Night Hunting

By LiaoHong Sun

The museum of a university lost several boxes of butterfly specimen, then a night watcher was hired to guard the museum in night. One specimen each of polar bear and gorilla were added to the museum. About two weeks after the specimen were left at the corner of an exhibition room as they did not have appropriate cabinets to put them in, the specimen of polar bear was missing together with an ancient dagger. The window was bolted inside and the door was locked normally and securely of the exhibition room. There was no trace left in the room. The night watcher reported: four to five days after the specimen were put in the exhibition room, in one morning he noticed the position of the bear changed to another position; one week before the bear was missing, he heard feet stamping sounds, noticed the bear was caressing and slapping the gorilla through a keyhole of the exhibition room; in the night when the bear was missing, the night watcher said the museum was as quiet as a graveyard and he did not hear any abnormal sound. Next day after the bear was missing, someone noticed there was an irregular circle of footprints of the bear on the smooth muddy ground under the window sill of the exhibition room; a patrol policeman said he noticed a white thing with an opened mouth, was hit at the back of his head and fainted to ground near the university. A lot of newspapers reported about the incident with pictures of the museum and the gorilla specimen. Several days later a gambler met the bear outside of an underground casino, fainted due to fright, when he woke up, he found he had already lost his valuables. What really happened? How could the specimen of the bear act in such weird fashion?...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Great Wall Publishing
• Release date: Apr 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224267927

LiaoHong Sun

LiaoHong Sun was a famous detective writer in 1930s and an important writer in the modern history of detective literacy in China. His grandfather opened a clock shop in Shanghai, his father was good at painting in Chinese style, among of the three brothers, he inherited the painting skill of his father. He usually did not care about his outer appearance, though he was not rich, he was ready to help other people so long as they came to him, did not leave any manuscript to the world. At the beginning he wrote about everything, would write on anything in his home such as calendars and the back of the cigarette packs so long as he could, and became an editor-in-chief for Great Detective in 1946. He published many detective novels such as Ghost Hand, Blue Rattle Snake, A Legendary Story of A Chivalrous Thief, Walking Bloody Paper Dolls, Green Candle Light etc. and translated some foreign novels into Chinese. At the beginning of 1950s, he wrote several plays such as Long Lasting Loyalty, Three Unwillingness, Unjustly Banished Immortal etc.

Book preview

HongLiao Sun

Translated by Bin Liu & Jirong Liu

Great Wall Publishing

A Weird Story About One Polar Bear Specimen

Chapter 1

Whenever I come across my friends, they would ask me to tell them a story.

When I come across the friend with a red necktie, I ask him to tell me some stories, thus I could relate the stories to my other friends.

He is an extraordinary person who has experienced a lot of strange things.

He often would talk to me about his strange experiences. Furthermore, he is an expert to tell lies, when he has nothing to tell, he would make up a story for me.

He said: The whole world is just a lie. The more extraordinary a person is, the more capable he is to tell lies; the more capable a person is to tell lies, the more extraordinary he is. In past, lying was a bad character; at the moment, lying is a virtue.

In order to cultivate his virtue, he has learned to lie.

Therefore, he told me a weird and nearly absurd story.

The story might be another lie of his.

I am reporting the story to you, it depends on you whether you believe it or not.

The story happened in the museum of a university.

The first character showed up in the story was the night watcher of the museum. The better part of the story was from his mouth in a quite lively fashion. You just listen to the story, maybe you could not help but feel tense.

In past, the museum had no night watcher. When the opening hour was over, they would only lock the gate. But several month ago, the museum lost some their materials, the materials they lost were boxes of butterfly specimens. To an ordinary person, the materials are valueless, but to the museum, they are a great loss for their scientific research. Who stole the materials? None was sure who was the thief as the thief left no trail. The people of the museum could not help but hire a night watcher to safeguard the museum. The night watcher is more than forty years old and an honest man. In night, he would sleep in a bed in the corridor of second floor, the entrance and the exit and several important exhibition rooms could be watched by him from the place.

Since the night watcher was on duty, sure enough nothing is lost again. It could prove that the materials lost before were taken away by someone in night. From then on, the museum has kept the night watcher.

Unexpectedly, after a while another thing which was even more bizarre happened. The thing was absurd and against common sense.

In the first place, the museum added two new specimens recently, one was a gorilla from Africa, another was a white polar bear from North Pole. When the specimens were taken into the museum, as they did not have proper cabinets, they could only put the specimens at the corner of fifth exhibition room in another floor.

The value of the white bear was quite high. The preparation of the specimen was quite unique too. For a common specimen of an animal, usually the animal would stand on ground with its four feet in a way as if the animal were running. But for the bear, it stood on its hind feet, just like a standing person, on a wooden stand, its front claws were stretching forward, as if it were rushing toward a man. Its long mouth opened slightly with its sharp teeth, there were a pair of false eyeballs, which were yellowish with a bit green. It looked quite ferocious.

Many visitors came to the museum to see the new specimens. But in less than two weeks, the bear was missing from the museum suddenly!

How could it be lost? None could not give a reason. Anyway, in the previous night, it was still standing ferociously on the wooden stand with its stretching front claws. In next morning at the corner of the fifth exhibition room, only the specimen of the gorilla was left there lonely, its white companion vanished completely.

The white bear was missing, but the wooden stand was left behind. On the wooden stand there were two erecting