PD -Chapter 101 Killer Spider

“What’s going on?” I immediately reached out and grabbed the hotel manager who was running past my door.

The manager’s face was pale as he stammered, “Room 308… the guest in 308 is dead!”

My heart skipped a beat. I rushed to the door of Room 308 and saw the door wide open. A woman was lying on her back near the bathroom…

It looked like she had just finished showering—her hair was still wet, and she only had a bath towel loosely wrapped around her body.

Frowning, I walked into the room to check. The woman’s eyes were wide open in death, staring blankly. Even in that lifeless gaze, there was still an overwhelming sense of terror. Her mouth was wide open, as if she had screamed before dying.

Something about her face looked familiar. Just as I was about to lean closer for a better look, I suddenly saw something dark and furry crawling out of her mouth.

I jumped back in shock. When I looked closely, I realized it was a black spider.

Then—more of them followed.

One after another, they crawled out of her mouth and covered her face.

Seeing the dense swarm of spiders crawling across her face, I instinctively stepped back a few paces… because I knew these were not harmless pet spiders. They were venomous.

I quickly retreated to the doorway and surveyed the room again. The bathroom glass door had been shattered, and there were bloodstains among the broken shards on the floor.

It was very likely that while showering, the woman had been attacked by insects. In her panic, she slipped, crashed into and shattered the glass door, and stumbled out into the room—only to still fail to escape the poisonous spiders.

There were many dark bite marks on her arms and back. The venom of these spiders was clearly strong.

At that moment, I finally remembered where I had seen her. At tonight’s banquet, she was the woman who had screamed in terror after being frightened by the pet spider kept by Fan Bin.

I sighed and closed the door, protecting the scene before the police arrived. Only then did I notice Liu Xiaopeng standing outside as well.

He didn’t say anything. He silently followed me back to the room and closed the door before speaking.

“She was killed by spiders…”

“By the way, what was that kid with the spiders called again?” Liu Xiaopeng asked.

“Fan Bin,” I thought for a moment and replied, though deep down I still didn’t want to believe that this had anything to do with him.

“At the banquet, I already felt something was off between that kid’s father and that woman,” Liu Xiaopeng continued. “I found out Fan Bin’s parents divorced early. His father—the hotel manager—now seems unusually close to this female subordinate. It looks like he was planning to make her Fan Bin’s stepmother.”

“You’re suspecting that Fan Bin couldn’t accept his father’s relationship with that woman, so…” I looked at him.

Liu Xiaopeng nodded, then added, “Of course, it’s only a theory. I don’t want to believe a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old kid could do something this vicious.”

I thought for a moment, grabbed my coat, and prepared to go find the boy.

At that moment, Li Zi also rushed over. When I opened the door, he was just about to knock.

“You came at the right time,” I said. “Do you know where Manager Fan lives?”

Li Zi looked confused, not knowing why I was asking, but still replied, “It’s the residential area not far ahead—take a right at the traffic light.”

“Let’s go!” I said, pulling him along as we left the hotel.

Li Zi drove us toward Fan Bin’s home. When we turned right at the traffic light, I suddenly felt Liu Xiaopeng in the back seat tap my shoulder.

“Look!” he pointed toward the street corner sidewalk.

Li Zi slowed the car, and we all looked through the window.

Under the dim yellow streetlight, Fan Bin was standing there with a black backpack, seemingly heading somewhere alone.

“Stop the car!” I shouted.

Before Li Zi could even fully stop, I had already gotten out and followed him into a narrow alley.

The alley was pitch dark, with no streetlights. The houses on both sides looked abandoned, like buildings awaiting demolition.

Fan Bin turned on a flashlight and slipped through a broken section of wall into the courtyard of the condemned buildings.

The three of us followed him in. Inside, weeds and shrubs had grown wildly—taller than a person in some places.

At that moment, Fan Bin was crouching in a corner, turning off his flashlight and doing something we couldn’t see clearly.

I took a step closer. The sound of gravel and weeds under my feet immediately gave us away. Fan Bin suddenly turned on his flashlight and shone it directly at us.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise, standing up.

He was holding a bamboo tube, and inside it was a cricket struggling and chirping.

“Are you here to catch crickets?” I asked.

Fan Bin nodded, looking down at the insect before sealing the lid of the bamboo tube.

The cricket kept chirping inside.

Then he looked at us warily. “What are you guys doing here… don’t tell me you’re kidnappers!”

“Hey brat, what are you talking about!” Li Zi stepped forward. “You don’t recognize me? Go ask your dad!”

I shot Li Zi a glare, signaling him not to scare the kid.

Then I turned back to Fan Bin. “Looks like you really like insects. You’re brave coming out alone this late.”

“So what?” Fan Bin replied impatiently, not even looking up.

“Do you know something happened to Ning Huan?” Liu Xiaopeng asked.

Ning Huan was the woman who died in her room. We had only just learned her name from Li Zi.

Fan Bin suddenly looked up at Liu Xiaopeng, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes… but then he lowered his head again and said nothing.

“She’s dead. And she was bitten to death by spiders,” Liu Xiaopeng said word by word.

Fan Bin looked up again. “Dead… dead?”

“You deliberately used spiders to scare her at the banquet!” Liu Xiaopeng pressed on.

Fan Bin froze. Then he said fearfully, “You don’t think I killed her, do you?”

“It was just a prank at the banquet. I don’t like her, but I would never kill her!”

“By your logic, does that mean I also killed those people who died years ago—those stung by bees, bitten by beetles? Are all insect-related deaths my fault?” he became increasingly agitated.

“Wait… you know about all these incidents?” I suddenly realized something.

As far as I knew, I had never told anyone about the beetle case except Li Zi.

“I… I only know that something unusual has been happening around here, and those incidents seem to involve insects,” Fan Bin said hesitantly.

“Can you… tell us exactly what you’ve seen?” I asked cautiously.

After a moment of silence, Fan Bin turned to look into the dense depths of the abandoned buildings.

Then he said to us: “Come with me.”