Heads in a Piano

I called Wang Dali in and said to him, "Dali, go and get me a few things ready! I need towels, hot water, a bucket, ropes, an iron plate, an electric hotplate, white vinegar, ginger."

"Do you need sichuan pepper and chili noodles too?" Wang Dali asked.

"What would I need that stuff for?" I said, puzzled.

"Isn't the stuff you asked for for making teppanyaki?" Wang Dali asked, confused.

I chuckled and said, "Go on, go on, hurry up and get them for me."

"Well, about the money for this..." Wang Dali looked at me hesitantly.

Huang Xiaotao said, "Don't worry, I'll reimburse you when it's done. Remember to get receipts."

I remembered something and said, "Oh wait! Isn't Old Four in our dorm raising some succulents? Get me one of his plants too."

"What do you need that for? Is solving cases getting too boring that you need a houseplant to liven things up?" Wang Dali clicked his tongue in wonder.

"No more questions, just go already," I said, waving my hand.

"Sure thing!" Wang Dali responded and hurried off.

I searched the victim's clothes and found his ID, student card, some loose change, a set of keys, a cell phone, and a half-empty pack of Yunnan Yuxi cigarettes. The ID and student card were in the name of Deng Chao. I tried turning on the phone but it was locked with a password. Huang Xiaotao called over a police officer and got some evidence bags to separately bag all these items.

I stood up and surveyed my surroundings. This music classroom was very spacious. At the front was a lectern, and next to the lectern was an old wooden piano, positioned facing the windows on the south side, all of which were open. Since this classroom building was quite old, there was no air conditioning installed, just a few ceiling fans hanging from the ceiling.

"Strange, where did the victim's head go?" I muttered to myself as I stared at the headless corpse.

I walked over to the piano and pressed down on a key, but no sound came out. I realized that with these old pianos you had to step on the pedals below to produce sound. Huang Xiaotao looked at me curiously, "You can play piano?"

"Of course not," I replied.

I casually swept my hand across the keys and noticed a few of them were stuck. I immediately sensed something amiss and anxiously called out, "Quick, open the piano lid, there's something inside!"

When the piano lid was opened, all the police on site gasped in shock.

Inside the piano, many of the strings were broken, tangled together in a messy crisscross like a spiderweb. Ensnared within them was a bloody, mutilated head, with a baseball cap fallen next to it.

I rolled up my sleeves and reached in to pull the head out, but the piano strings were knotted together like a rat's nest. If I yanked carelessly, I could tear off the skin and flesh. Huang Xiaotao called for a policeman to fetch a pair of bolt cutters, and soon the officer returned from campus security with a pair. We used the cutters to clip through the strings entangling the head until we could finally extract it!

I held the head next to the decapitated corpse to compare them. Based on the wound, I could confirm they belonged to the same person. However, the rate of decay on the head seemed abnormal. The skin had turned somewhat greenish already, and the exposed flesh had begun to emit a rotten stench.

I also noticed the area on the back of the skull had suffered some damage. When I gently pressed it, I found the bone underneath had shattered, with clotted blood and pus collected there. As I applied a bit of pressure, a stream of rotten purulent fluid was squeezed out from under the skin, flowing down my wrist.

"Don't move!" Huang Xiaotao said. She took out a tissue and wiped my hand clean. I thanked her.

"Find anything?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"This head basically matches the body. The head was severed by a blade," I said. I leaned in to sniff the head wound, "Some kind of medicinal liquid seems to have been applied to the head. Combined with the bacteria inside the piano, it sped up the decay significantly, making the facial features hard to recognize now."

"So it can't be restored anymore?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"Basically impossible..." I murmured. Those two female students had claimed they personally witnessed a white-clad female ghost playing the piano last night. Then the piano strings flew wildly as if they were the ghost's dancing hair, severing Deng Chao's head.

Of course I didn't believe any of that. Otherwise we may as well stop investigating!

The perpetrator had coated the victim's head with some liquid before stashing it in the piano, likely to deliberately obscure his identity.

In any case involving a decapitated corpse, confirming the victim's identity was paramount. If the head went missing or was severely damaged, it was worth suspecting the killer was trying to confuse matters. This tactic was nothing new - ancient criminals had employed similar techniques before. I had read about many such cases in Investigating the Dark Prisons. And so I felt it necessary to look into just who this Deng Chao really was.

"Songyang, do you think the victim's head was sliced off by the piano strings?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"The wound is too clean. I can only say it was severed by a sharp blade. As for the piano strings, they truly are strong enough to decapitate a man! I heard about a case over a decade ago where the victim rode his motorbike home every night on the same route. The killer calculated the height and strung a piano wire across his path, neatly slicing off his head as he passed through. Then the headless corpse on the motorbike went careening straight into a roadside barbecue joint, scaring everyone witless. That case stumped experts across the region back then." I explained unhurriedly.

"Ah! You mean the 'Headless Rider' case from ten years ago!" Huang Xiaotao exclaimed. "I remember the police had to call in a mysterious figure to crack that case. Wait, that case was never made public, how did you hear about it?"

"I heard it from a veteran policeman," I said matter-of-factly. Though in truth, it was my grandfather who had solved that case!

I peered intently at the head's wound for a while. Suddenly I noticed something amiss - the flesh and skin had been sliced very cleanly, yet the vertebrae showed signs of abrasion that were hard to detect.

I closed my eyes, then opened them again to take a better look with my Netherworld Eyes. I discovered some tiny black metallic fragments embedded in the spinal column, like metal shavings.

From this I concluded that the flesh and the bones had been severed using different tools!

Just then, Wang Dali came dashing in excitedly. In his left hand he carried a large bag, in his right a thermal flask. "Bro Songyang, I got all the stuff you wanted," he said eagerly.

I looked in the bag. "You did great getting all this so quickly," I praised.

"The rest was no problem, but I had to borrow this hot plate from a barbecue joint off campus. We'll have to return it when we're done..." Wang Dali trailed off as his eyes abruptly locked onto something - the severed head I had placed on the floor.

"Holy smokes, where did you find this gory severed head? It's so creepy!" Wang Dali's face turned pale at the sight.

"If you can't handle it, go take a walk outside. Come back later with a piece of magnetite and a sheet of white paper," I instructed.

"Eh, why didn't you tell me to grab those things all at once? Now I've got to make another trip!" Wang Dali complained.

"Consider it exercise. I'll treat you to a meal later," I said placatingly, shooing him off.

After Wang Dali left, I poured the hot water from the flask into the bucket and soaked the towel in it. Then I laid the hot towel over the victim's chest.

Seeing me start the examination, a number of policemen gathered around to watch. Huang Xiaotao asked curiously, "Why are you putting a hot towel on his chest?"

"Didn't I just tell you I wanted to verify the victim's time of death? Watch closely now!"

Once the victim's chest had been softened by the heat, I flipped him over and placed the hot towel on his back. I repeated this three times, kneading until the muscles began to relax. Only then did I start firmly poking at various points on the back with specialized techniques.

Suddenly, without any warning, the decapitated corpse abruptly sat halfway up as a mass of icy sleet mixed with blood violently sprayed from the stump of its neck!

Seeing this, all the policemen recoiled in shock!