Chapter 204: I Saw It with My Own Eyes
As they passed each other, Chen Ge turned back to take another look at the woman. She carried a strange smell, not like perfume, but more like the scent of disinfectant in a hospital.
"Hey!"
Chen Ge stood at the elevator door and called out to her.
The woman stopped and turned around. Through the gap between her hat brim and mask, a pair of beautiful eyes blinked gently, filled with confusion.
Judging solely by her eyes, she didn’t match the photo provided by the police. She probably wasn’t the patient from Room 2 that Chen Ge was looking for.
"Are you that celebrity from TV? Can I take a photo with you?" Chen Ge admitted he was acting on impulse. He didn’t know what else to say, so he made up a clumsy excuse.
"Sorry, you’ve mistaken me for someone else." Her voice was very soft, as if she wasn’t feeling well. After speaking, she walked away.
She seemed to think Chen Ge was up to no good, almost jogging off.
"She doesn’t look like the photo from the police, but Patient 2 has Dorian Gray syndrome and has undergone multiple plastic surgeries. That face can’t be used as a standard for judgment."
With today’s cosmetic techniques, changing bone structure is hard, but altering the face is very easy.
Sticking to the principle of "better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one escape," Chen Ge slung his backpack over his shoulder and chased after her.
Running out of Building 3, Chen Ge followed the woman into the underground parking lot. After weaving around a few times, she suddenly vanished.
"Where did she go?" The parking lot had surveillance cameras. Afraid of being mistaken for a thief by security, Chen Ge didn’t dare search further and returned to Building 3.
Taking the elevator to the 14th floor, Chen Ge lightly knocked on Wang Xin’s door.
"Anyone home?"
Footsteps sounded from inside, and someone in slippers opened the door. "Who are you looking for?"
Behind the door stood a middle-aged woman in a black-and-white dress suit. She was well-maintained, with firm skin, looking much younger than her actual age.
"It’s me, the one who treated Wang Xin last time..."
Before Chen Ge could finish, the middle-aged woman recognized him. "Dr. Chen! Please, come in! I’ve always wanted to thank you properly but never had the chance."
"Dr. Chen?" The title felt strange to Chen Ge. Though it was the first time someone called him that, it carried an odd sense of familiarity. "I’m not a professional doctor."
"You cured Wang Xin’s illness. In my eyes, that makes you the best doctor. Don’t be modest. I’ve asked Dr. Gao about you. Please, come in!" The woman warmly pulled Chen Ge inside.
"Sorry for the intrusion. I’m here today mainly to check on Wang Xin’s condition and also to ask about a few things."
"There are apples and bananas on the coffee table. Wait a moment, I’ll get some tea I brought back from the company."
"No need to go to any trouble." Chen Ge sat on the sofa. His visit today was secondary to finding the patient from Room 2 and completing the tape ghost’s favorability task.
Of course, he wouldn’t tell Wang Xin’s foster mother that. Maintaining his image was still important.
As Chen Ge exchanged pleasantries with the middle-aged woman, the bedroom door opened, and a frail girl walked out.
A few days had passed since their last meeting, and Wang Xin’s complexion had improved significantly. Before, she never left her room, but now she came out on her own.
She had fully opened up to Chen Ge back then. The words she sobbed to the Ouija board still echoed in his mind.
Seeing the girl’s change, Chen Ge felt genuine happiness.
Wang Xin sat across from Chen Ge, still seeming unaccustomed to interacting with people, speaking in a very low voice.
Chen Ge had learned from Dr. Gao how to interact with mental health patients. He didn’t interrupt Wang Xin, listening attentively and considering things from her perspective.
Gradually, a smile appeared on Wang Xin’s face. With her heart unburdened, she was actively trying to connect with the outside world.
After Wang Xin left, the middle-aged woman brought out the brewed tea. "That child carries too much inside. She never tells us anything. Only when you come does she smile so happily."
Chen Ge took the teacup but didn’t drink. "Wang Xin’s recovery is going well. The treatment has been effective."
He glanced at the time and added, "Actually, I also wanted to ask you about something today."
"Go ahead." The woman was very cooperative.
"I heard that a building in Fanghua Yuan Community was haunted a few years ago. Is that true or false?"
As soon as Chen Ge finished speaking, the woman’s expression stiffened. She got up, quietly walked to Wang Xin’s room door, listened for a moment, then led Chen Ge into the kitchen.
Closing the kitchen door, the woman finally spoke. "Dr. Chen, I won’t lie to you. It’s true."
"Really haunted?" Chen Ge hadn’t expected her tone to be so certain.
"I saw it with my own eyes." The woman pointed at the floor. "The haunting was on the 13th floor of Building 3."
When she mentioned the 13th floor, Chen Ge inexplicably thought of the woman he had encountered earlier—she had entered the elevator from that floor.
"Can you elaborate?" Chen Ge took out his phone and found the photo of the patient from Room 2. Before he could show it to her, she continued.
"Fanghua Yuan was built twenty years ago. It wasn’t this big at first—only the six low-rise buildings in front. The three high-rise residential buildings in the back were newly constructed four or five years ago. I was one of the first residents."
Holding her teacup, the woman began recounting the strange events from two or three years ago from a different perspective.
What she said basically matched Old Wang’s account. The scariest part was that she had personally encountered a white shadow crouching outside her door.
She said that late one night, she heard a strange noise from outside, like something scratching at the door. At first, she thought it was a stray cat or dog, but soon she heard someone talking.
Her first instinct was that a thief had broken in. She grabbed a kitchen knife, walked to the door, and peered through the peephole.
The motion-sensor light in the hallway seemed to be malfunctioning. All she could make out was a blurry white shadow.
She called the police and hacked at the security door with the knife, striking it many times until the white shadow fled.
When it came to the white shadow’s escape, her account matched Old Wang’s exactly: the shadow moved very fast but made no sound of footsteps.
"To this day, I still don’t know what that thing was. Later, the police said it was a crazy person playing tricks." The woman set down her teacup with a sigh. "I bought this apartment with a loan, sinking all my savings into it. Otherwise, I would have moved out long ago."
"Did you see the white shadow up close?" Chen Ge pondered her words, his gaze occasionally drifting to her youthful appearance, which didn’t match her age, and her black-and-white dress suit.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Wang Xin’s foster mother, but he found it odd how much she seemed to favor black and white. The first time they met, she had been wearing a white shirt and black pants.