Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 86

It's a skull...

A human head that was half bone and half flesh...

That split mouth seemed to be smiling at me...

It opened its mouth...

Inside his mouth was a bright red mass, resembling human tissue...

The human head was slowly chewing its contents, a satisfied smile appearing on its rotten, unrecognizable face—the smile of someone who had eaten something delicious. Just then…

"Lin Xiao!" Fang Lei's anxious voice suddenly came from behind me. I turned around and saw her rushing over with a look of anxiety on her face.

"Fang Lei?" I hugged her tightly and asked, "How did you get in?"

"It's another light bulb I found, and it's also a mechanism." Li Yang followed in, and when he saw the hand in the water tank, an incredulous expression immediately appeared on his face. He asked, "What's this?"

"A dead person?" Fang Lei then noticed what was in the water tank. At this moment, there was only a hand reaching towards the ceiling in the water tank, and there was no human head at all.

Fang Lei tried to go up and look, but I grabbed her tightly. "Be careful!" I shook my head at Fang Lei with lingering fear, and said, "There's a corpse here, it must have been here for a long time. And just now..." I paused.

"What happened just now?" Li Yang asked.

"This corpse can move!" I said, staring intently at the water tank.

"Is it a zombie resurrection? But now it seems there's no movement." Fang Lei frowned as she looked around at the dusty ground and the piled-up items, which looked like canned food and compressed biscuits. It seemed that this was a small storage room, but she didn't know who had put these things here.

"I thought this water vat was meant for storing water, but I never expected it to contain a corpse!" Li Yang cautiously took a few steps toward the water vat. The skeletal hand remained there quietly, as if it were a drowning person pleading for help.

"Do you think he could be Jiang Hua?" I suddenly wondered. Judging from the way the body was decomposed, it must have been there for quite some time, and Jiang Hua's body had just been missing. Maybe it really was him! But didn't the police search this air-raid shelter back then? Or perhaps they searched it but didn't enter this storage room? Then, who hid the body? How would they know about this place?

"Should we call the police?" Li Yang glanced at the water tank with a troubled expression and asked.

"Of course we have to report it! Are we just going to leave this thing here?" Although I didn't want to see Ni Ming's face, as a forensic doctor, I couldn't just stand by and watch a corpse sit there.

"Then we'll have to see that captain's face again!" Li Yang seemed to dislike him too, and helplessly gestured towards us, saying, "I wonder if he'll have a very unpleasant expression then?"

***********

His face was, of course, very pale, practically ashen. And of course, the way he looked at me was as if I were some monster or beast. Looking at his face, I suddenly felt like laughing.

"Is that all?" Ni Ming asked, looking at me, Fang Lei, and Li Yang.

"Yes." We answered his statement in unison. The flashes of the police cameras were flashing around us, which felt so unnatural in the dark air-raid shelter. I felt like there were always flashes of white light in front of my eyes, and the corpse in the water tank kept flashing back to me.

Turning around, I saw a forensic doctor had already pulled the body out of the water tank. A strange smell immediately filled the air, making me nauseous and sending chills down my spine. I saw the strange expression on the forensic doctor's face, and looking at the body, it seemed that because it had been soaking in the water for too long, the body looked like it would fall apart at the slightest touch, with rotting flesh hanging over the bones.

Because of the light, I could finally clearly see the things floating on the surface of the water tank—dark yellow fat particles stained with green mold. The rim of the water, where the tank met the surface, was covered in a yellowish-green substance, and it seemed like some kind of wriggling worms were rolling around inside. I saw some of the policemen around me turn pale, looking like they were about to vomit.

"Okay, thank you for your cooperation. But I reserve the right to pursue legal action against you for trespassing into this air-raid shelter." Ni Ming looked at me coldly, and I blinked indifferently.

"Can we go now?" Fang Lei asked.

"Xiao Shi, take them out!" Ni Ming called over a young policeman with a crew cut and instructed him to take us out.

As soon as we stepped out of the air-raid shelter, several people who appeared to be school leaders were gathered there. They seemed somewhat intimidated by the shelter and didn't dare approach the entrance, keeping a considerable distance. Seeing us emerge, a bald old man walked towards us and asked, "Excuse me, are you the ones who discovered the body?"

"Yes, what is it?" I asked.

"Well..." the old man said, somewhat embarrassed and helpless, "Could you please not disclose what happened tonight to the outside world for now?"

"Oh?" I raised my eyebrows.

"This matter is likely to damage our school's reputation, and it will also cause panic among the students. Oh, I am the vice principal of this school, my name is Lu Pei." Lu Pei smiled awkwardly.

"Oh, I see!" Li Yang rolled his eyes and said, "Then about our trespassing into the air-raid shelter..."

"Oh, let's just forget about it!" Lu Pei immediately understood Li Yang's meaning.

And so, with the school and we keeping in tacit agreement, the matter of the body in the air-raid shelter was kept completely secret from the outside world. Surprisingly, the police also remained completely silent, as if nothing had ever happened. This left us somewhat bewildered; we wanted to inquire about the forensic examination of the body, but we didn't know where to begin.

But just when we thought all the clues had run out, Abao gave us an unexpected surprise.

"Come and see!" The next day at noon, Abao burst into my room carrying a huge pile of things.

"What are you looking at?" Li Yang asked.

"This is the information I found all night!" Abao, in a very unladylike manner, threw all her things at Li Yang, then collapsed onto my bed, saying, "I'm so sleepy!"

"What is it?" Fang Lei took the large pile of things from Li Yang's hands, opened them, and the first thing she saw was a printed photo, a group photo, or more precisely, a graduation photo.

"Jiang Hua's graduation photo?" I looked at the photo in surprise. I had seen this photo at Yu Bo's house before.

"The only person in their class with the surname Yu that you asked me to look up was Yu Jian. He was already married at the time. His wife was Zhuo Peici. Although she was just a librarian at the school, she was a well-known beauty." Abao got up and pulled out a photo from the pile of documents. The woman in the photo was smiling charmingly, with her peach blossom eyes looking watery.

"Wow, his wife is so beautiful!" Li Yang looked at the woman in the photo with a hint of envy.

"It's a pity, though, that he died at a very young age!" Abao said regretfully, "It was a car accident."

"A car accident?" Fang Lei looked at the photo and asked A Bao, "Have you found out who hit him back then?"

“It was a large truck from out of town that hit it, but strangely…” Abao flipped through a stack of documents and said, “At the time, the driver refused to admit that it was his fault, saying that she suddenly appeared on her own.”

"Suddenly appeared?" I frowned as I looked at the information. It said that Zhuo Peici was indeed hit by the truck, but that was because a car was parked on the side of the road, blocking the driver's view. Usually, people in that situation would first look at the parked car to see if any cars were coming from behind, but Zhuo Peici seemed to haven't even looked before rushing out and being hit and killed instantly. I glanced at the photos of the scene again, and suddenly a small figure caught my attention. It was just a profile, but he still looked very familiar.

"Who else was there at the time?" I asked.

“It seems to be her son, named Yu Bo!” A Bao replied.

“Yu Bo?” Fang Lei looked at me and asked, “Isn’t this your senior?”

“But he never mentioned it,” I replied.

“There must be more to it than what he didn’t mention.” Li Yang flipped through the documents, looked up at me and said, “Jiang Hua’s mistress is very likely Zhuo Peici, who is Yu Bo’s mother.”

"How could that be?" I was very surprised. Although Yu Bo's father was old and suffered from Alzheimer's, the young Yu Jian in the photo was still very handsome and tall. Looking at Jiang Hua, on the other hand, he didn't have that prince charming vibe at all. He looked more like a frail scholar.

“But the records say that before Jiang Hua disappeared, people often saw the two of them together, and their attitude was ambiguous,” Li Yang replied.

"In my opinion, Yu Jian is the most suspicious!" A Bao shook his head, thinking he knew the answer perfectly.

"It's natural to harbor resentment when your wife has an affair with another man. But what was his relationship with the other two people who died back then?" Fang Lei asked.

“Who said those two were definitely murdered? One died of illness and the other committed suicide!” Abao replied.

"You're making it sound so simple," Li Yang patted A Bao's head and said, "The biggest problem now is how to find evidence to prove that he is the murderer of Jiang Hua, after all, so many years have passed. Besides, do you think the police back then wouldn't have heard something, wouldn't they know that Yu Jian is the prime suspect?"

“That’s because he didn’t have the time to commit the crime!” A Bao patted Li Yang’s head, not to be outdone, and said, “Please take a closer look at the information on the back of my document, okay? Doesn’t it contain the investigation details from back then?”

"No way? Academic exchange?" Li Yang looked at the information in disbelief. At that time, Yu Jian was not in this city at all. Instead, he went to a university in another province for an exchange program and stayed for two whole months before returning.

"Then why do you still say he's the murderer?" Li Yang yelled at A Bao.

“Who says he can’t come back halfway, kill someone, and then leave, and just happen to be unseen by anyone?” Abao retorted.

"Stop arguing," Fang Lei said, stopping the argument from escalating further. "No matter who it is, there's only one lead right now."

Then she turned to me and said, "It's your senior, Yu Bo!"

"Do you think a son would betray his father?" I asked.

"It's better than you not asking at all!" Fang Lei said. "Besides, the car accident back then was very strange, don't you think? He doesn't seem to be crying at all in the photo!"

"Really?" I wasn't as observant as Fang Lei, so I quickly took another look at Yu Bo in the photo. Sure enough, he wasn't crying, just looking blank. Could he have been scared out of his wits? It was quite possible, after all, it would be terrifying to see one's own mother die right before one's eyes.

“Actually, it doesn’t matter whether it’s him or not.” Abao suddenly said very sadly, “He has dementia now, what’s the point of catching him again? Are we going to sentence such an old man with dementia to death?”

Yes! Am I really supposed to rush up to Yu Bo and tell him, "Your father is a murderer, and you're going to arrest him now, even sentence him to death?" A person's sins don't necessarily have to be redeemed with death; sometimes, certain punishments are even more painful than death. Besides, we have absolutely no evidence now; Yu Jian's alibi from back then is too difficult to overturn. But besides him, who else would have such a deep-seated hatred for Jiang Hua that they would want to kill him and take his stomach?

The next step in the discussion was that the other three pressured me to ask my senior, Yu Bo. So, with no other choice, I reluctantly agreed. Of course, the condition was that Fang Lei accompany me to visit Yu Bo's home. That way, I could meet Yu Bo's father, and maybe we'd find something unexpected!

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 24: Happiness

Volume 3: Delicacies of Hell, Chapter 24: Happiness

I felt a little awkward carrying a lot of things, and I really didn't know whether I should knock on the door or not. But when I saw Fang Lei's expectant eyes next to me, I had no choice but to bite the bullet and knock.

"Knock knock!" The crisp knocking broke the silence of the entire building, the echo lingering. I suddenly felt that the building had an eerie emptiness.

After a long while, the door was opened silently. Yu Bo's haggard and dark face was expressionless; he just looked at me coldly.

How unfamiliar! This is a senior I've never known before. He can't make me feel any warmth. The person who took the most care of me in college now seems so unfamiliar. Is it true that time really is the best file, able to smooth everything out, including friendship?

"Senior...Senior!" I stammered, "This is my girlfriend. She was just passing by and wanted to come see you!"

"Oh, really?" Yu Bo glanced at Fang Lei, and I sensed a flash of hatred in his eyes. Hatred? Did he hate Fang Lei?

Just as I was at a loss, Yu Bo opened the door and let us in. Although it was two in the afternoon, the time when the sun was at its strongest and should have been at its brightest, his room was darker and colder than when I last came, like a room without heating in January. I could feel the chill in my toes instantly. His father, Yu Jian, sat quietly on the edge of the bed, looking like a frozen statue. In front of him was a bowl that looked like instant noodles, but there were no side dishes in it, just a few noodles floating in soy sauce soup.

“Senior, the food you’re giving your father is so unhealthy.” I handed the things I was carrying to Yu Bo and said, “This is for your uncle.”

“He doesn’t need it!” Yu Bo coldly rejected my offer.

"Oh... I see!" I think my face must be cramping with embarrassment right now.

"Uncle, hello!" Fang Lei nodded politely to Yu Jian.

"Did you come here just to deliver this?" Yu Bo asked.

"I wanted to come and see you and your uncle," I quickly explained.

Yu Bo didn't say anything more, just told us to sit wherever we wanted, and began to carefully feed his father noodles without saying another word. Fang Lei and I hadn't expected this situation, and for a moment we were speechless. The only sound in the air was the quiet of his father chewing the noodles.

After a long silence, I finally spoke up, "Yu Bo, have you heard the rumors about the Demon Manor?"

"What are you doing?" Yu Bo put down the noodles in his hand and said, "Don't mention that school to me again." After saying that, a look of disgust even flashed across his face.

"Oh, this... I... I just wanted to ask!" I really couldn't pry any further, so I had no choice but to stand up, take Fang Lei's hand, and leave Yu Bo's house. Yu Bo didn't seem to want us to stay; he just said thank you and saw us to the door.

Just as we were about to turn and leave, he suddenly asked me softly from behind, "Have you ever liked someone?"

"You like it?" I turned to look at Yu Bo, who had a strange smile on his face.

"I once liked someone, but unfortunately, she didn't like me." After saying this, Yu Bo gave Fang Lei a meaningful look, then closed the door, leaving me completely bewildered.

As I walked out of the building, I sighed and said to Fang Lei, "I didn't expect you to hate your old school so much."

"I don't think so," Fang Lei said.

"How so?" I asked curiously.

“You probably didn’t notice, but I clearly saw a few books on the desk,” Fang Lei replied.

"How are the books?" I asked.