The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

There were not many people walking around the ER section of the hospital in the middle of the night.

“I will give you a tetanus shot. Make sure to keep the wound clean for the next few days, don’t let it touch water.” After the doctor on duty gave Xiao Yu a few shots, he said, “Be extra careful to not get the area dirty.”

Xiao Yu nodded and glanced at his shoulder, then moved it around a bit.

Seeing that it did not seem to be anything major, Yu Yin could finally breathe easy. “Oh right, Doctor, are you originally from around here?” Yu Yin casually asked, having noticed that the doctor looked like he was in his thirties, and was unlikely to be an intern doctor.

“That’s right, I was born and raised here. As soon as I finished medical school, I returned to this place. After all, the southern district is better; it’s close to home, and the things here are cheap.” The doctor gestured for the nurse to clean up the tools as he said, “Although there has been a string of strange incidents recently, it could be said to be a rare experience.”

“True…” Yu Yin responded arbitrarily and stood up. He had purposely chosen to come back to this hospital.

Just as he was about to make up a pretense to ask about Li Lin Yue’s condition, a scream suddenly rang out from some other place. All the people in the room started in shock.

“Doctor, something happened with the special patient in 403!” A nurse hurriedly ran in and shouted.

The next moment was a flurry of chaos. The screams continued, causing the nurses and doctors to quickly dash over to the room. Yu Yin and Xiao Yu also ran after, but were blocked at the entrance of the room.

“Family members cannot enter.” A random nurse mistook their identities and stopped them outside.

Then a few loud shouts came from the room, followed by the thuds of something being tossed around. It was likely a chair that had been smashed. Either way, the security personnel immediately charged in as well and after a few seconds of chaos, the door of the room was finally opened.

Yu Yin stared in shock at the sight of the face he had not expected to see before him.

Li Lin Yue suddenly leapt out with her face as pale as a ghost’s. Her usual bright and beautiful appearance was completely gone, and even her hair was a mess. Her overall appearance was pretty terrible.

“Quickly restrain her!” A few nurses rushed out to chase after her while shouting. They had something like water dripping from their bodies, and they looked to be in a pretty miserable state.

“Get out of my way!” Li Lin Yue bluntly slapped the person standing in front of her without noticing who it was

“Oi, oi! Take a closer look!” Yu Yin quickly grabbed her hand and secured her in place to avoid being struck again. “It’s me, your classmate and friend!”

Li Lin Yue stood there blankly for two seconds before reaching out to grab his collar and pulled him closer to look. She then frantically clutched his hands while shouting, “Hurry! Go find Yi Lin and the others!”

She had only taken two steps, but this caused a wave of dizziness to hit her, and she fell onto her knees while gasping for air.

Yu Yin stopped the nurses from racing over and knelt down next to her. “Rest a bit first.” He took the water that Xiao Yu passed over and guided her drink it little by little.

Once she had calmed down somewhat, the nurses helped Yu Yin support her into another clean and empty patient room, then sat her down on the bed.

“Yi Lin and the others…” As soon as Li Yin Yue recovered, she began to fret again and tried to stand back up.

“You’ve been unconscious for a while. I only snuck over here after hearing Uncle and the others talk about it.” Yu Yin pressed her back into her original position before patting her cheek. “Long story short, what exactly…”

“Have to go.” Li Lin Yu grabbed Yu Yin’s shoulders, the corners of her lips curling up into a faint smile. “We have to go. Come with me to where Yi Lin and the others are, okay, Ah Yin? They’re still there; Ah Fang, Ah Guan, and the others are there too. We’re the only ones missing…no, actually, it would be alright if Xiao Yu went together too.”

If her eyes weren’t so clear, Yu Yin would have really slapped her to see if she was awake or not.

“Go where?” He was pretty proud of himself for staying so calm.

“Ah, didn’t you go in as well? You know where we need to go find them…” Li Lin Yue abruptly stood and knocked away the doctor who had wanted to inject her with a sedative. Seemingly unconsciously, she turned her head to look out the window. “And that person wearing a mask…kill him…”

“The patient’s mind is unclear!”

Several nurses quickly ran forwards to grab Li Lin Yue. Unexpectedly, she did not resist. She simply looked at the needle directly inserted into her arm containing medicine, and lifted her head to look at Yu Yin with an incomprehensible smile. “We’re all waiting for you there.”

“Where?” Yu Yin urgently asked while patting Li Lin Yue’s cheeks.

“Back then…why were there twenty people…?”

She murmured to herself a bit. Then, her words stopped and she closed her eyes, directly falling backwards. She did not speak again.

“She’s fallen unconscious, everyone else out!”

Then, he saw a certain person stand before him.

“Ah Yin, didn’t I ask you to obediently stay at home?”

A smile with bulging veins welcomed him along with a fist.

***

He turned on his cellphone and saw there were at least a dozen calls from his dad recorded in the history log.

After tossing out words like “You’d better wait right here” and “I’ll deal with you after I come back”, Yu Xia and another officer Yu Yin did not recognise (probably part of the southern district police) went to figure out the situation.

They were borrowing the lounge area meant for family members on the second floor. Xiao Yu lay off to one side, having already been tired for a while and had fallen asleep. Yu Yin sat nearby and flipped through his phone while putting a canned drink next to the bed.

“Huh?” When he scrolled down to the bottom of the message list, he saw a text from Yan Si that had been sent not long ago.

The instant he opened the message, Yu Yin nearly burst into laughter. He quickly covered his mouth to stop himself from waking up his family member that was currently resting. After taking a few deep breaths, he stared back closely at the contained file.

Even after looking at it a second time, he still really wanted to laugh out loud.

Yu Yin glanced at the still sleeping Xiao Yu and then walked out the door while still covering his mouth. Then, he secretly chuckled to himself for a bit before making a call.

The line quickly connected. For some reason, the background on the other end seemed to be a bit noisy, and there were also the sounds of sirens too.

“Heh? Student that was ganged up on, were you finally caught in the act?” Yan Si’s cool voice came from the other end. It sounded like he was purposely walking away to avoid the noise.

“How did you know I was in the southern district?” Yu Yin faintly smiled as he watched a transparent boy run over, then run back and slam its head into the wall.

“A guess based on your personal character and actions. I’m currently in the middle of a little something so I can’t chat with you for long, but what I did was pretty amusing, right? You’d better remember to bring me some special products with you when you come back.” Yan Si then quickly gave his regards before cutting the call; it appeared he really did not have the time to talk much.

“Alright.”

Yu Yin only had the time to respond with this single word before he heard a click from the other end in the following second that Yan Si hung up.

“You’re still in the mood for calling others?” An ice-cold voice seemed to creep up from behind Yu Yin.

He spun around and saw that it was Yu Xia, sporting a dark expression as expected. He was standing a few steps behind Yu Yin, and the words: “I’ll definitely beat you to death this time” were clearly written all over his face.

“Eh, before you hit me, Yan-dàgē said that you are not allowed to beat me until the injury on my head is healed completely. Otherwise, he’ll upload this photo onto your communications server for everyone to enjoy.” Yu Yin quickly pulled out the file on his cellphone and turned the phone to show the person already prepared to punch and shout at him.

The instant Yu Xia saw the phone screen, his face went stiff in a split second.

Having rarely seen his uncle become so deflated, Yu Yin inwardly snickered a few more times.

“Get rid of that immediately!” Yu Xia had absolutely no idea when that photo had been taken. He immediately lunged forwards to grab Yu Yin by the neck. “Delete it, delete it! Or else I’ll destroy you!”

“Ah—I’m dying!”

“Delete it first, then die!”

“If you don’t calm down, how do I delete it!”

Yu Xia let go and crossed his arms, his entire body radiating a dark aura as he glared viciously at his family’s son with a look that could kill. “Delete!”

Yu Yin coughed a few times as he took a few breaths before chuckling, “Uncle, don’t tell me this was when you were doing that high school case before…”

Yu Xia directly punched him before he could finish his words. Without giving any chance for further questions, Yu Xia pointed at the cellphone and said, “Or else I’ll smash it.”

“…Even if you smash it, the original is still with Yan Si-dàgē.” It was no wonder that his uncle’s expression always turned weird when he asked about the high school case, while his dad would always look like he wanted to laugh.

The cellphone display was showing a photo of Yu Xia.

One look was enough to tell that it had been secretly taken, but it was a pretty well-taken photo. Even the school name embroidered on the high school uniform was crystal clear. There was even a person next to him tying up his hair and dying it, while Yu Xia, in the middle of being disguised, had his head turned around to talk to another person about something.

“Actually, it suits you pretty well, Uncle. You look even more like a high school student than an actual high school student.” Yu Yin looked down at the photo, feeling on the verge of laughing himself to death. He really could not bring himself to erase the photo.

After all, his uncle had a pitifully small amount of photos. He did not like to take photos even when going out for fun. It was actually possible that the media had more photos of him than his family did.

Yu Xia swept his hand over to seize the cellphone, his expression stormy as he raised it high up in the air.

“Whoa! Don’t smash it, it’s really expensive, you know! I’ll just erase it now, alright!” Yu Yin rushed to grab back the cellphone he had just recently switched to. Forced to lower his head to the evil force captured in the photo, Yu Yin held back tears as he erased the picture. “Completely unreasonable…” He had actually already sent a copy to his own email, having expected this would happen.

After seeing that there was indeed the word of “Deleted” on the phone, Yu Xia finally relaxed in relief. He could also no longer be bothered to beat up Yu Yin.

“Didn’t I tell you to obediently stay home? And yet you still followed down here? How long have you been loitering around here?” Yu Xia asked. He caught the sight of the bandages on Xiao Yu’s shoulder and frowned extremely unhappily.

“Eh…it actually just so happened that we ended up picking this place after randomly drawing from the pile of holiday vouchers you and Dad gave us,” Yu Yin chuckled as he played dumb.

He was knocked down by a punch three seconds later.

“You think I’d believe that?” Yu Xia coldly glared at the person in front of him, knowing full well that he was purposely running his mouth with some excuse. Yu Xia continued, “If you two really came for vacation, then tell me how Xiao Yu’s injury happened.”

“Ah, that is because of a reason that cannot be explained with normal logic. In short, it’s the result of unpredictable events that led us over to this bizarre situation and…don’t hit my head anymore, I’m seriously going to die!” Yu Yin clutched his head that was actually starting to hurt, and quickly begged for mercy.

Seeing that he was not just pretending, Yu Xia just coldly snorted. “You two ran over to the villa?”

“Mhm, that villa is bit weird…” Yu Yin gave a general run-down of what they had encountered. No matter how much he thought about it, he still could not figure out an explanation.

“It doesn’t seem like the villa itself had anything happen to it, which is what I don’t understand. That thing doesn’t seem to be the benevolent type. If it’s even slicing at humans, it’s definitely a malicious ghost.”

More importantly, I stabbed its eye.

Yu Yin was suddenly struck by an ominous feeling as he glanced down at his hand. My life won’t be demanded in exchange just because of this, right?

“There haven’t been any similar incidents around here in the past either.” After listening to Yu Yin’s words, Yu Xia stated, “The most important part is the nineteen missing people. You should recognise most of them. Can you think of any place they would possibly go to?”

Since Yu Yin had already run over, Yu Xia figured he might as well ask for as many clues as possible to find those children that had disappeared over one night, better sooner than later.

“Sigh…based on those damned annoying personalities Ah Guan and the others have, they probably went over to the other side after circling around the city? I heard from the cab driver that there’s a common person’s shrine there. Without much worth seeing, they probably went straight back to the villa. After all, there had been barbecue stuff prepared, and Ah Fang probably wouldn’t let Yi Tai wait in the villa for too long.”

“Someone called to tell the pension that they would return later, so the barbecue tools typically prepared around five in the evening were instead done at half past six. At that time, the one that was noted for coming out and signing for the delivery was the student named Yi Tai. The next day, when they pensions staff came over at 6:30 in the morning to deliver breakfast, they discovered that the door was opened, and that girl, Li Lin Yue, was unconscious on the ground. In other words, the incident occurred sometime within that twelve hour window. The barbecue tools had not been touched at all, but Yi Tai had already gone missing, and Li Lin Yue was in the room. That meant they had returned at some point, but something had happened before they could even touch those things. That probably shrinks the time range to between 6:30 and 10 PM that night.” Yu Xia calculated the possible time of the incident while stating the records in his notebook.

“Mm…typically speaking, they would probably tear the stuff apart and start barbecuing the minute they came back.” Yu Yun contemplated this, agreeing to the time range.

“The critical point is that the nineteen bikes completely vanished. What did that girl say to you just now when she woke up?” Yu Xia turned to look at Yu Yin next to him. He had asked the doctor earlier, but Li Lin Yue had not spoken loudly at the time, so her last words were probably only heard by this guy. Although Yu Xia was reluctant to do so, he still had to ask Yu Yin.

After repeating Li Lin Yue’s incomprehensible words to Yu Xia, Yu Yin began to puzzle over them.

Why were there twenty people?

***

Li Lin Yue still did not wake up the next day.

After Xiao Yu awoke, Yu Yin dragged him to somewhere nearby for breakfast.

Because Yu Xia had come here as a position of transfer for assistance, he had to move together with the local police. Before he left, he warned the two to not act recklessly and then scrambled back with the officers of the next shift.

They obviously would not act recklessly.

We definitely will go slowly.

Yu Yin thought this to himself while drinking his rice milk.

Xiao Yu yawned as he languidly ate the baked sesame-coated cake on the table. He glanced at the person spacing out across from him and stretched out a hand to wave it before Yu Yin’s face a few times.

“What?” Yu Yin snapped out of it. He noticed the person sitting across from him who had already finished eating was currently staring at Yu Yin’s mostly untouched breakfast. “Oh, sorry.”

After he hurriedly finished his food, they first went back to the hotel to clean themselves up a bit. Then, they headed over to the pension per the directions.

Up until now, this was their first time coming to this place.

Before they had even stepped inside, they noticed the police cars already parked outside, then Yu Xia and a local officer standing at the front counter. The instant Yu Xia saw them, his expression turned cold as he made a subtle gesture of slitting his throat.

Yu Yin wiped his cold sweat away, but seeing as his uncle had no intent on exposing him, Yu Yin coughed quietly and pretended to be an absolutely normal traveler. He glanced around to survey the pension lobby.

Truthfully speaking, there was not anything special about the place. The lobby was very tidy and clean, with two or three staff members walking around organising things or greeting customers. There were resting seats and a vending machine on the other side of the front counter, in addition to a bookshelf and other basic installations. At the very end was a large painting and a staircase. Slightly offside it was an elevator.

The instant they entered, the pension owner couple simultaneously noticed them as well, and shot a subtle smile towards them as they continued talking with the police officers. The female owner then turned around and waved at them while walking over.

“I apologise, but now is not a very convenient time,” the owner named Wang Yu Fen told them in a low voice with a smile containing slight nervousness. Then, they shifted over to sit down in the resting area on the side.

“Oh, it’s fine. We just wanted to drop by and let you know that we went to the villa yesterday. We plan on going over to the common person’s shrine today.” Yu Yin noticed that Xiao Yu had walked over to the painting to look at it. He casually told the owner, “I also wanted to ask you if anything has happened in the villa before?”

“Huh? Nothing happened…the police officers asked about similar matters just now as well. But nothing like this has ever occurred in the villa in the past, this is the first time.” Wang Yu Fen said in slight concern, “If word gets out, our business will be over…and it’s the busy season now too. Some customers have already seemed to hear of rumours and begun to check out. If we can’t find those students soon, we are doomed.”

Yu Yin listened to the trivial complaints while saying some occasional words of agreement.

Because the police were still present, the owner did not say too much either. After telling them to look around the place for a bit, she went back to the front counter to continue attending to others and dealing with some other customer-related tasks.

Yu Yin glanced over at Yu Xia’s group, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to ask around much at this time, and instead walked over to clap a hand on Xiao Yu still inspecting the painting. “What are you doing? Is this painting really expensive?” He studied it for a while but could not figure out if it was of high quality or not.

Xiao Yu shook his head, and after scrutinising it a bit longer, finally followed Yu Yin out of the pension.

Now that morning had passed, the air had turned scorching hot again.

“Holy crap…why in the world do people like coming here for vacation…” Yu Yin felt like he was on the verge of dying from the unbearable heat.

People really do lose tolerance after staying too long in air-conditioning.

Yu Yin felt he had grown weak as he rode the scooter back and noticed an older man walking around the fields wearing long sleeves.

As they followed the path past the villa and through the small woods, they indeed saw the large open space soon after. The outer area was filled with weeds, as well as quite a bit of tossed trash. Further in was the extremely empty area with the common person’s shrine and a strangely black, earthen stage.

Yu Yin stopped the scooter and scanned the area, not noticing anything strange. Although the land around the common person’s shrine had been cleaned very well, he did not see any people.

Guess the residents nearby probably clean in turns?

Xiao Yu jumped off the bike and put on his hat to block the rising, blinding sun rays, curiously walking around the black, earthen stage.

“Oh? Have you never seen this kind of thing before?” Yu Yin approached him, having noticed the somewhat intrigued expression on his face. “This should be a small, earthen stage, right? I heard that these didn’t exist in the early days. Back then, performers brought around their own materials to build canopies. This seems to have been made a bit later. The earthen shrine near our place has one too. But why is this one black…?” Yu Yin furrowed his brows in thought, having never seen anyone make this kind of stage black before. Xiao Yu wiped his finger across the black clay stage and peered closely at the dirty he had swept off. He then shoved it in front of Yu Yin’s face and suddenly said in a very soft voice, “Caught fire…traces of being burned…”

“Huh?” Yu Yin stared blankly in shock at the sudden speech. A few seconds later, he shifted his gaze over as well, and discovered that the colour had indeed appeared later, as the black was not evenly distributed. Along with some other traces of stains, it was evident that something had happened here. However, they had no way of knowing what kind of situation had caused the entire stage to be burned to this devastating extent.

As he neared the stage, he discovered that although the sun was so large outside that it felt as if it could practically eat people, the stage didn’t seem to absorb the sun’s rays at all. The narrow space was so dark that nothing was visible underneath. All he could faintly see was that there seemed to be a pile of abandoned junk inside.

“Dolls.” Xiao Yu turned around and said as he picked up a wooden puppet thrown on the ground.

“These are glove puppets, have you never seen them before?” Yu Yin shook his head at the other boy and sighed. He had no idea what that guy’s family situation had to have been before for him to not even know these kinds of things.

“…Not the same!” Xiao Yu brought the object out of the stage to inspect the slightly bizarre and damaged puppet under the sunlight.

The instant it touched the sun’s rays, Yu Yin seemed to see a strange, black shadow vanish under the light. Then, the broken puppet made a peculiar noise and abruptly shattered.

Xiao Yu looked down at the pieces that had fallen from his hands onto the ground and dusted off his hands to clap out all of the remaining shards.

“This place is apparently pretty full of yin, don’t pick anything up anymore.” When Yu Yin raised his head, he saw a shadow slowly disappear into the dark space under the stage.

“Mm.” Xiao Yu nodded and patted Yu Yin’s arm. “This.”

Yu Yin followed his guidance and looked down, discovering quite a few marks from bikes on the ground. “Huh? Looks like Ah Guan’s group really did come over here.” The tracks seemed to have been from several days ago. Although most of them were already blurred, they could more or less be differentiated since very few people came to this place to pray.

So they could confirm that those guys really had been unafraid of death and run over here to fool around a bit.

“Sigh, speak some more?” Yu Yin said as he elbowed Xiao Yu, since it was rare for him to say anything.

Xiao Yu just gave him a look and lowered his head to lock his gaze onto those marks, falling back into silence.

***

“There was a large fire here in the past.” Yu Yin turned around and saw Yu Xia and the local officer standing a bit further behind them. “It was around fifteen years ago. There was a glove puppeteer that had been invited out here to perform for three days, but in the end, a serious fire broke out on the second day, burning twenty-one people to death.”

“Huh? Twenty-one people?” Yu Yin furrowed his brows at the suspiciously close number.

“Officer Yu, this person is…”

“Those two are my sons. The older one also just happens to be a classmate to the missing students.” Yu Xia shot a glare at the guy who had still run over to stick his nose in while answering the officer’s confusion.

“I see, and here I had thought he was your brother. But why do you look almost younger than your own son? When you first reported here, we all thought you were a new intern from the police academy.”

Yu Yin felt that the only reason his uncle didn’t punch the other right there and then was likely because the officer was smiling very warmly and the fact that he was oblivious to his offense.

The friendly, accompanying officer appeared to regard Yu Yin as part of his own people, and said without evading anything, “Oh right, back then, I was actually just a junior high student. The incident blew up pretty big in the area we spent our days in – nearly everyone knew about it. This common person’s shrine had actually been quite a sight back then. All kinds of odd people would come here in the middle of the night to request for winning numbers. It only became abandoned after people’s interests waned off. But later the trend of drawing sticks spread, and a lot of people would still run over here in the middle of the night. Apparently, someone back then really did earn quite a bit of money at one time. As a promise to the common person’s shrine to pay back, they invited the performer to come perform for three days straight. But on the second evening, halfway through the performance, the stage somehow burst into flames suddenly. The fire quickly spread before anyone inside could escape. In addition, the set-up scaffolding had collapsed and trapped the path out, so only one person out of the twenty-two people present at the show survived…back then, he just happened to have gone out to buy drinks and managed to avoid the disaster.”

The uniformed officer paused to look around the area. “This large empty space was originally meant to build an extension for the common person’s shrine with people’s donations. But it was not built after the incident occurred, turning into the state you currently see.”

“You know it pretty well.” Yu Xia glanced at his temporary partner, as he did not know so many details. He had only found out about the fire part from borrowing the local police station’s files after hearing Yu Yin say “twenty people” yesterday.

The officer smiled in slight embarrassment and scratched his head while saying, “Not really. Actually, my friends and I secretly came over to watch the evening show back then…youths were not restricted from it at the time. Later, the adults scolded us pretty badly. But back during the fire, I also helped with the fire fighting, as well as the night-shift doctor at that hospital who had come with me. We were neighbours in the past, and he still had not become a doctor back then. However, I think remember that he also brought a friend? Since I did not know them, I forgot who it was. Anyways, by the time the adults found out, the blaze was already roaring. I stood off to one side while watching them constantly haul the black, scorched people out. Some of them still had flames on their bodies, emitting an…odour. That’s all I remember. The doctor and his friend just helped with first aid.”

After seeing the pitch-black stage, Yu Yin could more or less imagine the scene at the time.

A raging fire that could destroy a stage to this extent…this place probably seemed like hell that night.

Within a second, the performer at the common person’s shrine had really acted out a purgatory. Such an image was not one that anybody would want to watch.

“The sole survivor you mentioned would be…?” Yu Xia asked, noticing the odd point in the words.

“Oh, the boss of the pension. His name is Xie Qing Hai. He ended up marrying the old neighbourhood chief’s daughter, and the two of them used a large sum of money to open the pension. The chief left some farmland as part of his inheritance after his passing, which they later used to build the villa.” The officer tilted his head at the family of three before him and asked in a puzzled tone, “Does that have anything to do with the missing persons case?”

“It doesn’t, it just happens to be a major case like this one, so my workaholic habit kicked in.” Yu Xia casually added, “Oh right, you can just treat this as a random question out of curiousity, but did you see anything strange that night of the fire when you and the other two went to watch the evening show?”

The officer shook his head. “Probably just the fact that we accidentally hit the electricity generator that day, and were scolded very badly?”

“I see.”

Yu Xia nodded and turned around. “Also, you two had better not run around all over the place anymore, Ah Yin! Go back to your hotel and take your vacation! If I bump into you two again, I’ll definitely kill you!”

“Eh…” That’s a bit hard.

“Ah, let’s keep calm and talk it out.” The officer pressed from where he stood in between them. He then passed Yu Yin a name card. “We are currently attaching heavy importance to looking for the missing nineteen people. Since student Yu also knows them, please immediately contact us if you learn of any information.”

Yu Yin looked down at the name card that contained the officer’s name and cellphone number. He nodded and stowed it away.

After a few more exchange of words, Yu Xia fiercely warned them once more not to run around, before leaving and rushing off to some other place with the local officer.

“Seems like there shouldn’t be anything special over here. Let’s go back to the pension and look around.” Yu Yin started the engine of his scooter and turned to give one last glance at the earthen stage.

A badly burnt hand slowly stretched out from the gloomy space to slowly wave at them.

Yu Yin decided to pretend as if he had not seen it, and quickly pressed down on the accelerator to run away.

In the area behind them, that hand continued to slowly wave around…