The General's Verdict: The Dead of Jinling

"Damn it!"

The captain felt a chill run down his spine, as if a malevolent spirit had stared into his soul. Who could withstand such a thing?

He quickly stepped back a few paces, raising his firearm instinctively, his finger already on the trigger.

"Who are you... and what do you want...?" he asked, his voice steady but tense.

Suddenly, a hoarse voice emerged from the ghostly white face before him. It was cold, eerie, sending shivers through his bones.

The captain fought the impulse to fire. He wasn't sure if bullets would even have an effect on this creature. And judging by the words coming from that face, it seemed capable of "communication."

"We're here to handle a case, and you've trapped us in here!" he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Handle... a case?" The pale face seemed confused, repeating the captain's words as if tasting them.

It was then that the team could see more clearly—the face belonged to an old man, his features painted ghostly white as if covered in makeup for an opera, with two red blotches, crooked and uneven, on his cheeks.

Before the old man could process the information, another voice rang out from beyond the door, breaking the tense silence.

"Aiya! The generals have arrived!"

"I reported the case, it's me, it's me!" A high-pitched, piercing woman's voice cut through the air, and the captain saw a flash of red as a woman in a bright red qipao suddenly appeared before them.

No one could tell when she had entered; it was as if the wind had carried her here. She was less unnerving than the old man—at least she had a full body, visible arms and legs. But her face was equally ghostly, painted with heavy makeup, her eyes unnaturally accentuated, and her blood-red qipao was nearly blinding.

Still, there was no mistaking it—she wasn't human.

"General! Oh my, my general, you've finally arrived!" The woman smiled sweetly and moved closer to the captain.

He quickly aimed his gun at her, his voice low and commanding. "Don't come any closer! Stay back!"

"Oh no, please, don't! What if you accidentally fire?" The woman froze, her face suddenly pale with fear. She seemed terrified of the weapon in the captain's hands.

The captain raised an eyebrow in confusion. If they were truly ghosts, why would they fear a gun?

The young soldiers exchanged looks, a few silently signaling their confusion.

"Stay back!" one of the younger soldiers barked, his weapon raised. "Hands on your head, squat down!"

"General! General!" The woman wailed as she obeyed, squatting with her hands covering her head, her terrified eyes wide with panic.

The soldiers were stunned.

"Do they really fear the gun?"

"I don't know, it could be a trick," another soldier muttered, "You can't trust anything they say."

"Maybe... but I've heard that some ghosts don't realize they're dead. They still think they're alive, stuck in the memories of their past."

The soldiers communicated silently, using hand signals, a technique they had all been trained in to prepare for situations where speaking might be impossible.

"I'll try again," the young soldier said, stepping forward and aiming his gun at the old man's head. "Squat down!"

The old man hesitated, then his expression turned fearful. "M-Master... do I need to kneel?"

The captain was about to protest, wondering how the headless ghost could possibly kneel, when suddenly the old man's head drifted out from behind the door. A black-and-red robe followed, revealing a form that wasn't just a head—it was a full, decayed body. It truly knelt before the young soldier.

It turned out that the head was only part of a much larger, hidden figure, obscured by the darkness and fog, fooling them into thinking it was just a disembodied head.

"It's squatting, not kneeling!" the young soldier barked again. "Where did these feudal habits come from?!"

"Feudal... habits?" The old man's head tilted, confused, but he obeyed, shifting to squat, holding his head.

The soldiers recoiled in shock as the ghastly limbs became visible—rotting, skeletal arms, with hands still mostly intact, but the flesh of the forearms had rotted away, exposing blackened bone.

"They're not ghosts... they're corpses," the captain muttered, motioning for his team to stay alert.

He approached the old man cautiously, gun in hand, trying to lift its arm with the barrel. "Get up. I need to ask you something."

He could feel the solidness of the corpse beneath the barrel of his gun. These weren't ethereal beings—these were physical bodies.

"Master... ask me, ask me anything," the old man muttered, his head hung low, revealing a gaping wound in the back of his neck where blood vessels still faintly pulsed.

The captain steadied himself and began questioning the strange apparition. It seemed that the house had once belonged to a prosperous family in Jinling. The inhabitants had died during the chaos of war, yet they seemed unaware of their own deaths, possibly due to the oppressive "ghost fog."

"We reported a case," the old man said, seeming confused by the captain's further inquiries. "Our master was going mad—he was going to kill his daughter!"

The captain glanced at his team. Family violence...?

This couldn't be a coincidence. They had come to resolve a security issue in the city, and now this supernatural dilemma required their intervention.

A nearby soldier signed, "Captain, are you really going to help these ghosts?"

"They're dead. Can domestic violence kill them again?"

The captain signed back, "What else can we do? We're stuck here. We need to find some way out. But maybe we can solve this... and maybe find a way to leave."

After a brief exchange, the captain lowered his weapon and spoke firmly, "Your husband is trying to kill your daughter? That's no small matter. Take me to her."