The Red Umbrella: A Bone Puzzle

“You have 47 days and 19 hours left. When you open the umbrella, remember not to look in the mirror.” Lin Shen, a police officer with the yin-yang eyes, can see the memories of the dead, yet he cannot see the blood-colored Nuo pattern quietly appearing on the back of his own neck. The rain during Shanghai’s plum-rain season is alive The missing become faces embroidered with hair onto qipaos, the last subway train carries wronged souls from 1943, and fetuses dance Nuo rituals on ultrasound screens. “This isn’t a murder case. It’s a living sacrifice that has lasted eighty years.” When a red umbrella pierces the forty-ninth corpse, lividity on the autopsy table in the forensic lab begins to flow backward. Lin Shen discovers that: The twin-fish jade pendant in the evidence room can draw Soviet nuclear codes out of the blood-colored Nuo pattern. His mother’s death report from thirty years ago says, “Volunteered to become a vessel for the Nuo Lord.” The livestreaming celebrity he dissected with his own hands is now announcing his date of death on a live broadcast.