After several people entered the room, Shen Feixian started asking about the little girl's situation.
"Little girl, what's your name?"
When the little girl heard Shen Feixian's words, her face was full of confusion. She stared blankly for a long time but couldn't remember what her name was.
Staring blankly at Song Jixing, she murmured: "Mommy!"
Seeing this, Shen Feixian felt a little headache coming on. "Not knowing your name makes things a bit difficult!"
"She's just a lingering soul without memories, so it's normal." Song Jixing looked at the little girl and said.
Even if Song Jixing wanted to divine something for the lingering soul before him, he didn't have the ability. The moment a person dies, their causal connections to this world are completely severed.
Additionally, Song Jixing's main practice was not fortune-telling, and he was not omnipotent. So even if he wanted to deduce heavenly secrets, it would be very difficult.
There are ways of knowing a name when you know it, and ways of not knowing when you don't.
Since electronic devices couldn't capture the little girl's existence, Shen Feixian could only take out his computer and piece together a frontal photo of the little girl through painstaking photo editing and his superb jigsaw puzzle skills.
Shen Feixian looked back and forth at the little girl several times, carefully compared the facial features, and after making sure it was accurate, he quickly typed on the keyboard.
On the screen, images of little girls around the same age flashed by rapidly. "She should be a lingering soul left behind after the spiritual energy revival, at most from a nearby city. It shouldn't be too difficult." Shen Feixian said.
"But if she's never done facial registration, then the difficulty is another matter."
Ding dong, the computer made a prompt sound.
The search results were out.
Shen Feixian looked at the screen, stroked his chin, typed on the computer for a good while longer, then turned the screen to face Song Jixing.
"Junior sister, take a look!"
Song Jixing looked at the screen. The screen showed the little girl's name, age, and other information.
You Beibei, 5 years old, kindergarten senior class.
The family relations column showed Mother: Bai Ping, female, 34 years old.
No wonder she called for her mommy.
Song Jixing's dancing was taught by Bai Ping, with all kinds of subtle details in the movements exactly the same as Bai Ping's. This little girl had probably seen the familiar dance and so came looking for him.
"Junior sister, I need to dig up some more information. I'll tell you when I find out more." Shen Feixian said.
Song Jixing nodded and took You Beibei out of the room.
-
That night, everyone gathered in the living room.
Shen Feixian gently slid his mouse to scroll down the web page. What came next was not good news.
"Bai Ping divorced a year ago. After the divorce, custody of the child was given to You Beibei's father, You Feifan. You Feifan's hometown is in City Y. Bai Ping moved to another city hundreds of kilometers away, in order to be able to see her daughter often."
"However, You Feifan travels frequently for work, leaving his parents to take care of bringing up You Beibei. It seems You Feifan's parents also don't like their granddaughter You Beibei much, often letting her go out and play by herself."
"Half a year ago when You Beibei went missing, her grandparents simply assumed the mother had picked her up. It wasn't until a week later when someone found the corpse of a little girl soaked in the nearby river that the You family realized something was wrong."
"The You family hurriedly claimed the corpse, took it back and cremated it for burial. You Feifan was at a crucial point in his career advancement and afraid his ex-wife would kick up a fuss if she found out. So he secretly hid news of his daughter's drowning, claiming instead that he needed to go abroad for work and had brought his daughter abroad too."
"When Bai Ping tried calling her daughter, he made excuses to put her off every time. Bai Ping wanted to fight for visitation rights in court but the judge couldn't enforce it with the child supposedly abroad. Recently Bai Ping has been seeing psychologists for her mood problems, and fills her remaining time diligently working and taking on lots of jobs."
Shen Feixian briefly recounted You Beibei's family circumstances.
"However, the drowned little girl was not You Beibei! Burdened by guilt and afraid of legal liability for You Beibei's death, the You family did not look at the autopsy report. They simply claimed the corpse based on the similarity of You Beibei's clothes to the dead girl's, and the police quickly closed the case ruling it an accidental drowning, common for the area. With the corpse too decayed for biometrics and the clothing match, no further investigation was done."
"You Beibei may have lingered on after death due to contact with something containing spiritual energy, combined with unresolved attachments. I checked - a child from a nearby family also went missing around the same time the medical examiner determined for time of death. That family is still looking for their child."
This was Shen Feixian's conclusion.
Looking at You Beibei, everyone strongly agreed with his inference.
You Beibei's left leg was already soaked red with blood. The moment a soul leaves the body, the soul is the same as the body.
Although the cause of death was unknown, after coming in contact with spiritually empowered items, You Beibei's corpse would not easily rot or decompose in water.
"Does it hurt?" Huo Ling'er asked You Beibei.
You Beibei seemed to understand the question and shook her head. "It doesn't hurt when I see Mommy. I want Mommy to hug me!" She said, rushing towards Song Jixing.
Song Jixing didn't stop the little girl either, letting her hug his leg.
Unfortunately, the soul's form wasn't solid. Sometimes You Beibei could touch Song Jixing, sometimes she just went straight through.
But the little girl was undaunted, continuing to stare at Song Jixing closely, sticking tight to him.
"Senior brother, let's go take a look around the You family's place tomorrow. Maybe we can find You Beibei's body." Song Jixing said.
As for telling Bai Ping about this for now, Song Jixing didn't plan to yet.
There was no use showing the soul to Bai Ping before finding You Beibei's corpse.
Shen Feixian nodded. "Let's go search around the You residence tomorrow then."
-
Early next morning, Song Jixing got up very early and went out with Shen Feixian and You Beibei.
Last night, Shen Feixian had done some advance preparations, thoroughly investigating the surrounding terrain, including all the possible places a body could be hidden.
The You family lived in the old city district. In recent years, with many residents moving away, many nearby places had been vacated.
With abandoned factories, high-rises, commercial buildings and desolate old gardens around, if the corpse was nearby, it would be very difficult to find.
Although the old gardens were big, residents often took their dogs there to walk. If there was a corpse nearby, the dogs would definitely be able to smell it.
So Shen Feixian first ruled out the gardens.
For the remaining locations, checking one by one through eyesight would be tedious. Thus, Shen Feixian had Song Jixing directly search with his spiritual sense.
It was simple for a Golden Core cultivator's spiritual sense to search three feet deep into the ground, or even deeper.
If the body couldn't be found around here, Shen Feixian planned to try around the theaters next. They were bound to find some clues.
And if that failed, he'd have to exhort his Junior Sister to diligently cultivate, advance her cultivation level as soon as possible, as that would let them search larger areas.