Chapter 991: Hidden Clue [2 in 1]
Chen Ge believed that with how the people at the futuristic theme park viewed him, even if he went there, he would not be able to get any information from them. The workers there evaded him the moment they saw him. In their eyes, Chen Ge was probably as scary as an actual ghost. Chen Ge had a feeling that they had misunderstood him a little bit, but with the time crunch, he did not have time to explain the situation to them.
“Since I can’t go through the theme park’s security with the hammer, I should head to the hospital.” Chen Ge turned his attention to his previous victims. “When I went in for the visitation, the futuristic theme park arranged for their people to follow me on the visitation. They experienced the terror for themselves, so they should have some connection with me.”
People were the most fragile when they were sick. Chen Ge planned to have a chat with the workers who had fainted inside the Haunted House at the hospital tomorrow, but of course, the premise had to be that they had already woken up.
“Worrying will not change the situation. I’d better get a good rest while I can.”
He set an alarm and then drifted off to sleep. At 8 am the next morning, after brus.h.i.+ng his teeth and was.h.i.+ng his face, he summoned Ol’ Bai and Doctor Wei. “I will leave the management of the Haunted House to you. I have something else to do in the morning.”
“Xiao Chen, what kind of problem are you facing?” Doctor Wei only needed one glance to realize how different Chen Ge was from normal. “Yesterday, I heard from Zhang Yi that the ghost fetus is going to come soon. Is that what you’re worried about?”
“I am slightly worried about that, but the problem is not as serious as he made it out to be.” Chen Ge flashed a bright smile. “Just take good care of the Haunted House and leave the rest of me.”
“Actually, you can rely on us when you need it. After all, this is place is our home too.”
“Okay, don’t worry.” Chen Ge had Doctor Wei and Ol’ Bai return to their respective scenarios. He opened the gates of the Haunted House and walked out. Since it was the holiday season, the employees had arrived earlier than necessary.
“Go in and do your make-up. For the next few days, I might not be around the Haunted House during the day, so I will leave everything in your capable hands.”
“Boss, doesn’t you normally go out at night? Why are you suddenly changing it to the day?” Gu Feiyu was a man without much cunning, and he asked that question directly.
“I have something to deal with. It should be able to be completed within nine days. After that, I will give everyone a chance to have a good break.” Chen Ge entered the dressing room and applied the make-up on the few employees seriously. “Thank you so much for all of your dedication.”
The compet.i.tion between the New Century Park and the futuristic theme park had reached its climax. The workers had prepared a long time for this, so Chen Ge would not go and trouble them. He went to greet Uncle Xu. Before the theme park opened for business, Chen Ge carried the heavy backpack and left the theme park. He stopped a pa.s.sing cab. Once he got into the car, the smile on Chen Ge’s face slowly disappeared.
“Where are we going?”
“The major crimes unit of the city police station.”
…
When Chen Ge arrived at the station, he glanced at the guard and then at the backpack he was carrying. After a moment’s thought, he decided not to barge in just like that but pulled out his phone to give Lee Zheng a call.
“Brother Zheng, it’s me.”
“Chen Ge? How can I help you?”
“I am outside the station now. Can you fetch me? There are certain things that I need to confirm.”
“You are the first person who dared speak in such tone to an inspector from the major crimes unit. Wait a minute, I’ll get you in a bit.”
Ten minutes after hanging up the phone, Lee Zheng appeared at the door.
“So, tell me, what do you want to confirm?”
“Can we go in and talk?”
“We do not allow normal citizen into this place.” Lee Zheng glanced at Chen Ge and then slightly shook his head. “Never mind, come with me.”
The two entered the station, and Lee Zheng led Chen Ge into an empty conference room.
“Everyone is working. It’s not too good for people to see you inside the building even though everyone knows you.” Glancing at Chen Ge’s backpack, Lee Zheng had a guess what was inside it. “Relax, do you want something to drink?”
“Brother Zheng, I have two things to ask you.” Chen Ge got to the chase immediately.
“Go ahead.”
“Has Chang Gu woken up?” Chen Ge cared a lot about Chang Gu. He was a director, and he specialized in using ghosts as actors in his movies. Other than that, he was the person who knew Chang Wenyu the best in this world. At the School of the Afterlife, Chang Wenyu had sacrificed herself to destroy the door, but she had ended up being ‘killed’ by the combined effort of several Top Red Specters. Theoretically speaking, her soul should have been torn apart already, but the black phone still had Chang Wenyu’s page even after her ‘death’. The black phone said that Chang Wenyu had not officially died. Chang Gu was Chang Wenyu’s only family, so if Chang Wenyu had to place her trust on a person in this world, that person would definitely be Chang Gu.
Chen Ge wished to get in touch with Chang Gu to find out what Chang Wenyu had held back, how she had managed to stay alive. It was never wrong to be too careful. To be able to reach the top among the Red Specters, she should not be underestimated. That was what Chen Ge had gained from his past experience.
“The physical wounds on his body have been healed, but he has not woken up. The doctor has done an MRI scan on his brain, and they did not find any problems.” Lee Zheng felt that Chen Ge was being exceptionally severe that day. “What’s the second thing?”
Chen Ge took in a light breath and then turned to Lee Zheng. “Inspector Lee, do you still remember Li Wan City?”
When Li Wan City was mentioned, Inspector Lee’s expression slowly changed. He moved his chair to sit before Chen Ge. “I only remember parts of it, and I have forgotten a lot.”
“That day, you were chasing after Jia Ming and entered Li Wan City. Then you ran into me inside the small town. In the end, it was me who carried you out, but in that chaos, Jia Ming managed to escape.”
Chen Ge had no idea how much Lee Zheng remembered about that night. That was an unspoken truce between him and Lee Zheng. After leaving Li Wan City, neither of them had asked the other about what happened on that night. Lee Zheng’s eyes moved away from Chen Ge. He looked at the vapor that rose from the hot water inside water gla.s.s. No matter what had happened that night, there was a truth that could not be changed. It was Chen Ge who carried the fainted inspector out from Li Wan City. The young man before him had saved his life.
“Of course, I remember all that. Actually, we have been continuing our search for Jia Ming. All the signs point to the fact that he has not left Jiujiang.” Lee Zheng stood up. “Jia Ming’s case is being personally handled by Captain Yan. I will take you to meet him.”
The two left the conference room, walked down the corridor, and reached an office on the third floor. When they knocked on the door, Captain Yan was talking to someone on the phone. The man whom Chen Ge a.s.sociated with patience and kindness had a bright red face from anger. At certain agitating points, he even slammed his fists repeatedly on the table.
Two to three minutes after the phone call ended, Captain Yan slowly returned to his jovial self. When he saw Chen Ge, a smile naturally appeared on his face. “Lee Zheng, why did you bring Xiao Chen over today? Is he here to ask for more reward money? We are not the finance department. You’re at the wrong place. Haha.”
“Captain Yan, Chen Ge is here to ask about the case with Jia Ming.” As if worried that Captain Yan might refuse to answer, Lee Zheng added kindly on Chen Ge’s behalf, “After all, he was present during the event. He is one of the victims and also one of our witnesses. I do not think we should hide the details of the case from him.”
“Currently, the case has gotten so big that it involves too many things.” Captain Yan had Lee Zheng close the door of the office before he continued. “Thirty-six hours after Jia Ming escaped from Li Wan City, we found Jia Ming outside a residential house very far away from Li Wan City. But the problem was that he was not alone.”
“Jia Ming has reappeared?” Chen Ge remembered that Jia Ming should still be trapped inside the door. This time, he was here to persuade the police to help him with something else, but he did not expect to get a surprise discovery like this. “Captain Yan, where is this residential building that Jia Ming reappeared at? I wish to go take a look.”
“It was an old building. A fire once happened there, and it was right next to Pei Zhi Academy.”
“It has been burned before?” One would need to go through a door to leave the red world. Chen Ge knew that there was a door in Eastern Jiujiang inside a building that had been razed by a big fire before. Ghost Fire! The scenario whose door pusher had been consumed by Doctor Gao!
Captain Yan pulled out a doc.u.ment from the lowest layer of his drawer. “There were four people who appeared alongside Jia Ming. There was a young man about twenty, a middle-aged man about forty, a woman who seemed like she suffered from a mental illness, and a child about four to five years old.”
Flipping through the doc.u.ment, Captain Yan had already confirmed all their ident.i.ties. “The young man’s name is Bei Ye. He killed his own father and younger brother, Bei Wen. His mother shouldered the blame on his behalf and is currently locked up in prison.
“The middle-aged man around forty is a gambler. His name is Zhen Chun. He has no fixed occupation. There have been many complaints about his att.i.tude, and he has been booked several times for domestic violence, shoplifting, and drunk driving. We have a thick case on him.
“The woman’s name is w.a.n.g Qing. She is not a local. Her family does not have any history of mental illnesses, so her mental problem should not be hereditary but caused by some kind of trauma.
“Last is the boy. Strangely enough, we cannot get any information on him. We have visited all of Zhen Chun’s previous neighbors. They could only tell us that the family had a daughter, but the daughter went missing a few years ago. They were shocked when we told them that Zhen Chun actually had a boy as well.”
Chen Ge had an impression of all the people that Captain Yan had mentioned. Needless to say, he remembered Jia Ming. There was another evil spirit living in him, and he had once served the ghost fetus. The family of three were once the pa.s.sengers on the Hea.r.s.e, and they entered Li Wan City with Chen Ge. Last but not least, Bei Yu was a local of Li Wan City. He was a murderer that once hid himself in the hotel with the cannibalistic owner.
How did the mix of them end up together?
Jia Ming was exceptionally cunning, and Bei Ye was a mentally unstable killer. How could the two of them even tolerate hanging out the family of three? In Chen Ge’s mind, of the family of three, the father was a worthless person who bullied the weak but was fearful of the strong; the mother never spoke to anyone and would not give any response to any outer stimulus; the boy was very cute, but that was everything to him. In the eyes of a murderer and a madman, being cute would not save him. If anything, it would only invoke the cruelty and madness hidden inside their hearts.
Jia Ming and Bei Ye did not kill the family of three?
To understand the logic of a murderer, one had to look from the perspective of the murderer and see the problem from their angle.
Li Wan City was not that far away from the scenario of the Ghost Fire. It was not that close nor that far. So, how did this group of injured, old, and defenseless people pa.s.s through the world behind the door safely?
Chen Ge’s brain started to spin, and various speculations appeared in his mind.
Perhaps one of them knew a safe path. It could be Bei Ye or Jia Ming. They slithered away during the commotion, and their aim was to find the other door.
The family of three were normal citizens, but Jia Ming and Bei Ye wasted so much energy to protect them, going so far as to bring them out of the door. They have to be after something. The middle-aged man is a gambler. To obtain the thing that he wants, he could even do something like sacrificing his own daughter. Bringing him around is just a burden.
As for the circ.u.mstances around the mother, she seemed to have been through a huge trauma. She was just a walking human sh.e.l.l. Since both of the adults are so normal, it is quite clear that the reason Bei Ye and Jia Ming protected the family of three to escape from the world behind the door was the child!