Netherworld Investigator

Not long after, Wang Dali arrived with a red umbrella. He ran to me, almost breathlessly and handed me the umbrella.

“It’s this one, right?”

“Yes!” I said. Then I turned to the coroner and asked, “Can I get some rubber gloves from you, old man?”

The coroner was sitting on a little stool on the floor, holding a cigarette between his fingers. He indicated the direction of his toolbox with a raised chin and said, “Everything’s in the toolbox. Take whatever you want.”

I took a pair of rubber gloves out from the toolbox, gave a pair to Dali and don a pair on myself. 

“Why are you giving me this, dude?” asked Dali, his face getting pale.

“You don’t want to leave fingerprints on the body now, do you?” I answered.

“You want me to — to handle the corpse?” he asked.

“Who’s going to help me if you don’t?” I replied. “Come on, stop wasting time! Let’s get to work!”

Dali looked like he was about to cry.

“Don’t drag me down into the mud with you, dude!” he said.

“I’ll buy you lunch, okay?”

There were quite a number of police officers around us at the time who were closely observing us, so in truth, Dali didn’t have much of a choice besides going along with me. I told him to lift up the upper half of the dead body, then I took a pair of scissors from the toolbox and began to cut the deceased’s coat. Dr. Qin’s gaze followed my every movement but he didn’t say anything. I used the scissors to cut away the clothes because if we tried to take the clothes off by pulling it up through the head, the tongue that was sticking out of the deceased’s mouth would be damaged.

Once I was done with the coat, I began to cut the shirt underneath. The face of a dead person, especially one who died by hanging, was always quite frightening. Dali kept his eyes closed during the whole process, but he accidentally opened his eyes once and almost jumped out of his skin with fright.

“Holy shit, dude,” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you scared at all?”

“What’s so scary about a dead body?” I said. “It’s just an inanimate object—like a table. You’re not scared of a table, are you?”

“But it’s still… a corpse… dude...” muttered Dali confusedly while staring at me as if I was an alien creature.

In my mind, there was absolutely no difference between a dead body and another lifeless object like a table. This was probably due to the way Grandpa trained me on how to examine human bones by sending me to graveyards quite often. And we usually spent the whole night at places like that, so it wasn’t surprising that I was completely desensitized to the sight of a dead body.

There was quite a crowd around us at the time, so I thought it was best not to take off the deceased’s pants. So I went ahead and told Dali to lift the dead body up.

Dali took a deep breath and hoisted the body up.

I slowly opened the umbrella, a heady herbal smell began to spread through the air from it.

“Ugh, where did you get that umbrella?” asked the policewoman while covering her nose. “It stinks!”

“Sorry about that!” I said with an apologetic smile.

I got the umbrella while I was shopping one day. There were mentions of a method of examining dead bodies using an umbrella even in Collected Cases of Injustices Rectified. The fact was that the ancients knew of how exposure to ultraviolet light would make marks and scars on the skin to appear. The great Song Ci himself made some modifications to the oil-paper umbrella by treating it with a concoction of medicinal herbs, thereby creating an ‘autopsy umbrella’ which can be used to make different kinds of marks on the skin to appear. I’d made myself this very same ‘autopsy umbrella’ using the instructions I found in the book.

I opened my umbrella and slowly rotated it. The chest area of the dead body became covered in a red shadow. To other people, the shadow might only seem red, but to me, I could see that it consisted of different shades of red. 

Just as I was focused on examining every inch of the skin on the deceased’s chest, I saw that Dali was growing uneasy again.

“Dude, can you just start examining the dead body now?” he asked. “It’s not that sunny today. I don’t need the umbrella’s shade!”

“I’m examining the body right now!” I said.

“What?” Dali asked, completely befuddled. “With that old umbrella?”

“What old umbrella?” I said. “Do you know how much of my allowance I spent on medicinal herbs to prepare this special umbrella? I wouldn’t give it up even for a girlfriend!”

“I wouldn’t trade a certain girl for anything in this world,” murmured Dali, staring dreamily at the policewoman.

“Where did you learn this strange method of examining the body, kid?” said the coroner. “Why don’t you just use a Ouija board and ask the ghost of the deceased what happened instead?”

I ignored the man and thought to myself, this is your last chance to mock me, so go ahead and knock yourself out. You’ll be speechless soon.

I turned the red umbrella three times, and suddenly marks of half a palm appeared on the deceased’s shoulders. Every there was stunned. Even Dr. Qin himself had dropped his jaw – the cigarette butt in his mouth had fallen onto the ground and he didn’t even notice it! 

“That’s… That’s impossible!” shouted the coroner who was now standing up.

“Dali,” I said, “flip the body over!”

“Roger!”

Even Wang Dali got excited now. He flipped the body over and used his hands to support it by the shoulders.

I continued to turn the red umbrella, and wherever the red shadow of the umbrella passed, it looked just like an infrared scan, and soon there were three complete palm prints on the deceased’s back which were much clearer than the ones on the shoulders. These palm prints were small, they looked like they were left by a woman.

“Stop!” ordered the policewoman. She then called for one of her police officers. “Xiaowang, get me a camera!”

A policeman swiftly handed her a digital camera. The policewoman then ordered me to keep turning the umbrella as she took the pictures. Once images of all the palm prints had been captured by the camera, I told Dali to put the body down.

The policewoman scrutinized over the images in the digital camera and furrowed her brows in confusion.

“That’s strange,” she said, “they don’t look like normal palm prints at all.”

“They’re not really palm prints,” I explained. “they’re the texture of the fabric of the clothes worn by the deceased. When someone dies, their yang energy will escape from their body instantaneously. If there is something blocking the path of this energy, it would leave these Yang Energy Prints that you see here. It will only be visible through a special procedure, though.”

“Yang energy?” asked the policewoman.

“It might sound outlandish,” I said, “but if you really think about it, it does make sense.”

The policewoman nodded and turned quiet and ruminant for a while.

“Okay,” she said. “But you really are something, kid! Where did you learn all these impressive skills? At this rate, it’s pretty clear that this is murder!”

“It is definitely a murder!” I said.

“No, you’re wrong!” said the coroner. I saw that his face had gone very pale. “This brat is playing a cheap trick, I’m sure of it. I’ve been a coroner for decades and I’ve never seen anyone examine a corpse with an umbrella! And this Yang Prints thing is simply nonsense! Where did you learn all this garbage?”

“You said I was playing a trick?” I asked. “I think you’re the one playing everyone a trick here.”

“You-you-you little brat!” the coroner yelled. “How dare you? Don’t you know who I am?” He was so angry that his lips were quivering. But I remained completely unimpressed with the type of people who used their position and power to belittle others.

“I don’t know who you are,” I said, “but I know that you’re wrong. You mistook this murder as a suicide, you were going to let a murderer go unpunished!”

“You… You little brat!” said the coroner. He rushed towards me suddenly and was about to grab my umbrella, but I reacted quickly enough and managed to dodge away.

“Let me see that wretched umbrella!” he yelled, now even angrier as he’d made a fool of himself when he missed and grabbed a whole fistful of air instead of my umbrella. “You must’ve used some kind of cheap trick!”

“Oh, and didn’t you say that if I could prove it to you, not only would you hand over the investigation of this case to me, but that you would immediately resign as well?

“Yeah, I heard it too!” said Dali. “Mister coroner, surely someone of your position would honor his own words, right?”

The coroner rounded his eyes in anger and his face turned crimson red.

“But that—that was just a joke!” he muttered. “I didn’t think that you could prove it. If I did, I wouldn’t have said what I said!”

“Just a joke?” I raised my eyebrows. “Mister, if I happened to fail, I don’t think you would’ve taken it as a joke and not throw me in jail, would you?”

The coroner was speechless, then turned to the policewoman for support.

“Look at this kid, Xiaotao!” he complained. “Look at how disrespectful he is! You have to get this kid out of here now!”

But the policewoman merely shook her head.

“Dr. Qin,” she said, “You put yourself in this position. Besides, everyone heard you say you would hand the case over if he could prove that he was right. I think you should honor your words.”

The fact that she completely ignored the issue of his resignation didn’t escape me, but it was good enough that she acknowledged part of the coroner’s promises. Besides, I had no interest in kicking someone when they’re already down. 

But Dr. Qin didn’t expect the policewoman not taking his side. He went speechless for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Huang Xiaotao!” he said. “Even you are taking sides with this brat! Fine! Why don’t you just go on investigating with him, then! I’m out of here! If this brat can solve this case, I’ll resign without any questions!”

He then took off his lab coat and dramatically tossed it on the floor, then stomped away.

I looked at this pathetic figure gradually growing smaller in the distance and couldn’t help but laugh. Did I hurt your fragile ego, old man? I thought.

Just then, a fair dainty hand approached me. I looked up and saw that it belonged to the policewoman.

“My name is Huang Xiaotao, and you are?”

“I’m… Song Yang!”

I shook her delicate hand, which felt incredibly soft. From that close distance, I could even smell the sweet scent that she emanated. I guarded my virginity well for twenty-two years—well, not that it ever came into any danger—so I had never been so close to a woman, much less touch them. And to make it worse, this particular woman was undeniably and irrefutably beautiful, so you must not judge me when I tell you that all my blood rushed to my face and it felt so hot I could’ve sworn I saw steam rising from it.

“This case is yours now, Song Yang,” she told me with a smile.

“Right!” I replied.

Then we were interrupted by a sound coming from the edge of the police line. It was the sound of a girl weeping.

“It was a ghost!” the girl said between sobs. “My boyfriend was murdered by a ghost!”

All three of us instantly froze on the spot when we heard those words.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter