The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

He could feel even the fine hairs on his body rise on their ends.

As if he had suddenly dropped into a freezer, the surrounding temperature suddenly dropped. The sinister air concentrated around them.

The woman’s figure had only materialised in that instant, and in a blink of an eye, disappeared again.

“Get out of the way!” Yu Xia noticed something was not quite right and he immediately grabbed the two completely stupefied brats and tossed them towards the back.

Yu Yin quickly snapped out of it and heard something metallic peeling off. Then, he saw an object drop down from above, crashing down onto the floor with a bang.

The brick on the wall had just fallen off and dropped right where they had previously been standing, nearly hitting them. If his uncle had not pushed them away at the last minute, Yu Yin and Yu probably would have been struck.

What shocked Yu Yin more was that the anti-theft iron wires above the wall seemed to be twisting oddly, as if they were being forcefully pressed down on by something. The pressure distorted it, forcing it to snap, and the glass shards embedded in the cement began to quiver. Several pieces had already fallen out.

Is the ziploc bag really that important?

The gurgling sound was getting louder and louder. The woman crouching on the pile of junk began to roar out in a threatening tone of banishment.

The first iron wire broke off and floated in the air, dangerously waving about. The ice-cold refraction from the glass shards began to shift as well.

“What is this….” Yu Yin pushed Yu back towards the entrance of the alley, forcing him out of the area’s perimeter first. Yu Yin hadn’t imagined that this “thing” would have such a fierce reaction. It seemed as if it really did not want them to smoothly retrieve that ziploc bag.

Knowing that the situation was very dangerous, Yu quickly ran outside first and anxiously waited for them to come out as well.

“Hmph!” Yu Xia used the back of his hand to wipe away the blood dripping down his face and narrowed his eyes at the little corner sticking out from under the pile.

Noticing the bad circumstances, Yu Yin quickly restrained Yu Xia, who still seemed bent on going in.

He dragged the both of them backwards. “Uncle, let’s get out first!” It seemed as if that woman was already planning on charging over. If she did, they definitely would not get away with something as simple as a bleeding ear.

After taking a step back, Yu Xia’s sharp hearing caught an unusual sound coming from the direction of the entrance. Almost completely reflexively, he grabbed the side of Yu Yin’s head and kicked him down onto the ground.

The instant Yu Yin tumbled down, the snapped iron wire shot out and slammed down where he had just been standing, brushing against Yu Xia’s face and leaving a thin, bleeding cut.

“Goddamn…you could’ve just told me to dodge…” Yu Yin gripped his pained head from where he had fallen on the ground. He suddenly felt that his uncle was actually much scarier than this powerful ghost. If he wasn’t careful, he might end up getting beaten to death by his own family member using dangerous ways to make him dodge before he died from the opponent’s attacks. Before he could finish complaining, a piece of glass fell not even five centimeters from where he was.

Not daring to speak anymore, Yu Yin stood up while clutching his head. There were now both an iron wire and glass shards in front and in back of them, which made it hard for them to move either way. This was especially true for the two grown men crammed inside a not very large alley, which gave them even less space to dodge about.

With a boom, one of the glass pieces on the wall mysteriously blew up, the dust exploding all over the wall. Following that was a second piece, then a third piece, and the explosions began to near where they stood.

Yu Xia took off his windbreaker and dumped it on top of Yu Yin’s head, then powerfully kicked him from behind.

Completely not expecting his uncle to suddenly act like this without saying anything, all Yu Yin saw was his vision go dark before his entire body was sent flying out of the alley, as he crashed miserably onto his face outside. Because of the jacket on his head, he did not get scratched by any of the glass shards or iron wires that had fallen. Yu, who had been standing outside, immediately dragged the person that had been kicked out backwards.

“Hey, Unc—”

Yu Yin immediately crawled up and pulled away the jacket to see the person still in the alley knock the flying glass shards away with one hand, without caring whether he was cut or not. His other hand pulled out something that was far from reassuring, and even dispersed any sense of security.

An extremely loud explosive sound shattered the quiet street like the firing of a canon, interrupting Yu Yin’s shouts.

Before a blink of the eye, Yu Xia directly let loose a second gunshot at empty air.

In that moment, Yu Yin truly saw it. The “thing” that had originally been threatening them was so frightened that its face and body twisted into a giant ball. The second gunshot made it shriek, and then following the subsequent, continuous gunshots, it leapt straight behind the wall and vanished.

It didn’t leave a single, ghostly trace behind.

The iron wires and glass shards that had been moving about on the walls instantly stopped as if their lifeline had just been cut. The fallen pieces on the ground were the same. They refracted the light from the streetlamps outside the corner, while the iron wires that had been swaying in mid-air also slowly stopped.

With seconds, everything returned to its original peaceful state.

Yu Xia had only fired empty shots.

“Hmph, I really don’t want to write a report.” Would be better to just muddle through it like this. After the gun cooled off and Yu Xia was about to return it to the holster in his clothes, he raised his head and just happened to see the two people staring at him with dumbfounded expressions. “What are you looking at!”

After staring blankly for a long time, Yu Yin finally managed to re-summon the soul that had flown out of his body and swallowed hard. He then looked around; that thing really had disappeared completely without a trace.

Firing a gun is even more effective than an amulet?

Without caring about whether he’d frightened their souls out of their bodies or not, Yu Xia walked straight to the end of the alley and pushed the junk away. Finally, a ziploc bag about the size of his palm appeared from underneath. Inside it were a few ants that had not fled in time and some capsules. One of the capsules had already broken in half, whether it was because it had dissolved or whether because the ants had eaten it, revealing something yellow-brown inside.

“Peanut butter.”

Yu Xia looked at the ziploc bag and coldly spit out these two words.

He still remembered that the weight loss pills he had seen during their first inspection of the seventh floor were identical to the ones in the ziploc bag that he was now holding. And as chance had it, the one to first start giving the weight loss pills to Lai Qi Lin was Xu Ru Xian.

That night, Xu Ru Xian had gone to the seventh floor.

“So it was eaten like this.” The corners of Yu Xia’s mouth curled up as he pulled out a bag from his pocket to place the ziploc bag inside. He then walked out of the alley.

As soon as he saw Yu Xia walk out, Yu Yin immediately ran over to meet him, having just managed to regain his calm with much difficulty. “Uncle, do you want to stop by the hospital first?” The person possessing that hateful baby face in front of him had at least three wounds. Although they were mostly scrapes, those iron wires and glass shards were old and probably extremely filthy. If the wounds weren’t disinfected first, they could possibly become infected.

“The station has disinfectant alcohol.” Yu Xia walked back to his motorbike, not caring about the wounds at all. He took out his phone and called his unit to give them instructions. Then he got back onto his vehicle.

“You’ll get yelled at by Dad!” Go back and rub some disinfectant alcohol on, huh…Yu Yin was absolutely certain that after only disinfecting halfway, the identical twin would charge in and distract him, then drag the person to a nearby hospital to get treated.

No, he might charge in before Uncle even gets halfway.

Yu Xia glanced at him and said, “We’ll talk about it later. You two go on and scram home first.” As soon as he said this, he wore his helmet and after grabbing his windbreaker back and putting it on, started the engine and drove away.

Only after seeing the vehicle disappear off into the horizon did Yu Yin tear his gaze away.

He thought: If there is an intelligence network in the underground, Uncle is definitely listed on the top black list for people that should not be provoked.

He’s way too terrifying.

***

It was so silent that it felt as if the air had frozen.

Yu Yin sighed. “Ah, let’s go home,” he said while patting Yu’s shoulder.

Yu raised his head to look at Yu Yin and bit his lip while looking down at his own left hand.

When Yu Yin’s gaze followed downwards, he nearly cursed at what he saw.

He had thought tonight had been chaotic enough already. All he wanted to do was to go home and get some good sleep, and then forget everything that had happened. That would be better for his mental health. Yet why did these things keep refusing to let them go?

A small, pale white hand was currently gripped around one of Yu’s left fingers.

The arm stretched out from behind Yu. The area around the shoulders was dark, and it was impossible to really see the other body parts.

“Please…can you just come back tomorrow…” Yu Yin looked at the hand and requested in anguish.

He wasn’t sure if the other party had understood his words or what, but the hand let go of Yu for whatever reason and slowly retreated backwards until it completely vanished from sight.

No way, is it actually going to come back tomorrow?

After Yu Yin watched the hand disappear, he suddenly realised that he should have asked it to get lost instead of asking it to come back tomorrow.

Is it really that easy to communicate with them?

He was shocked; to think that they could communicate in such a way was too bizarre.

After being released, Yu hurriedly shook off his hand and immediately moved a distance away from his original spot. After calming down, he automatically walked over to the motorbike and sat on it.

Yu Yin stared off in the direction of that building in silence.

The woman was still standing on the seventh floor, swaying back and forth while looking at them. He didn’t know what exactly she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. Perhaps she was just waiting for her family to bring her back.

Because he could see them, he knew that most spirits involved in incidents would mostly stay in their original location. For some unknown reason, they very rarely left. Since Yu Yin had no desire to really get into this field, he never thought about it much. He only needed to know the basics anyways, as that was enough to avoid the random things everywhere.

After all, they were living in different worlds.

Yu Yin heard some commotion on the nearby streets. He guessed that the two gunshots just now had drawn the attention of the nearby residents.

He could also vaguely hear what sounded like police sirens.

“That damn…he didn’t even call us to give a warning about there being cops nearby.” As Yu Yin grumbled about the guy who had just gone straight back to work, he quickly jumped onto his bike and left the scene as fast as possible.

Otherwise, if they got caught later, he had no idea how to explain.

When Yu Yin took one last, backwards glance, he saw the figure of a child disappearing at the end of the street.

***

“What did you guys do to my computer?”

After being tormented all day, Yu Tong finally returned to his desk. Although it had clearly been normal when he’d left that morning, the computer was now anything but normal after returning at night, and he immediately asked this question.

He had only gone out to finish everything that needed to be done…

Yet why were there now a bunch of random charms stuck all over his desktop? The main processor was wrapped with yellow cloth with messily handwritten characters sprawled across it, and also covered by a large garbage bag tied securely with a plastic zipties. There was also a large piece of paper stuck on the very top with the words: “Danger, do not touch”.

Did I recently offend somebody at the station?

Oh, no. Had he and Xia offended anybody? There weren’t many opportunities for him to, but perhaps a criminal that Xia had disciplined before was letting out their anger on Yu Tong.

Or is it April Fool’s already?

One of his colleagues next to him coughed. “Jiu Shen said he saw a paranormal photo on your computer in the afternoon. He said that based on whatever beliefs, he needed to quickly burn it, so he originally wanted to set your main processor on fire.” Luckily, they had stopped him in time. Otherwise, they would have had tons of difficulty with just trying to explain the situation and request a new one from purchasing department.

What was even more frightening was that if Jiu Shen had burned the main processor, there was a 99% chance that someone named Yu Xia would have taken out his anger on them. They had already thought up their criminal charge: either “not trying their best to protect it” or “conspiring the crime together”, something along those lines. Then, they would definitely get buried together with Jiu Shen. It was very fortunate that they had managed to stop Jiu Shen from setting the main processor ablaze.

The following result was the computer being treated like this with a pile of random items that Jiu Shen had gotten from somewhere.

“I see.” Yu Tong looked at the desktop, knowing that it had not been burned. Jiu Shen, who was cowardly in certain aspects, had definitely been afraid of Yu Tong returning to his seat and getting cursed. That had been why he had compromised by using this kind of method.

Actually, Jiu Shen was a pretty decent coworker that thought a lot about others’ safeties.

As Yu Tong thought this, he slowly ripped off the amulets and charms, tossing them all into the trash can. Once the area was clean again, he restarted his computer. Immediately, the image of the launching screen appeared.

Luckily, Jiu Shen had not thought to purify all the photos in the network drive under the sun. Otherwise, their information could have possibly sublimated under its light.

After the computer finished turning on, he turned on the scanner to copy and transfer all the photos from today into the database. At this moment, a loud sound of hurried footsteps could be heard from outside, accompanied by a few stunned shouts from some investigation officers passing by.

Under normal circumstances, Yu Tong would have ignored it. However, the instant he heard something along the lines of “Boss, hurry up and get treated”, he directly abandoned his work and walked over to the working area.

As soon as Yu Xia had returned, he had charged straight to the investigation group. Because it was past working hours, there weren’t many people. Only Jiu Shen and a handful of other coworkers that were working overtime were still there. They were chatting with cup noodles in their hands while on their way towards the resting room to get some hot water.

“Boss? What happened to you?”

Jiu Shen could see the many wounds on Yu Xia’s body even from far away. He tossed his cup noodles to one side and immediately ran forwards in concern. “Didn’t you say you were just going to grab the ziploc bag? Don’t tell me you were punished by something?” His boss’s appearance was terrifying. There were still traces of dried blackish-red blood. As Yu Xia walked through, all the officers stopped to stare at him.

Does that mean summoning Ah Yin over there wasn’t enough to avoid the disaster?

“What thing?” Yu Xia narrowed his eyes and completely ignored all the onlooking shocked expressions. He forcefully dumped the thing in his hands onto the person in front of him. “I brought the ziploc bag back. Go get it tested.”

“Ah?” Jiu Shen scrambled to catch the thing that had just been tossed at his face without warning. When he peered at it, he noticed the familiar capsules inside. “Weight loss pills?” He obviously recognised them, since he had tested the ones retrieved from Lai Qi Lin’s home before. But those previous test results had just shown it to be normal weight loss medicine. They had only been a slightly stronger dose that acted as a deathly strong laxative. Aside from that, there hadn’t been any abnormalities.

The person in front of him did not utter a word. Jiu Shen wiped away his cold sweat and examined the item more closely. Then, he saw the yellow-brown thing inside. “Peanut butter?” Stuffed inside the capsules?

Yu Xia nodded. “Check the fingerprints on the ziploc bag. If Xu Ru Xian’s are on there, then we can confirm that she killed Lai Qi Lin.”

She had been forced into the alley that day, originally wanting to toss the evidence because the moment the police knew Lai Qi Lin’s death had been due to an allergy, they definitely would come looking for her. Thus, she had tossed the item there.

But she hadn’t imagined that she would meet her own death there, and the ziploc bag became her secret after death. She did not want anyone to discover it, so she had remained guard there, attacking probably anyone with the intent of approaching it.

“I understand.” Jiu Shen held the small bag tightly and ran straight to the working area with a trail of smoke behind him.

Seeing their colleague get back to work, his two companions grabbed his cup noodles to help cook them for him.

After tossing the item, Yu Xia noticed that the wound on his ear had at some point started to hurt and was bleeding non-stop. The dried-up traces sticking on his face and neck were a bit itchy as well. In addition, the scrapes from the iron wire and glass that were all over his body had begun to swell up a bit too. After thinking it over, he decided to head back to the office first to disinfect the injuries.

“Xia?”

As soon as Yu Xia heard the deep and quiet voice from behind him, he instantly knew the situation was not good.

Yu Tong was slowly approaching him with narrowed eyes, having followed him from behind.

He then scanned Yu Xia up and down, left and right. Finally, he slowly opened his mouth. “Don’t tell me you were just thinking of grabbing a bottle of disinfectant to give those a wipe?”

He guessed right!

Yu Xia turned his head away. “It’s not like their serious injuries or anything.” Small scrapes will get better by themselves anyways, with or without medicine.

“How many times do I need to tell you, don’t just grab some disinfectant or alcohol whenever you get injured…you didn’t even get the correct one last time, you got industry ethanol instead! You can clearly just go out and turn right to get the wounds dressed at the small hospital there, or even find Ah Si and ask him to do it for you. Do my words just go in through one ear and out the other for you?” Yu Tong smiled and patted his brother’s shoulder as he spoke in a tone that one usually spoke to young children with.

He’s furious.

Having lived together for over thirty years, Yu Xia instantly knew from his brother’s manner that his mood was definitely not good for him to continue smiling. “These are all minor scrapes, no need to fuss over nothing.” At least, wiping it with alcohol in the past had been fine, at most it would just hurt a bit. “Plus, I didn’t end up using the industry ethanol in the end.”

“That’s because Jiu Shen noticed before you could use it, and he stopped you.” Apparently, Yu Xia had been looking through documents while grabbing the industry ethanol and twisting it open to directly pour onto his injuries. Luckily, Jiu Shen had caught sight of it through the corner of his eye from where he had been working nearby and had forcefully grabbed the bottle from him. Otherwise, Yu Tong was certain that his twin brother would have been sent to the hospital.

“Hmph!”

As Yu Tong scolded him for the dissatisfied grunt, he dragged his younger twin outside.

As soon as the onlookers in the hallway saw the brothers heading out, they dispersed in confusion.

“Being pulled like this is very unsightly, you know.” Yu Xia furrowed his brows in protest as he tried to free his hand.

“If you know it’s unsightly than you should have just properly done the right thing!”

“…Hmph.”

***

In order to prevent those little ghosts from directly barging into his home again, Yu Yin woke up earlier than usual the next day and did not laze around in bed as he typically did. Before it was even 8 AM, he went straight down to start preparing his things.

Since every time when he went in the late afternoon or evening he would get scared, he decided he would make a beeline over there first thing this morning while it was still very bright outside. After all, those things should avoid sunlight more, plus it limited their ability to frighten people. Then he wouldn’t be so mentally weak after having been terrified by them for several days in a row.

As soon as he went downstairs, the first thing he smelled was a sweet aroma that carried a mixture of scents including milk, flour, and sugar.

Based on Yu Yin’s experience, his father, who was a huge health advocate, wouldn’t possibly make a sweet dessert this early during the day—

“Hello, Ah Yu-Gēgē, you’re awake?”

As soon as he heard the tone carrying a doting lilt at the end of those words, Yu Yin’s head began to hurt. At the same time, his mind completely cleared without a trace of sleepiness.

“What are you doing in my home?!” This girl actually invaded my house! And the kitchen, to boot!

“Making breakfast~ When I got here just now, Ah Yu said that your family members weren’t back yet. He was just about to go out and buy breakfast, so I offered to make it for you guys instead~” Fang Yi Xun opened her palms to show the fresh greens she was preparing. “Pancakes~ Do you want cocoa or milk? Drinking coffee first thing in the morning isn’t very good. Or maybe you want to have some soup? I think that would be best. Your kitchen has so much stuff and it’s so well-organised. I would’ve never imagined a home filled with males to be this tidy. Moreover, it’s pretty big and comfortable. My kitchen is pretty much half this size; only one person can use it at a time.”

That’s because this place has my dad, who loves cleaning and cooking…

“You can cook?” Yu Yin was somewhat surprised by her unhesitant actions. A lot of girls these days weren’t skilled at culinary arts, including quite a few of his classmates. Being able to make a whole serving of fried rice without burning it was already worthy of applause.

Fang Yi Xun smiled sweetly. “All females in my family have to learn how to cook. That way, if a man is ever picky with his food, we can tell him to cook it himself without letting him go out to buy it. That would give him a taste of retribution for daring to fucking complain when he can’t cook.”

“…You just cursed.” Yu Yin was dumbfounded at the fact that he had clearly heard the word “fucking” just now.

“Ah, a slip of the tongue.” Fang Yi Xun had absolutely no trace of regret. She circled back to the kitchen counter and said, “Because Ah Yu said I can trust you, I’ve stopped pretending to be a good girl.”

“I’m so very grateful that I’ve managed to gain your trust. But I find it difficult to be happy about that.” Why is it that all the girls I know that are slightly better-looking have this crazy personality…

Yu Yin was starting to feel a bit depressed. Fang Yi Xun fried the pancakes skillfully and prepared a salad. She then started heating a small pot to cook some soup. “Ah…don’t feel too sad. People are usually like that. When you’re at home and in front of your own family, you’d definitely act differently than with strangers. And I’m still a child, so I’m more willful. I’ll be fine once we get to know each other better.”

Her words weren’t actually wrong, but they were hard to adapt to.

Yu Yin sighed and walked out of the kitchen. Yu was rolled up on the living room couch, having been watching the TV for a while now. He lifted his head to glance at Yu Yin before refocusing on the English educational program.

“What did she come here for?” Since the adults weren’t here, that meant Yu, who had woken up earlier, had definitely opened the door. Yu Yin sat down on the other end of the sofa.

Yu picked up the notebook next to his side and wrote something down. He turned to show it to Yu Yin: “Asking about new vocabulary in her homework.”

“Oh.” Knowing how advanced Yu’s English was, Yu Yin did not continue asking anymore questions after receiving his answer. Instead, he took out that photo that he had borrowed.

He had been thinking about it for a long time last night but could not figure out why he had wanted to borrow it even after racking his brains.

The two beautiful women in the photo smiling prettily were now figures of the past.

If they were still alive with this fragmented relationship…they probably wouldn’t be smiling like this? But it’s impossible to predict things in this world. Sometimes, living on is the only way something good can happen.

“Sigh, exactly what happened for things to have turned out this way?” Since Yu Yin couldn’t figure out the reason why from this photo alone, he figured that he might as well return it later.

“Oh~ Is that your girlfriend?”

The question was suddenly asked from behind him. Yu Yin was momentarily taken aback before he then quickly hid the photo. “What are you peeking at!”

Fang Yi Xun was carrying a large plate of pancakes and salad. She circled around in front to place the food down before saying, “If you hold it that high, of course I’d see it. Is that your girlfriend? Why do you have two at once? Were you legitimately allowed to two-time?” University girls these days are surprisingly flexible.

“Two-timing, my ass. I don’t know either of them.”

It would be scarier if I did. One was extremely quiet, the other was fierce. They were two different types, but both had threatened him to some extent, so he would rather die than become acquainted with them.

“I see, then are they a couple?”

Yu Yin was shocked. He stared blankly at the girl currently arranging the food and asked, “What did you just say?”

Fang Yi Xun bent over to grab the photo in his hand. “See, isn’t one of them hugging the other? And she seems to be staring at her pretty intimately. The closer I look, the more I think they’re dating. Or am I mistaken? Weird…my intuition is typically pretty accurate.”

“No, explain again.” Yu Yin narrowed his eyes as he suddenly felt chills go down his spine.

Maybe they had overlooked another secret.

Yu had already turned his attention over to them as well and had even shut off the TV.

Fang Yi Xun blinked her large, pretty eyes and tilted her head. “This one…” She pointed at Xu Ru Xian in the photo. “Don’t you think she’s looking at the other girl pretty intimately? My classmates would never look at me like that no matter how close we were. Moreover, she’s completely hugging her. It seems like she really likes the other girl, which was why I thought they might be dating. This kind of thing isn’t really that big of a deal, you know. If you’re their friend, you should properly support them. It’s not like it’s anything bad—ah!”

Yu Yin abruptly stood up, startling Fang Yi Xun before she could finish speaking.

The other photos Yu Tong had showed him earlier popped up in his mind. He still remembered that the pair’s mannerisms in those photos were indeed too passionate, hugging each other intimately all the time. But as soon as a male was there, Xu Ru Xian would only stare at him.

He had thought that Xu Ru Xian had harbored feelings for Xie Jun Wei.

…They might have been mistaken.