Yin Yang Pillow

After investigating Jin Baoshan, I gave Wang Dali a task to wait here for Jin Baoshan to get off work and go back with him to get the contract from home.

Wang Dali said, "It's only two o'clock now. You want me to wait here for four hours?"

I smiled and said, "You can do other things while waiting. For example, there is an internet cafe across the street that looks pretty good."

Wang Dali immediately became excited and said, "Great! I'll wait here. Sister Xiaotao Huang, can I expense the internet usage fee?"

Huang Xiaotao sternly said, "Don't go overboard. The investigation funds are the taxpayers' money. You know that, right?"

"Got it! Got it!"

After leaving Wang Dali here, Huang Xiaotao asked where we should go next. I said my pillow was probably ready and we should go pick it up and finish the autopsy.

On the way, I kept thinking. I said to Huang Xiaotao, "Don't you think this case is too simple? No matter how ingenious the killer's method was, the motive is so obvious that we just need to investigate the buyer and seller to find out who did it, right?"

Huang Xiaotao smiled and said, "You're not happy that the case is simple?"

"No, I just feel like there's something more to it!"

Up to now, I still hadn't figured out exactly how the two trial residents in the haunted house died. Someone capable of such a murder method wouldn't have such a simple mindset. Definitely not!

When we returned to the police station, my wooden pillow was ready. It was just a square wooden block with a groove in the middle to place your head and some holes around it connected to the groove. This pillow was the 'Yin-Yang Pillow' recorded in the Broken Prison Divine Volume.

Huang Xiaotao asked, "This pillow looks so weird and uncomfortable. What's it for?"

"You'll see soon." I gave a mysterious smile.

We went to the morgue and I placed the Yin-Yang Pillow under the corpse's head, then pressed my ear against it. I had Huang Xiaotao knock on the sides while I kept covering those holes, just like covering holes on a flute when playing.

These holes were of varying thickness and length, and each one covered would produce a different echo inside the skull. Through these echoes, injuries inside the corpse's head could be determined!

The human brain is a very delicate organ. With so many capillaries under the scalp, the only way to know the trauma inside the skull without dissection is to use auxiliary means like this.

This was also a brilliant invention by one of the Song Family's ancestors.

Of course, since it was my first time using it, it took quite a bit of effort before I grasped the knack. After listening, I said, "The deceased was neither burned to death nor was the corpse burned after death."

"Why?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

I explained to Huang Xiaotao that if a person is in an extremely hot environment, the water in the brain will boil and the whole brain will expand and deform. But the brains of these two deceased were intact.

Huang Xiaotao looked at the charred corpses and said, "Then where did these burn injuries come from?"

"Not sure. Let's see what Xiao Zhou finds in the lab..." I said while holding the Yin-Yang Pillow.

After the autopsy, as usual, we burned some paper for the deceased and recited a passage from the Rebirth Sutra.

We went to the lab to find Xiao Zhou. He was fretting. Seeing me come in, Xiao Zhou said, "Chief, there is indeed some kind of acidic substance on the skin of the deceased, but I can't figure out what it is at all. Song Yang, do you have any tricks?"

"Sorry, testing is my weak point," I replied.

Huang Xiaotao looked at me in surprise and said, "You admitted that so straightforwardly?"

"Every profession has its limitations. Even a detective isn't omnipotent," I said to Xiao Zhou. "Don't keep testing for now. I'll give you a general direction when I have one."

Although I said this, Xiao Zhou kept busy. Huang Xiaotao said he was a perfectionist who wouldn't rest until he figured out the results. Let him be then.

Huang Xiaotao took a phone call and spoke briefly before telling me, "Wang Yuanchao is back."

"Let's go see him," I said.

Wang Yuanchao had looked into past murder cases related to the house, but there were some discrepancies from the version Little Brother gave! Over a decade ago, a family of three did live in the mansion. The husband had an argument with his wife over a paternity test result and in anger, pushed their child down the stairs to death. The wife then stabbed the husband to death with a knife. She held her child's corpse and cried nonstop afterward before losing her mind and getting sent to a mental hospital.

Hearing this, I was shocked and asked, "That woman is still alive?"

"She died two years ago," Wang Yuanchao replied.

"So there was never a fire at the mansion?" I asked in bewilderment.

"No. I specifically checked with the municipal fire department too. There were no fires in that area in the past twenty years," Wang Yuanchao said.

I fell silent in contemplation. The information Wang Yuanchao got was from internal police sources that the general public couldn't access, so it was quite reliable.

The online version Little Brother found, although widely known, had a lot of exaggerations.

It seemed the murder case from over a decade ago got embellished and distorted through rumors, eventually becoming what it was today. Some even claimed to have seen a female ghost in the house, which was obviously impossible since the woman didn't die back then. The tale of a fire appearing on the walls at midnight was also unreliable since the house was never even on fire.

From this, it was clear the two trial residents' deaths were deliberately designed.

I said, "Why don't we visit the site tonight?"

Huang Xiaotao asked, "Now?"

"No, tonight. The three of us, plus Wang Dali. We'll be trial residents for a night in the haunted house. What do you think?" I smiled.

"What if something happens?" Huang Xiaotao was a girl after all and still had some apprehension about horror stories.

"If we don't take this risk, we may never know how the killer murdered them." My eyes flashed sharply.

Huang Xiaotao thought for a moment and laughed. "Fine! I'll accompany you to the end!"

Since we were going to visit the haunted house at night, I used the remaining time to prepare some things. I went out to buy some wheat flour, bells, and rope, then went to a Chinese medicine shop to buy a packet of herbs and some pill-making tools.

I found an empty conference room to work in. Huang Xiaotao asked if I needed help but I declined, so she went off to do other things.

I ground up the herbs, filtered and mixed them into the flour and honey, kneading them into little medicinal pills. Making these really wore me out. Every single one took effort, but they ended up saving our lives later!

After 6 pm, Wang Dali came back with a photocopy of the contract and photocopies of the buyers' and sellers' ID cards. Huang Xiaotao had the technical team look into Ren Facai. A few minutes later, a policeman came and said, "Chief, Ren Facai has a criminal record!"

We went over to look. Ren Facai really had a colorful past, involved in smuggling, money laundering, running gambling dens and more. Huang Xiaotao laughed and said, "Song Yang, no need to go stay in the haunted house. The killer is right in front of us."

I shook my head. "I don't think so!"

The tech team policeman started searching on the computer. I watched beside him. The real-name management system today was so convenient. Everywhere an ID card was used would be clearly listed, making it much harder to be a fugitive now compared to twenty years ago.

The search results showed Ren Facai was currently staying at a hotel in Nanjiang City. Huang Xiaotao said, "Let's go find him now."

Huang Xiaotao picked some people and brought me, Wang Dali and Wang Yuanchao to the hotel. At the front desk, we asked around and a service staff led us to Ren Facai's room. When we got to the door, everyone was on high alert. I heard a woman laughing inside. The service staff knocked on the door and said, "Sir, room service."

"Get lost! Can't you see the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door?" an angry voice shouted from inside.

The service staff looked troubled. Huang Xiaotao jerked her chin and the staff said again, "Sir, we just received a package for you. The courier said you need to sign for it personally."

"Oh, hang on a second."

It took a long time before the door opened just a crack and a middle-aged fat man poked half his face out. With everyone moved off to the sides, all he could see from his perspective was the service staff. The middle-aged man asked, "Where's the package?"

"It's too big, you'll have to come down and get it yourself," the service staff replied.

The overweight middle-aged man's gaze fell to the ground, and I was shocked to see the shadow of a police officer cast on the floor by the hallway lights. The middle-aged man bellowed, "Isn't there someone standing next to you? Damn it, you're tricking me!"

The door suddenly closed, then we heard a loud thud. Huang Xiaotao cried out in alarm, "Oh no, this guy jumped off the building!"