Chapter 7: Silencing Witnesses

Zhang Yihan briefly explained Xiaohong's suicide to me, and her account sent chills down my spine.

After I started following Xiaohong, Zhang Yihan remained hidden in front of Xiaohong's house for a while before heading to the Guo family yard. She believed the key was to watch the well.

She didn't have to wait long before Xiaohong arrived at the yard. Xiaohong stood at the gate for a moment before suddenly rushing to the well and jumping in without hesitation.

When Zhang Yihan reached the well, she saw Xiaohong wielding a knife, first slashing her left wrist, then cutting her throat.

"I've seen many suicides, but none as ruthless as this," Zhang Yihan commented.

We immediately called for support from the county to investigate Xiaohong's suspicious suicide.

After Xiaohong's body was taken away for examination, Zhang Yihan and I went to her house.

We questioned her bedridden mother-in-law and called her husband. Both said Xiaohong showed no signs of distress before her death, not even calling her husband. Her parents had passed away, leaving no family to contact.

It seemed as if Xiaohong had suddenly decided to kill herself without any warning, but we knew that non-natural deaths always have underlying causes.

We concluded that unless Xiaohong had a mental illness, she wouldn't have committed suicide for no reason. Our investigation found no evidence of mental illness.

Unconvinced, Zhang Yihan asked me to bring Officer Li. She wanted to revisit the graveyard Xiaohong had visited before her death.

Officer Li was reluctant, but Zhang Yihan's threat to demote him forced him to comply.

At the graveyard, we found the grave Xiaohong had visited—it was her mother's.

Superficially, it seemed Xiaohong had visited her mother's grave before her suicide.

We found no more clues and were ready to leave when Officer Li made an offhand comment: "Officer Zhang, this case is unsolvable. That well is cursed..."

"I don't believe that!" Zhang Yihan said, her resolve strengthening. "Lin, prepare to go down the well!"

"What?" I was terrified. The well was full of blood from Xiaohong's recent suicide, and she wanted me to go down again?

"This time, I'm going with you," Zhang Yihan said, heading towards the Guo family yard.

We arrived at the yard around 3 a.m. Old Ge was circling the yard with a flashlight, seemingly lost in his own world.

Zhang Yihan retrieved two bottles of compressed air and diving equipment from the Guo family's house. These had been prepared for retrieving the corpse from the well bottom. She intended to do it now instead of waiting for daylight.

We suited up and began our descent. I brought along a climbing pickaxe, which would later save both our lives.

With diving equipment, reaching the well bottom was easy. We soon arrived and began securing the body in a net bag with a rope tied to me, ready for Officer Li to pull us up.

I shook the rope as a signal, but received no response. Something felt off, and I had a bad feeling.

Unable to communicate well underwater, I signaled Zhang Yihan to ascend.

When we surfaced, we were stunned. The rope was gone, and the well mouth was covered.

"Did you plan this?" I asked Zhang Yihan.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" she retorted.

We called for help, but received no response. We realized we were trapped.

Who would dare trap us? Was someone trying to silence us? I feared for Old Ge and Officer Li.

We needed to escape. Using my pickaxe, I carved footholds in the well wall and climbed to the top.

To my dismay, the well mouth was covered with a large stone slab, too heavy for me to move alone. Zhang Yihan and I tried together but could only shift it slightly.

We gave up after many failed attempts and stood in a V-shape, bracing against the well walls, to avoid treading water.

To conserve power, we turned off our headlamps, hoping to last until morning when help would arrive.

But the temperature plummeted, and we risked freezing. To stay warm, we had to move, climbing up and down the well walls.

After over an hour, exhausted, we climbed to rest at the well mouth. Suddenly, we heard footsteps and a rough voice outside: "Hurry up and kill them..."

Realizing these men were here to kill us, Zhang Yihan and I were horrified.