Chapter 091: A Child? A New Home

Z screamed, and I sprang to my feet at once. I told the little girl to stay where she was and ran after them immediately.

The place where Z and Charlie had been talking with me was a corner of the film and television city. Apart from us, there was no one else around. It was an overcast day, with no sun in sight. The moment I rounded the corner, a chill wind seemed to sweep over me.

I stopped, because I saw nothing.

The place Z had pointed out was a patch of woods. It was bleak and desolate, with quite a bit of trash piled there at a glance, clearly the sort of place no one would normally come to. The grove was not deep, nor were the trees dense. It was winter, and the branches were bare, not a single leaf left on them.

I went into the woods and searched several times, but still found nothing. In the end, I had no choice but to turn back.

When I returned to where we had been before, the little girl was still sitting obediently on the steps. I waved her over, and she came running to me. I asked whether she had noticed anyone nearby just now, and she shook her head, saying she had not.

Frowning, I went over to Z.

She was still covering her face. Her terrified expression was certainly not feigned, and I noticed that Charlie’s lips had gone pale as well. I asked whether he had seen it too. Charlie shook his head and said that when he turned around, it seemed as though he had caught sight of a figure flashing past, but he was not even sure whether he had seen it correctly.

He knew it himself: in these past few days, the one whose nerves had become frayed was not only Z. Charlie’s own nerves had been on edge too.

After we sat down, I patted Z on the shoulder and told her to stop crying and explain clearly what she had seen. At this moment, she no longer had the bright, glamorous air she usually wore on screen. Her face had gone ashen. Just looking at her complexion made her seem, indeed, like the sort of person who had been possessed.

Z trembled as she said that what she had just seen was a child.

The child had hair hanging loose all around the face, making it impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. The only thing she could see was the lower half of the face. Z said it had a somewhat full face, with the corners of its mouth faintly turned up. Hearing her describe it this way, I immediately thought of the child spirit doll in Z’s home.

As she spoke, tears fell again. She said that the child she had seen in her dream was the very same one.

I turned and looked once more toward that spot. The distance between there and here was about ten meters. A normal person would not be able to make out facial details from so far away, yet Z had described them so clearly.

I asked her why she had been able to see so clearly. Z shook her head and said she did not know.

Her account only added to the eerie feel of the case. Even in broad daylight, her description still sent a slight shiver down one’s spine. After thinking it over, I asked whether things on the set were finished for the day, and said I wanted to go with them to see their new place.

Z wiped away her tears and told Charlie outright that she did not want to keep filming, that she wanted to rest for a few days. At first Charlie was somewhat troubled by this, but in the end he clenched his teeth, stood up, and even cursed under his breath, saying, “Damn it, let it be a breach of contract then. Worst case, we’ll pay some money.”

With that, he turned and walked toward the set area.

We waited for Charlie to come back. It took a long while before he finally ran back. Unexpectedly, the production crew did not argue with him. Perhaps everyone felt Z had not been in good shape these past few days, so the crew temporarily agreed to let her rest for a few days and shoot the other supporting roles first.

That let both Charlie and Z breathe a sigh of relief.

After leaving the film and television city, Charlie drove us to their new residence. He told us that he had spent half a day deliberately finding the place himself. It was not as luxurious as the complex where they had lived before, but it was more crowded. Charlie said that when there were more people around, both he and Z felt a little more at ease.

But to their surprise, on the very first day after moving in, Z and he kept seeing unclean things.

The car drove into the underground parking garage. It was bright and spacious. After getting out, I asked the little girl whether she felt anything unusual about the place, and she shook her head.

When she had gone to the previous underground garage, she had always said there were ghosts there, and I still had not understood why she had ever felt that way.

When I asked her, Charlie and Z both fixed their eyes on the little girl.

After hesitating for quite a while, Charlie finally spoke. “Mr. Fang, may I ask who this little girl is? Why do you always keep her with you?”

I smiled faintly. “She’s my younger sister.”

By the time I answered, we had already reached the elevator lobby. This time, nothing strange happened in the underground garage. But once we got into the elevator, the situation changed completely.

As soon as the doors closed and Charlie pressed the button, Z suddenly grew restless.

She said she kept feeling as though a pair of eyes were staring at her from inside the elevator. As she said this, she began looking around. The elevator was not especially large, and with the four of us inside, we already occupied most of the space. Hearing her say that, Charlie also started glancing around.

The two of them were jumping at shadows. I noticed both Charlie and Z had begun to tremble slightly in the legs, especially Z.

They lived on the upper teens floor. The moment the elevator doors opened, Z rushed out. We had barely followed her out when she suddenly let out another scream, saying she had seen something dirty again.

This time, we saw the person too. Only, it was an old woman taking trash out of a bin, apparently the building cleaner. How could the old woman possibly know Z? Hearing her say that, the woman cursed her as crazy and stormed off in anger. Charlie patted Z on the shoulder and told her not to scare herself.

Only, while Charlie was comforting Z, he himself had clearly been frightened as well.

Charlie led us to the door of Z’s room, opened it, and took us inside. The room was thick with the smell of burning incense. I covered my nose, went in, and opened the window. Once the room had some light, I indeed saw that the table was covered with incense burners, and yellow talisman slips were pasted all over the walls.

Charlie let out a sigh and said that now they could only place their hopes in these things.

The apartment was no larger than their previous one. I looked around and found nothing unusual. This was a high-rise building with more than ten floors; no one could possibly be standing outside the window. So the figures Charlie and Z had seen outside the window could not possibly have been real people. I suspected that someone had deliberately used a pole of some sort, with a fake figure tied to it, to sway it back and forth outside the glass.

I immediately called Chen Fan and gave him the address. Then I asked him to check who lived above, below, and on both sides of Z’s apartment. After everything was arranged, Z asked me cautiously whether I had seen anything strange. I was momentarily taken aback, then smiled and asked in return, “What strange thing could I possibly see?”

Z hesitated for a moment, then continued, “That spirit doll—what did you do with it?”

At last I understood. Z was worried that after I had dealt with the child spirit doll, the unclean thing would come looking for me. I shook my head. “Miss Z, you should be worrying about yourself instead. I’m leaving. During this period, you’d better find a few reliable people to protect you.”

With that, I took the little girl and left. Charlie escorted me to the door and gripped my hand, asking how confident I was that I could solve the case. It was clear that Charlie was conflicted as well. He believed in ghosts and spirits, yet he also hoped all of this was man-made, and hoped we could catch the killer as soon as possible.

“I’ve already found the reason behind the strange happenings in that underground garage. Rest assured,” I said, staring at Charlie. “If he makes any more moves, I’ll catch him. I’ve already got some leads.”

Charlie let out a long breath and saw me into the elevator.

When I returned to Luo Feng’s place, he asked where I had gone so early in the morning. I told him about the latest findings from the investigation.

After thinking it over, Luo Feng said he had also heard of the wealthy young master of the Zhou family. He said that Zhou Sheng was famous for being good for nothing. If he had not genuinely fallen for Z, there was no way he would have come all the way to the capital city to chase after her, and even less likely would he have suddenly become inspired to learn business, sticking with it for a full month.

Luo Feng asked whether I was confident I could solve the case. He even cursed, “What on earth is that Three Pines Temple doing? Why would the photo that Yunqing saw end up inside the actress Z’s child spirit doll?”

I stretched. “So far, the two people who have died were both connected to Z: one was the Taoist priest who taught actress Z how to keep the child spirit doll, and the other was the wealthy young man who pursued her. Now even Z and Charlie have both begun to see strange things in turn...