I looked beyond the police tape. Two girls stood there—one plump, the other slender. The skinny one was the one crying just now, covering her mouth and wiping tears nonstop.
Huang Xiaotao approached them. "Do you know the victim?"
The thin girl sobbed harder, while the plump one answered, "More than just knowing him. Fangfang and Zhang Kai had been dating for two years."
Fangfang was inconsolable. Huang asked a policeman to bring her a folding chair, but she refused to sit. We waited silently until she calmed down before Huang asked, "When did you last see the victim?"
"Last night, we were together," Fangfang said, tears streaming again. "But I'm sure the one who killed him was a ghost!"
She began recounting the events of that night.
Fangfang, the thin girl, and Tiantian, the plump girl, were close friends with the victim Zhang Kai and another boy, Deng Chao. The four were inseparable, sharing everything.
Deng Chao recently secured a guaranteed graduate recommendation at school. So last night, he treated the three to a big dinner off-campus. They drank a bit and talked about the haunted legend of the abandoned teaching building.
Ten years ago, a campus belle had died in that building. Her body was reportedly dismembered and hidden inside a piano. Since then, every night when all was silent, eerie piano music would mysteriously echo through the halls. Those who knew music recognized it immediately—the piece was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, the deceased beauty's favorite.
Some skeptical security guards had tried investigating the source late at night, armed with flashlights. But they were driven insane by bloodcurdling screams, mumbling endlessly, "The ghost is playing the piano… the ghost is playing the piano."
Soon, the school officially shut down the building, citing safety concerns. But everyone said it was really because it was haunted.
Fueled by courage and alcohol, Zhang Kai and Deng Chao made a bet: if Deng Chao dared to spend a night in the abandoned building, Zhang Kai would pay him five thousand yuan.
That night, the four snuck in. They found the legendary piano in a music classroom. Deng Chao smugly sat down, waiting for Zhang Kai's money.
Suddenly Zhang Kai reneged, insisting Deng Chao had to stay the entire night to win the bet. Deng Chao, competitive to a fault, agreed instantly. No one could talk him out of it. They left him alone.
No sooner had they stepped out, terrifying piano music began to play—the Moonlight Sonata.
They rushed back inside and saw a long-haired ghost dressed in white, sitting at the piano, playing. Deng Chao stood beside her, like a puppet lost in a trance. Zhang Kai tried to rescue him but was slashed across the hand by invisible strings.
The room was filled with countless sharp piano strings, like strands of the ghost's hair, dancing through the air. When the final note faded, Deng Chao staggered and collapsed, his head rolling off grotesquely. The three friends fled, terrified out of their minds.
Both girls had been hiding under blankets all night, crying. This morning they decided to report the incident to police—only to hear a body had been found on campus.
They thought it was Deng Chao's body, but when they arrived, it was Zhang Kai who had hung himself.
Fangfang was shattered. Seeing me detect feminine handprints on Zhang Kai's body, she insisted the ghost was responsible—that the ghost forced him to kill himself.
A senior student had warned them: anyone who interrupts the ghost's playing would anger her and lose their life.
Fangfang said, sobbing, "First Deng Chao, then Zhang Kai… next will be me and Tiantian. No one can escape, no one can escape!" Tiantian comforted her quietly, patting her shoulder.
We were stunned. What seemed a simple suicide hid a terrifying campus legend.
Huang Xiaotao asked, "You actually saw your classmate's head get cut by the ghost?"
"Yes!" Fangfang nodded fiercely.
"Is his body still in the abandoned building?"
"Should be."
Huang turned to me. "Song Yang, come with me to take a look."
"Can I come too?" Wang Dali asked.
"Who are you?" Huang snapped coldly.
"I'm Wang Dali, Song Yang's—"
I elbowed him. "Assistant!"
"Right, right! I'm his indispensable assistant. Song Yang can't do anything without me!"
Huang said, "Fine, you both come, but while you're involved, you answer to me."
"You're in charge," I nodded.
"Her fingers stabbed the air like daggers: 'Rule 1: No leaks. Rule 2: Reports to me ONLY. Rule 3: I own every clue—even dust motes!'"
"Yes, sir!" Wang Dali saluted awkwardly, mimicking Hong Kong action movies.
I thought she had a strong control streak, but it was understandable. From her position, two strangers suddenly joining was a liability she had to manage.
Anyway, I was excited to be part of the investigation. Though my theoretical knowledge was solid, real cases were rare.
Huang gathered some officers to accompany us and to take care of the two girls. I planned to take a closer look at the body again.
Wang Dali knew no one here, so he just followed me around.
The crowd was large, so I leaned over the corpse, pressing my ear to its chest through the body bag, and percussed the costal cartilage with a quartz hammer—analyzing resonance frequencies to map pulmonary lesions. Wang Dali, never quiet, muttered about calling a roommate for help, whether police got lunch, and—most importantly—whether Huang Xiaotao had a boyfriend.
I shot him a sharp look and gestured silence. He wisely covered his mouth.
I kept tapping, listening for echoes through the thoracic cavity, then flipped the corpse to listen to its spine.
Dali scrambled backward like a startled crab—"No way! Dead guys' whispers attract hungry ghosts!"
I chuckled. "Stop distracting me."
This technique is called Listening to Bones' Voice, an arcane Song family secret from The Judgment Chapter. Repeated percussive strikes on bones induce vibrational mapping, allowing me to visualize a crude 3D model of internal organ status. Quartz, with a Mohs hardness of 7.0, produced clean frequencies—unlike bare-hand percussion, which could cause harmonic distortion.
From the resonance response: algor mortis showed a 12°C drop; rigor mortis index was 3.2—yielding time of death 7.6±0.4 hours prior. Lung echo profiles revealed alveolar collapse index of 0.32; spinal nerve discontinuities confirmed forceful trauma. The cause of death was clearly violent strangulation.
Grandfather's voice hissed in my head: "The dead never lie—only fools ignore their testimony."
Afterward, I opened the body bag and brought out the victim's right hand. Earlier, I'd noticed a long, narrow wound on the back, with adhesive residue from a removed bandage—probably stripped off by Qin.
This time I examined it properly. The wound showed embedded ferric oxide microcrystals in the dermal layer—pH 5.8 confirming oxidized high-carbon steel wire. That aligned precisely with steel piano strings.
The wound's trajectory angled 35° from ulnar to radial—classic self-infliction signature. Yet Zhang Kai's spinal nerve tears indicated forced hyperextension…
Oxidized wire's pH 5.8 matched the Yang Yin trace parameters I'd observed in the previous case. This wasn't natural corrosion. It couldn't have been faked.
Just then, I activated my Eyes of the Nether. The wound magnified—pores, capillary ruptures, and iron oxide grains leapt into view.
Wang Dali let out a yelp and fell on his butt. "Yangzi, your eyes just glowed red! Are you okay? That's not normal—I should get you some eye drops!"
I nearly laughed. "I'm fine. Get up."
A metronome ticked softly in the background, synchronized eerily with Ren's pulse: seventy-two beats per minute. Too steady. Too calm—for a ghost's rhythm.
Something wasn't adding up. The wound told one story. The spine another. And the air? It smelled of iron and lies.