Spectral Detective: In the Realm of the Dead

Grandpa walked slowly into the room with his hands behind his back, asking Officer Sun what we were talking about just now. I desperately signaled Officer Sun with my eyes not to say anything, but this clueless guy not only recounted the whole story from beginning to end, but also lavished extravagant praises on me.

"Old Song, your grandson is truly amazing! We dug high and low on this case for over two weeks but couldn't find the murder weapon. He took one look at the photo and figured out what was going on. This kid is going places. When he graduates from college, I should write him a letter of recommendation to join the police academy! A gem deserves to shine. Am I right?"

Grandpa waved his hand dismissively, his attitude cold as he replied, "You praise him too highly. He merely flipped through some old books passed down by our ancestors. That's nothing but dabbling." Moreover, the Song family has an ancestral motto of 'no official positions, live wisely in seclusion.' Put away your ideas. I won't hand over this child to you."

With that said, he glanced at me icily, scaring me into quickly lowering my head.

Officer Sun sighed and said, "Old Song, aren't you being too stubborn? Just because you were wrongly imprisoned for three years in that stable back then? Wasn't that case overturned long ago? It's already the 21st century. What ancestral motto? You're just an old fossil!" Having said that, he patted me on the shoulder, trying to win me over. "Kid, when you grow up, do you want to be a cop and catch bad guys with Uncle?"

With Grandpa present, I didn't dare act out of line. I shook my head vigorously.

Grandpa said, "Old Tiger Sun, you don't understand the Song family affairs. In this lifetime, I have no other wish than for my descendants to live safe and peaceful lives, not to take up these dangerous professions again."

Officer Sun was about to say something more, but Grandpa had already raised a hand to dismiss him. "If there's nothing else, please leave now! Otherwise, don't step through my door again in the future."

Officer Sun swallowed back what he wanted to say. Picking up his briefcase, he said, "Alright, Old Song. I'll get going then. I'll come to visit again if there are more cases in the future!"

After Officer Sun's car left, the air in the living room suddenly became heavy. Grandpa sat in the armchair, holding his teacup while I stood nervously in front of him.

"Yang, how much of those two books did you read?" he asked.

I stammered a reply that I had read them fully. In fact, I had not only read them fully, since there were not many extracurricular books at home, I would flip through those two books whenever I had time. They were almost falling apart from my handling.

Grandpa took a sip of his tea. Suddenly, he slowly recited, "Among prison affairs, nothing is more important than exoneration. Among exonerations, nothing is more important than the original motivation. Among original motivations, nothing is more important than verification."

I was stunned for a moment, then quoted from memory, "For the power of life and death, and the opportunity for redressing injustice lie here."

He recited again, "One month pregnant is like white dew. Two months like peach blossoms..."

I continued, "In the third month, male and female divide. In the fourth month, their forms take shape. In the fifth month, sinews and bones form. In the sixth month, fur and hair grow. In the seventh month, the right hand moves - it's a boy close to the mother. In the eighth month the left hand moves - it's a girl close to the mother."

These two passages were from the book "The Collected Works of Washing Away Injustice". Grandpa was testing me intentionally. After hearing my response, the teacup in his hand fell to the ground with a 'crack'. He asked in surprise, "Yang, have you memorized this entire book?"

"More or less..." I admitted, somewhat embarrassed.

"Worthy of being a Song family descendant," he said. Then he shook his head again.

This strange reaction gave me a shock. I had assumed Grandpa would scold me harshly, but he did not. Only later did I understand that Grandpa had very mixed emotions at the time. He was happy there was someone to inherit the Song family knowledge, yet worried that I would now go down the same path as him, never to turn back.

Grandpa heaved a long sigh, "What a twist of fate!"

Then he got up and left for the study without even glancing at me once. I stood there, both shocked and relieved. Grandpa wasn't going to spank me?

That night, Grandpa suddenly woke me up and told me to get dressed and follow him somewhere. Mystified, I got dressed and went to the yard where Grandpa threw a pickaxe at me. Then without a word, he headed out and I hurried to follow closely behind.

The county town we lived in was not big. Walking south, it quickly became desolate wilderness. There was no moon tonight, and even the stars were sparse. Grandpa walked silently through the chestnut forest. All that could be heard was the rustling of our footsteps on the fallen leaves, and the occasional strange cries of unknown creatures deep in the woods, sending chills down my spine.

Soon we passed through the woods and reached an open wasteland. I accidentally kicked something - looking closely, it was clearly a human bone, turned black from long-term exposure to sun and rain! I suddenly remembered this was a burial ground for unmarked graves. According to legend, during the chaos at the end of the Ming dynasty, a group of marauders ruled this mountain and committed countless murders, discarding the bodies here. Over time, this became an unlucky place, where many bizarre things happened. Even when building houses, the locals would never open their front doors facing this direction. Any unknown corpses or bodies of those too disreputable to be buried in family graves were simply wrapped in straw mats and tossed here.

I saw wisps of faint green lights floating around me, like ghosts.

At first I thought they were fireflies, but then realized no plants grew on this burial ground and the heavy Yin energy here would repel fireflies. That light was clearly the "corpse fire" recorded in "The Collected Works of Washing Away Injustice", also known as "ghost lights" to common folks. It was phosphorus released into the air as the bones of corpses decayed and spontaneously combusted.

Although I understood the scientific explanation, seeing those flickering ghost lights with my own eyes still gave me goosebumps.

Just then, a dark shadow suddenly leapt out from the burial ground and stopped ten meters away, glaring at me with a pair of green, ghastly eyes. I screamed in terror.

Grandpa picked up a rock and threw it at the shadow. Frightened, it let out a bark and fled into the bushes.

"Don't be scared, it's just a dog," Grandpa reassured me.

I swallowed hard and asked, "Grandpa, what are we doing here?"

"You'll know soon..."

Grandpa led me to a pile of rocks and pointed, "Dig!"

"Dig?" I exclaimed in surprise, "Grandpa, is this a grave?"

"What else could be buried here except graves?" Grandpa replied.

"But Grandpa, isn't grave robbing against the law?" I hesitated.

"What robbery, this is called exhumation. Stop yapping and start digging," Grandpa ordered sternly.

Left with no choice, I reluctantly started hacking away with the pickaxe. It was a stone grave, very tough work. Having grown up in the county town, I had barely lifted anything heavier than a writing brush. Soon my hands were covered in bloody blisters.

Grandpa stood to the side smoking, watching me dig. The wisps of smoke actually calmed me down, even the sinister chill of the burial ground faded slightly!

I don't know how long I dug, but I was drenched in sweat when there was a sudden "crack" - I must have hit the corpse below. So I discarded the pickaxe and removed the rocks by hand. Soon, a pile of blackened bones emerged.

I looked at Grandpa. He just smoked silently. So I continued excavating the bones from the rock pile and arranged them sequentially on the ground.

Although this was my first time handling a corpse, the chapter "Body Examination" in "The Collected Works of Washing Away Injustice" described the shape of each bone in great detail. Therefore, reconstructing this skeleton did not take too long.

However, as I was assembling, I suddenly felt something was off!