double secret

This is the interior of an old-fashioned residential house. The old house is old, and the damp can grow mushrooms.A shady room lacks sunlight, and the cold and damp spread throughout the room.Liu Ming stood in the room, the room without light weakened his vision.

Dust hung in the air, and a ray of sunlight hit the old tile floor.The original color of the white tiles is almost invisible, and this beam of light is the only light source in the whole room.Except for this leaked gap, the entire room was sealed with wooden boards, and there was an inexplicable sense of suffocation in the air, almost as if it had substance.

Liu Ming groped in the darkness, relying on that small beam of light to find his way.With weakened vision and strengthened sense of smell, Liu Ming could smell a strange but familiar smell scattered in the air,

It was a rancid smell that he was very familiar with, mixed with the dust in the air, floating in the air.Liu Ming stretched out his hand and waved it in front of him. The stuffy and foul-smelling air here almost suffocated him. Unfortunately, the weak wind couldn't dispel his discomfort. Waving his hand a few times won't help the smell of the whole room. It doesn't work.

Thinking about it carefully, this smell is very familiar, it is the rotten smell of corpses.

"Master, how many people are there in this family?"

Sunan was standing in the old living room, opposite to him was the landlord sitting on the sofa with cotton wool exposed.In the raging weather of July, the landlord shook an old plantain fan, flickering it against his ear, and fanning Sunan from time to time.

He was a little deaf, and Sunan raised his voice.After hearing it clearly, he thought about it carefully before answering:

"Just my old man."

"You... have no children?"

"No."

While Liu Ming was investigating the inside of the house, Sunan was still questioning and investigating the landlord.There is still a photo on the wall behind the landlord. The whole wall is empty, only this photo.

Old black and white photos in old wooden frames.A simple group photo of two men and one woman, like the dressing style of the 90s

It was the time when Hong Kong stars were popular, women wore the same hairstyle as Carina Lau, and men wore colorful shirts.And one of the men is the landlord in front of him. After 20 years, he has aged a lot, and he has almost changed drastically from the man in the photo.The other two people, Sunan, had never seen before. They were young men and women, and they seemed to be the sons and daughters of the landlord.

The woman in the photo is almost 40% to 20% similar to the old man. If it is said that the two are not related, Sunan will not believe it.The old man in the photo is estimated to be in his prime, in his early [-]s, and a man and a woman next to him look less than [-] years old, standing on both sides of the old man on one left and one on the right.

A harmonious photo is an extremely intimate look.Sunan looked at it for a long time, his eyes would not deceive him, something strange happened, the landlord didn't tell the truth?Why did he hide the matter of the two people in the photo.

"Are you...are you going to rent a house?"

The landlord's hoarse and rough voice sounded from behind Sunan. The voice of an old man was the voice of a smoker who had smoked too much, as if there was a mouthful of old phlegm stuck in his throat.He raised his hand, intending to pat Sunan on the shoulder, but found that he couldn't lift it up, so he gave up.

"Master, we are members of the criminal investigation team. We are here to investigate something, not to rent a house." Sunan replied to the landlord.

He has smiling eyes, a gentle smile, a standard smile showing eight teeth, there should be a lot of honorifics, and he thinks that he has done all the etiquette.However, the face of the old landlady changed suddenly, and the smile that was supposed to be greedy and flattering disappeared instantly.

He hurriedly pushed Sunan out, seeing that the rickety and thin old man was surprisingly strong at this time, and pushed Sunan out of the living room to the door in one fell swoop. Before Sunan could react, he was already standing on the ground outside the door.Immediately afterwards, the copper anti-theft door was closing with a "snap" at the tip of his nose, and it was closed simply, without any emotion.

Sunan touched the tip of his nose, and the next moment, the anti-theft door in front of him opened again, and Liu Ming was also pushed out.History repeated itself again, and the door was ruthlessly closed once again when the two of them pushed.

Sunan glanced at Liu Ming who was beside him, he didn't know what he was thinking, and remained silent.Sensing Sunan's gaze, Liu Ming raised his head to meet his gaze.Sunan faintly saw the glint in Liu Ming's eyes.

"Did you find something?"

"It's dark and cold inside. It's a nice mortuary, and the air just happens to smell a little bit of rotting corpses."

"Do you suspect that the landlord killed someone and hid the corpse here?!"

"Ah."

Sunan wanted to ask something more, but before he could speak again, Liu Ming had already started banging on the door.He knocked on the door so loudly that the neighbors on the opposite side opened the door, but the landlord inside the door did not move.

"Bang bang bang bang... bang bang..."

The door was still not opened, and the people in the room made up their minds not to let them in again.Liu Ming wanted to keep knocking, but was stopped by Sunan beside him.

"Hey, don't smash it, you can't break it, don't hurt yourself again."

Liu Ming stopped moving, and the stairwell fell silent.Neither of them spoke, and the old landlady in the house could faintly hear strange words muttering to himself in the silent stairwell.

Sunan attached his ears to the door. Although this kind of old-fashioned anti-theft door is of good quality, it can't be opened no matter how hard you smash it, but it is often double-layered.The anti-theft door is covered with a few thick railings and a layer of iron netting. In the past, people would install a wooden door inside the door. The wooden door is not soundproof, but just to prevent the wind. People in the corridor can hear what is said by the door.

The old man seemed to be leaning against the door and talking to himself, getting closer, Sunan heard the old man's words clearly through two doors, and whispered each word to Liu Ming.

"It's a blessing, not a curse. It's a disaster that can't be avoided! What should come will always come, and my old man has lived enough. It's time to go down and find her."

The old man went into the dark room and lit three sticks of incense. He didn't kowtow to pray, but sneered a few times. There were no ghosts and ghosts on the altar, and the two spirit cards were exactly the two people in the photo.

Liu Ming frowned, thinking about the words Sunan transferred to him just now.The inexplicable smell of rotting corpses, the dark and cold space, everything... Could it be that this old man believes in some kind of cult, what he said is really strange, like a madman, something is wrong.

Cult organizations love to control people's hearts and control the minds of believers with beliefs, thus embarking on a road of no return.

He patted Sunan's shoulder, talking and listening to the old man talking to himself, Liu Ming patted Sunan's shoulder, motioned him to stand up, and then whispered in Sunan's ear:

"I'm here watching this old man, you go back and inform Tang Sheng that this old man has a ghost."