A drum made of a human face, a dulcimer made of cardiac muscle, an erhu made of leg bones and a sanxian made of a hand tendon?

When I heard Su Yizi’s words, I felt she was just a crazy woman.

So she made her instruments from these materials?

That’s horrible.

That mournful old woman’s voice came out from the speakers in the room.

“Hee hee. A human face drum and a cardiac muscle dulcimer? Ha ha, Su Yizi, you were so cruel.”

“So what? I’m not afraid of you. How can I be afraid of you when you’re dead?” Su Yizi laughed.

The sound of a gavel suddenly reverberated through the room.

Dong!

At that moment, the sounds of wailing ghosts and howling wolves all disappeared.

Then I pushed away the sofa and walked to the center of the room.

Chuanzi also came out from under the bed.

“You?” Su Yizi looked at me and Chuanzi.

I pointed to Chuanzi and said: “Let me introduce him to you. This is Chuanzi, the successor of Master Liu, the famous storyteller.”

“You.. you faked those sounds just now?” she pointed to us.

I laughed and said Chuanzi had a special skill - vocal mimicry.

Chinese storytelling artists were highly skilled in vocal mimicry. They could produce believable male and female voices, as well as many kinds of animal cries and other, more bizarre, sounds.

Because Chuanzi had a very wide vocal range, he could imitate almost any kind of sound. He normally used this skill to warm up audiences on YY.

The voices of Su Yizi’s roommates, as well as that old woman, were all produced by Chuanzi.

Su Yizi stared at us and said: “How can you imitate her so well even though you have never heard Zhu Wei’s voice before? Even I couldn’t tell them apart.”

Ha ha ha.

I pointed at Su Yizi and said: “You are really smart, but you made the mistake of assuming everyone else was foolish.. We found your videos on the internet. It wasn’t difficult at all; I got your recordings yesterday afternoon and let Chuanzi imitate them. Simple!”

She stared at me, saying: “But you took my deposit.”

“Yes, I did, but I’m not one of those evil-minded lawyers who only take money without concern for good or evil.” Then I pointed at her and said: “Now you still have time to confess your crime.”

“Confess? Why should I confess?” Su Yizi laughed grimly. There was a touch of wild luster in her eyes.

She wanted a life-or-death struggle?

Su Yizi stared at me and said: “Only you two know I have killed my roommates.. It would be easy for me to kill you.” Her nails grew long and black hairs appeared on her face; she looked like a fox.

“Yu Shui, you forced me to do this.. I never intended to hurt you.. but now you have to die, since you know the truth.. Few smart people live very long these days,” she said, with threatening gestures.

I gasped and said to her: “Su Yizi.. I know Chuanzi and I can’t escape, but I just wanted to know.. Why did you drink the corpse oil? How did you kill your roommates and why are you like this now? I have to know the facts before we die, right?”

Su Yizi sneered: “Well.. let me tell you; but I’ll have to start from the beginning.”

She told me she was a little introverted and was laughed at by her roommates when she’d just entered her school.. They laughed at her because she was poor and without any talent.

Then the fox appeared in her dream and told her about the cardiac muscle dulcimer and the human face drum.

So, she planned to kill the four roommates.

Zhu Wei was the first victim.

Zhu Wei’s legs were severed while she was running in the park in the evening. Her legs were gone and the car that hit her also disappeared, because on that day, no car entered the park.

I asked her how? How did she do it?

Su Yizi said it was easy since Zhu Wei was never killed by a car.

“So how did she die?” I asked.

She told me there were many bamboo groves in the park, and many students enjoyed walking there. She made a huge slingshot by twisting nine strands of rope between two bamboos.

When Zhu Wei ran into the bamboo forest where Su Yizi was hiding, Su Yizi cut the rope that was used to fix the slingshot.

That slingshot catapulted a big stone of more than thirty kilograms.. It hit Zhu Wei and killed her.

Then, Su Yizi rushed to the stone and wiped the blood. After that, she pushed that stone into a hole that she had previously prepared and buried it in one minute.

Finally, Su Yizi used a spade to cut off Zhu Wei’s legs; then she wrapped them in an oilcloth and buried them under a tree.

After this, she called her roommate, saying that she saw a car knock Zhu Wei down when she was preparing to run with her in the evening.

Zhu Wei died from more than ten fractures in her upper body after being hit by the big stone.

So, according to Su Yizi, it was not suspicious.. Everyone else assumed it must have been the car that caused those fractures on her body.

Of course, Su Yizi was a terribly careful girl. She researched car accident photos on the internet and found that there were always tire marks at the scene of the accident.

Therefore, Su Yizi had used the spade to make a few ruts in the ground. The traffic police even sent out an arrest order after calculating the tire size and its speed according to the rutting.

It was the so-called “dark humor”.

I felt a chill run down my spine.. What other university student could be this cruel and malevolent?

Su Yizi said: “I made an erhu from her leg bones.. Its tune is excellent, and it is much better than any instruments made by masters that cost hundreds of thousands.”

“Well, more than excellent.. it has a soul.” Su Yizi asked me: “Do you know why I got so many awards?”

I asked her why.

She laughed and said: “That’s because the judges thought there was soul in my music.. My music was so special and valuable; it couldn’t be played by humans.. Of course, I couldn’t do it either.. But I knew it was my roommate’s soul.. She was crying there.”

Then she continued: “Do you know? I was so excited I wanted to cry when I heard the music of that erhu for the first time.. My god, it was really the sound of nature. I played the erhu for a while and then I knew - I needed a drum. A human face drum.”

She was very good with drums. Now that she had made that erhu that could produce the sound of a soul, she wanted to get a human face drum mixed with the sighs of souls.

“So you planned to kill your second roommate?” I asked her.

Ha ha ha ha!

Su Yizi didn’t speak, but laughed with a very insidious look.

This time, her laugh made us get goose bumps all over.

I asked her: “How did you remove your roommate’s face?”

I heard from Su Yizi before.. Her second roommate drowned when she was swimming, but when the rescue team pulled her up, they found her face was missing.

How did Su Yizi manage to remove the facial skin while the person was swimming?

It was not easy to do anything underwater, right?

When I asked her, Su Yizi laughed and said: “I didn’t remove her facial skin while she was swimming.. I tricked her into coming to the riverside and knocked her out; then I tied her to a tree and removed her facial skin.”

“Maybe you don’t know.. She woke up while I was removing her face.. She begged me for mercy again and again, but how could I give up? Never! She fainted again because of the pain.”

Then Su Yizi untied the second roommate’s rope, pushed her in the river, and drowned her.

When she was asphyxiated, Su Yizi pushed the body into the current.

Then this roommate rolled several meters and sank to the bottom of the river.

Su Yizi told me: “Actually this was not enough.. The reason I have never been found out all these years.. is because I spread the rumor of the Fox Empress’ curse and I spread the theory of ghosts and gods around campus.”

Then it spread by word of mouth and everyone knew my dormitory was cursed by the Fox Empress. None dared to enter and live there.. and the other roommates were also anxious and fearful.

Many people believed in the curse of the Fox Empress.

It was not long before I killed the fourth roommate and made the sanxian from her hand tendons..

She asked me: “Why did I drink the corpse oil and turn to you? Well.. That’s easy to explain. Now that all the roommates are dead and I am the only one alive, others might suspect something. I drank the corpse oil so that I got the livor mortis all over.. Then I could get rid of this livor mortis with your help.. Ha ha ha, then I could be the only person alive under the curse of the Fox Empress. As a result, I could use those instruments and enjoy applause and flowers for the rest of my life, right?”

I nodded. She is a big liar. The more she tries to hide, the more she is exposed.”

“But you're really a difficult man to deal with.. It would have been good business. You ‘cure’ me and I stop drinking corpse oil, and those spots would be removed. Then you’d get recognition for working with a star like me, and I would erase all remaining suspicion. It was a win-win strategy.”

Saying this, Su Yizi shouted suddenly: “It should have been a win-win strategy! Why did you have to change it into a lose-lose?”

My face muscles trembled a little. I didn’t care about a win-win or a lose-lose. l asked the last question: ”Why did Zhu Wei’s fox appear in your dream?”

In the ghost story of fox spirits and musical instruments made of human body parts, this was the most mysterious facet.