Piano Music of Death

I looked out past the police line and saw two girls standing there, one quite chubby and the other very slender. It was the skinny girl who had just spoken, covering her mouth as she cried ceaselessly.

Huang Xiaotao walked over to the two girls and asked, "Did you know the victim?"

The skinny girl sobbed even harder while the chubby girl replied, "Of course we knew her! Fangfang and Zhang Kai had been dating for two years already."

Fangfang was truly overcome with grief, so Huang Xiaotao called over a policeman to bring her a folding chair to sit on. But the girl refused to sit, so we just waited for her to finish crying before Huang Xiaotao asked, "When was the last time you saw the victim alive?"

"We were together last night," the slender girl said as tears began streaming down her face again. "But I'm certain the one who killed him was a ghost!"

And so she recounted the events of last night—

The girl's name was Fangfang, the chubby girl was called Tiantian, the victim was named Zhang Kai, and there was another boy named Deng Chao. The four were very close friends who shared everything together.

Deng Chao had recently earned a place in a postgraduate program at the school, so last night he treated the other three to a big dinner off campus. Over the meal, the group drank some alcohol and talked about the legend of the haunted abandoned classroom building on their campus.

Legend had it that ten years ago, a gorgeous school beauty died in that building, her body chopped into pieces and hidden inside a piano. Ever since, late at night when everything was quiet, eerie piano music would sound from the building for no reason.

Those knowledgeable about music listened closely and were shocked to find the piano music was a piece the school beauty had loved to play when she was alive - Moonlight Sonata!

During this time, some daring security guards had gone to investigate the classroom emitting the piano music in the dead of night armed with flashlights, but bloodcurdling screams soon echoed through half the campus. Afterwards, the guards went mad, endlessly mumbling, "The female ghost is playing piano, the female ghost is playing piano."

Soon the school authorities found an excuse to seal off the classroom building, but everyone said the real reason was because it was haunted!

They say alcohol emboldens people, and after downing a bottle of baijiu, Zhang Kai and Deng Chao actually started daring each other - Deng Chao said if he was brave enough to venture into the abandoned classroom building, Zhang Kai would give him 5,000 RMB.

And so late that night, the four of them entered the building, and indeed in one music classroom they saw the piano rumored to be haunted. Deng Chao smugly sat in the classroom letting Zhang Kai take out his money, but then Zhang Kai refused to pay, saying Deng Chao had to spend the entire night there for it to count.

Deng Chao was an overly competitive person, and immediately agreed despite everyone trying to dissuade him, so they could only leave him alone there.

But they had barely taken a few steps away when ghastly piano music suddenly sounded from the music classroom behind them - it was that Moonlight Sonata! They ran back and looked in the room to see a female ghost with long hair in white clothes sitting at the piano playing while Deng Chao stood next to her as if his soul had left his body. Zhang Kai prepared to go in and pull Deng Chao out, but was cut by something.

It turned out the room was filled with countless thin, sharp piano wires flying about as if they were the female ghost's hair!

The moment the final note of the song fell, Deng Chao suddenly convulsed and toppled over, his head rolling gruesomely away. The three were scared out of their wits and fled from the building.

The two girls had been frightened all night, hiding under their covers crying until morning when they prepared to call the police, only to hear a corpse had been discovered at the school.

Thinking it was Deng Chao's body, they rushed over but to their shock found it was Zhang Kai who had hanged himself! Fangfang was immediately scared senseless, and upon seeing just now I had found a woman's handprints on Zhang Kai's body, determined it must have been done by the female ghost - she must have driven Zhang Kai to commit suicide. Because according to a senior girl, anyone who interrupted the female ghost's piano playing would anger her and lose their life!

After finishing her story, Fangfang wailed, "First it was Deng Chao, then Zhang Kai, next it will definitely be me and Tiantian. No one can escape, no one can escape!" She then burst into tears again while Tiantian patted her shoulder and softly comforted her.

We were all shocked that what first seemed a straightforward suicide case actually hid such a terrifying campus legend behind it.

Huang Xiaotao asked, "Did you see with your own eyes your classmate's head cut off by the female ghost?"

"Yes!" Fangfang nodded vigorously.

"Then his corpse should still be in that abandoned classroom building?"

"It should be!"

Huang Xiaotao immediately said, "Song Yang, come with me to take a look."

"Can I come too?" Wang Dali asked.

"Who are you?" Huang Xiaotao coldly humphed.

"I'm called Wang Dali, I'm Song Yang's...assistant!"

I nudged him with my elbow and said, "Assistant!"

"Right right, I'm his capable assistant, Song Yang can't be without me for even a second!" Wang Dali shamelessly sang his own praises. I felt quite embarrassed - saying "can't be without for even a second" would make people think I'm gay.

Huang Xiaotao murmured in acknowledgement, "Fine, you come along too, but since you're participating in this case, you have to listen to my commands."

"Whatever you say goes." I nodded.

"Three rules! First, you absolutely may not reveal to outsiders that you're assisting this investigation until the case is cracked. Second, you may not reveal any developments in the case to anyone other than me, not even other police. Third, you may not conceal any information or clues from me!"

"Yes sir!" Wang Dali improperly stood at attention giving a sloppy salute like those in Hong Kong films.

I thought to myself this girl is quite controlling, but it's understandable - with us barging in halfway, if anything went wrong she would bear responsibility.

In any case, I was very excited to participate in solving a case, although my theoretical knowledge was quite solid, I didn't have much practical experience!

Huang Xiaotao called some people over to handle the two girls' situation, and I took the opportunity to examine the corpse again.

Wang Dali didn't know anyone here, so he just kept following me around.

With so many people at the scene, I placed my ear against the corpse's chest over the body bag, and used my fingers to lightly tap the ribs, listening to the sounds. Wang Dali was a chatterbox who couldn't stay quiet, going on about whether he should call over more roommates to help, if the police would provide lunch, and most importantly in his mind, whether Huang Xiaotao had a boyfriend.

I gave him a look and gestured for him to stop talking. Wang Dali tactfully shut his mouth.

My fingers kept tapping as I listened intently to the sounds from the corpse's belly, then I flipped the body over to listen to the back.

"What are you listening for? The dead man still has a heartbeat?" Wang Dali timidly asked.

"I hear him saying 'I died so horribly', do you want to listen?" I joked.

"No no no, you keep listening!" Wang Dali quickly waved his hands.

What I was actually using is called Bone Resonance Listening, a secret skill from my family's Breaking Dark Prison Scripture. By repeatedly tapping the ribs and spine of the deceased, it produces echoes within their belly, like how bats use echolocation to map their surroundings. From the echoes I can form a 3D image of the internal organs in my mind, obtaining much useful information.

Through bone resonance listening, I roughly determined the victim had been dead for 7-8 hours, the lungs showed signs of contraction, and there were multiple tears in the spinal nerves - he had undoubtedly died from asphyxiation. Of course, I just wanted to double check - grandfather said to be a good coroner, you must personally see and hear everything.

After listening, I opened up the body bag and pulled out the corpse's right hand. I had indeed noticed a long thin wound on the back of the hand when moving the body earlier, with some leftover adhesive from a bandaid that Doctor Qin must have ripped off.

I hadn't examined it closely before, but looking now I found the injury was clearly caused by a sharp object - could it really have been cut by piano wires like the girls described?

I held the dead man's hand up before my eyes, then suddenly opened them wide, using my Dark Gaze to closely inspect it.

Wang Dali was so frightened he sat down on the ground, saying "Yangzi, what happened to your eyes just now? I seemed to see a flash of red, are you too tired and your eyeballs became bloodshot? Should I go buy you some eyedrops?"

I laughed, "Oh stop distracting me here."

As I looked closer, the back of the dead person's hand quickly enlarged in my field of vision, and I could clearly see every pore and layer of the wound, even noticing some minute particles mixed in with the torn skin and flesh, glinting with a rusty red color.

The weapon that inflicted the injury was definitely metallic. If it was a zither string, it could also have rust on it.

But oddly, the wound was shallow at the top and deeper towards the bottom, almost as if the dead person had slashed their own hand open.