The Huixiang police probably had very mixed feelings about me.
They probably thought I was genuinely capable, but also a real nuisance.
The headless ghosts in Crooked-Neck Village hadn't gone after me or the police. Instead, they'd helped deal with the criminal gang, which made the officers less afraid of me. And finding so many headless skeletons in the cave had left them feeling somewhat grateful.
"Even if they couldn't be buried whole, they weren't even laid to rest. It's so pitiful. If you hadn't found them, who knows how long they would've stayed there." The officer greeting me sighed with emotion, then brought up the people who had come from Crooked-Neck Village.
Crooked-Neck Village had already been deserted. Supposedly, a few elderly people still lived there, but that claim came from a long time ago. Judging by this investigation, the village had long since become an underground hideout for the criminal gang. There weren't any ordinary residents living there at all.
Still, checking the household registration records should turn up a few people who had moved away from Crooked-Neck Village. Those skeletons might have been their ancestors, so the police would naturally ask them to identify the remains, then run DNA tests or something to establish who they were. If no one claimed them, they would become the state's responsibility. If they had academic value, they might be preserved properly; otherwise, they'd all be cremated and buried together.
Either outcome was more in keeping with the traditional belief that the dead should be laid to rest in the earth. It meant they would finally have a proper resting place, better than being left in a cave, hidden from the light of day.
The Huixiang police awkwardly thanked me, leaving me with the same complicated feelings they had.
But when