Three Ghosts of the City

Chapter 1

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"Three Ghosts of the City" by Sweet Potato Porridge

Lin Xiao, a forensic doctor, doesn't believe in ghosts, but sometimes, some things cannot be explained by scientific common sense.

Chapter One: Lividity on a Living Person?

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 who's a germaphobe, 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 taste. I often think that 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 weren't twisted and grotesque with extreme terror. They had all died from cardiac arrest caused by a sudden surge of adrenaline.

He was scared to death, as people commonly say. That was the primary cause of death stated in the autopsy report.

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 created a sense of oppression. I could feel the rug under my feet was wet, a sticky wetness; I could even hear...

The sizzling sound of my feet rubbing against the carpet was like the sound of a pirated CD being ravaged by a hard drive. I crouched down and touched the carpet with my hand. Through a sliver of light from the crack in the door, I saw a sticky, red liquid on my fingers. 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...

"Sis, what trick are you playing 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 ridicule her work, she boasts that if she hadn't trained my tolerance for being scared since I was little, I wouldn't be where I am today.

She works as a forensic pathologist. Of course, I've always considered her statement to be a fallacy.

"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 graduate from the police academy, clearly didn't believe my answer.

"Yes~~~~~~~!" I drawled, 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, I was still shaken when I faced a body without a single wound, except for the face...

His face was bluish, his eyes bulged out like goldfish eyes, and his features were contorted with fear, yet a hint of unease still slowly surfaced 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 of the questions 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 in the corpse is often more attractive to me than the truth of the case itself.

"Xiao Xiao, what kind of thing would frighten a well-educated woman to death?" Li Yang pulled the white sheet off the body again. It seems this guy's tolerance for fright is stronger than mine. If my older sister's writing could scare him someday, hehe, she'd become a famous writer. Of course, I really shouldn't be thinking about these things while he and I are 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 excited me, 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 came through, 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. If I just call her by her name, she said...

That sounded too formal. So I started calling her "brother," but she said that would obviously imply she was my older sister, making her seem older! In the end, she wanted to call me "Little Brother Xiao," which made me wonder if she'd 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 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 for writing things, how could I possibly become a computer expert?" My older sister stood up, looking completely at ease, and picked up the cup beside her. "I'm going to make a cup of tea. You'd better have it ready 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, like it was going to jump out of its socket. A chill ran down my spine, because whenever my eye twitches, something bad never happens, and the more violent it is, the worse the luck! A slight twitch might just mean I trip and fall, or maybe I knock something over. But this…

I've only experienced such a violent event three times: once was the day my parents had a car accident, once was the day before the college entrance exam results were released, and then, the night before Yin Xue hanged herself, which I never want to remember but can never forget!

A wave of fear and trepidation washed over me simultaneously. I realized my hands were trembling. I wasn't afraid of death, because it 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. But my right eye saw something—something I knew all too well.

Yes, it was a lividity, right there in the digital photo on the computer screen, on the wrist of a beautiful, almost ethereal woman. It was a different kind of mark, one that most people couldn't easily spot, but for me, it was incredibly easy. I told myself it was probably just another joke my sister was playing to scare me, but reason prevailed...

Tell me again, someone as computer illiterate as her has absolutely no way of creating a composite photo. So if this isn't a joke from my older sister, then what is it? The woman in the photo is clearly a living person. Do living people have lividity, or have I just lost my mind and mistake some other spot for lividity?

Chapter Two: The Black Forest Bar

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

The sound was unlike anything I'd heard from a hard drive before; it was completely different today. The sound pierced my eardrums, causing a dull ache. Instead of the Windows 2000 shutdown screen, the normally elegant face was distorted, its features contorted into a grotesque and terrifying shape, especially its eyes, which had stretched into two enormous black holes—they looked utterly horrifying.

The characters in the movie. I could feel the sweat on my palms, sticky, but I couldn't scream. My throat felt like it was stuffed with something, unusually dry. Because I saw the woman in the photo, her body billowing black smoke, just like the female corpse in the morgue during the day. My eyes twitched violently. I didn't know if this meant some misfortune again; I dared not think about it, nor did I want to. Over the years...

My work as a forensic pathologist had long instilled in me the principle of handling everything based on scientific evidence. But aren't some things difficult to explain scientifically? I don't know where the strength came from, but I quickly stepped forward and unplugged the computer's power cord. The image on the screen disappeared, and I couldn't help but breathe 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 sister's sly grin. "Even if I am!"

"She's a friend I met at a bar. Pretty good-looking, isn't she? It's rare to see you 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, 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 sister used almost every ounce of strength she had to pull on my collar, looking like she harbored 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: "Okay, 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 ambiguous. 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 wisp of 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. The bar my sister told me about last night when she encountered that woman. Black Forest...

It is indeed a rather strange name. It reminds me of a cake called Black Forest, which sounds quite sweet. However, if that woman is included, it won't be so pleasant.

"Lin Xiao, are you free tonight? How about coming somewhere with me?" 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 rejected his unreasonable request. I still have to go to the Black Forest Bar tonight!

"Alright, I'll tell you the truth then. 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 intrigued. Honestly, I definitely wouldn't have bothered with any other case, but this one had too many suspicious points. More importantly, my intuition told me it was definitely 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 and laughed awkwardly. I immediately knew that the kid must have tried to do it without reporting to the leader first.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Black Forest Bar," Li Yang replied.

"What?!" I exclaimed. Although I had a premonition, I was still 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?

"You know? What do you know? I'm just a little worried because my older sister goes there often." I replied. Actually, that was the truth. Although she's a bit neurotic, she is, after all, my sister, my only remaining family member in this 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 pathologist Lin is actually interested in the case? I thought you were only interested in corpses!"

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

Chapter Three: Case Analysis

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Li Yang first closed the door, cautiously glancing around to make sure no one was there before doing so. Then, he leisurely poured himself a glass of water, found a seat, and began his case analysis report: "The three most recent cases all involved women, and they all shared the common characteristic of being around 25 years old and quite pretty. It seems the killer was particularly interested in this type of woman. The location of the deaths was by that lake."

There was a large tree where they were hanged. Suicide was ruled out because they were all hung from the trunk four or five meters high. Theoretically, several frail women couldn't have climbed that high, and there was nothing below to use as footholds. The wide-open eyes and gaping mouths of the female corpses indicate they must have suffered great fright before death. In other words, as you said, they were scared to death.

They were hung up again later. Of course, how the murderer hung them up is something we can discuss later.

"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, "Through our investigation, we found that they were all girls with clean backgrounds and upright conduct, ruling out crimes of passion. Their valuables were still on their persons when they died, so robbery-murder also ruled out. More importantly, they hadn't been sexually assaulted before their deaths, so rape-murder also ruled out. There is no direct or indirect connection between them."

The only connection is that they all visited the Black Forest Bar the night before the incident. Therefore, the only remaining and 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. That's why I decided to go on an incognito visit!" Li Yang said with a smug look on his face.

"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 dampening my enthusiasm?" 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, pleased 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 even said they've seen her at night."