Netherworld Investigator

"I just said why I was able to get off work on time yesterday. It turned out that I had another job today!" Tang Huanyan was woken up by a work call early in the morning. At this moment, she seemed to imagine the steering wheel on the driver's seat as Liao Chu's neck, and pinched it with resentment in hand.

"Please, please, drive more steadily! The road is rough, I'm going to throw up!" Wen Baifan clutched his chest with a broken face, "Excuse me for the car sick grandma..."

"Grandma?"

"Old man!" Wen Baifan tried his best to complete the sentence without biting his tongue.

At a red light, Tang Huanyan slammed on the brakes and glanced at Wen Baifan who was lying limply on the passenger seat, "Hmph, we are the special investigation team, why do we have to deal with such small cases as threatening letters? It’s overkill.”

Wen Baifan managed to breathe a sigh of relief, and seeing that his aunt had finally calmed down, he took out the information and explained the basic situation to her: "The child who received the threatening letter is named Jin Ben Jingzi, 12 years old this year, and has immigrated for three generations. Her father is from Japan. My mother is of mixed Chinese and Japanese. The two of them run a traditional handmade Japanese pastry shop. I checked and found that this shop is quite famous. Many gourmets have come here for it. High, but business is still pretty good."

Just yesterday, Jin Ben's family received an unnamed courier. When they opened it, they couldn't help being shocked.

It turned out that the envelope contained a dozen or so sneaky photos of Shizuko Kanemoto. In addition, there was a piece of printing paper with a Japanese sentence on it, translated into Chinese: "I will punish you."

The Jinben couple felt very panicked, so they quickly called the police.

Jinben's family lives in a villa area in the suburbs. The decoration style is a traditional Japanese one-family building, a two-story building, and a small parking lot and garden.

Mr. Jin Ben waited at the door early to greet him, and when he saw Wen Baifan and Tang Huanyan get off the car, he immediately bowed.

Wen Baifan was taken aback, and immediately bowed back: "To accuse you Jiwa, Yiye, there is no need for Arigado. This is what we should do, Anadawa, and we don't have to carry everything alone. In this case, just Let the two of us guard it!"

Jin Ben's expression suddenly became indescribable, Tang Huanyan laughed out loud, and introduced the situation of the two of them in fluent Japanese.

Jin Ben smiled slightly, and said in standard Chinese: "The two police officers please."

There is a tall and straight cherry blossom tree growing in the spacious courtyard, because it is only January, there are not even flower buds on the bare tree branches, only a few tender green sprouts can be vaguely seen.

Mr. Kanemoto, who led the way, explained: "This cherry tree is the prototype of the Kanemoto store logo. My father planted it many years ago. Every year in March and April, I use this cherry blossom as a raw material to make desserts. They will be very popular.”

Wen Baifan praised: "Ah, that's great. It's something worth protecting. Anadawa is so elegant and interesting. There is a seesaw specially built under the cherry tree. Children must like it very much."

When mentioning children, Mr. Jin Ben's face showed mixed emotions of worry and helplessness, and he said sincerely: "Two police officers, I will leave that matter to you, we only have such a precious daughter in our family, we must not let her What's wrong with her."

"Again?" Wen Baifan keenly caught the word.

"You talk nonsense!" A clear and sharp voice suddenly sounded from behind, and the three of them stopped and turned around.

I saw a little girl wearing a light green dress standing by the door. She frowned and said with a stubborn face, "I am not the only daughter in our family, I also have a sister."

Tang Huanyan translated this sentence to Wen Baifan in a low voice.

Mr. Jinben sighed softly, and explained to Wen Baifan in a low voice: "Jingzi did have a twin sister named Mirror, who died when she was six years old. Jingzi has been brooding over this matter, and has mental hallucinations , sometimes talking nonsense. No matter how the family explained to her, she couldn't accept the fact that her sister was dead."

"My older sister is not dead." A weird smile that didn't match her age appeared on Shizuko Kanemoto's face, "Besides, she will be back soon."

Xia Yinglan closed all the curtains in the room, turned around and sat back at the computer desk.

In the darkness, the light from the screen shrouded her dazed face.

Xia Yinglan slid the mouse, and a photo of her and her sister appeared on the screen.

Xia Ruolan was wearing a long red dress, with a bright smile on her lipsticked lips, while Xia Yinglan had neat short hair, wearing a light green T-shirt and jeans, with her plain face facing the sky, twitching helplessly at the camera Mouth.

There is no similarity in temperament and attire between the two, but the expression of "I have a big opinion on this guy next to me" in body language and facial expressions is exactly the same.

This photo was sent on Friday, January 1 at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the sender was "sister".Xia Yinglan took a look at the sender's email address, and it was indeed Xia Ruolan's usual email address.

The last communication with this address was seven years ago.

In the last email, Xia Ruolan said that she was going to live in Nancheng for a while, and told her sister not to contact her if she had nothing to do.The reason for her sudden departure was that she fell in love with a man and wanted to be by his side wholeheartedly.

The life experience of the Xia family sisters was quite rough. Their mother owed a huge amount of gambling debts and was unable to repay them. The heavy debts could only be borne by the two sisters.That year, Xia Yinglan had just graduated and found a business job. She got up early and late at night, had irregular meals, and was even so tired that she passed out and was sent to the hospital for IV drip.In order to make money, she takes on many jobs that others are unwilling to do. The overload of work gives people the illusion that she only intends to live to be 30 years old.

And while Xia Yinglan was working hard, Xia Ruolan was still naively pursuing the so-called love, even at the expense of her family, which made Xia Yinglan not feel angry.

Faced with Xia Yinglan's tough questioning in the email, Xia Ruolan laughed at Xia Yinglan's naivety, thinking that with her sister's meager salary, the two sisters would never be able to pay off their debts in this lifetime.

She triumphantly said that she was looking for a very capable man, as long as she could conquer his heart in one fell swoop, the money problem would naturally be solved.

Sure enough, after the unhappy conversation, Xia Ruolan transferred 40 yuan, enough to pay off her mother's gambling debt, to Xia Yinglan's account in less than a month.

Since then, the sisters have never been in touch.

Another year later, Xia Yinglan suddenly received a call from the police, and only then did she know that her sister Xia Ruolan had died unexpectedly.

With trembling hands, Xia Yinglan clicked on yesterday's email again, read every word over and over several times, and made sure that this was the wording and tone that Xia Ruolan was used to, even the idioms she used wrong since childhood were exactly the same.

Isn't she dead? What's going on?Xia Yinglan rubbed her forehead in distress.

"I want to meet you." Xia Yinglan tremblingly tapped on the keyboard.

Click Send.

She let out a weary sigh of relief, sank into the chair, and stared up at the pitch-black ceiling.

Sister, you are finally back.

Mr. Jinben brought up a cherry leaf cake with tea, which immediately attracted everyone's attention.

It is indeed the signature dim sum in Jinbendian. On the smooth and even dark tableware, there is a salted cherry blossom leaf wrapped around the pink glutinous rice dumpling. Bright.

Wen Baifan reached out to pick up the cup, took a sip of the hot tea, raised his eyes slightly, and saw Shizuko Kanemoto, who was sitting opposite him, staring at the dim sum in front of him, frowning, showing a troubled expression.

Wen Baifan asked: "Jingzi, what did you mean when you said that my sister would be back soon?"

Mr. Jinben was in a hurry and almost knocked over the teacup. The ceramics collided with the wooden tea table, making a sound that was not harsh.

Jingzi lowered her head and said nothing, as if she didn't understand Wen Baifan's question at all.

But the reason for this silence is obviously not because of the language barrier, because Mr. Jinben spoke Chinese when he just entered the door, and the little girl's reaction just showed that she could understand.

"You don't need to pay attention to those children's nonsense," Mr. Jin Ben said with a smile, "it's better to focus on the threatening letter. If this matter is not resolved for a day, our whole family will have nothing to do Take it easy."

He took out a stack of photos and pushed them in front of them.

Wen Baifan took it and examined it carefully. The angles of these photos are so ingenious that people are suspicious. The clarity and completeness of the portraits are not like what can be achieved by ordinary tracking and candid technology. It is more like someone standing not far from Jingzi Shoot above board.

Looking down, there are even photos of the bedroom.

"Jingzi's room is on the second floor, and the window is on the side of the bed against the wall." Mr. Jinben gestured with his hand, explaining the weirdness, "Unless you put the camera into the room, there is no way to do it." Take a picture of the situation on the bed."

"Father, why are you nervous?" Jingzi raised her head, with a sarcastic smile on her lips, "I knew this day would come. Don't lie to yourself, no one can do this, except my sister .”

Mr. Jinben closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and the countless reprimands turned into a helpless sigh: "Jingzi, you should grow up..."

Wen Baifan glanced at Tang Huanyan, the latter understood, Wen Yan comforted Jin Ben and changed the subject: "We need to do a more detailed investigation of the situation around the incident, please take us to walk around all the scenes that appeared in Jingzi's photos , let’s start with school, shall we?”

Jin Ben said yes repeatedly.

Wen Baifan smiled lazily and said to Tang Huanyan: "Go alone, I will wait here."

Kanemoto hesitated for a moment, his wife went out and did not return, only Jingzi and the servants were left at home, would it be a problem for Jingzi to warm police officer Baifan alone?

But before he could think of an excuse, Tang Huanyan urged him repeatedly at the door, so he had no choice but to get up and leave.

Wen Baifan chewed his snacks slowly, and looked at Shizuko Kanemoto, who lowered her head again. She was concentrating on rubbing the light green skirt with her index finger and thumb.

"Okay, let's talk about your sister now, anything is fine." Wen Baifan smiled, "I don't know Japanese, so you should speak Chinese."

Jingzi pursed her lips, her eyes became misty.

"My sister, her name is Mirror..."

Mirror and Shizuko are identical twins who look exactly the same, Mirror was born just a few minutes earlier than Shizuko.

In order to be distinguished by their family members, the sisters will have different habit choices. For example, their birthday is January 1, so the lucky number of the mirror is 29, and the lucky number of Shizuko is 1.

They will press a small stamp when they see a page number with a lucky number on the fairy tale book. The stamp of the mirror is red, and Shizuko's stamp is green.

When choosing one of the two, the mirror will generally choose the left one, while Shizuko will choose the right one.

The two sisters like to play pranks. When they were young, their favorite game was to pretend to be each other, and their family members were often deceived by them.

"They all said that my sister is dead, but I don't believe it. I clearly saw that my sister was by my side." Jingzi looked at Wen Baifan with a piercing smile on his face, "Every book I've read , There will be a red mark on the first page. There is also a seesaw under the cherry tree, every year on January 1, on our birthday, it will babble non-stop.”

"It's a bit weird for this family to hide from one hair and roast the other." Wen Baifan put on his seat belt and grabbed the handrail above his head, and then directed Driver Tang, "Let's go to the bar for lunch, the store manager Sama asked us to go Try new dishes——!"

Tang Huanyan slammed on the gas pedal, "At first I thought this intimidation case was just a silly prank, but Mr. Jinben's attitude really made me have no choice but to suspect something. Just now I just asked about Sister Jingzi He subconsciously talked to me about Japanese, although he just avoided the topic and gave no useful information. Hey, tell me, was the death of Kanemoto mirror really an accidental death? ?”

A breeze blew by, and the cherry blossoms on the trees fell like a gentle heavy rain.Seesaws rise and fall one after another, and the giggles of little girls are accompanied by the sound of metal parts colliding. This is the scene that appeared day after day in Shizuko Kanemoto's childhood dreams.

But that day, she waited under the tree for a long time, and the pink petals that were soaked by the overnight rain were piled up at her feet like a swirl.

Later, my father came, holding a plain dessert plate with a solitary sakura leaf cake on it.

He said, "Jingzi, you can finish a plate of dim sum by yourself today."

Jingzi was very happy. After taking a bite, she remembered and asked, "Dad, where is my sister? Why can't I see her all day?"

Jin Ben's eyes flickered, he hesitated for a long time, and then said: "Sister is not here today."

Jingzi resentfully put down the snack with only one bite, and said angrily, "Why?"

"Isn't Shizuko the favorite cherry leaf pancake? Why don't you finish it?" Kanemoto replied irrelevantly, "It's not a good boy's behavior to waste food. You see, mirrors are never wasted."

"Oh." The six-year-old Jingzi had no choice but to eat the sakura leaf biscuits one bite at a time, but when she looked up and saw her father's gloomy expression, she couldn't help frowning in doubt.

One thing, the mother never told Shizuko that Kanemoto was not the sisters' biological father.

This is what Jingzi heard by accident later, and at that time, her sister had passed away for a long time, so long that the name "Kinmoto Mirror" had become a taboo topic that could not be touched in the family.

It is generally believed that it is unlucky to have a mirror facing the bed. In a more traditional view, it is best not to have a mirror in the bedroom.Because the yang energy is weak at night, and the mirror is a feng shui thing that gathers the soul.

This view is not entirely superstitious. Just imagine, a person wakes up from a dream and sits up, feeling like a thunderstorm, suddenly not knowing where he is. In the darkness like blindness, he suddenly sees himself sweating and pale What a terrifying thing to have a face like paper.

This is the situation of Shizuko Kanemoto on countless nights.

Pulled out of the pink dream, and fell into the boundless black abyss in an instant.

Countless times, Shizuko saw that face in that mirror, exactly the same as her own, her sister's face.

She is crying.

Sister is crying.

Cry aloud in the night when no one is around, no one can stop her.

Unlike my mother, every time the tears slowly rolled in the eyes, they would not be able to fall because of my father's obstruction and scolding.

After that incident, the faces of everyone in the family made Shizuko feel strange.

"But, at least, I can still recognize your face."

"elder sister."

Xia Yinglan sat cautiously in the booth, and reluctantly raised her hand and shouted.

The sound of "Knock Knock" footsteps approached from far away, Xia Ruolan walked towards her steadily on her tremblingly slender high heels, exuding an aggressive and glamorous aura all over her body, the short passage from the door to the coffee table The road has attracted a lot of attention.

The two sisters don't look alike at all. Xia Ruolan not only inherited her mother's beauty, but also her frivolous and troublesome personality, while Xia Yinglan looks more like her biological father, with a more rational and calm temperament.

Walking in front of Xia Yinglan, Xia Ruolan flirtatiously took off her sunglasses, turned her face sideways, and sized Xia Yinglan from head to toe.

"The hair is so long. Didn't you have to have short hair before? I asked you to have the same hairstyle as me, and you still made trouble with me." Xia Ruolan sat down gracefully, brushed her hair, and said lazily He raised his eyebrows: "Tell me, what do you want from me?"

Xia Yinglan bit her lower lip lightly, trying to restrain the redundant expression on her face, but a trace of stubbornness appeared in her eyes involuntarily, "You 'died' without saying a word, and now you come back to life inexplicably, don't you Is there anything you need to explain to me?"

Xia Ruolan's beautiful eyes opened slightly, and she said with a smile: "Please, I died accidentally. Do I have to beat the gongs and drums and set up the water table to report to the folks and elders before I die?"

Xia Yinglan stared back at her bitterly, her slightly blue eyes from lack of sleep suddenly turned a little red.

When she was 14 years old, Xia Yinglan accidentally saw her sister walking into a boutique with a boy on the street, and that person was her first love boyfriend who claimed to be in a cram school.

In fact, Xia Yinglan had completely forgotten what that boy looked like, but she still remembered that she got very angry that day and said many unscrupulous words to Xia Ruolan: "I hate you the most, bad woman! Why do you always take everything I like!"

After her anger subsided, Xia Yinglan learned the truth from the boy who had become her ex-boyfriend.It turned out that the two of them just went to the store together to choose a birthday present for themselves that day.

That night, Xia Yinglan returned home nervously and shyly, she hadn't figured out how to apologize to her sister, but the scene before her eyes suddenly went dark.

Xia Ruolan lay motionless on the floor, the sharp blade fell into a pool of blood.

"Sister, wake up... I'm sorry, what I said before was not sincere, please don't leave me... Please..."

Big tears fell down her face, Xia Ruolan couldn't hold back a chuckle, and immediately opened her eyes, "Hahaha! You must have been tricked, you little fool!"

Xia Yinglan wiped away the tears on her face vigorously, turned around angrily and left.

"Okay, just kidding." Xia Ruolan got up from the ground, chased after her sister and coaxed her cheekily, "Don't worry, I won't die easily, even if I die, I will become a ghost by your side I'm watching you, don't be angry, okay?"

In the past few years, in so many chaotic dreams, Xia Yinglan hoped that Xia Ruolan, who had been declared dead, could suddenly open her eyes like that day that year, chasing after her with a smile and calling her a little crying bag.

How she wished that her sister's death was just a bad joke played by fate.

"Why are you... Hey, don't be a rascal." Xia Ruolan clicked her tongue, shook her head, showing a defeated expression, "Okay, okay. Really, I have been like this since I was a child, and I will only cry whenever something happens .”

"No way! Obviously you are the scheming girl who likes to attack tears." Xia Yinglan retorted, with a slight nasal sound in her voice, which seemed pitiful and cute. Dad pretended to be pitiful in front of me, and taught me nonsense things like 'the tears of a beautiful woman are a man's weakness' after entering junior high school."

Xia Ruolan's eyes flashed a look of narrowness: "I regret it now. If I had listened to me at the time, your first love boyfriend would not have been angry with you. Besides, I got half of the snacks I got at that time, okay?" good."

"What, the half you don't like is obviously what you gave me, you hate bean paste stuffing!"

"I don't hate stuffed bean paste. Also, I will lend you clothes."

"Because that's how you can get Dad to buy one for you!"

"Please, I've picked the right size for you!"

"Come on, we're the same size!"

"Ha, you really have the face to say, you are much fatter than me!"

"you!"

"Humph!"

They crossed their arms and turned their heads in opposite directions at the same time. Their expressions and movements were like looking in a mirror, and they complemented each other.

In the end, it was Xia Ruolan who failed first, and burst out laughing. She stretched out her hand and poked Xia Yinglan's swollen face, "Hey, I finally met, don't be angry."

Xia Yinglan couldn't laugh at all, she asked repeatedly in a low voice: "Why did you disappear completely in such an extreme way, you didn't know to come to me, didn't you give birth to a little boy with that doctor? According to the investigation, that man has been raising the child alone... What happened to you, and you had to be separated from him for so many years..."

Xia Ruolan's smile gradually faded, she pondered for a while, as if she was trying to find a topic out of thousands of threads.

After a while, she chuckled lightly, "That child is just a bargaining chip for my freedom, and it's not really a close relationship."

Xia Yinglan's eyes widened suddenly, then she shook her head again, and said softly, "You are not such a person."

"Well, isn't it strange?" Xia Ruolan raised her eyebrows and smiled, but there was a bit of deep sadness in her smile, "It seems that that person hasn't taught you enough lessons, why don't you understand? A selfish and ruthless woman will always have only She herself. It’s only been a few years since she jumped out of the fire pit. You forget that woman is addicted to gambling. As soon as her father dies, she can’t wait to remarry and let us and sisters live in that person’s house. Knowing that the old scum has feelings for her stepdaughter It’s wrong, but she has been pretending to be deaf and dumb.”

Scenes from the past flashed before her eyes, and Xia Yinglan became depressed, tightly twisting the napkin in her hand.

"Tell me, there are really gods in this world, right? If that scumbag hadn't disappeared suddenly back then, I can't imagine what we would be like now. It's a pity that gods can't save everyone, and that woman escaped. It put hundreds of thousands of debts on us."

Xia Ruolan laughed at herself: "Her blood is also flowing in my body, how can you still expect me?"