Curse of the Ancient Tomb 14

  "I also can't make it clear. There has been a legend circulating here that this place was once cursed by an evil spirit, and many people died. Later, a high monk performed a ritual to calm it down, but the high monk didn't live for long either." Li Hui's father replied.

  "Just like what the clothing store owner said. It seems that the peach dagger was used to kill whatever is in the tomb." As soon as they left Li Hui's house, Su Yingzhen expressed her opinion.

  "That thing has already started blocking us, then... aren't we in great danger?" Shen Zhiyuan exclaimed.

  "Is this your first day? Our work is always like this, dangerous." Xue Pinhan retorted coldly, "Earlier, I might have messed up a link."

  "Which link?" Old Yang asked.

  "Li Hui and Li Jun have nothing to do with tomb raiding."

  "Why?" Su Ying Zhen asked.

  "You see, Li Hui's family is still so poor and shabby, and they can't even afford to marry a daughter-in-law. If tomb raiding was the reason for their poverty, it wouldn't be like this. Moreover, it's impossible that Director Li only relocated antiques and didn't leave with the smugglers - it doesn't make sense. What if the police interrogate them forcefully? If they have poor psychological quality, they might spill everything during the interrogation, which would implicate Director Li. Director Li is old and has been a policeman for many years, he wouldn't take this risk."

  He probably made use of Li Hui and Li Jun. In this way, if the police really took them back for questioning, they would know nothing and give people a false impression that it was a false alarm, making it easy to brush off the matter. Originally, every year there are boring people who make false reports. But if there is no one and nothing, it will inevitably raise suspicions among the investigators, thinking that someone inside has leaked information, and they will intensify their pursuit.

  "It seems that Director Li is quite cunning," Old Yang said, "If we want to know who's involved in the smuggling, finding out that mysterious informant would do the trick."

  "Not busy," Xue Pinhan said: "One by one, let's first investigate Li Hui's girlfriend's traffic death case."

  They found the driver responsible for the accident, and his account was astonishingly consistent with that of the driver who killed Li Hui. However, he did not feel as if someone was grabbing the steering wheel, but rather an actual person appeared beside him and snatched the steering wheel away. After the accident occurred, that person vanished.

  He's gone crazy.

  Everyone felt a chill run down their spine. Su Yingzhen asked Shen Zhiyuan to pull out Li Hui's portrait from the computer and asked the driver, "Is it him?" The driver cried out in terror, "It is!"

  "At that time Li Hui was still alive, but the driver could see him, how can this be explained?" Shen Zhiyuan couldn't understand.

  "I told you, it's a psychic killer. The thing attaches itself to someone's evil intentions and takes on their form. So each of the dead saw a different ghost." Xue Pinhan said.

  "No, it should be Li Hui, Li Suo Chang, Sun Yue, Wang Shengli and others whose evil intentions were possessed by that thing to kill people. Afterward, the fear in their hearts was amplified by that thing, which activated the souls of Wang Li and others who couldn't become ghosts to kill people, thus having a reverse killing effect and killing them."

  "Are you saying it's like a ball thrown against a wall that bounces back and hits the person who threw it?" Xue Pinhan asked by way of analogy.

  "It can be understood that way. So the one standing outside the window that day must have been that thing. Brother Dong didn't say he ran like a motorcycle, did he? Can a person run that fast? He hid outside the window, either to control Wang Li's soul or to eavesdrop. But why didn't he come in?" Su Yingzhen said: "Is there something stopping him?"

  "Never mind that for now. Let's go to the office and investigate that mysterious informant."

  Suoli replayed the recording of the emergency call from that day. At first, a faint hissing sound was heard, and the room suddenly became cold. Everyone except Xue Pinhan felt a chill in their hearts and involuntarily moved closer to him. Then, a cold and menacing voice came from inside: "I... want... you... all... dead!"

  Everyone's face turned gloomy. Su Yingzhen and others focused their eyes on Xue Pinhan.

  "Go ask the archaeological team to see if they can find anything." He walked out with big strides. Dong Yiqi shook his body a few times, as if to shake off the bad luck, and muttered to himself while looking at Xue Pinhan's back: "What's the point of calling him Xue Pinhan, he should be called Xue Dabao (Xue Big Daring) instead."

  Su Yingzhen couldn't help but let out a snort of laughter.

  "Stop grumbling, kid. This is the line of work we're in, and even if it's a sea of knives and a mountain of fire, we have to go up." Shen Zhiyuan revealed a smile that was delighted at someone else's misfortune: "This time you're the one who has to suffer, catching ghosts can only be done by you, none of us can run as fast as you. If the ghost doesn't catch up, it'll eat you instead."

  "Ptooey! Ptooey! Ptooey!" Old Yang spat out three mouthfuls of phlegm: "This is something that can't be said."

  After lunch, the criminal investigation team set off in a van. Old Yang drove while glancing at the sky: "Strange, why is it cloudy?"

  "It's going to rain." Dong Yiqi replied.

  It was Professor Liu who welcomed the archaeological team and greeted them warmly.

  Xue Pinhan asked straightforwardly: "When you excavated the ancient tomb, were there any signs of theft?"

  "Yes, some of the valuable artifacts inside are missing."

  "How serious is the damage inside."

  "It's okay, it's not too serious. Actually, we didn't even notice that someone had come in before. It wasn't until we found a ring impression left on the coffin that we inferred someone had been here."

  "Ring?" Xue Pinhan called out to Su Yingzhen: "Didn't you pick up a ring at Li Huang's place?"

  Su Yingzhen stretched out her hand for Professor Liu to see.

  "It seems to be an artifact from the Western Han Dynasty."

  "Is that ancient tomb from the Western Han Dynasty?" Xue Pinhan asked.

  "Yes." He led them to the front of the coffin. Su Yingzhen carefully examined the coffin, which was a huge one that could hold five or six dead people lying side by side. The coffin was all black, emitting an eerie dark glow, with exquisite floral patterns carved around it.

  "The tomb owner must be very rich," she asked Professor Liu.

  Professor Liu smiled: "It's not called being rich, it's called having a noble status. When we first saw the luxurious specifications of that tomb, we thought for sure that someone with high social standing was buried inside. So when we saw this coffin was so big, we assumed it was a suite coffin. You probably don't know what a suite coffin is, right? It's a chamber for holding coffins, also called a '椁'. Inside the chamber are several compartments, with the coffin in the middle and burial goods on either side. In ancient times, only people of high social standing could use such a thing after they died. But when we opened it up, it was actually an empty coffin! It's really puzzling - according to the luxurious and noble nature of the tomb, it's impossible that the deceased would be buried in a single coffin. And even more strange is that even if they did use a single coffin, there's no need for one this big, it doesn't make sense at all. What's even stranger is that inside, there was no corpse, not even any bones, just a thick layer of red mud. We ran some tests on the red mud and found silk protein and human DNA - in other words, a body had been placed here before, along with silk." At this point, he gestured to Xue Pinhan and the others to open up the coffin.

  Inside, as Professor Liu said, there was nothing but a layer of dark red mud.

  "We speculate that since this place is close to the Yangtze River, it's uncertain whether the groundwater has seeped into the coffin or not. However, even if the silk rots, human bones should still remain."

  "Could it be that the tomb raiders have taken it?" Xue Pinhan asked.

  "It won't work if stolen, there will be marks on the red mud."

  Professor Liu asked Su Yingzhen to give him the ring. She hurriedly took it off her hand and gave it to him. He placed the ring on the red clay impression, which matched perfectly. "It seems that this ring is a stolen cultural relic," Professor Liu said.

  "Is the tomb owner male or female?" Su Yingzhen asked.

  Female, name is Nu.

  "Hèn?" Su Yingzhen repeated: "The hèn of resentment and anger?"

  "Yes," Professor Liu said with some surprise, ordinary people hearing the name Hui would usually only think of the wise Hui or the virtuous Hui, how did she come up with that obscure Hui?