Chapter 15: The Ghostly Fetus

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Chi Yun and I rushed out and immediately saw a police officer in his forties or fifties pinned to the ground by several others. He gripped a gleaming axe in his hand, his face twisted into a stiff, eerie grin—a mirror image of the man possessed earlier.

Not far away, a young officer was shrieking in agony. His right arm had been severed at the elbow, blood gushing everywhere.

I approached, and with a swift motion, slapped the older officer’s forehead twice. He convulsed violently, then his gaze slowly cleared.

“What… what happened to me?” Old Luo stammered, seeming unaware of anything that had just occurred.

“You were possessed,” I replied coolly.

Then, I rushed to the young officer, who had already lost consciousness. His upper arm was tightly bound with a police-issue belt, but the arterial bleeding still wouldn’t stop.

I took out a cloth bundle, revealing rows of black needles in varying lengths. I’d had these made recently, the main material being silver, blended with eighty-eight different exorcistic substances and forged with ghost toad blood as the catalyst.

Had it not been for Xu Baoguo’s backing, I wouldn’t have been able to collect these materials in ten years, let alone afford them. The entire set was called the Netherworld Needles, divided into six types: Soul-Guiding, Spirit-Extinguishing, Sun-Piercing, Soul-Fixing, Yin-Bane, and Yang-Bane.

I selected a Soul-Fixing Needle and jabbed it several times into his arm. Instantly, the bleeding slowed and then stopped.

“If you reattach it within three hours, the limb can be saved,” I announced. The surrounding officers let out a collective sigh of relief, and their eyes now held a hint of awe.

Soon enough, the ambulance arrived and the injured officer was rushed to the hospital.

From Old Luo’s account, I pieced together the sequence of events. Old Luo worked in the forensics department. Because the axe’s handle was too long to fit into the evidence box, he’d only managed to seal its head in a bag, leaving it aside. As he was about to pack up the evidence and take it back to the precinct, he suddenly became possessed. He tore off the plastic seal from the axe and, in a frenzy, hacked off his young colleague’s hand.

I crouched down to examine the bloodstained axe. At first glance, it appeared ordinary, but when I held it parallel to my eyes, I could just make out a faint ring of symbols on its surface.

“Wrap it in silk paper brushed with silver powder and don’t open it unless absolutely necessary,” I advised.

Chi Yun pulled me aside, looking at me with a complicated expression. “Just who are you? I really can’t figure you out.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Of course not.”

“How do you explain the young man earlier and Old Luo just now?” I pressed.

“My people investigated. The young man’s name is Liu Shan—he was the pregnant woman’s husband. Their relationship had always been fraught. Our initial theory is they argued on the rooftop, Liu Shan lost control and pushed his wife off, then suffered a breakdown,” Chi Yun said.

“Efficient and plausible. But what about Old Luo?” I glanced at him, still consumed by remorse, and sneered.

Chi Yun pursed her lips. “I can’t explain it, but there has to be a reason. I’ve seen stranger cases in my years as an officer. If we can’t explain it, it’s just because of the limits of modern science. I believe in magnetic field anomalies and such, but never in ghosts.”

I shrugged. Spirits do indeed cause changes in magnetic fields, but Chi Yun was a staunch materialist—she’d never believe it.

After spending two hours on the rooftop, I went straight home and leafed through the Great Netherworld Yin-Yang Arts. The arrangement of those nine bodies in the water tank nagged at my memory, as if I’d seen it somewhere before.

In the meantime, I got a call from Wang Meiyu. She said she was bringing Fu Yiman home for dinner and asked if I’d join them.

I politely declined. Meeting the parents already? That was moving too fast for me.

Night fell before I knew it. My stomach rumbled. “Strange, I could have sworn I remember where it was, but I can’t find it. Never mind—let me eat first.”

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I made myself a bowl of tomato and egg noodles, then stood by the window gazing out at the city in twilight. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d overlooked something.

I replayed the events of the day in my mind, each scene flickering past like frames from a film.

As I racked my brains, I instinctively put a cigarette to my lips. Just as I flicked the lighter, a spark flashed in my mind.

“Hiss…”

A moment later, I snapped to attention and flung the hot lighter away.

“How did that pregnant woman and that ghost fetus come to be? If her husband was possessed, where did she attract the ghost from?” I muttered.

Clearly, her case and her husband’s were fundamentally different. Both were abnormal, but one was haunted, the other possessed. Folk belief often conflates the two, but they’re not the same. Being haunted can count as possession, but not all possession is caused by haunting. I’d examined the scene—there was corpse energy, but no ghostly aura.

Tapping my fingers on the window frame, I finally pulled out my phone and dialed a number.

“Brother Xu, where was the pregnant woman who jumped from the theater taken today?”

“The First People’s Hospital, right? No big deal, just curious. I’ll treat you to a meal sometime.”

After hanging up, I grabbed my coat and headed to the hospital where I worked.

Bodies involved in suspected murders are never released to families until the investigation is concluded.

I changed into my white coat and appeared in the long corridor outside the morgue.

Even from afar, I could hear Old Li’s thunderous snoring, complete with whistling at the end—almost made me laugh.

At the window of the duty room, I saw Old Li sprawled out on the messy bed, clutching a bottle of cheap liquor.

Feeling a pang of pity, I slipped in quietly, covered him with a blanket, and entered the morgue.

There were even more bodies outside the cold storage than before. In the dead of winter, there are always some too frail to survive.

I looked around. From experience, bodies involved in cases like this are usually left out for a couple of days, only going into the freezer if the case drags on.

This time, I didn’t even need to use a spirit-seeking talisman—I quickly locked onto the right body.

I pulled back the white sheet, unzipped the body bag, and the pregnant woman’s bloody head appeared before me.

Compared to He Wenjing, her death was far more horrific.

I pulled the zipper all the way down—and suddenly my pupils contracted. Where was the ghost fetus? It was gone.

I spun around, my gaze sharp as a blade, scanning every corner of the morgue.

Suddenly, the pregnant woman’s hand shot up from the body bag and clamped onto my wrist.

Startled, I jabbed a Spirit-Extinguishing Needle into that icy hand.

With a dull thud, her hand fell heavily back down.

Shaking my hand, I glanced at the corpse. Something was off. There was only residual yin energy—no spirit had formed. How could she have grabbed me?

Could this be corpse reanimation?

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No, that wasn’t right. I’d never seen a reanimated corpse before, but I knew such bodies were always enveloped in dense, lingering corpse energy.

Enough. No use dwelling on it—I needed to find that ghost fetus first. The mark on its head meant it was either being targeted by a ghost or had already been possessed. If it escaped, it would spell big trouble.

Sizzle—

The morgue lights began to flicker, and the temperature dropped several degrees in an instant.

I drew a deep breath, eyes sharp as torches. Compared to my first encounter, I was a little more confident now, though my heart still raced with inevitable tension.

I controlled my breathing, every nerve taut.

Just then, a body under a white sheet began to bulge upward. A long black fingernail pierced through the sheet, tearing it from one end to the other.

With a Spirit-Extinguishing Needle between my fingers, I advanced.

A piercing wail suddenly shattered the morgue’s silence, and a fleshy mass burst from the rip in the sheet.

My heart skipped a beat. Instinctively, I hurled the needle.

But the thing leaped with lightning speed onto the neighboring corpse, dodging the strike. Its cries sounded like a baby’s wail mingled with a cat’s mournful howl.

Only then did I truly see it—yes, it was the ghost fetus, but it had changed since I last saw it.

Its skin was now a bluish-purple, its nails long and razor-sharp, but most terrifying was its mouth—split to the ears and filled with jagged teeth. Even now, a length of intestine dangled from its jaws.

Even with my hardened nerves, a chill ran down my spine—this was no mere ghost fetus anymore.

Suddenly, the thing sprang at me, mouth agape, aiming for my head.

I ducked sharply and flung five Spirit-Extinguishing Needles at once; two struck home.

The ghost fetus shrieked, billowing black smoke from its body.

Sensing a chance, I felt a surge of energy. Leaping high, I formed a Soul-Calming Seal with both hands and pressed down on the creature.

Bang!

The ghost fetus hit the ground like a rubber ball, but immediately rebounded at an unnatural angle, lunging straight at me.

Still airborne and unable to dodge, it slammed into my chest.

A searing pain twisted through my organs; blood surged up my throat and spilled from my mouth.

Yet the creature showed no mercy. It lunged at my throat.

I raised my left arm to block, and its fangs sank through my flesh. Screaming in pain, I grabbed a set of ten Yang-Bane Needles with my other hand, twisted them together into a half-meter spike, and drove it into the ghost fetus’s forehead.

It released its bite, black blood streaming from its eyes as its head slowly drooped.

In that moment, a wisp of yin energy separated from its body—condensing into the form of a ghostly cat.