My House of Horrors

Everyone turned to look at Jia Ming. From an observer’s point of view, Chen Ge indeed did not have any motive to harm Jia Ming. The police were not fools. Before they captured Jia Ming, they had already investigated his background, and there was no interaction between him and Chen Ge before they met.

He curled backward. After hearing Chen Ge, Jia Ming became even more afraid. “I can’t say. If I do, then there is no way I’m leaving this hospital alive! He will kill me here! He will use methods that you can’t ever imagine to welcome death. He is the devil, the devil that peels back human skin to feed on their flesh!”

“Stop changing the topic. If you don’t give us an honest answer, I will leave you alone to stay in the same room as him,” Lee Zheng warned.

“Am I that scary?” Chen Ge knew that Lee Zheng was purposely saying that to force out the truth, so he cooperated fully. He stood up to examine the windows and door. After making sure that all the openings were locked, he sat back down.

With his exit barred, Jia Ming hesitated before coming clean. “I once witnessed his murder, and while I was running away, he saw my face.

“When was this?” Lee Zheng waved to signal for the doctor to leave, and then he took out his recorder pen.

“It was around three or four years ago.” Jia Ming looked at Chen Ge cowardly, and his voice was as soft as a mosquito—one would not be able to hear him unless one paid full attention. “I worked at an insurance company before this, and I was tasked with handling a car accident for a realtor’s family. The people escaped unharmed, but the car was not so lucky. After the traffic police’s investigation, it was revealed that the person was driving under influence, and the deepest scar on the vehicle was discerned by a professional to be the drunken driver’s own doing, so following the company rules, I did not approve of his insurance claim.

“Because of that, the man brought people to come to the company to create trouble. The man came from a powerful background, so the manager did not dare make him an enemy. As such, he sacrificed me as the scapegoat. At the time, I was still a young man, unable to control my emotions. After the man sent his people to beat me up, naturally, I fought back, and in the end, both of us were sent to the police station.

“My wife went through a lot of hoops to save me. For that, she lost her job, and we lost a lot of money. I was deeply resentful, and all I wanted to do was to take revenge.

“That night, I sneaked into the man’s house. Initially, I just wanted to familiarize myself with the place, but I ran into something extremely scary.”

At this point, Jia Ming stopped. He looked at Chen Ge, and his forehead was covered with cold sweat.

“Why are you stopping now‽” Lee Zheng and the female officer were both quite agitated.

“I ran into someone who was trying to kill the realtor.” Then he raised his finger, but he was too afraid to point it at Chen Ge. “I just wanted to take a small revenge on the man. I never thought to kill anyone. I had nothing to do with his death.”

The case suddenly became complicated because it involved another murder. Lee Zheng frowned. “Who is this realtor that you’re talking about? I think I know all the real estate agents in Jiujiang.”

“His name was Jiang Long. He once took over the plot at Ming Yang Residence, the largest abandoned residential area in Eastern Jiujiang.”

“It’s him?” Chen Ge and Lee Zheng shared a look as they connected the many clues in their mind.

“Jiang Long died from a car accident. We have the case file at the police station.” Lee Zheng was quick to point out the anomaly in Jia Ming’s story.

“You’re being tricked! You’re still being lied to! He was definitely murdered, and the killer is…” Jia Ming bit on the tip of his tongue and then pointed his finger at Chen Ge, “The kill is now sitting next to you!”

“You said I killed Jiang Long? How come I have no memory of this at all?” Chen Ge studied Jia Ming’s every move closely. He realized that the way Jia Ming bit on his tongue was quite similar to his own. When he was caught in a conundrum or had to remain calm while in a dangerous situation, he would do the same thing and used the acute pain to help pull in his focus.

Jia Ming did not dare answer Chen Ge. It was as if he had depleted all of his courage telling his story.

“What exactly did you see? Why did you say the murderer is Chen Ge?” That was what Lee Zheng was curious about. This was the first time that, after detaining the suspect, the suspect pointed out the witness as the murderer.

“You have to believe me. His face is forever seared into my mind! I can confidently say that it was him who I saw that night!” Jia Ming ignored Lee Zheng and continued in his own manner. “The first time that I went to find Jiang Long was around twelve midnight. That was merely to scout the place out. However, once I arrived at his place, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get close to the man. There were too many guards and cameras.

“But at around 1 am, something seemed to happen inside the residential area. All the guards ran toward one of the houses, and in the chaos, I sneaked into the crowd and followed them.

“It was Jiang Long’s neighbor’s home that attracted the crowd. The two dogs raised by the family were brutally murdered, and the curious thing was that there was no sound to the murders.

“The guards quarantined the neighbor’s home and started the search for the dog killer. It was a noisy occasion, but Jiang Long’s home was weirdly silent. All the lights were off, and no one answered when the guards went to knock on the door.

“Jiang Long was probably not home, so I realized that this was my perfect chance. I could sneak into his house and run away with some valuable items as compensation. I circled around to the backyard, and after some trials, I realized that the wall was too tall for me to climb over, not to mention the cameras that were still operating. Just as I thought of giving up, I gave the backdoor a push, but to my shock, the door was not locked, just closed.

“After the door opened, before I could react, what I saw gave me the shock of my life.

“A man was kneeling on the ground, covered in blood. His expression was one of intense pain, and there was something forced down his throat. Even so, he was still coughing up blood. Standing next to him was a man who held a bloody knife between his two fingers, and he was speaking something in an awfully casual manner.”

Jia Ming turned to look at Chen Ge, and his fists tightened as veins popped on the back of his hands. “The bloody man kneeling on the ground was Jiang Long, and the man standing over him was him.”

“I was at Jiang Long’s bungalow? How many years ago was this?” Chen Ge had no memory of this at all. The man had to be lying, or the man that he saw was not Chen Ge but someone who looked like Chen Ge.

“The face matches perfectly. Your face is the stuff of my nightmares, so I cannot be mistaken.” Jia Ming was on the verge of tears. “Jiang Long noticed me and reached out to me for help. When he opened his mouth to beg, the blood trailed down his lips. Of course, I didn’t dare stay and turned to escape from the scene.”

“Wait a minute, I have a question. Jia Ming definitely died from car accident, and there was no knife wound on his body. The forensic doctor even confirmed that as his actual cause of death.” Lee Zheng was still on Chen Ge’s side. Of course, he was because Jia Ming was making no sense.

“That was the first time. After that, this devil started to haunt me. I kept having the same dream over consecutive nights. After I fell asleep, he would crawl out from underneath my bed and stand at my bedside to whisper into my ear that since Jiang Long had died, it would be my turn next.”