The Inferno

Have you ever seen a strange doctor who disfigured his romantic rival into a pig and imprisoned him in a pig farm?

Have you ever seen a strange orphan who was raised by bats since childhood and lived by sucking human blood?

I've seen them all.

My name is Song Yang. I'm currently the chief consultant of the provincial public security bureau. My real identity is a coroner.

Some friends don't understand what a coroner does?

Coroners were ancient Chinese forensic examiners. Good coroners didn't just examine corpses, they also mastered a set of secret skills unknown to the public.

They often used everyday objects like yellow wine, silver needles, red umbrellas, and pine resin to pry open the mouths of the dead and apprehend the perpetrators.

I've used my family's secret skills to solve countless shocking cases across China during my 30 years of service at the public security bureau. Some of these cases were bizarre, some terrifying, some cruel, and some that made your hair stand on end.

To let future generations know the wonders of the coroner's craft, I've decided to share my experiences with everyone.

However, due to the confidentiality principles of the public security bureau, many cities and figures have been given pseudonyms. I hope everyone can understand. Alright, on with the story!

I was born in a small county in the south. I had never seen my parents since I was little, and lived with my grandfather in an ancient ancestral mansion passed down through the generations.

Although I didn't have parents, my grandfather's love for me exceeded everything.

In my whole life, he only sternly taught me once: "Yang'er, remember, when you grow up, grandpa won't stop you from doing anything you want, except for three professions that you must never touch - first, being an official; second, being a policeman; and third...being a forensic doctor!"

At that time I was still young, and didn't even know what a forensic doctor was. I just nodded blankly.

But as I grew older, I gradually developed a strange feeling - my grandfather's identity was definitely not simple!

I felt this way because grandpa had nothing to do every day, never worked the fields, yet had a steady stream of money to buy me good food and send me to school.

Also, every so often, senior officials would visit with groups of policemen, treating grandpa with great respect. They often brought gifts like Moutai liquor and panda cigarettes.

They would talk with grandpa in the room for hours - sometimes just an hour, sometimes several hours, even from morning till dusk. Every time after these officials left, a major case would be solved in the province after a few days - things like the Sichuan restaurant counterfeit money case, the Southwest University dismembered corpse case. These cases shocked the whole country, so even I living in this small county had heard of them.

I vaguely felt that the solving of these cases was closely linked to my grandfather, but he never revealed a single word to me!

My grandfather's connections also brought glory to our whole family. My aunt's business outside always went smoothly. Once when she lost a truckload of goods on the highway, the police found and respectfully returned the goods in a single day.

Even when I missed the cutoff score for high school by a few dozen points, I still got admitted to a top high school in the end.

When I was 12 years old, the county was preparing to build a large road that would pass right by our family's old house. The neighbors around us couldn't resist the demolition office's pestering and moved away one by one. Only grandpa stubbornly refused to give up the ancestral mansion and was determined to be a 'nail household'.

The boss in charge of the construction project tried soft tactics without success, so he directly drove two excavators to our house entrance and roared as he knocked down a wall, clearly trying to show his might!

At that time, the scene scared me so much I almost cried.

Grandpa gently sighed, picked up the phone, dialed a number, and said a few words plainly. Incredibly, a few minutes later, the excavators hurriedly left.

What's more, early next morning, many leaders including that construction boss personally came to our door to apologize. The boss even took out 100,000 yuan in cash on the spot as compensation. This was a huge sum for our small county, but grandpa lightly waved his hand to politely decline the money.

Of course the road construction continued, but a big bend was added right in front of our house. This incident planted a strong curiosity in my young heart - why was grandpa so mysteriously powerful?

When I was 15, I accidentally found two tattered old books in a box in our old house. One was called "Collection of Cases to Reverse Unjust Verdicts", written in the 7th year of the Chunyou reign of the Southern Song dynasty, by someone called Song Ci. The other was called "Divine Detective's Scroll", without any author given.

With my Classical Chinese level at the time, trying to read these ancient books was a bit difficult. I could only barely understand the human anatomy drawings and corpse examination contents from the small illustrations inside.

For some reason, these two books had an extraordinary magic over me. Once opened, I couldn't put them down. I secretly read through these abstruse and difficult ancient books bit by bit, like an ant gnawing on a bone, without my grandfather knowing!

To me, these two books were like the door to a new world. Although the books mentioned the coroner profession that specialized in examining corpses to find clues to solve cases, I didn't find it frightening at all. On the contrary, I felt it was fresh, interesting, and full of challenge.

When I turned 16 that year, I had my first chance to apply what I learned.

It was the height of the dog days of summer. My grandfather had gone out early in the morning to run errands. I was on summer break at home with nothing to do. I was playing with cicadas I had caught on a bamboo pole when a black Honda sedan suddenly screeched to a halt in front of our house.

A burly man with a square face, bushy eyebrows and big eyes, and bronze skin got out of the car and strode into the yard in a hurry. I recognized him as Officer Sun, a policeman who had visited my grandfather a few times before. I remembered his surname was Sun.

Officer Sun wasn't wearing his uniform today. Instead he had on a short sleeve shirt and carried a briefcase in his hand. He was drenched in sweat, with wisps of steam rising from his head. As soon as he saw me he asked, "Kid, is your grandpa home?"

"No, he went out," I replied.

Officer Sun frowned and tugged at his collar while fanning himself. He muttered, "This weather, it's hot enough to kill a man."

I quickly said, "Uncle, come in and take a seat! I'll pour you a cold drink."

"Good, so thoughtful!"

Officer Sun had a very bold personality. He strode into the living room and casually took a seat without any hesitation. He gulped down the large glass of cola I handed him and satisfyingly wiped his mouth. Then he lit a cigarette and asked me, "Kid, you're in high school now?"

"I just started 10th grade." I answered.

"How are your grades?"

"Not bad."

"Do you have any classmates bullying you?"

"No." I thought this was a great chance to find out more about my grandfather, so I asked, "Uncle, what's your relationship with my grandfather?"

Officer Sun sighed, "Your grandfather, he's truly a once in a century genius. What a pity his temperament is also once in a century stubborn. Over the years who knows how many leaders have come to invite him to join them, but he absolutely refuses to budge. So we have no choice but to cooperate in another way."

"Cooperate? Cooperate in what?" I asked.

Officer Sun was about to answer when it seemed he suddenly realized he had let something slip. He quickly grabbed his stomach and said, "Ow, why does my stomach suddenly hurt so much? It must be from drinking something too cold too fast. Where's the bathroom?"

"In the backyard," I pointed.

Officer Sun clutched his stomach and rushed to the backyard like a gale. Soon the sound of splashing and trickling could be heard.

The briefcase Officer Sun left on the table popped open, and a photo slid out. There were some red and green things on it that piqued my intense curiosity!

Taking advantage of no one being around, I reached out to it as if compelled by some evil force, my heart thumping wildly all the while. In my mind, peeking at police documents was against the law - I could even go to jail for it. But I really wanted to take a look.

So I convinced myself to just take one look, just one look, and then put it back.

I took out the photo from the briefcase, and as expected, it was a corpse. Although I had seen many dead people in movies, I knew those were fake. They couldn't compare with the shock of seeing a real corpse.

The corpse in the photo was an adult male wearing a suit. His white shirt had been stained red with blood. His head drooped down and he leaned against an open safe. He still had a pair of glasses hanging from his right ear. There was a long, deep wound across his throat, which was where the blood had flowed out from.

Large amounts of paper money were scattered around the corpse, also stained with blood.

My gaze was captivated by the contents of the photo. I didn't feel scared at all; on the contrary, I felt an irrepressible excitement, like a starving man seeing a feast. I know this analogy is a bit inappropriate since the dead should be treated with respect, but I truly felt strangely thrilled!

Just as I was engrossed in looking, a big hand suddenly reached out from behind me and snatched the photo from my hand.

I turned my head to see Officer Sun glaring at me sternly.

"Kid, who allowed you to peek at my documents? Peeking at police documents is against the law, you know?" Officer Sun scolded angrily.

"I just...I only took one look...really..." I stammered in fright.

Officer Sun narrowed his eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved up in a sly grin. He said, "How about this - I'll test you. If you can answer correctly, we'll just forget this matter. But if you can't answer, don't blame me for being impolite and taking you down to the police station for some self-reflection."

Hearing this, I actually felt relieved, because I had a good guess at what he wanted to test me on!

Sure enough, after I nodded in agreement, Officer Sun asked, "Tell me, what weapon was this man killed with?"

"Let me see the photo again."

Officer Sun took the photo from me and glanced over it again. He said definitively, "The fatal wound on the throat is precisely the fatal injury. Judging from the shape of the wound, it was inflicted by a sharp object with edges and corners. But if it was a small knife or dagger, I suppose you wouldn't ask me this question in particular, so the murder weapon must be very special!"

Officer Sun was intrigued. "Not bad, this youngster sure can talk. Go on then, tell me what exactly was the murder weapon?"

I handed the photo back to him, "The murder weapon is in this photo."

Officer Sun stared at the photo and blinked, "The murder weapon is in the photo? You're not just making things up, are you? I participated in investigating this case personally. We searched the scene inside and out, but didn't find the murder weapon. In fact, the murderer has already been apprehended. If not for the murder weapon..." He suddenly stopped short and coughed, "Enough nonsense, tell me quickly what the murder weapon is!"

"It's the banknotes on the ground!" I answered decisively, "To be precise, these banknotes."

Officer Sun blinked in astonishment, "Banknotes? No, how could that be possible?"

"Why not? Take a whole stack of brand new banknotes and tie them up tightly together, the sharp edges are enough to inflict such a deep and long wound. Then scatter them around the crime scene, and the 'murder weapon' disappears without a trace." I explained.

Officer Sun gasped. He couldn't help but give me a thumbs up, "Impressive. You really are Song Xiaolin's grandson."

In fact this wasn't my original idea either. Among the bizarre cases recorded in the Chronicles of the Super Detective, there was a case of murder by paper knife. When I saw the bloodstained banknotes scattered all over the photo, I naturally thought of that story. From Officer Sun's words just now, I could infer that the culprit of this case had been caught, but without finding the murder weapon, charges couldn't be laid. That's why he came to ask for Grandpa's help.

"Alright, thanks a lot. The trip wasn't a waste after all. When you come to the provincial capital, uncle will treat you to KFC. Oh right, I have a daughter about your age in high school too. You'll definitely get along." Officer Sun smiled as he put the photos back into his bag, muttering to himself, "That sly old Song Xiaolin kept telling me the Song family won't produce any more detectives. Turns out he's been secretly grooming you all this time. Looks like the Song family has an heir after all. This is fantastic."

"Old Tiger Sun, what's this about the Song family having an heir?"

Just then, a voice came from outside the door. I looked back and saw Grandpa standing there. I shivered with fright immediately. Because Grandpa never allowed me to get involved in these things, let alone know that I read those two forbidden books in secret.

Grandpa slowly shifted his gloomy gaze from Officer Sun onto me. He seemed to realize something. At that moment I was truly terrified to the extreme!