I asked Huang Xiaotao to make a stop at my college before we set off for Wuqu City. I then went to my dorm room and packed up a few essentials into a small bag. When Huang Xiaotao saw me carrying it back to the car, she asked, “Aren’t you bringing your special umbrella?”

“No,” I grumbled, “I broke it. I’ll have to do without it this time.”

It happened that night when we were trying to catch Bai Yue. In the heat of the moment I smacked him with my umbrella, and it must’ve caught one of his fangs, because I found out afterwards that my trusty old umbrella had a big gaping hole in it. It broke my heart just thinking about it.

Traditional Coroners generally had no combat skills at all. Even in the Chronicles of Grand Magistrates, there was only one self-defense move mentioned, and the method was to throw specially-prepared medicinal powder at the face of the enemy, and this powder was supposed to make them faint, which gave you time to escape. When I thought about it, I must say that it was a pathetic self-defense move, to be used only when they were absolutely no other choices left.

But that was not to say that all of my forefathers were as useless in fights as I was. In fact, a few of them had actually been law enforcement officers, each having developed excellent skills. The most notable one was Song Buping, who was called the most-feared law enforcement officer in Guangxi and Guangzhou. He amassed our vast collection of martial arts techniques and wrote them down in a book called The Thirteen Techniques of the Song Family. I saw this book in Grandpa’s study before, but I had no interest in martial arts, so I never even gave it a second glance.

I’ve taken you on a long tour with this subject, but the point of it all was this: I am completely useless in fights!

All the way to Wuqu City, Dali slept in the back seat and snored loudly. He would sometimes stretch his body and then kick the front seat in the process, to my utter annoyance. Wang Yuanchao, on the other hand, sat beside Dali silently and without any discernible expression on his face at all, only occasionally pulling out a flat silver flask from his jacket and taking sips of libation from time to time.

Huang Xiaotao saw this through the rearview mirror and chided, “Haven’t you had enough alcohol in your system, Wang Yuanchao? You’ve been drinking all night!”

“Just want to keep myself awake,” answered Wang Yuanchao plainly. I almost snorted at that reply.

The distance between Nanjiang and Wuqu was about six hundred kilometers. I sat in the passenger seat in front, and took cat naps from time to time. After a distance, I woke up to find Huang Xiaotao bleary-eyed and yawning continuously.

“Why don’t you rest for a while?” I suggested. “Let me drive.”

“You’ve got a driver’s license?”

“No,” I replied, “but I did learn how to drive before.”

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” she asked doubtfully.

“Judging by the state that you’re in,” I said, “I won’t do worse than you.”

Huang Xiaotao found a place safe enough to stop and we switched places.

“I’ll take a short nap,” she announced, “but wake me up immediately if you see the traffic police. It’d be ironic if we get pulled over, considering there are two police officers and a police consultant in this car…”

“Roger!” I nodded.

I was taught to drive by my aunt before I got into college. She had a flourishing business of her own, so we used to have quite a number of cars at home. There was a lot of spacious empty fields in the town I grew up in, so I often had a lot of fun testing out cars there.

This would be the first time I touched a steering wheel in years, so I played around with it for a while to get my bearings before starting the engine and driving off.

At about four in the morning, the number of buildings by the road gradually increased, and occasionally I would see road signs with the words “Wuqu” on it more and more frequently. It was also around this time that I heard a rustling noise coming from the back seat.

“I’m so thirsty…” mumbled Dali. “Give me some water…”

Then suddenly, Dali jolted up in his seat and let out a scream which woke up both Wang Yuanchao and Huang Xiaotao.

“Where am I?” asked Dali in a panicked voice. “How did I get here? I’ve been kidnapped! Help! Help!”

“Be quiet, you idiot!” snapped Huang Xiaotao.

Only then did Dali realize that the rest of us were with him in the car. I quickly explained to him what was going on.

“Shit, dude,” he said, “you just solved the last case, and now you’re working on a new one already? Why don’t we open up a detective agency when we graduate? Dude, think of the money we’d make!”

“Stop blabbering, Dali,” I said. “This is a serious case, and I received a special request to help solve it from a high-ranking officer.”

“Will we get a fat bonus for this?” asked Dali with gleaming eyes.

“You and your potty mouth!” Huang Xiaotao reprimanded. “But don’t worry, Sun Tiger has promised that all our expenses will be paid for. So don’t forget to keep the receipts.”

Dali enthusiastically nodded.

“Dude,” he said, “I’m so glad you’re my bro! My life’s gotten so exciting because of you! From now on I’ll have so many interesting stories to impress girls with! Hahahaha!”

Huang Xiaotao glanced at Dali out of the corner of her eye.

“You really need to learn how to filter the filth that comes out of your mouth,” she said coolly.

“But is it going to be dangerous again this time?” Dali asked. “I’m not sure if I can handle another action-packed night like that time we caught the vampire again!”

He was getting on my nerves, so I told him, “Go back to sleep, Dali. I’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

Just as he began to calm down, the alcohol in his system started to act up. Dali covered his mouth and he looked so sick that he was seconds away from vomiting.

“You bastard!” yelled Huang Xiaotao nervously. “I’ll kill you if you throw up in my car! I just got it cleaned a week ago!”

“Don’t worry,” said Dali, forcing his sick down. “I’ll let it brew in my stomach until I get out of the car.”

At about five in the morning, I saw a breakfast restaurant so I decided to make a quick stop. Dali ran out like a rabid dog let out of a cage the moment I parked the car. He rushed to the nearest through and hurled out the contents of his stomach.

“Ugh, this is so embarrassing!” cried Huang Xiaotao. “I wish I could tell people I don’t know the guy!”

“I know that feeling well,” I laughed.

The four of us then had a simple breakfast, during which Huang Xiaotao gave the Wuqu City police station a call to inform of our arrival. We headed straight to the police station after our breakfast. When we reached the place, we were told that the leader of the task force, Officer Liao, was on the second floor waiting for us.

Just as we got to the second floor, the first thing we heard in the hallway was the loud voice of a woman, obviously irritated about something.

“I can’t believe this!” declaimed the woman. “Sending a kid who hasn’t even finished college yet to solve this case? And he had the nerve to stop me from performing an autopsy on the body! And Director-General Cheng allowed it! I know he’s the Provincial Chief, but he shouldn’t treat us professionals with such disrespect!”

“Don’t get me started…” replied another voice, this time a male. “I heard that the kid’s ancestors are Traditional Coroners. He probably used a bag of cheap tricks to impress the police officers of Nanjiang City and by dumb luck ended up solving two cases there. I can’t believe the higher-ups would take this kid seriously just for that…”

“What? A Traditional Coroner?” jeered the woman. “What a joke! What’s gotten into Director-General Cheng’s head? I can’t believe he’d fall for this fraud! I have a PhD in forensics, yet our whole team couldn’t solve the case, and here he comes waltzing in without any proper qualifications, thinking that he can do better than us!”

Huang Xiaotao smiled at me and whispered, “Listen to that, Song Yang. Someone’s belittling your profession again.”

“I’m used to it now,” I said, swallowing my pride and forcing down my emotions.

Huang Xiaotao cleared her throat loudly to announce our arrival, and the voices died down. We arrived at the door of the conference room, and was greeted by a chubby middle-aged police officer.

“Ah, welcome!” he said, all smiles. “You must be the group special consultants sent from Nanjiang city! Welcome! Let me introduce myself. My surname is Liao, you can just call me Old Liao!”

Huang Xiaotao made us a simple introduction. My gaze swept around the room, and I noticed a few police officers in there, some standing, some sitting on chairs. Among them there was a tall and slender woman wearing a big white lab coat. She had an air of haughtiness and arrogance about her, and at first glance she was pretty good-looking.

The other person I noticed was a policeman of about twenty years of age. There was something malicious about the look in his eyes. He seemed to be regarding us with utter disdain. My guess was that the voices we heard in the hallway must’ve been these two bastards.

Officer Liao briefly introduced each of the task force members. When it was the woman in the white coat’s turn, Office Liao said, “This is our coroner, Dr. Luo Weiwei. You can say that she’s the flower of our team.”

Dali perked instantly at the sight of a beautiful lady. He awkwardly but eagerly introduced himself and stepped forward to shake Luo Weiwei’s hand. To his surprise, Luo Weiwei folded her arms and turned up her nose in contempt, refusing even to acknowledge him.

“Weiwei!” scolded Officer Liao. “How could you be so rude?”

I thought to myself, looks like Luo Weiwei is going to be a major pain in the ass while we’re here.