If Meng Bai hadn’t made that suggestion, Li Su probably never would have noticed that tree.
Some pines and cypresses grew tall, but this one was stunted, barely taller than Miao Bai. Its ink-dark needles blended into a mere shadow in the night, utterly unremarkable.
“That one?” Doubt laced Li Su’s words.
“I don’t know.” Meng Bai’s cheeks colored with embarrassment. She could hardly admit that Miao Bai had guided her to it.
Under normal circumstances, Li Su wouldn’t have given Meng Bai’s words a second thought. But her description of “that boy” gave him pause.
He stood frozen for a few seconds before nodding. “Fine. Let’s go take a look.”
Their footsteps crunched hurriedly through the snow, a frantic rhythm drumming against every heart.
No one could resist the pull of curiosity.
That unassuming tree had suddenly become the center of attention.
As for what lay buried beneath it, Meng Bai had a suspicion forming in her mind.
The little boy, wasn’t it?
That was her working theory, at least.
But questions lingered. Why was Li Su even here? And who had tipped him off?
Meng Bai had no answers. She was still in the dark.
Her thoughts churned in chaos until the group was nearly upon Miao Bai. Meng Bai called out just in time.
“Right here.”
Even she wasn’t entirely sure. It was all a vague hunch.
Steeling herself, Meng Bai took charge. “It feels like this spot. Should we try digging?”
Meng Xingzhong, who had stayed silent until then, frowned. He couldn’t fathom how she knew any of this. It all felt too uncanny.
“Here, then? Let’s dig!” Li Su shrugged off his jacket, grabbed a shovel from one of his men, and plunged it into the snow. As the blade bit into the earth, he glanced up at Meng Xingzhong. “Come on, Old Meng. Lend a hand.”
Meng Xingzhong nodded. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
It felt like the attitude of people who had come this far and weren’t leaving empty-handed.
Li Su’s disciples jumped in too. Four or five of them attacked the patch of ground with frenzied shovelfuls, bordering on mania.
Zhou An tugged Meng Bai aside, her face blank with confusion. “What are they doing? What is this? I don’t get it at all.”
Xu Zhou looked equally lost. “Me neither. What’s going on? Why’s he listening to you?”
Meng Bai replied, “They’ve got no better options. Might as well roll the dice.”
Zhou An frowned in bewilderment. “But why listen to you? And how do you even know? My brain’s total mush right now. Nothing makes sense.”
“Because of Miao Bai. She told me.”
Meng Bai scanned the area. Miao Bai had vanished again. Meng Bai couldn’t guess her intentions—fading in and out like that.
But one thing was crystal clear to Meng Bai: she herself was adrift in confusion.
The fog that had cloaked the small town was now lifting, inch by inch, right there in the snow.
Perhaps Miao Bai had known everything from the beginning. She must have.
It took a good twenty minutes or so. Then Meng Xingzhong’s voice rang out from behind them. “This dirt’s too hard!”
“It’s not the dirt!” Li Su’s voice quavered.
Meng Xingzhong let out a sharp cry. “That’s not dirt!”
Meng Bai and the other two whipped around. Embedded in the soil was a wooden box.
A box? Made of wood.
Zhou An squinted for a better look, then recoiled with a yelp.
“What box? That’s a coffin!”
Her legs buckled. Xu Zhou caught her, whispering in her ear, “Come on, don’t be such a scaredy-cat.”
Zhou An’s face drained of color. “Heavens, they really are digging up a body.”
Li Su flung his shovel aside and jabbed a finger at one of his disciples. “Call it in. Report up the chain. You—get over here. Camera. Photograph everything. All of it.”
The snow intensified, the wind whipping so fiercely that Meng Bai could barely keep her eyes open. She forced herself to peer at the unearthed object. She’d never seen a coffin before and had assumed it was just wood, but Zhou An recognized it. She’d been at her grandparents’ funerals and knew the shape all too well.
One of Li Su’s disciples finished his call and turned back. “Captain, they say keep digging, but document it all for evidence.”
At the news they’d continue, Meng Xingzhong looked up at Meng Bai. “Kiddo, you scared? If you are, step back. Don’t look.”
Meng Bai met his gaze. “I’m not. Not one bit.”
Li Su leaned in close to Meng Xingzhong and murmured, “Strange. Your girl’s got some guts.”
Then he turned to her. “You know how to use a camera?”
Meng Bai nodded at once.
Miao Bai had taught her. It was her birthday gift, too—she handled it with ease.
“You brave enough to come snap some shots?”
Of course she was. Fear had given way to curiosity.
“Yeah.”
Meng Xingzhong panicked. “Officer, no way. She’s just a kid.”
Li Su waved him off. “Relax. She won’t be alone. I’ve got my team, but we’re short-handed.”
Meng Xingzhong backed down.
Li Su beckoned her over. “Come on. We’ll dig; you film.”
One of the disciples pulled two cameras from his bag—one for stills, one for video.
He handed the video one to Meng Bai and walked her through it. She picked it up in no time.
Zhou An and Xu Zhou gaped at her nerve.
Digging up a corpse—and she was right there for it.
The wind howled, the snow falling thicker than ever.
Li Su said, “The team’s not making it from the city tonight. It’s all on us. Dig faster, before the snow buries everything.”
Meng Xingzhong heaved a pile of earth and muttered, “Then let’s dig.”
Shovels struck the ground in turn, white snow yielding to heaps of dark brown soil. Meng Bai trained the camera on them, her heart a tangle of emotions as she watched the piles grow.
One question burned in her mind: How had he died?
Li Su had called him a wronged spirit.
The thought filled Meng Bai with sudden sorrow.
If this person buried beneath the earth had died unjustly, then what Meng Xingzhong and Li Su were doing was freeing a soul long shackled to the soil—bringing the truth into the light.
“Almost… that’s enough, right?” Li Su gasped.
Meng Xingzhong nodded wearily.
One of the young officers spoke up. “Master, how do you open this?”
The coffin lid was already partially exposed. All they needed to do now was pry it open to reveal whose bones lay inside.
Li Su pointed at one of the men. “Brother Chen, you’re up.”
The man addressed as Brother Chen was a little older, roughly the same age as Meng Xingzhong. He’d stood silently by while they dug earlier, but now it was his turn to shine.
Brother Chen remained utterly calm. “The umbrella—bring it out and shield the coffin.”
“Right here!” Someone handed him a large black umbrella, and he popped it open to keep the snow off.
Only then did Meng Bai understand. It was a gesture of respect for the long-slumbering dead, even if she couldn’t fathom the precise reason behind it.
Freed up for the moment, Li Su turned to Meng Bai. “Scared now? If you are, I’ll take the shot.”
But Meng Bai clutched the camera tightly. “I want to do it.”
Li Su leaned toward Meng Xingzhong and whispered, “Your girl’s got some real guts. I don’t think she’s scared of anything!”
From then on, everyone stayed quiet, watching Brother Chen at work.
He muttered under his breath, pacing back and forth beside the coffin. Then he stooped down, his finger tracing a few hasty characters on the wooden surface.
It was impossible to make out—vaguely reminiscent of a Daoist rite, yet not quite, and utterly baffling all the same.
Oddly enough, nothing had felt amiss before, but after his ritualistic fiddling, a chill suddenly crept up Meng Bai’s spine.
She was starting to feel afraid.
Brother Chen, for his part, stayed perfectly composed. He rapped the coffin’s sides a few times, then turned to Li Su. “All right, go ahead and pry it open.”
Li Su gave a grand wave, and the group clustered in again.
Meng Bai trained her lens on the coffin, framing Meng Xingzhong and Li Su in the shot as well. With familiar faces in view, her tension began to ebb.
They worked the wooden edge loose bit by bit. Iron nails secured the top, so they had to yank them out one by one. It took ages, but at last they were ready to lift the lid.
“Hold on,” Brother Chen said. “Wait a few minutes.”
Li Su shot him a look. “You’ve got a lot of rituals.”
Brother Chen’s voice turned serious. “Better to believe it and be safe than dismiss it and regret.”
Li Su called out loudly, “Ghost or no ghost, it’s got no reason to hurt me—I’m here to deliver justice for it.”
For all his words, though, Li Su held off.
In the minutes that followed, he lit up another cigarette, mumbling to himself about how long he’d waited for this, how the past few months of frantic dashing about were finally paying off.
The others responded in fits and starts.
Meng Bai’s arms were growing sore, a touch of impatience setting in. She just wanted to peer inside already.
It wasn’t until Brother Chen gave the all-clear that she truly focused.
All the delays had dragged on for nearly an hour, washing away much of her earlier fear and nerves.
Just as the group braced to crack the coffin for real, an image flashed through Meng Bai’s mind.
She remembered her eighteenth birthday, when Miao Bai had given her the camera and shown her how to use its photography mode. And now here she was, in precisely such a scene—the thought stirred something strange in her heart.
It felt less like a birthday gift and more like preparation for this exact moment.
“More muscle! One, two, three—heave!”
With a grating creak, the seam gave way. Meng Bai aimed her camera, poised for her formal encounter with the boy from that afternoon’s lecture hall.
The group flipped the wooden lid aside with a heavy thud, and Brother Chen hurriedly angled the umbrella overhead.
A peculiar odor permeated the air—not rotten, but far from fragrant. If it had to be described, it was sharp and irritating, tickling the nostrils.
The patter of snow grew strikingly clear; Meng Bai could even feel the cold wind whispering against her ears.
She held her breath, her heartbeat surging.
“Too dark—can’t make it out. Flashlight!”
Someone passed a flashlight to Li Su. He took it, the beam jittering across the soil before inching from the coffin’s rim toward the center.
Little by little.
They could already see, really.
In the next instant, Meng Bai saw.
Everyone saw. Silence fell like a pall—no one uttered a word.
Li Su went ashen. The flashlight quivered in his grip, then wavered uncertainly as he peered with wide eyes, again and again.
“Empty? How can it be empty?”
Brother Chen dropped to a crouch at once, pinching a bit of soil between his fingers. He looked rattled too.
After scanning the surroundings, he spoke words that sent shivers down their spines:
“Impossible. This coffin’s been in the ground for years—not fresh—and there are no signs anyone dug it up before we got here.”
