"From the moment we entered the village, we were caught in a game of chess."
At Old Man Lu's house, Hu Jia first led everyone to Lü Qingqing's door. He squatted down and ran his hand along the bottom of the door frame, where two iron nails were hammered into the sides, parallel to each other.
Hu Jia explained that from the moment they entered the village, he noticed the villagers' lukewarm reception. At first, he attributed it to their dislike of outsiders. Now, it seemed like an act. The villagers' ultimate goal was to make Hu Jia and his companions feel estranged, so they would readily accept the hospitality of Old Man Lu's house.
Why? Because Old Man Lu's house had a strategic location.
First, it was close to the open space, making it convenient for Hu Jia and the others to reach the reservoir.
Second, it was situated at the end of the village, bordering a bamboo forest, which provided an excellent hiding place.
As for Lü Qingqing seeing a floating head that night, it was because in the darkness, the person playing tricks deliberately wore black and painted their face stark white. The strong contrast, coupled with Lü Qingqing's initial shock, prevented her from seeing clearly.
This led to her only seeing a suspended head.
"That's surprising. If someone was faking a ghost, how could they escape from you?" Xiao Tao clearly found this theory a bit far-fetched.
Indeed, everyone looked at Hu Jia. Even Lü Qingqing had some doubts. Not only did she fail to catch up to the head, but she watched it eerily vanish into the room.
Perhaps sensing Lü Qingqing's confusion, Hu Jia smiled and asked her, "Do you remember what happened when you were chasing that head?"
What happened?
Lü Qingqing pondered for a moment. "I fell! That's right, not only did I fall, but Wen Wu also fell, as if something was grabbing my ankle."
"Heh heh, are there really so many ghosts in this world? But someone pretending to be a ghost is indeed real." Hu Jia looked at Old Man Lu. "That night, you deliberately made noise to lure me out of the room. After Lü Qingqing was startled by the head, I came back in from outside. This created a perception for us: trapped between two forces, the head still managed to disappear, leaving only the explanation of a haunting."
Saying this, Hu Jia led everyone to the bedroom where the men slept. Similarly, the bottom of this door frame also had two iron nails.
"When our people chased out, all you had to do was to wrap a black line around the iron nails beforehand. Lü Qingqing and Wen Wu would then trip, creating an escape time for the head. This is the fishing line I found in your house."
Hu Jia took out a tangle of fishing line from his pocket. While it was a mass, the middle part was conspicuously ink black.
Hu Jia explained that the black line was not easily visible, and given the circumstances, it was natural that people wouldn't notice it when they tripped. By the time everyone chased out, someone would have come back in to tidy up the fishing line.
The villagers were already poor, and this fishing line was worth something. Hu Jia guessed that Old Man Lu wouldn't discard it, and indeed, he found it.
Without waiting for Old Man Lu to question him, Hu Jia directly untangled the fishing line. "Look at the iron nails. Because the fishing line was wrapped around them and straightened when people tripped, there are clear scratch marks on the surface of the nails. Now look at this fishing line. Because it was wrapped around the iron nails, you can still see the marks and abrasions from its interaction with the rust."
"How did the head disappear?" This was also something Lü Qingqing was very curious about.
"It didn't disappear; it hid." Hu Jia smiled. "Old Man Lu, you don't mind if I take a look in your bedroom, do you?"
Without waiting for Old Man Lu's reply, Hu Jia pushed open the door to Old Man Lu's bedroom. The room was only about seven or eight square meters, simply furnished, with a single window.
"The person pretending to be a ghost had entered Old Man Lu's room and escaped through the window." As Hu Jia spoke, he pushed open the window of Old Man Lu's bedroom. Outside, there was a large patch of overgrown grass, and beyond that, the bamboo forest.
Although not very obvious, to someone experienced in criminal investigation, the difference in the overgrown field was apparent at a glance.
There were many footprints within the area. The grass stems were broken.
"I presume this was broken by the person pretending to be a ghost," Hu Jia said with a half-smile, looking at Old Man Lu. "After all, you wouldn't be climbing in and out of windows for no reason."
"Why would we pretend to be ghosts? If, as you say, we wanted to harm Steward Zhong, why would we actively attract the police? Wouldn't that be walking into a trap?" Old Man Lu scoffed at Hu Jia's conjecture.
Yes, this didn't make sense.
"No, this isn't walking into a trap; on the contrary, it's manipulation." Hu Jia turned his gaze to Xiao Tao and Mi Ju. "You both said that pretending to be attacked by zombies was to lure us here to catch the zombies or become scapegoats. It now appears that all of this was a lie."
"Your true objective was to make us witness Steward Zhong being attacked by zombies and falling into the water. Then, after the police discovered Steward Zhong's body, you would use our words to cover up the truth."
"Clearly, you achieved your goal," Hu Jia said. Because when the Zhong family came to cause trouble two days ago, it was Luo Wen Wu who testified, leading the victim's family to believe it was an accident and to stop demanding compensation.
"No, it's not like that!" Xiao Tao shook her head frantically.
Seeing this, Old Man Lu immediately interrupted Hu Jia's questioning. "When did police investigations rely solely on words? Where is the evidence? Where is the motive for murder?"
Hu Jia glanced at Old Man Lu. "Wen Wu, tell us what you've learned."
"Yesterday, I went to town. Steward Zhong's name is Zhong Cheng, right?" Luo Wen Wu showed a look of disdain. "Pah! To have such a name, but in the end, like a monkey looking in a mirror, he wasn't human at all."
Hu Jia: "Get to the point!"
Luo Wen Wu rubbed his nose, and from his words, Lü Qingqing heard the story behind Xia Jiaozi Village.
It turned out that after the reservoir was built, it had indeed brought considerable convenience to the villagers. But two years ago, Zhong Cheng arrived, and he changed the lives of everyone in the village.
Zhong Cheng was a typical lazy good-for-nothing from the town, the brother-in-law of the town's security captain.
He claimed that the reservoir was built with government funds, so the villagers should pay for water. Thus, under Zhong Cheng's direction, a wall was built around the reservoir.
This not only restricted villagers from drawing water from the reservoir but also controlled the use of well water.
Selling water for money? The villagers had never heard of such a thing. The villagers resisted several times, but they were suppressed by the security captain. Several strong men were even injured as a result.
In the end, despite their anger, everyone grudgingly paid the fee.
Initially, each villager only needed to pay five copper coins per month to draw water from the reservoir, but later it increased to ten copper coins per month.
Especially this year, well water was now sold by the bucket.
One bucket of water cost one copper coin.
The money didn't seem like much, but the demand was huge. Villagers who couldn't afford it resorted to stealing water, and the consequences were predictable. Many were arrested by the security team and sent to prison, suffering from hunger and cold, and forced to do hard labor every day.
Zhong Cheng had a notorious reputation in Xia Jiaozi, and everyone disliked him, even hating him a little. Zhong Cheng's family knew this situation, so the moment they heard of his death, they rushed to find fault, hoping to extort a sum of compensation.
If Luo Wen Wu hadn't stepped in promptly to explain the situation, the villagers would have been swindled out of a lot more money.
Hearing this, Lü Qingqing suddenly understood why the villagers had no reaction to Zhong Cheng's death and were even happily carrying water. The root of the problem lay here.
"Last year, a group of young people in the village were caught stealing water. One of them fell ill and didn't receive timely treatment. He passed away a couple of days later." Luo Wen Wu paused. "That person happened to have the surname Lu!"