Deadly garden

I have a little-known habit - I like to watch the woman in the red dress on the opposite floor cook.

I watched like this for more than a month, until just one second, she was suddenly strangled by her husband's throat.

I was so frightened that I couldn't speak, so I quickly called the police. When the police arrived at his house, they didn't find any bodies, not even the traces of the woman's life!

Could it be that the people I see every day for more than a month are not people...

1

She never saw me, but she stayed with me for a month until she died in front of me.

At the time, I had just moved, and I was struggling with anxiety and insomnia every day because I couldn’t write new stories.

After several days of insomnia, I was in a state of extreme loneliness and stupor, and I could die suddenly in this strange city at any time.

It was in this state that I saw her, the woman in the red sweater cooking in the kitchen opposite.

The buildings in the community where I live are all concave-shaped, and the window of my kitchen faces the window of the neighbor's kitchen next door, less than one meter away.

I could clearly see what the kitchen opposite looked like and who was cooking inside.

That woman was around forty years old, well-maintained, beautiful, with a hint of heroism in her eyebrows, and she was not only beautiful, but her cooking skills were even more skillful and precise.

Every step she takes is so confident and relaxed, and she can smell the fragrance of vegetables in a short while.

Watching her cook is simply a pleasure, it can make me temporarily forget all the pain in my life and writing, and completely immerse myself in her cooking.

I knew she was cooking for her husband, a brutish, middle-aged man with a stubble face, who was always gruff to talk to her, not caring at all about her beauty and kindness.

I feel sorry for her, but that is her life after all, and I have no right or power to intervene.

I'm just a strange man hiding in the dark and peeking at her cooking.

Whenever I want to sleep but can't, whenever I want to write but can't,

Whenever I felt like I was in too much pain to live, I would run into the kitchen to watch her cook.

There is a golden ginkgo tree by the kitchen window, with her red figure, the picture is really wonderful.

Of course, the lights are always off on my side, and I don't want her to discover my existence.

Just looking at her secretly like this is enough.

She died in front of me a month after I peeked at her like this.

2.

It was midnight, and I lost sleep again.

After tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep, his stomach became hungry, so he got up and wanted to cook a bowl of noodles for himself.

I turned on the kitchen light, took out noodles and vegetables, and habitually turned my head to the opposite kitchen.

It was already midnight at that time, and naturally there was no one in the kitchen opposite.

But I looked through the light from my kitchen and saw her husband strangling her neck in the dark.

She was pushed against the wall by him, her legs already off the ground.

I could see that animal fear in her eyes.

It was a cloudy, pale, powerless fear, the look of a creature on the verge of death.

I've seen that look before.

I know she is dying.

She saw me too, she opened her mouth and tried to ask me for help, but she couldn't make any sound.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to call for help, I wanted to rush to save her, but my body seemed to be frozen, unable to move at all.

I just watched her die in front of me, in the kitchen opposite me, just one meter away.

She slowly slid down the wall to the ground, and there was no longer any trace of life.

The man, her husband, stared at her dead on the floor for a moment.

Then he looked up and saw me.

At this time, I suddenly remembered that this time I had the lights on on my side, and the lights on the other side were off.

He clearly saw me standing in the light.

Then he smiled contemptuously.

3

The man immediately rushed out of his house and came to my door. He banged and kicked the door frantically.

He is going to come in to silence! ! !

Seeing that he couldn't hit the door, he went back to his kitchen and tried to step through the window and into my house.

While holding the window tightly, I took out my phone and called the police.

"My neighbor killed someone! He's going to kill me now! Come on!"

I told the police my address and urged them to come out quickly, I don't know how long I can last.

I held up my phone and shouted at him, "I've already called the police, wait for your arrest!".

Seeing that I had called the police, he finally stopped.

I saw him think for a moment, then drag the woman's body and leave the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, the police arrived, and they went straight to knocking on the door of the next door neighbor.

Naturally, the man refused to admit that he had killed someone. He kept saying that it must have been a prank. How could he have killed someone.

"Then can we go in and take a look?" asked the leading police officer.

"Of course." The man let them into the house very generously.

The police searched his home back and forth for a long time, but found nothing.

In the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the toilet, in all the wardrobes, in all the spaces, they searched them all.

There were no traces of any woman in the entire suite, let alone any signs of fighting, murdering, or hiding corpses.

But how is this possible?

During the fifteen minutes I was waiting for the police to come to the door, I kept watching the movement on the other side.

The man just dragged her body out of the kitchen, nothing else.

There was no sound of hiding corpses, no sound of corpses being thrown from the window, and certainly no sound of corpses being broken up.

I thought the man was desperately waiting for the police to come and I had no idea that the body would disappear out of thin air.

How could such a large corpse disappear out of thin air?

But the police just didn't find any bodies, and there wasn't even a trace of a woman living next door.

Could it be... Could it be that that woman didn't exist from beginning to end?

I thought with a chill on my back. .

4

After the police search, they came to my house and taught me a lesson.

"I hope you don't do this kind of thing again. You will be legally responsible for reporting false police."

"I saw it with my own eyes!"

After learning that I was a perennial work-from-home novelist, they apparently took me for a lunatic insane.

"Don't be bored at home all the time, or go out and have more contact with people, so that there will be no mental problems."

"You think I'm hallucinating, don't you?"

Seeing that I couldn't make sense, the police stopped demanding it. They just emphasized that it is absolutely not allowed to call the police casually. Especially this kind of false police report in the middle of the night is a great provocation and waste of police force.

If I do it again next time, they will never forgive me as easily as this time.

The policeman's voice was very thick, and it sounded very intimidating.

After that, they left my house, leaving me slumped in the living room.

Is it really my hallucination?

Am I really driving myself crazy in the pain I can't write?

Could it be that the woman in the red sweater who cooks with skill and precision was my imagination from beginning to end?

My mind is all messed up.

No, I vaguely feel that something is not right, I seem to be missing something.

That thing was right in front of me, within reach, but I couldn't think of anything.

I grabbed my hair and tried to think about what happened tonight.

Suddenly, in that flash of lightning, I thought.

I stood up and opened the door of my house.

On the door are the footprints left by the man and the pit he kicked out of.

If that woman was just my hallucination, and if that woman was killed was my hallucination, why would that man try to force his way into my home?

Since he would want to break into my house so viciously, it means there is only one possibility:

That's when I actually saw him kill.

So the real question is, where did he hide the body?

5

The moment I realized I wasn't crazy, I was scared.

I just witnessed a murder that lived next door to me, and it was an instinctive fear.

But in addition to being scared, I was also a little excited. Yes, it is excitement.

The reason why I moved to Yongan Garden was to find a wonderful story.

I'm going to find it and write it down. I want people to see that I'm not a short-lived novelist who can only rely on The Dead in the Living Room.

At the moment when what happened tonight, I was swept away by instinctive fear, and I immediately called the police.

But when I calm down now, especially when the police have searched and found nothing, and I am sure that it is not my hallucination, a sudden excitement surges in my body.

If I could find that woman's body, if I could crack the way the man hid the body, the way the police couldn't crack it,

Then I have an absolutely wonderful story,

Then I can stand proudly in front of all readers again, and make those who think I am a "writer" shut up completely.

Thinking of this, my whole body got excited.

The reason why I moved to Yongan Garden was to find a wonderful story.

I'm going to find it and write it down. I want people to see that I'm not a short-lived novelist who can only rely on The Dead in the Living Room.

At the moment when what happened tonight, I was swept away by instinctive fear, and I immediately called the police.

But when I calm down now, especially when the police have searched and found nothing, and I am sure that it is not my hallucination, a sudden excitement surges in my body.

If I could find that woman's body, if I could crack the way the man hid the body, the way the police couldn't crack it,

Then I have an absolutely wonderful story,

Then I can stand proudly in front of all readers again, and make those who think I am a "writer" shut up completely.

Thinking of this, my whole body got excited.

I was determined to take this story firmly in my hands.

I will rely on it to once again go to the glory of my life.

Unexpectedly, it was also the one that led me to my doomed death.

6

The next day, I watched the man across from me through the window all day.

He ate three meals a day as usual and stayed in his bedroom quietly throughout the day.

I couldn't help but imagine that he was probably disposing of the corpse.

But I don't hear any sound.

At about eight o'clock in the evening, I heard him go out.

After he went out, I waited for another hour or so to make sure that he did not go out temporarily such as picking up takeaway, picking up express delivery or taking out the garbage, but actually going out.

I then carefully climbed up to the kitchen windowsill.

The kitchen on the opposite side only had the screen closed. I carefully vacated and cut the screen window on the opposite side, and jumped into the other party's house smoothly.

After jumping over, I realized that my phone had just fallen out of the shallow pocket of my pajamas and onto the windowsill in my own kitchen.

I don't think I'll be at his house for too long anyway, so it's not a big deal without my phone for a while.

I turned around and walked into their home.

When I saw it, it really startled me.

Once, while secretly admiring the woman's cooking, I imagined countless times what the parent opposite looked like.

It's messy, it's refined, it's clean, it's filthy.

The only thing I didn't think about was that their home was almost the same as my home.

The same one room and one living room, the same simple decoration, the same white and yellow tone, and the same furnishings, there is not even the slightest difference.

Only the bedroom is one size smaller than mine.

I looked around the house and really didn't find any trace of a corpse.

There were no traces of broken corpses in the bathroom, and there were no traces of murder in the kitchen.

I hardly slept all day and night, and I kept watching in the kitchen to watch the movement on his side. He definitely didn't have any time or opportunity to transport the body out.

Could it be that he is really skilled and skilled enough to make a corpse disappear out of thin air?

This does not conform to common sense in any sense, there must be something I have overlooked.

I went around the house again, pounding every wall inch by inch.

Until I knocked on the bookshelf in the bedroom, I found that there was an echo behind the bookshelf, and then I knocked hard, and I found that the wall behind it was hollow.

I searched around the bookshelf again and saw a little red button hidden in the left side.

I tried to press it, the bookshelf slowly moved away, and a secret room built at the end of the bedroom appeared in front of me.

I suddenly realized why the bedroom in this house is one size smaller than the bedroom on my other side, even though it is the same apartment type.

It turned out that another secret room was built inside.

In that secret room there was a table, a chair, paper, pens, and a small lamp on the table, and an iron rod on the ground beside it.

The woman's body was lying on the chair, and she was still as beautiful.

However, I know that this beauty won't last long, and one day, no, not even a day, in another ten hours, corpse spots will appear on her body.

Then, she will rot at a destructive speed.

I know all too well the whole process of decomposing a corpse. But at this moment, she is still beautiful, and even death makes her beauty even more soul-stirring.

I crouched down and looked at her beautiful face, her slender body, and her red sweater still dazzling.

I want to touch her face, but I'm afraid to spoil this breathtaking beauty.

--Unfinished--