Chapter 9: The Morgue’s Secret and a Glimmer of Truth

Inside the Cangyang City Public Security Bureau,

It was one in the morning.

As usual, 45-year-old Chen Jietao was slowly making his way to the duty room, preparing for the shift change.

Yet, his state of mind was vastly different from his usual composure. The great upheaval from a week prior, a cataclysm that felt nothing short of a divine miracle, had shaken his previously unwavering atheism to its core, making him question all his past beliefs.

‘There aren’t really ghosts in this world, are there?!’

It was precisely because he had never believed in ghosts or deities that he had dared to choose his current profession.

However, for him now, rotating shifts to guard the morgue had become an unbearable torment.

Ever since last week’s events, he couldn’t shake the unsettling fear that something ‘unclean’ might gather within the morgue during his shifts.

After all, the police station’s morgue housed individuals who, more often than not, had met an unnatural end.

Would it truly be so strange if malevolent spirits or vengeful ghosts lingered there?

Furthermore, a particularly strange female corpse was kept there—a presence that had unsettled the entire Public Security Bureau the previous month.

He wasn’t privy to the exact details.

However, his colleagues had whispered that the deceased had no visible injuries, no medical history, and despite multiple comprehensive forensic examinations, no cause of death had ever been determined.

Even more terrifying, since the female corpse had been brought into the morgue, strange sounds frequently emanated from within.

More unsettling still, the guards often fainted inexplicably, only to find nothing amiss when they later sought medical attention.

Though these were merely rumors and hearsay, they undeniably filled him with a sense of dread and unease.

Lost in his troubling thoughts, Chen Jietao finally reached the door of the duty room.

The next moment, Chen Jietao pushed open the door and bellowed inside, deliberately raising his voice to bolster his own courage.

“Old Baldy, shift change! You can go home and sleep now!”

…

…

Several seconds passed, but there was no reply.

‘Hmm?’

Puzzled, Chen Jietao peered curiously into the room.

There, he saw his old friend sprawled motionless on the table. Were it not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, he would have appeared indistinguishable from a corpse.

‘Old Baldy fell asleep?’

“Hey, hey, Old Baldy, wake up!” Chen Jietao called out, trying to rouse his friend.

Strangely, however, his old friend remained utterly unresponsive.

Faced with this abnormal situation, Chen Jietao couldn’t help but recall the unsettling rumors of ghosts and spirits.

“Those rumors aren’t true, are they?”

Trembling with fear, Chen Jietao cautiously moved to his friend’s side, and what he saw made him gasp sharply.

Especially upon seeing his friend’s face, covered in white foam and streaks of blood.

Chen Jietao’s heart hammered against his ribs, threatening to burst from his chest.

‘There isn’t really something in the morgue, is there?’

After frantically dialing 120 for an ambulance, Chen Jietao’s gaze drifted towards the adjacent morgue.

Much like a protagonist in a horror film determined to court disaster, Chen Jietao, after ‘careful consideration,’ ultimately decided to venture inside and investigate.

Taking several deep breaths, Chen Jietao, summoning all his courage, pulled out the ghost-dispelling talisman he had acquired the day before.

He pushed open the door with a resolute ‘Ka!’

The large door swung open.

However, what greeted his eyes was not a bloodthirsty, hideous female ghost.

Nor was it a terrifying zombie or any other kind of repulsive evil spirit.

Instead, it was a silver-haired girl, breathtakingly beautiful.

****

Minutes earlier,

Utilizing her acute sensory abilities and a spiritual energy-based optical camouflage, Lin Ling had stealthily infiltrated the area, arriving unnoticed at the morgue entrance.

She glanced at the locked morgue door before her and then at the Old Baldy uncle on duty next door.

After precisely 0.001 seconds of deliberation, Lin Ling decisively clapped her hands, making a ‘cruel’ decision.

“Sorry, Uncle!”

A powerful storm of spiritual energy instantly erupted from Lin Ling’s body, surging towards the Old Baldy on duty.

In an instant, the bald uncle, who had been engrossed in a small film, barely registered what was happening before his vision blurred.

He collapsed, frothing at the mouth and with blood seeping from the corners of his eyes.

‘Uh…’

‘Oops, did I use too much force again?’

‘My apologies!’

Gazing at the miserable state of the uncle before her, Lin Ling felt a pang of guilt.

She awkwardly scratched her cheek, attempting to console herself.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine. During simulations in the consciousness space, I always ended up crushing people’s heads directly.’

‘This time is much better, at least he’s still alive. A minor incident, truly minor…’

If Little White were here and saw Lin Ling like this, they would probably be speechless with exasperation.

Having dealt with the uncle, Lin Ling used her spiritual energy to perceive the shape of the keyhole.

She then separated a strand of her hair, reshaped it into a key, and inserted it into the lock.

“Click!”

With a crisp sound, the door opened.

‘Done!’

‘Wow, Battle Sovereign’s shapeshifting ability is so convenient!’

After a moment of admiration, Lin Ling contentedly released the hair’s mimicry. However, failing to control the scope of the release, her soft, black long hair instantly reverted to its original silver-white.

‘Hm, it doesn’t matter. No one’s watching anyway…’

Glancing at the silver strands cascading over her shoulders, Lin Ling paid them no mind and walked directly into the morgue.

Following the records she had obtained from the guard, Lin Ling opened the cold storage drawer containing Xi Yue’s body.

There, she finally beheld the short-haired girl she had yearned for, the one who had haunted her thoughts and dreams.

“Long time no see, Yue.”

Even after a month since her death, her body remained remarkably pristine, perfectly preserved, and utterly devoid of any dissection marks.

This deeply perplexed Lin Ling. ‘This doesn’t quite match the corpses described in movies, does it?’

‘Had the forensic pathologists not investigated? And was current cadaver preservation technology truly this advanced?’

Driven by her doubts, Lin Ling channeled her spiritual energy to perceive Xi Yue’s physical condition.

The result, though heartbreaking, was not unexpected.

There were no signs of life, nor was there even a trace of a lingering soul in any part of her body.

Perhaps her soul had truly scattered to the winds.

As Little White had explained, weak souls could not endure long after the body’s demise.

Though this was a known fact, Lin Ling couldn’t help but break down in tears upon confirming it herself.

A few tears involuntarily escaped her eyes.

According to the laws of the Source Star Universe, all living souls were composed of spiritual energy, which would dissipate a certain time after death.

The complete absence of spiritual energy residue in Xi Yue’s body filled Lin Ling with profound despair.

Had even a single trace remained, Lin Ling could have used that spiritual energy to retrieve and reconstruct Xi Yue’s soul, bringing her beloved back to life.

Even if, after resurrection, Xi Yue might not be able to accept her current self.

But for Lin Ling, Xi Yue’s mere existence outweighed everything else; not being together mattered little.

‘Alas, if that’s the case, then perhaps all I can do is uncover precisely what happened.’

‘If someone truly harmed you… then I’ll use this power to its fullest.’

Wiping away her tears, Lin Ling’s beautiful golden eyes involuntarily revealed a terrifying, murderous aura, completely at odds with her sacred demeanor.

Then, Lin Ling closed her eyes once more, and following Little White’s instructions, began to manipulate the spiritual energy within her body.

‘Wide-Area Perception activated.’

A unique spiritual energy fluctuation instantly expanded outwards from Lin Ling, rapidly encompassing the surroundings.

****

Wide-Area Perception was a fundamental application of spiritual energy. It involved broadly covering a specific space with one’s own spiritual energy to observe and filter everything within the range, seeking useful information.

Primarily, it targeted living individuals and conducted a rudimentary exploration of some of their relevant memories.

Its efficiency wasn’t particularly high, but for locating individuals, it was more than sufficient.

Of course, this was limited to relatively vulnerable individuals; to read the memories of powerful beings, an entirely different method would be required.

Unfortunately, Lin Ling’s perception abilities seemed limited, and her control over spiritual energy was currently insufficient.

More critically, after becoming a Battle Sovereign, Lin Ling had not absorbed spiritual energy again, leaving her with less than ten percent of her full capacity.

Consequently, at this stage, she could only barely cover half of China.

Moreover, this was her first attempt at such a wide-ranging perception, making her quite unpracticed.

Using Xi Yue’s name as a key identifier, Lin Ling employed a method of spirit particle resonance.

She searched through the memories of everyone within the covered range for anything related to Xi Yue.

Her aim was to extract all judgments related to Xi Yue from their memories and then systematically examine them.

Once in search mode, Lin Ling’s computational power rivaled that of a supercomputer.

She meticulously scrutinized all relevant memories, leaving no stone unturned, no clue unexamined.

However, as the investigation progressed, Lin Ling’s brow furrowed.

Within a mere few minutes, all memories concerning Xi Yue had been thoroughly sifted through.

Yet, the results were far from satisfactory.

Aside from insignificant fragments of Xi Yue’s daily life, no information regarding her potential demise was found.

Lin Ling found it difficult to accept. ‘Had the culprit already left this range, or did Yue truly die from a natural disaster rather than human foul play?’

‘But if that were the case… Wait?!!’

“What is that?!”

Just as Lin Ling hit this impasse, her attention was abruptly drawn to a peculiar creature thousands of miles away.

From the results of her spiritual energy perception, it appeared to be a gigantic reptilian creature, similar to a lizard.

Its spiritual energy was countless times stronger than that of an ordinary human.

When Lin Ling attempted to lock onto it with her spiritual energy, she found it was as if something was blocking her.

Her perceptive spiritual energy couldn’t penetrate the creature’s body.

‘What in the world is that?’

‘Didn’t they say Blue Star was on the edge of the Source Star Universe, and spiritual energy was scarce here? Where did such a powerful creature come from?’

‘It couldn’t be such a coincidence, could it?’

Seizing the moment while her Wide-Area Perception remained active, Lin Ling hastily used the lizard’s leaked spiritual energy signature to trace its movement path over the past month.

Fortunately, the lizard’s internal spiritual energy was considerable, and the high concentration of spiritual energy it left behind had not dissipated for a long time.

This conveniently allowed Lin Ling to track it.

Indeed, just as she suspected, the lizard had appeared a month ago, during the period of Xi Yue’s demise, at South China Park—the very place where Xi Yue’s body was discovered.

‘Heh, heh…’

‘Could such a coincidence truly exist?’

Lin Ling’s golden eyes narrowed slightly, and a dangerous aura emanated from them.