“It’s been quite some years, but are you sure no one’s touched it?”
This was Li Su’s confusion—and everyone else’s too.
No one in the world would be bored enough to bury an empty coffin, after all.
Brother Chen pondered for a moment before nodding. “Most likely. If someone’s dug it up before, I’d have to question my thirty-plus years of experience.”
Li Su’s expression was rigid, making his deep discouragement plain for all to see.
Meng Bai hit pause on the camera and handed it back to its owner.
No one had anticipated things unfolding this way. Fear and helplessness gripped the group until Li Su’s apprentice finally spoke up.
“Master, what do we do now? Leave or stay? And… how do we handle this?”
Li Su raised a hand to silence him. “Let me think.”
“Alright, you think it over.”
No purely logical explanation could account for this.
“What the hell,” Li Su muttered, rubbing his brow. “This is really strange.” He pondered a moment longer, his gaze eventually settling on Meng Bai’s face.
Her skin was fair, her eyes clear and bright, her features delicate and lovely.
Meng Bai’s reserved demeanor suggested she wasn’t the bold sort—the type who’d hide behind the adults in a crisis. Yet her reaction just now had deviated sharply from that image, making it impossible for Li Su to ignore her.
After a moment’s hesitation, Li Su said to her, “Meng, come here a second.”
Meng Xingzhong grew anxious and reached out to intervene. “Old Li, she doesn’t know anything about this.”
Li Su forced a smile. “Relax. Just a few simple questions—a final wrap-up on tonight’s events.”
The decision was Meng Bai’s, and she didn’t refuse.
Li Su led her forward, walking a good long distance to ensure no one else could overhear.
Their footsteps crunched softly in the snow until the figures behind them faded into indistinct shadows. Only then did Li Su stop.
Meng Bai halted and looked at him, saying nothing.
Li Su pondered for a moment, his voice dropping low. “How did you know your dad was here?”
Meng Bai’s expression remained calm. “I was on a bus with classmates heading to the city when it broke down somehow. We didn’t want to wait around, so we got out and started walking—and that’s how we ended up here.”
It sounded far-fetched, but it was the truth, and her expression betrayed no flaws.
Li Su was only half convinced. “Then how did you know the coffin was there?”
“A feeling.”
It was a lie, but Meng Bai stayed utterly composed—no cracks for Li Su to pry at.
“And you said you saw that little boy one afternoon?”
Li Su stared her down, clearly intent on getting answers.
Meng Bai simply met his eyes, her tone even. “I don’t know. I was half-asleep at the time. That hallucination caught me off guard too.”
“No coincidence.” Li Su stroked his chin, lost in thought. “If it’s all just chance, that’s too much of a stretch.” He dropped the pretense. “Do you know something? No need to hold back—just tell me.”
Meng Bai didn’t budge. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you. But I really don’t.”
No one could ever learn of Miao Bai’s existence. That was non-negotiable.
Meng Bai held firm on that point, an impenetrable stone offering Li Su no way in.
The conversation stalled, but Li Su wasn’t ready to let it drop.
After a silent moment, he whispered, “Do you know why I’m investigating this case?”
Meng Bai shook her head. “No.”
“When I worked in the city, I started getting anonymous letters from someone. Every year.”
Meng Bai’s curiosity stirred. “What did they say?”
“That a boy died in Long Town twenty years ago.”
Long Town—the name of Meng Bai’s hometown.
Li Su went on. “At first, I brushed it off. I get letters like that now and then, and with so many cases to handle and limited time, I can’t chase every lead.”
Meng Bai nodded.
“But it was odd,” Li Su continued. “The person kept writing, relentlessly, for a full year. I pulled strings to check the records, and Long Town had no such incident—until—”
Meng Bai’s curiosity was fully hooked. “Until?”
“Until I saw him too.”
Meng Bai’s heart thudded heavily.
Li Su pressed on. “I’m not one to believe in ghosts and gods, but night after night, that boy appeared in my dreams. He never spoke, never moved—just stared at me silently, as if he’d chosen me to seek justice on his behalf.”
Hearing this left Meng Bai inwardly silent and perplexed.
If the boy’s appearances were some kind of sign, guiding Li Su to investigate… then what about her?
She was just an ordinary student, caught up in her studies, unable to offer any real help.
If seeing the boy marked one as “chosen,” then why had she been chosen?
A thousand thoughts swirled in Meng Bai’s mind, but she couldn’t voice a single one.
Li Su continued. “This year, I decided to come to Long Town. I put in the request up the chain, and it sailed through unusually smoothly. So here I am.” His gaze bored into Meng Bai. “Guess what I found?”
Anxiety suddenly gripped Meng Bai.
Her natural intuition warned her that Li Su was about to bring up Miao Bai.
But she didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t know.” Her throat tightened as she instinctively tried to shut down the topic. “Why tell me all this? I’m just a student. I don’t understand it, and I can’t help.”
“I disagree.” Li Su bent down to meet her eye level, his gaze chillingly calm. “Didn’t you help tonight? Don’t tense up—don’t be scared. Just hear me out.”
Meng Bai considered it. Better to let him talk more, as long as she kept her mouth shut.
She wanted Miao Bai to remain unknown, safe and undisturbed—no one’s target.
“Alright, go ahead.”
Li Su began to reminisce. “A few months ago, someone sent me a Storage Card. It had a video… about Zhang Gou.”
Speaking of Zhang Gou, Li Su made a special point to emphasize it. “Zhang Gou—you remember, the one your dad reported last time?”
Of course Meng Bai remembered.
But right now, what concerned her more was the video.
Teacher Xu Qin had actually handed the video over to Li Su! Why?
Soon Li Su continued. “It came in anonymously again. I have no idea who sent it. But the filming method was downright bizarre, like the cameraman was some invisible person documenting other people’s crimes. I still can’t wrap my head around it. I had the tech team analyze it, and there was no editing or manipulation.”
Meng Bai feigned surprise. “That’s incredible.”
“Incredible?” A shadow of gravity flickered in Li Su’s eyes. “Doesn’t it strike you as eerily similar to what happened tonight? Just as baffling and elusive?”
“It does,” Meng Bai agreed, following his lead but with no intention of divulging anything more.
Li Su looked at her. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“I don’t think so.” Meng Bai was adept at steering the conversation elsewhere. “Once you got that video and realized Zhang Gou was a bad egg, why didn’t you arrest him? Why let him run free and trash my dad’s reputation?”
“Insufficient evidence. Even with the video, he wasn’t the one committing the actual crime—it was another man. And that man? He dropped dead that same night. Cause of death: sudden cardiac arrest.”
Meng Bai knew exactly who that man was—the Baldhead who’d tried to sexually assault Xu Jinghe.
Sudden death? That was suspicious too.
One puzzle piling on top of another left Meng Bai thoroughly frustrated.
She gazed at Li Su, and he gazed right back. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other.
Meng Bai pressed for more details. “So why were you out here tonight?”
“Yesterday, I got another letter from that anonymous source.”
Meng Bai said bluntly, “I suspect it’s the same person.”
Li Su chuckled. “You’re sharp. That’s exactly what I think.”
“So the boy really is dead?”
“That’s what the letter claimed. It even pinpointed the burial spot. With the case going nowhere, I decided to check it out.” Li Su jabbed a finger at the ground underfoot, then glanced toward the road in the distance. “The instructions were: Zhangjia Town, from the blue highway sign, head left into the wasteland for a hundred meters, beneath a cypress tree.”
Meng Bai asked, “Wrong tree?”
Li Su nodded. “Pretty much.”
“The second one had a coffin, but it was empty.”
By now, helplessness tinged Li Su’s expression. This relentless cascade of oddities had clearly worn him down.
“Some kind of prank?” he muttered. “Who’d go to that much trouble for nothing?”
Meng Bai probed gently. “Didn’t that guy just say the coffin had been buried for years, untouched? And if it’s a prank, how do you explain both of us encountering that boy separately, with no connection between us? Doesn’t add up.”
Silence fell over them once more.
Li Su’s brows knitted into a tight furrow, his eyes locked on the ground as though wrestling with some deep thought.
“So, Officer Li, do you think he’s dead? Does this person even exist?”
Li Su tossed the question back. “What do you think?”
“I think he does.”
“Same here.”
Remarkably, they found themselves in agreement, despite the sheer otherworldliness of it all.
Li Su let out a sigh and scanned their surroundings. The vast wasteland stretched out blanketed in white, those two cypress trees looming starkly in the night. From a distance, they looked profoundly forlorn.
Beneath the cloak of darkness, Li Su murmured, “Why here? Why is the coffin here of all places?”
Abruptly, Meng Bai’s eyes began to sting—likely from the biting wind. The tip of her nose had turned red from the freezing snow. Seeing no sign that Li Su planned to head back, she stayed put with him. Together, they peered into the night, hoping for some revelation.
“This is Zhangjia Town,” Li Su said, staring off into the distance, still murmuring to himself. “Long Town’s that way.”
“No leads here,” Meng Bai remarked idly. “You’ve already checked Long Town. Might as well look into Zhangjia Town too.”
“We have. Everything’s been checked. These towns have been quiet as a grave for decades.”
“Oh yeah?” Meng Bai had never seen it that way. “My friend Zhou An vanished just a little while ago. You know about that.”
“Of course. But it’s not officially a missing person—she ran away from home. Real missing persons cases get filed in the archives.”
There, Li Su paused abruptly.
His gaze went distant, fixed on Meng Bai for several long seconds. Then he blinked, as if a lightbulb had just flickered on in his mind.
Sometimes, a breakthrough comes out of the blue.
Li Su slapped his forehead in annoyance. “Missing persons! How could I forget?”
Meng Bai blinked. “?”
He clapped her hard on the shoulder. “Thanks to you—I’d have overlooked it otherwise.”
“What?” Meng Bai stared blankly.
“Nothing.” Li Su called out to the cluster of people ahead. “That’s a wrap for tonight. Leave two officers to secure the scene. Everyone else, pull out!” He was already striding forward but paused after a few steps and glanced back at Meng Bai. “I’m heading to the police station to dig into some records. Coming with?”
