Chapter 32: Dark Brown

“Open the coffin.”

Qi Ran sighed, speaking softly.

“You don’t get along with your sister?” Miss Ah Qiao sat with her legs crossed on a wooden coffin nearby, chin propped on one hand, asking with keen interest. “What, unhappy about being treated differently? I get it, classic second-child family drama. But I thought the older sister usually suffers more. How come it’s the other way around with you?”

Qi Ran glared at her. She realized that once this female ghost shed her slightly perverse surface personality, her true nature was like a middle-aged village gossip, her spirit of rumor-mongering burning bright. She was probably a die-hard fan of some melodramatic family TV dramas.

Honestly, Qi Ran didn’t have any bad feeling toward Qi Xin. She just couldn’t handle her personality. Take the annual New Year’s Eve dinner, for example. She would rather spend time alone with their mother than with Qi Xin. Mother only ever asked about grades and how Tao Xiao was doing—two questions easy to answer. Her grades were never going to beat Qi Xin’s, and she could just say Tao Xiao was so busy with work, always working late, but the living expenses were enough. Mother would be satisfied then. It was quite easy.

But with Qi Xin, it was different. That awkwardness hung in the air everywhere. It wasn’t that either of them deliberately made things awkward; it was just an unavoidable fact. No matter how hard they tried to stir up a conversation, every word that followed remained totally mismatched. They were like people from two different worlds, forced together, and every line of chat was water squeezed painfully from a dry sponge—coarse and dry.

Qi Xin probably understood that too. Qi Ran smiled to herself, a bit self-deprecating. At some point—she couldn’t even remember what age—they had stopped making that painful effort to find topics. Even when Mother purposely gave them time alone, they just sat quietly side by side, doing their own things, without embarrassment or discomfort. Maybe that was the last shred of unspoken understanding between twin sisters.

But there was no way to explain all this to Miss Ah Qiao with just a few words. Sighing inwardly, Qi Ran didn’t explain. She only stepped forward and, together with Jiang Zhique, slowly pushed the heavy coffin lid open.

The moment the lid shifted, a strange scent mixed with a strong rust smell assaulted them. Almost simultaneously, she heard Jiang Zhique’s voice, trembling slightly, uttering a dialect word Qi Ran couldn’t understand. But from the tone, it was likely a curse.

“Poor thing.” Miss Ah Qiao clicked her tongue.

After setting the heavy lid safely aside, Qi Ran looked into the coffin. She froze. Now she understood why Jiang Zhique couldn’t help swearing. The inner walls of the coffin were covered with large, irregular dark patches. Their deep brown surface was riddled with dry cracks, along with what looked like fingernail scratches. Just seeing them was enough to feel the suffocating, despairing horror.

Qi Ran’s stomach churned. She forced herself to hold it in and looked further down.

What came into view were strands of scattered hair. The hair was long, a hair tie lying in a corner as if torn off. Its owner appeared to be a young girl, kneeling hunched at the bottom of the coffin. Qi Ran’s mind went blank. Her eyes locked onto a slender wrist marked with dark purple patches. A long, ghastly wound cut across it.

“…Judging from the bloodstains, at least twenty hours have passed,” Jiang Zhique said quietly. “She might have had an extreme fear of dark, enclosed spaces, like someone with claustrophobia… That’s probably why she chose to end it.”

Qi Ran reached out and grabbed the hair. She’d never imagined hair could feel so horrifying and disgusting, but she had no better choice—she’d rather cut off her own hand than touch that cold, stiff skin.

Suppressing the terror that made her want to fling it away, she lifted the hair with trembling hands.

Through the hanging strands, she saw the girl’s face. It wasn’t Qi Xin.

The brief sense of weight falling was immediately followed by another heavy plunge. The girl looked very young. Her contorted, pained features made it easy to imagine how much terror and despair had driven her to cut her own wrist. Qi Ran gently let the hair drop, then bent over and vomited. The convulsions were so violent it was as if she wanted to vomit out her entire stomach. Only when nothing but a little liquid came up did she straighten herself weakly.

How utterly embarrassing, Qi Ran thought faintly. She had assumed that watching so many gory films would give her some immunity. But witnessing a real scene up close brought a vivid, sharp shock that was completely unstoppable, like a heavy hammer easily smashing her previous composure.

“Here.”

Jiang Zhique handed her a pack of tissues. Qi Ran thanked her weakly, tore open the pack, and wiped her mouth. She noticed that Jiang Zhique’s expression showed surprise but no fear or strong emotion. Clearly, for people like them, such things were all too normal.

I need to get used to this quickly, Qi Ran told herself. She looked back into the coffin and said quietly, “Not Qi Xin. Just a regular person.”

“That’s good,” Jiang Zhique breathed a huge sigh of relief, then asked with confusion, “Your sister wasn’t caught? So she really is special?”

“Maybe,” Qi Ran’s voice was hoarse. She reached out and pointed into the coffin. “What do we do about this?”

Her mind was still in chaos. She thought of many things—the weeping middle-aged couple, the news, the police… and the greasy, slippery feel of that hair. She wasn’t sure she could muster the courage to carry the body out if Jiang Zhique said they needed to.

“After we get out, we’ll tell Li Siwen to report it to the police,” Jiang Zhique said decisively. “The Circle has its own dedicated line for reporting cases. We don’t need to deal with it. Just inform Li Siwen and let him decide whether to notify the authorities. The deceased looks like a regular person. The nature of this is serious. If we report it, we might be ‘noticed’ for a while, but that’s not a big problem.”

Qi Ran nodded without speaking. She kept staring at the deep black hair for a long time before looking away.

“Next… we go straight to find your sister?” Jiang Zhique said hesitantly. “I have a bad feeling about this. Instead of taking such a roundabout approach, better to be direct and honest, to prevent more accidents like this.”

“Alright,” Qi Ran said. “You drive. I’ll give directions.”

Jiang Zhique paused, hesitating. “Actually… we could just call her and set up a meeting.”

“Qi Xin doesn’t have a cell phone,” Qi Ran shook her head. “No telephone either. Mother doesn’t allow her to use one.”

“…Whoa.” Jiang Zhique couldn’t find words for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “Then as you say. We’ll drive to her place.”

Qi Ran nodded and stood up wearily. She wanted to close the coffin lid again, but the heavy lid on the floor was beyond the strength of just the two of them to lift back into place. In the end, they had to leave it exposed to the air.

Jiang Zhique pushed open the shop door and took a deep breath. “I really hope we don’t have to come here a second time.”

“Why do you say that?” Qi Ran asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Jiang Zhique said as she pulled out the van keys. The street scene had returned to normal. The late-night street was quiet and clear, not a trace of fog. “If our luck is bad, Li Siwen decides to report it, and the person assigned to the case is rigid about rules, then we’ll have to come back here with them again. That’s what regulations require. But if the person isn’t so stiff, that rule isn’t all that important. We can find an excuse to duck out without any problem.”