"Don't move recklessly!" Wu Meng stopped me as I reached out to take the object. He handed me a pair of plastic gloves. "This is evidence."
I took the gloves, carefully picked up the small doll woven from strands of hair in the black box, and examined it closely.
The craftsmanship was exquisite. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed that someone could create such a lifelike figure using human hair.
The strands were jet-black and lustrous, with excellent texture. I held them to my nose for a sniff—there was no trace of disinfectant.
"Wu, take a small sample for analysis. Let's confirm whether this is Jiang Shihan's hair." I returned the doll to the wooden box, closed the lid, and held it in my hand.
The black wooden box bore faint traces of blood. Jiang Shihan had run out of her hospital room barefoot, her soles cut by glass. Considering this, she might have stepped on the box while climbing the railing.
"Wu, the surveillance footage is fully retrieved!" Xiao Chen rushed to the rooftop, his expression slightly odd. "It seems like this woman committed suicide on her own..."
"Show us!"
Wu Meng and I followed him to the surveillance room. Xiao Chen first pulled up footage from the elevator camera. After watching it, everyone in the room turned to look at me.
The surveillance clearly showed only Jiang Shihan.
She was alone, entering the elevator without any signs of coercion. The scene resembled a bizarre act orchestrated solely by her.
"Impossible!" I leaned closer to the monitor.
"Gao Jian, it's not that we don't believe you, but the evidence is clear." Wu Meng stood by my side. "Her death was indeed strange, but Jiang Shihan's mental state had already deteriorated. You must understand, a lunatic's logic is beyond normal comprehension."
Had I not been there that night to witness the eerie events, I might have believed Jiang Shihan's death was a result of mental illness.
This is precisely what makes the perpetrator terrifying—turning a premeditated murder into an apparent suicide.
"This method, this style, is too similar! It's nearly identical to how Huang Guanxing was killed!" I was now certain that the perpetrator had used some sinister method to control Jiang Shihan's mind, forcing her to act against her will.
"Gao Jian, this was clearly a suicide. If there's nothing more, we'll notify her family..."
"Wait!" I shouted, grabbing everyone's attention. "This wasn't a suicide. I've said it before—it's a murder, 100% premeditated!"
"Who do you think you are? Sherlock Holmes?" Xiao Chen, unfamiliar with my reputation, scoffed.
Wu Meng, however, knew of my abilities through Tie Ningxiang. He looked at me with some doubt. "Why are you so sure this was a murder?"
"Watch the footage closely," I pointed at the top-left corner of the elevator feed, where the floor indicator was displayed. "Pause it here!"
Everyone gathered to examine the frozen frame, where the indicator read "-3."
"Basement level three?"
"Exactly! This is the third underground floor." My voice was firm, filled with conviction. "Earlier, a doctor told me that accessing the basement levels requires authorization, meaning you need a password. Only a few hospital staff know it. How could a mentally unstable patient possibly know the code?"
The room fell silent. My thoughts, however, were crystal clear: someone within the hospital—a doctor—had manipulated Jiang Shihan's mind, driving her madness to the point of death.
"Ladies and gentlemen, none of you are exempt. Any staff working tonight who knows the password could be the killer!" Jiang Shihan's death was no accident. I vowed to avenge her and bring the perpetrator to justice.
"To drive someone mad, control their mind, and stage it as a suicide—what an insidious method!" Jiang Shihan's demise revealed too much. During her last moments, she was utterly helpless, just like the bloody figure she had drawn on the ceiling.
She had tried to cry for help in her own way, but no one around her could understand. Left with no other choice, she endured the torment alone.
Had I not intervened, her eventual fate would likely have been a mental breakdown leading to genuine suicide—a perfect cover for the mastermind, leaving no trace.
Looking back, Jiang Shihan had a strong will to live. She longed for warmth but feared approaching it, ultimately plunging to her death. Similarly, Huang Guanxing, who was allergic to alcohol, consumed large amounts before his fatal drunk-driving accident.
Both were forcibly manipulated into actions they wouldn't have taken otherwise. This dark sorcery was entirely unfamiliar to me. As Wu Meng began investigating the hospital staff, I called Liu Blind on my phone.
"Old Liu, sorry to bother you so late, but this is a matter of life and death. I need your advice."
Liu Blind's steady voice came through the receiver. "Ask away. I already foresaw something happening tonight, so I haven't gone to bed."
"Do you know of any sorcery capable of remotely controlling a person's mind? It seems to worsen at night, causing the victim to see things others can't."
"Many such dark arts exist. Could you be more specific?"
I described the doll made from Jiang Shihan's hair. "The medium for this sorcery seems to be the victim's hair. I found a black box containing the doll near the site of her death."
"A doll made of hair?" Liu Blind fell silent for a while, the sound of pages flipping audible over the phone. "It's still too vague to say for sure. It sounds like either Xiangxi witchcraft or Nanyang black magic."
I patiently recounted the night's events in hopes he could identify the type of sorcery involved.
"You mentioned seeing a floating, disembodied head?"
"Yes, though it vanished quickly. A young boy saw it clearly, too. Should I bring him in?" Excited by his reaction, I offered to get the boy.
"If a flying head was involved, then the woman likely fell victim to Nanyang's 'Flying Head Curse.'"
"The Flying Head Curse?"
Liu Blind flipped through his books and found relevant records. "It's not a simple curse but one of the deadliest, known as the Flying Skull Spell."
"My great-grandfather once had a run-in with a practitioner of this curse, so I know a bit about it."
"Black magic is widely known in Nanyang. Most people only encounter its lower forms, like poison or insect curses—crude methods involving toxins and venomous creatures. But true masters of black magic wield spirit and ghost curses, using enslaved souls to achieve their goals."
"Among these, the Flying Head Curse is the most heinous. Your description matches its characteristics exactly."
Liu Blind's explanation confirmed my suspicion: Jiang Shihan wasn't killed by Hell Show, but by another sinister force.
"How do I find the practitioner behind this curse?"
"The Flying Head Curse operates invisibly, killing without leaving a trace," Liu Blind explained. "The practitioner can remotely control the victim from kilometers away, making them hard to locate."
"But this dark art has one flaw: the flying head requires fresh blood to sustain itself, freshly drawn from a living being. Search for any corpses drained of blood nearby. The practitioner is likely hiding close to such a site."
"Thank you, Old Liu. You've been a huge help this time!"
After hanging up, I found Wu Meng and asked him to search the area within a kilometer radius for any animal corpses drained of blood.
Though skeptical, he agreed to follow my lead.
By late night, the analysis results confirmed that the hair indeed belonged to Jiang Shihan.
"Jiang Shihan's hair became dull and brittle after her hospital admission, but the strands used to weave the doll were glossy and vibrant. Most importantly, they carried no trace of disinfectant."
"This means the hair was likely taken within the first two days of her admission or even before."
The scope of suspects narrowed further. The killer not only knew the hospital's elevator codes but also had contact with Jiang Shihan shortly before her admission.
"Who could it be?"
While I was deep in thought, Xiao Chen's voice came from outside. "Wu, we found an animal corpse!"