Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui were savoring the fragrance when a gust of cold wind blew in, causing them to shiver. The sparks on the incense head suddenly flared up green, and they realized that something had entered the room. They turned around and looked out the window.

  Indeed, behind them were two souls, a man and a woman. Their hair was disheveled and unkempt, their faces pale with no blood color, their eyes sunken with dark circles, and black blood flowed from their deeply sunken eyes, hanging on their cheeks. They were covered in mud. Just like that, they floated expressionlessly in the space of the house. Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui recognized the two ghosts as Wang Canglong's parents, Wang Zhongren and his wife. So Chen Zhenhua asked strangely: "What are you doing here?"

  Before the two ghosts could speak, two objects floated in from outside the window, one black and one white. Needless to say, readers also know who they are. Hei Bai Wu Chang always floats in from outside the window every time they come. They each held a pair of handcuffs, shiny handcuffs, similar to those used by police.

  "Hei Bai brother," Huo Jucai looked at Hei Bai Wuchang and asked, "What are you doing here? Still carrying handcuffs, have you become a policeman?"

  "Hei Wu Chang pointed at Wang Zhong Ren and said: 'In the past, dragging iron chains was too much trouble. Now we've started using these handcuffs, which are both convenient and effortless. This time, however, we're here for those two.'"

  Bai Wuchang continued, "Yan Wangye sent us to fetch the couple's souls, but we've searched for several years and can't find them. Yan Wangye scolded us for being incompetent and deducted two years' worth of salary from us. We won't even get a year-end bonus. You say it doesn't harm 'ghosts'?"

  "It's not my fault," Wang Zhongren said with a sense of grievance. "After that scoundrel of a son of mine poisoned us to death, he went to some wicked sorcerer to get a talisman to suppress our ghosts. He mixed the talisman with mud and locked our souls together with our bodies inside the wall. If it weren't for these two young brothers opening up the double-sided wall, we wouldn't know how long we'd be trapped." Wang Zhongren sighed deeply after finishing speaking.

  "Is it really your son who killed you?" Chen Zhenhua asked, "Can your son actually do such a thing? You two are his biological parents after all."

  "This beast, how can't he take care of us? I carried him for ten months, and raised him with hardship, my husband and I economized to support his studies. In the end, we ended up in such a miserable state." The female ghost said gritting her teeth, but because she was old and toothless, although she was biting her teeth, it was actually just her upper and lower gums rubbing against each other, her sunken lips moving back and forth.

  "What did the villagers say? Didn't he bring you to the city to enjoy a better life? How could he poison you to death?" asked Huo Jucai. Even now, he couldn't think of any reason that would make Wang Canglong, a well-educated person, ruthless enough to poison his own parents, especially at such an old age, and die from poisoning.

  "Enjoying a life of ease?" Wang Zhongren let out a bitter laugh, looking very helpless, and sighed again. "This beast, after graduating from college, went to the city to find work for a year or two without returning home. Two years later, he suddenly returned and said that he would take us to the city to enjoy a life of ease. We thought he had become filial and sensible, we thought we could really enjoy a life of ease, but unexpectedly this scoundrel forced my wife and me to eat moldy and rotten food, then he went to an insurance company to buy us insurance, so that when we die, he can get a large sum of life insurance compensation."

  "A beast in the garb of a gentleman!" Huo Jucai said indignantly, "He must be brought to justice and punished by law. A heartless and ruthless person like him who even killed his own parents should suffer a thousand cuts."

  "How did he hide you in the double walls then?" Chen Zhenhua asked.

  "After we were poisoned, he put our corpses in a bag and transported them back to Guizhou overnight. Under the cover of night, he built a wall and hid us inside." said the old lady.

  "Alright!" Chen Zhenhua said, "The matter is clear, but the evidence to catch him is insufficient. The police station won't arrest him just because of our ghostly testimony, besides, we can't let the police know our identities."

  "What you said is right! We must think of a foolproof plan, so that he has nowhere to hide in the face of evidence." said Huo Jucai.

  So everyone started thinking about how to find evidence and how to make Wang Canglong reveal his true intentions.

  Several people were thinking of a countermeasure in the house, but they didn't know that it was almost dawn. The sky was about to brighten up, so they urged Wang Zhongren and his wife to return with them as soon as possible.

  Under the urging of Hei Bai Wu Chang, Wang Zhongren and his wife seemed somewhat reluctant. They died so unjustly and wanted to see with their own eyes this heartless and ruthless son receive legal punishment. They wanted to personally witness him being taken away in a prison cart, then sent to the execution ground, where this hypocrite would be ended by the righteous bullets of the police, concluding his infamous life that stank for ten thousand years.

  However, even if they didn't want to leave, it was impossible. How could ghosts exist in the daytime? Unless, like Chen Zhenhua and his wife, they borrowed a corpse to return to life. But Wang Zhongren and his wife had not received permission from Yanwang, so it was impossible for them to borrow a corpse to return to life.

  So they must leave as soon as possible.

  Finally, Wang Zhongren and his wife had no choice but to follow Hei Bai Wu Chang, hiding in the wall for three years. Their hands and feet were a bit stiff, so even when they floated in mid-air, they would sway back and forth.

  The two of them repeatedly asked Chen Zhenhua to catch his son and not let the evil man stay in the world to harm people again. Chen Zhenhua looked at their worried eyes, felt a sharp pain in his heart, and promised that he would not disappoint them.

  Wang Zhongren and his wife left, leaving only Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui in the house. The two continued to discuss the matter of setting up a ghost, and after everything was settled, the sun had already risen in the east.

  Because both of them were resurrected through corpse reanimation, they didn't feel tired even if they didn't sleep for a night. When it was time to go to work, the two went to the police station.

  He wasn't originally a member of the police department, and logically he shouldn't have been able to enter the police station to analyze the case with the police. But even he couldn't explain why, when he walked into the police station, the director and other leaders saw him too, they didn't stop Huo Jucai from solving the case with Chen Zhenhua, instead they warmly invited Huo Jucai to sit in the office. Only when facing Huo Jucai's smiling face and kind eyes then looking at Chen Zhenhua again, his smile fell, and his eyes seemed sharper.

  Chen Zhenhua met Huang Aiguo in the office and told him about his idea of dressing up as a ghost to catch the culprit, which he had discussed with Huo Jucang. At first, Huang Aiguo did not agree, thinking that such a method would damage the police's reputation. However, he couldn't think of a better way either. Although the criminal police team was also busy, the leads they got seemed to be less valuable than what Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo had obtained.

  These days, colleagues have been clamoring to take a police car out to find clues, but in the end, they still got nothing. However, their computers stored many photos taken during travel, some of which were even taken with their whole family together. Apart from these photos, there was also a large stack of gas station receipts in their pockets.

  A major serial case, how can two police officers crack it? Huang Aiguo thought for a moment, and he agreed, and he also promised to let other colleagues from the criminal police team go with him.

  The plan was set, Huang Aiguo went to see the captain of the criminal investigation team. He told the captain about Chen Zhenhua's idea of disguising himself as a ghost to gather evidence. The captain listened and disagreed with him, even more resolutely than Huang Aiguo, and severely criticized Huang Aiguo.

  "Are you a cop for just one day?" The captain's eyes were wide with anger, pounding the table and shouting, "I really don't understand how you could come up with such a despicable plan. As police officers, we should use fair and just methods to make lawbreakers surrender willingly. Your childish idea is simply shameful to our police department. If it gets out, we might as well not do our jobs and just find some ghosts to do it for us."

  "But..." Huang Aiguo wanted to say something else, the door of the team leader's office opened, and Director and Huo Jucui walked in one after another.

  The team leader saw the director coming in and hastily stood up with a smile: "Director, how did you come?"

  The director nodded to signal everyone to sit down, and also had a chair placed for Huo Jucai. He himself sat in the backrest chair of the big team leader, then cleared his throat twice and said: "How is the case of Ruan Jiaolü progressing?"

  The team leader stood by, listening to the director's inquiry about the case. He bowed his head slightly, smiled and said in a low voice: "It's still underway, we're working hard on collecting evidence, but the murderer has already been locked onto Wang Canglong."

  "So that means there's no progress at all?" The director looked somewhat displeased, his face lengthening as he spoke. "Just now, Ju Cai and I were discussing the case, and they came up with a plan to use a disguise to get the culprit to reveal themselves. I think it's not a bad idea. Ah, young people these days are so bold and innovative in their thinking."

  "That's right!" said the captain. "I thought so too, but I couldn't find a suitable person to play the ghost at the time, so I didn't say it out loud."

  "Do you think this method will work?" The director asked the captain with a slanted gaze.

  "Of course!" The captain was very determined, just like he had opposed Huang Aiguo earlier. He smiled and said, "During the Song Dynasty, the famous Prime Minister Kou Zhun used a ghost disguise to judge a case between two families, Pan and Yang. Even the respected Judge Bao Zheng used this method to solve a case. If saints can do it, why can't we learn from them?"

  "Hmm," said the director, "this matter should not be delayed. You all make arrangements as soon as possible and don't let the murderer escape the law. We can't disappoint the citizens."

  "I will definitely not let the director down!" The captain shouted loudly, guaranteeing it like an oath. His hands were vertical, his hips raised, and his feet together, standing at attention.

  The director nodded, patted Ho Jucui and Huang Aiguo's shoulders, then coughed twice and walked out of the team leader's office with a stern expression.

  The director left, and the team leader's face suddenly turned serious. He sat back in his own seat, with his legs on the office desk, swinging his chair and staring at Huang Aiguo with an unfriendly gaze.

  "What I just said was not for you," he looked at Huang Aiguo for a long time before speaking, "but out of consideration for the case. It's not that your thoughts are correct, remember, in the future, do things openly and honestly."

  Huang Aiguo didn't mind what the captain said. What he wanted was for the director and the captain to work together, then bring the murderer to justice.

  It was settled, Huang Aiguo finally came out, he and Huo Jucui went to find Chen Zhenhua together. Chen Zhenhua heard that the director had also agreed, and was as happy as Huang Aiguo, everyone waited for the action at 12 o'clock tonight.