Translator: CinderTL
Early in the morning, Jiang Cheng splashed some water on his face to refresh himself. On the other side, Lin Wan'er was also up, while Weiwei and Du Feng stood up, still groggy.
Weiwei occasionally rubbed her shoulders, and Jiang Cheng knew exactly how she felt—sore and achy.
But this was probably Lin Wan'er showing mercy. If it had been him or Fatty, it would have been... Jiang Cheng's thoughts suddenly halted at this point.
For a brief moment, his eyes dimmed.
Fatty was already gone.
He truly couldn't figure out Fatty's intentions or his identity. Moreover, Fatty had been subtly changing him in a very peculiar way.
This change had started ever since Fatty appeared in his life.
And it continued until he left.
This was what worried Jiang Cheng the most.
There weren't many people he couldn't see through, and this kind-hearted Fatty was one of them.
It wasn't until Lin Wan'er's voice sounded behind him that Jiang Cheng snapped out of his thoughts, realizing he had been standing in the same position for a long time.
He splashed another handful of cold water on his face, feeling the icy chill.
Today wasn't a good day.
The sky outside the window had turned gloomy, and it looked like rain was imminent. The wind was strong, and the tree branches downstairs were wildly swaying in the wind.
For breakfast, only Jiang Cheng and Lin Wan'er had instant noodles. Weiwei and Du Feng waved their hands, their expressions strange as they said they couldn't eat.
"Mr. Jiang," Weiwei looked at Jiang Cheng and hesitated before speaking, "What exactly happened last night? That thing in the end..."
Perhaps because she had been knocked out by Lin Wan'er, Weiwei chose to ask Jiang Cheng instead of Lin Wan'er, who was closer.
After taking a few sips of the hot soup from the instant noodles, Jiang Cheng composed himself and said, "Let's go downstairs first and check on the others."
Fortunately, when the door opened, the remaining five people were all there.
Jiang Cheng let out a long sigh of relief. Earlier, he had been wondering if the Headless Ghost would come for them too.
But after talking to them, he learned that they hadn't seen or heard anything last night.
Huai Yi put down the lunchbox in his hand and looked at Jiang Cheng and the others with a scrutinizing gaze. "You said you encountered a ghost last night?"
"Yes, it must have been a ghost!" Du Feng said excitedly.
"Must have been..."
Huai Yi didn't like such vague terms, especially when they came from newcomers. Such subjective words could interfere with his judgment.
Newcomers always tended to make a fuss over nothing.
"It was a Headless Ghost," Jiang Cheng pretended to be very scared as he spoke. "It had a shadow, but we couldn't see its head."
"Who else saw it?" Huai Yi asked.
"I didn't see its head either," Lin Wan'er said.
Huai Yi was skeptical about this so-called ghost. His gaze slowly swept over the group, lingering on Jiang Cheng for a few extra seconds.
Jiang Cheng naturally understood what he was thinking.
He was wondering how all these newcomers had survived unscathed if they had really encountered a ghost.
It was a logical thought.
If it were him, he would think the same way.
The awkward part was that such a question couldn't be asked directly.
"Did you notice anything else?" Huai Yi asked after some hesitation.
"That ghost seemed to be looking for something. In the end, it didn't find it and left," Jiang Cheng carefully measured his words during the conversation with Huai Yi.
"You said earlier that the ghost pushed the door?"
"Yes," Jiang Cheng patted his chest. "We were all terrified at the time."
"You... didn't make any noise?" Huai Yi tried to put himself in their shoes. He thought that if the Ghost had visited their room last night, the situation might have been hard to control.
He was curious. How could these newcomers remain so calm?
"I... I was scared out of my wits," Jiang Cheng explained. "By the time I came to my senses, the Ghost had already left. And the others were even worse off than me."
According to Jiang Cheng's account, among the remaining three people, one had been so drowsy that they fell asleep and didn't notice the commotion outside, while another had been so terrified that they fainted on the spot.
Huai Yi didn't seem entirely convinced by this explanation, but he had no evidence to refute it. More importantly, he couldn't think of a reason why Jiang Cheng and the others would lie to him.
After a moment of thought, he asked, "Do you remember which direction the Ghost left from?"
Jiang Cheng thought for a while, first pointing in one direction, then, as if he had just remembered something, quickly changed to another direction and said, "It should... it should be this way."
Following the direction Jiang Cheng pointed, Huai Yi frowned. Cao Yang, who was standing behind him, spoke up, "Isn't that the corridor we passed by yesterday?"
"Ahem..."
A sound drew everyone's attention. Li Kaifeng was still lying in bed, but her condition seemed to have worsened. Yu Yu had been taking care of her by her side.
"She has a high fever. Just now, I opened her eyelids to check, and her eyes were bloodshot," Yu Yu sighed. She hadn't expected Li Kaifeng to fall so ill in just one night.
This was unusual.
And where there's something unusual, there's bound to be something sinister.
Seeing that no one reacted, Yu Yu seemed puzzled and said, "This is a hospital. We can't just watch her die, can we?"
"Whether she dies sooner or later, she's still going to die," Wang Changguo, who was leaning against the wall, glanced at Li Kaifeng on the bed and said sarcastically, "Maybe if she dies, the rest of us won't have to."
"Besides, if there really is a Ghost here like they say, then looking at her condition, she probably won't survive anyway."
"Maybe... maybe she's possessed by the Ghost!" As Wang Changguo spoke, he seemed to scare himself. His fingers unconsciously tugged at his clothes, and his gaze became uneasy.
"Thud, thud, thud..." A series of rapid footsteps echoed in the corridor, and then the door was pushed open. It was Director Qi from yesterday.
"You're all here," he said, then turned to close the door. His eyes scanned the crowd and finally settled on Jiang Cheng. "How was last night? Did you notice anything unusual?"
"Not really," Jiang Cheng played dumb. "What kind of unusual?"
"Nothing unusual?" Director Qi looked skeptical. "What did you do last night?"
"We just arrived and aren't familiar with the situation yet," Huai Yi naturally took over the conversation. "We rested in our room last night."
"Why didn't you go out and search?" Director Qi's expression instantly changed, as if he was suppressing anger. "That unclean thing only appears at night. If you don't go out and look for it, how are you going to get rid of it?"
"Your boss promised me that you were the most professional, guaranteeing that you could eliminate that thing within three days, no, within three days!"
"That's why I brought you here."
Director Qi's reaction caught everyone off guard, and what followed was suspicion.
Jiang Cheng secretly observed the slightly balding man. The man didn't seem to care about the origins or intentions of the Ghost in the hospital.
He simply wanted the Ghost to disappear.
He wanted it dead.
(End of the Chapter)
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