Chapter 2 - The Murderer Died Before Murdering Anybody

According to our plan, Guo Jiangyin was supposed to strangle Han Shaoqing, then use Han Shaoqing’s room key to lock the door from the outside. I would take the key from Guo Jiangyin, sneak into the room unnoticed, then shift the body from the balcony to the bedroom to make it look like a suicide, leave the key behind and lock the door from the inside before leaving.

The whole plan was extremely detailed but we hadn’t confirmed when to do it, since choosing a time to kill someone was a science in itself. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait for too long.

I received a message from Guo Jiangyin. There was nothing but a time and date stated in the message: 20 October, 11pm.

This message was to inform me of what time I should be going to her place to get the key from her. I assumed she was going to do the deed in the afternoon of the same day. I even checked the calendar and saw that the 20th was a Saturday. Neither of us worked weekends, so killing Han Shaoqing on Saturday and having all of Sunday to make it look like a suicide was definitely a good choice.

I was anxious all week and Saturday finally rolled around. I was quite sure that Guo Jiangyin had managed to pull it off, otherwise she would have sent me a message by now. At 10.30pm, I left my place for Guo Jiangyin’s.

Unlike Han Shaoqing, Guo Jiangyin lived in her own rented apartment instead of the company dorm. It was exactly 11pm when I arrived at Guo Jiangyin’s apartment. I walked to the staircase, went up to the fourth floor, walked to the end of the corridor and number 408 was on my left.

I was about to knock on the door when I suddenly realized that the door was ajar. I was a little shocked at first, but soon figured out why Guo Jiangyin had left her door like this. She must have been afraid that my knocking might attract the attention of her neighbors, so leaving the door ajar made it easier for me to slip in silently. I applauded Guo Jiangyin’s careful thinking in my heart, then quietly entered the apartment.

When I walked in, I realized that the entire apartment was dark. Perhaps she left the lights off so that others would think that she was asleep or something, I thought. So I continued feeling my way in the dark. But just two steps later, I kicked into something and it went thud, as if I had knocked something over.

I got a fright and froze for a moment. A few seconds later, I calmed back down and took my phone out to use it as a flashlight. It turned out that several unopened bottles of mineral water had been placed along the wall by the door and I had kicked into one of them.

When I looked closely at the bottles, I realized that this was the exact brand that Han Shaoqing normally drank. Then I recalled one of Guo Jiangyin’s initial murder plans.

It didn’t take a genius to conclude that Guo Jiangyin had intended to inject poison into these bottles.

I slowly raised my phone and continued to find my way around.

Then, I saw Guo Jiangyin standing in the middle of the living room with her back towards me.

I breathed a sigh of relief and walked towards her as I whispered, “Hey, how did it go? Did everything go smoothly?”

There was no reply.

“Did you get the key?”

Still no reply.

“Are you listening to me? Say something!”

No answer.

“Are you alright? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Radio silence.

Her back was still facing me and not only did she fail to respond, but she also wasn’t moving.

An uneasy feeling spread across my body and I walked quickly towards her. But when I came closer, I suddenly felt like she seemed a little taller than usual.

I soon realized why. She was taller than usual because her feet weren’t on the floor. Her entire body was suspended midair.

I had to admit that I was too stunned for words. It was only when the moonlight shone onto Guo Jiangyin’s face through the window that I finally came to terms with reality. Guo Jiangyin was dead.

I was very sure she had been strangled to death. This wasn’t a suicide for sure.

My first thought was that when Guo Jiangyin tried to strangle Han Shaoqing, Han Shaoqing managed to fight back and ended up strangling Guo Jiangyin instead.

But I quickly realized that this scenario wasn’t possible because Guo Jiangyin’s plan was to kill Han Shaoqing in her dorm room. In other words, if Guo Jiangyin had really been strangled by Han Shaoqing instead, Guo Jiangyin’s body should have been found in Han Shaoqing’s room and not in her own house. And even if Han Shaoqing murdered Guo Jiangyin and wanted to move her body elsewhere, she wouldn’t have risked moving Guo Jiangyin all the way back to her own home.

Even though I had no clue as to how Guo Jiangyin could have died, I knew one thing for sure – the murderer had died before she had murdered anybody! As her accomplice, I didn’t have to bear the crime of killing anybody and my secret of being a middleman was also safe. I could get away without being implicated at all. Wasn’t that a good thing?

My heart was filled with glee and even though my partner in crime had died, I didn’t feel any grief.

Since that was the case, I had to leave right now. I came in silence, so I was going to leave in silence. But when I got to the door and was about to open the door to leave, I suddenly heard a flurry of footsteps coming down the corridor outside.

I had a bad feeling about this. Could it be…the police?

Speak of the devil. The minute I thought of that, the police pushed the door open and came into the apartment.

I stood in shock at the door, then wondered, would they mistake me as the murderer?

Just when I thought of this possibility, a police officer seemed to have read my mind and barked at me, “Don’t move! Raise your hands!”