A Secret (GL) - Chapter 7

Gu Shuge’s ghostly form went rigid as she stared straight at Shen Juan.

Shen Juan’s eyes were focused on Shuge’s face. After a long moment, her lips pursed slightly as she asked, “Are you here?”

Her tone was cautious—not out of fear, but tinged with a certain longing. Gu Shuge’s body slowly relaxed. She spoke: “I am here.”

At the same time she spoke, Shen Juan reached out to caress her cheek. Gu Shuge held her breath, only to watch as Shen Juan’s hand passed right through her face. Shen Juan’s fingers curled in mid-air as if trying to grasp something, but since there was only air in front of her, she naturally caught nothing.

A look of disappointment clouded Shen Juan’s face. She withdrew her hand and stood there for a moment. Her eyes no longer rested on Shuge but searched the air around her.

After searching for about five minutes, Shen Juan lowered her gaze, turned, and walked toward the stairs.

So she didn’t see me. Gu Shuge watched Shen Juan go upstairs, her body feeling faint with dejection. She slumped onto the sofa.

Suddenly, a thought struck her. Something wasn’t right.

If Shen Juan couldn’t see her, why did she look in her direction and call her name?

Was she… sensing her?

Gu Shuge glanced at the clock: 12:10 AM. She remembered reading somewhere that the time of day with the strongest Yin energy is between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM. Was there some special significance to midnight as well?

She stood up and moved to the window. Lost in thought, she forgot to “walk” like a human and instead drifted directly to the glass. She peered out at the waning crescent moon. Because the sky was clear, the moon was quite bright.

According to common belief, a soul should manifest or be felt when Yin energy is at its peak, because souls are Yin in nature. The days with the most Yin energy in a month should be the 1st and the 30th of the lunar calendar—the nights without a moon.

Today was neither the 1st nor the 30th, and it wasn’t yet 1:00 AM. Why could Shen Juan suddenly sense her?

Gu Shuge puzzled over it for a long time but couldn’t figure it out. She deeply felt the truth of the saying, “One regrets having read so little when the time comes to use knowledge.” If she had known this would happen, she would have researched the occult and theology more.

However, she remained proactive. She first lay on the sofa to try and sleep, only to find—unsurprisingly—that ghosts don’t need sleep. She sat back up, racking her brain for every rumor or myth she’d ever heard about how humans and ghosts communicate.

She still had no leads by the time Shen Juan came back downstairs. She realized that every method she had ever heard of was about how humans talk to ghosts, not how ghosts talk to humans. In those legends and anecdotes, ghosts and spirits were always all-powerful—speaking whenever they wanted, manifesting at will, harming people, or causing chaos.

She was likely the most useless ghost ever. She could do nothing.

Gu Shuge sank into a deep, lingering depression, but within that depression, she discovered a new skill: she could walk through the air, unaffected by gravity, as if walking up invisible stairs or navigating plum-blossom poles in a martial arts film.

She adjusted her posture and direction in the air, controlling the pressure of her feet, and floated up to the ceiling to familiarize herself with this new ability.

Then, Shen Juan came downstairs.

Gu Shuge’s foot missed its mark and she nearly tumbled. She scrambled down and moved to Shen Juan’s side.

It was just past 5:00 AM. Shen Juan was wearing black trousers and a black coat. Her hair was pinned up, and she wore light makeup to hide the puffiness of her eyes. Her skin looked exceptionally pale against her black attire.

She rarely wore all black. Gu Shuge inappropriately recalled her brother’s funeral two years ago. Shen Juan had worn black then too, walking through the cemetery as the widow, carrying the urn. The messy rain, the black umbrella—it had been oppressive and mournful.

Back then, Shuge had been consumed by grief, and because of her shameful secret feelings, she had avoided being alone with Shen Juan, avoided eye contact, and looked at her as little as possible.

She had thought she’d succeeded, but looking back now, every one of Shen Juan’s expressions from that day remained crystal clear in her memory.

Shen Juan went to the conservatory and selected five white chrysanthemums, pairing them with forget-me-nots and tying them into a bouquet with a ribbon. She drove herself to the hospital alone.

It was early; the streetlights were still on. One could see morning runners on the sidewalks and buses with dim lights moving through the predawn gloom.

The hospital was already busy. Families buying breakfast, doctors finishing surgeries, and the sound of ambulances added a touch of mundane “human fire” to the morning.

Shen Juan entered the hospital and walked to the morgue. Two doctors were guarding it; when they saw her, they immediately straightened up.

Shen Juan nodded to them and pushed the door open.

Gu Shuge’s body was no longer on that bed; it had been moved into a freezer. The freezer was rectangular, shaped like a coffin. Gu Shuge looked around the room.

The freezer sat in the center. The three walls other than the one with the door were lined with large rectangular drawers. Gu Shuge knew these were smaller freezers for storing bodies.

Shen Juan walked to the center freezer and placed the flowers by the head of the body. The body hadn’t been cleaned yet and was still a mess, but with the bouquet there, the blood-clotted face didn’t seem quite so terrifying.

Gu Shuge stood by Shen Juan’s side. Shen Juan leaned down and touched Shuge’s hair.

When they left the hospital, it was nearly 7:30 AM.

Shen Juan drove, taking two phone calls. She replied briefly and then pulled over to the side of a small park. Gu Shuge sat in the passenger seat, feeling a bit idle.

A moment later, someone knocked on the passenger window.

It was Lin Mo.

The window rolled down. Lin Mo said from outside, “Chairman, Mr. Liu is right here with me. Do you want to see him?”

Shen Juan replied, “Let him come over.”

Gu Shuge was puzzled. Which Mr. Liu?

Before she could finish the thought, the passenger door opened. A man in an overcoat and a hat sat down—right on top of Gu Shuge’s ghostly form.

Gu Shuge: “…”

A ghost has to be magnanimous; I shouldn’t take it out on the living. She stood up and moved to the back seat.

Mr. Liu still carried the morning chill. He didn’t offer a handshake; he just introduced himself: “Hello, Ms. Shen. I am the investigator for Miss Gu’s case. My name is Liu Guohua. If you’re free now, I’ll report the progress of the investigation.”

Gu Shuge realized: he was the private investigator from yesterday.

Shen Juan said, “Go ahead.”

Nowadays, private investigators aren’t just individuals; they are professional teams. Their tools and methods of solving cases are very modern.

Liu Guohua pulled a tablet from his briefcase, turned it on, and handed it to Shen Juan. “This is the surveillance footage from the bakery. There are eight cameras in total: six inside and two outside. You see, when Miss Gu walked into the bakery, her purpose was clear. She went straight to the counter to speak to the clerk. The clerk nodded, smiled, said something, and then brought out a cake box. Miss Gu took the box and left the shop. She walked about five or six meters to the right along the sidewalk, then turned left. It’s predicted she was going to call a taxi.”

His deduction was correct.

Gu Shuge hadn’t notified anyone of her return. From the airport to this shop, she had used taxis. She picked up the cake, used a ride-hailing app, and headed to the roadside to wait. Just as she reached the curb, the vehicle swerved out and hit her.

“From these frames, it’s certain that Miss Gu was fully lucid. I visited the bakery; the clerk still remembers her and says the cake was ordered two days ago. Her tone and expression were normal. This rules out the possibility that she was drugged beforehand and was in a daze.”

Liu Guohua’s logic was clear. Having finished with the victim, he moved on to the driver: “The driver’s name is Zhang Meng. He’s a low-level civil servant with an ordinary family, but he has a daughter with congenital heart disease. That’s a bottomless pit; his salary isn’t nearly enough to cover it. They sold their house and are currently renting. He works odd jobs whenever he’s free. Yesterday, he got off work at noon and used his lunch break to run an illegal taxi near the train station.”

“We found the last passenger who rode with him yesterday. They boarded at the station and got off at Huaihai Road. That passenger isn’t a local—they were a tourist. The train ticket was booked a month ago, so we can preliminarily determine their testimony is reliable. I asked about the situation at the time; the passenger chose the destination and the route was via GPS. Zhang Meng was just driving. After dropping off the passenger at Huaihai Road, he planned to head back to the station for more fares. Because Yin xian Road was congested at that time, Zhongshan Road was the shortest route to the station. Taking that road was essentially inevitable.”

The bakery was on Zhongshan Road.

Hearing this, it sounded like a complete coincidence.

As he spoke, Liu Guohua played a recording—the testimony of the tourist. Once it finished, he continued his deduction: “It looks like a coincidence, but going to Huaihai Road might not have been accidental.”

Shen Juan asked, “Why do you say that?”

Liu Guohua smiled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out half a pack of cigarettes. He looked like he wanted to smoke, but quickly remembered the status of his employer and stuffed them back. He gave an apologetic smile and continued: “Have you been to the train station? It’s crowded with people from all over. Illegal taxi drivers usually gather there, blocking the entrance to solicit fares. They shout ‘Anyone going to [Place]?’ Passengers then respond, asking for prices to specific destinations. Of course, some just walk away. So, most of the time, the driver knows the destination before the passenger even gets in; they choose which fare to take based on that information.”

“Also, a passenger’s appearance, expression, and accent can reveal if they are local and why they are in Yanjing.” He showed a photo to Shen Juan. “See, this passenger clearly looks like a southerner. They’re dressed casually, carrying a casual backpack and a suitcase. It’s almost certain they came to Yanjing for a trip.”

“Huaihai Road is very close to Huaiyu Lake, which is one of our city’s top ten tourist attractions. Transportation is convenient with two subway lines intersecting there. There are also many budget hotels with decent service. Many online travel guides recommend Huaihai Road.”

Liu Guohua pulled up several Yanjing travel guides on the tablet; almost every one mentioned that street.

“In other words, it’s possible Zhang Meng knew exactly where the passenger wanted to go just by looking at them. It was because he knew the destination was Huaihai Road that he took the fare.”

So, what seemed like a random coincidence actually contained many controllable factors.

Shen Juan listened and then asked, “Any other leads?”

Liu Guohua took a stack of A4-sized reports from his briefcase and handed them to her. “These are copies of Zhang Meng’s daughter’s medical records. You instructed us to focus on her condition, so we put a lot of effort into this.”

Gu Shuge glanced at the thick stack. A hospital wouldn’t just hand out medical records; they likely weren’t obtained through entirely legal means.

Liu Guohua didn’t mention how he got them. He simply stated his conclusion: “Congenital heart disease has two main hurdles: money and the heart itself. Zhang Meng’s daughter’s situation is grim; she’s been on the brink of death twice in the ICU. While money is difficult, the heart is harder to find. Matches are rare and the waiting list is long. Many patients have no idea when they’ll get surgery; the severe cases are essentially just waiting to die. Killing for money is possible, but I’ve checked—no matching heart has appeared at the hospital yet.”

Without a heart, Zhang Meng had no motive for a sudden murder for hire, because even if he got the money, there was nowhere to spend it.

This lead was unclear; they would need further developments to make a definitive judgment.

In the fourteen hours since the commission, Liu Guohua had already shown significant ability by finding this much.

He thought for a moment and added: “If this was a precisely designed murder, there must be a prerequisite: the news of Miss Gu’s return must have been leaked in advance.” Only then could the person behind the scenes have arranged such a seemingly flawless murder.

He sighed and looked at Shen Juan. “There are too few leads. It’s hard to investigate. Everything is just speculation without evidence. If only the deceased could speak. In many cases, the deceased knows much more than people imagine. If Miss Gu could give us some hints, this case would be much easier.”

Miss Gu, sitting in the back seat: “…” She knew nothing. She wasn’t just a useless ghost; she was a failure of a victim.

But Shen Juan took his words to heart.