“So, you are an officer.” When he heard that Zhao Yu was a policeman, Master Zhang was not scared anymore, but he suddenly wilted.
“Master, next, let’s talk about my real reason for coming here.” Zhao Yu opened his briefcase, took out the picture of the Seven Star Hanging Coffins, and said, “Take a look at this, do you know it?”
The master stretched his neck and looked at it. He immediately asked, “Officer, what do you mean? Isn’t this the Seven Star Hanging Coffins in Wuqing Mountain? I heard that there were corpses in the coffins, right? Many villagers had gone to see it.”
Suddenly, Master Zhang seemed to understand what Zhao Yu had meant and hurriedly apologized. “Officer, don’t mistake my meaning. The bodies in the hanging coffins have nothing to do with us. We just heard about it. We don’t have that ability…”
“Hum. You are capable of many terrible things.” Zhao Yu stopped smiling and asked seriously, “Tell me, do you know anything about the Seven Star Hanging Coffins?”
Later, Zhao Yu told the master about the hanging coffins and the bodies.
“Ah? Is it?” When Zhao Yu finished, Master Zhang was shocked. “The Seven Star Hanging Coffins is on the cliff facing the sun. How can the bodies not rot? The temperature must be very high there under the sunlight. Maybe the bodies are just put there recently?” he asked.
“I don’t want to know this. I don’t think I need to explain to you about the sentence. It’s a matter of certainty that you will be sentenced to more than three years’ imprisonment for poisoning me,” Zhao Yu said.
Zhao Yu then added, “But if you can give us a clue about the hanging coffin case, I can consider withdrawing this accusation. Then it’s totally different. I think you are a smart man, aren’t you?”
“Oh, listen to what you said. Don’t worry. I will never hide anything that I know from you. Just…” The master frowned and thought hard for a long time. Then he said, “the Seven Star Hanging Coffins are a treasure left by the ancient people. It’s very mysterious. Few people in our business talk about it. If only from the point of view of geomancy, that place is a good choice for funerary. You know, that place connects the sky and the earth.”
“But, but…” He thought carefully, using his fingers to pinch his eyebrows. “If someone put a girls’ body in a hanging coffin and there are the eight characters of her birthday, this…”
Zhao Yu looked at the master pinching his eyebrows and closing his eyes. He immediately shouted at him, “What? Do you want to charge for this?”
“No, no.” Master Zhang quickly waved his hand. “I just, I am just thinking about something.”
“Well…” The master thought a little then asked, “Officer, are the seven girls virgins?”
Zhao Yu had never thought about that before, nor had he heard it from the forensic experts. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know. The bodies are being dissected. I can ask this for you later. Um… What are you suggesting by asking this?”
Master Zhang frowned and said, “Oh, I’m just thinking. Because, this, at first glance, looks like a funeral for someone of high status. But Wuqing people are descendants of Zhe. We advocate cremation. So, there are not many corpses left. Basically, we seldom see this way of burial…”
The master twisted his eyebrows and said, “So, to me, this is more like a practice of life extension for someone.”
“Oh? Renew a life?” Zhao Yu had guessed as much before.
“Yes,” Master Zhang said. “Have you read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Zhuge Kongming used the seven-star lamp in an attempt to change a kingdom’s fate. But it didn’t work. Well, the Seven Star Hanging Coffins represents the seven stars of the Big Dipper. Maybe someone borrowed Zhuge Kongming’s ideas but changed them a little. The change is the seven bodies.”
Zhao Yu was speechless.
Master Zhang said, “In the past, a woman’s body was buried with the dead. Just one was enough. But this time it is seven girls. That’s different. I’ve heard from someone that burying young virgins with the dead is a way to extend the dead’s life. A virgin’s body is called a pure Yin body.”
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“So, have you ever done this or seen it before?” Zhao Yu asked.
“No. Definitely not.” Master Zhang hurriedly waved his hand. “I haven’t ever done this kind of thing. And all the guys I know have never done this, either. I told you just now that all the dead have been sent to the funeral home for cremation. There are no corpses left at all. You can’t cast a spell on an urn, can you?”
Zhao Yu smacked his mouth and asked, “Then, in your opinion, if the seven girls in the Seven Star Hanging Coffins were not murdered, how did the bodies get into the hanging coffins?”
The master said without hesitation, “Then the only possibility is that they were shipped here. Xiakou and Yuejiang really like burying their bodies in the ground. Maybe someone bought them from there? Or, the bodies were dug out of the graves? But digging graves damages Yin and Yang, and also lessens one’s lifespan. No one would do such a thing unless they are extremely poor or crazy.”
“Impossible.” Zhao Yu shook his head. “The bodies have no trace of freezing. If they were transported from hundreds of kilometers away, how would the bodies not rot in such hot weather?”
Master Zhang shook his head. “That’s strange. No one could get so many young girls’ bodies unless they were all their own children.”
Zhao Yu felt depressed. He thought that he could discover something from this so-called master. Unexpectedly, he seemed useless as what he said was what Zhao Yu already had known. Master Zhang hadn’t provided anything of use to him yet.
At that time, Xu Lu, who had knocked his head against the door frame, and master Zhang’s wife, gradually awakened.
Zhao Yu knew that once they woke up, his work would be disturbed. So, he wanted to take the opportunity to ask some more questions before that happened.
Unexpectedly, before Zhao Yu spoke, Master Zhang suddenly thought of something. “Officer, there’s something that doesn’t feel right…” he quickly said with a frown.
“Oh? What is it?” Zhao Yu urged.
Master Zhang thought for a moment then asked, “You just said that among the bodies of those girls, some had died of illness, right?”
“Yes. One of the dead died of a heart attack.” Zhao Yu nodded.
“And one was strangled?” Master Zhang asked again.
“Yes, what’s wrong with that?” Zhao Yu asked.
“There’s indeed something wrong with it. Qi Yun Da Xing and Kanyu Xuan Jing say that if you want to change your fate by borrowing others’ lifespan, it’s a taboo to use people who died of illnesses, especially bad diseases.” Master Zhang spread out his hand and explained, “You pray for longevity, but a person who has a terminal illness can’t lend lifespan to you.”
Zhao Yu smacked his mouth. Although what the master said sounded weird, Zhao Yu believed him.
The master said again, “If you want to extend life expectancy, a person who kills themselves by cutting their wrist or taking drugs is the top choice. But a person who is strangled or who dies in a car accident is a taboo. Using such a person to extend life span is going to be very bad for the borrower.”
Zhao Yu shook his head. “So, what you mean is that the case of Seven Star Hanging Coffins does not involve someone who wants to extend his lifespan by using the dead’s bodies.”
“I am not sure,” Master Zhang said. “There is also a possibility that the borrower has no other choice but to use these seven girls.”
Zhao Yu nodded. Zhao Yu had the same thought. He said, “Maybe this borrower is dying in a short time because of a disease. He didn’t care much about which bodies he used.”