CH 24.2

translator: baumkuchen  editor: ellabells

At around 3 p.m., the napping Lu Qingjiu was blearily roused by his phone. Only after answering the phone did he find that Hu Shu was already at the entrance to his home.

“Haah…” Yawning, Lu Qingjiu drowsily opened the door for Hu Shu. He said, “Officer Hu, please come in.”

“You were taking a nap?” Hu Shu asked, “Sorry for the disturbance.”

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Lu Qingjiu ran a hand through his hair, “You can just sit down, I’ll freshen myself up a little… Anywhere’s fine as long as you don’t sit in the rocking chair.”

The rocking chair was Bai Yuehu’s. Even though he didn’t know where he was right now, if he came back to find Hu Shu sitting in his chair, ghosts knew what would happen.

Hu Shu didn’t think much of it, just casually finding a wooden stool and sitting down.

Lu Qingjiu went back to his room, washed his face, combed his hair and woke himself up a little. Then he returned to the courtyard and sat down across from Hu Shu, saying, “Officer Hu, may I ask what you’re looking for me for?”

“When you first arrived here, did anything strange happen in the inner courtyard of your home?” asked Hu Shu.

“Yeah,” Lu Qingjiu said, “I had a nightmare.”

Hu Shu said, “Then afterwards? After the case was resolved were there any more problems with your well?”

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Problems… Was people growing hair after praying at the well considered a problem? Lu Qingjiu thought it over, and felt like he definitely couldn’t speak about that. He eventually replied vaguely, “What happened? Why are you suddenly asking about this?” Now that the case was closed, what effect could a follow-up on the well have… As long as nothing happened, the police usually shouldn’t pay any particular attention to it.

“Oh, it’s like this,” Hu Shu hesitated slightly, “I want to know if there’s any lingering effects from the well behind your house, how did you deal with it, did you find someone, or did you deal with it yourself?”

As soon as he said this, Lu Qingjiu understood what he meant. He asked, “Did your police department encounter another case like this?”

Hu Shu gave a dry cough, “This is supposed to be confidential…”

Lu Qingjiu just blinked, not responding, waiting for Hu Shu to continue.

“But as you know, there are some matters which really can’t be explained by logic,” Hu Shu’s tone was a little bitter, “We started our investigation under the assumption that it had been committed by a human, but the deeper we investigated, the less sense it made…”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “What’s the situation?”

Hu Shu hesitated for a moment. “Can you promise to not tell anyone else about what I’m going to say?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “I can promise this.”

Only then did Hu Shu nod. He took out a dozen photographs from his breast pocket and placed them before Lu Qingjiu, “Look at this first. Prepare yourself, it’s a little bloody.”

Lu Qingjiu picked up the photographs and took a look. Sure enough, as Hu Shu had said, these photographs were incredibly bloody, including two deceased people. The two both had died extremely miserably with wounds all over their bodies, looking like they were tortured to death. The rest of the pictures were pictures of the deceased from when they had still been alive. The pictures showed a male and a female, both with bright smiles on their faces, looking to be doing quite well.

After looking at the photographs for a while, Lu Qingjiu couldn’t see anything wrong from them, and asked, “I’ve seen them, now what?”

Hu Shu said, “The problem is with these pictures.” He first held up the picture of the corpses, “This is the scene we found on the seventh, but this—” He then pointed at the pictures of the deceased from when they were alive, lively and smiling brightly, “These are the photos we received from their friends and relatives on the twelfth. The calendar in the photos show that the pictures were taken that very day.”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “Could it be that their friends and relatives were lying?”

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“No, they weren’t,” Hu Shu replied, “There was more than just one person who saw them, if they were lying, it would be impossible for them to lie on such a large scale, and furthermore, each and every one one of them were very certain.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Then what you mean is that… the dead came back to life?”

Hu Shu let out a long sigh. His bloodshot eyes and the stubble on his chin all told Lu Qingjiu that he had been worrying over this case for more than a day or two, his entire person was incredibly haggard.

“Yes, they came back to life,” Hu Shu said, “Before that, we had been looking for the identity of the deceased, but weren’t able to find anything. Originally, we even thought that they might be foreigners, but it turns out, the reason as to why we couldn’t find them was because the deceased were actually still alive.” Since they were still alive, there certainly wouldn’t be anyone filing a police report. In addition, any items that could have been used to identify the deceased had been taken from the crime scene, so it was difficult to even start the investigation.

Lu Qingjiu frowned, saying, “That… Is it possible that the murderer disguised themselves as the deceased?”

Hu Shu said, “That’s impossible. Because after the deceased came back to life, they lived with their families for at least a week, up until the police came to their doorstep. Then they suddenly disappeared. During that period, their families didn’t notice anything unusual.”

Lu Qingjiu fell silent. Indeed, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. This case was truly filled with elements unable to be explained by science.

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Lu Qingjiu handed the photographs back to Hu Shu and asked, “Oh… This case really is very strange, so what did Officer Hu come here today to ask me about?”

Hu Shu said, “I wanted to ask you how exactly you dealt with that well behind your house in the end?” Lu Qingjiu’s case was the most definite supernatural case he’d come across, and adding the situation the two thieves had come across the other day, he couldn’t help but guess that Lu Qingjiu might also have such things around him.

Lu Qingjiu tapped his fingers on his knees, and said, “It’s like this, the well in my courtyard isn’t really dealt with, it’s just not making any more trouble. After the case ended, I did invite a shaman over to my house to cast magic, but now it seems like that shaman isn’t doing these kinds of things anymore.”

Hu Shu asked, “Then do you have any views on this case?”

Lu Qingjiu said,”I want to ask: is this your first time coming across this kind of case? You’ve never come across something like this before?”

Hu Shu let out another sigh, “I guess I have. Doesn’t your case count as supernatural? Actually for these things, if we find out that it’s this kind of situation, we would usually just close the case. But we can’t do that with this, because… Yesterday afternoon, we found a third body.”

Lu Qingjiu was stunned. Indeed, if they found that it was the work of gods or ghosts, then there was nothing they could do. After all, the murderers were gone, and the case could be considered to be closed. But if the supernatural being refused to stop, the case would never end unless the culprits were found.

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After speaking to this point, Lu Qingjiu just about knew the situation, but he couldn’t promise Hu Shu anything, because he himself was also an ordinary human. He said, “How about this, you go back first, and I’ll think about it a little longer. If I think of anything that could help you, I’ll call you again.”

Hu Shu looked at Lu Qingjiu. Seeing that his expression was calm, and his tone was certain, he knew that this was basically the only thing he could do. He put his things away and said, “Alright, I’ll go back and wait for your news.”

Lu Qingjiu sent him out the door.

After Hu Shu left, Lu Qingjiu sat on Bai Yuehu’s rocking chair, waiting for Bai Yuehu to return. For the past few days, Bai Yuehu kept going out, not saying for what. With his lazy personality, usually it was already a feat for him to stand up and walk a few steps…

About half an hour after Hu Shu left, Bai Yuehu returned.

“Yuehu,” Lu Qingjiu got up from the chair and said, “You’re back.”

“En,” Bai Yuehu replied.

“Yin Xun isn’t with you?” asked Lu Qingjiu.

“No,” Bai Yuehu said, “Did a stranger come to the house?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Well, just now a police officer came over to visit.” He told Bai Yuehu about what Hu Shu had told him. He carefully observed Bai Yuehu’s expression during the explanation, and only finished telling him everything when it didn’t seem like he was irritated.

After listening, Bai Yuehu didn’t have any response. Just when Lu Qingjiu thought he wasn’t interested in this matter, he opened his mouth and asked, “Another one died?”

Lu Qingjiu nodded. He remembered the warning Chao Qianyu had given him that morning when he left, “Right, Chao Qianyu told me to be a little more careful when going to town nowadays, saying that it hadn’t been peaceful. It seems that it should be about what Hu Shu told me.” This also proved that the culprit of this case indeed wasn’t human, but was a supernatural being like Chao Qianyu.

Bai Yuehu asked, “Where did they die?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “I heard that it was at the highway close to the city from town. By the time the body was found, it had already been run over twice. Right now, they still haven’t identified the deceased.”

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Bai Yuehu was silent, as if thinking about something. He said, “I want to see the pictures of the two deceased.”

Lu Qingjiu was relieved to know that Bai Yuehu was interested in this matter. He said, “Okay, I’ll go to town sometime tomorrow to get the photos.”

Bai Yuehu looked up at the sky and said, “It’ll be best to do it quickly. In a few days, it’ll be a full moon.”

At this, Lu Qingjiu remembered that Bai Yuehu had been looking at the sky these past few days. He said, “Does a full moon have any kind of effect?”

Bai Yuehu said, “En, there are some things that like the moonlight.”

Lu Qingjiu felt like that definitely wasn’t a good thing…

Since Bai Yuehu was interested in intervening, then all was good. Otherwise, even though Lu Qingjiu was worried, he didn’t want to deliberately bother Bai Yuehu into intervening. After all, he didn’t know anything about this matter. What if the murderer was especially savage and hurt Bai Yuehu?

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That night Lu Qingjiu made a call to Hu Shu, saying that he wanted to visit the police station the next day, and asked him to prepare the photographs.

Hu Shu was smart, and didn’t ask anything, simply agreeing.

The next day, Lu Qingjiu drove to town in his pickup truck and picked up the photographs at the police station.

Hu Shu asked, “The master is willing to get involved?”

Lu Qingjiu said helplessly, “He’s just taking a look at it first, he’s not necessarily going to be able to give you any key ideas. Did you guys find the identity of the deceased yet?”

“No,” Hu Shu said, “The extent of destruction on the corpse is too much and everything that could give us a clue to their identity had been taken away. We’re still looking.”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “Then what about surveillance cameras? There wasn’t anything on there?”

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Hu Shu said, “Oh, don’t talk about that. On the surveillance tapes, the corpse just suddenly appeared. In one frame, it’s not there, and in the next, it’s lying on the ground.” This was why they were so convinced that this wasn’t a crime committed by a human. If the surveillance cameras had been destroyed, there was still a possibility, but with this kind of situation where it appeared in a second, what explanation could they have?

Lu Qingjiu left with the photographs, promising to give Hu Shu some news later, and drove back home.

Bai Yuehu was still sitting in the courtyard. Upon seeing him, Lu Qingjiu handed over the photographs.

Bai Yuehu took the photographs and looked over them carefully, his gaze finally stopped on the photographs of the living people. He slowly raised a hand, placed the photograph at the tip of his nose and gave it a sniff.

Seeing his movements, Lu Qingjiu let out a curious expression.

Bai Yuehu didn’t say anything, just passing the photograph over to Lu Qingjiu, saying, “Smell it?”

Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu copied what Bai Yuehu had done and sniffed the photographs. Then, he made an astonished expression. There was the smell of incense on the photograph. Even though it was faint, it was strangely distinct. Scared he had smelled wrong, Lu Qingjiu sniffed several more pictures. Only then did he find that as long as it was a photograph of a living person, it would have this smell, but the ones of the deceased did not.

“Is this the smell of incense?” Lu Qingjiu looked over at Bai Yuehu, confirming what he’d smelled.

Bai Yuehu said, “Yes, it’s the smell of incense.” He let out a rare laugh, “It’s that guy’s smell.”

Lu Qingjiu replied, “That guy… Are you talking about that fierce killer?”

“No,” Bai Yuehu’s thin lips lightly spat out a sentence, “It’s a fierce god.”