Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 37

Because it was Sunday, some students at the art academy wouldn't return until Monday, so there weren't many onlookers. Crossing the yellow police tape, I saw Xiao Ren and Li Yang walking towards me, both with equally grave expressions. The atmosphere was a bit eerie; some of the police officers around me seemed uneasy.

"What's the situation?" I asked.

"The deceased was a 67-year-old male named Hu Rui. He was a professor at this art academy and a renowned abstract painting master in the art world," Xiao Ren said slowly.

An abstract painting master? I frowned. Was it a coincidence, or was there more to it? What connection did the deceased have with that abstract art exhibition I had seen?

Following closely behind Xiao Ren, I turned to look at Li Yang and asked, "Is there anything else?"

Li Yang glanced at me, lowered his voice, and whispered in my ear, "The deceased's left eye is missing."

"What?" I exclaimed in surprise. This was definitely not a coincidence. This case must be connected to the case of the unfinished building, we just haven't found it yet.

"Pretty eerie, right?" Li Yang said hesitantly. But I was considering another question: would I be able to find the deceased's left eye inside his stomach?

I entered a large classroom with many easels, so it must be a painting classroom. There were also many white plaster statues piled up around it, standing there coldly and silently.

A corpse lay beside an overturned easel, blood splattered everywhere, even staining some of the surrounding white canvases. The body was supine, a large gash cut into its throat, the blood already congealed and connected in thin strands. The corpse's left eye was almost a bloody mess, as if it had been gouged out of its socket. A closer look revealed the corpse's right hand fingers, stained crimson with blood, even showing traces of mucous tissue.

"What did he grab?" As I put on my gloves, I carefully lifted his hand to take a look. A crazy and terrifying thought suddenly popped into my mind: Could the deceased have gouged out his own left eye with his own hand? The thought sent a chill down my spine, and my right hand twitched in perfect unison.

"What's wrong?" Li Yang asked from the side.

"It's nothing, just a slight tremor in my hand," I replied casually.

"Lin Xiao, do you think the deceased's mouth looks like it's full? It looks a bit bulging." Xiao Ren suddenly spoke up from the side. His words startled Li Yang and me. We exchanged a glance, then turned our gazes to the deceased's mouth at the same time. A chill ran through my body, and a blood-red mist appeared before my left eye. A sharp pain shot through my left temple, and the sudden pain made me close my eyes for a moment.

Open your eyes.

My heart was pounding in my throat.

The corpse, which was already dead, opened its mouth at me again.

Blood-red eyeballs were slowly rotating inside the victim's mouth, the pupils gradually dilating, dilating, dilating...

Cold sweat instantly soaked my entire body.

No! This can't go on! I shook my head hard. It was all an illusion. Looking closer, I realized the deceased hadn't opened his mouth; Li Yang's hand was already at it.

I grabbed his hand and asked, "What do you want to do?"

"What are we doing? Of course, we're going to pry open his mouth and see what's inside!" Li Yang said, looking at me.

“Then you need to wear gloves.” I tossed him a pair of gloves.

"Okay." Li Yang reluctantly put on his gloves, then placed both hands on the deceased's chin. He glanced back at me and said, "I really pried it open!"

I nodded with difficulty, clasping my hands together. A sudden, inexplicable twitching in my right hand made me uneasy. As Li Yang carefully pried open the deceased's mouth, a collective gasp filled the room. Everyone turned pale, fear creeping onto their faces. Li Yang jumped up as if electrocuted. A moment of silence followed.

"What's wrong with you all?" Chen Kai's voice rang out from the doorway. He looked at the grim faces of everyone present and asked.

"Looks like another psychopath!" an officer said to Chen Kai. "Another victim with his throat slit and his left eye missing. And this time, the eyeball is actually inside his mouth."

"What?" Chen Kai was also taken aback, then turned to me and asked, "Really?"

I nodded helplessly. It was truly one crisis after another. The murderer in these two cases was very likely the same person! But when I thought about the fact that the murderer was a human, another voice in my heart told me that things were not as simple as I imagined.

"I didn't expect you'd still insist on performing an autopsy in the end." Chen Kai walked up to me and said, "Are there any other clues?"

"I'll probably have to wait for the detailed autopsy report to tell you that." I crouched down again to examine the body and found that the wound on the throat was very deep; I could even see the pink cervical vertebrae and the white trachea. What struck me as odd was that the wound was of the exact same depth from left to right. Normally, when a killer slits a victim's throat, they would reach behind and hook their hand in front of the victim's neck before striking. In that case, the wound would always show a pattern of uneven pressure, with the left side being deeper than the right. Of course, if the killer was left-handed, the wound would be deeper on the right and shallower on the left. But now, the wound was the same depth on both sides; even the most skilled professional killer couldn't achieve this level of precision.

But what if the murderer isn't human?

I took a deep breath, trying to banish the thought from my mind, but the strange wound and the deceased's left eye made me recall the incident at Heart Lake. I was so lost in thought that I didn't snap out of it until Li Yang nudged me.

"Look at this painting!" After taking photos, Li Yang and the other police officers at the scene righted the easel that had fallen to the ground. I looked up and saw an abstract painting with a blue base. The blood that had spurted from the victim's throat had splattered onto the blue oil painting, making the already monochromatic abstract painting appear even more eerie and incomprehensible. The distinctive stench of blood still lingered on the canvas.

I suspect the victim was attacked from behind and had his throat slit while painting this picture, the blood becoming another form of red oil paint smeared onto the canvas. Perhaps it's psychological or the angle, but I keep feeling that the irregular patterns formed on the canvas after the blood splattered look remarkably like a human eye—the eye socket, the pupil, even the pupil itself are so realistic, as are the tear tracks flowing from the corner of the eye. The more I look at it, the more it resembles a human eye; in the end, I even feel as if the eyes are shimmering, and blood and tears are falling.

I quickly looked away, my heart pounding so hard I was trembling all over. The empty classroom felt so cold. Around me, the white plaster statues were layered with light and shadow, a gray film rising from their surfaces. Each pair of lifeless, cold eyes seemed to be staring intently at me, gradually emanating an aura of death.

My head was spinning, and the white left eyes of those plaster statues suddenly turned blood red, as if blood could drip from them. My legs went weak, and I almost fell to the ground. The statues in front of me appeared in superimposed images, flickering and countless left eyes moving back and forth before my eyes.

"Captain!" A police officer's shout jolted me awake from my hallucination, but I was completely cold and weak.

"What's wrong?" Chen Kai asked the police officer.

"The identity of the deceased in the unfinished building has been confirmed." The police officer reported this, sounding slightly out of breath, as if he had rushed over.

"Oh, what is it?" Chen Kai asked hurriedly.

“We found out that the deceased was an unemployed man in the city named Zhang Yuqiang, who lived in a shantytown in the west of the city,” the police officer replied.

"Are these the only unemployed people?" Chen Kai asked again.

“Someone has already gone to his residence to investigate thoroughly, and the results should be out soon,” the officer replied.

"Okay, thank you." Chen Kai nodded, then turned to Li Yang and asked, "Who discovered the body first?"

“It’s her!” Li Yang pointed to a girl sitting by the door, who was curled up and trembling uncontrollably. “She was the deceased’s assistant. She came to talk to the deceased about some problems she encountered in teaching, but she did not expect to find the deceased’s body.”

"Did she say she saw anyone else at the crime scene?" Chen Kai asked.

"She hasn't said anything yet! It's the first time the little girl has seen such a horrific corpse, she's terrified." Li Yang shrugged helplessly. There was nothing he could do; she wouldn't talk, and he couldn't very well torture her to extract a confession!

"Oh!" Chen Kai looked at the girl and said, "Then you should comfort her later and get her to give a statement as soon as possible."

"Okay." Li Yang nodded.

I looked back at the body still lying on the ground, and I couldn't understand it. One was a lowly homeless man, and the other was a famous painter. Why would the murderer choose these two completely unrelated people to go on a killing spree? Or was there some unknown connection between the two of them?

Watching the body being carried away on a stretcher, I still couldn't figure it out. I slowly walked over to Li Yang, who had already started questioning the girl.

"Miss, may I ask what time you discovered the body?" Li Yang asked politely.

The girl looked up, sobbed, and stammered, "I don't know much, I only know that I came... came here... it should have been around 4:45 before I arrived here."

"Oh, so did you see any other people when you arrived at the scene?" Li Yang asked.

"No." The girl immediately shook her head like a rattle-drum.

"Oh! When was the last time you saw Professor Hu?"

"It seems...it seems to be this morning."

"Have you noticed anything unusual about him?"

“Abnormal?” The girl tilted her head and thought for a while before saying, “He’s been acting quite strangely these past few days, ever since he came back from that trip.”

"Go out? Do you know where he went? What do you mean by something being abnormal?" Li Yang asked several questions in one breath.

"Because he suddenly became neurotic, always looking absent-minded and like he was scared." The girl replied, "As for where he went, I don't know. He didn't say, but from his tone it sounded like he was going to see some kind of art exhibition."

An art exhibition? I was so surprised I almost cried out. Could this be the same art exhibition I saw by An Ran? If so, at least one thing is certain: he and the previous victim had both been to that strange art exhibition at the unfinished building!

"Fear? What is he afraid of?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I don't know." The girl shook her head, then glanced at me, and then a look of fear appeared on her face. She stared at me for a while, and then said in a trembling voice, "A few days before the professor died, his left eye suddenly turned red inexplicably, just like your left eye."

"What?!" Li Yang immediately yelled at me, reached out and touched my left eye, while I stood there frozen, completely stiff and cold.

"Lin Xiao, did you also go to any art exhibitions? Didn't you also go to that unfinished building?" Li Yang asked anxiously.

I glanced at Li Yang, my hand trembling, and then my right hand twitched again, bobbing to the left as if it were out of control.

"Is there anything else?" Li Yang glanced at me worriedly, then turned to ask the girl. The girl still looked at me with fear, then shook her head vigorously.

"Okay, thank you!" Li Yang patted the girl on the shoulder and said, "We will ask you to go to the police station later to make a detailed statement. Please cooperate."

"Okay." The girl nodded, gave me a wistful look, and then walked away.

Li Yang turned to look at me, hesitated several times before finally sighing and saying, "Let's call Fang Lei and Li Hai and ask them to come back as soon as possible."

Although I didn't want to be protected by my girlfriend, if I lost my life, I would lose everything else; saving face was far less important than my life. After much consideration, I finally nodded in agreement.

"Captain!" At this moment, the officer from before ran back and said to Chen Kai, "The people who went to investigate called back and said they have found some things."

"What is it?" Li Yang immediately grabbed him and asked anxiously.

“That Zhang Yuqiang is very likely someone who specializes in the resale and smuggling of cultural relics,” the police officer replied after struggling to break free from Li Yang.

Antiques resale? Li Yang and I exchanged puzzled glances. Could this have anything to do with abstract paintings?

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Nine: The Tomb Raider Family

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Nine: The Tomb Raider Family

The city at night is ablaze with lights and bustling activity.

Only the swirling smoke silently appeared in strange shapes before my eyes. I gently shook off some ash and sat blankly in the car, my eyes fixed on the door of the Black Forest Bar.

To go in or not to leave, that is the question.

I exhaled another puff of smoke. It had been so long since I'd smoked, and it felt a little strange. But now, only nicotine could soothe my nerves. Those eyeballs resurfaced in my mind, in my stomach, in my mouth. And all the clues we had now were a pitifully few:

I. The identities of the two deceased: one was a conman who sold antiques, and the other was an abstract painter.

Second, Hu Rui had attended an art exhibition before his death, while Zhang Yuqiang died in an unfinished building where an art exhibition had once taken place.

Third, they all died from having their throats cut and their left eyes mysteriously gouged out.

These four points seem to have some potential connection, but they don't seem to link together in the short term. Fang Lei and Li Hai aren't around, so is the only person I can turn to for help really the proprietress of the Black Forest Bar?

Dejected, I threw the cigarette out the window. I would rather have Li Yang do this; after all, that guy is always happy to meet beautiful women. Unfortunately, Chen Kai didn't let Li Yang have his way and kept him at the police station.

Sigh! I have to rely on myself now! With that thought, I got off the car with the spirit of a hero going to his death and headed towards the bar.

As soon as I entered the bar, a waiter standing at the door came over and politely asked, "Excuse me, are you Mr. Lin Xiao?"

"Ah! That's me." I looked at him with a puzzled expression. How did he know my name?

The waiter smiled at me and said, "Our boss has been waiting for a long time. Please follow me!"

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. How could Tian Niang have guessed that I would come tonight? Does she have precognitive abilities? With these questions in mind, I walked to the familiar basement door.

"The boss is inside, Mr. Lin, please come in," the waiter said, gesturing for him to enter.

Shrugging, I figured it wasn't my first time here anyway, and fearlessly pushed open the door. The first thing I saw was Tian Niang's alluring figure, the soft light highlighting her curvaceous and alluring body.

"Little apprentice!" Tian Niang turned around and called out to me sweetly. Today she was wearing a bright red leather coat, dazzling like a dancing flame.

"Who's your apprentice?" I rolled my eyes helplessly. This beautiful woman really knows how to talk to herself.

"Hehe, it's bound to happen sooner or later anyway, so what's the harm in making a few noises first?" Tian Niang walked towards me with a charming demeanor, her breasts swaying with each step, making my eyes itch.