Chapter 12: The Soul Reaper’s Sonata (1/2)

I looked out towards the source of the voice and saw two female university students there. One of them was slightly chubby, and the other one was skinny. The one who spoke was the skinny one. She was still pouting and tears kept streaming from her eyes.

Huang Xiaotao approached them and asked, “Do you know the deceased?”

The skinny girl cried even harder when she heard the question.

“Of course she does,” explained the chubby girl. “Fangfang has been dating Zhang Kai for two years!”

The skinny girl was extremely sorrowful, she looked as if she couldn’t keep her composure any longer, so Xiaotao ordered someone to get a chair for the girl to sit on and calm herself down. The girl refused to sit, though, so we waited until she finally stopped crying.

“When was the last time you saw the deceased?” Xiaotao asked.

“We all hung out together last night,” said the skinny girl. Soon, tears were rolling down her cheeks again. “But I know for sure that what killed him was a ghost!”

And so, she began to relate the events of last night—

The girl was called Fangfang, her chubby friend was called Tiantian, and the deceased was called Zhang Kai. There was another guy too, called Deng Chao. The four of them were a tight-knit group of friends who always hung out together.

Recently, Deng Chao won a scholarship from the college, so he invited the other three to a big celebratory dinner. Everyone drank alcohol during the meal and the conversation turned quite rowdy. For some reason or another, they started talking about the legendary haunted abandoned building on campus.

According to the legends, a popular college girl had died there ten years ago. Her body was cut up into pieces and hidden in a piano there. From then on, during the quietest hours of the night you could always hear bone-chilling piano music playing in the building.

When listened carefully, those who were familiar with classical music realized that it was Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – a piano sonata that the popular girl loved to play the most!

Once, there was a security guard who went into the building with a flashlight to investigate the source of the piano music. But minutes later his piercing scream rang through almost half the campus, and after that, he lost his mind and would only mutter the words, “A ghost is playing the piano, a ghost is playing the piano.”

Soon enough, the university found some random excuse to seal off and abandon the building, although it was an open secret that it was actually abandoned because it was haunted.

As the common saying went, men would get more courageous with wine in their bellies. When Zhang Kai and Deng Chao got drunk last night, they suddenly made a bet between themselves that as long as Deng Chao dared to go to the legendary haunted abandoned building, Zhang Kai would give him five thousand yuan.

And so, the four of them ventured into the old building together. They even found the exact piano that was said to have hidden pieces of the dead girl’s body in a music room. Deng Chao proudly demanded Zhang Kai the money that he promised, but Zhang Kai refused, saying that it would only count if Deng Chao spent one whole night there.

Deng Chao had always been a hotheaded and stubborn guy, so he agreed to Zhang Kai’s terms despite protestations from the girls. Nothing the girls said could change his mind, so they eventually had to leave him there alone.

But the minute they stepped out of the music room, that terrifying music started to play – it was indeed Moonlight Sonata! They ran straight back into the music room and saw a ghost of a long-haired woman sitting on the piano bench playing the piano, while Deng Chao was standing right beside the piano with a blank expression on his face. Zhang Kai tried to rush to Deng Chao to help him, but he was prevented from reaching his friend because something had slashed his arms!

It turned out that the room was filled with countless piano wires, dancing in the pale moonlight as if they were the strands of hair of the ghost!

Once the last note of the sonata was played, Deng Chao’s body suddenly trembled, and after that his head fell off his neck and rolled across the floor. The three was so shocked and scared they almost flew out of the building!

The two girls were so petrified by they’d seen that they went straight back to their room and huddled together under the blanket that whole night. Until this morning when they were about to lodge a police report of the incident, they heard that a body was found on campus.

Initially, they assumed that it was Deng Chao’s body, but to their horror, it was Zhang Kai instead who was found dead hanging from a tree!

Fangfang was so affected by this discovery that she almost collapsed, but then when she saw how I discovered palm prints that seemed to belong to a woman on Zhang Kai’s body, she became convinced that it was that ghost who had forced Zhang Kai to commit suicide. She had heard from her senior once that anyone who interfered with the ghost’s performance of Moonlight Sonata would rouse her ire and always come to a horrifying end!

Fangfang paused for a few seconds, then continued saying, “First it was Deng Chao, and then Zhang Kai followed him to the grave. Next, I’m sure she’d come for me and Tiantian too! There’s no escape! There’s no escape…” And then she wept again while Tiantian patted her back and consoled her.

We were all in shock and speechless. This simple case of suicide had turned out to be such a mysterious and complex case with such a harrowing tale in the background.

“Are you sure you saw that ghost cutting off your friend’s head with your own eyes?” Huang Xiaotao asked.

“Yes!” answered Fangfang, firmly nodding her head.

“Do you think Deng Chao’s body is still in that abandoned building?”

“Yes, it should still be there!”

“Song Yang,” said Huang Xiaotao, suddenly turning to me, “let’s go search that place.”

“Can I go too?” asked Dali.

“Who are you?” Huang Xiaotao asked bluntly.