Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 133

Actually, this matter had already arisen when I first published *Fantasy Sword*, but considering the book wasn't mature enough, I didn't agree and instead forwarded it. Now, the book is halfway finished, and I think you all understand a writer's wish. Publishing a book is naturally a good thing, but being in Taiwan is, I must say, a little regrettable! Moreover, my friends encouraged me to sign a contract, as a form of support. Finally, after their relentless bombardment, I agreed.

Thank you all for your continued support. I will inquire with the publisher about the update issue and hope to continue posting.

Thank you again! A writer's life is meaningless without readers!

Preview of the next volume: Delicacies from Hell

Preview of the next volume: Delicacies from Hell

The sudden reappearance of a long-lost friend brings with it "ghost photos," seemingly concealing countless secrets...

When Lin Xiao returned to his alma mater to investigate, he encountered a teacher who had been missing for many years...

A serial killer has emerged on campus, devouring human flesh as food. Each seemingly exquisite dish uses human bodies as ingredients. With the teacher's help, Lin Xiao appears to have caught the culprit, but just as everything seems to be settling down, it's discovered that the killer is someone else entirely…

The beautiful psychologist Su Qiao reminded Lin Xiao of his first love, and his love for Yin Xue transformed into a subtle affection for Su Qiao. A crisis seemed to be slowly emerging between him and Fang Lei...

Character introduction:

Yu Bo: Lin Xiao's good friend during his university years and also his senior in Taekwondo.

Zhao Xing: Lin Xiao's teacher, and an elder whom Lin Xiao always regarded as his master. He was extremely knowledgeable in archaeology, but suddenly disappeared just as Lin Xiao was about to graduate.

Su Qiao: A psychologist who looks remarkably like the deceased Yin Xue.

Recent statements related to the work

Recent statements related to the work

Sorry for not updating much lately. I've actually been wanting to leave a comment in the book review section for a while, but for some reason I keep failing! Is this what they call a matter of luck???

Maybe it's because I've been in a bad mood lately, or maybe it's because I'm single again, or maybe it's this damn crappy computer. Anyway, I just don't feel like updating. I really need a spanking!

And then there's the issue of the ending. I enjoy reading books with happy endings, but when it comes to writing my own, I can't help but end with a slightly tragic one. This is probably the result of much deliberation, so if you only like happy endings, you'll likely be disappointed.

Update statement related to the work

Update statement related to the work

I don't want to be a palace maid, but some things have really killed my enthusiasm for writing! I only just realized how troublesome it is to understand a car accident! It's thrown my life into chaos. Although I wasn't injured, I still want to advise all those who drive: please drive very carefully!

Also, I would like to advise those who ride bicycles but do not drive: please do not jaywalk. Not every driver drives as fast as I do!

555~~~~ So sad!

Preview of the second volume of the work and some explanations

Preview of the second volume of the work and some explanations

Volume Two: The Princess's Tomb is the final volume. Everything will come to a close in Lin Xiao's hometown. As for whether it will be a tragic or comedic ending, please allow me to struggle a bit more!

As for how Yun'er was sealed in Volume 3, and what Ning Yuanyuan and Xie Dong encountered in the air-raid shelter, there will be detailed explanations in the extra volume.

Finally, I pray that I will not become a palace maid again this time, and that I will persevere to the end!

Thank you for your support! I really want to hug everyone who has always supported and indulged me, and give them a big thank you!

Volume 4, Princess's Tomb, Chapter 19: Bones Under the Ancient Apricot Tree

Walking slowly home, everyone's mood seemed unusually heavy because of Grandma Yin's story. I almost couldn't breathe. But what puzzled me most about the whole affair was why Grandpa hadn't wanted to set up a memorial tablet for Lin Zhi'an back then. Was it because she died in the Yin family ancestral graveyard, so she couldn't get one? Grandma Yin had also said that if she had been given a tablet, perhaps Lin Zhi'an wouldn't have come to claim her life. Also, did Lin Zhi'an really stop only because Lin Zhi'ping went to join her in death? But judging from recent cases, it's very difficult for a vengeful ghost with several lives on its hands to be released, and it certainly wouldn't just give up so easily. So, what exactly made her suddenly disappear?

I kicked a pebble in the road, feeling somewhat lost and helpless. Just as we were crossing a small path and almost home, several children suddenly came stumbling and running from the front, shouting, "Dead bones! Dead bones!"

"What dead human bones?" I quickly grabbed the child at the front and asked, "What's going on? Where are there dead human bones?"

"The mountain...the ruins on the mountain!" The child seemed still in shock.

"When did you find out?" Li Yang asked hurriedly from the side.

"Just now... just now we went to play in the ruins on the mountain, and then... and then..." The child scratched his head and continued, "Then we found something under that big tree in the ruins, so we went over to take a look. Unexpectedly... it was... a dead person's skeleton!" As the child spoke, he pointed to the mountain behind him.

"Okay, we understand. You can go back now. We'll go check on them." I patted the children on the shoulders to comfort them.

After seeing the frightened children off, Li Yang and I exchanged glances. They seemed to agree to go up and investigate. So we set off up the mountain. Along the way, I explained to them what the children had described as ruins.

It seemed to be a ruin that existed even before the founding of Yinjia Village, so ancient that no one seemed to know its history. No one knew what it once was, nor who built it; all that was known was that it was built of stone, which seemed to contradict the traditional Chinese preference for wood in architecture. Archaeological teams had once come to investigate, but the ruins were simply too devastated, leaving only a few large stones with strange patterns and a towering ancient apricot tree in the center. Therefore, that place was less a ruin and more a paradise for the village children; almost everyone who left Yinjia Village had climbed that tree.

The ruins weren't on the mountaintop, but rather halfway up. So we got there without much effort. Perhaps because of the abundant forests in the mountains, we all felt a bit chilly. Dappled sunlight fell on everyone's faces, making everyone seem to wear a strange mask of light and shadow.

"Look, there!" Fang Lei was the first to notice an object under the ancient apricot tree. We quickly went over, and sure enough, it was a dark brown skeleton, seemingly quite old. The lower half of the skeleton was still buried in the soil, apparently washed away by the heavy rains of the past few days.

"It wasn't buried recently; it's been at least twenty years," Fang Lei said, glancing at the remains.

"Male, and probably not very old, around 20 years old." I crouched down and noticed something on the skeleton's wrist—a silver bracelet. It had turned black from being buried underground for so long, but I could still clearly see an engraved character: "Seal!"

"Who is he?" Li Yang seemed to have also noticed this word.

“I don’t know, but he might be from Yinjia Village.” I twirled the bracelet back and forth. “That’s right, everyone in Yinjia Village has a silver bracelet. The character ‘印’ (Yin) on it is personally engraved by the village chief when the person comes of age, marking that the person has officially become a member of Yinjia Village.”

"Why was he buried here?" Abao asked curiously.

“He shouldn’t be buried here!” I said almost definitively. “Everyone in Yinjia Village must be buried in the Yin family ancestral graveyard! How could he be buried here?”

"What if he wasn't buried by his own people in the village?" Fang Lei said thoughtfully.

He wasn't buried by his own villagers? Someone else buried him? Then… I frowned and looked back at the mountain path I'd come from. This was the only way to reach these ruins, and that path went right through the village. If he wasn't buried by someone from this village, how could he have gotten here without anyone seeing him?

"Perhaps this bracelet can tell us who he is," Li Yang said. "Since you say that everyone in Yinjia Village has this bracelet, why don't we take it back to the village and ask around? Maybe someone will recognize it."

"That's the only way." I grabbed the wrist bone with one hand and the bracelet with the other, pulling it down. When I pulled it to the middle of my palm, the blackened silver bracelet suddenly reflected a face like a shiny black mirror—a woman's face.

Who? I instinctively turned around, but there was nothing there! Just as I turned back again, I felt the skeleton in my hand suddenly move its finger bones. The sensation of those cold fingers gently brushing against me sent chills down my spine. But because my entire hand was gripping the skeleton's palm, no one else could have seen the finger bones move.

"What's wrong?" Fang Lei asked, tugging at my arm with concern.

"N-nothing." I quickly removed the bracelet from the skeleton. The finger bone remained motionless, as if it had just been my hallucination.

“Let’s go down. The skeleton should be fine here,” Li Yang said, standing up.

I hesitated for a moment before glancing at the skeleton. The slightly cracked jawbone formed an eerie smile. The wrist bone where the bracelet had been was bent at a strange angle, as if summoning something. I looked around, hoping to see the woman I had seen on the bracelet again, the long-haired woman. Her face was very pale and also blurry.

With a heavy heart, I walked down the mountain. I'd only gone halfway when I saw several villagers and the village chief, Yin Tianhuo, approaching from afar.

"Village Chief!" I greeted him and asked, "Did you also come up here for the skeletons?"

“Yes, the kids said there were human bones here, so we came up to take a look,” Yin Tianhuo replied.

“We’ve already examined it; the remains should have been buried for over twenty years. However…” I paused, then handed the silver bracelet to the village chief, saying, “This is what we found on the remains.”

"Oh dear!" Yin Tianhuo snatched the silver bracelet away, saying, "Isn't this a bracelet from our Yin Family Village? Could it belong to someone from our village?"

“Village chief, do you think anyone will be buried there?” I asked hurriedly.

“Impossible! In our village, everyone who dies is buried in the ancestral graveyard on the back hill. Who would bury their own villagers in those ruins? That doesn’t follow the rules set by our ancestors!” Yin Tianhuo said, carefully examining the silver bracelet. Although hand-carved characters are never exactly the same, this one must have been carved decades ago, so it certainly wasn’t Yin Tianhuo who carved it. He couldn’t tell whose silver bracelet it was even after looking at it for a long time.

"Wait a minute, brother!" A woman next to Yin Tianhuo suddenly called out to him, took the bracelet, and examined it carefully against the light. In a moment, her face turned pale, and her hands began to tremble.

"What's wrong, little sister?" Yin Tianhuo helped the woman who was swaying slightly.

"Brother, do you see a heart-shaped engraving inside this bracelet?" The woman returned the bracelet to Yin Tianhuo.

Yin Tianhuo looked at it quickly, seemingly not seeing it, then looked at it against the light like the woman did: "There really is one!" With that, Yin Tianhuo gave me the bracelet.

Holding it up to the light, I indeed found a small heart-shaped pattern engraved on the inside of the bracelet, but the engraving was very blurry because of the black color.

"Whose is this? Do you know?" Yin Tianhuo grabbed the woman and asked anxiously.

"This...this belongs to Yin Xiaojun!" The woman's answer seemed to greatly surprise Yin Tianhuo, who was almost stunned on the spot.

Yin Xiaojun? Who is this person? Why is Yin Tianhuo so surprised? I looked at Yin Tianhuo and the bracelet on his hand, then looked up at it again, and suddenly realized that the sky seemed to have darkened.