The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 113: Fourteenth Corpse

The first thirteen corpses were all men, while the fourteenth was a woman. The body was completely burned, and all the skin and fat were gone. When they found her, her corpse was standing up.

She had stood on the roof and burned up.

As a matter of fact, there was no fire on the rooftop; it had only scorched the asphalt up there. The woman had walked directly from the burning corridor to the rooftop, and judging from her footprints on the asphalt, she had already been burned quite a bit.

This was very unusual. Burns caused severe pain, and it was impossible for a person to endure such a thing and be able to walk. Even if you could, it wasn't like you could go very far.

"This was a cold case." Xie Yuchen also took a cushion and lay on the makeshift sofa. "The Public Security Bureau was helpless at that time. Granny Huo's husband was a staunch materialist, and scoffed at our business. The Ministry of Public Security's Deputy Minister at that time privately went to the Huo family in hopes of finding out what was going on. As you know, the place where the incident happened was too close to Chang'an Avenue, so some people up top wanted to know what had happened."

"Granny Huo, the most difficult woman in The Mystic Nine, finally married a stubborn military officer who looked down on the profession. Huo Xiangu's [1] life wasn't so comfortable, was it?" Wu Xie murmured. "Still, it was just to meet the family's needs."

"You're getting more and more gossipy." Xie Yuchen sighed. The afternoon sun came in through the window, making everything warm as he began to recall that afternoon eleven years ago when Black Glasses entered their compound.

Granny Huo lived in a very sensitive political atmosphere, not only because of her relationship with her husband, but also because of her husband's influence in the government. Her position was so high that she was on thin ice more often than not compared to ordinary people. So she entrusted the matter to Chen Pi Ah Si, who had more than a dozen wanted notices accumulated over his lifetime, each of which could result in him being shot for more than ten minutes. Naturally, he wouldn't appear on his own, and in the end, it was a man wearing sunglasses who came to handle the matter.

Although eleven years had passed, Xie Yuchen felt that when he first saw Black Glasses, he was already set in his ways, and had hardly changed over the years. He didn't know what his actual age was, and it was difficult to identify his character, because he didn't act superior whether he was interacting with teenagers or middle-aged people. [2]

As Black Glasses drank tea with them in the courtyard, Granny Huo and Xie Yuchen accompanied him, telling him and several police officers about the situation.

When he saw some of the crime scene photos, the first thing he pointed out was the photo of the footprints left on the scorched roof's asphalt.

Since the fourteen people hadn't been identified yet, there was no basic information for him to go off of. He stared at the photo of the footprints for half a day before saying, "There must be a fifteenth body. You just haven't found it."

They didn't understand. With regards to Xie Yuchen, this thing belonged to a metaphysical category [3], which everyone else—besides the eighth master of the Nine Gates—tended to reject [4].

Those in the grave robbing industry probably held out the most hope that ghosts and gods didn't exist in the world, even if their way of life forced them to accept some realities.

"Why?" One of the policemen asked.

"The footprints are too deep. To make such deep impressions on scorched asphalt, this person had to weigh a lot more." Black Glasses was eating all kinds of exquisite snacks Granny Huo had made herself—ones she had learned to make during China's Republic era—and showing a very appreciative expression.

"People don't live so fastidiously after the liberation." Black Glasses said to Granny Huo. "It tastes just like something my family servants would make when I was a child."

Wu Xie laughed so hard he ended up coughing, "Did he really say that?"

Xiao Hua gave an "En". Black Glasses continued to ask the police, "Did anyone see women sumo wrestlers enter or leave this building nearby? If not, then this woman was carrying a person— or something else— on her back when she was on the roof."

The two policemen looked at each other and their faces turned pale: "Are you sure?"

"Don't call me if you don't want to believe me." Black Glasses said. "But this matter isn't important for the time being. The body must be somewhere you can't find it."

Black Glasses took out a pen, grabbed one of the men, and drew a side view of the building on his hand: "The whole building has seven floors in total, and the bodies of thirteen people were distributed in thirteen different rooms of this building. All thirteen people drowned somewhere else. A Chinese woman has only one night to transport thirteen bodies to this building from somewhere else, move them to different rooms, and then light a fire. There's no elevator in the building, so how can it be done? What this means is that those people drowned in the building. But where in the building could this have been done?"

"Toilet?" A policeman asked.

"In the toilet bowl?" Black Glasses retorted. "Even if I gave you a dog, you wouldn't necessarily be able to drown it. There has to be a large area of stagnant water in this building big enough to drown so many people. It's impossible for it to be on those seven upper floors, so look around the garage and first floor."

At that time, Xie Yuchen already knew Black Glasses' basic train of thought, and realized that he must be one of his peers.

His face was still too tender at that time [5], so it would have only been in vain to express his opinion.

After that, they talked about their extravagant lifestyles, and Xie Yuchen learned that Black Glasses was regarded as one of the few remaining members of the aristocratic system.

After the police left, they thoroughly checked the entirety of the first floor and garage, but didn't find any accumulated water. They didn't find nothing, however. They discovered a large number of cracks on the garage wall, as if the whole building was sinking.

This was a building constructed in the north during the war, meaning that the phenomenon couldn't be a quality or geological problem. The only explanation was that the geological condition beneath the building may have changed from when it was first constructed, and the stratum had changed.

The cracks were very new, and the change must have taken place sometime within the past year.

Black Glasses was invited to the scene. He looked around when he arrived and finally stopped in front of an open space in the garage. He walked around the area for three hours, and then suddenly lay down. In the end, he told them to smash the space open.

"There was a big hole below full of stagnant water. The cement was only two fingers thick, looked to be very old, and there were wood and steel bars underneath. They checked the hole, but couldn't see the bottom. They had no idea where it led to."

"Grave robbers' tunnel?"

"Not likely." Xie Yuchen said. "The water was pumped out for two days before the hole was completely drained. It was a well. They found the fifteenth body at the bottom, but it wasn't what they were expecting."

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Notes:

[1] Remember, it's her nickname. Means either Immortal Huo or Sorceress Huo.

[2] Don't forget, Chinese culture is all about respecting your elders and using polite speech and all that, so if Black Glasses doesn't do that, kind of hard to tell how old he is.

[3] Branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space. Think along the lines of Shakespeare's "To be or not to be, that is the question".

[4] The Mystic Nine drama has Qi Tiezui (called Ba Ye) being the 8th "Gate" of the Mystic Nine and shows him doing a lot of fortune-telling and divination if that gives you a better idea of what Xiao Hua is talking about.

[5] Basically, he's too young/inexperienced.