Chapter 5: Grandpa’s Death (2/2)

“I have to go now, my boy,” he said. “If you want to be a coroner, I won’t stop you anymore… But if you hear the words Jiangbei Daggers… Promise me you’ll run as far away as you can.”

“Jiangbei Daggers?” I asked with an off-pitch voice due to sobbing, holding his hands tightly. “Is that the bastard who did this to you, Grandpa? I will seek your vengeance – I swear to you!”

“No!” Grandpa replied as firmly as he could, using his wrinkled hands to hold me tightly with his eyes looking straight at me. “Promise me you will run!”

I wordlessly nodded.

The ghost of a smile appeared on Grandpa’s lips — he looked almost at peace as he took his last breath. My whole body collapsed to the ground as I fell, wailing bitterly.

As I cried, I sensed a shadow moving along the ground. The fright stopped my tears immediately. Judging from the shadow’s movement and the distance of the light source from my position, it was clear that there was someone approaching me from behind.

But this moving figure was so silent and quick that I didn’t sense any breath or sign of a living thing at all, as if it was not even a living person who was approaching me. I even suspected if it was the fat man’s reanimated corpse!

No, that was impossible.

This mysterious figure was tall and lanky, unlike the fat man. Just then, I saw the figure’s right hand slowly lift up, and in that hand, there was something that glinted in the light — it looked like a curved sword!

I hurried up onto my feet, but the piercing cold blade was pressed against my waist.

“Don’t turn back,” said the voice. “If you see my face, it will be the last thing you see.”

It was a weird voice, neither male nor female, neither deep nor high-pitched. It sounded unnatural somehow, as if it had been artificially modified.

I was full of terror and anger at the same time. This was the person who had tricked Grandpa out of the house and murdered him, but I was completely helpless and unarmed. If I were killed right here right now, no one would ever find out what happened, and both Grandpa and I would just disappear without a trace.

“What is your name?” the shadow asked.

“Song… Yang!”

“Ah, you must be Song Zhaolin’s grandson. Did he pass on any special knowledge to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that so?” replied the strange figure, who then broke into the most bone-chilling laugh I had ever heard. “Do you want to live?”

I said nothing and just nodded.

“Good,” the voice said. “Then answer my question correctly, and I’ll let you go. If you don’t, then get ready to meet your old man in hell!”

I shuddered, ashamed of my own cowardice in that moment. My grandfather’s murderer was right here within my grasp, but not only was I so helpless and afraid that I wouldn’t dare to look at his face, that murderer was even toying with me, just as a cat would play with the mouse it had caught.

I had to do anything I could to survive, so I nodded my head.

“The question is very simple,” he said. “If you can tell me your grandfather’s cause of death, then you are free to go!”

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