Grandfather thumped his back with a clenched fist. "Ugh, this place chills my joints to the marrow. Let's head home. I'll tell you everything there."
An hour later, we sat at our kitchen table. He brewed a pot of ginger tea, its steam rising like a wisp of old ghosts. As we sipped, he began, "Yang'er, you must be wondering—our Song family practiced corpse examination for generations. Why, then, have we forbade our descendants from touching this profession?"
His voice thickened like storm clouds.
"In the Southern Song dynasty, there lived a man named Song Ci, a magistrate of rare brilliance. Within eight months, he exonerated two hundred seventy-three unjust deaths. Forty-seven of those were resolved through an unthinkable method: he performed steam-bone autopsies using vinegar-wine vapor—activating necrophagous flies to map death's timeline by their oviposition cycles. Each night, he recorded his findings beside bloodied garments. Thus was born the Collected Records of Injustice Rectified—three centuries ahead of Western forensics."
"Song Ci," he said with reverence, "is now revered worldwide as the father of forensic science."
I leaned in. "So what happened to our family?"
"After Song Ci, generations of our ancestors served in the Ministry of Justice and Dali Court. We built upon his methods, creating the legendary Treatise of Judgmental Divination—the Duan Yu Shen Pian."
"But fame is a curse. During the Ming dynasty's Jianwen reign, our ancestor was ordered to investigate the infamous Kitten-Swap Case. He uncovered that the Crown Prince's corpse had forged molars—false signs of age. Instead of receiving praise, he was framed for tampering with the autopsy register. That case was just the beginning."
Grandfather's eyes grew darker.
"Our knowledge began to trespass cosmic boundaries. We coroners wield the Book of Life and Death, judging like Yama himself. Such arrogance invites punishment—not from heaven, but from what lies beneath. One ancestor wrote that he lost twenty years of his lifespan after staring too long into the eyes of a wronged corpse during bone steaming. Thus came our ancestral decree: 'No office. No rank. Survive through obscurity.'"
He rolled up his trouser leg. The skin on his left calf bore lines like cracked porcelain.
"I once defied that law. In my youth, I was like you—hungry for truth, eager to crack cases. Before liberation, I worked as a forensic investigator, solved several nationwide homicides. Then came disaster. They accused me of promoting feudal superstition. I was locked away, feeding horses in a frozen stable. For three years, my fibula fissured from the cold—frostbitten, etched like Jingdezhen glaze-cracks."
I winced. "How did you survive?"
He smiled bitterly. "In the hay, I hid a pubic symphysis scarred by parturition grooves—proof of pelvic dimorphism. I was studying gender differentiation. They called it obscene. Only when the political winds shifted was I exonerated. My certificate of innocence now sleeps beside my scalpel in an iron box. It takes a hundred times the pain to prove a single truth."
He downed the rest of his tea. "Brilliance breaks easy. Humility endures. The moment I revealed my skill, disaster struck. After that, I withdrew. But the world wouldn't let me go. People still came seeking me. I refused, until I had no choice but to help… in secret."
He sighed, his breath mingling with the rising ginger steam.
"I thought your generation could escape it all. But when you showed your knowledge before that thug, Sun Laohu, fate reared its head again. This is not coincidence, Yang'er. It's the Song family's burden—and our calling."
I sat in silence, unsure whether to feel proud or afraid.
He continued, "You passed the test. Starting today, I'll teach you everything I know."
My heart surged. "You mean it?"
"Don't misunderstand." He crushed a ginger slice with sudden force. "I'm teaching you because you've only skimmed two books and already flaunt it like a child swinging a sword at tigers. You don't even grasp a tenth of what our family truly holds. I don't want you dead before your time. I'm old—I won't be here forever. The best I can do is hand you the sword and let you find your own way."
He stood. "Besides, this treasure of forensic knowledge—if it dies with me, it's a sin. I couldn't face our ancestors. But if you carry it forward, I can rest in peace."
His shadow stretched across the sealed copy of Collected Records of Injustice Rectified. In the flickering oil lamp, his hunched back perfectly aligned with the portrait of Song Ci printed on its cover.
Six hundred years ago, he steamed bones and pierced illusions.
Six hundred years later, we still decipher the same autopsy register.
The Song family's fate was pinned between its pages.
From that day on, I apprenticed under him. We studied trauma patterns, scene reconstruction, putrefaction indicators, the angles of arterial spray. I endured pain. I bit down. I absorbed everything like a sponge.
Three years passed.
My college entrance exam didn't go well. I wanted to study biomedical engineering—close to electronics, with potential for forensic imaging. I was over a hundred points short. Grandfather said, "Fill it in anyway. I guarantee admission."
I trusted his unseen hands. Maybe he worked some connections. Maybe it was something else. Either way, I got in.
My aunt hoped I'd study economics to help with the family business. But I had no interest in commerce. I was an extremist—drawn to justice, to corpses, to truth. It must've skipped a generation. Grandpa's fire was alive in me.
I chose biomedical electronics—a middle-of-the-road major. Decent job prospects. The only downside? Our class had just three girls. Too late to regret.
Summer stretched long and lazy. I watched films, played chess with Grandpa, scrolled online. It was bliss.
Then came the party.
A classmate's house. Beer flowed. Two cases, gone. We were childhood friends about to scatter to distant cities. Bitter, sweet, defiant.
We sang. We shouted. We lingered late.
At 11 p.m., I turned onto my street.
Our old Song house was ablaze with light.
A knot twisted in my gut. In our county, no one lights up a house this late—unless misfortune strikes. A death.
I sobered instantly. Ran home. Pushed open the door.
Empty.
I dashed to Grandfather's study.
On his desk lay a crude envelope. No stamp. Only a blood-red curved blade sketched in the corner.
Inside: a single object dropped into my palm.
Cold. Wet. Soft.
A human eye.
The iris frozen in congealed terror—green, trembling, as if whispering: Do the unabsolved truly linger?
From its vitreous jelly hung the severed optic nerve, frayed like a rotting cable.
And beneath the retina, projected faintly—
A silhouette etched by capillary light: a silver comb-knife once used by Song Ci himself, to scrape poisons from the throat. Its hilt carved with a line from Collected Records:
"Fail to uncover the initial wound, and the river shall choke with vengeful dead."
The eye had spoken.
The past had returned.
And it was seeking justice.