After receiving the settlement money, the matter was considered closed. The two colleagues immediately wanted to leave, but Eaves Under Water Pig refused to agree. He couldn't let it go without understanding the full story behind the innkeeper's actions. It took him half an hour to persuade his colleagues to return to the original inn to search for clues.
In fact, he had an idea of what he was looking for—the mysterious skull drum.
At that time, Eaves Under Water Pig also thought, although the innkeeper was in custody, there were still two service staff at the inn. They should know something too.
If he could foresee the future, Eaves Under Water Pig felt he might not have pursued the matter. But he was young then and had a habit of digging deep into things. This trait had caused him a lot of trouble but also provided him with many unique experiences.
After they agreed, they returned to the Ba Sang Inn, but to their surprise, the inn was now tightly closed, and there was not a single person in sight.
They stood at the entrance for a while, and one of the colleagues suddenly ran across the street to stop someone. Eaves Under Water Pig looked and saw that it was the inn's service staff who had previously been teased. He and another colleague also ran over. The colleague was already in the middle of a conversation with the girl, exchanging a lot of empty talk, until finally, the colleague asked about the innkeeper.
The girl didn't know much either. She said that Mr. Qin was not a local but had moved here more than a decade ago. At that time, he had a young daughter with him, and later, he bought the inn and gradually settled down in the small town. Her mother had worked as a waitress for Mr. Qin, so she knew a lot from her mother's stories.
It was said that a long time ago, Mr. Qin had a very happy family. After his wife passed away from illness, he was left with only his young daughter, Lanlan. When Lanlan was four years old, Mr. Qin moved her away from their hometown to settle in this picturesque town.
Time passed quickly, and Lanlan was eight years old. One day, while Mr. Qin was busy with guests, Lanlan went outside to play and accidentally encountered two men who had just slaughtered cattle and were still holding their knives. These two men, having just drunk, mistook Lanlan for livestock and one of them stabbed her in the heart, killing her instantly.
Although the two men were punished accordingly, Mr. Qin became disturbed afterward. He held his daughter's corpse for days and nights without letting go until the body began to decompose. Only then did he find a place to bury her. Afterward, he disappeared for a long time. When he returned, he frequently visited Lanlan's grave, lighting fires and burning things. Some curious people investigated the ashes he burned and discovered that he had been burning human bones.
At that time, cremation was not popular locally; most people preferred burial. On the mountains, there were old, abandoned graves, and occasionally, bones would be washed out by heavy rain and eaten by wild dogs, leaving only scattered remains. Therefore, it wasn't very difficult for Mr. Qin to obtain human bones.
However, this matter was ultimately wrong. If he had burned bones from unclaimed scattered remains, no one would have condemned him. But if he had burned bones dug from graves?
Some people questioned Mr. Qin, but he vehemently denied it, claiming he had burned animal bones because his daughter loved animals and he just wanted to have animals accompany her.
People were skeptical of his explanation, but he stopped burning bones afterward, and no more graves were discovered to have been disturbed, so the matter was left unresolved.
Two years later, Mr. Qin somehow acquired a skull drum, which he kept in the inn's lobby. Curious guests often touched the drum, and he would tell them a story about it.
Hearing this, Eaves Under Water Pig frowned. It seemed he was not the first to hear this story.
One colleague said, "I initially told Yue Na that I wanted to go into the inn to look around, but she refused."
Another colleague glanced up at the inn's second floor and suddenly smiled slyly, "It's not hard to get in. Follow me."
Seeing the sly look of his colleague, Eaves Under Water Pig immediately understood. This colleague was his university classmate, who was a bit of a troublemaker and skilled at climbing. Once, during a dispute with his girlfriend, he had climbed to the third floor and scared several girls in the dormitory by making ghostly noises. When his girlfriend found out, she nearly tore him apart.
The colleague circled around the inn and finally found a less conspicuous corner. After measuring the distance, he climbed up to a small platform between the first and second floors, and soon, he crawled through a partially open window on the second floor.
Eaves Under Water Pig wasn't as agile as him, but with his colleague's help, he managed to get to the second floor. The other colleague, who had a mild fear of heights, stayed below to keep watch.
The deserted inn was eerily quiet. As it hadn't been cleaned for several days, a thin layer of dust covered the floor. As they passed through the second-floor corridor, there were still some dark brown stains on the floor, likely blood from that night.
Eaves Under Water Pig was particularly nervous. Their actions were essentially illegal, and if caught, the consequences could be severe.
"Decide what you want to see quickly!" the colleague urged.
Eaves Under Water Pig said without hesitation, "The skull drum. I want to find that skull drum!"
"It seems the skull drum isn't in the lobby. Where should we look?" The colleague wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Eaves Under Water Pig thought for a moment and said, "I guess it's either in Mr. Qin's room or in the storage room. Let's split up. I'll search his room, and you check the storage room."
The colleague nodded. Although their actions were impulsive, they were aware of the severity if discovered, so they proceeded cautiously.
Mr. Qin's room was easy to find, located at the end of the corridor. The door had no room number, only the label "Duty Room."
Eaves Under Water Pig pushed the door lightly, and it opened without being locked. It seemed that after the incident, the people who handled the aftermath had only locked the inn's main door and neglected the rest.
The room was dark because the curtains were drawn. Once he adjusted to the dim light, he shut the door and entered.
The room was very ordinary, contrasting sharply with the retro and luxurious style of the lobby. To describe it, Eaves Under Water Pig thought it looked like a place where a monk would live. Aside from a bed, a table, and a wardrobe, there was almost nothing else in the room.
Eaves Under Water Pig's gaze shifted to the corner of the room, where there was a tall, rounded object covered with a white cloth. He curiously approached and lifted the dusty white cloth, revealing what was underneath.
The first sight was truly startling!
Under the white cloth was a huge white porcelain doll. Its chubby face and rounded body should have looked cute, but the doll's face was painted with large, ghastly white eyes and a blood-red mouth. If seen at night, it would likely scare someone senseless.
Eaves Under Water Pig glanced at it with disgust and was about to cover it back up when he realized that the red mouth was not just painted on; it was slightly recessed.
He was intrigued and reached in. The mouth was about the size of an adult's fist, and he could barely fit his hand inside. After feeling around for a while, he pulled out a grayish substance.
Eaves Under Water Pig held it up to the light and then pinched it between his fingers, and his face instantly changed color—inside the porcelain doll was indeed ashes!
Before his father passed away, he requested to be cremated and for his ashes to be scattered in a river. Despite the family's reluctance, his wishes were honored. Eaves Under Water Pig personally scattered his father's ashes into the river, so he knew well what they felt like.
The porcelain doll was like a giant urn, and it was already filled to a significant extent.
How many people's ashes were stored here?
Eaves Under Water Pig shuddered: most people in this area were buried, so where did all these ashes come from? Why did Mr. Qin store so many ashes in this room?
He quickly covered the porcelain doll with the white cloth again and was about to search elsewhere when he suddenly heard his colleague's voice, urgently whispering, "Shuhua, come out quickly, someone's coming!"
Eaves Under Water Pig didn't have time to search further and quickly left Mr. Qin's room, carefully closing the door behind him. His colleague was waving to him from the other end of the corridor, and as soon as he emerged, his colleague jumped out of the same window they had entered.
Just as his colleague jumped down, Eaves Under Water Pig heard the sound of doors opening downstairs. There seemed to be more than one person, and their footsteps were very noisy, heading rapidly towards the second floor. Eaves Under Water Pig was in a panic; if he ran now, he would definitely be spotted, and cold sweat broke out instantly.
The people coming up were speaking rapidly in the local dialect, which Eaves Under Water Pig couldn't understand. After they reached the second floor, it seemed they didn't notice anything unusual. They stood in the corridor for a while and then actually opened the door to Mr. Qin's room.
At this moment, Eaves Under Water Pig was hiding in the wardrobe of the room, not daring to make a sound. The wardrobe was small and packed with clothes, and he had to crouch in a tight ball, barely moving.
The group of people talked in Mr. Qin's room for a while, and Eaves Under Water Pig couldn't make out what they were saying, only that they seemed to be discussing something.
He hoped they would leave soon so he could get out. However, to his dismay, after talking for a while, they didn't leave but sat on the bed instead.
Eaves Under Water Pig was incredibly frustrated, almost feeling like he might explode. His legs had gone numb from crouching, but he couldn't move. He could only pray that his colleague would find a way to rescue him quickly.
Just when he thought he might explode from the tension, he finally heard some sounds from outside— the group had left, and the room fell silent.
Eaves Under Water Pig wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and was about to push open the wardrobe door when his elbow knocked against the wooden partition above, causing something to fall out from between the gaps and land on his thigh.
He picked it up and felt it—it was a slender, rounded object, cold to the touch. When he first picked it up, his wrist suddenly hurt, like a needle prick.
Without further inspection, Eaves Under Water Pig stuffed the object into his waistband, enduring the soreness and numbness in his legs, and took advantage of the distraction caused by his colleague to jump out of the second-floor window. He then circled back to the front hall. Seeing him, his colleague immediately looked relieved. The two exchanged a knowing glance and soon left the inn.
The three of them gathered together, reflecting on the earlier scene with a sense of lingering fear.
As they spoke, they returned to their current inn, and Eaves Under Water Pig immediately took out the object he had hidden in his waistband. The two colleagues gathered around to look.
The object was quite heavy, and it appeared to be a musical instrument, about a dozen centimeters long, with seven or eight holes and what looked like a mouthpiece, probably made of some kind of metal. Its weight was likely due to the metal components.
Eaves Under Water Pig carefully examined the object. It felt somewhat like jade, cool to the touch, and was not perfectly straight. He ran his fingers over it and suddenly shivered: could this be the bone flute Mr. Qin had mentioned, made from a young girl's leg bones?
One colleague marveled, "Is this made of bone?"
The other colleague said, "I heard that Tibet has something similar, called a 'gāngdòng' in Tibetan. The authentic ones are made from the leg bones of a deceased girl donated by her family; they are ritual instruments and quite rare."
"That one is a ritual instrument; this one might not be. It could be made from the legs of living people," Eaves Under Water Pig said somberly.
"Don't say that, you're giving me goosebumps," the colleague said, rubbing his arms and shivering.
Eaves Under Water Pig looked at the bone flute. Given how smooth it felt, it must have existed for a long time. The sound he heard that night was likely produced by this bone flute.
Why did Mr. Qin deceive him? What was his purpose?
In his thoughts, he almost instinctively brought the bone flute to his mouth, but one colleague snatched it away, looking at him with a grim expression and said, "Don't blow on it. What if you summon a ghost?"
Eaves Under Water Pig chuckled and had to put the bone flute down.