DNSTU 9. Water Ghost

Chen Junyang asked Xiang Ye a second time, “Are you going back?”

Xiang Ye countered, “Did you notice something?”

Chen Junyang put away his phone. “The smell of blood.”

He lunged forward and dashed out of the courtyard. The evening wind had turned bleak. There were hardly any people in the village, but off in the distance, a faint light glimmered from the woods. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t just any light. It was coming from the temple by the pond, filtering dimly through the gaps between the trees.

“Stay close,” Chen Junyang said, glancing back.

Xiang Ye followed. He had flunked the fifteen-hundred-meter run not because he was slow, but because he lacked endurance. The two of them moved quickly along the narrow village path toward the pond. They had barely covered any ground when they ran into an old man coming their way.

This was the first living person they had seen in the village.

They exchanged a look and stopped at once. The old man was walking briskly. The sky was growing dark, and he wore a large straw hat that shadowed his face. He didn’t notice them at first, but when Xiang Ye suddenly spoke up, he jumped in fright.

The brim of the hat lifted, revealing a face as shriveled as tree bark. But the fear in his cloudy eyes was unmistakable. “Heavens, where’d you boys come from? Scaring folks like that, trying to give an old man a heart attack?”

Xiang Ye launched into the same spiel he had used before.

The old man had lived a long life, after all, and Xiang Ye wasn’t exactly a professional liar. He even struggled to muster a friendly smile, so it wasn’t easy to fool anyone. But the old man didn’t seem eager to chat anyway. “Writer or whatever, you should leave now. Someone up ahead just died. There’s a funeral, and everyone’s gone to help. You won’t find anyone around right now. There’s nothing worth writing about in Guan Shui Tan anyway. Can’t you see there are no young people left here? They’ve all moved out. You two should leave too.”

The old man stepped around them and continued on his way.

Chen Junyang kept his eyes fixed on the old man’s back.

Xiang Ye immediately understood. “The smell of blood is on him?”

Chen Junyang nodded. Xiang Ye, however, still felt the old man seemed ordinary enough. What was more, he had just revealed something crucial. Someone ahead had died. So he asked, “Can you smell any other blood?”

Chen Junyang wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

He could not smell anything. It might have been a matter of distance.

Xiang Ye said, “Let’s go take a look up ahead.”

The village had been built along the water, forming a crescent shape that curved around the eastern side of Guan Shui Tan. The Shen family’s old house stood at one end of the crescent. The household holding the funeral was at the opposite end. The distance explained why they had not seen a single soul earlier.

As they drew closer, voices grew louder. Chen Junyang’s canine-like nose finally caught something. “Fresh blood. They died recently.”

He still sounded a little awkward when he spoke in front of Xiang Ye, and his voice had a stiff, unnatural quality. But he had no choice but to speak, so his ears turned red. It was exactly the kind of “shy” look Jueming had teased him about.

By now, the sun had completely vanished. The house hosting the funeral was lit up. Most of the villagers had gathered there, making it the only illuminated spot in the entire village. The rest of the surroundings were pitch dark.

Xiang Ye and Chen Junyang hid in the shadows and faintly heard someone mention the word “water ghost.”

As soon as the word “ghost” came up, Chen Junyang’s expression changed. He was from the Enforcement, and no one in the Enforcement knew better that there were no such things as ghosts in this world. If there were, they had to be the “evil ghosts” from Lu Ye.

“I’ll wait here. You sneak over,” Xiang Ye said decisively, discarding any pretense of being a columnist and choosing to go with stealth instead. Chen Junyang hesitated. The boss had warned him not to leave Xiang Ye’s side. But when he met Xiang Ye’s pale eyes, it was as if he had been bewitched. In his mind’s eye flashed an image of Xiang Ye playing Sherlock Holmes. He nodded in agreement.

Chen Junyang slipped away quietly and returned just as silently. The whole trip took no more than ten minutes. “Someone drowned in the pond. The villagers say it was the water ghost’s doing. The body is already in the coffin. The funeral’s tomorrow.”

Xiang Ye said, “That doesn’t make sense. How could there be blood if they drowned?”

Chen Junyang found it odd too. The closer he got to where the coffin was placed, the stronger the scent of blood became. It might have been subtle to others, but Chen Junyang was extremely sensitive to blood. From how strong the smell was, he could tell that a large amount had been spilled.

The person in the coffin had to have suffered severe external trauma or vomited an excessive amount of blood before dying.

Xiang Ye asked, “Is Xing Zhou close?”

Chen Junyang tapped his earpiece. “There was a sighting of the Lu Ye faction in Qingshui City. He’s tracking them now.”

Qingshui City? Why had Xing Zhou gone back there again?

Xiang Ye had a vague sense that something was off, but he could not pin anything down. So he turned his focus back to the matter at hand. The wisest move now would be to act as if he knew nothing and stay out of it. But since Chu Lian had apparently shown up here, and the timing of these events was just a little too convenient, how had Xiang Ye arrived just in time?

He quickly made a decision. “Go grab a few stones and throw them in the water. The louder the splash, the better.”

Chen Junyang glanced at him sideways, unsure what kind of scheme he was brewing. But Xiang Ye had no time to explain. He took out his phone and began searching for audio clips. Chen Junyang watched as he typed “ghost wails” into the search bar. Then he looked at Xiang Ye’s calm, pale face and felt an inexplicable chill.

They split up.

Xiang Ye circled around the house and arrived behind it. He looked around and, seeing no one, drew a deep breath. Then he climbed the courtyard wall in three quick steps and flipped over it with effort. He glanced down at his hands—he had scraped the skin.

Why was he so delicate?

Maybe he had been a pea princess in a past life.

Ha.

This was not the first time Xiang Ye had mocked his own constitution. He crouched low and crept toward the window. Inside was the room where the coffin was being kept. He calmed his breathing. Soon, splashes began echoing from afar. They came one after another, loud and clear in the still night.

With the rumors of a water ghost already circulating and someone from this household having drowned, the villagers were on edge. At once, someone cried out, “The water ghost has appeared again.” Panic spread like wildfire. The braver ones grabbed flashlights and went to investigate, while the more timid ran outside. Even if they dared not approach the pond, they still felt safer gathering together.

Beside the coffin, only one woman remained. She appeared to be a relative in her fifties or sixties. Uneasily clutching a handful of spirit money, she muttered under her breath, likely reciting some kind of prayer.

The sounds by the pond continued. Xiang Ye confirmed that Chen Junyang had managed to draw everyone’s attention. He brought his phone close to the window, opened the audio player, and hit play.

The eerie wailing of ghosts burst forth without warning, like a drop of icy water trickling down the back of one’s neck. The woman beside the coffin jolted violently and tore the paper money in her hands.

She stared at the coffin in terror. “Th-there’s…”

Her voice caught in her throat. The ghostly cries continued in broken wails, growing more disturbing with each repetition.

“There’s a ghost!” the woman finally shrieked. She jumped up in a panic and fled.

Xiang Ye seized the opportunity and climbed in through the window. Thankfully, it had already been left open. Otherwise, he would have had to break it. After climbing a wall and now squeezing through a window, Xiang Ye’s stamina was reaching its limit. But time was tight. He had no chance to rest. He gritted his teeth and shoved the coffin lid open.

The dead woman’s face came into view. Her eyes were wide open, almost bulging from their sockets. Her hair was disheveled, and the back of her head was stained with blood. She had died with no peace. More importantly, Xiang Ye recognized her.

It was the old lady who had taken the bus with him to Qingshui City that night.

The grandmother of the little girl with pigtails.

But they had gone to Qingshui City. How had she ended up dead here?

A chill spread down Xiang Ye’s spine. He had no strength left to keep pushing the lid. But the coffin was already open. He steeled himself and gently shifted the old woman’s head. Beneath her was another corpse.

That was the true occupant of the coffin, a drowning victim with pale, bluish skin.

Footsteps approached. The woman who had screamed about a ghost had returned with others. Xiang Ye immediately slipped back the way he came, leaving the coffin wide open.

The newcomers rushed to the coffin and saw the stacked corpses inside. One of them was so shocked they fell to the ground.

“It’s the Tang family’s old lady. What is she doing here?!”

“My god—”

“Someone come quick! There’s a dead person in the coffin!”

Chaos erupted.

Xiang Ye didn’t stop for a second. He hurried outside, but he had not missed a word of what was said. The moment he heard the surname “Tang,” he froze and looked back sharply.

The clockmaker’s surname was also Tang.

If the old lady was dead, then where was her granddaughter?

“Damn it,” Xiang Ye cursed under his breath. He quickly pulled out his phone to call Xing Zhou, but the call wouldn’t go through. He sprinted toward the pond. Halfway there, he ran into Chen Junyang and asked urgently, “Can you get through to Xing Zhou?”

Chen Junyang was baffled about why this suddenly involved their captain, but Xiang Ye’s tone was pressing, and he quickly tried to reach out through the earpiece. Fortunately, although Xing Zhou was too busy to pick up the phone, his earpiece was still active, and a reply soon came through.

“Give it to me,” Xiang Ye said, extending his hand.

Chen Junyang, ever reluctant to speak if he didn’t have to, wordlessly took off the earpiece and handed it over. Xiang Ye put it on and explained the situation as quickly as possible. His voice was sharp, urgent, and cold. The fact that he was speaking to Xing Zhou only made it more intense, as if everything had snapped back to the moment they had met at the Nanshan bus terminal restroom in Jiangzhou City.

But this time, Xing Zhou gave a clear response. “Understood.”

Xiang Ye asked, “What exactly are you investigating?”

“I thought Pei-ge’s group was still lingering in Qingshui City, but now it seems this is a different faction. Their goals differ. They each act independently, but they may end up heading in the same direction. That grandmother and granddaughter showing up on the long-distance bus was probably no coincidence. I’ll immediately investigate their movements after they arrived in Qingshui City. From now on, keep the earpiece with you. Chen Junyang is at your disposal, but you cannot act recklessly.”

But what exactly did recklessness mean?

If it was a quarrel between lovers, a slap might count as reckless. If it was a matter of life and death, even accidentally killing someone could be called reckless.

Xiang Ye drew a deep breath and steadied himself. So far, what he knew was that the Tang family’s old woman had taken her granddaughter to Qingshui City, yet had now reappeared in Guan Shui Tan. Her cause of death was likely blunt force trauma to the back of the head. That part was clear.

Either she had sent the girl away and returned alone, or she had brought the girl back with her.

So who had killed her?

From the villagers’ reactions earlier, it was obvious they had no idea there was another corpse in the coffin. That meant the killer had not had time to dispose of the body and had stuffed it into the coffin in a panic. But people had been coming and going in that house just now. To kill someone and hide a body in there would have been extremely difficult.

“I need to know where the coffin had been placed before,” Xiang Ye said. The scene of the crime had to be one of those places.

“The temple,” Chen Junyang answered, unexpectedly.

Xiang Ye instinctively glanced toward the small temple on the water, where the lights were still glowing. Chen Junyang knew one word wouldn’t be enough, so he pushed through his discomfort and explained in one breath, “The people by the pond said the body was pulled out near the island, so it was placed in the temple for a cleansing ritual.”

“Let’s go,” Xiang Ye said at once, heading for the pond.

Right now, everyone had gathered around the coffin, shouting that they needed to call the police. The pond area had been left empty. Chen Junyang quickly found a small boat. The two of them crossed to the island quietly, unnoticed by anyone.

The island was small, just large enough to hold a single temple. The temple didn’t even have walls. The incense burner sat on the open ground before it, with smoke still rising inside.

Near where the boat docked, a hand-sized patch of land had been cleared for growing seasonal vegetables.

Someone lived here? A temple keeper?

“Anyone here?” Xiang Ye called out as he walked, but he did not pause. He checked each building one by one and found them all empty, except one small hut off to the side, which showed clear signs of someone living there.

He picked up a photo from the table. It was unmistakably the Tang family’s old lady and her little granddaughter. Looking around, the room clearly had belongings that belonged to a small child. There was even a kindergarten award certificate stuck on the wall.

Chen Junyang knocked on the doorframe. He had found blood.

Xiang Ye put the photo down and followed him. As expected, there was a smear of blood on the edge of the incense table near the altar. Someone had tried to wipe it away, and the red lacquered surface helped mask it, but Chen Junyang’s dog-like nose had already picked it up.

Xiang Ye looked up at the ancestral portrait of the Shen family. It was the stern face of an old magistrate, a man who commanded respect even in stillness. After years of offerings, maybe he had become something like a local spirit. But if he truly had power, Xiang Ye’s life should have been calm and smooth, not leading him right back to this place again.

He closed his eyes and began to trace the chain of events.

The drowned man had been pulled from the water. His body was placed in the temple for a ritual. His family brought a coffin, and he was placed inside. But then, the Tang grandmother suddenly returned. Perhaps she got into an argument. She hit her head on the altar and died.

After a death, there would be all kinds of tasks to handle. When the murder happened, no one had been near the coffin. The killer could have dumped the body into the pond. But just then, someone had come by. In a panic, the killer had hidden her body in the coffin.

There was only one remaining question. When that family carried the coffin back, didn’t they notice the weight was wrong?

“Water ghost,” Xiang Ye muttered.

Chen Junyang glanced over in confusion. Xiang Ye added two more words.

“Coffin bearers.”

Chen Junyang blinked. “???”

Xiang Ye said, “That person really might have been killed by a water ghost.”

Only, the ghost came from Lu Ye.

Just then, Xing Zhou’s voice came through the earpiece again. “Shen Ningxiang returned from Qingshui City early this morning with her granddaughter. Her daughter has now vanished as well.”

Shen Ningxiang was the Tang family’s old lady. Her husband’s surname was Tang. Hers was Shen.

Next came Jueming’s voice. “Apologies for interrupting with bad news. I found records on Shen Ningxiang’s son-in-law. He died in an accident three years ago. I followed up and tried to trace his background—”

Xing Zhou cut him off. “Just the important part.”

Jueming said, “The important part is that there is no background. Just like Song Ling, his origins are completely unknown. So it’s highly likely he was from Lu Ye. Not someone who possessed a body, but someone who came out directly from the Gate. That little girl is his and Tang Wan’s child. She’s the key!”

Xiang Ye’s face darkened.

At that moment, Chen Junyang suddenly drew his blade and bolted.

Xiang Ye chased after him. Their small boat, the one they had used to cross over, had somehow drifted out to the center of the pond. The island beneath their feet had now become a true island in every sense.

The boat had been tied up. There was no reason it should have floated that far on its own. That could only mean one thing. Something in the water had moved it.

Which meant the water ghost was still here.