Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
During the springtime in 1994, Qinshan was upgrading the Qin River Bridge, and they had to relocate the village nearby. Some of the villagers were required to move their ancestral graves.
Qin River Bridge was under the jurisdiction of Rongyang. During the resettlement, there was a villager with the surname Wang who suddenly lodged a report at the local police station, and told them that when they moved their ancestral graves, they found a terrifyingly strange corpse inside!
Getting the police report, the local policemen went to take a look at the scene and they got a shock too. In the ancestral tomb, there really was a creepy corpse! Although the corpse had signs of rotting, it was had not yet completely decayed. They could clearly tell that it was a young lady! What made it inexplicable was that the female corpse was wearing a bright red ancient costume, and she looked extremely creepy!
The news spread like wildfire. Those villagers that didn’t know the truth spread the story from mouth to mouth, and the news got scarier and scarier each time. It frightened many people, and it nearly affected the relocation operation.
The oddest thing was, after being verified by experts, the ancient costume that the female corpse was wearing was a real cultural relic! It was female Han clothing from the Qing Dynasty, called the embroidered mandarin sleeve jacket. Not only it was a cultural relic, but it was worth a fortune.
Besides that, there were doubts and suspicions about the corpse. Although the corpse was slightly rotten, one could clearly see the woman’s appearance, and her fingerprints were safely contained in the police’s records. However, the police had yet to figure out the woman’s identity!
The police only knew that she was about thirty-five-years-old and one-hundred and sixty centimeters tall. Information about her had posted for a very long time, but no one came to claim her corpse.
In the end, as the corpse was badly rotten, the police couldn’t continue to store it. So they cremated her body and buried it in the name of authorities. Before cremation, the police kept a complete copy of her DNA, fingerprints, blood, and the other information. They hoped to reveal the identity of the deceased someday. But even with the advance in technology then, there was no match. It finally became one of the unsolved cases in Cold Case Department. During the time Zhao Yu was in the Cold Case Department, he had come across the case, and it had left an impression on him.
Back then, after he solved the Uptown Slaughter Case, Zhao Yu was brimming with confidence and wanted to reopen the case, but the Mianling Case surfaced and he put it aside.
But Zhao Yu understood that if he wanted to investigate the Female Corpse in the Ancient Costume Case, it would be much more difficult compared to the Slaughter Case! Because the identity of the dead couldn’t be verified, they didn’t even know who the victim was. How could they possibly solve the case?
That moment, sitting in the Ford on his way back to Qinshan, Zhao Yu suddenly recalled the case. He thought about it because the case seemed similar to the Tomb Murder Case. In the Tomb Murder Case, they found a corpse wearing modern clothing in an ancient grave! While in the Female Corpse Case, they found a corpse that was wearing ancient clothing in a modern grave!
Besides the fact that both of the deceased were people from this century, the two cases were the exact opposite! But under such contradiction, Zhao Yu faintly smelled the connection between the two.
When it came down to it, he was reminded of Fu Jianxing’s line. Fu Jianxing thought that the murderer intentionally put the corpse into the coffin for fun! Hence, just when Zhao Yu was thinking about the Female Corpse in Ancient Costume Case, he realized that whoever killed the lady seemed to share the same notion of “fun”.
Try to imagine, what normal murderer who killed someone would dress up the body in an ancient costume, then stuff it into other people’s ancestral grave? If so, was there a hidden link between these two cases that was eighteen years apart? If the murderer of the Tomb Murder Case had a criminal record, would the Female Corpse in the Ancient Costume Case be the same person’s doing?
“Yeah!” Zhao Yu thought. He believed that there was such a possibility because the ancient costume on the female corpse was a real cultural relic. Why would a normal person have an ancient costume? But if the murderer was a grave robber, it would be different. They robbed so many ancient tombs; it would be acceptable if they had a few ancient costumes.
“Oh God! Who would the grave robbers be?!” he suddenly realized.
Just as Zhao Yu was pondering, his phone finally rang. The criminal investigation unit in the municipal bureau sent the latest autopsy report to the police detectives. According to the forensic investigation, they found the identity and cause of death of the victims in the Tomb Murder Case.
The cause of death was as expected—a fatal head wound.
Regarding his identity, it shocked Zhao Yu!
Since the very beginning, Zhao Yu knew that the victim was not a grave robber, but he had never expected that not only was he not a grave robber, but he was one of the old experts at the Qinshan Cultural Relic Bureau!!!
“Oh God!” Suddenly, Zhao Yu felt that his brain was overworked. “What is going on? Why was there an archeologist, who had been involved in archeology all his life, buried in a coffin in an ancient tomb?” he wondered.
“One was the archeologist, one was the grave robber… This.. Is this National Treasure? The competition between good and evil? In the end, the old expert from the good side died as he got killed by the evil grave robbers?” he thought.
“But…that’s not right…” Thinking about it, Zhao Yu felt there were more and more questions about the case that were unexplainable!
“Is it that…in the Tomb Murder Case, there weren’t any grave robbers? Was it always the heritage expert who was into cultural relics that robbed the ancient tomb? The expert ran out of money? What kind of situation is this?”
“Hey, what happened to you? Ever since you got in the car, you have been creasing your eyebrows. Is there anything that you took it too hard?” the female driver asked thoughtfully. “It’s okay. Say it out loud and you will feel much better. I am willing to listen!”
“Dong Peizhuo!” Zhao Yu mumbled a name unconsciously.
“What? What Zhuo? What is it?” the lady asked curiously.
“Nothing, focus on driving!” Zhao Yu was glad that he had predicted this and left earlier than the others. If he were to rush to the victim’s house, he should be faster than everyone else!
Dong Peizhuo was the name of the victim in the Tomb Murder Case. According to the information, not only did he have a stellar reputation among the heritage community, but he was accomplished in calligraphy and painting too. The person was fifty-seven-years-old. As he had suffered a chronic disease and had had a major operation, he had to retire earlier! But whenever the Cultural Relic Bureau ran into any tricky problem, they would come and ask for his advice! It was hard to imagine that such a highly regarded old expert would die a tragic death in a coffin of an ancient tomb.
Zhao Yu quickly called Miao Ying once he got the latest information. Miao Ying was, of course, shocked too. She immediately found the address for Zhao Yu and told him that she was closer to Dong Peizhuo’s house, so she would get there first to investigate when Zhao Yu arrived!
“Ya! Shit!” Zhao Yu exclaimed in his head. He realized something. Although he left before the other detectives, they could have asked for help from their colleagues too! At that very moment, there must be many people on their way to Dong Peizhuo’s house.
