Зал астрологии с плотью и кровью

Глава 72

"Are you Su Qiao, who lives in 201?" an officer asked the woman.

"Yes, what happened?" Su Qiao asked.

"Where were you before 6 o'clock?" the officer asked.

“I went to see a friend of mine,” Su Qiao replied.

"Could you please give us this friend's contact information? Because of the murder here, we must investigate anyone who might be connected to the case," the officer said.

"A murder case?" Su Qiao frowned and asked, "May I ask who was involved?"

"It's your neighbor, Wang Yina, so we hope you can provide some useful evidence, such as whether you've seen her interacting with anyone?" the officer asked.

"How could it be her?" Su Qiao asked in surprise. "Teacher Wang is a very kind person! Unfortunately, I've only been here for three days, so I'm not very familiar with her and haven't seen anyone come looking for her!"

"Really?" the officer said with a hint of regret.

"Hey, do you have a crush on her?" Li Yang suddenly whispered in my ear.

"No way!" I quickly retorted, while also looking away.

"So you've been staring at her intently ever since she appeared?" Li Yang exclaimed.

"Can you keep your voice down?" I almost wanted to cover his mouth, but his voice still attracted Su Qiao's strange look. I hoped she hadn't heard anything.

"You two!" The officer who was taking notes was clearly very unhappy with our slacking off, and said, "Is there anything I forgot?"

“Yes!” I pointed to the dish with my chin and said, “There seems to be something wrong with that dish.”

"What's the problem?" Suddenly, a middle-aged man appeared in front of me. His skin was very dark, and his eyes were narrowed to slits, giving the impression that he was always smiling.

"Oh, I'm Ni Ming, the head of the criminal investigation team from the ** Bureau. You must be Lin Xiao, the forensic doctor, and Li Yang, the detective, from the ** Bureau?" Ni Ming extended his hand to us.

I shook hands with him politely and replied with a smile, "I am Lin Xiao, and he is Li Yang." As expected of the team leader, he figured out our backgrounds so quickly.

"Hello." Li Yang greeted him with a smile, then looked at the dish with a strange expression, seemingly still shaken by what had just happened.

"That dish was probably made with the deceased's scalp," I replied casually.

"What?" My words immediately caused a huge uproar. Everyone present showed expressions of surprise and disgust. Juanzi even bent over and vomited on the spot.

"Really?" Ni Ming's face only showed a brief moment of surprise before he regained his composure and asked, "What evidence do you have?"

“No.” I shrugged and said, “It’s just a feeling anyway. You can have your forensic doctor do an examination.”

Ni Ming glanced at me, then said to a man in a white coat behind him, "Take this dish back and have it tested."

“We’ve said everything we needed to say, can we leave now?” Li Yang asked.

“Okay,” Ni Ming nodded.

"Goodbye then." Li Yang said, pulling me toward the stairs. As we passed Su Qiao, I could clearly feel her gaze fixed on my back.

As soon as we got to the third floor, Li Yang said to me, "Have you noticed that Ni Ming seems to suspect you a bit?"

"Come on, am I that weird?" I rolled my eyes at Li Yang and said, "Besides, I can't cook either."

"Yes, yes, you have a good older sister." Li Yang paused suddenly when he said this, perhaps thinking of Li Hai.

"Hehe, it's like nothing happened!" I immediately patted his shoulder and said, "She wouldn't burn it either, we'll just handle it ourselves."

"Hehe." Li Yang finally chuckled and said, "You keep talking about your sister, when are you going to let me see her? I've never met her yet!"

"Don't even mention it. Even my younger brother isn't someone I can see whenever I want!" I waved my hand helplessly and said, "By the way, didn't you say you were going to have dinner?"

"Still want to eat? I've lost my appetite a long time ago." Li Yang shook his head and said, "I'm not hungry at all! How come you can still eat?"

"Never mind, I'll eat later!" I glanced at my watch; it was already past eight o'clock in the evening. All this fuss had made me way past dinner time, and my stomach felt completely empty.

"How about this, let's go out for a late-night snack at 9:30 tonight?" Li Yang said as he opened his bedroom door.

"Okay!" I nodded in agreement, then went into my room, plopped down on the edge of the bed, and fell heavily backward.

Yin Xue, Yin Xue!? I silently murmured this name in my heart, closed my eyes, and her face appeared in my mind, causing a sharp pain in my heart...

"What's your name?" When that gentle voice first appeared in my life, I was just a little kid in kindergarten, biting my fingers. Her question became the beginning of our relationship.

"My name is Lin Xiao." At that time, I was a child who was almost suspected of having autism by my parents, but I still talked to her. Maybe this was fate.

"My name is Yin Xue, because my mother wanted me to be as beautiful as Snow White!" Yin Xue proudly puffed out her chest, and her skin truly was as white and flawless as snow. But Snow White was killed by the evil queen, so Yin Xue, who killed you? Even more tragically, I cannot be the prince to save you!

Sigh! I let out a heavy sigh; the invisible pressure made it almost impossible for me to breathe.

"Knock knock!" A sudden knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I got out of bed and opened the door, only to find... Su Qiao standing outside?!

"Huh?" I opened my mouth wide in surprise. I think I must have looked completely dumbfounded.

"Hello, are you forensic doctor Lin Xiao?" Su Qiao smiled brightly and said, "I am Su Qiao, Su as in Suzhou, and Qiao as in disguise."

"Ah, yes!" I nodded dumbly.

"May I come in and talk?" Su Qiao asked with a smile.

"Oh, of course, please come in." I quickly let her in.

"You must be very curious about why I contacted you, right?" Su Qiao asked me.

"Yeah!" I nodded. I don't think I'm handsome enough to make beautiful women come to me on their own.

“There are two reasons,” Su Qiao said. “I just heard you say that you think the dish was made with the dead person’s scalp, and I find that very intriguing. A normal person wouldn’t think of that!”

"Hehe, are you saying I'm not normal?" I gave a wry smile, not expecting that this was the first impression I would give to the beautiful woman. I was speechless.

“No, that’s not it. Everyone’s understanding of things is different. It’s just that our perception of things is always influenced by a person’s subtle psychological factors. A person’s personality can generally be divided into latent and overt. Usually, it is overt when there is no stimulation, but when something happens, a person’s latent personality often determines a lot. And I am particularly interested in people’s latent personality.” Su Qiao said with a smile, “I forgot to add that my profession is a psychologist.”

Sigh! Why didn't you just say you were interested in people like me with unconventional ways of thinking? Why did you have to use such obscure terms? With a slightly helpless self-deprecating laugh, I said, "And the second reason?"

"The second one?" Su Qiao gave me a mysterious look and asked, "I think you should know someone named Zhao Xing, right?"

"Ah? Zhao Xing? Teacher Zhao?" I exclaimed in surprise. I never expected that the news of him after so many years of silence would come from this beautiful woman who looked just like Yin Xue. I suddenly had a feeling that the net of fate was gradually tightening its ropes, and we were all just prey struggling in it, while an invisible pair of eyes were watching all of this.

**********

Author's note: What a mess! I only had a tiny craving and ate a lamb skewer from a Xinjiang vendor, and this is the first time I've been treated like this! But it looked pretty clean. Could it be that my contact lenses are old and worn out? So, updates will be slower these next few days. I'll resume when I have more energy! :(

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 5: Zhao Xing

Volume 3, Hell's Delicacies, Chapter 5: Zhao Xing

A strange smell mingled with the strong aroma of Chinese medicine. The dim air was heavy with humidity, and moldy green stalks climbed the yellowed walls. I felt as if countless invisible hands were touching my skin. This smell was all too familiar; I had smelled it before in the black coffin in the Moonshadow Clan's grand hall. I just never expected to smell it again in such a small Western-style house.

I silently followed behind Su Qiao. She said she could take me to see Zhao Xing, so I immediately followed her as if possessed, completely forgetting my promise to Li Yang to go out for a late-night snack. This Western-style house was probably quite old; all the materials seemed to be wood. The winding staircases that went up made me a little dizzy.

"Alright, we're here." Su Qiao pointed to a dilapidated door and said to me.

I glanced at her suspiciously, and the strange smell wafting from the room made me frown. I knocked gently on the door, and after a while, it opened silently, revealing the face of a middle-aged man whose complexion appeared yellowed from the effects of traditional Chinese medicine and whose eyes had bluish-whites.

"Zhao Xing, Teacher Zhao?" I called out in confusion. The man in front of me seemed to be completely different from the refined and elegant Zhao Xing I remembered.

"Lin Xiao?" The middle-aged man forced a smile, his yellowed teeth speckled with black.

"Is it really Teacher Zhao?" I asked excitedly.

"Ah, long time no see!" Zhao Xing smiled and let Su Qiao and me into the house.

Looking around the room, what should have been a spacious room was now filled with books and jars and bottles from chemical experiments. A beaker on the desk was filled with a yellowish-brown liquid, and the smell was coming from there. The room was dimly lit, with only a desk lamp illuminating it.

"Please sit down." Zhao Xing casually gestured to two chairs and asked, "Su Qiao, how did you find Lin Xiao?"

"Oh, what a coincidence! He's staying at the same guesthouse as me!" In contrast to my awkwardness and unfamiliarity, Su Qiao sat down very familiarly.

"Really?" Zhao Xing sat down as well and asked me, "How have you been these past few years?"

"I'm fine, teacher. How are you? Why did you suddenly leave without saying goodbye back then? We had to search for you everywhere!" I have so many questions I want to know.

"For this." Zhao Xing turned around and handed me the beaker from the desk, saying, "This is the culmination of my efforts over the past few years."

"What is this?" I took the beaker and looked at it. The liquid in the beaker gave me the illusion that it was alive, slowly wriggling, or perhaps it was the light.

"Have you forgotten the ancient Chinese embalming agent I told you about? This is it." Zhao Xing's eyes were fixed on the beaker in my hand, as if it were a priceless treasure.

"Ancient preservatives?" This liquid reminded me of those unpleasant memories from the Moonshadow Clan. I handed it back to Zhao Xing with a hint of disgust, saying, "While ancient preservatives are indeed amazing, aren't modern preservatives even more advanced?"

“What are those modern things? At best, they only preserve the appearance of a corpse, and over time they can even make the corpse look neither human nor ghost,” Zhao Xing said, clutching the beaker tightly.

"A corpse that looks like a person but also like a ghost?" I raised an eyebrow. It seemed Zhao Xing's way of thinking was still the same as before. To him, a corpse wasn't just a useless shell left behind after death, but a gateway to the afterlife. His view seemed remarkably similar to that of the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the body must be preserved intact after death in order to have an afterlife. As for me, being a forensic scientist, a corpse was merely an object for analysis in my eyes. Therefore, Zhao Xing's biggest complaint about me back then was our differing views on corpses; he even said that the discipline of forensic medicine was a desecration of the corpse.

"This liquid can not only preserve the body intact, but also guide the soul back to the body. As long as the body is immersed in this liquid, it can be reborn!" Zhao Xing became more and more excited as he spoke, and his cloudy eyes shone with light.

Sigh! I sighed. If it were before, I would have jumped up and retorted that the dead cannot come back to life, but now, I have no strength left to fight back.

"Teacher, how did you make this?" I asked in confusion. It seems that the Moonshadow Clan uses corpses to make it. Could it be that Zhao Xing also used corpses as raw materials?

"That's a secret!" Zhao Xing smiled mysteriously.

"Hehe, teacher, how have you been these past few years? How did you meet Su Qiao?" Seeing that Zhao Xing was unwilling to talk about it, I didn't press further and started asking about other things. During our conversation, I learned that Zhao Xing had been searching for the secret formula of ancient preservatives for the past few years and studying it repeatedly. As for Su Qiao, it was because they both saw the same book in the library, argued about it, and eventually became friends—a strange kind of fate, I suppose. After asking Zhao Xing some questions, I noticed that he wasn't very interested in seeing me again. On the contrary, he was unusually excited about his research, and the conversation revolved around it. His eyes kept glancing at the beaker, and his expression gradually became impatient, as if my presence was interfering with his research. Somewhat bored, I ended our conversation with Su Qiao and said goodbye to Zhao Xing. When we parted, Zhao Xing simply said goodbye and busied himself with his bottles and jars again, without even a word of farewell.

I looked at the closed door with a bit of disappointment. I didn't expect that a few years could change a person so much. The mentor I remembered was no longer the same person. It seemed that there was only a strange person in front of me.

"Don't worry about it, this is just how Teacher Zhao is right now!" Su Qiao comforted me with a smile.

"Really? Do you know him very well?" I asked.

“I don’t understand, but we can learn to be understanding.” Su Qiao said calmly, “Time will always change some things, so don’t expect everything to continue according to your own ideas.”

"Are you saying I'm too self-centered?" I stared at her face. Her eyes had a firmness and independence that were completely different from Yin Xue's, while my Yin Xue was weak and helpless.

"That's because you don't trust others, even your closest friends. You keep a protective layer on them." Su Qiao's eyes seemed to see into the deepest part of my soul, giving me a strange feeling, as if I were naked in front of her, with nothing to cover me up.

"Do you always want to see your career through to the end?" I asked with a helpless sigh.

“That’s great, it’s good that my interests and career are the same.” Su Qiao flicked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture that was very similar to Yin Xue’s, who also had the same little habit.

“I’m not,” I said. “My interests aren’t dead people.”

"That's not necessarily true." Su Qiao winked at me playfully.

"Hey, don't talk about people like that, okay?" I glared at her, pretending to be angry, and said, "You'll never find a boyfriend if you talk like that."

"Hehe, it's okay if you don't have one!" Su Qiao smiled calmly, looking up at the moon. The bright moonlight shone on her slightly upturned neck, giving her face a soft glow. I slowly closed my eyes. The scene before me was so familiar that I dared not face it again. Yin Xue, you were so beautiful that night, radiating a goddess-like light that illuminated every corner of my soul…

***********

"Lin Xiao, you're such a bad friend!" Li Yang leaned against the door, practically pointing his finger at me and yelling at me.