Chapter 1 Zhang Yanfeng Arrives by Car

Zhang Yanfeng arrived by car, in the slender, tall policewoman's vehicle. When he got out, Officer Zhang's legs were weak, his eyes bloodshot, and his messy hair and shoulders were covered in bits of grass and wood.

Pushing open the door, Zhang Yanfeng called for a cup of coffee, then yawned deeply.

"Anyone would think you just came back from a roll in the hay."

Boss Zhou stirred his coffee with a small spoon.

Zhou Ze used to think there wasn't much difference between good coffee and Nescafé instant. When he was a doctor in his past life, he was always rushed off his feet and relied on coffee to get him through the day.

But he didn't know if it was his changed mindset or if there really was a big difference between good and bad coffee.

The taste he got from coffee now was indeed different from before.

"Bullshit, don't slander my reputation."

Zhang Yanfeng picked up the coffee that Zhou Ze had just sweetened and stirred, and drank it down in one gulp.

Then he smacked his lips,

as if he had just drunk a big mouthful of plain boiled water,

perfectly illustrating

the saying 'like feeding a cow peony flowers'.

The little spoon in Zhou Ze's hand fell to the ground,

trembling slightly.

That was his civet coffee…

"This coffee's really boring, don't you get tired of drinking this every day? I wouldn't be happy if I had to drink this every day."

"I don't know if you get tired of drinking this every day, but you'd definitely be investigated for financial problems, that's for sure."

"Damn it."

Zhang Yanfeng reached out and rubbed his hair.

"Isn't it bad luck? I didn't sleep all night, and I was wandering around in the forest all night, and I don't know how many times I fell, but I just couldn't find that grave."

Zhou Ze was a little surprised and asked, "That dead person's grave?"

"Yeah, couldn't find it."

"They weren't telling the truth?"

"We looked for it together, and we really couldn't find it. Tongcheng is just a small place, it's not like the old forests or mountain gullies in the Northeast or Sichuan. It's true that they sealed the tomb entrance back then, but we still shouldn't have not been able to find it, but in fact, we just couldn't find it.

Even the police dogs were dispatched, and there was no discovery. The people have been caught, and they've confessed everything they should, so there's no need to lie, right?"

Officer Zhang spread his hands.

He had wasted a whole night for nothing.

Then, he remembered that it was Zhou Ze who had called him, and immediately said:

"What did you call me for?"

"Huang Mao is dead."

"Oh." Zhang Yanfeng's eyes widened suddenly, and he scolded, "Did you kill him?"

"…" Zhou Ze.

Shaking his head, Zhang Yanfeng calmed down and asked, "Where's the body?"

"I only know he's dead."

Yes,

the man's soul came,

and had already been sent to be reincarnated by Boss Zhou.

The last trace Huang Mao left in this world wasn't his staunch heavy metal hairstyle,

but rather the four-thousandths of a point added to Boss Zhou's Yama certificate.

"Did you dispose of the body?" Zhang Yanfeng asked.

"I didn't see the body, but I can be sure that he's dead. If you still don't understand, I can give you a detailed introduction to my work."

"No, stop!"

Zhang Yanfeng immediately raised his hand, signaling Boss Zhou to stop.

He still wanted to live a normal life, even though he knew Zhou Ze's identity was unusual, he still refused to have his worldview directly shattered.

"Can you find out where he died?" Zhang Yanfeng asked.

Zhou Ze shook his head.

At this moment, the old Daoist priest quietly raised his hand and said timidly:

"I know."

…

When they went, the old Daoist priest drove, and the policewoman had been sent back by Zhang Yanfeng to rest.

Xu Qinglang's Nissan had almost become the bookstore's company car. Lao Xu used to cherish this car when he was around, but as he fell into a coma, his beloved car was also being ruined.

Sitting in the back seat, Zhou Ze and Officer Zhang each had a cigarette in hand, puffing out smoke.

"Lao Zhou, is this considered a paranormal event?

Those two suspects weren't lying, I could tell, and even they were shocked when they couldn't find the tomb, that expression wasn't fake."

"You've been a policeman for so many years, haven't you encountered anything like this before?"

"Not really, but the two of us can now be written into a paranormal event, as a secret file in the police station.

It'll say,

'On a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, a police officer surnamed Zhang solved a case with the help of a mysterious bookstore owner,' and so on."

"Usually in this kind of plot, you die unexpectedly and your son comes to investigate your death and discovers my existence,

and then comes to me to ask about the truth of his father's death,

and I give your son some cryptic and nonsensical information,

to make it easier for the screenwriter to pad out the plot."

"…" Zhang Yanfeng.

The atmosphere was a little awkward.

The old Daoist priest driving in front chuckled to himself. Some people's chatting killed the conversation, but Boss Zhou could talk people to death.

Soon, the car arrived at its destination, a town down below, close to the elevated road. It was indeed a bit far from the city center, but it was actually quite quick to get there by car. Just take a spin on the ring road and you'd be out.

"Swan Lake Ballroom."

Zhou Ze glanced out the car window. The neon sign on the second floor was flashing brightly, making it seem very high-end in this rural town.

Especially since it was already past midnight,

there were a lot of people both inside and outside this ballroom.

"This is a *sha* dance hall," the old Daoist priest explained.

"Sha dance?" Zhang Yanfeng didn't quite understand.

"Oh, that's a Sichuan term. I used to go there a lot when I worked in Sichuan. According to the local terminology here, it should be called a cheek-to-cheek dance or a touch-touch dance."

With that explanation,

it was easier to understand.

The old Daoist priest was afraid that the two in the back still didn't understand, so he continued: "Inside, they play music, and everyone dances. Everyone who goes in has to pay a ten-yuan entrance fee, men and women both. Then the men inside pick the women, and if they pick one, she'll dance with you, charged by the song, ten or twenty yuan a song.

It's cheaper in Rongcheng, ten yuan a song. Tongcheng is in the Yangtze River Delta region, where prices are high, so it's twenty yuan a song here.

Men and women hug each other in the dark and dance, and the men can touch and grab a bit, just to get their rocks off. It's worth the money. A lot of the girls are just doing it part-time, not professional prostitutes."

Boss Zhou and Officer Zhang nodded as they listened, like two students.

"This is skirting the line,"

Zhang Yanfeng said with his professional instinct.

Because after going inside, he found that it was actually quite orderly. Posters were plastered everywhere: "No Gambling, Drugs, or Prostitution".

There were also several security guards in uniform with red armbands maintaining order.

This kind of place, it's a ballroom, and it has its own licenses and permits, just like some KTVs. It's a legitimate entertainment venue, but everyone knows and understands whether there will be illegitimate things or things that skirt the line.

The old Daoist priest paid for three tickets. After entering, the ballroom was clearly divided into two areas. One area was brightly lit, and people were doing normal dances below, a bit like the old people's social dances in the Sunset Red Square.

In the other area, the lights were very dim, and a group of men and women were swaying together in each other's arms.

On the periphery, there were also many men strolling around looking for partners, and rows of girls standing there waiting to be chosen, both plump and slender.

"Smells foul."

Zhang Yanfeng commented.

Then, he looked at the old Daoist priest and asked:

"You brought us here to see this?"

He was a policeman, and it would be very embarrassing if acquaintances found out he came to this kind of place. If someone took a picture, it could even be used by malicious people as evidence to attack his lifestyle.

"Upstairs."

Saying that, the old Daoist priest led the two of them around a corner and up the stairs. An old woman was sitting at the entrance of the stairs, cracking melon seeds. Seeing three grown men coming up, she was a little puzzled and reached out to stop them.

"What are you doing?" the old woman asked.

"Doing it!"

The old Daoist priest replied.

Saying that,

the old Daoist priest also pointed to Zhang Yanfeng and his own boss.

The old woman revealed a knowing expression, then waved her hand, signaling them to go up.

There was nothing upstairs, it was basically an abandoned floor, but you could see scattered condoms everywhere on the ground, with white sticky liquid inside that had the salty smell of seafood.

Not far away, there were still a few couples busy with it.

"Smells foul."

Zhang Yanfeng continued.

"This place isn't managed by the ballroom downstairs, how can they manage people renting a room?" the old Daoist priest retorted.

Then, he pointed to the speaker above, which was playing sentimental music, the same music as the ballroom downstairs.

Zhou Ze leaned against the railing. The view was good here, and the floor was quite high. In front was the elevated bridge, with heavy traffic.

"What exactly did you bring us here to see!"

Zhang Yanfeng could no longer bear it. He was a policeman, and it would be fine to come here when raiding and catching criminals, but now that he was here in plain clothes and secretly, he really felt uncomfortable all over.

"Wait, the song that Huang Mao sang before, I heard it here before. Later, I thought it was pretty good, so I specifically searched the lyrics online, but I couldn't find the song. Later, I asked people here and they said that the song was sung by their boss when he was drunk in a KTV once, and it was so bad that it was terrible. Later, they simply used it for this."

After introducing,

the old Daoist priest shouted urgently to the old woman watching the stairs below: "Hey, lady, I saw a police car driving over there!"

The old woman's eyes narrowed, not doubting him, and in this kind of thing, it's better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one go, so she immediately took out her phone and made a call.

In less than half a minute,

the sound system above Zhou Ze, Zhang Yanfeng, and the old Daoist priest suddenly changed to a different song,

the sound of the singing was so ear-splitting,

it could be described as the wails of ghosts and wolves,

truly a masterpiece of someone drunk shouting into a microphone.

At this moment,

several couples immediately ran out in front of Zhou Ze. Everyone looked flustered, adjusting their clothes as they ran down quickly. One of the men didn't fasten his belt properly, and after running a distance, his pants fell down, tripping him up.

Listening to this terrible song,

watching the crowd running in a panic,

the old Daoist priest's eyes began to become deeper and deeper,

as if looking at the past,

at himself from twenty days ago…