Netherworld Investigator

Chapter 5

I almost jumped out of my skin when the eyeball fell out of the envelope. Could it be Grandpa’s? No, that wouldn’t make sense. Grandpa must have received this envelope first, and then went out somewhere. This eyeball had to be someone else’s.

Aside from the gory eyeball, there was nothing else in the envelope. This was a strange development indeed. What was the sender trying to tell Grandpa, sending him such a ghastly object like that? Why did Grandpa disappear suddenly, and where did he go?

The more I thought of these questions, the more muddled my thoughts became. I thought it’d be best to sit down for a moment and clear my head.

Grandpa taught me to always analyze the clues available from the surroundings to deduce what was happening. If something became too confusing or puzzling, I’d always have to go back to the fundamentals.

I looked around. Everything in the study was in order — the windows were closed and not broken in, so Grandpa did not leave the house by force. He went out on his own volition, most probably after seeing the envelope.

Since the eyeball was sent here in an envelope, the sender must’ve had the desire to send a certain message to Grandpa. If Grandpa could understand this message, there was no reason why I couldn’t either – and the message must’ve been on the eyeball!

I turned on the writing lamp and began to examine the eyeball very closely. Judging by the opacity of the lens, it must have been cut off from its owner no less than three hours ago. There was a single tiny nerve behind the eyeball. After examining it for about a minute, I made two conclusions: firstly, the eyeball was removed from its owner when the person was still alive. Secondly, the perpetrator was a dangerous professional, because even though they took out the eyeball while the victim was alive, it was done so cleanly and precisely that there was no damage to the eyeball whatsoever. These kinds of skills were comparable to a surgeon’s!

I noticed there were some granular objects sticking to the surface of the eyeball. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was sawdust, and when I sniffed it, there was a faint pine scent.

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Then I was reminded of a wood processing factory in the north of the provincial town where pinewood shipped from other places were polished into wooden boards and turned into furniture. Clearly, this eyeball had come from that place. The sender was obviously using this to lure Grandpa out by sending this message: there was a man in dire danger at the wood factory, and if Grandpa didn’t hurry there, it would be too late!

I had no time to consider anything else right now — I just grabbed a flashlight and rushed out of the house. The streets were pitch black and sometimes I could hear the sound of dogs barking, but it was all a blur as I hurried my steps north of the town. Finally, I saw the wood factory in the thick of the night.

A wall surrounded the factory, and there was an iron gate that had been pried open at the entrance. In fact, there were still signs of iron wire in the lock.

This proved that my deduction was correct. The sender of the envelope really was in there, and perhaps Grandpa was too. I debated whether I should rush inside — considering the high possibility that the envelope sender was a dangerous person, I wondered if I should call the police before barging in on my own.

But I didn’t have a cell phone with me at the time, so even if I rushed back to call the police, each second wasted could mean life and death for Grandpa.

In the end, I picked up a wooden stick I found around there and went past the factory gates. As I walked in, I noticed a warehouse had a light on, so I turned off my flashlight and gripped the wooden club tightly with both hands and slowly inched towards it.

There were lots of wood and boards in the warehouse, all stacked such that they were almost touching the high warehouse roof. They were all covered with a tarp. I walked in and the whole place was covered in complete silence, so much that I could hear my racing heart beating against my chest very clearly.

I turned the corner and suddenly saw the figures of two people — one looked like a fat middle-aged man sitting on a chair. His head was hanging limply aside on his neck and his body was stripped of his clothes. I saw a big green dragon tattoo on his chest, his mouth was stuffed with a piece of cloth, and his eye sockets were both hollow. The strange thing was that although his eyes had been gouged out, there was not a drop of blood around his empty eye sockets or anywhere else on his face at all!

He was holding a black plastic bag in his hand, and it seemed like there was something in it!

The other person was lying on the ground not far from this body — he was wearing a very familiar red Tang suit jacket and a pair of cotton shoes. There was no doubt in my mind — that must be Grandpa!

I didn’t bother to check whether the fat man was alive or not — I just rushed towards Grandpa and knelt beside him. His hands and feet were so cold, and I couldn’t detect his heartbeat any longer as even his pupils had started to dilate. I placed a finger underneath his nostrils and sensed a weak breath every few seconds.

“Grandpa!” I yelled, already starting to well up. “Please stay strong and hang in there! I’ll call for help right now!”

I kept repeating the sentence, hoping that it might wake him up. Suddenly, his lips trembled slightly and he uttered with a faint, weak voice, “Yang, my boy...”

“Grandpa, please don’t die!” I pleaded. “I’ll call for an ambulance right now, I’ll call for the best doctor to save you!”

“No...” he struggled to reply. “It’s too late...”

Those words pierced through my heart like a sharp dagger, and hot tears began to pour out of my eyes.

As he spoke, it seemed to take him a mountain of effort to utter each word. I wanted to stop him so he could conserve energy, but he seemed determined to tell me something so I didn’t dare to interrupt.

“I have to go now, my boy,” he said. “If you want to be a coroner, I won’t stop you anymore... But if you hear the words Jiangbei Daggers... Promise me you’ll run as far away as you can.”

“Jiangbei Daggers?” I asked with an off-pitch voice due to sobbing, holding his hands tightly. “Is that the bastard who did this to you, Grandpa? I will seek your vengeance – I swear to you!”

“No!” Grandpa replied as firmly as he could, using his wrinkled hands to hold me tightly with his eyes looking straight at me. “Promise me you will run!”

I wordlessly nodded.

The ghost of a smile appeared on Grandpa’s lips — he looked almost at peace as he took his last breath. My whole body collapsed to the ground as I fell, wailing bitterly.

As I cried, I sensed a shadow moving along the ground. The fright stopped my tears immediately. Judging from the shadow’s movement and the distance of the light source from my position, it was clear that there was someone approaching me from behind.

But this moving figure was so silent and quick that I didn’t sense any breath or sign of a living thing at all, as if it was not even a living person who was approaching me. I even suspected if it was the fat man’s reanimated corpse!

No, that was impossible.

This mysterious figure was tall and lanky, unlike the fat man. Just then, I saw the figure’s right hand slowly lift up, and in that hand, there was something that glinted in the light — it looked like a curved sword!

I hurried up onto my feet, but the piercing cold blade was pressed against my waist.

“Don’t turn back,” said the voice. “If you see my face, it will be the last thing you see.”

It was a weird voice, neither male nor female, neither deep nor high-pitched. It sounded unnatural somehow, as if it had been artificially modified.

I was full of terror and anger at the same time. This was the person who had tricked Grandpa out of the house and murdered him, but I was completely helpless and unarmed. If I were killed right here right now, no one would ever find out what happened, and both Grandpa and I would just disappear without a trace.

“What is your name?” the shadow asked.

“Song... Yang!”

“Ah, you must be Song Zhaolin’s grandson. Did he pass on any special knowledge to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that so?” replied the strange figure, who then broke into the most bone-chilling laugh I had ever heard. “Do you want to live?”

I said nothing and just nodded.

“Good,” the voice said. “Then answer my question correctly, and I’ll let you go. If you don’t, then get ready to meet your old man in hell!”

I shuddered, ashamed of my own cowardice in that moment. My grandfather’s murderer was right here within my grasp, but not only was I so helpless and afraid that I wouldn’t dare to look at his face, that murderer was even toying with me, just as a cat would play with the mouse it had caught.

I had to do anything I could to survive, so I nodded my head.

“The question is very simple,” he said. “If you can tell me your grandfather’s cause of death, then you are free to go!”