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Chapter 18 The Unexpected Trouble
The efficiency of splitting up was indeed fast. By around 7:30, all the mourning halls with these three surnames on the first floor had been found.

There are not many funeral halls for the Ma family; there are two in total.

There are seven people with the surname Yang.

The Zhao surname is the most common, with a total of ten people bearing it.

There are a total of nineteen suspected funeral parlors.

Although the scope is still quite large, at least a large part of it has been eliminated.

The fat man was peering out from in front of a mourning hall: "Doctor, next we need to push open all the coffins in these nineteen mourning halls and find clues about the ghost on the first floor?"

Theoretically speaking, that's how it should be.

However, Gu Mian's thinking has always been different from others; he doesn't like to follow theories.

He glanced at the nineteen open mourning hall doors. To make it easier to mark them, the doors of the halls suspected of being involved were open, while those not suspected were closed.

"Let me walk around and take a look first." Gu Mian put her hands inside her white coat.

Pushing nineteen coffin boards is a huge undertaking; if they're unlucky, it could take an hour. And they still have the second and third floors to explore, so they don't have much time to waste.

At this moment, Chu Changge was standing in front of an open mourning hall, seemingly deep in thought.

Gu Mian didn't linger and went straight to his side: "What are you looking at?"

Chu Changge looked up at Gu Mian and said, "Look at this mourning hall."

As he spoke, he pointed towards the door.

Gu Mian also looked inside.

This mourning hall seemed no different from other mourning halls, at least not on the surface.

Bright incandescent chandeliers, huge coffins surrounded by wreaths, and black-and-white portraits of the deceased.

The person who died here was a middle-aged woman.

Her hair was short, but not a proper short haircut. It was more like the hairstyle of the landlady in the movie. Her head was uneven, like a flat potato, and even her facial features looked like they had been flattened.

Her eyes were small and a bit long, making her look like a fox with squinting, smiling eyes at first glance. Because she was smiling, there were very deep crow's feet at the corners of her eyes.

Her nose wasn't high, the tip was slightly upturned, and you could see most of her nostrils. Her lips were thin, and she was putting on a smile.

The overall impression is like a fox's face with a flat nose printed on a flat potato.

There were also elegiac couplets on the wreaths.

"In mourning the passing of Ms. Yang, the Xuzhou Public Security Bureau offers its condolences."

Chu Changge pointed to the elegiac couplet on the wreath: "Other people's elegiac couplets are usually sent by juniors, colleagues or workplaces, but this one is different."

Upon hearing this, Gu Mian examined the five large characters "Xuzhou Public Security Department" again.

This Xuzhou Public Security Bureau is clearly not Ms. Yang's workplace.

Although Gu Mian, a female colleague in the public security bureau, had not seen many of them, he knew that this hairstyle, which looked like it had been struck by lightning, was not in accordance with the rules.

In other words, it's unsightly.

Therefore, Ms. Yang, who died in this funeral hall, was not a police officer, but there was a funeral couplet sent by the Ministry of Public Security.

Moreover, she was probably not very old when she died, because she looked to be in her early forties in her funeral photo.

“She died unexpectedly in her forties, and there were even funeral couplets sent by the police. Don’t you think her story might be a bit bizarre?” Chu Changge pushed up his glasses.

“It’s quite bizarre,” Gu Mian agreed. “Moreover, according to your test question, the three ghosts each correspond to a vehicle, and the prison van is also related to the public security department.”

By this time, others had gathered around, and some even made bold guesses.

The middle-aged man named Hao Laoshi spoke up: "Could it be that the prisoner in the prison van escaped and was stopped by this brave Ms. Yang, but she also sacrificed herself in the process?"

possible.

“Any speculation without evidence is just nonsense,” Gu Mian said, glancing at the coffin in the middle. “First, we need to gather evidence.”

The fat man shivered: "Doctor, you seem unexpectedly enthusiastic about finding ghosts." Gu Mian rolled up her sleeves: "Of course, I'm doing this for the greater good. Come on, let's push the coffin."

The three players who had been standing by from the beginning still didn't intend to do anything, and huddled at the doorway waiting for them to push the coffin.

But there are unforeseen circumstances.

Gu Mian knew that this funeral hall was not normal, and she also knew that a ghost might emerge from the coffin if it was opened.

But he didn't expect that an accident would happen when the coffin lid was only halfway opened.

"Squeak—" The black-painted coffin lid was slightly pushed open a crack, revealing complete darkness underneath.

Gu Mian was craning his neck to see what was inside when suddenly everything went black, as if he had gone blind.

But then the screams coming from the surrounding area proved that there was actually nothing wrong with his eyes.

The problem is with the overhead lights.

All the lights on the first floor suddenly went out, leaving no light in the darkness. Gu Mian reached out and touched something bulging.

The fat man's scream suddenly rang in my ears: "It's out of there! It's scratching my stomach, we have to run!"

Immediately afterwards, Gu Mian heard him grab something and scramble away, and the chubby feeling in her hand was gone.

The entrance was where the screams were most concentrated.

The skinny man, the middle-aged uncle, and the freckled girl were not to be outdone; the three of them surged forward in waves, like mobile megaphones.

They screamed in panic, their voices even cracking, and while screaming, they didn't forget to run away.

In the darkness, only the voices of the three could be heard fading into the distance, along with the occasional sound of someone falling down.

It wasn't until everyone's screams stopped that Gu Mian's eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

He was still standing in the mourning hall, motionless.

It wasn't to highlight his bravery and fearlessness or to contrast with others, but rather because he had experienced so many strange things that they were as commonplace as eating and drinking, so he no longer had the kind of passionate excitement that most people would have.

Life's repeated near-death experiences had long taught him to remain calm in the face of danger and to think clearly about problems even in perilous situations.

For example, just now, he was seriously thinking about a problem—

Why did they all run away?

Finding ghosts seems to be their goal, so why did they all slip away so quickly?

As he pondered this, he glanced around, trying to get a clear look at his surroundings.

The door to the mourning hall was still open, and a faint light was coming in from outside.

Because there are no windows in the mourning hall, the only light comes from the doorway. If the door is closed, Gu Mian will not be able to see anything.

A bunch of wreaths by the door had fallen over; they must have been knocked down by others as they fled in panic.

A huge black-and-white portrait faced the doorway. The darkness made her face appear even paler, and her eyes were blurred, as if she were staring intently at him.

The heavy coffin was only pushed open a crack, and Gu Mian looked inside, but it was pitch black and she couldn't see anything.

He had no means of lighting, and he couldn't just stick his head inside.

With no other option, Gu Mian had to find a source of light.

But as soon as he turned around, he bumped into something.

Without a doubt, it is a person.

Because of the touch, the man lost his balance and fell, his head hitting the coffin next to him with a loud thud, making a crisp sound, as if the impact was quite severe.

But the man didn't utter a sound, only stubbornly covering his head and moving to Gu Mian's side.

"Xiao Qiao?" Gu Mian asked in a tone that rose and fell.

The figure finally reacted: "What are you doing?"

Thanks to the following for their generous donations: 丧的批批戏子酱 (a user name), 方圆寸地儿 (another user name), and 我为催更新的群 (a user name) who joined the group to urge me to update (づ￣3￣)づ╭～
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(End of this chapter)