PD -Chapter 33 The Garden of Human Bones

The file stated:

Suspect: Guo Yuzhi, age 94. Wanted in connection with multiple missing-person cases and intentional homicide cases. She was surrounded by police and committed suicide in her suburban villa on the day of the operation.

According to the investigation, before her death, Guo Yuzhi was connected to at least one hundred missing-person cases that had occurred locally over the previous fifty years. Most of the victims were adult males between the ages of twenty and twenty-five.

The victims had reportedly been imprisoned and tortured by Guo Yuzhi to satisfy her twisted psychological desires.

Investigators found no known survivors. During the collection of evidence, they also discovered extensive traces of illegal confinement in the basement of the suburban villa.

Most horrifying of all, detectives unearthed at least eighty skeletal remains beneath the villa’s garden.

The villa was subsequently sealed by the authorities and subjected to a comprehensive search. However, even after nearly two years of investigation, they failed to locate the remaining twenty or so bodies.

“And thus, the legends of the Garden of Human Bones and the Murderous Succubus spread throughout the region.”

That was the final sentence of the report.

Just two coined phrases, yet they carried an overwhelming sense of oppression and eerie dread.

“Well, big bro, not bad, right? I gave you a pretty detailed rundown. I did a lot of homework before you got here,” Li Zi said with a grin.

I nodded and offered a few polite words of praise, but inwardly I was growing uneasy.

A woman that vicious would likely leave behind an extremely malevolent spirit after death.

Looking up, I asked another question.

“After she died, were there any more disappearances like that in the area?”

Li Zi seemed to have anticipated the question. Taking a sip of water, he replied:

“After her death, the villa was sealed by the authorities and sat vacant for many years. Some of the older locals say a few more deaths happened there afterward, but not many. The records were never made public, so there’s no way to verify them.”

“But in 1996, the restrictions on the villa were lifted, and it was auctioned off cheaply to a family. Later, the entire family died inside the house for no apparent reason, so the place got sealed up again.”

“After that, it was sold to two different buyers from out of town. Both families disappeared without a trace, and their bodies were never found.”

“People said too many had died in that house. The unjustly dead were dragging the living down to the underworld to take their place.”

“The villa sat abandoned out in the wilderness all these years. Then it went up for auction again last year, and I managed to buy it cheap.”

Li Zi chuckled proudly.

I shook my head.

“You’ve got some nerve. Aren’t you afraid you’ll end up like the previous owners?”

“I am scared,” he admitted. “But now that you’re here, big bro, I don’t think I need to be anymore, right?”

He grinned and scratched his head ingratiatingly.

I looked at him and asked, “Why are you so confident in me? Aren’t you worried I might just be a fraud?”

“Come on, big bro, don’t joke around.”

Li Zi straightened up.

“I may not be good at much, but I’m pretty good at reading people. You’re definitely not a con artist.”

“Besides, scammers don’t operate like you.”

“If you were a fraud, you’d just take me straight to the villa, wave your arms around, do some fake ritual, and call it a day. You wouldn’t waste all this time explaining things to me.”

“I can tell you’ve got experience. You’ve got your own methods for dealing with this kind of supernatural stuff.”

I laughed and continued teasing him.

“Or maybe I’m a professional con artist. The key to a good scam is commitment. Haven’t you heard that?”

We chatted until noon.

Using the villa’s original floor plan, I redesigned the entire property on the spot.

From the outside it would still appear to be a villa, but internally it had effectively been transformed into an immersive horror attraction designed for exploration.

Then I suddenly remembered that Li Zi had mentioned online that he’d already hired workers to remove the villa’s old interior.

So I asked about the current state of the property.

Li Zi immediately sighed.

“Don’t even mention it.”

“I hired a construction crew and told them to strip out all the old tiles, wooden panels, broken windows, and other worn-out materials.”

“I paid them triple the normal rate.”

“They worked for one day and then quit. Said the house wasn’t clean. Claimed the walls started bleeding whenever they removed a window.”

“I only had them working during the daytime. They went home every night.”

“But even then they refused to continue. I’ve been tearing my hair out over it.”

He looked at me hopefully, clearly wondering if I had a solution.

Instead of answering, I pulled out my phone and found a contact.

It belonged to an old associate of mine—a construction foreman everyone called Old Luo.

Years ago, I’d handled another haunted property.

Not a single local contractor had been willing to touch the place.

Only Old Luo had stepped forward.

He quickly assembled a crew of men who were fearless. Haunted houses, evil spirits—none of it bothered them.

They worked fast, kept their mouths shut, and got the job done efficiently.

The only downside was that they charged more than ordinary construction teams.

Later, I’d heard rumors within the industry that Old Luo had fled from Myanmar and had blood on his hands.

Fortunately, he still knew how to work.

To survive, he’d found opportunity in the jobs nobody else dared take, gathering like-minded men and building a construction business around them.

Though people said many of them had criminal records, they were exceptionally competent workers.

Most of them simply wanted a quiet life and never caused trouble.

I explained Old Luo’s situation to Li Zi and asked whether he’d be willing to hire the crew.

The price would be steep, but the work would be done properly.

“Anyone you recommend is good enough for me, big bro!”

Li Zi waved his hand dramatically.

“Bring them over! I’ll cover all the travel expenses, food, lodging—everything!”

I thought for a moment before discussing our next steps.

Based on the documents and all the clues Li Zi had gathered, there were two locations in the villa that concerned me the most.

The first was the rear garden—the place where more than eighty bodies had been buried and which later became known as the Garden of Human Bones.

The second was the basement where the officer’s widow had allegedly imprisoned young men for years.

In my judgment, these two locations should contain the densest concentrations of yin energy and resentment.

The situation inside this haunted villa was far more complicated than I had initially imagined.

The resentment here was already overwhelming.

And if the officer’s widow’s spirit still lingered…

Then we might not be facing a single entity.

We might be facing an entire group of them.

That meant we had to proceed cautiously.

No risks.

No carelessness.

Pointing to the newly redrawn floor plan, I said to Li Zi, “When Old Luo’s crew arrives, this is the first place we’re going to work on.”

I circled the villa’s rear garden with my pen.

After renovation, that area would become a plant maze for visitors to explore.

“If everything in those reports is true,” I continued, “then this garden, where over eighty skeletons were buried, is probably the place with the heaviest yin energy in the entire property.”

Li Zi looked visibly shaken.

“But… weren’t all those bones dug up by the authorities years ago? How can it still be the most dangerous place?”

Halfway through his sentence, realization suddenly dawned on him.

His eyes widened as he stared at me.

“Wait… are you saying they didn’t dig up everything back then?”

“You think there are still bodies buried underneath?”