Volume Twelve: An Invitation from Hell Chapter Three: The Second Invitation

The case of Ye Shu’s murder was still under investigation, but several days had passed without a single clue. Nothing was found on the surveillance footage; the crime scene yielded no footprints, no fingerprints, the doors and windows were intact, and there were no signs of outside tampering. All of Ye Shu’s relatives, friends, and acquaintances had been questioned, none possessing the opportunity to commit the crime. Even those previously wronged by Ye Shu’s false reports had been investigated, but nothing surfaced. Yaoguang and her companions were growing frustrated.

The only thing troubling Yaoguang was the magnetic field on the invitation card and the ghostly aura lingering at the scene. Was this a crime committed by humans, by spirits, or both together?

“Phoenix, the second invitation from Hell has surfaced.” Xuancheng set down his phone and looked at Yaoguang.

Yaoguang stood and followed Xuancheng to the crime scene.

“You’re here,” Captain Song greeted them as they arrived, “The victim is the owner of the Wedding Ferry Company, named Hua Lingling, known by the nickname ‘Red Thread.’ Take a look at this before you go in—the scene is rather… unsettling.” He passed her a black invitation card, his expression difficult to describe.

The black cover bore a skull. Yaoguang opened the card; inside, the text was printed in red ink:

Invited: Hua Lingling

Do you enjoy tying red threads for others? Do you like playing the matchmaker? Are you happy every time you complete a match? Do you prefer matchmaking, or do you prefer procuring? I know you favor procuring over matchmaking. How coincidental—I too enjoy matchmaking, tying red threads for the god of death. You bring the red thread, I bring you. Come visit Hell; I’ll prepare plenty of red threads for you.

Signed: The Messenger of Hell.

“Let’s go in and take a look,” Yaoguang closed the invitation and entered the Wedding Ferry Company. The company was small—just a two-bedroom storefront. As she stepped inside, a heavy scent of blood mixed with perfume struck her.

“The victim is in the southern office. Prepare yourselves,” Captain Song glanced at Jiang Yun and the others trailing behind Yaoguang.

Yaoguang eyed Captain Song suspiciously. Was the scene truly that horrific? They stepped inside. In the next moment, Jiang Yun, Huo Mingkun, and Chen Haixu, the three youngsters, turned and fled.

Yaoguang surveyed the scene, her eye twitching.

The victim was hung upside down on a rack, entirely naked, her body covered with wounds. Blood was everywhere. Red threads tangled her corpse, some embedded in her skin. The entire floor was awash in red, so vivid that Yaoguang struggled to keep her eyes open. Chenchen stood in the pool of blood, conducting an initial examination.

“Give us a summary,” Yaoguang turned away.

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“The victim, Hua Lingling, female, forty-two according to her ID. Time of death is estimated between 1:30 and 2:00 AM. Her body is covered with wounds from sharp instruments, and lacerations caused by red thread, accompanied by physiological reactions. Preliminary conclusion: death by excessive blood loss. I’ll need to examine further for details,” Chenchen reported.

“Alright. I’ll send Lele to assist you later—this is a heavy workload. What’s the situation at the scene?” Yaoguang asked Captain Song.

“The body was discovered by an employee arriving for work this morning. That’s the person who reported it—talk to him yourself,” Captain Song pointed outside at a young man.

“Officer, I won’t go back in—I’ll speak here. This morning at eight, I arrived at the company and found the door unlocked. I thought maybe Lingling hadn’t gone home last night—she often sleeps here, so we weren’t surprised. I opened the door and smelled a heavy scent of blood. I wondered if Lingling was cooking pig’s blood early in the morning. I called for her a few times, but got no answer, so I went in to look for her, and then I saw her…” The young man couldn’t help but gag, “I called the police right away… ugh…” Poor boy vomited again.

“The lock was intact, no signs of forced entry or tampering, and there’s no surveillance here, so…” Captain Song gestured helplessly. “No fingerprints or footprints found.”

“The victim’s clothes are folded so neatly—the killer is very ritualistic,” Yaoguang observed the neatly stacked clothes on the single bed by the wall.

“How do you know the killer folded them?” Captain Song asked.

“Let me ask you: do you fold your clothes so neatly when undressing to sleep? If it was for a shower, it would be unnecessary, wouldn’t it? Also, look at the office—things are placed casually, which suggests the victim didn’t have obsessive tendencies. So this methodical folding is contradictory. I suspect the killer entered, subdued the victim, undressed her and folded the clothes neatly, then bound her to the rack and committed the crime,” Yaoguang said, scanning the room. “Let’s go—let’s assist with the autopsy.”

In the forensic lab, Chenchen and Lele were working on the red threads wrapped around the victim. The threads were dense, many embedded deep in flesh, and removing them brought muscle tissue along.

Yaoguang placed her hand on the crown of the victim’s head, slowly sensing. The soul had been forcibly stripped away, just as with the first victim, leaving only a faint consciousness. The corpse bore the aura of a spirit, matching the magnetic field from the invitation. The killer was the same person—or, more precisely, the same ghost.

“These sharp wounds are peculiar—they’re all symmetrical. Did you notice?” Yaoguang mused over the injuries.

“These wounds resemble those made by scissors—large ones, the type used to cut flower stems,” Lele observed.

Scissors? That would mean the victim’s muscle tissue was severed all over with scissors, leading to fatal blood loss.

“Hm? Her right ring finger is missing—it’s been cut off,” Chenchen remarked, examining the hand.

The right ring finger. Why would the killer remove it? Yaoguang puzzled over this, glancing at her own right ring finger, where the ring once gifted by the immortal was still worn. The right ring finger—isn’t that where one wears a wedding ring? And the victim owned a wedding company. The symbolism was powerful.

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Leaving the forensic lab, Yaoguang stared at the two invitation cards, lost in thought.

“Phoenix, there’s a surveillance camera in front of the shop next door to the wedding company. We pulled the footage, and found something interesting—the camera recorded nothing but static between 1:30 and 2:00 AM,” Xuancheng reported, entering.

“Magnetic interference again,” Yaoguang set aside the invitations.

“Phoenix, the autopsy results are in. The wounds were indeed made by scissors—large ones capable of cutting flower stems. The fatal injury was to the inner thigh; the femoral artery was severed, leading to death by exsanguination. The red threads were ordinary nylon. The victim had medical-grade anesthetic injected. All injuries showed physiological response, confirming they were inflicted while she was alive,” Chenchen handed over the report.

“So the killer first subdued the victim, injected her with anesthetic, stripped her soul, hung her upside down, tortured her with scissors, wrapped her in red thread, cut off her right ring finger, and left her to bleed out,” Yaoguang summarized.

“A wedding company owner—a matchmaker—what could provoke such vengeance?” Huo Mingkun wondered aloud.

“Kun, what’s the second layer of Hell?” Yaoguang asked him.

“The second layer is the Scissors Hell. If a woman’s husband dies and she is persuaded to remarry, she will enter the Scissors Hell after death, and have ten fingers cut off each day,” Huo Mingkun explained.

“In the invitation, it asks whether the victim preferred matchmaking or procuring. How do you interpret that?” Yaoguang asked.

“You mean to say, the wedding company was just a front, and the real business was procuring?” Xuancheng replied.

“What do you think?” Yaoguang smiled mysteriously. “I’m beginning to appreciate this killer—the invitations from Hell actually lay out the victim’s deeds. Let’s investigate exactly what this proprietor was up to,” she said, rising.

“Where to?” Xuancheng asked.

“I believe the marriage reports may hold the clues we need,” Yaoguang replied, already leaving the office.