Animal Detective

Chapter 129: The Dead Cat

Two police cars, one after the other, drove into Tianhe Home.

All the resettlement complexes in Nanjiang were pretty much the same: large, with dozens or even hundreds of units.

The property management was practically nonexistent. Usually, an old man would be stationed at the gate, which had turned into a social hub for the neighborhood’s elderly residents.

There were security cameras, but they lacked routine maintenance. They were useless on a normal day, and when you actually needed them, one was always broken, if not another.

So when Zhao Shouchuan pointed at the security camera by the building entrance and said it had been broken for a long time, Shen Xin wasn’t the least bit surprised.

It was a 24-story high-rise with a two-elevator, two-apartment-per-floor layout.

Wang Lei lived in 302, a smaller 72-square-meter unit situated in the middle, with two bedrooms, two living areas, and one bathroom.

The door was now shut tight, sealed with evidence tape.

After the 120 emergency call was made on the 23rd and the CDC and police arrived, Zhang Qingpeng had hastily moved out.

He had already given his statement to the police and was now staying in a hotel.

Zhao Shouchuan had instructed him not to leave Nanjiang for the time being unless absolutely necessary.

Apartment 302 was also sealed off.

Both sets of keys were at the police station.

Wang Lei’s husky was taken away by the CDC and sent to a stray dog shelter.

Zhao Shouchuan took out the keys and opened the door.

The three of them put on shoe covers and entered the apartment.

At 72 square meters, with a smaller portion dedicated to shared public space, it was relatively large.

Rental units here came in two varieties: bare-bones or fully furnished.

This one was clearly the work of a sublandlord. The rent was 1,600, with Wang Lei paying 1,000 for the master bedroom.

The front door opened directly into the living room, which had no balcony, only a single south-facing window.

The two bedrooms also faced south. Both the master and secondary bedrooms had balconies, but they weren’t connected.

To the left were the kitchen and bathroom, one after the other.

A dining table was placed by the kitchen entrance, and a fabric sofa with a chaise lounge section sat in the corner to the right.

Shen Xin stood at the entrance, silently scanning the room’s layout.

As one might expect from a place inhabited by two young men, it was far from clean and tidy.

Clothes were strewn haphazardly across the sofa, and the coffee table was cluttered with miscellaneous items.

The dining table was covered in takeout containers.

The kitchen had pots and pans, but they were probably only used for making instant noodles.

The doors to both bedrooms were open. Zhang Qingpeng’s secondary bedroom showed signs of someone having packed up their things.

Wang Lei’s room, however, was untouched.

There was a desktop computer.

There was also a camera, a tripod, a ring light, and so on.

He was a streamer, so it was normal for him to have this equipment.

"Do you guys smell something foul?" Shen Xin asked.

Ding Yuwei nodded, saying she smelled it too.

Zhao Tianxing, who probably had a cold, said he didn’t.

But Zhao Shouchuan said, "Come to think of it, I smelled something faint last time I was here. I just figured it was because he had a dog, so I didn’t think much of it."

Shen Xin shook his head.

Dogs can have a strong body odor, but unlike cats, they don’t use a litter box that stinks if it isn’t cleaned regularly.

Dogs need to be walked and do their business outside, so they wouldn’t cause this kind of smell.

Shen Xin twitched his nose, sniffing continuously, trying to pinpoint the source of the stench.

He then walked into the master bedroom.

It was coming from this direction.

Shen Xin got on the floor to look under the bed, but there were only three shoes and some trash.

"I think it’s from outside," Ding Yuwei said, pointing to the balcony.

Shen Xin went out onto the balcony. A corner was piled high with various things.

There was a wooden plant stand, but instead of pots, it was holding socks and clothes hangers.

A stack of shoeboxes was piled up outside as well.

It seemed Wang Lei had a hobby of collecting sneakers.

Shen Xin leaned in and sniffed. Yes, this was definitely where it was coming from.

And it absolutely wasn’t the smell of stinky shoes; it was the smell of rot.

Shen Xin started moving the shoeboxes. After clearing about half of them, his expression changed abruptly.

There, under the plant stand in the farthest corner of the balcony, lay a cat, stiff and still.

It was a calico, clearly dead for several days. It was long past rigor mortis and had started to soften. Its fur was falling out, putrid fluid was seeping from its abdomen, and maggots were crawling in its ears and nose.

"Wang Lei had a cat, too?" Ding Yuwei frowned, covering her nose as she squatted down to look.

Shen Xin backed away and, after a quick search, found a litter box in the bathroom.

It contained tofu litter, some feces, and a single clump of urine.

’It probably hasn’t been used in days.’

"Strange, what’s this cat doing here?" Zhao Shouchuan said with a frown.

During their last visit, they had learned that Wang Lei owned not only a husky but also a cat.

The CDC staff had asked Zhang Qingpeng about it, and he said it might have snuck out, as he hadn’t seen it for a few days.

To think it died here.

Ding Yuwei held up her phone and pointed at the cat’s head. "Shen Xin, look at its head. Its jaw is dropped, and its tongue is hanging out. According to what I’m reading online, when a cat dies of rabies, it drools excessively and its tongue lolls out."

"And cats are different from dogs. A rabid dog will become highly aggressive, but a rabid cat will find a corner or a dark place to hide."

"Shen Xin, this cat might have died from rabies."

Shen Xin crouched down, moved all the shoeboxes, the stand, and the other junk to the side, and carefully examined the dead cat.

It looked a lot like Da Mei.

It was a long-haired calico, a domestic cat, not a purebred like a British Shorthair.

Shen Xin subconsciously reached out to turn the cat’s body over and check for wounds, but he stopped abruptly. He pulled his hand back and asked, "It’s already dead. It shouldn’t be contagious anymore, right?"

Ding Yuwei did another quick search on her phone. "It says that the tissue fluids are still infectious for one to two days after death. But after that, the virus should become inactive and no longer contagious. Besides, you’d only get infected if you have an open wound on your hand."

Shen Xin broke into a cold sweat. ’Good thing I didn’t touch it.’

’Even with gloves on.’

A hundred-percent mortality rate was truly unsettling.

Grabbing a nearby clothes hanger, Shen Xin flipped the cat’s corpse over.

It was long-haired, so it was hard to see much.

If this cat died of the rabies virus, then that raised the biggest question: how did it get infected?

Wang Lei’s husky hadn’t been infected.

"It’s not like Wang Lei bit it, right?" Shen Xin retorted.

The other three all nodded.

Zhao Shouchuan said, "Then could it be that the cat ran away? Didn’t Zhang Qingpeng say he hadn’t seen it for a few days and suspected it got out? So the cat ran out, got infected, then came back. Once the incubation period was over, it got sick and bit Wang Lei, causing him to get infected too."

"And the husky didn’t get infected because it was vaccinated."

"Well, isn’t that case closed?"

Wang Lei’s parents just wanted an explanation. They wanted to know exactly how he got infected.

Shen Xin nodded. That was certainly a possibility.

Dogs are a major source of transmission, and so are cats.

"By the way, Ding Yuwei, is the incubation period in cats any different from that in dogs or humans?" Shen Xin asked.

He then asked Zhao Shouchuan if Zhang Qingpeng had said which specific day the cat went missing.

Zhao Shouchuan shook his head, saying Zhang Qingpeng hadn’t given a specific date.

They could ask him for clarification later.

’We should be able to figure it out. Just need to look at the litter box. There’s only that one clump. The day it stopped being cleaned is the day the cat disappeared.’

Meanwhile, Ding Yuwei had looked it up on her phone. "The incubation period for cats, dogs, and humans is actually pretty similar. It depends on the wound. If the bite is closer to the head, the onset of the disease is faster—as short as one to two weeks, maybe around ten days."

"But the infectious period after a cat shows symptoms might be shorter; they die in one or two days. For humans, death also occurs within two to seven days."