Old Mo didn't dare sleep anymore. The two of them stayed awake until dawn. Once daylight came, Old Mo took advantage of his father's momentary distraction and turned his phone back on.
In just one night, nearly a hundred calls had come through, along with dozens of messages — all from his colleagues and the director asking about his whereabouts. When Old Mo read the last text message, his hand nearly dropped the phone.
The final message was from the colleague who had been with him at the scene the previous night, and it simply said six words: "Director is dead, come back immediately." The time stamp showed it had been sent right at the time when the eerie events happened in the early morning hours.
Something major had happened! Old Mo couldn't stay at home any longer. His father did not stop him as he hurried back to the police bureau. The scene there was tense—outside the forensic department, police officers were standing guard like they were preparing for battle.
When Old Mo arrived, the city bureau's forensic doctors were inside photographing the director's body.
The director lay fully naked on the autopsy table, his abdomen already cut open. His organs were removed and neatly placed in glass containers beside him. Samples from key organs were taken for pathological tests.
If that wasn't eerie enough, the scene next to the table sent chills down everyone's spines.
Sitting "at" the desk used for writing autopsy reports was the third corpse discovered the previous evening. This corpse held the director's specialized steel pen in one hand, and on the desk lay a blank autopsy report. It looked as though the corpse was preparing to fill out the director's report.
Seeing Old Mo, the homicide captain pulled him aside and asked where he had been the night before and why he hadn't performed the autopsy immediately. These were routine questions. Surveillance footage confirmed that Old Mo had not appeared at the bureau since the previous evening—apart from leaving without notice, there was nothing suspicious about him.
Old Mo explained that after witnessing the corpse's strange movements, he was mentally unsettled. Not understanding why the corpses acted that way, he had gone home to consult his father, an experienced forensic pathologist, and had unwittingly spent the entire night there. Although his explanation was somewhat far-fetched, it was believable to the homicide captain, who had also witnessed the bizarre events and understood Old Mo's fear of performing an autopsy on a recently "resurrected" corpse in the dead of night.
After a few more questions, the homicide captain basically ruled out Old Mo as a suspect. Old Mo then asked him, "Who performed the autopsy on our director? Do we have a cause of death?"
The captain's face darkened, his cheek muscles twitching. He glanced at the corpse sitting at the desk and said, "God only knows who did it—or maybe a ghost did. When they found him, the director was already like that."
Looking at the pale-faced Old Mo, the captain added, "Little Mo, I heard you did the autopsy last night. You've got a lucky life. Your director died in your place. Otherwise, the one lying there with his belly cut open would be you."
Old Mo shivered at these words. He immediately recalled the nightmare he had had: the director, covered in blood, had said exactly the same thing. Was it really just a dream? The moment that blurry figure appeared was the same time the director's body was discovered. It seemed too coincidental—even the director on the autopsy table would not believe it.
The city bureau sent people to question Old Mo, asking similar questions as the homicide captain had. Afterwards, they released him. The forensic department's work went on until dusk before ending for the day. The director and the three corpses were subjected to deep autopsies by the city bureau's forensic doctors, but no clues related to their causes of death were found.
Since the city bureau's forensic cold storage was full, the director's and the three victims' bodies were temporarily kept in the local bureau's freezers, to be transferred the next day.
Old Mo and several colleagues personally placed the director and the three corpses into the freezer. It happened to be Old Mo's shift that night; no one bothered him and he was left alone at the police station.
Old Mo didn't dare to go near the autopsy room at all. He spent the entire night in the police station's duty room to build up his courage. Around the middle of the night, he went to the restroom. After finishing, he pushed open the duty room's door again—and his whole body trembled as if shocked by electricity, standing frozen at the doorway.
He clearly opened the duty room door, but inside was the autopsy room in their forensic suite…
If it weren't for the strange events of the past few days, Old Mo might have fainted right then and there. A cold chill kept pouring from the back of his head. The autopsy room was filled with a strong stench of decay, and a vague figure was sitting at the desk. Because the lights were off, the room was pitch black, and the figure's shape was hard to make out. When the figure heard the door open, it slowly turned its head toward Old Mo.
Old Mo wasn't completely unprepared. Before leaving home that morning, he had emptied all the salt from his father's jars into his two pockets. Now, with little else to lose, Old Mo pulled out two handfuls of salt, one from each pocket, and tossed them toward the figure.
Without waiting for a reaction, he spun around and ran backward. After just two steps, he suddenly stopped, turned 180 degrees, and found himself still in the autopsy room. Because of those two steps, Old Mo was now inside the room.
Before Old Mo could turn to run again, there was a loud bang behind him—the autopsy room door slammed shut. He stood frozen, afraid to move. Then the figure moved. It picked up some salt from the desk, licked it with its tongue, and immediately spat it out: "Ptooey, ptooey, this is just salted salt! I'm a living person, not a newly dead ghost. This stuff won't work on me."
The voice was old and wheezy, so convincingly ancient that no one would doubt the man was over a hundred years old.
Hearing this, Old Mo's heart finally settled back into his chest. Just as he was about to ask what the figure wanted, the figure suddenly muttered something fast and tangled—Old Mo couldn't make out a word. The moment the figure finished speaking, Old Mo's heart clenched tightly, as if someone had tied a thin rope around it. Then his chest felt as if on fire, as if he had just swallowed a mouthful of strong acid burning down to his chest.
His legs went weak and he collapsed to his knees. Mouth agape, he tried to scream for help but no sound came out. He gasped for breath, but no air could reach his lungs. Slowly, his brain began to starve for oxygen. The room blurred before his eyes, and he slumped onto the floor.
As he lay gasping on the ground, Old Mo's vision suddenly cleared inexplicably. Although the room was still pitch black, he could now clearly see an extremely old man sitting before the desk. The man's white hair was like snow, and his face was covered with deep wrinkles like a dried-up apple.
Even though Old Mo's eyes were clear, the burning sensation in his chest didn't lessen. His limbs were weak and useless; all he could do was helplessly await death.
Just as Old Mo was about to lose consciousness, there was a loud "bang." The autopsy room door was kicked open, and a skinny man, as thin as a bamboo pole, strode in: "Not to say, but I could smell you from outside. You're a living person but keep acting like a living ghost."
The moment this man entered, the binding on Old Mo's heart vanished without a trace. Air flooded his lungs again, pulling him back from the brink of death. Old Mo struggled to his feet. He didn't know who the skinny man was, but he didn't seem threatening.
The old man saw the skinny man enter and trembled violently. He dashed toward the window but stopped after a few steps. His face was as ugly as the expression Old Mo had seen earlier. He glanced back at the skinny man and said, "Who's guarding the window outside this time?"
The skinny man chuckled, "Whoever caught you last time, they're still outside waiting for you."
The old man's thin eye twitched, then he glared at the skinny man, "One at the door, one outside the window—Is that a rule from your Bureau of Paranormal Investigation?"
The skinny man didn't answer directly, "You can ask Po Jun yourself later. Last time you escaped from his hands, he's been thinking about you ever since."
At the mention of Po Jun, the old man's face twisted as if punched. Before he could speak, the window was pushed open from outside. A man over two meters tall flipped in at an impossible angle.
The old man instinctively stepped back, his face filled with terror as he stared at the towering man.
The tall man immediately advanced toward the old man. Trembling, the old man backed away, saying, "I'm still alive—you can't do anything to me…"
Before he finished, the tall man ignored him, pulled out a telescopic baton from behind his waist, and swung it at the old man's face.
The old man reflexively blocked with his arm, but there was a loud crack as the baton hit hard. His arm bent at an unnatural angle. The old man screamed and rolled on the ground clutching his arm.
The tall man swung the baton at the old man's other arm. The old man was helpless and took the blow—another crack was heard. The old man immediately passed out and lay motionless on the ground.
The tall man showed no signs of relaxing. He stared fixedly at the old man, as if afraid he might suddenly run away.
After about twelve or thirteen minutes, the tall man pulled out a handful of white powder from his pocket and scattered it on the ground about five or six meters from the old man.
As the powder touched the ground, thick smoke suddenly billowed up. Then a scream was heard. The old man's body disappeared into thin air.
At the same moment, the old man reappeared out of nowhere on the spot where the white powder had been spread.
Now the old man was curled up, both arms disabled. But the tall man was relentless—he raised the baton and began beating the old man mercilessly.
After several strikes, the old man pleaded, "I'm still alive—you still have questions for me…"
"You're not alive anymore!" The tall man barked and struck the old man's temple with the baton.
The old man didn't make a sound and collapsed, dead.