Chapter 369 Midnight Noise
It just rained a little.

The weather cleared up again, the sun was still scorching, and the puddles on the ground quickly evaporated.

The old man looked like he had a long story to tell.

Wu Xian pulled the old man to a shady place and politely lit a cigarette for him.

The old man was already tired from moving, so he left the job to his children, and sat by the flower bed with Wu Xian, smoking and chatting to rest.

"Your building is a single-family home, so you don't know how unbearable life is in this community. Two months ago, someone chiseled the wall every night. I don't know if it was for renovation or something else. It's hard to sleep well."

"I went to the neighbors and knocked on their doors, but they all said they didn't do it and they were so annoyed... It's all bullshit, someone must be lying."

Wu Xian echoed, "This is really uncivilized. Let's ask the property management to take care of it."

The old man didn't respond to Wu Xian's words, but said while scratching his lower back with one hand.

"It's not just the sound. Ever since the sound appeared, I have felt uncomfortable at home. It's as if someone is always watching me, watching me when I eat, when I sleep, and when I go to the toilet. I guess someone must have installed a pinhole camera in my house!"

Wu Xian pretended to be surprised: "Then you should call the police."

The old man exhaled a long puff of smoke.

"My daughter and son are both heartless. I told them about this, but they said I was just being idle and doing something stupid. They insisted that I produce evidence before they believed me."

"What more evidence do you need? I'm so old, can I still lie?"

"I've been trying to catch them in the act these past few days, but my son won't let me live here anymore and has to take me out..."

When the old man spoke, there was often an inexplicably fierce look on his face. There was mud in the cracks between his fingernails, and he was constantly scratching his body. Some parts of his body were scratched so hard that the skin was broken. If Wu Xian were in his place, he would also think that he had mental problems.

Wu Xian thought for a moment and said, "How about you let me go and take a look? I used to be a detective for a while. We are neighbors, so I won't charge you any fees this time."

The old man threw the cigarette butt on the ground and walked out from the shade of the tree with a laugh.

"You're nothing but a detective. Everyone knows you're just a thief. We're all moving out anyway, so I won't bother you any more."

……

Under the shade.

Wu Xian scratched his chin.

This old man was very bad. He didn't tell him the truth, avoided the problem the whole time and refused to seek help from the outside world. This shows that he himself played a disgraceful role in it.

Then Wu Xian went to the property management to ask and found out that most of the residents who had recently moved out of the community lived in the same building as the old man, and all of them had reported noise problems.

This residential complex is very old. Noise issues were not taken into consideration when it was built. Even if only one family is making noise, the sound can be heard far away, causing trouble for every household in the building.

Come here.

Wu Xian no longer had any interest in continuing the investigation.

Neighborhood conflicts caused by noise are very common. Not only do they cause people to move away, but they can also develop to the point of killing entire families. Wu Xian once encountered an old lady who went out in the early morning and banged iron basins all over the community. That was much more exciting than this.

In addition, the old man showed some symptoms of mental illness when he spoke. Wu Xian even guessed that he was the source of the noise. He said that he couldn't sleep because of the noise and felt like he was being monitored, but he did it just to clear himself of suspicion.

Now that the old man has moved away and the noise no longer disturbs Wu Xian, he is too lazy to investigate further.

But Wu Xian is no longer the same person he was before, and he knows that there is such a thing as evil spirits.

So he decided to go to the old man's house after having a midnight snack in the evening to make sure there was no evil influence and then stop worrying about this matter.

……

late at night.

The street lights were out.

It was late at night, and everything was quiet. The sound of crickets could be heard from the greenery on the street. Wu Xian easily bypassed the security guard who was playing games, bypassed the surveillance range of the camera, and came to the corridor where the old man's house was.

The security of this kind of old community can only be said to be better than nothing. If it were really useful, the corridors would not be filled with all kinds of small advertisements.

Wu Xian looked up and found that there were still a few houses with lights on.

He tiptoed up the stairs quietly, trying not to let his footsteps be heard too far away.

This old building has seven floors in total, and the old man lives on the fourth floor. If he deliberately makes noise, the noise can easily spread throughout the building, which further proves Wu Xian's guess.

Click.

Wu Xian easily opened the door with two pieces of wire.

The old man had just moved in and there was no furniture left in the house. It was like a bare house, with only old posters of old female singers' portraits pasted in some places.

Some of these posters are on the ground, some are on the walls, and even on the ceiling.

Wu Xian could tell there was something wrong with the poster at first sight. He peeled it off and discovered that there were holes underneath it.

"Tsk..."

"This old man is too crazy."

A total of nine pits can be found in the entire house, on the ceiling, floor, and walls.

Each pit is the size of a football, and becomes thinner as you go inside. Wu Xian tried it with wire and found that these pits almost completely penetrated the partitions between each household, and there was a small hole the size of a grain of rice at the end.

There are traces of tape on the walls around each pit, and from the traces, it seems that these tapes are used to fix the electrical wires.

"So this old man uses some kind of tool to chisel the wall every night, and after breaking through, he uses a pinhole camera to spy on the neighbors?"

Wu Xian scratched his curly hair.

"This is really... a bit nonsense."

The traces at the scene confirmed Wu Xian's inference during the day that the source of the noise in the community was indeed this old man.

But now Wu Xian feels that there must be something fishy about this matter.

To chisel the wall into this shape without being discovered by the neighbors and install a pinhole camera requires extremely high skills, professional tools, and plenty of physical strength...

It sounds easy, but it is extremely difficult to actually put it into practice. Wu Xian himself is not sure he can do it, let alone a neurotic old man?

"Not to mention how he did it."

"Assuming he is a one-in-a-million expert at chipping away at walls, what is his purpose in chipping away at walls, and what reward can he get from monitoring his neighbors?"

Wu Xian observed it carefully again.

Then I noticed that there were two areas of the wall around each hole that were slightly darker in color, which meant that the old man had pressed his hands on the wall and put his eyes close to the hole to observe.

"The hole is only as thick as a pinhole. What can he see?"

Wu Xian imitated the old man's actions and put his eyes close to the hole, and it turned out that he actually saw the scene next door.

The lights were on next door, dust was flying, and the ground was covered with tiny traces of bricks, stones and soil. Occasionally, a somewhat fat arm could be seen waving a chisel as it flashed past.

At the same time as he saw the scene clearly, Wu Xian heard the clear sound of chiseling the wall.

When, when, when...

The resident opposite was also chiseling the wall. He tried to break through the wall between his own house and the old man's house, leaving only a pinhole-sized hole for peeping!

(End of this chapter)