Murders

On the day my stepsister was murdered.

I told my dad and the police that I had gone to school to do homework, that I hadn’t been home, and that I really didn’t know what had happened.

But the truth was, I lied.

At three in the morning, the funeral home’s Morgue was only supposed to have five registered bodies, yet I found a sixth, unregistered, nameless female corpse in locker number six.

A slip of paper was pressed against her chest with nothing but my name written on it.

Even more terrifying was the moment my hand brushed her wrist; I saw the last seven seconds of her life and heard her raspy, blood-choked voice whisper: “Shen Nian, don’t trust your father.”

That was the night I realized that sometimes, the dead don’t come to say goodbye-they come to reopen a case.

I can see the final moments of the deceased through their eyes, a gift that has helped the government solve countless cases.

Everything changed when the body of a drowned man was brought in.

Looking into his eyes, I saw him strangling me just before he died.

And on those hands, he was wearing the Jade Bracelet that had been buried with me.

My father was famous throughout the surrounding villages for being a good man.

One freezing winter during a famine, he gave the last of our rice to a mother and child passing by.

After they left, they told everyone they met that my family still had grain.

The starving refugees, driven mad by hunger, came to our door to steal it, only to find an empty rice jar.

Humiliated and enraged, they forced my three-year-old sister into their arms and carried her away.

“If there’s no rice, then your daughter will do!”

I ran after them. In the end, all I found in the ruined temple was my sister’s mangled remains.

When I returned home, my father wailed through his tears, “I was trying to save people! It’s not my fault… That was just her fate!”

He saved someone else. In the end, my sister died, and I died too, in the bitter winter when I was fifteen.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw my father handing the freshly cooked rice to that mother and child.

I picked up the flower hoe beside me and stepped up behind him.

I was livestreaming in the Dormitory when viewers noticed that the Ceiling was leaking.

Everyone urged me to call a School Worker to fix it, but there was one Danmaku that said:

“This Dormitory is a Coffin Room. No one who lives here can leave alive.”

Before my grandmother passed away, she left me three brocade pouches.

“On the seventh day after my death, give these to the seventh person who offers incense.”

On the day of the funeral, I followed her instructions to the letter. When the man who received them opened the brocade pouch, his face turned pale with terror, and he fled in a panic.

It wasn’t until later that I learned the man was a rapist and a murderer.

He had intended to target me that very night.

The first brocade pouch was filled with his criminal record.

She told me to open the second brocade pouch before I got married and consummated the union.

This time, the brocade pouch felt very thin.

Inside, there was only one word.

“RUN!!!”

July 14, 2018. My flight was delayed due to weather, and I didn’t land until three in the morning.

As soon as I turned on my phone, I received a call from my senior. He told me to get to Baoshan Hospital immediately. Now!

I asked him what was wrong, telling him to explain himself first.

“Xiaoyu,” he said. “Something happened to Xiaoyu.”

My ears began to ring, and a splitting headache took hold.

That day was the third anniversary of my relationship with Qiu Xiaoyu. If the plane hadn’t been delayed, I would have proposed at midnight.

At four-thirty in the morning, I saw her at the hospital.

She was covered with a white sheet. Her exposed skin was deathly pale, and when I took her hand, it was cold and stiff.

It didn’t feel like Xiaoyu’s hand at all.

But the autopsy report stated it clearly: Qiu Xiaoyu had died in a car accident at 6:10 PM at the intersection of Qinghe Road and Wenshuo Road.

“It was a truck. The driver was exhausted and didn’t slow down before… Li Tong!” My senior suddenly grabbed my hand tightly.

My hand was just about to lift the white cloth covering Xiaoyu’s face.

“Let go,” I said.

“Li Tong, it’s better… if you don’t look.”

Choking back a sob, I repeated, “Let go.”

He stopped blocking me.

I slowly pulled back the sheet.

She was still beautiful, her features soft, just like when she tried to sleep in every morning.

Only, there seemed to be a wound on her neck.

And that wound extended downward. It grew deeper and larger, until her entire body…

Was completely destroyed.

I collapsed to my knees.

It felt as if a knife had been driven through my heart. My eyes stung, but there were no tears, and I couldn’t make a single sound.

“Did you forget our anniversary? You have to make it up to me tomorrow.”

I knew it was an auditory hallucination; those were the words from the WeChat message Xiaoyu had sent me.

The final WeChat message of her life.

Our entire story had somehow ended on such an unremarkable sentence…

Suddenly, my throat tightened, and I retched, vomiting up mouthfuls of bile.

Criminal investigations, soul-ferrying powers, a formidable partnership, and a slow-burn romance.

Everyone knew that Ren Fengjue, the Young Marquis of Renxuan Marquis Manor, was an exceptionally capable man. At a young age, he was already a high-ranking court official and one of the Emperor’s most trusted favorites.

With an illustrious background, striking looks, and both brains and brawn, he seemed to move through life without ever meeting an obstacle he could not overcome.

That changed the day a woman claiming to be his fiancée appeared at his door and opened with a sentence that left him stunned.

Xia Ximo: “Write me a letter of annulment.”

Ren Fengjue: “???”

At first, Lord Ren was buried in official duties and had no interest in romance. If she wanted out of the engagement, so be it. He had never intended to marry in the first place.

Later, after one twist after another, the way he looked at his fiancée changed completely.

Ren Fengjue: “I have already petitioned the Emperor for a marriage decree. If we annul the engagement now, it would count as defying an imperial edict, a crime punishable by the execution of nine generations.”

Xia Ximo: “???”

I’m a washed-up, eighteenth-tier starlet who spent three years playing the submissive role just to marry into the Jiang Family, the wealthiest clan in the Beijing circle.

My three-hundred-million-yuan ‘wedding of the century’ to Jiang Yuan, the family’s only son, instantly shot to the top of the trending searches.

However, a big shot from the metaphysics circle claimed I had the face of a concubine.

The livestream chat exploded immediately:

“That’s hilarious. It’s the year 3202-who still becomes a concubine?”

“Is it possible they don’t mean a concubine, but a mistress?”

My expression darkened. I joined the livestream and pulled out my marriage certificate for everyone to see.

To my surprise, the master simply said:

“Among the living, you are indeed the primary wife.

“But if we’re counting the dead… well, that’s a different story.”

It was the first time I had ever encountered something so bizarre.

A murder had taken place inside a residential home.

The suspect had more or less been identified, but there were still plenty of questions left unanswered.

As usual, I visited the residents nearby and started with the victim’s neighbor across the hall.

The man of the household was very cooperative.

I questioned him for twenty minutes, and he answered calmly and methodically.

Finally, I asked, “When was the last time you saw the victim?”

He said, “Last weekend. He invited me to go fishing.”

“Was there anything unusual about him at the time?”

“All I remember is that halfway there, he brought up something from the past…”

Then he told me about it: a story from when he was a child on classroom duty, wiping down the tiles at school. It had nothing to do with the case.

Just some trivial little incident that barely mattered.

But halfway through, he suddenly froze.

A moment later, his face went deathly pale.

“I understand now…” he muttered dazedly to himself.

“It’s out of control…”

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry, Officer Lu. I’m tired. Let’s stop here for today.”

Without another word, he ordered me to leave.

No matter how many times I knocked, he refused to respond.

My colleague and I had no choice but to leave for the time being.

We went down to the first floor, walked out of the apartment building, and reached the car.

Just then, a gust of wind swept past, followed by a thunderous crash- Someone had fallen from the building and slammed hard onto the windshield in front of the car.

His half-open eyes met mine for a brief moment.

Then he died. It was the very witness who had been speaking to me five minutes earlier, the same man who had been so composed ten minutes ago.

There had to be something wrong here.

Now I needed to go back and sort through everything that had just happened from the beginning.