Chapter 30: Investigating the Morgue for a Hidden Chamber; The People Surround the Magistrate’s Office in Protest

Inside Morgue Six, Tang Yi and Song Mo conducted a thorough inspection from front to back.

There were no signs of a struggle.

No traces of blood.

No excess of the usual yin energy.

No trace of demonic aura.

Everything was almost identical to the other morgues, except for the mysterious disappearance of the mortician, Li Zheng.

“Did you find anything?” Song Mo asked, watching Tang Yi standing by the door.

“You mean Li Zheng locked himself in and never came out?” Tang Yi replied with a question of his own.

Song Mo thought for a moment and nodded. That was indeed the case. Li Zheng wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed; during the Lantern Festival, he likely hadn’t even gone out to enjoy the festivities.

“That makes things all the more peculiar,” Tang Yi said with a frown.

“What’s wrong?” Song Mo walked over to ask.

“Look at this bolt,” Tang Yi said, pointing at the morgue door.

Song Mo wasn’t sure what he meant, but still leaned in for a closer look.

The door bolt of Morgue Six was perfectly intact. Song Mo glanced back at Tang Yi and said, “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it.”

Tang Yi cast a sweeping glance around the room and spoke in a low voice, “Precisely because the bolt is intact, Li Zheng’s disappearance becomes even more problematic.”

Song Mo looked around the room as well. The thirty-six morgues in the southern part of the city were laid out more or less identically. Since this was a gloomy profession and sunlight was unwelcome, there were no windows—only the main door.

Finally, Song Mo understood Tang Yi’s meaning: if the door to Morgue Six was bolted from the inside and showed no signs of forced entry, and yet the mortician inside had vanished without a trace, what did that imply?

A single phrase flashed sharply in Song Mo’s mind.

A locked-room mystery.

“Do you know where the other two incidents took place?” Tang Yi asked after a moment’s thought.

As it happened, Song Mo did know: one was in Morgue Twenty-Seven, the other in Morgue Thirty-Three.

“Six, twenty-seven, thirty-three—there’s no apparent pattern. What exactly happened in these morgues?” Tang Yi murmured to himself, then strode deeper into the corridor.

Fortunately, the Lantern Festival had just passed and it was not yet late autumn, so there were few executed corpses. Although three morticians had mysteriously disappeared, the staff was not immediately stretched thin.

Thus, the Mortuary Office had not sent replacements, and Morgues Twenty-Seven and Thirty-Three were left idle.

With a furrowed brow, Tang Yi inspected both Morgues Twenty-Seven and Thirty-Three. As with Morgue Six, there were no signs of struggle, no blood, no unusual yin energy, no demonic aura, and not even a damaged bolt. Everything was intact.

Another two locked rooms.

Song Mo was beginning to sense that something was very wrong. The Mortuary Office was under the jurisdiction of the Demon Suppression Bureau; by rights, no one should dare stir up trouble under their nose.

At that thought, a realization struck Song Mo.

“You shouldn’t be here. When something strange happens in the morgue, it should be the Demon Suppression Bureau handling it,” Song Mo said, fixing Tang Yi with a serious gaze.

Tang Yi didn’t deny it. He nodded, “You’re right. I’m not here on official business for the Six Gates; I’m here to return a favor.”

Song Mo blurted out in surprise, “Jiang Wanyi?”

Tang Yi nodded again. “This case in the southern city’s mortuary was originally assigned to her by the Demon Suppression Bureau, but something came up and she was delayed. So she sent word to me to begin the investigation. She’ll be here soon.”

Song Mo couldn’t help recalling the scene outside the qin terrace, when Jiang Wanyi had drawn her sword in defense of a friend. Truly, that line—“His life is mine”—was as domineering as they came.

At that thought, Song Mo’s curiosity was piqued.

He eyed Tang Yi’s composed features and grinned, “What exactly is your relationship with Jiang Wanyi? Looks to me like she both loves and hates you.”

Tang Yi’s eyes turned icy, and in an instant, his murderous aura enveloped Song Mo.

“All right, all right, if you don’t want to say, forget I asked. Hey, hey, don’t draw your sword…”

…

Leaving the door of Morgue Thirty-Three, Tang Yi glanced down at the sunlight at his feet and said, “There’s probably nothing useful to be found in the morgues. Let’s take a look at the Mortuary Office’s corpse registry.”

Song Mo nodded. Since there was nothing to be found inside, perhaps the registry would hold some clues.

Every corpse taken in by the Mortuary Office was recorded—its origin, allocation, even the signatures for collection were all meticulously entered into the registry.

It also served as the morticians’ attendance log, as their monthly wages depended on it.

The registry was held by the office clerks.

As luck would have it, this month the registry was in the hands of clerks He Yiming and Wu Wanlin.

With their minds made up, Song Mo and Tang Yi headed to the office deeper in the mortuary to examine the records. But before they’d gone far, a commotion broke out ahead.

Looking up, they saw the source of the noise: outside the office, a crowd of commoners in coarse clothing had surrounded the door, clamoring loudly about something.

The office staff were holding them at bay, while two clerks raised their voices to calm the crowd.

The red-faced one was He Yiming, the black-faced, out-of-breath one was Wu Wanlin.

Only as Song Mo and Tang Yi drew closer did they catch what was being said.

These people had all recently collected bodies from the southern morgue, and eerily, something had happened to those corpses. They were here to demand answers from the Mortuary Office.

Watching the scene, Song Mo couldn’t help remarking inwardly that doctor-patient relations were always tense, no matter the time or place.

The only difference was that in this case, it was not a medical dispute, but a “corpse dispute.”

He Yiming and Wu Wanlin, the two clerks, seemed to be perpetually down on their luck, always running into such trouble.

Best to keep some distance from them, Song Mo thought.

After much coaxing and threatening, they finally managed to disperse the crowd at the office door.

Just as He Yiming sighed with relief, he spotted Tang Yi standing beside Song Mo and hurried over, ingratiatingly asking, “Is there anything you need, Lord Tang?”

At the same time, he couldn’t help wondering about Song Mo, this so-called “traitor” who always seemed to be in league with the Six Gates.

“Why does he always hang around with them?” He Yiming mused, sizing Song Mo up.

“Has all the right features, but his eyes are shifty. Best keep away from him,” He Yiming thought.

As it happened, the feeling was mutual.

“I need to look at your office’s corpse registry,” Tang Yi said without preamble.

He Yiming and Wu Wanlin exchanged glances, both looking troubled as He Yiming said in a low voice, “In the past, Lord Tang, you could examine it as you pleased, but now, well…”

He stammered for a while, never quite finishing his thought, leaving Song Mo with a headache.

“Don’t worry, I know the rules.” With that, Tang Yi pulled out a token from his robe and tossed it to He Yiming.

Song Mo recognized it at a glance; it was Jiang Wanyi’s token.

Sure enough, upon seeing it, He Yiming let out a long sigh of relief and smiled, “In that case, please follow me, my lord.”

With He Yiming and Wu Wanlin leading the way, Song Mo and Tang Yi entered the main hall of the office. Before long, He Yiming brought over the monthly registry and placed it on the table for Tang Yi to peruse at will.

Though such records weren’t considered classified, Song Mo still distanced himself out of caution.

Suddenly recalling the earlier commotion, Song Mo asked He Yiming, “What was that all about, just now?”

He Yiming, already frustrated, took the chance to vent, “Who knows? My brother and I must be cursed. It’s our turn this month, and of course all this happens. I never imagined even the corpses could go wrong.”

Song Mo’s brows knitted. The Mortuary Office was a place of yin, but by rights, nothing supernatural should occur. Still, the supervisor had mentioned that training was rushed and some morticians were inexperienced, so it wasn’t uncommon for a poorly sewn corpse to fall apart en route home.

If a corpse’s stitches failed during a bumpy journey, a twisted head, skewed eyes, or detached limbs were not unheard of.

Song Mo shared his guess, but to his surprise, He Yiming shook his head emphatically.

Finally, lowering his voice, He Yiming said, “It wasn’t a matter of faulty stitching. The corpses—the corpses disappeared.”

Song Mo felt his mind buzz. First the morticians vanished, now the corpses themselves were gone. Was something evil haunting the Mortuary Office?

Just then, Tang Yi, who had been poring over the registry, frowned deeply.