Chapter 40 Grave Robbers’ Chronicles

I was in a mysterious basement in a mysterious sanatorium, where a mysterious woman did something really weird. But since she had obviously stayed here, that meant that she must have left some clues behind. If I could find just one, maybe I’d finally be able to figure out the truth of what really happened. Even if it was all useless information, I would still be able understand what her life and mental state were like at that time.

I knew almost nothing about what happened in this sanatorium, so any clue was important.

I started searching, thinking that as long as something caught my eye, I’d go over and check it out.

The ceiling here was very low, which made me feel kind of cramped, but it did have the effect of making the light from my lighter more effective. With a larger surface area illuminated, I was able to look around and decide where to start my search.

When I was watching the blurry black-and-white video, I hadn’t been able to see all the details of the room, but now that I was here in person, what I saw gave me more perspective. An image of the real Huo Ling combing her hair suddenly popped into my head, but it was so scary that I quickly shook my head to get rid of it.

The lighter in my hand still had enough fuel to keep burning, but it was so hot that I couldn’t hold onto it anymore. I found a rag on the desk and wrapped it around the lighter’s base to protect my fingers.

In the faint light, I first focused my attention on the walls. They were all painted with white plaster, and now covered in dust. A wooden board with clothes hooks had been nailed to the wall near the door, a newspaper stuck to the wall below it to prevent the hanging clothes from touching the white plaster on the wall. On the other side of the wooden board was a cupboard with no doors, where Huo Ling likely kept her spare clothes. There was nothing in it now, but when I took a closer look, I found that the cupboard was full of scratches, as if something had clawed at it.

There was nothing on the wall next to it, except for some dust-covered wires hanging from the ceiling and an opening leading to the next room. I didn’t know if the opening had been intentionally left there during construction or if it had been made later, but when I looked inside, I found that it was empty.

Opposite the cupboard were the two writing desks, sitting side by side. They were covered in various things that looked like newspapers and unidentifiable junk. The wall next to the desks had been plastered with tons of paper, all covered in dust.

I blew off the dust and examined the papers one by one, finding that they were trivial things, such as electric bills from the ‘90s and some seemingly meaningless numbers that had been written down. These papers, which had almost become an integral part of the wall, must have been used to conveniently record phone numbers at that time. The reason I say that is because I suddenly remembered seeing a telephone here in the video. But it was gone now, and only a severed phone line was left in its place.

None of these things gave me any information other than the fact that Huo Ling used electricity when she lived here. I sighed and started rummaging through the papers on the desks.

The papers were all covered in dust, which rose up in a thick cloud as I looked through them one by one. Unfortunately, they were also useless—the papers on the bottom were all rotten, and all I ended up doing was disturbing some small centipedes, the younger brothers of those centipedes we saw in Changbai Mountain. After going through all the papers, I did manage to find a couple of notebooks.

After pulling them out and shaking them, I realized that they seemed to be manuscript pads. These kinds of things were used to write manuscripts back before computers existed.

I flipped one open and saw three lines had been written on the first page:

Back room: 2-3.

Number: 012-053

Category: 20, 939, 45

What does this mean? I wondered. It almost seemed like it might be a file number, maybe for a document or ancient book?

But after flipping the page, I realized that I was wrong—on the second page was a drawing made with a ballpoint pen. At first glance, it was so badly drawn that I couldn’t even tell what it was.

After staring at it for about five or six minutes, I finally realized that it was actually a portrait. But the person who drew it obviously didn’t know how to draw—the figure’s proportions were all wrong and it looked very strange. In fact, it looked less like a human and more like a fox with a long snout.

There were many strange lines drawn around the figure, but once I realized that I was looking at a person, the meaning of these lines also became apparent—they were probably the background, something like a mountain, river, temple, forest, or some other landscape.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought to myself, what is this? One of Huo Ling’s sketches? She sure has a wide range of hobbies.

I kept flipping through the notebook, finding that the next thirty or forty pages all contained similar drawings. Not seeing any text on the pages, I put the notebook down and picked up the other one. Except for the first page, it was exactly the same, with similar drawings filling most of its pages. I didn’t understand what it was supposed to be, so I just set it aside and continued looking through the rest of the papers. Unfortunately, there was nothing under them, except for a few lumps that looked like rags. There wasn’t even a single piece of paper with any text written on it.

I cursed to myself. It seemed that when they left this place, they took anything that might have contained any useful information.

But I didn’t give up. I refused to believe that they had taken everything away without accidentally leaving something behind. I sat down where Huo Ling had combed her hair, rested for a moment, and then tried to open the drawer in front of me to see what was inside.

It was the biggest drawer in the middle of the desk, located right under the desktop. When I pulled on it, I found that the damn thing was locked but felt heavy.

Generally, when someone was moving and abandoned their furniture, they wouldn’t lock it, so the fact that this drawer was locked made me excited—it indicated that there may be something inside of it. Luckily, this kind of lock was no problem for me. I quickly stood up, removed one of the clothes hooks from behind the door, inserted it into the gap between the drawer and desktop, and pressed down hard. The gap became so large that the lock broke and fell off, enabling me to finally pull the drawer out.

I moved my lighter in closer to take a look and shouted, “Yes!” Just as I expected, the drawer really was full of things. I set the lighter down by the drawer and started rummaging through it.

The things inside definitely belonged to a woman, but they were just a bunch of trivial items all thrown together in a jumbled mess. All the useful things had obviously been taken away when they left, leaving only a wooden comb, a small circular cosmetics box from the ‘90s, and a thick stack of “Modern Cinema” magazines. These old magazines had a long history, and I remember thinking they were basically porn magazines when I was younger. There were also black hairpins, a bunch of empty envelopes, and an empty photo album in the drawer.

The envelopes had never been used, but I still patiently opened them one by one to see if there was anything inside of them. They were all empty, and even the album didn’t have any photos. I could tell that they had been there once, but they must have been taken out.

Next, I shifted my attention to the old magazines. I carefully flipped through them page by page, but still didn’t find anything.

I sat down heavily in the chair and leaned back, ignoring the dust covering it. It was dark and quiet all around as I looked at the opposite wall through the dim light of my lighter and felt the disappointment threatening to overwhelm me. If this chair really did belong to Huo Ling, then the woman was clearly very careful and deliberately left no clues.

The chill in the air was finally starting to get to me, but I clenched my teeth and refused to give up. Locard’s Principle has to apply, damn it!⁽¹⁾ It’s impossible to leave nothing behind, which means I’ll definitely find something! Even though I was feeling a little desperate, my own words of encouragement gave me some motivation, so I pulled all the desk drawers out one by one and then went over to the other desk.

There was no chair at this desk, so I bent down and looked at the biggest drawer in the middle. It was also locked, which was a bit strange, but I repeated the same trick and managed to pry it open.

I fully expected to have to dig through a bunch of junk again, but to my surprise, when I pulled the drawer out this time, I saw that it was very clean and empty. There was only a big, A4-sized yellow envelope lying in the middle, bulging with whatever was inside of it. It almost looked like it had been placed there deliberately, waiting for me to find it.

Heart thumping in my chest, I realized this must be what I was looking for, so I immediately picked it up.

It was a kind of protective envelope from the late 1980s that was made of kraft paper and had a faded portrait of Mao Zedong on it. When I grabbed the envelope, I could tell that whatever was inside was very thick and had hard edges, but was also a little soft, as if it were damp. There was no writing on the envelope.

Hoping that I might finally get some answers, I quickly turned the envelope over and stuck my hand inside, pulling out an old notebook as big as a magazine.

I froze for a moment before opening the cover and looking at the first page, which contained a short passage written in incredibly elegant semi-cursive script:⁽²⁾

I don’t know which of you three is reading this, but whoever you are, if you came here and found this envelope, then I believe you’re already involved in this matter.

The videotapes were our final insurance. If they were mailed out, then it means that the person who kept them could no longer contact me. So, I’ve either died or “it” has found me and I had to leave the city.

Whatever the case, it means that I may soon leave this world, so I hope that the videotapes will guide you to this place and help you find this notebook.

This notebook contains more than ten years’ worth of our research and experiences. I will leave it with you so that you can find out what you want to know.

However, I want to warn you that the contents involve some huge secrets. I once vowed to take them to the grave, but I couldn’t keep my promise in the end. It’s difficult to say whether reading about these secrets will bring you disaster or happiness, so be very careful.

Chen Wen-Jin

September, 1995

<Chapter 39><Table of Contents><Chapter 41>

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TN Notes:

(1) Locard’s Exchange Principle states that with contact between two items, there will be an exchange of microscopic material. This certainly includes fibers, but extends to other microscopic materials such as hair, pollen, paint, and soil. Dr. Edmond Locard (1877–1966) was a pioneer in forensic science who became known as the Sherlock Holmes of Lyon, France. He’s the one who came up with the principle of: “Every contact leaves a trace”.

(2) Semi-cursive script, also known as running hand script, is a style of calligraphy which emerged in China during the Han dynasty (3rd century BC – 3rd century AD). The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly where a character’s strokes are permitted to be visibly connected as the writer writes, but not to the extent of the cursive style.

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Next chapter is twice as long as this and I’m flying out to Miami on Thursday so not sure if I can get it out before then. If not, next update will likely be next Wednesday (the 27th). Sorry the updates have been kinda lame recently. My fall is turning out to be much busier than my summer 😅 Pretty sure my social meter is gonna be in the negatives here soon if this keeps up 😂