Coroner: "Song Yang"

3.The Substitute Burial

Just as I was puzzling over what was strange about this skeleton, Grandpa spoke: “Yang’er, analyze it. What kind of life did this person lead? How did they die? Are they male or female? If female, did she give birth? What was her age at death, and did she suffer any illnesses? Tell me all you can.”

“Grandpa, are you testing me?” I asked.

“You could say that,” Grandpa replied casually, taking a drag from his pipe.

I thought, what kind of bizarre test is this? Waking me up in the middle of the night, dragging me to an old graveyard to dig up a grave—who else in the world would do something like this?

“Quickly, now. The yin energy here is too strong; if we stay too long, my old bones might not handle it,” Grandpa said, stomping his foot.

I steadied myself and examined the skeleton. Strange noises echoed around the graveyard, and the eerie chill here was unnerving, but as I focused, I managed to shut out the distractions.

The skeleton I’d assembled was about 1.8 meters tall from head to toe, indicating the person had been quite tall in life. But the feet were small, which didn’t make sense. Generally, the ratio of foot length to height is around 1:7, so taller people have longer feet, unless this person bound their feet like women did in ancient times.

Setting that aside, I moved on to determine the gender. Judging by the large bones, my first impression was male, but the wide pelvis clearly indicated female features, and there was scarring on the pubic bone from childbirth.

I examined the skull to estimate age, and the wear on the teeth suggested someone in their early thirties. But looking at the thigh bones, I noticed they were somewhat light, a sign of calcium loss, and they showed slight bending from years of pressure—features typical of an older person. This was puzzling…

And what was even more bizarre was the size of the arm bones. The large joints looked like those of leg bones. Could this person have walked on all fours since birth?

This skeleton, from head to toe, was riddled with contradictions, leaving me increasingly uncertain. But suddenly, I understood Grandpa's intent. This test wasn’t simple, and I already had an answer in my heart.

I’d been crouching for so long that when I stood, I felt dizzy, and my vision blacked out for a moment. My legs were stiff as stone. Grandpa had left a pile of cigarette butts at his feet, and it turned out I’d unknowingly been examining the skeleton for half an hour.

“So, what do you think, Yang'er?” Grandpa asked.

“This person was about thirty, both a man and a woman, likely raised in captivity, walking on all fours, eating coarse food, and even gave birth to seven or eight children. Later, they drowned, and then were decapitated,” I said.

“That’s your conclusion?” Grandpa asked with a mocking smile.

“Yes, because this isn’t a human at all!” I replied.

“Oh?” Grandpa’s interest was piqued. “Tell me why you think it’s not a person.”

Apart from the skull, every part of this skeleton had been pieced together from animals: the legs were from a sheep, the hands from a pig, the pelvis from an old sow, and the hands and feet were assembled from fragmented bones, probably from cats and dogs.

If I had to determine the cause of death, judging by the broken neck bone, this person was decapitated.

After hearing my answer, Grandpa nodded approvingly. “You’re teachable! The ancients said, ‘Believing everything in books is worse than having no books at all.’ If you can’t even distinguish human bones from animal bones, then anything else I say would be a waste of time. Very good. Very good. It seems the Song family has a worthy successor.”

“But, Grandpa…” I voiced my lingering question. “What’s the story behind this skeleton?”

Grandpa took a drag on his cigarette and began explaining the origin of this strange skeleton.

It happened thirty years ago.

There was a man named Huang San from Yangshu Village near the county. Huang San was a lazy bachelor, with nothing better to do than drink, gamble, and sneak into widows’ homes at night. He’d angered his own mother to death by the time he was twenty.

Naturally, this scoundrel couldn’t find a wife. He borrowed money everywhere, and everyone in the village despised him. When he couldn’t make it in the village anymore, he went out to work odd jobs here and there, and whenever he got a bit of cash, he’d gamble it away.

One time, he ran up a gambling debt of five thousand yuan and disappeared. His creditors came to the village to collect, but in those days, that amount was enough to build several nice houses in the countryside, and no one wanted to take responsibility, so everyone claimed not to know him.

A few days later, someone found a bloody human head in a black plastic bag on the roadside and immediately reported it to the police. The police took a photo and published it in the newspaper for identification. One of Huang San’s distant uncles recognized the head as his. Everyone figured he’d been killed by his creditors and that he’d brought it upon himself. The villagers, being very traditional, didn’t push for an investigation, so the police didn’t pursue it, and the case was left unsolved.

Huang San’s head was sent back to the village. Everyone felt the Huang family was cursed; their family line had ended, and Huang San hadn’t even left a whole body for burial, which meant his soul would never rest. They discovered his mother was from the Chaoshan region, so they decided to conduct a “substitute burial” for him, using animal bones to piece together a body for his burial, so he could rest in peace.

After explaining, Grandpa told me to rebury Huang San’s bones. Once I finished, he took a bundle of yellow paper from his coat, lit it with a match, and placed it on the grave, saying, “Brother Huang, sorry for disturbing you. I know you died unjustly and left no descendants. This offering is probably beneath you, but on the anniversary of your death next year, I’ll bring some monks and priests to perform a ritual and help guide your spirit.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a sudden gust of wind swept up, making the flames flicker wildly. I even thought I heard faint, sorrowful crying carried by the wind, as the ashes floated into the sky.

Stunned by what I saw, Grandpa pressed my head down, telling me to bow a few times and apologize.

After I stood up, the strange wind had disappeared. Trembling, I asked Grandpa, “Are ghosts real?”

“Some things are real if you believe in them, and not if you don’t. But, Yang’er, remember this: a coroner examining the dead is, in itself, an offense to them. Only by keeping a heart of reverence can one remain blameless under heaven.”

I nodded. “I understand!”

But then, a thought crossed my mind. Did this mean I could become a forensic examiner in the future? I asked, “Grandpa, I passed your test, so can I become a forensic examiner for Uncle Sun?”

“No! Absolutely not! The Song family’s ancestral code must not be violated!” Grandpa replied sternly.