S.C.I. (Volume I) - Case 4: Chapter 17

The Non-Human Killer 17 - Ghouls and Goblins  

Soon, Shang Luo's car drove out from the basement, carrying Zhan Zhao as it headed toward the Riverside villa district.

Because Zhan Zhao was carrying a specialized satellite locator, Bai Yutang and the others didn't tail them too closely.

Sitting in the car, Shang Luo drove while asking Zhan Zhao, "Dr. Zhan, I'd like to consult you on a few professional questions."

Zhan Zhao was looking out the window at the scenery. Hearing Shang Luo, he turned back with a mild flicker of interest. "In psychology?"

"Yes." Shang Luo nodded with a smile. "I've been meaning to ask an expert about this for a long time."

"Let's hear it." Zhan Zhao crossed his legs and quietly waited for Shang Luo's question.

"...Dr. Zhan, do you believe in ghosts?" Shang Luo asked in a low voice.

"Ghosts?" Zhan Zhao blinked slightly and asked, "Do you mean literally, or something else?"

"I mean things existing in the world, beyond living and non-living entities, things that science cannot explain..." Shang Luo thought for a moment before adding, "Similar to ghouls and goblins."

Zhan Zhao smiled faintly and replied, "I do."

Listening to the dialogue coming through the receiver, Bai Yutang curled his lip while driving. "This cat... talking nonsense."

Beside him, Bai Chi asked in timid surprise, "Bro... don't you believe in them?"

Bai Yutang glared at him. "How are police officers supposed to handle cases if they believe in that stuff?!"

Bai Chi muttered under his breath, "Not believing doesn't mean they don't exist."

Bai Yutang chuckled, thinking to himself that this kid had learned how to talk back~~ "Not to mention I haven't run into any, but even if I did, as long as your lord and master doesn't believe in them, they simply don't exist!!"

Bai Chi continued to murmur softly, "No wonder they call you the Ghost-Fearing Fiend..."

"What did you say?" Bai Yutang glanced at him.

"...Nothing..."

"You believe in them?" Shang Luo was taken aback by Zhan Zhao's answer. "I assumed psychologists wouldn't believe in such baseless things."

Zhan Zhao smiled. "Why shouldn't psychologists believe in this? By the way, what made Mr. Shang bring up this topic?"

"Oh... I wanted to ask whether seeing things that aren't human, or hearing sounds that shouldn't be there... is a special ability, or just a hallucination?!" The expression on Shang Luo's face seemed somewhat troubled. "This question has been bothering me for a long time."

"That depends on what, precisely, is being seen," Zhan Zhao said. "Could it be that Mr. Shang is able to see non-human things?"

...Shang Luo hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, "Indeed... this started happening after the trunk corpse was brought back, just within the last few days."

As they spoke, the car had already entered the Riverside villa district. Shang Luo parked outside the courtyard wall of a small villa and announced, "We've arrived."

Through the car window, Zhan Zhao eyed the villa behind the iron gates and felt a secret jolt of surprise... This villa didn't have any major differences in design or style compared to the others in the neighborhood, but for some reason, it just gave off a spine-chilling, ghostly aura...

Shang Luo parked the car, got out alongside Zhan Zhao, unlocked the large iron courtyard gate, and walked toward the villa.

After the two of them stepped inside, Bai Yutang's car pulled up and parked behind a flower bed not far away.

Bai Chi poked his head out for a look at the villa and let out a soft gasp.

"What is it?" Bai Yutang asked nervously, thinking the kid had spotted something.

"This house is so scary." Bai Chi pointed at Shang Luo's villa and said, "Looking at it gives me the chills."

Bai Yutang looked left and right without finding anything remotely terrifying about it, so he asked Bai Chi in bewilderment, "What's so scary about it?!"

"I can't quite explain it..." Bai Chi put on his jacket, which had been resting on the back of his seat. "Just looking at it makes my scalp tingle and my whole body cold."

"B-Boss... we feel it too..." Zhao Hu chimed in tremblingly over the intercom. "It looks kind of like a haunted house."

Bai Yutang fell silent for a long moment. "All of you are going to go see an ophthalmologist tomorrow!"

...

Right then, Zhan Zhao's voice came through the receiver: "This house has a rather peculiar feel to it..."

Shang Luo pulled out his keys to unlock the door. "You noticed it too?"

Zhan Zhao smiled. "This place is gloomy and creepy; if someone couldn't tell something was weird here, they'd really need to go get their eyes checked..."

"Ahem..." Ma Han coughed over the intercom.

Zhao Hu whispered, "Does your sister know any eye doctors? Introduce a good one for the boss to see."

Bai Chi held back a chuckle, while Bai Yutang ground his teeth in fury—Cat~ you just wait!!

"This house faces the most shaded direction... it gets zero sunlight year-round, which is why it feels especially eerie." Shang Luo explained, "I specifically had a feng shui master pick out this house for me."

"Feng shui?" Zhan Zhao asked, perplexed. "Why specifically choose such a gloomy house?"

"It has to do with my collection." Shang Luo raised a hand to switch on the living room lights. Once illuminated, the gloomy, bizarre atmosphere in the room dissipated somewhat. "Corpses can't be exposed to sunlight during the day, or there's no telling what might happen at night."

Zhan Zhao followed Shang Luo into the living room. "You live here all by yourself normally? Mr. Shang has quite a lot of nerve."

Shang Luo sighed. "No choice... given the line of work I'm in."

Inside the car, Bai Chi felt a growing chill as he listened, picturing this ghost-ridden house packed full of corpses, which naturally made goosebumps break out all over his skin... Living in a place like this for no reason at all, Shang Luo was quite the freak.

Sitting beside him, Bai Yutang wore a look that was half-smile, half-scowl. "What kind of nonsense is this kid spouting? A corpse is a corpse; if it gets some sun during the day, is it going to rise from the dead at night? Total hogwash~~~~"

At the mention of corpses rising from the dead, Bai Chi gave a slight shudder and asked Bai Yutang in a timid whisper, "Can corpses really come back to life?!"

Bai Yutang glared at him. "That's superstition!"

"But old folks say it's true." Bai Chi stammered nervously, "They say battlefields often have people who died violent deaths turning into zombies that go around pouncing on people..."

Bai Yutang was exasperated: "Those are people who just died and haven't fully expired yet. The mummies in Shang Luo's house are so decayed they could practically turn into crude oil—what coming back to life? If corpses really rose from the dead like that, Gongsun would've kicked the bucket ages ago!"

Bai Chi lowered his head to mutter under his breath, "I... I was just worried about Big Bro being in there alone..."

"That cat?!" Bai Yutang curled his lip. "Even if there really were any, his very first reaction upon seeing one would be to catch a specimen to take back and raise, while conveniently bringing one along for Gongsun to play with..."

Bai Chi swallowed hard... How terrifying~~~

"Care for a drink?" Shang Luo opened the liquor cabinet and looked back at Zhan Zhao.

"Anything is fine."

Admiring a strangely shaped wooden carving on the coffee table, Zhan Zhao accepted the glass of liquor handed to him by Shang Luo.

"This also looks like something from the Tusi tribe..." Zhan Zhao pointed at the wooden carving.

"Good eye..." Shang Luo nodded in appreciation. "This is a small Tusi wooden carving symbolizing a child. Pretty cute, isn't it?"

Zhan Zhao nodded: "Shall we take a look at the collection first?"

"Alright." Shang Luo set down his wine glass and led Zhan Zhao up to the second floor, speaking as they walked: "The collection is all up on the second floor... Oh, by the way, if you hear any unusual sounds later, don't be scared."

"Unusual sounds?" Zhan Zhao asked, puzzled. "What kind of unusual sounds?"

Shang Luo shook his head. "Lately, I've frequently been hearing the sound of them getting up to take a stroll at night..."

"Pfft..." Zhao Hu spat a mouthful of coffee all over the windshield.

Bai Chi's eyes widened in shock: "St... strolling........."

"Heh..." Bai Yutang sneered. "What on earth is this kid playing at? Putting on a ghost show."

Zhan Zhao watched as Shang Luo pushed open the door to the collection room and switched on the spotlights... What came into view were rows of glass display cabinets and several glass-lidded coffins lined up side by side...

Inside the cabinets and the coffins rested mummified corpses in various postures.

Right in the centermost circular glass pillar was displayed precisely that trunk corpse.

Zhan Zhao thought to himself that if he had brought Gongsun along today, the man would undoubtedly be beside himself with excitement upon seeing all of this.

Shang Luo gave Zhan Zhao a brief introduction, explaining the age of each corpse, which civilization they originated from, and so on.

"This is the corpse of a youth, also from the Tusi tribe," Shang Luo said, pointing at a smaller corpse inside a glass coffin.

Zhan Zhao looked at the well-preserved corpse and asked, "When the Tusi tribe held funerals, didn't they always turn them into trunk corpses?"

Shang Luo shook his head. "Not necessarily. Only special individuals did... Besides, women and children usually received standard burials... It's just that the Tusi mummification technique was extremely mysterious, preserving the corpses exceptionally well so they wouldn't rot or decay."

...Zhan Zhao noticed that beside the youth's corpse was another coffin, but its glass lid was wide open, and the inside was completely empty. Just as he wanted to ask Shang Luo what was going on he turned his head and saw Shang Luo's eyes blown wide, staring in horror at the empty casket...

"Uh... Mr. Shang..." Zhan Zhao gently tapped him on the shoulder. "What is it?"

Shang Luo's mouth hung open, taking a long time to snap shut before he reached out with a look of utter disbelief, gesturing wildly... "Where... where did she go..."

Seeing that Shang Luo was pointing at the empty coffin, Zhan Zhao asked, "You mean there used to be a corpse in this coffin?!"

Shang Luo nodded. "There was... a female Tusi corpse... and this child... they were mother and son..."

Noticing that the glass coffin lid was open, Zhan Zhao asked, "Was she here the whole time?"

Shang Luo nodded. "When I left earlier, I checked it over. Everything was fine, how could it..."

Zhan Zhao surveyed his surroundings: "Could a thief have broken in..."

"No, the security system is extremely rigorous, that's impossible... and besides..." Here, Shang Luo paused, seemingly finding it difficult to continue.

"Besides what?" Zhan Zhao pressed.

"Besides, these past few nights I really have heard the sound of coffins opening and footsteps..." Shang Luo said softly. "And... and a woman crying... I..."

Before he could finish, the faint sound of a woman sobbing suddenly drifted in from the hallway outside...

Though the sobbing wasn't loud, Bai Yutang and the others on the receiving end heard it crystal clear...

Bai Chi gasped in a sharp breath of fright.

Bai Yutang frowned. He and Zhan Zhao had anticipated numerous scenarios that might play out today, but they never expected such a bizarre, unfathomable event to occur.

Over the intercom, Ma Han asked, "Boss, should we go inside and check things out? Is Dr. Zhan going to be in danger?!"

Bai Yutang was also somewhat hesitant. Just then, Zhan Zhao's voice came through, telling Shang Luo, "Don't panic yet... let's go take a look."

Shang Luo nodded and walked out toward the hallway alongside Zhan Zhao.

Inside the car, Bai Yutang let out a quiet sigh of relief. Zhan Zhao's words just now meant they should hold off on making any rash moves... He picked up the intercom and instructed Ma Han and Zhao Hu, "You two head over to get close to the house and keep watch. Wait for my signal, and don't act blindly without orders."

"Understood." Ma Han and Zhao Hu adjusted their earpieces, pulled out their guns to inspect them, and prepared to move out.

Zhao Hu tugged on Ma Han's sleeve. "L... Little Ma bro... if we're catching ghosts later, are bullets any good?"

Ma Han shot him a blank stare. "Remember this for later: if a ghost taps your shoulder, don't turn around, or your vital life energy will get sucked away~~"

"Yikes~~" Zhao Hu grabbed onto Ma Han in a tight hug. "I became a police officer to catch thieves, stolen goods, and perverts—I never expected I'd have to catch a ghost today. Little Ma bro, you've gotta cover me..."

Ma Han pushed open the car door and booted him right out: "Move it! Stop yabbering..."

The two of them got out of the car and sprinted toward the villa's courtyard wall.

"Bro is inside all by himself... is he going to be okay..." Bai Chi said with deep concern.

Bai Yutang shook his head. "That cat is useless when it comes to blades and guns, but when it comes to using his brain, Shang Luo isn't even in his league... Since Mousie told us not to go in, he definitely has his reasons..."

By this time, Ma Han and Zhao Hu had reached the exterior of the villa's courtyard gate and taken up positions in ambush.

Bai Yutang leaned back against his seat, keeping his eyes glued to that ghost-ridden villa—Mousie, I'm leaving it to you.

As Zhan Zhao and Shang Luo walked toward the entrance of the collection room, the sobbing in the hallway gradually faded away... Following that, a clicking, rattling sound echoed, resembling joints dislocating, which was immediately succeeded by the soft sound of footsteps in the corridor.

Shang Luo grabbed Zhan Zhao's arm. "I'll walk in front... If there's danger, you run fast, don't worry about me..."

Zhan Zhao nodded and told him, "Don't worry... I know what I'm doing."

Hearing those words from inside the car, Bai Yutang broke into a knowing, understanding smile—"Sly cat..."