Cent ans de solitude

Chapitre 11

Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao sat down. Li Hong glanced at Zheng Zhihao and noticed he was still looking around. It was clear he was also very curious about the boss.

After placing the teacup on the coffee table, Li Hong decided to skip the formalities, as they didn't have much time: "It's like this, a few days ago, the guest staying in room 104 of your place suddenly died. We did some investigation into the case and found some problems, so we wanted to talk to you about the situation."

"Yes, the incident involving guest 104 was indeed very unexpected. However, I did provide some information to the police at the time, and the main responsibility does not lie with our hotel," the owner said.

“I know we’re not looking for blame; we just want to understand the past of Room 104.”

"I already gave a statement to the police who were investigating. Didn't you see it?" the boss asked, looking surprised.

“We are not in the same system as our colleagues in the accident investigation department. They mainly investigate the cause of accidents, while we are in the criminal investigation department, so our scope of investigation is broader.” Li Hong said, picking up her teacup to hide her uneasy expression as she lied. “So we haven’t seen your statement. We need you to tell us more.”

"So what would you like to know?" The boss also picked up his teacup.

“We’d like to know if there have been any unnatural deaths in room 104 before. We hope you can provide some information,” Li Hong said, opening her laptop.

The boss's expression didn't change at all. He pondered for a long time, then sighed: "It seems you know quite a bit about the situation, so I won't hide anything from you. There was a guest who committed suicide in room 104 at the end of last year."

"Did you make this statement to the police officer who took your statement at the time?" Li Hong asked.

"No. Because the young policeman didn't ask about it at the time. When they were taking the statement, it was chaotic and there were people everywhere, so I didn't know what to say. You know, those guests were a big business for our hotel, and I was afraid that saying it would frighten them, so..." The owner gave a wry smile.

Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao exchanged a glance.

"Then why did you hide the check-in registration book?" Zheng Zhihao suddenly asked.

"Hidden registration book?" The shopkeeper was taken aback. "I didn't have it. The registration book is right here with me."

“Really? We asked the front desk, and they could only find the registration books starting from January of this year,” Li Hong said. “We couldn’t find the previous registration books; the receptionist said you disposed of them.” Li Hong didn’t mention that those registration books were actually in her possession.

"I just put it away," the boss said. "The register is right here with me; you can ask me for it." He stood up and began rummaging through his desk. Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao watched him intently.

"Strange, where did it go?" the boss muttered to himself.

"You can't find it, can you?" Li Hong asked.

"Yes, I've always kept it on my desk, how could it be gone?" The boss seemed equally puzzled; he turned around, his face full of confusion. Li Hong could tell he wasn't pretending; he genuinely didn't know where the registers were.

"Then please look carefully again later," Li Hong said.

"Alright." The shopkeeper was still wondering where his registration book had gone, but after thinking for a while, he still couldn't figure it out. "Let me ask my wife if she's tidied it up. I'll bring the registration book to your room once I find it."

“Okay. Now, tell us about the deceased from last year.” Li Hong decided not to dwell on the matter in the register.

"Ugh, don't even mention it, I've had the worst luck imaginable." The shopkeeper said, taking out a cigarette. "You don't mind, do you?"

Li Hong waved her hand, signaling him to continue.

"That happened at the end of last year," the owner said, lighting a cigarette. "The couple came in at night, and I didn't pay much attention. Although there weren't many customers, there was a lot of work to do because it was the end of the year, so I was handling the accounts in my room. Around 10:30 p.m., I heard someone shouting in the hallway, 'Help! Someone help!' My mind went blank for a moment; I thought it was a robbery because there are a lot of people doing that kind of thing at the end of the year..."

"Your hotel didn't have any security guards at the time, did you?" Li Hong interrupted.

"No, there were some before, but I was fired. Nothing major has happened in the past few years, and the security here is pretty good."

"Please continue."

"I ran out to see what was going on. It turned out that the male guest in room 104 had committed suicide by slitting his throat. What bad luck!"

"And then what?"

"We'll handle it however we have to. The ambulance came, the police came, and the police investigation concluded it was suicide."

"You weren't there at the time, were you?"

"I just took a look, and there was so much blood. I'm a bit squeamish about blood and couldn't stand the sight, so I left it to my staff. After this incident, I felt that room 104 was a bit haunted, so I told my staff not to schedule it if possible. And don't talk about this kind of thing. Good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels fast! If the customers know about this and start speculating, how are we supposed to do business?" the owner said helplessly.

Li Hong nodded. Indeed, as a hotel owner, she naturally wouldn't want to see such a thing happen in her own hotel, so she wouldn't bring up the past unless absolutely necessary. And the registration book didn't seem to be deliberately hidden by the owner; someone had tampered with it. She then asked Zheng Zhihao if he had any more questions, but he shook his head. Perhaps he too was beginning to doubt his initial deduction and needed to investigate the owner's background further.

The next step is to inquire about Ya Chaolan's situation. As Li Hong thought about this, she suddenly had a premonition that she might not get any results from this inquiry.

40. Hotel owner (2)

This premonition of failure made Li Hong feel frustrated, as if she had gone around in circles and returned to the starting point. Apart from knowing that the registration book had been stolen and hidden, the other information was not very useful. Although she could not completely rule out the boss as a suspect, he was much less of a suspect than the person who stole the registration book.

Despite feeling there wasn't much hope, Li Hong decided to continue asking.

“We want to know about a guest named Wang Ya who stayed in room 104 last summer,” Li Hong said. “Everything you know about her.” She added that she didn’t want to miss any information.

"Wang Ya?" The boss frowned, as if it was the first time he had heard this name.

“Yes. Wang Ya is her Han Chinese name. Her real name is Ya Chaolan-Yadang. She is a Yao ethnic minority. She was about 20 to 22 years old last year,” Li Hong said, as she took out the portrait and handed it to the shopkeeper.

"I don't remember..." the owner said after looking at the portrait for a long time. "There were quite a few customers in the summers of the year before last and last year, it's impossible for me to remember them all."

“She has a black cat,” Zheng Zhihao interjected from the side.

"Ah, is that the cat she brought?" The shopkeeper looked at the portrait again, then seemed to remember something. "I remember seeing a black cat last summer, wandering around at night."

“She’s the owner of the black cat,” Li Hong said. “Her name is Wang Ya. Can you remember anything else?”

"I don't remember very well..." the boss thought hard. "I think I heard the waiters say that she was a fortune teller."

"A fortune teller?"

"Yes. I've never had any dealings with her. It must have been one evening during dinner, when the waiters were eating at a table and started talking about a customer who had a black cat and was a fortune teller or something. They said she was pretty accurate and some people wanted to have their fortunes told by her. I only overheard part of it and didn't pay attention to the rest. It's been so long, who would remember so much? The waiters have all left or quit. You could ask around, but I don't know if anyone would remember."

"Oh, okay." Li Hong turned to look at Zheng Zhihao again, as if asking if he had any further questions. Zheng Zhihao thought for a moment and asked the owner, "Are you staying here tonight?"

"Sometimes I don't stay here, but I've been staying here for the past few days."

"You mentioned the strange occurrences in room 104. When did they begin? What were the symptoms?" Zheng Zhihao asked again.

"Oh dear, it's hard to say. Apparently, after the guest who committed suicide stayed there, some staff members said that room 104 was quite creepy, and they always felt like someone was still living in it, and that there were strange noises coming from the room in the middle of the night."

"What kind of sound?" Zheng Zhihao pressed.

“I didn’t hear it either. It was a female server on the night shift who said it. She came to quit that day, saying she wasn’t going to work here anymore because there was a woman’s laughter coming from room 104 at night. After she left, a few other servers left too. I went to room 104 myself and felt something was off.” The boss lowered his voice as he spoke. “You don’t actually think room 104 is haunted? And that the guest who burned to death was also haunted because of that room?”

“We don’t know until we find out,” Li Hong said. She was afraid that Zheng Zhihao would casually mention something like there was a witch’s spirit field there, so she quickly took over the conversation and stood up. “We’ve asked enough questions. Sorry to bother you.”

************************

After leaving room 208, Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao were lost in their own thoughts, neither speaking. Li Hong noticed it was already dark outside and suddenly remembered how scared she would be to be alone that night. What should she do? How could she bring up the idea of asking Zheng Zhihao to come and keep her company? If she didn't explain things clearly and he misunderstood, things would be terrible.

"Tonight..." Li Hong hesitated for a moment before saying, "Are you busy tonight?"

Zheng Zhihao was taken aback for a moment. "You have something to do tonight, what's wrong?"

"Oh...something's up?" Li Hong pursed her lips and didn't say anything more. She decided to go straight back to her room. Alone is fine, she'd just have to take it or leave it.

"What's wrong? Just say it." Zheng Zhihao stood by the stairwell, looking like he wanted to go upstairs to his room.

“I’m scared at night, I want you to give me courage,” Li Hong said in one breath.

"..." Zheng Zhihao didn't speak, as if he was thinking about something.

"Don't misunderstand, I just want you to stay with me and give me courage. You can sleep in my bed, I'll sleep on the floor, it's fine with me." Li Hong quickly explained when she saw that he didn't say anything.

"Hehe, I wasn't thinking anything," Zheng Zhihao said. "I was just wondering if you would be in danger if you were next to me tonight."

“If I’m alone, I’ll definitely be in danger,” Li Hong said. “If you’re next to me, I won’t be afraid of any ghosts.”

“The problem is,” Zheng Zhihao said, moving closer and lowering his voice, “I want to speak directly with Ya Chaolan’s ghost tonight, so I’m afraid you might be in danger if you’re nearby.”

"Huh?" Li Hong was taken aback. "You...you want to talk to a ghost?"

"Keep your voice down!" Zheng Zhihao warned. "Now that we know her real name, we should be able to summon her spirit field. There are too many questions now. If we promise to help her find the murderer, maybe she'll agree to let you go."

"You mean, to make a deal with the devil...?" Li Hong asked, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"What do you mean by making a deal? Actually, I mainly want to find some clues. If she just tells us who the murderer is, wouldn't that be simple?"

Will she tell?

"I don't know either. So I'll have to give it a try."

“Then what should I do? Maybe the Shoe Monster will come again. What if Ya Chaolan ignores you and comes looking for me again?” Li Hong said immediately.

Zheng Zhihao didn't speak, but frowned.

After pondering for a while, Zheng Zhihao said, "Then you can only stay in my room, and you must do exactly as I say."

"Alright," Li Hong said after a moment's thought, "as long as your request isn't too difficult."

41. Dialogue (1)

Although Zheng Zhihao promised that his request would not be difficult to fulfill, Li Hong still felt extremely frustrated.

She was now sitting on the floor of Zheng Zhihao's room, wrapped in a blanket, with only her eyes and nose showing. It was said that this would conceal her human presence. When the night was deep and quiet, and Ya Chaolan's spirit appeared, Li Hong had to breathe extremely slowly and make no sound so that Ya Chaolan wouldn't notice her. Zheng Zhihao checked the amulet she was wearing again, then relaxed and smiled, saying to her, "You look like a big snowman."

"It's so hot!" Li Hong exclaimed. "How long do I have to hide? If you can't summon her soul, can I come out?"

“I’m sure I can lure her here, don’t worry,” Zheng Zhihao said. “If you wait until midnight to wrap yourself in the blanket, Ya Chaolan will know you’re here as soon as she arrives, so you need to hide now.” As he spoke, he lit three incense sticks in the room.

It was around 8 p.m., and the sky was completely dark. Most of the hotel guests had already left, so the entire hotel was eerily quiet. Zheng Zhihao's room was on the top floor, making it even quieter; even though several staff members were cleaning the lobby and restaurant on the first floor, they couldn't hear a thing. This silence made Li Hong very uncomfortable. With her ears buried under the covers, there were no human voices, no insects chirping, only the pounding of her own heart.

"Hey, when you're talking to Ya Chaolan, can I hear you?" Li Hong asked softly to ease her tension.

“You might not be able to hear me,” Zheng Zhihao said. He had already smoked several cigarettes, and the long wait was making him a little impatient. “But it’s not certain. I told you you’re not an ordinary person; maybe you can hear me.”

"Have you ever done this before?" Li Hong asked again. "I mean, summoning spirits or something."

"Yes, I've done it before, but I try to avoid it because it's quite dangerous. As the saying goes, it's easy to invite a god but hard to send him away. When you talk to it and it gets a sense of this world, it becomes restless and doesn't want to go back to its own world."

"What is its world like?" Li Hong asked curiously.

“Its world is actually the same as ours, except that they have lost the organs that allow them to perceive this world. Therefore, in their eyes, our world is just a dark void, and they can only sense other souls in this world—the dead, the living, and other living beings. Once we summon a soul, we need to give it a medium to perceive this world, to sense the summoner, so that it can convey its message,” Zheng Zhihao said slowly, his thoughts seemingly not on the conversation, but drifting to another world.

"So what should we do? What kind of medium should we prepare?" Li Hong continued to ask.

“Every caller has a different method. Some use spirit possession, some use special props, and some even have their soul leave their body to talk to the ghost. It also depends on the ghost’s energy level. Some people fail to call a spirit because they do not properly grasp the other person’s energy field or choose the right medium, which leads to failure.”

"So what method will you use this time?"

“Because Ya Chaolan’s soul field energy is very strong, we can’t use methods like soul possession, it’s too dangerous. So I’m going to talk to her directly, and I’m sure she’ll be willing to show herself to me.”

"Can I see?" Li Hong, wrapped in the blanket, moved closer to Zheng Zhihao.

"Do you want to see her?" Zheng Zhihao turned to look at her. "You said you don't want to see her."

“I want to see it this time,” Li Hong said. “This is quite a spectacle, of course I want to see it.”

“I think you’ll see it,” Zheng Zhihao said. “She won’t try to hide it from you either.”

Li Hong nodded, remaining silent. She recalled her past experiences dissecting corpses, performing thorough examinations from head to toe on bodies of unknown cause of death. She had even held the skulls of the deceased, talking to them as if speaking to herself. Back then, she felt no fear, no knowledge of the existence of ghosts. Now, though there was no corpse before her, a chill ran down her spine. It made her feel that the world was too crazy, and there were far too many things she didn't understand. She began to worry about this conversation again. Would it succeed? Could she find out who the real killer was from Ya Chaolan's ghost?

***********************

A wave of heat woke Li Hong. She opened her eyes to find herself in complete darkness. What was going on? She remembered that she had been sitting in bed before falling asleep, and the light was on. She must have been too tired and accidentally drifted off. But why was it dark now?