Horrorgeschichten, die in einer verlassenen Wohnung spielen

Kapitel 7

Liu Tang chuckled a few times and said, "We can't just hang ourselves on one tree. But you have so many trees to jump from one to another, it's really annoying."

"Stop talking nonsense, who exactly came looking for me?"

“I don’t know her. She said her surname was Huang and she sat in your seat for a long time, looking so sad and forlorn, like Lin Daiyu. I asked her, what did you do to her?”

"Don't be ridiculous. The surname is Huang, so who could that be?" I frowned.

Could it be Huang Zhi? She came to Shanghai to ask me for help finding her daughter?

I described Huang Zhi's appearance as I remembered her, and Liu Tang nodded repeatedly.

By all accounts, Huang Zhi should be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old. It seems that her mental state has been abnormal in recent years, but she hasn't made herself look haggard.

Suddenly, a thought struck me, and I asked, "Is she wearing a blue dress?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"I missed it at the door just now."

“It’s okay, she said she’ll come see you again tomorrow at noon,” Liu Tang said.

"That's great, looks like I'll have to come earlier tomorrow."

“But she wasn’t talking to me. She was sitting in your seat talking to herself.” Liu Tang said, mimicking her voice, “Then, teacher, I’ll come again tomorrow at noon. Please take good care of yourself. I’m entrusting my daughter to you. I’ll come to see you every day.”

I felt embarrassed and quickly told him to stop.

"So, teacher, you already have a daughter?" Guizi Tang made a funny face.

I had no choice but to tell him that the beautiful young woman who came to see me was the mentally ill patient who wrote me the letter. Otherwise, who knows how many rumors would have spread.

"So that's how it is. No wonder it looked so strange. I thought you had ruined them." Japanese soldier Tang rarely spoke anything eloquent.

I finished revising Master Wang's press release on my computer and uploaded it to the department's manuscript library. I stretched, loosened my shoulders, then took a small key from my drawer, walked to one side of the press room, and opened my private locker.

Besides the small drawers on the computer desk, each reporter and editor had a dedicated cabinet to store clothes and other miscellaneous items that wouldn't fit in the other drawers. I searched through the cabinet for a while and pulled out a notebook with curled edges.

These are my interview notes. I fill one or two large notebooks every year. This one is from 2003.

I sat back down and turned to the pages in my notebook that contained interviews about paper babies.

The entire page was covered in messy, illegible handwriting, making it a "heavenly book" for everyone else, only I could decipher it.

My eyes followed my finger, moving line by line across the page, trying to remember where I was writing it down, if I'm not mistaken...

Found it.

U-Sembey!

In an interview three years ago, I learned about this situation. The process of Huang Zhi being admitted to the First Maternity and Infant Hospital for delivery was fraught with difficulties, and an agreement was eventually signed. This was because if it were a natural birth, there would be no problem; however, if it resulted in a difficult delivery, Huang Zhi's life would be in danger.

Because the blood bank didn't have any blood plasma available for her.

Her blood type is U-Sembei!

What a coincidence, isn't it? There are only about thirty people in the world with the U-Sembei blood type. The stillborn baby in South Korea had this blood type, as did Hwang Ji. There's a certain probability that her child will also have this blood type. Is Zhou Qianqian one of them? And what about that paper baby? If it develops normally, could it also have this blood type?

What does this represent?

This means nothing. I told myself, this means nothing.

I closed the laptop and set it aside. For the next half hour, I was in a daze, browsing the internet but not remembering absorbing anything.

I massaged my temples with my thumbs for a while, and the chaotic thoughts in my head calmed down a little. I got up and poured myself a cup of hot tea. Actually, I prefer cold drinks in the summer, but slowly drinking tea has a ritualistic effect, which can calm my mind.

The rim of the disposable plastic teacup was covered with fine condensation, and wisps of white steam slowly rose. I was lost in thought for a moment, my gaze passing through the steam before settling on the old notebook behind me.

I moved the cup aside, opened my notebook, and then picked up the phone and dialed a number from the notes.

The call was connected.

"This is Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital. Please dial the extension number. For inquiries, please dial 0." A female voice with slightly accented Mandarin answered the automated message.

I dialed the extension number.

"Hello?" A middle-aged man's voice answered the phone.

"Is Dr. Zhang here?" I asked.

"That's me. Who are you?"

"I'm Na Duo, a reporter from Morning Star News. Do you remember me?"

"A reporter from the Morning Star?"

“I interviewed you three years ago about a deformed fetus, a paper baby.”

I heard a soft inhale coming from the receiver, followed by three seconds of silence.

“Oh, Paper Baby,” he said. “Yes, I remember now. Is there anything I can help you with?”

"I'd like to ask, was the cause of that deformed fetus ever clarified?"

"No."

"Was that fetus preserved as a specimen?"

No, not at all.

"Oh." I was speechless for a moment.

"What, you're still concerned about this?" Dr. Zhang asked.

"That patient later became mentally unstable and never wrote to me again. She always believed that in addition to the paper baby, she was carrying another fetus in her belly."

“She was indeed greatly traumatized at that time, I never expected it.” He clicked his tongue.

"Dr. Zhang, if she really was pregnant with another fetus at the time, would that explain the formation of the paper baby?"

“I don’t quite understand what you mean,” Dr. Zhang said. “This assumption is meaningless; she gave birth to that deformed baby back then.”

For the First Maternity and Infant Hospital, although the case of the deformed fetus three years ago frightened many people at the time, it now seems to have become just like countless other ordinary cases, leaving no trace.

Human thought is often absurd. Even knowing something is impossible, we can't help but think about it. Just like now, I can't help but think about the missing baby in Hwang Ji-seo's words and its relationship with the Korean stillborn baby.

In reality, even if Huang Zhi and the stillborn baby had the same blood type with a probability of one in a billion, it still wouldn't provide any support for this association.

How could a large public hospital in Shanghai possibly hide an infant? It's simply impossible. Furthermore, the stillborn infant was discovered in South Korea, not Shanghai. Besides, what Kuruo took out of the refrigerator were twins.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. The sheer absurdity of how these seemingly unrelated events could be connected was simply breathtaking. My imagination, at this moment, couldn't possibly grasp it.

Chapter Six: Searching for Huang Zhi

Huang Zhi hasn't arrived yet.

It was already past six in the evening, the busiest time in the newsroom. The sounds of keyboards being typed, phone calls being made, lively discussions, and editors urging for drafts mingled together, making the large room feel very warm and lively.

I have finished writing today's press release and sent it to the layout editor. If I wish, I can relax and go home in front of most of my colleagues who are still working on their day's articles.

But I want to wait for Huang Zhi a little longer, even though according to the information Liu Tang gave me yesterday, she should have appeared by noon today.

On one hand, I was wondering why Huang Zhi hadn't arrived as promised. On the other hand, I wondered if I had taken the words of a mentally ill person too seriously. It's always difficult for a normal person to understand the logic of a mentally ill person. Even if she said she would come at noon yesterday, she might change her mind in the blink of an eye.

Thinking about this, I decided not to wait foolishly any longer. Anyway, she came to me because of Zhou Qianqian's disappearance, which I had already asked the local police to investigate diligently.

I hope that when I come to work tomorrow, the security guard won't tell me that Huang Zhi came looking for me in the middle of the night.

Stepping out of the newspaper office building, which was blasting air conditioning, the stifling heat outside made me frown. The sun had already set, but the sky was still bright, and the sticky, sweltering air enveloped me, leaving me nowhere to escape.

It looks like it's going to rain. I really hope it rains soon so it'll be refreshing.

It's the beginning of the evening rush hour. The newspaper office is located in a prime location in the heart of Shanghai, and the streets outside are packed with pedestrians rushing by.

In the summer, the streets of big cities always have some interesting sights. For example, the girl who just walked by wearing super short denim shorts and smelling a faint fragrance. Although we couldn't see her face clearly, her long legs from behind were enough to make men sigh in admiration.

Before I could admire it for long, my view was blocked by other pedestrians on the sidewalk. But I was surprised to find that there was a rather familiar figure among them.

The man was wearing a dark blue T-shirt and loose-fitting trousers. He was thin and slightly hunched over, making him look somewhat furtive. Wasn't this the guy who bumped into me yesterday and didn't say a word? I remember he was walking behind Huang Zhi, rushing around in a hurry, not knowing what was going on.

What is he doing now? I feel a little awkward looking at him.

He didn't walk very steadily; his pace varied from fast to slow. When he walked fast, he darted through the pedestrians like an eel, overtaking several people ahead of him. When he walked slowly, like now, he even stopped and looked ahead.

I don't know if it was just my imagination, but I felt that the person he was looking at was the same target I had just been looking at. Sure enough, the long-legged woman crossed the road at the intersection ahead, and the skinny man's head slowly turned to follow her, before he suddenly hurried forward.

Was he stalking that woman?

A thought flashed through my mind: Could he be doing that kind of thing? I've never seen it with my own eyes before; I've only ever seen it in movies and comics.

The skinny man followed the woman across the street and was about to disappear from my sight, so I decided to follow him to see what was going on.

The long-legged woman had no idea that two men were dangling behind her. In this densely populated area, even a professionally trained tracker wouldn't easily notice if the follower was careful. Should the skinny guy and I quicken our pace and squeeze past the pedestrians ahead to avoid losing them?

After walking through several blocks, the woman entered a high-end department store and lingered at the cosmetics counter on the first floor. It wasn't appropriate to follow too closely in a place usually frequented by women. The skinny man, however, seemed unconcerned, loitering around the edge of the cosmetics section, occasionally glancing at the woman.

In my opinion, it's far too conspicuous and unprofessional.

As for me, I stopped at the revolving door at the entrance. Many people like to stand here for a while to enjoy the air conditioning and escape the heat, or to meet up with friends. I looked like I was waiting for someone. I couldn't see the woman from this spot, but that didn't matter; I just needed to stick close to that skinny guy.

Not long after, the woman came out after buying her things. I watched her walk past me, followed by the skinny man. The woman left the department store, didn't go any further, but waited by the roadside for a while, then hailed a taxi and got in.

The skinny man watched the taxi drive away without making any further moves. Seeing this, I was basically certain of my initial guess, and took a few hundred-yuan bills from my wallet and put them in my pocket.

The skinny guy lingered at the entrance of the department store for a moment before turning back the way he came. I rushed up to him and slapped him on the shoulder.

I was still holding a grudge about the bump into him yesterday, so I slapped him with force. This guy was already skinny, and with something to hide, he staggered from my slap, his whole body shuddered, and he took a step to the side before turning back to look at me.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked me, startled and angry, but his voice wasn't very loud.

"What were you doing just now?" I asked him in return.

"What I do is none of your business," he retorted.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you; I’ve been following you all the way,” I said with a smile, emphasizing the word “followed.”

"So what if I follow you? So what if I follow you? Is it illegal? I follow other people, but you still follow me, don't you?" The skinny man's face turned red as he shouted, but he still didn't dare to raise his voice too much.

People in this world have all sorts of strange hobbies, but some people enjoy stalking and following women. I wonder what pleasure they get from it. I originally thought that only Japan had such people, and even the term "stalking" came from there, but I've run into one now. Judging from his appearance, he completely deserves the title of "creepy uncle."

After the skinny guy finished speaking, he didn't intend to get entangled with me and turned to leave, but I grabbed his wrist.

"Ouch!" the skinny guy cried out, turning around as I twisted his wrist. While I wouldn't call myself a great fighter, I was more than capable of dealing with a stalker like this. However, I didn't intend to make a scene, so I released him. In just a few moments, people around us started looking.

"You! You!" The skinny man was furious. Before he could retort angrily, he suddenly widened his eyes and opened his mouth, watching me pull a hundred-yuan bill from my pocket and stuff it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

"This, this..." The power of money is indeed boundless. A mere hundred dollars quickly shattered her fighting spirit and left him momentarily at a loss for how to react.

"Let's talk somewhere else." I didn't have to do much to pull him into a small alleyway next door, where it was relatively quiet.