Chapter 1 The Beginning

In a candlelit room of the Wu family mansion, the air was thick with anxiety. Lei Mingyu paced back and forth, his brows furrowed with indescribable worry. In stark contrast, Chen Hao sat at the table, pouring himself a cup of tea, shaking his head with a wry smile. "Can you stop walking? You're making my head spin."

Lei Mingyu turned abruptly, looking at Chen Hao, his voice urgent. "No, let me go in your place. Your predecessor was most likely Yu Chengmu. That old guy is quite skilled. He should have completed the task long ago. He's dragging it out, probably setting you up. Xiao Feng fell into his trap!"

"I'll be careful," Chen Hao said calmly.

"It's not something you can just be careful about. That old guy..."

Lei Mingyu was interrupted by Du Moyu, "Can you stop making things worse?" Du Moyu was blunt. "Lei Mingyu, now you're panicked. Even if you go, can you deal with Yu Chengmu?"

"You need to use this," Du Moyu tapped his head. "Learn to think with your brain. To be honest, you're far behind Hao-ge!"

"Looks like you're itching for a beating!" Lei Mingyu rolled up his sleeves and strode aggressively towards Du Moyu. Suddenly, a gong sounded.

"It's starting..." Chen Hao put down his teacup and stood up.

Chen Hao wasn't surprised that Yu Chengmu had successfully completed his task. They had even exchanged a few brief pleasantries on the road. Yu Chengmu reminded Chen Hao to be careful of Ning Zheng. Chen Hao smiled and said he would be. If possible, he would also take care of the next person.

After entering the gates of the Yizhuang (mortuary), the scene before him was truly shocking. More than a dozen coffin lids were scattered haphazardly on the ground, some even broken into pieces. It wasn't hard to imagine that something disturbing had happened here.

But Chen Hao instinctively felt that whatever had done this wasn't targeting Du Moyu. There was no real reason, just his intuition. If he had to give an answer, it was that Du Moyu was still alive, and with all his limbs intact.

A trail of wet footprints led out the door. Dong Xue came to an opened coffin. The corpse inside was already somewhat decayed, emitting a foul odor. The corpse's posture was strange. Its chest was arched upwards, its arms pinned beneath it, and its knees were drawn up.

Chen Hao pondered for a moment and concluded that these coffins had been properly sealed not long ago. Something had forcibly pried open the lids, then grabbed the corpses with its hands, lifting them up without fully removing them from the coffin, and then throwing them back in.

The guy who left the wet footprints. Following the direction of the footprints, Chen Hao remembered that it led towards the river. He had vaguely heard the sound of waves when he arrived, and the air was very humid. Normally, a Yizhuang would never be built in such a place.

Connecting everything he had seen, Dong Xue came to the most basic conclusion: Du Moyu had violated a taboo while mending the corpses, attracting something, which was very likely from the river. This was confirmed by the direction it came from and the wet footprints on the ground. Then, the thing didn't directly attack Du Moyu, or maybe it did, but he escaped somehow. The thing opened more than a dozen coffins and moved the corpses inside.

Steadying his mind, Chen Hao walked towards the small rooms separated by white cloth in the main hall. Following the order, he first went to Du Moyu's number one room. The corpse had obvious signs of being mended, and the three incense sticks had burned out, leaving only small stubs. There were no signs of a struggle around.

Chen Hao didn't touch anything in the number one room. He turned and lifted the white cloth, going to his own number two room. As soon as he entered, he noticed the three incense sticks inserted in the incense burner.

He frowned slightly. He vaguely remembered the night watchman saying that the three incense sticks were placed before the incense table, and he needed to light them himself and insert them into the incense burner in front of the corpse.

Because this was his room, he was less worried. He didn't dare to rashly pull out the incense sticks, but he lifted them up slightly, and saw the problem. The middle incense stick was slightly longer, and the two on the sides were slightly shorter.

Chen Hao immediately understood that this was Du Moyu's trick. If he rashly lit the incense sticks, it would create a situation of "two shorts and one long" (敬香两短一长), which was very disrespectful to the corpse, and it would be strange if the corpse didn't become resentful.

But another problem arose: his incense sticks had been destroyed by Dong Xue, and after searching everywhere, there were no new incense sticks available. So, what should he do?

He picked up the incense sticks, lifted the cloth of the next room, and calmly walked in. He did what Du Moyu had done to him, inserting the three incense sticks into the incense burner of the number three room, aligning the incense heads. Then, he checked the incense sticks on the ground in the number three room, and after confirming that there was no issue, he returned to his own number two room.

After lighting the incense sticks on the candle, he inserted them into the incense burner and bowed respectfully. "I am disturbing you today, it is truly unintentional. I am a junior with limited knowledge, if I have offended you, please don't blame me."

After saying this, Dong Xue followed the process and began Ning Zheng's task. The problem that Du Moyu discovered was also reflected on him. There was insufficient lighting. Chen Hao found the spare candle in the room, and only after lighting it could he observe the corpse.

The corpse was a male corpse, with a severed left hand that could be directly removed. It seemed that this was the place that needed to be sewn. The other two injuries were on the shoulder and abdomen respectively. The wound in the abdomen was particularly large, with intestines and internal organs mixed together. A stench assaulted his nose, but fortunately Chen Hao was a criminal investigator and often appeared on crime scenes, so he could tolerate the smell.

He was perfunctory in his inspection of the corpse. According to his estimation, he could complete the task of repairing the corpse in an hour, or at most an hour, if there were no accidents.

So he wasn't in a hurry. He didn't have the habit of delaying submission, he wanted to drag it out for two hours, until the last moment when the incense burned out. After all, this task ended at the third watch (3 geng tian), which was midnight (wu ye ling shi). Du Moyu had used one and a half hours, and if he consumed another two hours, it would be almost 4 o'clock when the next person lit the incense. But according to his observation, the sky in this world would be slightly bright at 5 o'clock.

So, the third person would have, at most, a little more than 1 hour. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Chen Hao didn't dare to be careless. What he could think of, Du Moyu couldn't possibly not think of. So, the safest way was to screw him over and end the task, which would make the next person dangerous. So Dong Xue's calculations were definitely more than just what he showed. He had to be careful everywhere.

Like Dong Xue, Dong Xue also chose the relatively easy shoulder to start with, quickly sewing it up, then sewing up the huge abdominal wound. Stuffing the messy intestines back in took a lot of effort for Dong Xue.