Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 1

The first volume of the true record of ghost identification, "Talking about three ghosts in the city", Chapter 1: Lividity on the living?

I, Lin Xiao, am a forensic doctor.

Yes, being a forensic pathologist is a good job, especially if I didn't smell like volatile organic compounds. Actually, I don't really care about the smell, but because I have a sister with OCD, I have to wash myself as clean as possible before leaving get off work every day to avoid her yelling at me. Generally, she can spot me from about ten meters away because of my scent. I often think she shouldn't have been born in the Year of the Snake, but rather the Year of the Dog.

I pulled out my keys, still troubled by the day's work. Several recent cases were unusual, or more precisely, several corpses I'd received were unusual. All were women, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, and presumably quite beautiful—if their faces hadn't been contorted with extreme terror. They all died from cardiac arrest caused by a sudden surge of adrenaline—what people commonly call being scared to death. That was the primary cause of death stated in the autopsy reports.

The door opened, and I instinctively pressed the light switch in the entryway. It didn't light up; was it broken again? I couldn't help but mentally curse the building management staff again, closing the door behind me and stepping onto the small rug by the door. The room was dark, and the cramped entryway felt oppressive. I felt the rug under my feet was wet, a sticky wetness; I could even hear the sizzling sound of my feet rubbing against it, like the sound of a pirated CD being crumpled by a hard drive. I crouched down and touched the rug. Through the sliver of light from the crack in the door, I saw the sticky liquid on my fingers—it was red. A strange sound came from the far end of the entryway, like someone scratching a rusty steel plate with their fingernails, sending chills down my spine.

Of course, don't think I'm scared, but rather...

"Sis, what trick are you up to now?" I practically yelled to express my dissatisfaction.

"Oh dear, I didn't scare you!" The lights suddenly came on, and a long-haired beauty wearing a men's shirt that could easily be used as a nightgown (of course, it was mine) and denim shorts that couldn't be shorter than they could be, stood there with her hands on her hips.

This is my older sister, Lin Yao, a beautiful woman I often suspect might be an exhibitionist, and also a second-rate horror novelist in my opinion. I've been reading her works since I was six, but each time I read them, I feel less and less terrified. Every time I mock her work, she boasts that if she hadn't trained my tolerance for being scared from a young age, I wouldn't be able to work as a forensic pathologist now. Of course, I've always dismissed her statement as nonsense.

"You think you can fool me with some diluted tomato juice? Do you think I'm a forensic pathologist for nothing?" I took off my shoes on the carpet and walked over.

"I thought these would be more mysterious than the ghost mask!" My older sister pouted and slumped onto the sofa in disappointment.

Ever since she realized her work no longer scared me, she's been using ghost masks to frighten me. Unfortunately, it had no effect whatsoever, only earning her a few eye-rolls. Although she improved today, there were too many flaws; the obvious tomato smell was the biggest blunder!

I ignored her and went straight to my room. The stress of work during the day had left me with no mood for playing the ghost game with her. After collapsing heavily onto the bed, my thoughts inevitably drifted back to the daytime, to that cold morgue…

"Xiao Xiao, is your cause of death definitely excessive shock?" Li Yang, a detective in the criminal investigation team and a recent college graduate from the Public Security University, was clearly not satisfied with my answer.

"Yes~~~~~~~~~!" I drawled out the word, answering his question for the hundredth time. This guy was incredibly stubborn, more so than an ox. I covered the body with a white sheet. The women's faces made the already small room feel suddenly empty and unsettling. Although as a forensic pathologist I'd seen all kinds of corpses, when I faced a body without a single wound, except for a bluish face, bulging eyes like goldfish eyes, and features contorted with fear, a sense of unease slowly rose like bubbles.

"Could it really be a ghost?" Li Yang rested his chin on his hand, his brows furrowed. It wasn't that he was superstitious, but rather that too many doubts couldn't be explained by common sense.

I heard Li Yang talking to himself, but I had no interest in finding out. I'm not a detective; I'm just a forensic doctor. The truth hidden behind a corpse is often more fascinating to me than the truth of the case itself.

"Xiao Xiao, what kind of thing could frighten a well-educated woman to death?" Li Yang pulled the white sheet off the body again. It seemed this guy's tolerance for fright was even stronger than mine. If my older sister's writing could scare him one day, hehe, she'd become a famous writer. Of course, I really shouldn't be thinking about these things while he and I were discussing the case.

I don't know exactly how much fear a person can withstand, but strangely enough, people, despite their fear of terrifying things, still want to experience them. Otherwise, there wouldn't be horror novels or movies. It seems that human fear and curiosity are always intertwined. This was fully proven in my later years.

"Hey, did you hear what I said?" Li Yang's voice pulled me back from my thoughts. Clearly, he was a little annoyed by my Divine Void Travel.

"Oh, I'm listening!" I took the gloves off my hands, but in my mind I was already thinking about what to have for lunch.

"Talking to you is like casting pearls before swine!" Li Yang gave me a disappointed look, blaming me for not following his line of reasoning. "Fine, fine! Come on, how about I treat you to dinner?"

"Great!" The thought of a free lunch piqued my interest, my eyes lighting up. I practically dragged Li Yang out, intending to close the door behind me. Perhaps I was too hungry to see clearly, or maybe the midday sun was too bright, but I vaguely thought I saw a wisp of black smoke rising from the corpse. Unfortunately, it was just a vague image; preoccupied with lunch, I didn't pay any attention…

"Hey, come here for a second!" My older sister's voice called out, pulling me back to reality from my daytime reverie. I dislike her calling me "hey" all the time, but compared to the creepy and cringe-inducing nickname "Little Brother Xiao," it's still acceptable. I once suggested she call me "Xiao," but she said it was too ambiguous. Calling me by my name directly, she said that was too formal. Then I started calling her "Brother," but she said that would clearly indicate she's my older sister, making her seem older! Finally, she wanted to call me "Little Brother Xiao"—I suspect she's been reading too many martial arts novels!

"Hey~~~~~~!!!" Just as my older sister's voice reached a certain decibel level, a level comparable to that of the victim during the pig slaughter, I knew for sure that if I didn't arrive within thirty seconds, I would be facing a sleepless night.

"What are you doing?" I kicked open my older sister's door. Based on my previous experience, I wondered if some clueless "cockroach" had once again invaded her territory.

"My computer crashed again, come quick and help me take a look!" My older sister shouted, pointing at a laptop.

"Please, you've been fiddling with it all day, and you still can't figure it out!" I seriously doubt if she's really my sister. How can someone with such intellectual problems be my sister?

"I only use it to write things, how could I possibly become a computer expert?" My older sister stood up, looking completely matter-of-fact, and picked up the cup beside her. "I'm going to make a cup of tea. You'd better get it fixed by the time I get back, or else I'll give you a piece of my mind!"

"Ha, it looks like I'm the one who broke it!" I muttered, not daring to say it too loudly, otherwise I might become her first victim of using a cup as a hidden weapon. Then from now on, there would not only be Little Li's flying dagger, but also Little Lin's flying cup!

Just as I reached for the mouse, my eye suddenly twitched—a violent twitch, as if it were about to leap out of its socket. A chill ran down my spine, because whenever my eye twitches, something bad never happens, and the more violent the twitch, the worse the misfortune! A slight twitch might just mean I trip and fall, or perhaps knock something over. I've only experienced this violent twitch three times: once was the day my parents had their car accident, once was the day before the college entrance exam results were released, and then, the night before Yin Xue hanged herself—a night I never want to remember but can never forget!

A wave of fear and trepidation washed over me simultaneously. I noticed my hands trembling. I wasn't afraid of death itself, because death was already too obvious to me. I was afraid of experiencing the loneliness and panic that would follow the death of someone close to me again. I shook my head, trying to calm myself, and covered my twitching left eye with my hand. My right eye, however, saw something—something I knew all too well. Yes, it was livor mortis, right there in the digital photo on the computer screen, on the wrist of a beautiful, almost ethereal woman. It was a mark unlike any other, one that most people would struggle to recognize, yet it was all too easy for me to spot. I told myself this was likely another joke my sister was playing to scare me, but reason told me that someone as computer illiterate as her couldn't possibly create a composite image. So if it wasn't a joke, then what was it? The woman in the photo was clearly a living person. Could a living person have livor mortis, or had I just lost my mind and mistake some other mark for a livor mortis?

Book One: Three Ghosts of the City, Chapter Two: The Black Forest Bar

Book One: Three Ghosts of the City, Chapter Two: The Black Forest Bar

I shook my head vigorously, then pressed the computer's restart button, and the computer immediately started making a "creaking" sound.

The sound was completely different today, though I'd heard this hard drive noise many times before. It pierced my eardrums, causing a dull ache. The Windows 2000 shutdown screen didn't appear; instead, the face that should have been alluring was distorted, its features contorted and terrifying, especially its eyes, which had stretched into two enormous black holes, making it look like a character from a horror movie. I could feel the sticky sweat on my palms, but I couldn't scream. My throat felt dry, as if something was stuck in it. I saw the woman in the photo was emitting black smoke, just like the female corpse in the morgue during the day. My eyes twitched violently. I didn't know if this meant something unfortunate; I dared not think about it, nor did I want to. Years of forensic work had instilled in me the principle of handling everything with scientific evidence, but weren't some things difficult to explain scientifically? I don't know where the strength came from, but I rushed forward and yanked the computer's power cord. The image on the screen disappeared, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ah, you pulled it out? I haven't even saved what I just wrote!" My older sister's scream came from behind me. I knew that I wouldn't have a good night or the next few days.

"Who was in that photo you just took?" I deftly dodged my older sister's "Foshan Shadowless Kick," ignoring her numerous deadly stares, and asked her.

"What, you've got your eye on someone?" My older sister smiled with a suggestive and lewd expression.

Flirting with her? Who knows who she is? I sighed, deliberately ignoring my older sister's sly grin. "Even if I am!"

"She's a friend I met at a bar. She's pretty, isn't she? It's rare to see someone interested in people other than the dead!"

My sister pressed the start button, and my heart immediately started pounding. But a strange curiosity prevented me from stopping her. It seems that curiosity isn't just something cats have; humans have it too.

"Huh, why isn't it responding?" My older sister is always good at yelling and shouting, but this time it seems like there's really a problem. My eyes twitched again. Merciful God, are you telling me that this computer's future might be spent in a junkyard?

"You bastard, what did you do to it? You're responsible!" My older sister used almost all her strength to grab my collar, looking like she had a deep grudge against me. "My novel, which I spent months developing, is all gone!"

Please, I've never seen you act this heartbroken and devastated when you lost your wallet before! I suppressed a grimace and resigned myself to my fate: "I know, I'll buy you a new computer!"

Oh, what a terrible fate! Three months' salary of mine! My heart is in so much pain!

"Which bar did you meet at?" I asked, still feeling resentful about losing three months' salary.

"Oh, so you're thinking of taking action?" My older sister's smile became even more suggestive. She really read too many novels; she's so imaginative.

"Don't get the wrong idea, I'm just curious. It seems like most of your friends are men!" I replied. Indeed, my sister has countless male friends, while her female friends are few and far between.

"Why do you make me sound like a lovesick fool?" My older sister grabbed a book and threw it at me. I was so glad it was just a thin book by Edogawa Ranpo called "The White-Haired Demon" instead of Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes," or I would have been dead.

"Okay, I admit I misspoke, alright?" I quickly bowed and apologized, with a forced smile on my face.

"Ha!" My older sister said with an air of certainty. "I met her at the Black Forest Bar! Don't you think she's very beautiful?"

"Black Forest Bar? What day did you meet her?" I was really curious about this woman. It was too strange that a living person had lividity.

“Just two months ago!” My older sister’s casual reply almost made me jump up from the ground. Wasn’t that exactly when those strange female corpses started appearing? I’m now almost 50 percent certain that this woman is related to the recent case, but this is just my sixth sense. Where’s the evidence?

The next day, the first thing I did at work was to go back and examine the bodies, but no matter how I looked, I couldn't see that strange black smoke again. Had I really just imagined it that day? I couldn't concentrate on work anymore; my mind was filled with that somewhat strange bar: the Black Forest Bar. It was the bar my sister told me about last night when she met that woman. Black Forest—it was indeed a strange name. I thought of a cake also called Black Forest, which sounded quite sweet, but if you added that woman into the picture, it wouldn't be so pleasant.

"Lin Xiao, are you free tonight? How about you come with me somewhere?" Li Yang pushed open the door and yelled at me. This guy never knows the etiquette of knocking before entering. I doubt the credibility of his claim that his family has been around for generations!

"I'm busy!" I flatly refused his unreasonable request. I still have to go to the Black Forest Bar tonight!

"Alright, then I'll tell you the truth. The place we're going tonight is related to those female corpses!"

Li Yang had a mysterious and unpredictable look on his face.

"Oh?" I was a little tempted. Actually, I definitely wouldn't have bothered with any other case, but this one had too many strange aspects. More importantly, my sixth sense told me that it must be related to the mysterious woman on my sister's computer. "I'm not a police officer, won't I be interfering with your investigation?"

"Hehe." Li Yang scratched his head, laughing awkwardly. I immediately knew that the kid had probably tried to do it without reporting to his superiors first.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

“Black Forest Bar,” Li Yang replied.

"What?!" I exclaimed. Although I had a premonition, I was still very surprised after Li Yang confirmed it.

"What, you found out too?" Li Yang was very wary of my reaction. Damn it, where did my composure go?

"Know? Know what? I'm just a little worried because my older sister goes there often." I replied, which was actually the truth. Although she was a bit neurotic, she was still my sister, my only remaining family member in the world.

"Oh, really? Then I advise your sister to avoid going!" Li Yang believed me, and his tone lost its usual jokingness. I think he was taking this matter more seriously this time.

"I can go with you, but you have to tell me the results of your investigation these past few days, okay?" Anyway, two people are always better than one, so I readily agreed to Li Yang's request.

"That's strange! Forensic Doctor Lin is actually interested in the case. I thought you were only interested in corpses!"

Li Yang patted my shoulder forcefully and waved his hand generously, "No problem, I'll definitely tell you the truth!"

Volume One: The Three Ghosts of the City, Chapter Three: Case Analysis

Volume One: The Three Ghosts of the City, Chapter Three: Case Analysis

Li Yang first closed the door, cautiously glancing around to make sure no one was watching before doing so. He then slowly poured himself a glass of water, found a seat, and began his case analysis report: "The three most recent cases all involved women who died. Their common characteristics were that they were around 25 years old and quite pretty, suggesting the killer was particularly interested in this type of woman. The location of death was a large tree by the lake, where they were hanged. Suicide was ruled out because they were all hanged from tree trunks four or five meters high. Theoretically, such frail women couldn't climb that high, and there was nothing below to use as footholds. The wide-open eyes and gaping mouths of the female corpses indicate they were severely frightened before death. In other words, as you said, they were scared to death before being hanged. Of course, we can discuss how the killer managed to hang them."

"I know all that. Now tell me something I don't know!" I waved my hand. Actually, there are some things I know better than Li Yang, who is a police officer. After all, I'm a forensic doctor!

“We’re getting to that,” Li Yang took a sip of water and continued, “Our investigation revealed that they were both women with clean backgrounds and upright conduct, ruling out crimes of passion. Their valuables were still on them when they died, so robbery-murder is also ruled out. More importantly, they hadn’t been sexually assaulted before their deaths, so rape-murder is also ruled out. There’s no direct or indirect connection between them, except that they both went to the Black Forest Bar the night before they died. So, the only remaining, and only traceable, clue is the Black Forest Bar.”

"Then you police must have been there!" I said, completely bored and uninterested in Li Yang's so-called inside story.

"I did go, but I couldn't get any answers from them. That's why I decided to go on an incognito visit!" Li Yang said with a self-satisfied expression.

"Please, do you think you're the emperor, going on an incognito visit?" I couldn't help but roll my eyes at Li Yang, ready to utterly despise him.

"Ugh, can't you stop discouraging me?" Li Yang said, sounding like a wronged wife. "Do you even know the three most talked-about ghost stories about our city?"

“I didn’t grow up in this city, how would I know?” I was curious why Li Yang suddenly changed the subject; it wasn’t like him.

"The Ghost Woman of Heart Lake is one of the three great ghost stories, but it's also the most recent one. And that Heart Lake is where those girls lost their lives!" Li Yang winked at me, happy that he had finally piqued my interest. "The Ghost Woman of Heart Lake came about after the Cultural Revolution. It's said that a female ghost lives in Heart Lake and sucks away the souls of passersby. Some passersby have also said that they saw a long-haired woman in red wandering by the lake at night. And a total of seven people have died there, five men and two women. One of the men wrote the words 'There's a ghost' on the ground in his own blood before he died."

"Don't believe everything you hear!" I tried to explain from a scientific perspective, "and people often like to take the hallucinations they have in their daze as reality."

“I didn’t say that was true. I just wanted to tell you about the strange things about this lake! And there should have been eight people who died, but the eighth person survived. Unfortunately, he went mad and never spoke a word again. He just keeps humming some inexplicable tunes.” Li Yang’s voice became serious. I knew that these things were obviously giving him a headache.

"Have you looked into those seven people?" I asked.

"Yes! But unfortunately, we have no leads. It's too chaotic, and we have absolutely no idea where to begin. Moreover, the deaths of these seven people span a vast period of time. Some related people and information are no longer available." Li Yang sighed, partly because of this, and partly because he simply didn't have the time. This recent case had already overwhelmed everyone in the team; who had time to dig up old cases? Yet, his intuition told him that the current case was definitely inextricably linked to the Ghost Woman of Heart Lake.

I took a sip of water and suddenly hesitated whether I should tell Li Yang what happened last night. But who would believe me? They'd probably just think I was seeing things. I felt a hollow, uneasy feeling, but this also strengthened my resolve to go to the Black Forest Bar tonight.

“I went to the mental hospital to see that madman yesterday!” Li Yang stood up and stretched his limbs. “Unfortunately, it took me almost three hours! I didn’t get anything out of him!”

"Looks like even our interrogation expert has his limits!" I laughed. It seems someone can finally put him on his toes, but unfortunately, he's a madman.

"He didn't say a word, just kept humming some tune I couldn't even understand. I was really exasperated by him." Li Yang patted his chest, looking like he was still feeling suffocated just thinking about it.

"Anyway, the tune he's humming definitely isn't something he made up himself! Maybe it's because you're tone-deaf that you can't tell what he's humming!" I teased him.

"Alright, alright," Li Yang waved his fist at me to express his dissatisfaction, "You know I'm tone-deaf, yet you still try to expose my flaws?"

"Alright, enough about you. Let's get back to the point. Since they all died at Heart Lake, which is in the suburbs and quite a distance from the city center, they couldn't have walked there, could they? And according to my forensic examination, they should all have died around midnight. In such a remote place at this time, there shouldn't even be any buses running! Didn't you check the taxis?" I continued to ask Li Yang about the case.

"Do you think we police officers are just sitting around doing nothing? We've thought of this before! But here's the weird thing: we've investigated so far and haven't found a single taxi company that reported taking anyone to Xinhu during the days surrounding the incident. Xinhu is a very haunted place; almost no drivers want to go there, and even if they do, it's mostly during the day. So if someone dared to go to Xinhu at night, they would definitely be refused!" Li Yang explained firmly.

“Money talks, who knows, maybe some daring person went there for the money?” I objected. “Then the driver must remember the person who went there. Our police have issued notices to many people, telling them to report any such passengers! But so many days have passed, and there’s still no news. Are you going to tell me the driver just happened to have amnesia? And there might be more than one. We even considered that they drove there themselves, but the fact is they don’t have cars, not even driver’s licenses. Some teammates even said they might have stolen a car, but think about it, a perfectly healthy young woman, stealing a car, and going to a godforsaken place like Xinhu, who would believe that?!” Li Yang was so angry that his mouth twisted. That’s true, what was supposed to be a crucial breakthrough point turned out to be a complete disappointment.

“Okay!” I shrugged and began to summarize, “Now let me summarize the strange things about this case. First, although the deceased have no direct connection, they are connected to the Black Forest Bar and some indirect connections we haven’t yet discovered. Second, the time, place, and method of death of the deceased are too similar, which can be preliminarily inferred to be the work of the same person. Third, they are all related to Heart Lake, and the mystery of Heart Lake itself is too great, involving seven murders and a madman. Fourth, how did they all get there? Walking is definitely impossible, so the means of transportation is strange.”