THE SMILING PROUD WANDERER by Jin Yong

Massacre Part 3

"Old man Sa, old man Sa! Open the door," Lin Pingzhi pounded on the door and called out. He knocked and knocked, but there was no response.

Escort Cui signaled to Lin Zhennan, that they should bash down the door. After getting a nod from Lin Zhennan, he struck the door with both hands. With a resounding crack, the door's bolt snapped, and the swinging doors squeaked back and forth on the rusty hinges.

Escort Cui pulled Lin Pingzhi to the side as soon as he forced the door open. They waited, until they were sure that there was no sound coming from within. Lighting a fire, they entered, and then lit an oil lamp sitting on the table along with two lanterns. They searched both the interior and exterior of the shop, yet could find no one. However, blankets, trunks, and other everyday accessories were still in the shop.

"The old fellow got scared. There was a murder here and the body was even buried right in the back garden. He was afraid of getting into trouble, so he just ran off," Lin Zhennan said with a nod. Walked into the garden and pointed to a hoe that was leaning by the wall, he commanded, "Chen, dig the body up."

Chen was nearly convinced that the whole crisis had been caused by demons, so after digging only a short while, he felt his limbs getting stiffer and stiffer. He felt so weak that his legs started to give out.

"Utterly useless! How can you even call yourself a henchman?" Escort Ji yelled at him sternly.

He handed his lantern to Chen, took the hoe from him, and then began digging. Not long after, the clothes of the dead body appeared. He dug a little deeper and then levering the hoe beneath the corpse, gave a strong tug. The body was lifted out of the hole.

Chen turned his head away, afraid to look. But gasps of shock suddenly came from the other four. Scared to death, Chen dropped the lantern. The light was extinguished and the garden was enveloped in complete darkness.

Lin Pingzhi's voice quavered when he muttered uneasily, "We definitely buried the Szechwan guy's body, how come...how come...."

"Light the lantern!" Lin Zhennan ordered. He had kept his calm since the strange events started to happen, but now there was fear in his voice.

Escort Cui lit the lantern. Lin Zhennan bent down to check on the body. Minutes later, he declared, "Same kind of death, not a single wound at all."

Chen finally gathered enough courage to give a glance at the body, and then he screamed, "Escort Shi! It's Escort Shi!" The body they had dug out was that of Escort Shi, and the corpse of the man from Szechwan had vanished.

"Something seems strange about this old man Sa," Lin Zhennan said. He grabbed the lantern and hurried back into the room, looking over everything very carefully. But he couldn't find anything unusual, even after looking at everything in the room – in the wine jugs, underneath the stoves, in the iron pot, under the table and chairs. Escorts Cui and Ji, and Lin Pingzhi also began examining the different rooms.

"Father, come here and look at this," Lin Pingzhi shouted out suddenly.

Following the sound of his son's voice, Lin Zhennan found Lin Pingzhi in the girl's bedroom holding a green handkerchief in his hand.

"Father, how could a poor girl have a handkerchief like this?" Lin Pingzhi asked, his voice quavered with excitement.

Lin Zhennan took the handkerchief from Lin Pingzhi's hands and examined it carefully. A trace of some kind of light but sweet scent soon caught his attention. The handkerchief was very soft and smooth, yet also quite heavy. It was obviously made from high-quality silk. When he looked at it more carefully, he found three levels of green thread sealing the edges of the handkerchief. In one corner, a small red coral branch was embroidered in great detail.