Chapter 25

That night, the amount of time Gu Shuge could be sensed was three hours, an hour longer than the previous night. It was the greatest increase over the past several days; the previous largest increase had only been twenty minutes.

Shen Juan thought for a while about why it had increased so much and asked, “Did you feel anything different today?”

Gu Shuge immediately thought of drinking Shen Juan’s blood during the day. Pretending she had no clue at all, she wrote in Shen Juan’s palm, “No.”

Ever since she had become able to write in Shen Juan’s palm, things like quills and ink had all been thrown to the back of Gu Shuge’s mind. She deliberately pretended she did not remember those writing tools and only wrote in Shen Juan’s palm. Shen Juan either did not think of it or simply indulged her, and did not fetch the paper and pen for her either.

Seeing her say no, Shen Juan carefully recalled what had been different throughout the previous day. The most important thing was that Xiao Ge had touched her blood. Could it be related to her blood?

Just as she was deep in thought, her palm was tapped twice.

This was to attract her attention. Shen Juan stopped thinking and lifted her palm slightly so that Gu Shuge could write more easily.

A fingertip traced across her palm. Two words landed there: “Go sleep.”

It was already past three. If she did not sleep now, dawn would soon arrive.

Shen Juan was indeed tired. If this had been a few days ago, she definitely would have tried every possible way to figure it out. But now, she was no longer so anxious. Everything was getting better. Xiao Ge could communicate with her through writing now, and the amount of time she could be sensed was also growing longer.

The shadow of death was receding.

Shen Juan was no longer so impatient. She said, “All right. The study light is on. Go write down the case details.”

A fingertip drew a check mark in her palm.

Shen Juan suddenly felt the night become quiet, as if even time had slowed, making one infinitely reluctant to part from it. She called, “Xiao Ge…”

Gu Shuge looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

Shen Juan had originally wanted to ask, “You won’t leave, right?” But when the words reached her lips, she realized that perhaps even Xiao Ge herself could not be certain whether she would remain forever or suddenly disappear. Shen Juan forcibly changed her words and said, “If you get tired from writing, rest. There’s no rush.”

So she was reminding her to rest. But ghosts did not even have bodies, so how could they get tired? Gu Shuge could not help smiling. Shen Juan had muddleheaded moments too. Then she wrote “Okay” in her palm.

After Shen Juan went upstairs, the large house suddenly grew quiet. Gu Shuge stood in the spacious living room, at a loss for a moment. She steadied herself and went to the study. Shen Juan had placed three sheets of white paper on the desk, spreading them out one by one for her convenience.

Gu Shuge sat down, turned her head to look for a while at the dark, shadowy night outside the window, then lowered her head and began writing while recalling.

First, she wrote that there had been no lies in what Muzi had said today. Muzi had indeed accidentally seen her booking the ticket and thus learned that she was returning to the country, as well as the specific time. The matter of that bakery had also indeed been something Gu Shuge had casually mentioned to her friends a year ago. The people who had heard it at the time were those on the list Muzi had written.

It was just that this would not be easy to investigate. Because this was not any kind of secret. Just as Gu Shuge had casually mentioned it, those friends who heard it could also have mentioned it to other friends.

But following this lead was still a direction. Those friends were all Chinese. Taking advantage of the holiday, some of them [Read on BaiLianTales]must have returned to the country just like Muzi, making it convenient for the police to summon them.

However, although what Muzi expressed suggested that only she had known Gu Shuge’s itinerary, Gu Shuge still felt it could not have been Muzi who harmed her.

There were two reasons. First, she had no motive. They had gotten along fairly well, and Gu Shuge had never offended Muzi. Second, and most importantly, Muzi did not have the conditions to commit the crime. If saying that Muzi would not kill her because they had gotten along well was too subjective and emotional, then Muzi lacking the conditions to commit the crime was an objective fact set in stone.

Judging from the case as it currently stood, the culprit had one very important characteristic: money. Without money, they could not promise Zhang Meng a heart, nor could they cover the surgery costs. This was murder for hire. The culprit must have shown Zhang Meng their financial strength. Otherwise, Zhang Meng could not possibly have acted according to the culprit’s instructions.

She wrote down these speculations as well and also added one sentence: in her impression, only Muzi knew her itinerary. The reason she added “in her impression” was because in the dark, there might still have been someone else who had a different way of learning it.

Shen Juan attached great importance to organization when doing things. Influenced by her, Gu Shuge also cared greatly about order.

She wrote point by point, like answering a short-answer question on a humanities exam. After finishing the section on Muzi, she began writing about what happened that night.

She clearly wrote down why she had been walking, why she took that road, and why it had been at that time. If she had not tripped at that moment, the flowerpot would have struck her directly on the head, and there would have been no possibility of survival.

And there was also that girl. Why, when the flowerpot had clearly fallen from a higher floor, something that a careful person could easily see through, did she insist on speaking to Gu Shuge from the second floor and pretending the flowerpot had fallen from there?

Even now, Gu Shuge still could not make sense of that girl’s actions. She could not understand the purpose behind that unnecessary move.

Because she wrote in great detail, Gu Shuge dug through her memories as she wrote, striving to record the conversation between herself and the girl as accurately as possible. She already wrote slowly to begin with. An ordinary person could write sixty or seventy characters in a minute, while she could only write six or seven at most. Adding the need to remember details, she wrote for a very long time and still had not finished.

At some unknown hour, a layer of damp [unauthorized copy]mist covered the window, blurring the view outside. She could only tell that the sky had brightened.

Footsteps came from outside. Gu Shuge roughly calculated the time and guessed that the servants had probably arrived for work. She originally wanted to ignore them and continue writing, but after only two strokes, she suddenly thought that if someone came in to clean the study, they would see no one inside, yet a quill floating in midair above the desk and writing by itself.

Gu Shuge imagined that scene and could not help laughing. If someone saw that, they would probably be frightened into illness.

So Shen Juan was really brave. She had never been afraid at all.

Gu Shuge remembered the first night after she died. At midnight, Shen Juan had suddenly looked toward her, gazed straight into her eyes, and called her name. At the time, even Gu Shuge herself had been startled.

How could she be so bold? If it were Gu Shuge, and she suddenly sensed that the soul of someone who had died that very day had appeared in the house, forget investigating it—she would probably have fled to a temple or Daoist shrine long ago to ward off evil.

But after thinking about it carefully, Gu Shuge felt very moved. Not only was Shen Juan unafraid of her ghost, she even hoped she could exist.

In this world, Shen Juan was truly the only one who cared about her and treated her well.

She slowly let out a breath. The quill suddenly fell. Gu Shuge went to pick it up, but her hand missed; she could not touch it. This time, she did not panic. She familiarly touched the blood in the glass dish, then went to pick it up again and successfully lifted it.

It was just that the blood in the glass dish had coagulated into a gel-like mass, making it very difficult to dip. Before long, the quill would fall once, and she would have to dip her fingers again.

To prevent a servant from coming in and getting frightened, Gu Shuge did not continue writing. She put the pen down.

She wanted to go out and take a look.

Originally, she would have passed directly through the wall. But Gu Shuge thought of how Shen Juan could now gradually sense her outline and her movements, so she went through the door instead.

Sure enough, the servants had arrived for work. Someone was also preparing breakfast in the kitchen. But today, breakfast would probably be prepared in vain. Shen Juan most likely would not come downstairs on time. She had slept too late last night.

Gu Shuge wandered through the house. Outside, someone was sweeping snow. Gu Shuge followed beside that person, carefully not letting them pass through her body. After watching the snow for a while, she returned indoors.

Breakfast had been prepared and placed on the dining table.

So Gu Shuge also knew the time now. It was eight o’clock. Shen Juan came downstairs exactly at eight every day and left home exactly at eight-thirty. This had been her schedule for many years. Back when the two of them had been close, Gu Shuge had even mocked Shen Juan for being rigid.

Remembering the past, Gu Shuge suddenly grew downcast.

Only now did she realize that after she had become a ghost, Shen Juan’s attitude toward her was exactly the same as it had been before. She had not changed the way she treated her because of the four years of distance between them.

Gu Shuge felt a mix of emotions.

Footsteps came from outside the door. Gu Shuge instinctively looked toward the entrance.

Lin Mo had arrived.

He strode in and greeted the servants with a smile. Gu Shuge was puzzled about why he had come read the original at bailiantales.com at this hour and did not move aside, so Lin Mo passed through her body.

“Has the chairman not come downstairs yet?” Lin Mo asked.

A maid answered, “Not yet. There hasn’t been any sound from her room either. She probably hasn’t gotten up.”

Lin Mo revealed an expression of surprise. After all, Shen Juan’s schedule had always been very regular.

“Miss Shen also only came downstairs after nine yesterday,” the maid added.

Lin Mo gave an “Mm,” took a bag of things from his own bag, handed it to the maid, and said, “These are the things the chairman requested. When she comes down, give them to her. I need to go to the company.”

The maid accepted it and agreed.

Lin Mo left in the same hurry as when he had arrived.

Gu Shuge walked over to take a look and discovered that the bag contained blood collection equipment. Shen Juan had probably asked Lin Mo to buy it and deliver it before sleeping last night. Once she knew what it was, Gu Shuge lost interest. Bored, she went upstairs to take a look. She walked to the outside of Shen Juan’s bedroom but did not enter. After wandering around in front of it, she returned to the study.

The servants had not entered. So while paying attention to the movements outside, she picked up the pen again and continued writing, preparing to stop immediately if anyone came. Yet until Shen Juan came downstairs, no one disturbed her.

Shen Juan had put on makeup, her look delicate and refined. She walked over, and Gu Shuge lifted her head, nearly brushing against her chest. Even knowing she could not touch her, she immediately froze and carefully moved aside a little.

If she could smell, she definitely would have smelled Shen Juan’s unauthorized copy fragrance just now, Gu Shuge thought, unable to restrain her heartbeat.

Shen Juan sensed many, many wave lines again, one after another, the peaks and valleys jumping very quickly. She found it a little strange and asked, “Are you feeling very complicated right now?”

Gu Shuge did not understand what Shen Juan meant by “very complicated.” Then she saw Shen Juan pick up what she had written all night and begin reading it. Thinking Shen Juan meant the case, she used the quill to draw a check mark on another sheet of white paper.

Shen Juan glanced at it from the corner of her eye and, in her heart, circled the statement “Xiao Ge producing wave lines means her mood is complicated” once, indicating that it was correct. Then she lowered her head and continued reading the paper in her hands.

Gu Shuge had written almost everything. The course of events had all been described, and only her own thoughts were left unwritten. After Shen Juan finished reading, she pondered for a long while. Suddenly, she asked, “Why did you return to the country?”

Author’s Note: Shen Juan: Confirmed. Wave lines = complicated mood. There’s no problem with this knowledge point.