearing all this from my friend, I was a bit dazed. My friend even needed to take deep breaths to feel more comfortable.
My friend asked me in fear.
Friend: “Why did they choose this way to end their son’s life?”
Dian Deng: “Maybe they were afraid that they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, or they were worried that they would be killed by the child instead. So they chose a way to end the child’s life without having to meet the child, a way that could end the child’s life with 100% certainty.”
Friend: “It’s really a pity.”
Dian Deng: “What’s pitiful about it?”
Friend: “Do you remember that sentence in the letter?”
Dian Deng: “Which sentence?”
Friend: “For heat insulation and to prevent pests.”
– The End –
