Chapter 103: A Great Bargain (2/2)

“No, I can’t go,” he refused. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Then explain to us why there is a size 39 shoeprint at the crime scene.”

Jin Baoshan suddenly stood up. “Why should I explain it? There’s a hoard of people in the streets who wear size 39 shoes! Why should I be the one explaining it to you! Those two corpses just somehow ended up in my house, but they have nothing to do with me!”

I smiled. “If you haven’t been to the mansion, then how did you know we found two dead bodies there?”

Jin Baoshan widened his eyes and realized that he said something he shouldn’t have. He admitted that he’d gone to the mansion two days ago and found two dead bodies discarded in his house. He thought if this matter was exposed, not only would his house be devalued, but he might land in hot water with the police too! So he quickly decreased the price and quickly sold it off.

What he said was reasonable, but I found that he was still lying. Thus, I warned him, “Stop covering the truth. Tell us everything, or else you’ll be spending the night in the jail…”

Jin Baoshan bitterly argued, “Everything I said was true, Officer!”

“Then why are your legs shaking? Why are your hands constantly rubbing your knees?”

People who tried to hide the fact that they were lying generally focused on their facial expressions and ignored other body parts, like their hands and feet. This meant that these parts of their body often revealed their guilty conscience.

Jin Baoshan finally relented and told us the truth.

As I expected, he knew the two victims. In the beginning, he bought this mansion due to the last owner’s scam without realizing that it had a bad reputation. The moment he stepped into the house, he quickly understood that it was a haunted house.

He didn’t dare to live in it, yet no one would rent it from him either, so he was in a bind.

Ever since then, this mansion had become a thorn in his flesh. Recently, he found an uncle and nephew who called themselves Haunted House Busters. They claimed that they had dealt with countless haunted houses and were always able to ‘cleanse’ them from evil spirits, making them habitable again!

Although a mansion was considered valuable property, if you owned one that no one would buy, then it was no different from worthless garbage. He decided to give it one last try and paid a hefty fee to the self-proclaimed Haunted House Busters to ‘cleanse’ the house.

Besides, they seemed reliable since they talked about feng shui, magnetic fields, spiritual energy, and all those things. In the end, they offered to stay at the mansion for a few nights.

The first few nights were fine, but on the fourth morning, the two men did not call Jin Baoshan as usual. He went to the mansion to check on them, but all he saw was the same thing we witnessed that night—two charred bodies.

He went into panic for a while, but once he calmed down, he decided that their deaths must not be reported to the police. The minute this case was leaked to the public, his mansion was finished. He lowered the price to a third of the original, and in no time at all, he found a buyer.

Everything he said was true, but I felt like something was still missing.

“Who is the buyer?” I asked.

“His name is Ren Facai, a Wenzhou native. He intends to settle down in Nanjiang City permanently.” Jin Baoshan replied without thinking.

“What does he look like?”

“He’s a fat man with white skin,” Jin Baoshan described. “He’s got a scar on his face.”

“Do you have his photo?”

“No.” Jin Baoshan shook his head.

“What about the contract?” I asked.

“The contract is locked in a safe at my house. If you want to see it, you’ll have to wait for me to go home after work.” Jin Baoshan glanced at his watch.

“But didn’t the buyer ever go see the mansion after he buying it? He’d be in for a surprise if he found the ‘freebies’ you left for him inside!” I sneered.

Jin Baoshan scratched his head and said that Ren Facai had long taken a fancy to his house, but he claimed that it was a haunted house, so he tried to cut the price very low. Jin Baoshan disagreed at first, and they never contacted each other again. Bizarrely, after his discovery of the two dead bodies, Ren Facai contacted him again and asked about the mansion. Because he was desperate, Jin Baoshan agreed to sell it at the criminally low price of 500,000 yuan.

“Half a million?” I exclaimed. If I wasn’t mistaken, Jin Baoshan even paid 20,000 yuan to the real estate agency! It was an all-round terrible deal for the man!

Jin Baoshan awkwardly added, “I lied to you earlier to save my ego! Who would ever sell a two-story mansion for half a million yuan? It’s crazy, but I was desperate…”

My suspicions fell squarely on this shady buyer. He might just be the one who caused the deaths of the two Haunted House Busters!

Previous ChapterNext Chapte