Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 64

"Oh, alright!" I stared intently at Tsukihime, but I couldn't read anything in her eyes. It seemed like it really was just a ridiculous nightmare of mine!

"Alright, I'll be going now!" Tsukihime gently patted my shoulder and turned to leave.

"Wait a minute!" I called out to Yueji, thought for a moment, and then said, "I want to see Li Hai!"

"See him?" Yueji frowned and said, "But you've been here for the past three days..."

“I know I need to calm down!” I interrupted her, saying, “But I can’t calm down until you let me be sure my friend is safe. You don’t want the ceremony in three days to fail because of this, do you?” I know it’s a bit despicable to use this to threaten her, but right now I really need a friend I can truly trust to talk to.

Tsukihime lowered her head and thought for a while before reluctantly saying, "Alright, I'll let you see him. But you can only have one hour!"

"Okay, deal!" I replied immediately, pleased.

As I watched Tsukihime turn and leave, I still stared at the statue of the Goddess of the Forest in disbelief. That couldn't be a dream! Even though I couldn't turn that right eye right now, I knew it wasn't a dream!

Waiting in the empty hall was not a pleasant experience; time seemed to slow down, everything seemed to stand still, and I even wondered if my heartbeat had slowed down too. Then, after a series of crackling sounds, Li Hai appeared before me. And it was at that moment that I finally understood the excitement of meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

"Lin Xiao!" Li Hai rushed towards me, and I almost jumped to meet him.

"Li Hai, thank goodness, you're alright!" I said.

"By the way, how did you run into Yueji? What does she want?" Li Hai asked.

"I'll tell you about that later. Anyway, she wants me to perform a ritual for her, saying it will preserve the barrier so that her people can survive!" I replied.

"A ceremony? What kind of ceremony?" Li Hai asked curiously.

"It's like this." I paused for a moment, and then began to tell Li Hai all of Yue Ji's requests, including the right eye mechanism that seemed to be a dream and the black coffin.

"Is that so?" After listening to my explanation, Li Hai stroked his chin and said, "I seem to have seen this concept of spiritual thought and soul in some ancient book, but I can't remember exactly what it is!"

"So what Tsukihime said is true, and she wasn't lying to me?" I asked.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Li Hai suddenly pressed one hand to his temple while extending the other hand to make a quiet gesture towards me.

"Wait for what?" I asked anxiously. Tsukihime only gave us an hour!

"I remember now!" Li Hai suddenly jumped up excitedly and said, "That book is called 'The Chronicle of Another Dimension,' and it was translated by a famous sorcerer during the Han Dynasty based on strange characters on a strange stone tablet!"

"Okay, so what?" I asked.

"Wait, wait, don't rush!" Li Hai took a deep breath and said, "I seem to remember that I was only a teenager when I read this book, so I don't remember the details very clearly, but one thing I'm sure of is..."

"What?"

"That Tsukihime didn't lie to you, but... she also made some mistakes!"

"Wrong place? Where?"

“After a person dies, the soul does indeed split into two parts: the spiritual thought and the physical body. They then converge at the pineal gland between the eyebrows, and pass through here!” Li Hai pointed to his own forehead and said, “This is the path to the next life! But… it’s not that the spiritual thought stays in the right eye and the physical body stays in the left eye. Instead, they should be reversed. What stays in the right eye is the physical body, and what stays in the left eye is the spiritual thought!”

"The right eye is the soul, and the left eye is the spirit?" I was a little confused and asked, "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!" Li Hai swore confidently.

"But...but Yueji said the left eye is the soul and the right eye is the spirit! Could she be wrong?"

"What do you think?" Li Hai shrugged at me.

Of course, I wouldn't be foolish enough to think that Yueji would accidentally make a mistake. Obviously, if Li Hai wasn't lying to me, then Yueji was lying. Of course, I wouldn't suspect Li Hai. That means Yueji deliberately mixed up her left and right eyes. She must have her own purpose! But what was it for?

"Moon Princess said that gouging out the left eye is like leaving a person's spirit alive in a dead body. But according to that book, gouging out the left eye is like leaving a person's soul in the body. What use is a body that is just an unconscious shell?" I asked.

“This is what you call a real living dead! Although they can move, they have no consciousness; at best, they're just zombies!” Li Hai said, “By the way, there’s something very strange I have to tell you!” Li Hai lowered his voice and mysteriously told me about the Kassan family.

"So they seem to be afraid of your sword! But that doesn't make sense!" After listening, I frowned and said, "You were wearing this sword when we first met them, and they didn't show any signs of fear! If they were really just afraid of this sword, their reaction time would be too slow!"

“What if what they’re really afraid of isn’t the sword itself?” Li Hai tilted his head at me and said, “I’ve thought about this for a long time too.”

"Then what are they afraid of?" I really couldn't figure it out.

Li Hai didn't speak, but instead drew his sword, the cold gleam of which seemed to illuminate the entire hall. Taking the sword from Li Hai, I, still a clueless monk, stared at him.

"Look at the sword!" Li Hai pointed to the gleaming sword. The cold blade was now radiating white light, and in the shimmering white light, I saw my bewildered expression clearly reflected on the sword, as clearly as a mirror!

A mirror!? Wait…wait a minute! It's like a sudden realization, a mirror!? That's right, no wonder I always felt something was off about this place, like something was missing! I peeked into Kasang's bedroom that day, even though it was just a fleeting glance, but I immediately noticed something was missing! Now that I think about it, it was a mirror! Even in uncivilized ancient times, there should be a bronze mirror! But there wasn't one in that room. Yiqinge is a woman, how could a woman be missing a mirror in her room? Not just Kasang's room, but even the room we stayed in that night didn't have a mirror! No full-length mirror, no dressing mirror! Not a single one!

"It's a mirror! What they're actually afraid of is the mirror!" I exclaimed as if I had discovered a new continent.

“Yes, and they fear anything that can be clearly reflected. So even though my sword isn’t a mirror, their fear stems from the fact that the blade can clearly reflect things!” Li Hai said.

"Mirror, mirror, mirror!" I muttered to myself as I paced back and forth, repeating the word over and over, feeling like the wicked queen in Snow White, chanting in a neurotic manner. A familiar mirror seemed to gradually appear before my eyes... black bloodstains in a corner... bones behind the mirror... an unfinished building!

"The mirror in the unfinished building!" I blurted out. "That unknown skeleton was hidden behind the mirror!"

"You mean... the people who hid the bodies also knew they were afraid of mirrors?" Li Hai asked.

“I can’t be sure! Because we still can’t be sure whose remains they are, let alone who hid them behind the mirror! But…” I pressed my throbbing head and said, “Isn’t it strange now that you think about it? A mirror in an empty, unfinished building? Who would put a mirror in a room that’s not even decorated yet? I think the person who hid the remains definitely didn’t do it on a whim!”

"It's a pity we still haven't heard from Fang Lei and the others, otherwise we could have heard about that lead you mentioned!" Li Hai said regretfully.

“It’s a mitochondrial DNA report!” I rolled my eyes at Li Hai and said irritably.

"No matter what the report is, we can only guess now!" Li Hai said helplessly. "It's a pity that my cell phone has no signal at all. I used to be able to receive messages in that sewer!"

Ah! If only we could know Fang Lei's whereabouts right now, at least we could inform them that we are currently inside the Moonshadow Clan's barrier.

***********

Meanwhile, in the county town, Li Yang and Fang Lei began to worry about their respective relatives.

"How about we call again?" Fang Lei asked anxiously, glancing at Li Yang who had just hung up the phone.

"Miss, I've called countless times! If it were truly possible to get through, I would have done so already!" Li Yang sighed helplessly, recalling the countless times he'd heard the same message: "Sorry, the user you dialed is not in service. Please try again later." How could he not be anxious?

“There’s no way it can’t get through. Li Hai’s phone has been modified by him. Even the strongest spiritual power can penetrate it!” Fang Lei rubbed her hands together.

"Maybe it really is just a bad signal?" Li Yang tried to comfort Fang Lei, even though this excuse couldn't even convince himself.

"No, I have to go back again. I need to tell them the results of the report as soon as possible!" Fang Lei frowned as she looked at the test report in her hand. Clearly, the tests revealed that the remains in the unfinished building shared the same mitochondrial DNA as An Yi. This meant that the remains were either An Yi's mother or someone with the same maternal lineage as An Yi! Furthermore, the autopsy confirmed that the remains were male, meaning he must be An Yi's brother! Could it really be as Lin Xiao suspected, that he was An Ran, who had been missing for a long time?

"Then I'll go back with you." Although Li Yang didn't say it, he was still very worried about Li Hai.

"No, there are still many things here that need your help. I can go by myself!" Fang Lei said.

"Well..." Li Yang nodded hesitantly, agreeing to Fang Lei's suggestion, since there were indeed still many things to do.

"Don't worry, they'll be fine!" Fang Lei tried her best to comfort Li Yang, but her eyes still revealed deep worry. She glanced at the weather outside the window; the sun was exceptionally bright today, but it couldn't penetrate her heart. Lin Xiao, oh Lin Xiao! Please, please don't let anything happen to you! Thinking of this, Fang Lei involuntarily trembled. An ominous premonition, like ants crawling on her skin, made her feel uneasy all over.

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Forty-Three: The Sacrificial Ritual

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Forty-Three: The Sacrificial Ritual

As the main hall doors slowly opened, I felt the sun shine directly on my body like a thousand golden rays. Perhaps it was because I hadn't been exposed to sunlight for three days, but I felt a dizzy sensation, like I had just come off a roller coaster! Looking up, the long corridor in front of the doors seemed as long as the Bridge of Helplessness separating the living and the dead, yet the sunlight shone in from the end of the corridor, giving me a strange feeling of being in another world.

As I slowly walked up to the end of the corridor leading to the ground, what appeared before me was an enormous altar. The entire altar was shaped like an eye, with what appeared to be a circular protrusion in the center, like the eyeball. The torches around it were hidden beneath white masks of the dead, emitting flickering white light from their cracked mouths. Even in daylight, that white light was still so dazzling.

Gazing at the dark mass of Moonshadow Clan members below the altar, I was suddenly gripped by a nameless dread. The left eyes of those people held a completely different, venomous look, entirely unlike their right. I didn't know if a person could simultaneously display two drastically different expressions in their eyes. This eerie, stark contrast made me tremble uncomfortably, my fists clenching involuntarily. Looking to my left, I saw Moon Princess, clad in flowing white robes. Aside from a forehead ornament, she wore nothing else. The ornament appeared to be meticulously carved from a white material like ivory, with a rounded black obsidian stone inlaid in the center—it looked like…a third eye! Looking to my right, I saw Li Hai standing between two similarly dressed maids. Strangely, he wasn't carrying his sword.

Just as I was about to ask Li Hai a question, Yue Ji suddenly stretched out her hands to the sky, and what followed was a solar eclipse!? I almost fell over on the spot, but the truth was that the sun was indeed slowly being eroded by darkness, and the bright light before my eyes was gradually being swallowed by the darkness. I felt the air around me begin to grow cold. What chilled me even more was that as the light gradually dimmed, the left eyes of those tribesmen began to glow with a ghostly red light, which was especially eerie in the darkness.

"Heavenly Mother, please grant your daughter supreme power and protect our people!" Moon Princess slowly walked towards the circular platform. The surrounding firelight seemed to come alive, converging on her, making her appear like a saint rising from the flames, inspiring worship. Yet, her alluring body, partially concealed by a thin veil, evoked a lewd illusion. As she slowly bowed towards the sky, the people around the altar began to softly chant a strange song. Perhaps it was an ancient language long lost to time; the melodious melody seemed to have a hypnotic effect. My head began to spin, and the things before me began to feel unreal.

"Lin Xiao, please come here!" Yue Ji beckoned to me, and as if possessed, my feet moved involuntarily toward her, slowly walking onto the circular platform.

The moment my foot stepped onto that circular platform, I felt the world spinning rapidly, as if the air was being slowly drawn away. I felt two distinctly different gases coursing through my body, rushing towards my head. The song echoing in my ears grew louder and louder; I seemed to hear someone calling my name from afar, so plaintive, so full of emotion…

My body could no longer support its increasingly heavy weight; my legs buckled, and I collapsed to my knees before Yueji. Yueji leaned down and gently embraced me; her body was cold, yet incredibly soft. I felt her hand lightly brush against my face; her cold fingers made me feel nauseous, my stomach churning, and two streams of air began to swirl in my throat. The nausea made me increasingly delirious. I tried to look at Li Hai, but he simply stood there, seemingly oblivious to my suffering.

Just as I was struggling to stay awake, I suddenly felt Yueji's fingernails had somehow reached my left eye. Those scarlet nails looked incredibly menacing, and my eye started to throb with pain as the nails slowly dug into it. Was she trying to gouge out my left eye? The thought sank my heart, but to my dismay, my body was too weak to resist. I could only watch helplessly as the nails slowly sank deeper into my eye socket…

The singing in my ears gradually faded, yet it seemed to be a chant that penetrated to my very bones. I couldn't just sit and wait to die. The stiffness in my body made my thoughts clear, and those strange gestures, as if from my memory, slowly reappeared before my eyes. Mechanically, my hands began to move, following those ancient and mysterious gestures. I gradually felt the light return to me. Although it wasn't the sunlight from before, I felt it was a familiar yet strange bright blue light. In the eerie blue atmosphere, I looked up again to see Yue Ji's face, only to see a face I would never forget. The death mask seemed to have been pasted onto Yue Ji's once exquisitely beautiful face, as if she had been born with this strange and terrifying face. The mouth, split to the ears, was a black hole, and where there used to be eyes, there were only whites, no pupils. In panic, I looked down at the stage, only to find in horror that my people had all lost their original appearance. Every face was covered by the same cold, sinister death mask, except that their left eyes were glowing blood red.

Was it all an illusion? I tried to shout Li Hai's name, but no sound came out. I turned my head with difficulty and saw Li Hai lying face down on the ground, seemingly unconscious.

What should I do? Could Li Hai have met with misfortune as well? This thought drove me crazy with anxiety. I felt fingernails digging into my left eye, and a warm, viscous liquid was trickling down. Unable to think any further, I moved my body with all my might. When my hands and feet trembled slightly, I almost cried out in excitement.

"Bastard!" After roaring, I finally managed to push away the cold body that was holding me. I almost rolled off the circular platform. When I touched the corner of my left eye, the bright red blood on my hand made me gasp.

"What's wrong? Didn't you say you'd help me?" Something seemed to be wriggling from Yue Ji's already bluish-black neck, and a sharp, dry voice came from there.

"What do you want? To kill me?" I struggled to keep my balance, the monsters beneath the altar were stirring restlessly.

"I just want your left eye." Tsukihime's casual tone made it seem as if she were simply asking me for a toy.

"Is this what you call a sacrificial ritual? Does my power have to be given to your left eye?" I asked, covering my burning left eye.

"Without special offerings, how could the Heavenly Mother bestow my power back upon me? Heh heh~~~!" Tsukihime let out a strange laugh.

"Damn it, what did you do to Li Hai?" I worriedly moved closer to Li Hai, but he lay motionless on the ground.

"I only want your left eye!" Yue Ji murmured as if in a dream. Her once supple body had turned bluish-black and stiff, making her white dress a stark contrast. I knew I had no chance of escape; all around me were the menacing, blood-red eyes of the Moonshadow Clan.

Is there no other way? I gritted my teeth, ran towards Li Hai, grabbed him who was lying on the ground, and turned him over.

"Li Hai!" I cried out in alarm as I saw that Li Hai was also wearing that cold, deadly mask. Instantly, I felt as if my entire body was immersed in icy water. How could this be? Without hesitation, I reached out to remove that damned mask.

"If you take it off, your friend will be doomed!" Tsukihime said smugly.

Death? My outstretched hand immediately stopped, and I stared blankly at Yueji. Was I really the only option to obey her and give her my left eye? If I didn't, would Li Hai die? Which was more important, my left eye or my friend? I hesitated. I'm a forensic pathologist, and I can't imagine how I could do my work without my left eye. But I couldn't bear to watch my friend die in front of me. If I really had to choose between my left eye and my friend, I think I would choose the latter.

With a resigned sigh, I was no longer afraid. Instead, I asked easily, "Will you let us go if we give you our left eye?"

"Of course, only the left eye is valuable!" Tsukihime seemed to be making a promise to me. Although I knew I couldn't trust her, I had no other choice!

"Then I'll take it!" I said with a sense of heroic resolve, straightening my chest.

"Hehe, wouldn't it be better if you just behaved earlier?" Yueji laughed as she approached me. At the same time, I felt a stench that hit me, the smell of rotting corpses that I knew all too well.

Suppressing the churning in my stomach, I watched as Tsukihime extended her bluish-black, withered fingers toward me, her nails still a deep crimson, pointing directly at my eyes.

Just as the fingertip pierced my left eye, Li Hai, who was lying next to me, suddenly rolled over and reached out his hand towards me. In the cold light, I saw a sword light piercing straight towards Yue Ji.

"Ahhhh!" Then came a heart-wrenching scream, a sound that seemed to be the result of countless people shouting at the same time. The sound made my eardrums ache and even the earth trembled.

"What's wrong with you?" I stared in surprise as Li Hai abruptly removed the mask of the dead from his face, a gleaming sword now tightly gripped in his hand. In the mirror-like clarity of the blade, I saw Yue Ji's reflection. She could no longer be considered human; beneath her white dress lay only a blackened skeleton.

"Go quickly!" Li Hai didn't allow me to hesitate, grabbed me and pulled me back.

Coming to his senses, he discovered that Tsukihime had been pierced by the sword, and black blood was gushing from the wound. Among the blood were some yellowish-white creatures that seemed to be wriggling, crawling out of the ever-widening wound. More and more of them were falling to the ground with a thud. They were maggots and parasites, and the yellowish-white worms were writhing desperately in the black, sticky fluid. Some of them had already poked their heads out from under the bluish-black skin and were struggling in the air.

There was no way to properly portray Yue Ji anymore; I just wanted to wake up from this nightmare as soon as possible. Li Hai, who was beside me, pulled me towards the Moon Shadow Clan members who were charging towards us. With Li Hai's shout, I saw a flash of cold light from the sword, and the zombie-like crowd was pushed back.

"Now's the time!" Li Hai shouted at me. I immediately followed closely behind him, but after only a few steps, the tribesmen surged towards us like a tide.