Spectral Detective: In the Realm of the Dead

Just as I was racking my brains trying to figure out what was so odd about this skeleton, Grandpa spoke up, "Yang Er, judge for me - what did this person do for a living when alive? How did he/she die? Was it a man or woman? If a woman, did she bear children? How old was he/she when dying? Tell me everything you can deduce."

"Grandpa, are you testing me?" I asked.

"I suppose you could say that!" Grandpa calmly took a puff of his cigarette.

I thought to myself, this test is just too bizarre! Being dragged out of bed in the dead of night, brought to a pauper's grave to dig up someone else's tomb - I'm sure no other grandfather under heaven would do such a thing.

"Hurry up and take a look. The yin energy is too strong in this place. My old bones can't take it if we linger too long," Grandpa said, stomping his feet vigorously.

I calmed my mind and examined the skeleton closely. Suspicious sounds emanated from the pauper's grave from time to time. Coupled with the sinister yin energy here, it was very distracting! But as I concentrated, I gradually excluded all the disturbances.

The corpse I had pieced together was a full 1.8 meters tall. It must have belonged to a very tall person when alive. Yet the feet were very small, which was unscientific. There is normally a fixed 1:7 ratio between human foot size and height - the taller the person, the larger the feet. Unless this person bound her feet tiny like the ancient women with 3-inch "golden lotuses".

I decided not to get hung up over this for now. Next I judged the person's gender - the coarseness of the bones initially made me think male, but the flared pelvis was clearly a female trait, and there were even stretch marks on the pubic bone from giving birth!

I picked up the skull to gauge the age. Judging from the degree of wear on the teeth, this was definitely an adult in their early 30s. However, looking at the thigh bones, the bone density was a bit light, indicating calcium loss, and long-term pressure had caused curvature - signs of an elderly person. This was all very strange...

Even more baffling were the arms. The joints were thick and coarse, features that should belong to leg bones. Could it be this person walked on all fours from birth?

From head to toe, contradictions abounded in this skeleton, leaving me increasingly unsure the more I looked at it. But suddenly, I understood Grandpa's intent. This test would be far from simple. I already had an answer in mind!

Squatting for so long made me dizzy and my vision darken when I finally stood up. My legs were as stiff as stone. While I was focused, Grandpa had smoked a pile of cigarettes. I had been squatting there examining the bones for half an hour without realizing it.

"Well, what do you think Yang Er?" Grandpa asked.

"This person was probably around 30 years old. Both male and female. Lived confined for many years from birth, walking on four legs, eating coarse food, and gave birth to seven or eight children. Finally drowned, then hacked to death." I said.

"Is that your conclusion?" Grandpa sneered.

"Yes, because this isn't a person at all!" I declared.

"Oh? Do explain, why isn't it a person?" Grandpa was intrigued.

I explained - Besides the head, all the parts of this skeleton were borrowed from animals. The legs were sheep's, the hands pigs', the pelvis from another old sow. The limbs were pieced together from fragments, possibly cat and dog bones.

If we had to determine cause of death, judging from the broken vertebrae, this person was beheaded.

After hearing my explanation, Grandpa nodded approvingly, "Apt pupil! As the ancients said, better to have no books than to fully believe them. If you can't even distinguish human and animal bones, then no matter how much I tell you would be wasted time. Very good, very good! There is finally an heir to the Song family arts."

"But Grandpa..." I voiced my lingering doubt, "Just what is the story behind this skeleton?"

Grandpa took a puff of his cigarette and related the bizarre skeleton's origins -

It happened 30 years ago.

At that time, there was a villager called Huang San in Yangshu Village near the county seat. Huang San was a lazy ne'er-do-well who knew nothing but drinking, gambling, and climbing over widows' walls at night. Before he was even 20, he had aggravated his own mother to death.

Of course, a man like him never found a wife. He always borrowed money everywhere and was shunned by villagers. Unable to make ends meet in the village, Huang San left to work odd jobs - a few days at this construction site, a few days at that restaurant. Whenever he had a little money, he would gamble it away.

Once, he owed 50,000 yuan in gambling debts and fled. The creditors came to collect from the village. That was a shocking fortune at the time, enough to build several nice houses in the countryside. None of his relatives or friends were willing to take on this burden, so they all denied knowing him.

A few days later, someone found a black plastic bag by the roadside containing a bloody severed head. The police were called immediately! They photographed the head and published it in the papers to identify the corpse. One of Huang San's distant uncles recognized it as Huang San. The boy had likely been killed by his creditors. Everyone felt he had brought it on himself. Plus, conservative rural folk didn't sue. The police didn't investigate either, and the case was dropped.

Huang San's head was sent back to the village. People felt terrible for the Huang family, their incense cut off just like that without even a whole corpse for Huang San. They worried his resentful ghost would not rest peacefully! Looking into it, they found Huang San's mother was from Chaozhou. So they held a "proxy burial" for him in the Chaozhou custom - piecing together a body with animal bones to bury so his spirit could be at peace after death.

After Grandpa finished recounting the skeleton's origins, he had me rebury Huang San's bones. Once I finished, he took out a stack of yellow spirit money, lit one with a match, and placed it at the grave saying, "Brother Huang San, apologies for the disturbance. I know you died unjustly, with no children to survive you. These meager offerings may not be to your liking. But on your death anniversary next year, I will certainly invite monks and Daoist priests to perform rites and help your soul pass on!"

No sooner had he finished speaking when a sudden sinister wind kicked up, making the firelight flutter erratically. I seemed to hear faint weeping sounds mingling in the wind, swirling upwards with the ash.

I was scared stiff by this spectacle. Grandpa pressed my head down, telling me to kowtow and apologize.

When I got up, the freak wind had vanished without a trace. I asked Grandpa with a trembling voice, "Are ghosts real?"

"Some things become real if you believe in them, unreal if you don't. But remember Yang Er - tampering with corpses is always an affront to the dead! So you must maintain an attitude of reverence at all times, to avoid offending heaven and earth."

I nodded, "I'll remember!"

But then a thought struck me - did his words mean I could become a forensic scientist in the future? So I asked, "Grandpa, since I passed your test, can I work as a forensic scientist for Uncle Sun in the future?"

"Absolutely not, that would violate the ancestral precepts of the Song family!" Grandpa snapped sternly.