Volume Twelve: An Invitation from Hell Chapter Five: The Third Invitation

The investigation into the Hell Invitation case was still ongoing, yet there had been no progress at all. The killer did not seem interested in being found by the police; his real purpose was more to expose the things hidden in the dark. Yao Guang did not object to that, but the murders themselves were harder for him to accept. As for the stolen souls and bodily tissue of the victims, Gongxian had been searching outside all this time and had still found no trace.

“Phoenix.” Xuan Chen came in.

“You found the third invitation?” Yao Guang asked.

“Yes. Let’s go.” Xuan Chen turned and walked out.

The scene of the crime was in a residential tower in an upscale complex, on the eleventh floor. When Yao Guang and the others reached the door, they saw Officer Song’s team busy inside.

“What’s the situation?” Yao Guang asked after putting on his gloves and shoe covers.

“Four words: appalling and gruesome. Be mentally prepared,” Officer Song said, his expression dark.

“Then give me the basic facts first,” Yao Guang said.

“The victim, Wei Shanshan, female, twenty-eight, died in the living room. Doors and windows were intact, with no signs of forced entry or external opening. Preliminary estimate puts the time of death between one-thirty and two in the morning. Living with the victim was her older brother, Wei Jiang. At the time of death, he was working late at his unit. He got off work after eight in the morning, came home, opened the door, and found his younger sister dead, then called the police. This is the primary crime scene. No fingerprints, no footprints. The surveillance, though, is interesting. On the route from the complex entrance here, all cameras turned to static between one-fifteen and two in the morning yesterday. We asked the property management about the monitoring system; they said it was a system malfunction, but no matter how they fixed it, nothing worked. At two o’clock, the cameras recovered on their own. The security guard said it was truly haunted. We’ve never run into anything like this before.” Officer Song spoke as he went on.

“Then it was haunted. Magnetic interference. Where’s the invitation?” Yao Guang glanced at the hallway camera. There was no need to count on those cameras; there would be no clues there at all.

“Here you go, the third one. Phoenix, how many of these invitations do you think there are?” Officer Song asked.

“As many as there are levels of hell, there will be as many invitations, unless we can catch this guy,” Yao Guang said, opening the invitation. It was black paper, a skull, a sinister surge of spiritual energy, and red printed text:

Invited: Wei Shanshan

You like your brother very much, don’t you? You dislike your sister-in-law very much, don’t you? Do you dislike every woman who comes into contact with your brother? So you used every possible means to drive those women away. Your brother could belong only to you, right? Very good. You like your brother, but I like you. Bring your selfishness with you, and come with me as my guest in hell.

Signed: The Messenger of Hell.

“Interesting. So this little sister has quite a story.” Yao Guang put away the invitation and stepped over the threshold. The sight before him was no longer merely appalling; it was outright monstrous. In the center of the living room stood a metal pillar, covered with countless sharp blades. The victim had been tied to it, the blades piercing through her body, her feet off the ground, half-bound and half-hanging there as blood ran down from the wounds. There was a blood hole in her chest, right where her heart should have been.

On the sofa sat a man, head lowered, one hand supporting his face, tears slipping from his fingertips. He was crying very quietly. His body trembled faintly.

Yao Guang walked over and reached for the victim’s heavenly spirit. As expected, there was no soul, and the spiritual awareness was extremely weak, showing traces of demonic aura surging through. Yao Guang had been puzzled for some time by this strange aura. It was odd, neither like a vicious ghost nor like a ghost immortal. What exactly was it?

He moved to the man’s side, uncertain of what to say. The loss of a close family member was not something words could comfort.

“Officer, ask whatever you want,” Wei Jiang said, lifting his head and wiping away his tears. His voice was rough with grief. The moment he looked up, the man before Yao Guang left him a little startled. He looked as if he had stepped straight out of a comic, so strikingly handsome that “handsome” alone could not describe him.

“Did you and your sister have a good relationship?” Yao Guang asked.

“I’m four years older than my sister. The year she was born, our mother was already gone. Our father raised us alone. Later Father passed away too. By then I was already an adult, so I took my sister with me. From that time on, I was her only support and only family. I gave my sister the best of everything, and she was sensible too. She never asked me for anything. The two of us depended on each other like that.” Wei Jiang answered.

“Do you know whether your sister had any enemies?” Yao Guang asked.

“It shouldn’t be possible. My sister’s personality was fairly easygoing,” Wei Jiang said.

“Fine. We’ll contact you if anything comes up.” Yao Guang stood up and left the room.

Once outside, Yao Guang looked at Jiang Yun. “The three of you split up. First group, investigate Wei Shanshan’s social connections. Second group, look into the women who had relationships with Wei Jiang. Third group, find which of Wei Jiang’s female friends had any contact with Wei Shanshan.”

“Master, did you find something?” Jiang Yun asked.

“The invitation says Wei Shanshan didn’t like her sister-in-law and disliked every woman who came into contact with Wei Jiang. It also says she used every means to drive those women away. There must be more hidden in this than we realize. I suspect Wei Shanshan must have done something unforgivable. Otherwise this killer would not have murdered her. If it were only a matter of sowing discord, there would be no need to kill Wei Shanshan.” With that, Yao Guang walked away.

Back at the bureau, Yao Guang began pulling up Wei Jiang’s personal information. On the surface, it looked as though the killer was targeting Wei Shanshan, but in truth the fuse behind all this was Wei Jiang. That comic-book handsome man was the very “mythical jade” that stirred the conflict.

Wei Jiang, from Weicheng City, thirty-two years old, computer software programming engineer, graduated from the Department of Computer Science at Weicheng City University of Engineering and Technology.

“A man in IT who looks like he walked straight out of a comic? That’s basically every woman’s dream, isn’t it? Hmm?” Yao Guang stared at the information, momentarily stunned.

“Then did you find anything?” Chu Tianyou came over and asked.

“Look at the household registration details for Wei Jiang, under marital status: widowed. His wife died?” Yao Guang glanced at Chu Tianyou. “Check information on Wei Jiang’s deceased wife.”

“Okay.” Chu Tianyou started searching, and as he did, his mood turned sour. “Phoenix, Wei Jiang didn’t just lose one wife. In five years, he was widowed twice.”

“That’s more interesting. Check the causes of death for both wives and see which hospitals handled them.” Yao Guang finished speaking and began pulling up information on Wei Jiang’s two deceased wives.

“Found it. The first was at the Women and Children’s Hospital, the second at the First People’s Hospital.” Chu Tianyou printed out the information.

“Let’s go to the Women and Children’s Hospital first.” Yao Guang headed out.

At the Women and Children’s Hospital, they found the director’s office.

“Officer, I wonder what I can help you with?” the director asked.

“Do you know this person?” Yao Guang handed over the information on Wei Jiang’s first spouse.

“Linlang. I remember this person. What about her?” the director asked.

“We’re investigating another case, and it involves some things from this person’s life before death. Do you know what she died of?” Yao Guang asked.

“I seem to remember it was massive bleeding. Wait here; I’ll go retrieve the records.” The director left. After a long while, he returned with a medical file.

Yao Guang took it. It read: rupture of the internal organ lining, causing massive bleeding and obstructed labor. After a cesarean section, the infant died due to congenital weakness and failed resuscitation.

“When this woman was brought in, her pants were already soaked red with blood. In that condition, the child definitely could not be saved, so we performed a cesarean to induce delivery. After the operation, we found that the mother had a rupture of the internal organ lining. To save her, we performed an organ-removal procedure, but because she had already lost too much blood, even with emergency transfusion, we still couldn’t save the adult. The baby was only six months along at the time; due to congenital weakness, we tried to resuscitate after the cesarean, but still couldn’t bring it back. One death, two lives lost.” The director sighed and shook his head.

“Do you still remember who brought the pregnant woman to the hospital?” Chu Tianyou asked.

“I do. It happened to be my specialist consultation day. Because the situation was urgent, I directly joined the rescue effort. It was a young woman who brought her in, and she was crying so hard she could hardly speak coherently. Halfway through the rescue, a man came in saying he was the pregnant woman’s husband.” The director recalled.

“Do you think this girl is the one who brought the pregnant woman in?” Yao Guang handed over Wei Shanshan’s photo.

“Yes, it was her,” the director said with certainty.

“Then during the rescue, did you notice anything unusual about Linlang?” Yao Guang asked.

“From the moment she was brought in until her death, she was unconscious. At the time we were focused only on saving her and didn’t notice anything else,” the director said.

“Understood. Thank you.” Yao Guang left the hospital.

“Phoenix, don’t you think something about this is off?” Chu Tianyou asked.

“Wei Shanshan brought Linlang to the hospital, but from admission until death, Linlang was unconscious. Also, what caused the rupture of Linlang’s internal organ lining? That had to be due to external force. Either she suffered a severe blow, or she fell. But what kind of situation could make a pregnant woman fall so badly?” Yao Guang asked.

“You’ve got a point. Let’s go to the First People’s Hospital and check on this person named Feng Hui,” Chu Tianyou said as he got into the car.

At the First People’s Hospital, they used the same method to pull up Feng Hui’s records. The result: brain death caused by gas poisoning.

“What condition was the patient in when she was brought in?” Yao Guang asked the attending physician who had taken part in the rescue.

“Let me think. The patient came in wearing pajamas, and something was already wrong with her when she arrived. We tried to save her for a long time, but it still didn’t work. She had inhaled too much gas and had already suffered brain death,” the doctor said.

“Then do you remember who brought her in?” Yao Guang asked.

“A girl in her twenties. She said the patient was her sister-in-law,” the doctor replied. “What a pity. When she died, she was already two months pregnant. Sigh, how could she have been so careless? Why didn’t she shut off the gas at home properly?”

“Take a look. Is this the girl?” Yao Guang produced Wei Shanshan’s photo.

“Yes, it was this girl. She was crying so heartbreakingly at the time,” the doctor said.

“Thank you.” Yao Guang left the hospital and said, “Tianyou, do you think the deaths of Wei Jiang’s two wives might have been orchestrated by Wei Shanshan herself?”

“I have the same feeling, but we don’t have any evidence,” Tianyou said.

“Let’s go back first.” Yao Guang got into the car, and deep in his heart, he had a strong premonition that the deaths of Linlang and Feng Hui were no accident.