Good and Evil Chapter 103: The Two-Way Locked Room Murder Case

"He was given strong wine to drink, and together they were locked in a secret room." — *Book of Jin: Biographies of the Arts, Kumarajiva.*

A "locked-room murder" generally refers to a homicide occurring in a space from which no one can enter or exit. The core of such a trick lies in how the murderer escapes, or how they exploit the blind spots of the observer to make the killer vanish.

Ning Yanran recounted a case to Xu Lang that the Second Criminal Investigation Team had received two days prior.

Two days earlier, the Public Security Bureau received a report that a body had been discovered in an abandoned warehouse on Caihua Road in the East District. Hearing the word "body," Ning Yanran sensed trouble. She immediately led her team to the scene to conduct an investigation.

It was a derelict warehouse with no windows, accessible only through a single locked door. Inside, lying on a large *kang* (a platform bed) built of wood and bricks, was a corpse. The victim was a man in his forties, dressed in ordinary clothes. His head had been struck by an external object, leaving his face unrecognizable. Upon their arrival, Ning and her team performed a preliminary examination and found that the body was already rigid.

Initial forensics indicated that the victim died late the previous night. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, resulting in fatal cranial injuries.

At the scene, the police discovered not only the body but also a blood-stained brick. Furthermore, they found two suspects: Zhu Hongfang, a forty-eight-year-old worker at a nearby machinery plant, and Yang Xuewen, a forty-three-year-old owner of a small local restaurant. Neither of them knew the victim, nor did they know each other; it was their first meeting.

They were the ones who discovered the body, though the person who actually alerted the police was Liu Maocai, the security captain in charge of the warehouse area, who had arrived with Zhu Hongfang’s wife, Qin Yumei.

Beyond the unidentified victim, there were four people present at the scene. After forensic expert Ye Xuefei completed an initial inspection, Ning Yanran ordered the body and the four individuals to be taken to the Public Security Bureau.

The warehouse was part of an old factory that had gone bankrupt two years prior. It was rarely visited; there was nothing to see inside except rusted machinery, from which all removable parts had been scavenged long ago. Anything of value had been picked clean by scavengers or petty thieves.

The police began by interrogating Zhu Hongfang and Yang Xuewen.

According to the two men, upon returning home from work the previous evening, each had found a note at their doorstep. The notes claimed that the sender had several cases of high-proof homemade liquor for sale at a low price, instructing them to come to the abandoned factory if they were interested in making a deal.

Yang Xuewen, running a small restaurant, frequently dealt with alcohol. His customers often asked for high-proof homemade spirits, which were cheaper than commercial brands. He had previously sourced such liquor from rural areas, but supply was inconsistent. He had recently spent days traveling over a hundred miles to several villages near S City, only to secure a few dozen pounds of the sought-after brew. When he found the note offering cases of the stuff, he was ecstatic and went to the factory without a second thought.

When the investigating officer asked about the note, Yang looked mournful. "I threw it away immediately after reading it. I have no idea where it is now." The officers exchanged bewildered glances.

Zhu Hongfang had worked at a nearby machinery plant for nearly twenty years. His only hobby was drinking—specifically, high-proof, grain-distilled liquor. He avoided synthetic alcohol. He confessed that while his drinking had caused minor work issues in the past, he had since limited his consumption to after-hours.

Zhu’s reason for being at the warehouse was identical to Yang’s: he had found a similar note at his door the previous night. Upon reading it, he had mentioned it to his wife, Qin Yumei. When the police asked for the note, he said he had left it at home. However, when they asked Qin Yumei, she revealed that she had used the crucial piece of evidence as kindling for the gas stove.

After clarifying why they were there, the police asked what happened upon their arrival.

Zhu and Yang had arrived separately. Zhu arrived first, shortly after 8:00 PM. Finding the factory pitch-black, he felt uneasy. Suddenly, a handkerchief was pressed over his mouth, and he lost consciousness.

Yang arrived after 9:00 PM, his restaurant having closed for the night. He experienced the same fate: upon entering the dark factory, he was ambushed, his mouth covered by a cloth, and he was knocked unconscious.

When they woke up, they were in the warehouse. There was a third man there, who called himself Shen Jun. After talking, they realized they had all been lured by the same notes. They waited for hours, but the sender never appeared. It was well past midnight when they finally decided to leave, only to discover that someone had locked the door from the outside.

Panic set in. They shouted for help, abandoning all thoughts of the liquor.

The police had thoroughly inspected the warehouse: there was only the single door. No other exits existed. If Zhu and Yang were telling the truth, they had been trapped in a sealed, "locked-room" environment.

Because they had come only to inspect goods, they carried no cell phones or flashlights. The warehouse was in total darkness.

After shouting to no avail, the three men sat on the brick *kang*. They were hungry and terrified. As the night wore on, Shen Jun began to act strangely. He became agitated, muttering that someone was out to kill him.

Zhu and Yang calmed him down, but just as they were about to ask what he meant, they heard a noise outside.

After the initial fright, they regained their composure. They fumbled their way to the door, found the latch, and locked it from the inside. To be safe, they propped the door with a wooden beam and picked up a brick for protection.

Exhausted and starving, the three men fell asleep on the *kang*. Zhu later claimed that while he was drifting in and out of consciousness, he felt someone touch his feet, but he was too groggy to open his eyes.

Based on the testimonies, the police identified the man named Shen Jun as the victim. They were trapped in a "one-way" locked room, which became a "two-way" locked room when they barricaded the door from the inside. There was no fourth person inside.

The police turned their focus to Zhu and Yang, prompted by the accounts of the security guard, Liu Maocai, and Qin Yumei.

Qin Yumei, a forty-five-year-old woman with little formal education, had grown worried when her husband did not return home. After confirming with his coworkers that he had not shown up for his shift, she went to the factory to find him. There, she ran into Liu Maocai, the security captain.

Following the trail of fresh footprints, they found the warehouse. Liu called out, waking Zhu and Yang. The two men scrambled up, removed the wooden beam, and tried the door, only to find it locked from the outside. Liu used a pair of pliers to cut the wire securing the door.

When the door opened, Liu and Qin were stunned. Zhu and Yang were covered in blood spatter.

"Are you injured?" Qin asked, seeing the blood on her husband.

Zhu and Yang looked down, shocked. They checked themselves and realized they were unharmed. They looked at each other, their hearts sinking as they remembered Shen Jun.

They returned to the *kang*. A foul, metallic stench filled the air. Shen Jun lay there, his head smashed in, his body cold. A blood-stained brick lay on the floor.

Zhu and Yang were left paralyzed by the sight. Liu Maocai eventually called the police. Ning Yanran and her team arrived, confirmed that Shen Jun had been dead for at least six hours, and took the four individuals back to the bureau for interrogation.