I’ve always wanted to record this, but every time I pick up the pen, I feel heavy and don’t know where to start. In late June, on an unremarkable day, a phone call plunged me into an emotional black hole that lasted for a long time.
My tenant died in my house, and it had been so long that the body was highly decomposed and unrecognizable.
In a chaotic morning, because I wasn’t in Xi’an, the property management, the intermediary, and the locksmith opened the door under my authorization. The property management filmed the entire process for me. Every second before the door opened, I prayed it was a false alarm, but until the locksmith completely opened the door and pointed to the floor inside the house, he whispered, “Someone’s dead.” The sound was so soft that I had to turn up the volume on my phone to hear those three words clearly. The video also ended there.
The door was closed again, the locksmith left, waved his hand, and the locksmith fee was waived. The property management reported the police, and everything had to wait for the police to arrive. The police arrived not slowly, but I, who was far away in Xinjiang, felt it was incredibly long… Suicide? Murder? Sudden illness? Breaking and entering? Or who was the deceased, was it my tenant? Countless questions swirled in my mind.
The police came, the forensic doctor came, the body was taken away, and the hustle and bustle of the 30th floor came to an end in the morning.
In early April of this year, I was on a business trip in Beijing when I suddenly received a call from the intermediary. Someone wanted to rent the house I had entrusted her to rent out at the end of February. This house was a single apartment of only 50 square meters, but because of its location and decoration, the rent was not cheap. Many people inquired after it was listed, but most of them thought it was too expensive and it had not been rented out.
Until April, I almost forgot about renting it out, but I suddenly received a call from the intermediary. The tenant was very straightforward; it took less than two days from viewing the house to signing the contract. Of course, the tenant chose the house, and I also chose the tenant. I asked the intermediary about the tenant’s specific situation. The information was scarce but enough for me to feel at ease. She was a single girl born in 1991, from Ningxia, a professional accountant, and was currently looking for a job in Xi’an.
The processes of viewing the house, inspecting the house, and signing the online contract went smoothly, but there were twists and turns when it came to paying the rent. At first, the tenant asked for my Alipay account, but didn’t transfer the money. Later, she added me on WeChat, but still didn’t transfer the money. After many turns, I didn’t urge her. It wasn’t until the afternoon that she transferred the money to me. The intermediary said that because she entered the wrong password, her card was locked, and she had to go to the bank to unlock it before she could transfer the money.
I didn’t pay attention to this detail at the time.
I, being careless, didn’t realize it. But her death had actually been foreshadowed since she paid the rent. I only learned later that the rent for half a year was borrowed by her mother from relatives and friends in the village. If time could be reversed, I would definitely advise her not to spend this money and go back home. But at the time, she even blocked my Moments, and I knew almost nothing about her situation.
The prime of life should have been a time of striving, but what exactly was the last straw that broke her back?
As of today, the matter has long been settled, and the police have also closed the case, but the physiological cause of her death remains a mystery. Just like her ashes and belongings were eventually discarded by her father like garbage and were never seen again, there will never be an answer.
■ Stills from “Memories of Matsuko”
Organizing these memories still makes me feel disturbed. There are too many things that subvert my understanding in the process, too many pain points in Chinese society and Chinese rural areas that are difficult to touch and deeply rooted.
How should I describe a girl from a poor mountain village in western China, after what efforts she was admitted to a prestigious 211 university in Beijing, and after graduating for a few years, she was determined to take the civil service exam, repeatedly achieving the first place in the written exams of the public institutions in her hometown province, but repeatedly failed in the interview stage, and finally, with what disappointment, she went to a foreign land, still unable to find a job that matched her inner pride, her prestigious university background, and her family’s expectations, and finally, in what despair, she ended her own short life at the age of 33?
I was also angry, angry that someone wanted to commit suicide, and there were thousands of ways to do it, but why did she die in the rented house, causing me huge losses; angry that she left inexplicably without leaving a word, making me also bear suspicion. But as the investigation of the case deepened, I couldn’t hate her anymore. I felt sorry for the passing of the young life of the deceased, and I also felt sorry for the parents of the deceased, who had been facing the loess and their backs to the sky all their lives but were still impoverished, and I also shed tears because of the customs and habits of the impoverished and backward areas of Northwest China, but many times when talking about it, there was only a sigh…
After the body was taken away by the forensic doctor, the police quickly contacted her parents.
It turned out that her family had also reported their daughter as a missing person a week ago. The last time they contacted their daughter was on April 20th, when their daughter asked her mother for living expenses on WeChat. Her mother said that they really didn’t have any money and would have to borrow it. On April 9th, her mother had borrowed more than 10,000 yuan from relatives to transfer to her daughter to pay the rent. On April 21st, her mother borrowed another 1,000 yuan and transferred it to her daughter, but according to the subsequent police investigation, this 1,000 yuan was borrowed by the deceased’s mother in two installments of 500 yuan each. The daughter did not receive it and immediately blocked all her relatives.
From then until her death, she never contacted any relatives again.
Why didn’t she accept this life-saving money, but instead blocked everyone?
We will never know the answer. We can only infer from the details the police have, that the girl was proud and arrogant. She had good grades since childhood, and everyone in the village would give her a thumbs up. As the pride of her family and even the village, she was, firstly, ashamed of her parents for borrowing money because of her, after all, she was already 33 years old and hadn’t found a satisfactory job; secondly, 1,000 yuan was a drop in the bucket and not what she expected. In contrast, her parents, as farmers in the Xihai Gu area of Ningxia, in the depths of the Liupan Mountains, were able to support a non-single daughter to study in Beijing and bear the living expenses of their daughter, who had no job for nearly ten years, which was truly great.
You must know that the county where the deceased’s hometown is located did not get rid of poverty until 2019, and the rural areas of the Xihai Gu area of Ningxia were once a place where the preference for sons over daughters was more prominent. Not many girls from poor rural families could persist in studying, and they often became wives at a very young age. But in my later face-to-face communication with the deceased’s father, the old man revealed his deep expectations for his daughter, “She finished her studies, and she is the hope of our whole family, even the hope of the village, and the family depends on her.” Here, I seem to understand the girl’s persistence in taking the civil service exam, and I can also feel her immense pressure.
Until the beginning of June, the girl’s family had been unable to contact her and reported the case. I, who was far away in Xinjiang, kept in touch with the police officers in charge. They told me that I didn’t need to rush back, and it wouldn’t help to go back now. The first step was to wait for the deceased’s parents to come from Ningxia to Xi’an for DNA testing to confirm that the deceased was my tenant.
I kept asking about the cause of death. The police were cautious and only told me that the time of death was about two to twenty days, and the high decomposition of the body was because of the continuous high temperatures in Xi’an during those days. From the initial view of the situation inside the house, the house was tidy, and the doors and windows were intact, which basically ruled out homicide, but further on-site investigation was needed, and a large number of external investigations were needed to verify it by retrieving the deceased’s phone records, building surveillance, and even shopping records. It wouldn’t be too late for me to go back after the case was clear.
The deceased’s parents arrived from Ningxia that night. The police told me that the DNA had been extracted, and the results would be available in 2-3 working days. I could set off from Xinjiang when the results came out. The deceased’s parents were currently emotional and couldn’t accept it. “There’s no way to mention it,” the police officer’s words were full of helplessness.
On the last day of June, I took a long vacation from my unit and flew to Xi’an.
On the plane, my phone had three missed calls, all from the police officers in charge. It was already midnight when I got home. I sent a text message to the police officer, saying that I had returned and would fully cooperate with the investigation.
It was the first time in my life that I made a written record, and it was in the interrogation room. In fact, before I came back, the police’s external investigation had basically ended. The purpose of my written record was not only to make the case file more complete, but more importantly, the deceased’s parents firmly disagreed with the autopsy to examine the cause of death, on the grounds that the customs of their hometown did not allow a person to have an incomplete body after death.
Because they disagreed with the autopsy to examine the cause of death, it became extremely troublesome to close this suicide case. The police needed to conduct a large number of external investigations to prove that this was not a criminal case. The police officers in charge were also very troubled, and the building surveillance alone had several terabytes of video.
Privately, I also expressed my incomprehension: since the body had already decomposed, what difference did it make whether or not to perform an autopsy? Unless the parents actually knew the reason why their daughter died. The police officer agreed and said another very important reason: the deceased’s family came from Ningxia and stayed in a hotel. The daily expenses were very high, and the autopsy required a certain amount of time. They didn’t want to wait, and they couldn’t afford to wait, and they just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
It was also in the police officer’s meticulous investigation that the girl’s life trajectory in the last two months gradually became clear, which was an abnormal life that would make anyone’s heart ache.
I am the only contact on the deceased’s WeChat. Although I was still blocked from her Moments, I was the only one who could exchange messages with her on WeChat. The few other contacts she had were all blocked by her. The police asked me to provide the time and content of each WeChat contact with the girl. Because I didn’t have the habit of deleting chat records, all the records were preserved.
On April 9th, the intermediary asked her to add me on WeChat and transfer the rent for half a year to me. After I received the money, I told her to contact me at any time if she had any problems, and at the same time, I told her to go to the property management to register the tenants and apply for access control.
On April 10th, she asked me how to use the electric clothes drying rack on the balcony, and at the same time, she gathered all the dolls I had placed in the room into the wine cabinet and took photos for me, saying that she didn’t need them. I said that if she wanted to use the wine cabinet, she could handle these dolls herself, and she also said that she didn’t need the wine cabinet.
On April 17th, she sent me a video and then a voice call. Because I was in a meeting, I refused and asked her to type it out. She was very panicked and said that a staff member from the natural gas company had come to her house, claiming that the natural gas pipes in the house were not up to standard, and asked her to buy insurance and replace the gas pipes at the same time, and asked me to answer the staff member’s call. I asked her if she had checked the other party’s work certificate and whether it was confirmed to be a staff member of the natural gas company. When she made this request to the other party, the other party didn’t say much and left. I immediately contacted the property management and asked if there were any personnel from the natural gas company coming to the community to inspect the households that day, and I received a negative answer. At that time, my first reaction was, how could this girl be so inexperienced in life, and I felt that she would be easily deceived.
Thinking of the address on her ID card, that remote rural area of Ningxia, I couldn’t help but tell her that it’s not like her hometown here, and she should be more careful in everything when living alone, don’t harm others and don’t be deceived. To give her courage, I also told her that my wife and I are both police officers, and she could consult me if she encountered anything.
On June 3rd, I received a text message from State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power, reminding me that I was 23.17 yuan in arrears for electricity bills, and if I didn’t pay, the power supply to the house would be cut off at 13:00 on June 4th. I took the initiative to contact her to remind her to pay the electricity bill. If the power was cut off, the things in the refrigerator would rot. I sent her a message in the morning, and she replied to me at 17:00 in the afternoon: “I know, sister, there’s nothing in the refrigerator.”
On June 13th, I received another text message from State Grid Shaanxi Electric Power, reminding me that I was 24.17 yuan in arrears for electricity bills, please pay as soon as possible. Comparing the amount of arrears 10 days ago, it was only 1 yuan more. I realized that the power supply to the house had indeed been cut off before 13:00 on June 4th, so I contacted her again. This time, I didn’t get any response.
The last time I contacted her was on June 25th. On that day, the property management of the community contacted me. We found a strong smell on the 30th floor of our building. After investigation, it was determined that the source of the smell was my house. The property management contacted the tenant, but the phone was turned off. They contacted me again and hoped that I could open the door. I thought of the fact that she hadn’t replied to my messages before, and I was vaguely worried. I made several voice calls to her, but no one answered. I called her mobile phone, and it was turned off.
Finally, I contacted the intermediary at the time, and entrusted the intermediary, the property management, and the locksmith to jointly pry open the door lock. The ending was as described at the beginning, the thing I least wanted to see, happened.
After finishing the written record, I checked it word by word and finally pressed my fingerprint. I was considered to have completed the work of cooperating with the public security organs. The police officer reminded me that I could delete the other party’s WeChat now. But the matter was far from over. There was also the most unwilling thing to face, which was meeting with the deceased’s family.
Because the family hoped to get some compensation, or humanitarian relief, they needed to talk to me. In fact, in the two days at the police station, I had repeatedly brushed shoulders with the deceased’s father, but at the time, we didn’t know who the other party was. The police officer also believed that, legally speaking, I could not directly contact the other party’s family, and I had no obligation to compensate. The police officer could take the deceased’s parents to my house to collect the deceased’s belongings on my behalf.
But the police officer also told me many times that the other party’s family was indeed very poor. Judging from the deceased’s consumption records, she spent almost no more than five yuan whether she ate or bought anything. She ate and used things that were very bad and made do. The last time the building access control recognized her face was around May 20th. After that, neither the surveillance video nor the unit access control showed that she had gone out. During this period, she didn’t order any takeout, and there was no trace of cooking at home. The phone records also showed that she hadn’t talked to anyone. She died in extreme loneliness…
Thinking of the forensic doctor’s estimate that her time of death was around June 15th, I was shocked. The police officer didn’t make it clear. For more than 20 days, she was alone in the room, without takeout and without cooking. She was highly likely to have starved herself to death in the room… I had asked to see the deceased’s father’s written record, but was rejected. However, the police officer still read a passage about his borrowing money to his daughter for expenses. I couldn’t help but shed tears in the police officer’s office. The police officer said that if possible, give the other party some economic compensation.
In the end, we still met in the mediation room of the police station.
The other party was the deceased’s father and two distant cousins. They all had the appearance of simple Northwest men. We talked a lot about the deceased’s personal experience and their family situation.
The girl was ambitious and had her own ideas. She always wanted to prove herself and was determined to do things, just like her excellent results in the college entrance examination and her first place in the written exams of the civil service exam multiple times. Her family still believes that the exams were unfair. The first place was not admitted, which must be because their rural family had no background, and the spots were taken by people with connections. There was a lot of resentment towards today’s society in their words.
I said that since she was such a determined person, and her wishes were not fulfilled, would she have already prepared to die? In the absence of a job and a source of income, delivering express packages and takeout could also support herself, but why didn’t she do it, but instead had the mentality of success or death, and left so decisively, without even leaving a will.
Her father believed that his daughter’s personality was capable of doing such a thing, but he quickly returned to the main topic. Since the person was gone, the deceased was the greatest, and he hoped that I, as the landlord, could give some compensation. His wife had fallen ill in the hotel and was also eager to return to Ningxia. After the matter was over, they would cremate their daughter’s body as soon as possible and then find a place to throw away the ashes, “Just pretend she never came.””
With a few light words, I felt my scalp explode. I asked him why he threw away the ashes? How could he bear it? Would they not commemorate her in the future? He hummed lightly, there was nothing to commemorate. Their customs there, girls who died without getting married were not allowed to enter their ancestral graves. Even if they got married, if they died without giving birth to a child, they could not enter their husband’s ancestral grave. In the end, their remains were hard to find.
I felt very angry for a moment, saying that these were backward customs, and what did customs matter? This was your daughter, you don’t care about customs, why can’t you bury her in your own ancestral grave? There will also be a place to burn paper money in the future. The girl’s cousin said that this was not a matter for one family, and people who died like this were not allowed to be taken back by the villagers…
I agreed to give a certain amount of compensation, just wanting to end it as soon as possible and not to entangle myself in such a bizarre and complex event. The last thing was to take them to the house to get the girl’s belongings. After the agreement, I went to the police officer to get the house key (the house was sealed before the end of the case, and the key was also kept by the police). I was going to take them to get the belongings. One of the deceased’s cousins said that the compensation money must be transferred to the deceased’s father before leaving the police station. He might be afraid that I would renege after I left.
Faced with such distrust, I felt a little regret for my previous compassion. The girl’s father opened the payment code, and I transferred the money to him.
The police station was not far from the house, less than two stops away. I suggested walking there. It was drizzling that day, and neither of us had an umbrella. We quickly walked to the building downstairs with our own concerns. I handed them the key and told them the house number. I entrusted them to open all the windows when they left, and I wouldn’t go up. I would wait for them downstairs.
After they left, I sat on the long bench downstairs, looking up at the 30th floor, with indescribable sadness in my heart. The downtown area was bustling downstairs, with crowds of people and a constant flow of traffic. People were rushing to their own lives, thriving, but these livelinesses had nothing to do with the girl who had briefly lived on the 30th floor.
In the crowd coming and going, does anyone know that a young life passed away on the 30th floor? Does anyone care? Maybe I will always remember her, simply because the house she lived in can only be vacant for the next few years, and I will not step in. The direct economic loss she brought to me will make me remember her.
But, she came to the world, from a mountain village in the northwest to the capital Beijing, had moments of glory in her life, but in the end, she ended up like this. Whose fault is it? Is it society, family, or her own personality? What was the last straw that broke the camel’s back? I still have no answer.
Thinking that I will have no more contact with the deceased’s family later, thinking that they still have to travel a long distance back to Ningxia, I went to the nearby convenience store to buy some water and bread, wanting them to take it on the road. As soon as I came out of the convenience store, I saw them from afar, they had already dragged a not-so-big suitcase downstairs. The girl’s belongings were really pitifully few.
But the next moment, I witnessed the girl’s father, throwing the suitcase into the trash can by the side of the road without hesitation, without the slightest reluctance, without the slightest nostalgia, and walked away without looking back. She disappeared like this, without leaving a trace, the daughter who disappeared from her parents, the pride who disappeared from the village, the tenant I had never met who disappeared…
I still went up to meet them and handed the things I bought to the girl’s father. At the moment of handing over the plastic bag handle, I briefly touched the girl’s father’s hand, and then recoiled as if I had been electrocuted. Because I thought that he had just packed up the belongings in the room, that room, where a decomposed body had just been moved out, I suddenly had an indescribable feeling of nausea.
Looking up, I found that the girl’s father’s face was flushed, as if he had just drunk alcohol, and his eyes were obviously crying. His whole state was like he was about to burst into tears. He had raised his daughter for more than 30 years, could he not be sad? But the so-called customs and even superstitious thoughts separated the last affection. Could he really let go? I don’t believe it.
When we said goodbye, I thought we would never have any contact in this life. I wished them a safe journey and to take care of their health. In my heart, this was the last farewell to her father on behalf of the daughter who had passed away.
Thinking that I am the only contact of the deceased girl, I didn’t delete her WeChat.
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