"Now that that's taken care of," Lv Bin joined in, "Tell me about the ghosts you saw. Were they here, in the house?"
Zheng Hongjun nodded and began. "It was two- no three days ago, some time around dawn I'd guess. I got up, did my business, and went out into the yard for my morning smoke." His hand slapped against his bare chest where a shirt pocket would sit. He self consciously covered his flabby body and then moved to pick up a shirt. "It was a shit cigarette, I tell ya'. The damn thing went out for no reason three times, eventually I tore it open to see if something had been stuffed in there, but it was fine. I lit another one, but the same thing happened. Mid puff, the embers just faded away. I was peeved, but I didn't let it ruin my day, ya know?" He gave us a wan smile. "So I crushed the thing and went back to lie down." His smile faded very quickly. "I wasn't in bed for more than a few minutes before I heard her, the little girl." His voice rose in a mock falsetto, "It hurts, she said. I sat up like the bed was on fire and found Song Shuangmei sitting up too. I thought she'd heard it as well, but her eyes were closed. I shook her and the first thing she said was-"
His wife cut him off, "It hurts, I can't breathe." Her face was pinched into an expression of fright and disgust. "That's what the girl said to me. During breakfast our youngest told us she heard someone too. That's when we knew something was going on. We thought it could've been my mother, she died last year." We all made the polite condolences. She waved her hand dismissively, annoyed by the interruption. "Thanks you, that's fine. Anyway, we thought it was mom, so we went to her tomb and prayed."
"It didn't work." Zheng Hongjun took back over. "We all heard her the following night. It sounded like a little girl crying for her parents." He fell silent for a moment.
"And?" Lv Bin asked.
"And it was. I saw her through the window the next night. I damn near fell out of bed, but when Song Shuangmei looked, she was gone." He gave us a look that said things were going to get interesting. "Last night one of our chickens caught her." He grinned like a mad man. "I heard one of the birds screaming so I went out with the rolling pin to knock out the damn weasel, but it wasn't a weasel! Oh no!" He raised one finger in the gesture of one who's got the winning answer. "It was a girl and she was crying. Who are you? I asked her, but she didn't respond. I saw the cold flowing off of her and got the chills myself, so I threw the pin at her and came back inside."
He looked down at his feet as if realizing that he'd told on himself. "I…I went and got the rolling pin this morning."
Lv Bin nodded like he'd heard all of this before. "We've been investigating your family since Zheng Baolong became of interest. I knew he was a corpse thief, so I imagined that your family would be experiencing some kind of supernatural consequences."
"What color was she?" I asked Zheng Hongjun as he put on trousers.
His forehead wrinkled in thought, "Her face was pale, although I guess the rest of her was black… I, I don't know."
"Try to remember." I urged him.
He frowned at me.
"Do you want us to help or not?" I asked, not hiding my contempt for the gangly man.
"She looks like our youngest daughter, except her skin was black like the night. She was almost like a shadow."
"Do you have another dead daughter we don't know about?"
The middle aged Zheng Hongjun bared his teeth at me and said, "No!"
At the same time, Song Shuangmei opened her mouth to speak and snapped it shut.
"You're lying." I told him, trying to redirect the anger boiling up in me. "You killed Xiao Yi's sister and buried her in secret."
The man's head shook violently. "Stop this nonsense!" He shouted. "Where is that police man? This boy is harassing us for no reason! We're innocent!"
"Innocent?" I asked.
A door opened down the hallway and a little girl wearing a white dress walked into the hallway rubbing her eyes.
Zheng Hongjun's head whipped to her. "This doesn't concern you! Go back to your room!"
The girl had her father's features. I watched them wrinkle in confusion at being chastised out of the blue. She paused for a moment and then turned back around, closing her door behind her.
I stared at the man with a growing hatred. "If you're innocent, then you won't care if we search your house for the source of these spirits?"
"You?" He asked with acid in his voice. "What can you do?"
Lv Bin cut in, "Don't. Don't look down on this lad. He learned from Master Liu. Do you know the name?"
Zheng Hongjun's head slowly nodded up and down. "Is what they say about him true?"
Lv Bin didn't answer. I didn't feel the need to either. We walked through the house for the next fifteen minutes, looking for anything out of the ordinary. When I got to their daughter's room and knocked on the door, she answered with a wary curiosity.
"What are you looking for?" She whispered. Her eyes were wide and dark. They'd be pretty if it weren't for the wild fear living inside them.
Zheng Hongjun appeared behind me and shut the door on his daughter's curious expression. "You don't need to disturb her." He said. His hand was planted firmly, holding the door closed.
I knocked on it, drawing Lv Bin from his search down the hallway. "Let us in please. There are signs of a ghost here." I lied easily.
"Prove it!" She said from behind the door. "Don't you need a warrant or something?"
Lv Bin cursed under his breath behind me. "Hold on, let me try this." He said quietly. He withdrew a compass from his pocket and held it to the base of the door. The needle twitched minutely, but didn't move after that.
"There's nothing in here." Lv Bin said, "Did you find anything else?" He asked me. I shook my head. Lv Bin turned to Zheng Hongjun and clapped his hands together, placing them in a pleading position in the middle of his chest. "Zheng Hongjun, may we stay here for the night? If the spirit arrives we can drive it off…" He flashed an innocent grin at the man.
Zheng Hongun raised an eyebrow and considered us for a moment. "Fine." He finally said, "But the only room available belonged to my mother."
"She died last year." Song Shuangmei reminded us.
"That'll be fine." Lv Bin told them. "What would we be if we were afraid of ghosts?" He grinned again.
I found their phone and called my parents. After promising them I'd be home the following day and swearing up and down that I was being safe, I finally hung up and went to set up my things. "We'll take care of these ghosts, and then they'll come with me to apologize at Xiao Yi's tomb. Easy peasy." I thought.
"Easy peasy."