Chapter 7

Gu Shuge’s soul-body went stiff, and she stared straight at Shen Juan.

Shen Juan’s gaze was aimed at her face. After looking for a while, she pressed her lips together slightly and asked, “Are you here?”

Her tone was very cautious, but not because of fear. It carried a certain kind of expectation. Gu Shuge slowly relaxed and said, “I’m here.”

At the same moment Gu Shuge spoke, Shen Juan reached out and touched her cheek. Gu Shuge held her breath slightly, and Shen Juan’s hand passed straight through her face. Shen Juan closed her fingers in midair, as if she wanted to grasp something, but since, to her, there was only air in front of her, naturally, she could not catch anything.

Disappointment appeared on Shen Juan’s face. She withdrew her hand and stood there for a while. Her eyes no longer landed on Gu Shuge, but searched through the air instead.

After looking for about five minutes, Shen Juan lowered her eyes, turned around, and walked toward the stairs.

So she had not seen her. Gu Shuge watched Shen Juan go upstairs, and dejection made even her body grow faint and drifting. She walked listlessly over to the sofa and sat down.

Suddenly, she realized that something was wrong.

If Shen Juan could not see her, why had she called her name in her direction?

Had she sensed her?

Gu Shuge glanced at the clock. Twelve ten. She had forgotten where she had read before that the time of day when yin energy was strongest was between one and three in the morning. Then did twelve o’clock have some sort of significance too?

She stood up and went to the window. Because she was lost in thought, she actually forgot to walk over like a human and instead drifted directly to the window. She looked up into the sky. A waning crescent moon hung there, and because the sky was clear, it was rather bright.

According to ordinary people’s understanding, for a soul-body to appear or be sensed by others, it should happen when yin energy was heavy, because souls belonged to yin. And the days of the month when yin energy was strongest should be the first and thirtieth days of the lunar month, when the moon could not be seen.

Today was neither the first nor the thirtieth, and it had not been one o’clock just now either. So why had Shen Juan suddenly been able to sense her?

Gu Shuge thought for a long time but still could not understand. She deeply felt the meaning of only hating that one had read too little when knowledge was needed. If she had known this day would come, she would have studied more mysticism and religion.

But she was still very proactive. First, she lay down on the sofa and tried sleeping. Then, unsurprisingly, she discovered that ghosts did not need to sleep. So she sat up again and racked her brains, trying to remember all the hearsay she had once come across about ways humans and ghosts could communicate.

She thought all the way until Shen Juan came downstairs, but still had no clue. She discovered that the methods she had heard of, without exception, all taught humans how to speak with ghosts, but not how ghosts could speak with humans. Because in those legends and anecdotes, ghosts and spirits all possessed vast supernatural powers. If they wanted to speak to people, they could speak. If they wanted to appear, they could appear. If they wanted to harm people, they could harm them. If they wanted to cause trouble, they could cause trouble.

She was probably the most useless ghost of all. She could not do anything.

Gu Shuge sank into prolonged dejection, and then, in the midst of that dejection, she discovered a new ability. She could walk through the air without being affected by gravity, like walking up steps or stepping across plum-blossom stakes in a martial arts drama.

She adjusted her posture and direction in midair, controlled the force beneath her feet, and drifted up to the ceiling, familiarizing herself with this new ability.

Then Shen Juan came downstairs.

Gu Shuge’s foot suddenly missed empty air, and she nearly stumbled. She hurriedly came down and walked to Shen Juan’s side.

It was only a little past five. Shen Juan was wearing black trousers, and the coat over them was also black. Her hair was pinned up, and she had light makeup on her face, concealing the redness and swelling of her eyes. Yet against the contrast of her clothes, her skin looked especially pale.

She rarely wore an entire outfit of pure black. At an inappropriate moment, Gu Shuge thought of two years ago, when her older brother had been buried. Shen Juan had also been dressed in black then, carrying the urn as his widow as she walked through the cemetery. The rain had been chaotic, the umbrellas black, the atmosphere oppressive and mournful.

At that time, Gu Shuge had been devastated by grief, and because of those shameful feelings of hers, she had avoided being alone with Shen Juan, avoided meeting her eyes, and tried as much as possible not to look at her.

She had always thought she had managed it. Who would have known that now, looking back, every expression Shen Juan had worn that day remained perfectly clear in her memory.

Shen Juan went to the flower room and chose five white daisies, pairing them with forget-me-nots, then tied them into a bouquet with a ribbon. She bailiantales.comdrove herself, heading to the hospital alone.

It was still early. The city’s streetlights were still lit. Along the roadside, morning joggers could be seen, and buses drove through the dim glow of dawn with their dark headlights on.

The hospital was already busy. Family members buying breakfast, doctors who had just finished a surgery, and the sound of ambulances all added a great deal of everyday warmth to the early morning.

Shen Juan walked into the hospital and arrived in front of the morgue. Two doctors were standing guard there. When they saw her come over, they hurriedly straightened up.

Shen Juan nodded to them, pushed the door open, and walked inside.

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

The freezer was placed in the center. Along the three walls other than the one with the door, large rectangular drawers were arranged one after another. Gu Shuge knew these drawers were probably small freezers for storing bodies.

Shen Juan walked to the freezer and placed the flowers she had brought beside the body’s pillow. The body still had not been cleaned up and remained a mess, but with that bouquet of flowers, the blood-congealed deathly face seemed a little less frightening.

Gu Shuge stood beside Shen Juan. Shen Juan bent down and touched Gu Shuge’s hair.

By the time they left the hospital, it was almost seven thirty.

Shen Juan drove and took two phone calls. She replied briefly, then stopped by the roadside near a small park. Gu Shuge sat in the front passenger seat, somewhat idle and with nothing to do.

Before long, someone knocked on the window on the passenger side.

It was Lin Mo.

The window rolled down, and Lin Mo stood outside and said, “Chairman, Mr. Liu is beside me. Do you want to see him?”

Shen Juan answered, “Have him come over.”

Gu Shuge was puzzled. Which Mr. Liu?

Before she could finish wondering, the passenger-side car door opened, and a man wearing an overcoat and a hat sat into the car, pressing down directly onto Gu Shuge’s soul-body.

Gu Shuge: “…”

A ghost should always be a little magnanimous and not argue with people. She had no [unauthorized copy]choice but to stand up and move to the back seat.

Mr. Liu still carried the chill of the outdoors on him. After seeing Shen Juan, he did not ask to shake hands and introduced himself directly. “Hello, Ms. Shen. I’m the investigator for Miss Gu’s case. My name is Liu Guohua. If you have time now, I’ll report the progress of the investigation to you.”

Gu Shuge understood. He was the private detective they had found yesterday.

Shen Juan said, “Go ahead.”

Nowadays, private detectives were not one person, but a professional team. The tools they used and the methods they used to solve cases were also very modern.

Liu Guohua took a tablet from his briefcase, opened it, handed it to Shen Juan, and said, “This is the surveillance footage obtained from the bakery. There are eight cameras in total: six installed inside the shop and two outside. Please look. When Miss Gu walked into the bakery, her purpose was very clear. She went straight to the counter and spoke with the clerk. The clerk nodded, smiled, said something to her, then went inside and brought out the cake box. Miss Gu took the cake box and left the shop. She followed the sidewalk to the right for about five or six meters, then turned left. It is predicted that she was going to the roadside to call a car.”

His deduction was correct.

When Gu Shuge returned to the country, she had not notified anyone. From the airport to this shop, the transportation she had chosen was a taxi. After picking up the cake, she used a phone app to call a car and prepared to wait by the roadside. She had only just reached the roadside when the vehicle that caused the accident suddenly rushed out and hit her.

“From these frames, we can determine that Miss Gu was in a normal state of mind. I visited that bakery, and the clerk still had an impression of Miss Gu. She said the cake had been ordered two days in advance, and Miss Gu’s tone and expression when speaking were all normal. So we can rule out the possibility that Miss Gu had been drugged beforehand and was mentally disoriented at the time of the incident.”

Liu Guohua’s thinking was very clear. After finishing with the victim, he continued to talk about the driver who had caused the accident. “The driver’s surname is Zhang. His name is Zhang Meng. He is a minor civil servant, and his family is very ordinary. But he has a daughter with congenital heart disease. That bottomless pit cannot be filled by his salary at all. The family sold their house and now rents a place to live. Whenever he has free time, he also does private jobs [bailiantales.com]on the side. Yesterday, during his lunch break, he went to the nearby high-speed rail station to drive an illegal taxi and pick up passengers.”

“We found the last passenger who rode in his car yesterday. That passenger got in at the high-speed rail station and got out on Huaihai Road. The passenger is not a local; he came here to travel. His high-speed rail ticket was booked a month ago, so we can preliminarily determine that there is no problem with his testimony. I asked him about the situation at the time. He said he chose the destination, the route was from the navigation system, and Zhang Meng was only responsible for driving. After dropping the passenger off on Huaihai Road, he planned to return to the high-speed rail station and make a few more trips. Because at that time, Yinxian Road was congested, and Zhongshan Road was the nearest route to the high-speed rail station. Taking that road could be said to be inevitable.”

That bakery was located on Zhongshan Road.

Hearing it laid out like this, it sounded like a complete coincidence.

As Liu Guohua spoke, he took out a recording and played it. It was the statement of the traveler who had ridden in Zhang Meng’s car. After playing it, he continued his reasoning. “It does indeed look like a coincidence, but going to Huaihai Road may not necessarily have been accidental.”

Shen Juan asked, “What do you mean?”

Liu Guohua smiled, put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out half a pack of cigarettes. He looked as if he wanted to smoke, but quickly remembered what kind of person the employer before him was. He hurriedly stuffed the cigarette pack back and smiled apologetically before continuing. “Have you been to the high-speed rail station before? There are many people inside, coming from all directions. Illegal taxi drivers often gather together and block the station entrance to solicit passengers. When soliciting passengers, drivers will shout, ‘Anyone going to such-and-such place?’ At that time, travelers will respond, saying things like, ‘I’m going to this place, what’s the price?’ Of course, there are also people who ignore them and walk away. So a lot of the time, drivers don’t only learn the destination after the passenger gets in the car. They choose which passenger to take based on the information the passenger provides.”

“Also, a passenger’s clothing, expression, and accent can reveal whether they’re local and what they’ve come to Yanjing for.” As he spoke, he took out a photograph and showed it to Shen Juan. “Look. This traveler is obviously from the south at first glance. He’s dressed very casually, carrying a casual backpack and dragging a suitcase. It can almost be determined that he came to Yanjing for travel.”

“Huaihai Road is very close to Huaiyu Lake, which ranks among our city’s top ten tourist destinations. The transportation there is also convenient, with two subway lines intersecting there. There are also many budget hotels in that area with fair prices and decent service. Many travel guides online recommend Huaihai Road.”

As Liu Guohua spoke, he opened the tablet and searched up several Yanjing read the original at bailiantales.com travel guides. Sure enough, almost every one mentioned that street.

“In other words, Zhang Meng may have known where that traveler wanted to go the moment he saw him. It was precisely because he knew the destination was Huaihai Road that he took him as a passenger.”

So what seemed like coincidence and chance still contained many controllable factors.

After listening, Shen Juan asked, “Are there any other clues?”

Liu Guohua took a stack of A4-sized reports from his briefcase and handed them to Shen Juan. “These are copies of Zhang Meng’s daughter’s medical records. You instructed us to pay special attention to her illness, so we put a great deal of effort into this.”

Gu Shuge glanced at the stack of reports. It was very thick. Hospitals would not casually leak a patient’s medical records. They probably had not been obtained through any proper means.

Liu Guohua did not mention how they had obtained these medical records and simply stated his conclusion. “There are two difficult problems with congenital heart disease. One is money. The other is a heart. Zhang Meng’s daughter’s condition is not good. Twice, she has hovered at death’s door and entered the ICU. Money is difficult, but compared to that, the harder thing is the heart. There are already few compatible matches, and many people are waiting in line. Many patients don’t know when they will be able to have surgery. For those with serious conditions, it’s almost the same as waiting for death. Killing for money is possible, but I investigated it, and the hospital has not yet found a compatible heart.”

No heart meant Zhang Meng had no sudden motive to kill for money, because even if he got the money, there would be nowhere to spend it.

This clue was very unclear. They would have to wait for later developments before they could make an accurate judgment.

From the time the commission was given until now, roughly fourteen hours had passed. Being able to find this much already [read the original at bailiantales.com]showed Liu Guohua’s ability very well.

He thought for a moment, then said, “If this was a meticulously designed murder, there must be one prerequisite: the news of Miss Gu’s return to the country was leaked in advance.” Only then could the person behind it arrange this seemingly flawless murder.

He sighed, looked at Shen Juan, and said, “There are too few clues. It’s very hard to investigate. Everything is only conjecture, with no evidence. If only the dead could speak. In many cases, the dead know far more than people imagine. If Miss Gu could give some hints, this case would be much easier.”

Miss Gu, sitting in the back seat: “…”

She knew nothing. Not only was she the most useless ghost, she was also the most failed victim.

But Shen Juan took those words to heart.