Otherworldly Merchant

From the video recording, I saw that a young delivery guy had entered the elevator while holding a box in his arms. I could vaguely see the receipt adhered to the box. Needless to say, that box was the item to be delivered.

The elevator slowly moved up. Not long afterward, it slightly shook then stopped!

The delivery guy felt flustered. He immediately dropped the box and tried to use his hands to open the elevator.

It was strange. In such a situation, any other person would press the emergency button first. This was common knowledge. The express delivery guy wore glasses and seemed the intellectual type. How could he not know about this basic stuff?

After a while, he stopped pushing the doors. He crouched and curled up in a corner, seemingly very scared. He cautiously looked at the elevator doors and stayed in the corner for quite a long time.

Then, he apparently saw something very scary and instinctively covered his eyes. His body trembled, and he kicked disorderly as if he was trying to push away something that was pressing on him.

However, there was nothing in front of him. He looked really weird as he kicked and punched the air. After struggling for a while, the delivery guy stood up abruptly, not moving from his original position

Right after that, both of his legs twisted and reached a shocking angle. To form such an angle, they were clearly broken.

Then, his arms began to move until they were bent to almost 90 degrees! He looked like a snake that slumped on the ground. Blood started to ooze from the corners of his mouth, eyes, nostrils, and ears. However, he was still able to crawl away.

Soon after, he disappeared from the view of the elevator’s camera. The box he had brought with him was left in the elevator.

After watching the recording, I was sweating and felt frightened. Li Mazi was even worse. He had to clutch onto the table in order to support himself from not falling onto the ground. His face was as pale as a sheet of white paper.

“How could this happen? Even if he was possessed by a ghost, he shouldn’t have been able to twist his arms and legs like that, right? I think that this delivery guy was a ghost himself.”

I gulped and asked the staff in charge of the elevator. “Where’s that parcel now?”

“The police took it.”

“Do they know what’s inside that parcel?”

“It seemed to be some garments,” answered the staff member. “But I don’t know for sure. It’s not something we can know with our limited connections.”

That box was fishy. After we got back, I asked Yin Xinyue to contact the police. I had to know what was inside that parcel, who had sent it, and to whom.

After Yin Xinyue listened to what we had seen in the surveillance video, she was worried. “Brother Zhang, should we leave this matter alone? It’s really frightening…”

“I’d also like to leave it alone. However, strong Yin energy seeped into Ru Xue’s body due to that thing. She’ll be in great danger if she’s targeted!”

After hearing that the other party could target her, Ru Xue was scared out of her wits despite being a simple-minded person. She begged me to help her. Her cheerful, lively facial expression had disappeared.

Li Mazi said, “We can’t act rashly as we might have to put our lives on the line to deal with that thing. How about this? You can move to another apartment first. Perhaps that thing won’t trouble you anymore.”

Without waiting for me to talk, Yin Xinyue intervened. “Right, why didn’t I think of that? We should do that! Ru Xue, you should stay at Li Mazi’s for the next few days. Li Mazi’s house has excellent geomancy, which stops ghosts or demons from approaching.”

It seemed that Yin Xinyue still hadn’t given up on matching the duo.

Ru Xue didn’t reject the idea, but Li Mazi waved his hands. “No, no, no, I don’t agree.”

I knew Li Mazi would feel guilty towards Chu Chu if he let a woman stay in his house just one month after her death.

“It’s not like I want to stay at your place!” Ru Xue seemed to be enraged after getting rejected. “What geomancy? It’s just a trick to deceive kids. You aren’t as good as Brother Zhang, and you look so vulgar…”

“You…” Li Mazi almost lost it.

Ru Xue was satisfied. “You what? You’re angry because I’ve hit the right spot! Hah!”

Li Mazi was infuriated but he didn’t know what to do.

Yin Xinyue snorted angrily, wondering how could Li Mazi be so insensitive.

I could tell it was impossible for these two to get together. I threw a signaling glance at Yin Xinyue, who wore a helpless expression, because I did not want her to waste any more energy on them.

I asked Yin Xinyue to call the policeman in charge to see if we could know what was inside the box. Moreover, I wanted to know where the parcel came from and to whom it was for.

Yin Xinyue made a call and talked for a while before putting her phone down. Then, she said to me, “Wait for a while. The police commissioner will come and talk to us. They will join us and show us the things in the parcel.”

I furrowed my brows. “Why do they need to send a commissioner here?”

I still remembered the last time we cooperated with the cops. At the time, we had almost became the scapegoat for that guy. I was still scared.

Yin Xinyue said, “We don’t have a choice, this is their condition. We can take a look, but we have to cooperate with the police. They’re still troubled by this case.”

I felt reluctant, but I could only blame it on my bad luck.

Shortly after, a beefy, middle-aged man arrived. He wore casual clothes, but I could tell from his aura that he was an experienced cop.

The man introduced himself, “Hello everybody. I’m Lin Zhongcheng from the Criminal Police Department, the one in charge of this case. Things are really abnormal this time and I’d like to hear what Mr. Zhang has to say.”

Although I didn’t like their shady tactics, there was a proverb that said that it was best not to slap a smiling face. I patiently analyze the case for him. “This case seems very special, and it’s possibly related to a supernatural beings. However, I don’t dare to jump to that conclusion just yet. We should discuss again after we see the things inside the parcel.”

Lin Zhongcheng showed us a square box and opened it.

The parcel contained a set of ancient-looking garments. The clothes were made of translucent gauze, red-and-white soft fabric, had a wide top and a narrow bottom. If paired with a light blue belt, this clothing would really make the woman that wore it shine.

Moreover, I could tell from the fabric that it was expensive, handmade silk. Only some rich women in ancient times could wear something like this.

“Where did the delivery guy get this item?” I asked.

Lin Zhongcheng shook his head. “No idea. This is an ancient item. We’ve asked an expert and the answer was that it’s at least five hundred years old. Unfortunately, we couldn’t track down its origin.”

“Where was it supposed to be delivered?” I asked.

“To apartment No. 304. However, the name of the receiver on the receipt isn’t the tenant that’s living in that apartment. The people living there don’t even know the name. We’ve investigated and found that the name belongs to the tenant who lived in that very apartment ten years ago. However, they moved out precisely ten years ago…”

“In other words, the delivery guy was trying to deliver this parcel to the tenant who lived there ten years ago? Did you contact that tenant?”

Lin Zhongcheng shook his head and said, “That person was an orphan. Ten years ago, they broke off their contact with the orphanage. We’ve searched through the national archives, but we didn’t find any clue about their whereabouts.”

Li Mazi was irritated. “Nobody has ever reported that he went missing ten years ago?”

Lin Zhongcheng was somewhat embarrassed. “We’ve just learned that there’s such a person. Moreover, no one came to the police station back then to report on his missing case.”

According to incomplete statistics, the numbers of missing people in China could reach at least seven hundred or eight hundred thousand per year. One couldn’t just blame the police.

“This is very strange. Who sent this parcel? I think you could check that with the post office, right?” I asked.

Lin Zhongcheng shook his head one more time. “Sigh, we also thought of starting to investigate from the sender. However, it turned out that the delivery guy was fired a month ago. The recipient attached to the parcel came from his house.”

This case was really mysterious!

“So, was that guy in charge of delivering stuff in this neighborhood?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Lin Zhongcheng. “Mr. Zhang, what do you think about this case?”