Strange Investigations Team

There were two female ghosts. Supervisor Yu was acting uncharacteristically. A conjoined-leg doll with human skin… The new clues made the case more complicated and confusing, but I believe that there is only one truth, and that was likely hidden inside room 106.

As we were about to head into the dorm, we ran into Supervisor Yu, walking out with a big ring of keys. I explained to her our purpose in coming and asked her to let us examine room 106 once more.

“You just saw it yesterday. What’s there to see…” Supervisor Yu’s tone was as unwelcoming as it had been before, but then a smile appeared onto her face. “Alright, alright, I have to make my rounds anyway. Follow me!”

It was said that women were fickle. Her face turned faster than a book’s pages turn, but Supervisor Yu’s actions really made a person suspicious. Although I felt there was something not quite right about her, but we couldn’t just drag her back with us. Moreover, we had more important things to do now.

Room 106’s lock was just as it was yesterday, very easy to unlock. It was relatively dark inside, but with the moon’s rays through the window, I was still able to see well. At the least, I could see that there was no female ghost inside. After Supervisor Yu opened the door, she let us inside to search, but she had no intent on turning the light on.

Zhenzhen walked inside first and reached against the wall to flip the light switch, but Supervisor Yu said, “No need to search for it, the light’s broken.”

“When did it break?” I asked.

“Probably last week.” Supervisor Yu’s casual response actually revealed herself, for just yesterday, she said that no one had entered the room in a long time. How would she know that the light went out last week then? She didn’t seem to notice her slip of the tongue, and I had no intention to to reveal it either. It’s easy to block a spear thrown in the light, but difficult to dodge an arrow shot in the dark. An arrow in the dark becoming a spear in the light was more advantageous for us, a.s.suming that the arrow itself didn’t know that it had been exposed to the light.

The room wasn’t large and there was a whole bunch of stuff inside. If you were to hide inside, you could only hide inside one of the boxes. But the female ghost had disappeared at least 15 minutes ago, and if she had made her way into this room, that would still be enough time to escape to somewhere else on the campus, or even escape the campus entirely. So I didn’t rummage through the boxes like Zhenhen, and I didn’t guard the door like Xueqing. Instead, I immediately headed to the window.

Yesterday when I had been smoking, I intentionally left some ash on the windowsill. If the window had been opened in this short time, the ash would have been blown away. But when I examined the windowsill with my flashlight, I saw that the ash was still there and it hadn’t changed much since I left yesterday. That meant that the window hadn’t been opened. At least from yesterday up until now, it hadn’t been opened.

Since the windows hadn’t been opened, unless the female ghost could pa.s.s through walls, it was impossible for her to have entered the room. And if she could pa.s.s through walls, she wouldn’t be waiting here for us to catch her, so it was pointless to remain here. Instead, we should finish up early and convene with the tech team tomorrow to see if they’d found any clues from the female ghost in the camphor woods.

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When I woke up, there were only five more days left to solve the case. To avoid being laid off, I arrived timely at the SIT office and walked into the boss’ office with Zhenzhen, Xueqing, and Miao Miao. Boss was currently looking over the stock a.n.a.lysis in the paper. When he was done, he asked me what thoughts I had, so I shared the developments we’d made—

First, Ye Xiaolou had already died, so the chance of her being the killer was nearly zero. The chance of her being the ghost was also nearly zero because the ghost made a hasty escape after being shot. It was unheard of in ghost legends for ghosts to be hurt from bullets.

Second, the female ghost was not a single person. There were definitely two people involved. One of them was pretty strong, but since she had a bullet wound, it wouldn’t be that hard to identify her. Moreover, she left quite a bit of blood in the woods. After collecting and a.n.a.lyzing it, we should be able to ID her.

Third, Supervisor Yu may be involved in the case. We haven’t ruled out the possibility that she’s the mastermind behind it all. We’ll have to put more efforts into this investigation.

Fourth, Prof Xiao and Xiao Yixuan are father and son. Because of their odd behavior, we cannot rule out the possibility that they are involved with the missing hearts case at the general hospital.

Fifth, we may be able to find some clues from the human-skinned doll that the female ghost left behind. We’ve handed it over to the tech team for laboratory a.n.a.lysis.

The Boss listened to my a.n.a.lysis, his eyes still on his paper. Then, in an indifferent tone, he said, “I’ve already met with the hospital director. They’ve been keeping track of the missing hearts and they seem to be sure that it’s Xiao Yixuan’s doing. But because of his relationship with Xiao Guoqiang, they can only open one eye and close the other. They’d like for the police to take care of things quietly, but don’t touch a single hair on Xiao Yixuan until you have undeniable evidence. Otherwise, it will put a strain on their relationship with Xiao Guoqiang which would be rather difficult for them.”

“How much power does Prof Xiao have that even the hospital directors are scared of him? Won’t everything be taken care of if we arrest the the father and son pair?!” Zhenzhen said with disdain.

“Good question. Let Ah Mu explain it to you!” Boss handed the question over to me and continued reading the paper. I helplessly forced a smile. “Prof Xiao is a very influential person in the medical world. We either have to uproot him completely or we can’t touch him. Other things aside, he has eyes everywhere, which is a problem. If he finds out we want to persecute him, and he incites his students to leave, it’ll be problematic. You have to know that his students are all elite people in the cardiovascular field. Especially at the general hospital. Nearly thirty percent of the cardiovascular students are his understudies. And the other seventy percent probably have a decent relationship with him. What if they all run? If the entire CV department is evacuated, will the executives eat well? If he goes to complain to the media and news of this gets out, even if the government can order a ban on the reports, it won’t stop discussion on the internet.”

“Then are we supposed to just leave him alone?” Zhenzhen was seething, as if she was facing her greatest enemy.

“You have to make sure you hit the snake head on and not the gra.s.s. Now go find the stick to hit the snake!” Boss’ head was still fixed on his newspaper, and he didn’t even raise his head.

“What’s with hitting snakes and gra.s.s? What’s that got to do with the case?” Zhenzhen’s question really made me suspect that her IQ was under 90. I said to her, “The boss doesn’t want us to hit the gra.s.s and alert the snake. If we want to catch Prof Xiao, we have to gather enough evidence to take him down with a single hit.”

“I just didn’t hear clearly before. I don’t need you to explain.” Zhenzhen tried to save some face.

“Alright, enough with the talk. Get to work.” Boss beckoned with his hand for us to leave.

“Don’t rush us off like donkeys just yet. There’s still something I need to ask of you!” I told the boss.

Boss glanced over at me. “If you’re asking for money, forget it!”

I laughed. “If I was out of money, I would ask Sis-in-law, no need to trouble you. What I want are the eight pieces.”

Boss shot me another glance. “Don’t you dislike guns? You never took them when I gave it to you before. Now you’re coming to ask me for it?”

“I used to have Xiao Xiang to cover me. The situation’s different now. You have to think about my safety! But I’m not asking for a gun this time either. Just get me some pepper spray.”

“If you don’t want a gun, then that’s easy. I’ll fill in a slip and you can just go get it.” The boss put down his newspaper and wrote us a certificate.

The so-named ‘eight pieces’ were simply a policeman’s basic equipment. Gun, ammunition, handcuffs, extendable baton, pepper spray, flashlight, walkie talkie, and a notebook. I can’t use a gun. With my shooting ability, it would take about five rounds of ammunition to hit the suspect’s heel, even if I studied the Three Represents seriously. As for handcuffs, we originally had those. I wouldn’t use a baton stick much, so I just wanted the pepper spray. (Note: the Three Represents are duties of the Communist party, to represent (1) productivity of an advanced society, (2) forward progress of advanced culture, and (3) the fundamental interests of the people)

Since we were already writing up a certificate, we might as well equip the rest of the team as well. Xueqing already had a gun, so she didn’t need any new equipment. Zhenzhen wanted the baton, and Miao Miao wanted pepper spray like me. Since Wei ge was a ‘temp worker’ and his morals were somewhat questionable, he didn’t get anything.

After the boss handed over the certificate, I didn’t rush off to collect the equipment. Instead, Wei ge had some info for me about Mermaid Syndrome.

“It’s pretty rare, with a probability of about one in seventy thousand. Since the founding of our country, the number of cases can be counted on one hand. It’s rare worldwide as well.” Wei ge’s report finished in less than a minute.

“Is it hereditary?” I lit a cigarette for Wei ge.

“Yes, but that’s only one possibility. The medical world doesn’t understand much about this disease. What is known is that most babies born with it don’t live very long after their birth. There’s only been one case overseas, where the kid lived until 16.” Wei ge blew out some smoke. “You can’t use this to find out who Ye Xiaolou’s partner was though, since there’s no record of any cases of the disease in our province.”

As Wei ge said, I was indeed planning on using the Mermaid Syndrome case to find the person who impregnated Ye Xiaolou, because I suspected that the human-skinned doll had been made out of her baby’s skin. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed on that front.

After receiving our equipment, we headed back to the university. Xueqing and Miao Miao continued to monitor Prof Xiao, and Zhenzhen and I headed to the camphor woods to help the tech team collect evidence. I also tried to make some time to check up on Supervisor Yu.

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When we arrived to the camphor woods, the tech team was already busy working. Their sergeant was a smart and beautiful woman named Gui Yuetong. We’d probably be considered old acquaintances, but…

“Ah Mu, good seeing you. I thought you’d been long ago slaughtered by a thief.” Yuetong’s greeting was really quite embarra.s.sing.

“With the beauty Gui’s blessing, I’m sure I’ll live as tenaciously as Xiao Qiang.” Like a Pekingese dog, I bowed to her, and then I introduced Zhenzhen who was standing beside me. “This is my partner. Her name is…”

Before I could finish, Yuetong grabbed Zhenzhen’s hand and said affectionately, “If you’re going to be Ah Mu’s partner, you’d best be careful. This guy is really unreliable. He’s the one who lost my boyfriend. It’s already been two years, and I still haven’t heard a thing from him…”

Yes, Yuetong’s boyfriend was my old partner, Xiao Xiang. Two years ago, he mysteriously went missing, and up until today, there’s been no news from him. As his partner, I couldn’t say something like I had no responsibility in it, so I simply remained silent in front of Yuetong.

Although Yuetong always looked at me with a bad expression, she never let it affect her work, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to become the sergeant of the tech team at the young age of 26. Before we arrived, she and her subordinates had already collected evidence from the scene of the female ghost shooting. I told her about the path the female ghost and I ran as well as where I’d lost her, and then she led her subordinates to investigate those areas.

We followed the path that the ghost took to escape, and on the path, we found traces of the ghost’s blood. But as we got closer to the edge of the woods, there was less blood visible. As we approached a tall, white camphor tree, the blood disappeared from the ground. After Yuetong had her team start collecting evidence around the tree, she started talking to Zhenzhen, but it was obvious that her words were meant for me to hear. “From the amount of blood that the culprit lost, we can infer that before she left the woods, she would have fainted from loss of blood and her body might have even gone into shock. However, on the path of her escape, we’re discovering less blood the further we go. That’s impossible unless she wrapped up her wound immediately after she was shot or she has unimaginable self-healing abilities.”

“She started running immediately after she was shot. There was no time to wrap the wound,” I said.

“If she really had such astonishing self-healing abilities, then it’s possible her wound has already healed. It will be very unlikely then, that we’ll be able to find her from the gunshot wound.” Yuetong was still speaking to Zhenzhen.

“Sergeant!” Yutong’s subordinate, Langping, pulled out a cloth that was stained with a small amount of blood from atop the white camphor tree. He reported, “This cloth should have been caught by the tree branch as the culprit ran away. Look…” He pointed at the broken branch that the cloth had been hanging on.  “The broken branch is probably two meters high, and the tree trunk also has traces of blood.”

“Take it back to the lab for testing. It might give us some more clues.” Yuetong had Langping and the others investigate some more around the white camphor tree.

This white camphor tree was located at the edge of the woods. Its leaves had all fallen off, as if it were dead. From the location of the cloth and the traces of the blood on the tree trunk, the female ghost had definitely fled from Xueqing last night by climbing this tree.

After Yuetong and her team finished their evidence collection, I tried climbing the camphor tree, but it wasn’t easy. I tried for awhile, but was still unable to get up. Zhenzhen saw that I couldn’t make it up and pulled me down. Then, like a monkey, she started heading up the tree. However, just a moment later, she fell off with a shout, and she brought the entire tree down with her– The tree was actually hollow! At the top of the tree, there was a hole just barely large enough for a grown adult to climb into, and the hole went all the way down to the tree roots.

Langping and the others pulled the tree off Zhenzhen, and then Yuetong helped Zhenzhen up. She didn’t fall from that high up and the tree wouldn’t crush her to death, so I didn’t worry about her. Instead, I crouched down and examined the hole left behind by the fallen tree.

It wasn’t a large hole, but an adult human would just barely be able to enter it. Moreover, it was at a thirty degree angle, angled toward the female dormitory. Because the sunlight couldn’t shine into the hole, I wasn’t able to see how deep it went.

Zhenzhen clambered up and walked over to me, thinking to kick me again for not caring whether she was dead or alive. But when she saw the hole in the ground, she slowly dropped her raised leg.

I borrowed Langping’s pocket flashlight and was about to head in to explore the hole, but Yuetong pulled me back. “You want to die? Until you help me find Xiw.a.n.g, you’d better not die.”

I pushed off her hand gently and laughed. “Before I hand Xiao Xiang back to you, I definitely won’t die.” Then I told Zhenzhen, “Hurry and call the fire department for support. I’ll head down to take a look first. If I don’t find anything in 15 minutes, I’ll be back.” And then I entered the dark hole.

After I entered, I pulled out my windproof lighter from my pocket and lit it. Although I had the flashlight, the lighter would give me an estimate on the amount of oxygen there was. If the flame went out, I’d have to get out as fast as I could.

The hole wasn’t as deep as I thought. After about four meters or so, the tunnel stopped sloping down and evened out. After crawling forward another ten meters, I ended up in a more open s.p.a.ce. With the pocket flashlight, I could barely make out that this was a 40sqm stone room, and an uncovered sarcophagus sat impressively at the center. I suspected I’d found the tomb that Uncle Liu previously spoke of.

As Uncle Liu said, this tomb was very simple, without much decoration. There were just four stone walls and a very simple sarcophagus. The cover to it was on the ground beside it. Perhaps because of the dorm’s construction, parts of the room had caved in and the ground was covered with quite a bit of gravel. I shined the flashlight into the coffin, but it was empty. I took a look around, but other than a hole at the top of the right wall of the room, there wasn’t anything particular. The hole in the wall was smaller than the hole I climbed in from, but I could still crawl through. As I approached it though, I smelled something foul.

I shined the flashlight into the hole. It was deep, but also seemed to reflect some light. There was probably water inside. I pinched my nose and climbed into it. Turns out it was a sewer crawl s.p.a.ce. As I was about to head further in to explore, my lighter went out, and the filthy sewage smell emanating from beneath my feet made me lightheaded. It was obvious that the air in here was of very poor quality, and if I stayed too long, my life would be gone. Better just let the fully equipped firefighters search the place!

When I climbed back into the tomb, I couldn’t help feeling my scalp tingle– There was someone else in the room. Because there wasn’t much light, I couldn’t see who it was, but from their body shape, it seemed to be a female. The female ghost? G.o.d, my life can’t be gone just like this in this kind of place, meeting her face to face. And she was blocking the exit too. What should I do?!