Geisterreich

Kapitel 14

“I thought you could all see them,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. “I didn’t know you couldn’t see them. I had no way of knowing.” His face was still the same as before, never showing any pity or weakness, yet filled with helplessness.

"What should we do?" I blurted out, but immediately regretted it—how could he know what to do? I knew I was running away again. Whenever I encounter a serious problem, I always like to assume that others know the solution, so that I can feel at ease.

This time, nobody knew how to solve it; it was a complete mess, a voice inside me said.

“I don’t know,” he said.

17

Back in the office, several older colleagues pulled Li Yuntong aside and asked him questions, seemingly about Gu Quan. It's unclear what Li Yuntong told them, but after he finished, they all looked relieved. Not long after, a client called Li Yuntong out, and only after he left did the office slowly begin to discuss his strange behavior that morning.

"The way he acted this morning, I really thought he had a mental illness," Zhang Lan said to Xiao Peng, fiddling with a pencil in her hand.

Ouyang laughed, "That's why you all need to learn more. Haven't you heard of Bluetooth headsets?" His words suddenly made sense to me—Bluetooth headsets are wireless earphones that connect to a mobile phone, simply inserted into the ear canal. They automatically answer any calls on the phone, without the user having to do anything—very convenient. To outsiders, using such a headset looks like talking to oneself. I couldn't help but secretly admire Li Yuntong's wit; he explained his strange behavior with a Bluetooth headset, and now no one should suspect anything was wrong with him. Mentioning Bluetooth immediately shifted everyone's interest from Li Yuntong to IT, and the office buzzed with discussions about "chips" and "interfaces."

Since all the work had been finished in the morning, the afternoon was relatively free. I was about to log onto QQ to chat with someone when I thought of "Westward Out of Yangguan" and stopped. For some reason, I had a vague feeling that this "Westward Out of Yangguan" was a very strange person. He seemed to be someone I knew, yet he refused to reveal his identity. Perhaps he was on QQ right now, and I didn't want to see him for the time being, so I opened a webpage and browsed aimlessly. Xiao Geng was drawing cartoons with a pencil next to me. After each drawing, the two of us would critique it, and sometimes other colleagues would join in. When Xiao Geng finished five or six drawings, I would number them and add text, connecting these seemingly unrelated drawings into a strange story. This was a game we liked to play during our breaks. When Xiao Geng finished another drawing, I took a look. The picture showed a trembling human figure drawn with dotted lines, while the surrounding scenery was represented by solid lines.

"What's wrong with this person?" I asked, pointing to the person marked with a dotted line.

"This is an invisible person," Xiao Geng said casually, continuing to draw the next picture without looking up.

An invisible man?

These words remind me of Gu Quan.

We'd both forgotten about Gu Quan. After returning from the restaurant, busy answering questions from colleagues in the office, Li Yuntong and I completely forgot about him. He must have left the company with us, but Li Yuntong hadn't seen him since. If Li Yuntong isn't mentally unstable, then perhaps that invisible Gu Quan is right beside me now. This thought gave me the creeps. I quietly moved closer to Xiao Geng, looking around, but all I saw was bright spring sunshine; everything was clearly defined, and I couldn't see anyone hidden in the air.

Perhaps there was never such a person in the first place.

But my mind started to wander. Xiao Geng's paintings, though interesting, could no longer completely captivate me. If Gu Quan really existed, it meant that someone was secretly watching my every move in both my home and my office, and I couldn't see them. This had happened enough times in one place, but now it was happening in two. Room 302, No. 6 Yunsheng Street, and this current company—I spent most of my day in these two places, and neither of them felt safe anymore.

These things have always happened this way, and no one has ever asked me if I wanted them to happen. Now it's bothering me, and I think maybe I should take the initiative to investigate something, like Xu Xiaobing did.

Yes, just like Xu Xiaobing.

Gu Quan said he was the company's planner, right? I can start by investigating the company's files, just like Xu Xiaobing investigated Meng Ling. Checking the company's personnel files is very simple. Lately, the boss has been wanting me to design a CIS for the company, so I can directly access all the company's information. Wei Feng from the HR department was playing solitaire on the computer. When I told him I needed to check personnel files, he tossed me a bunch of keys and told me to go to the archives and find what I needed myself.

The archives were crammed full of cabinets made of synthetic materials, with discarded computer hard drives, keyboards, and other junk piled on the floor. Stepping over the dusty debris, I examined the cabinets along the wall. This room contained all the company's documents since its inception. One cabinet door was labeled "Personnel Files." Opening it, I was intimidated by the sheer volume of documents, but also filled with admiration for Xu Xiaobing. It was truly remarkable that she had managed to find Meng Ling's file among so many documents. I quickly flipped through them, already feeling impatient. I thought for a moment, then returned to the main office outside. Looking around, everyone seemed busy, the clatter of keyboards making it impossible to tell who was working and who was chatting. I had intended to ask Xiao Geng for help, but stopped myself. While Xiao Geng was always willing to help, he was notoriously careless and might have overlooked some documents—if any. For this kind of work that requires patience and meticulousness, after much thought, Aunt Xu seems to be the most suitable. She's not busy, she's enthusiastic, and as an accountant, her meticulousness is a well-known virtue. The only downside is that she'll probably keep asking me why I'm investigating this particular person. But that's not a big problem; after thinking about it, I had an idea.

"Aunt Xu," I called out softly. Aunt Xu was studying a sweater pattern in a magazine. When she heard me call her, she turned around quickly. I waved to her, and she came over.

"Aunt Xu, can you do me a favor?" I said.

"What's the matter?" She walked into the archives room, looking around.

"Well," I started to lie, "the company is working on a CIS, right? I borrowed some documents from other companies to look at, but I can't find them now. Could you help me look for them?" Surprisingly, I didn't blush this time when I lied.

"Huh?" Aunt Xu gasped, staring at the wall covered in documents. "Looking for it here?"

“There aren’t that many,” I quickly explained, pulling her to the personnel file cabinet. “It’s right here. Help me find a file for ‘Gu Quan.’” Before she could speak, I had already clasped my hands together and pleaded, “Please, please help me find it.”

“Okay.” She sighed, rolled her eyes at me, and said, “Why are you always so forgetful?” Then she started searching through a pile of files. I sighed in relief and started searching with her.

We searched for a long time, our noses and hands covered in dust, turning personnel files upside down, but we still couldn't find a single file on "Gu Quan". I dejectedly tossed my hand and said, "Looks like there isn't one."

"Don't worry." Aunt Xu went through the documents she had already looked through again, but still couldn't find Gu Quan's information.

"It seems there really isn't any left." She looked at me. "If we can't return it, is it a big problem?"

"It's not a big problem, just a little embarrassing," I said. Actually, it was the opposite. Not finding Gu Quan's file wouldn't make any company feel embarrassed, but Li Yuntong's situation was a big problem. At least someone like Meng Ling left a file, which told Xu Xiaobing and me that we weren't hallucinating. But this Gu Quan didn't even have a file; he was becoming more and more like a fictional character.

Perhaps he was originally a fictional character.

I couldn't help but sigh.

"Alright, just be more careful next time," Aunt Xu comforted me, and I could only nod.

When I returned the key to Wei Feng, he was still playing cards and insisted on showing me his glorious record. I was preoccupied and didn't want to talk to him, so I just spread my dark hands in front of him and let him laugh at me for a bit before I quickly went to the bathroom to wash them.

I had just washed my hands when Ouyang called my name from outside: "Jiang Ling!"

"Hey!" I shook the water droplets off my hands and came out. "What is it?"

"Come with me." He tidied up a few sheets of paper on the table and carefully stuffed them into his briefcase. "Wangyue Elementary School wants us to make a CIS. You'll have to come with me."

“Wangyue Elementary School?” I repeated the name subconsciously—it seemed like I’d heard it somewhere before.

"What? You've been there?" He had already packed his things and was waiting for me. I quickly shook my head, grabbed my bag, and headed out. Aunt Xu called after me, "Jiang Ling, wait," she caught up, "Could you buy me two ounces of yarn while you're at it? Isn't there a yarn wholesale market near Wangyue Elementary School?" She handed me a piece of light green yarn, "Just buy this kind."

"Okay." I carefully put the piece of yarn away. Ouyang secretly made a face at me. Aunt Xu turned her head suddenly, startling him so much that he quickly put on a serious expression. The lingering effect of that face was still on his face and couldn't be dispelled for a while. I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Wangyue Primary School is located near the suburbs. We changed buses two or three times, enduring a bumpy two-hour journey. We took a nap on the bus, and by the time it finally stopped near the school gate, it was almost four o'clock. After getting off, we realized it had started raining again; the sky had darkened, the ground was wet, and a damp smell permeated the air. We quickened our pace and walked over the school wall. The gatekeeper looked at us suspiciously and was about to stop us when a middle-aged man wearing glasses came out from the back of the guardhouse. Ouyang immediately called out "Director Li," introduced us to each other, and then we entered the school together.

Director Li, the head of the Academic Affairs Office, led us around a flower bed directly opposite the main gate and towards a brand-new office building on the side. Along the way, Ouyang and he chatted idly, while I followed behind silently, simply observing the elementary school with curiosity. It was during class time, and the campus was quiet with few people around. The main teaching building at the front, along with the laboratory and office buildings on either side, were all newly built and looked quite impressive even on this gloomy, rainy day. Only the three-story old building on the north side looked quite dilapidated; I wondered what it was used for, and the flower bed in front of it was overgrown with weeds, indicating it hadn't been tended to for a long time. When we reached the office building, Ouyang told me to wait downstairs while he and Director Li went upstairs to get a document and would be back soon. Standing alone downstairs, feeling rather bored, my gaze involuntarily drifted back to the old building, which was right next to the new office building. I slowly walked to the building. It stood shrouded in misty rain, its blackened exterior seemingly covered in moss. A desolate air emanated from it, filling me with a sense of melancholy. This building reminded me of the elementary school I attended in a southern city. When I was there, all the buildings were only as tall as this one, constructed from the same materials. But by the time I was in high school, the school had undergone a complete renovation, and all traces of the past had vanished. When we former students occasionally returned to the school to reminisce about our elementary school days, we found everything new. The only connection to our school days, besides a few gray-haired teachers, was gone, leaving us with a deep sense of loss. Seeing the same building again at Wangyue Elementary School felt incredibly familiar, yet the desolate and decaying atmosphere it exuded made me acutely aware of the immense power of time.

I walked to the building's entrance and found the stairwell blocked by an iron gate, secured with a rusty padlock. Clearly, the building was no longer open to the public. At its base were some scaffolding and haphazardly piled bamboo strips and bricks. Turning to the side of the building, I discovered that half of it had already been demolished. It seemed this kind of structure wouldn't remain for long. To reminisce about my elementary school days, I feared I could only find traces in photographs. I felt quite emotional and walked around the building. The mud and moss couldn't hide the numerous small shoe prints—it always was this way. Every slightly mysterious corner of the school was a favorite spot for students. This old building, now locked up, must have been a perfect place for adventurous elementary school students to explore.

Returning to the front of the building, looking up, I could see rows of dark, empty windows in the open corridor. Some windows had shattered glass, making the atmosphere even more somber. I wonder which children once studied here. When they return someday and see the ruins of the demolished building, I imagine they will feel the same melancholy as I do.

As I was looking up, a small figure suddenly ran across the corridor on the third floor. It was like a gray shadow flashing across the corridor. Just as it was about to disappear from my sight, it suddenly stopped.

It was a boy. Because of the darkness, I couldn't see his face clearly, only a pale blob floating above the dark buildings. He leaned over and looked at me, with most of his body sticking out of the railing. This made me very worried, so I shouted at him, "Be careful, don't fall!" He immediately pulled back, but still stuck his head out and looked at me.

“It’s class time now, why aren’t you in class?” I asked him loudly.

He looked at me silently, then suddenly shrank back, ran away down the corridor, and disappeared.

"Who are you talking to?" Ouyang had come downstairs at some point. He and Director Li stood beside me, looking up at the building as I gazed.

“There’s a child up there, probably skipping school,” I said to Director Li, pointing upstairs.

"Oh?" Director Li looked up and glanced around for a moment, then walked to the building door and checked the lock. He asked with some doubt, "Wasn't the door locked? You're not mistaken?"

“That’s right,” I said confidently. Seeing my certainty, Director Li called over two security guards, who unlocked the iron lock downstairs and went up to patrol. Director Li then led Ouyang and me toward the laboratory building, saying as we walked, “All of our school’s materials are kept in the archives on the first floor. If you need anything, just tell the archives clerk, and we will do our best to accommodate you. The key is that this CIS project needs to be impressive and vibrant, which is in line with our school’s image.”

"Understood, understood," Ouyang said. "We also need to take a look to know what information we can use."

In fact, we've already grasped the basic information about Wangyue Primary School's CIS (Corporate Identity System). The school's management is relatively standardized, but it lacks any distinctive features, and its teaching methods are unremarkable. Finding anything unique about it is indeed difficult. Furthermore, the disagreements among the CIS team leaders have made things quite difficult for Ouyang and me. This time, we plan to access their database to look for teacher files, student awards, and other similar information to see if we can uncover any highlights. Of course, we can't say this directly to the client. Even if our opinions are beneficial, we can't simply say they lack any unique characteristics; we have to be indirect. Especially for clients with a bit of education, they usually think they know their own company very well. If we directly ask for certain materials, the materials we submit have already been screened through multiple layers, leaving only what they consider most valuable—in fact, a lot of valuable information is missed in their internal screening process. "We are actually not much different from our clients, but we are more objective, so we are not influenced by habitual thinking and are more likely to discover the highlights of our clients' products." This is something that Ouyang said to our planning and design department during a training session when I first joined the company, and I think it makes a lot of sense.

Director Li led us to the archives room, where the girl in charge of the archives introduced us, gave us a few instructions, and then left. The girl in charge of the archives, surnamed Guan, had crescent-shaped eyes that seemed to smile even when she wasn't, making people feel comfortable around her.

"What kind of information do you need?" Xiao Guan asked, looking at us with her curved eyebrows and smiling eyes.

"Can we go in and take a look around?" Ouyang asked.

"Okay." Xiao Guan readily opened the door to the archives room and led us inside.

The archives at Wangyue Elementary School were similar to other archives I'd seen: a large, enclosed space with thick curtains hanging over the windows on all four sides, requiring lights to be on even during the day to see anything clearly. Rows of synthetic material bookshelves were locked, and several dusty file folders were piled against the wall. Besides that, there was a desk and a chair, and the pungent smell of damp, musty paper filled the air. Ouyang walked to the cabinet labeled "Rewards and Punishments Records" and gestured for Xiao Guan to open the door. Xiao Guan chuckled, "It's not locked; it's not confidential." Apparently, the locks on it were all useless; Ouyang simply pulled, and the door opened. He...

It turned out that the locks on those cabinets were all useless. Ouyang pulled one open and started flipping through a pile of documents. I strolled off in another direction, aimlessly looking through the documents. Xiao Guan followed behind me and asked curiously, "What documents are you looking at?" I scratched my head a little embarrassedly, "We're just flipping through them randomly, hoping to find something useful."

"Oh." Xiao Guan chuckled and lowered her voice to me, "That guy is quite handsome." She was referring to Ouyang. I looked at Ouyang, but he seemed not to have heard anything and was still seriously flipping through the documents. So I whispered, "If you look closely, you'll find that he's very ugly."

As I expected, Ouyang suddenly coughed and said, "Don't talk while you're working," his gaze still fixed on the documents, "especially don't speak ill of others."

Xiao Guan and I burst out laughing.

We chatted as we walked, and Xiao Guan helped me look through various documents. Sometimes we would comment on a person or event mentioned in the documents, and Ouyang would occasionally join in. Most of the documents were not very useful, so I focused on the records of major events since the school's founding and the information on the past principals, finding that it matched the information provided by the school. Ouyang suggested I look at the teachers' files, saying that perhaps some distinctive teachers could be used as material. The teachers' files filled a whole cabinet, and I skimmed through them. Xiao Guan was initially saying something beside me, but because I was engrossed in reading, I didn't pay attention to her, and she quietly left.

After reviewing more than thirty teachers' materials, I picked out some of the more distinctive ones and set them aside. I stretched, reached into the cabinet, and took out the next set of materials.

This is information about a female teacher.

This is information about a female teacher named Meng Ling.

I finally remembered why the words "Wangyue Primary School" felt familiar. It turned out I'd already seen that name in the documents Xu Xiaobing brought back last night, specifically regarding Meng Ling. Before becoming a secretary at Huinan Technology Company, Meng Ling was a teacher at Wangyue Primary School. The document in my hand was quite simple, and I'd already seen its contents in the documents Xu Xiaobing brought back. If I had ever harbored even a sliver of doubt about Xu Xiaobing, now, with this document, that last bit of suspicion had vanished completely—no matter how adept Xu Xiaobing was at fabricating lies, she couldn't possibly have extended her reach into the Wangyue Primary School's archives.

“Xiao Guan,” I said, holding the light document, which felt surprisingly heavy. I walked over to Xiao Guan, opened the cover, and casually smiled, “This teacher is so pretty.” On the first page of the document, Meng Ling’s one-inch color photo was clearly taken not long after she graduated from school, or perhaps even while she was still in school. At that time, her hair wasn’t as long as I had seen in Xu Xiaobing’s documents last night; it was only short and shoulder-length, forming a dark and shiny net that tightly wrapped around her slightly childish smiling face, with a hint of shyness in her eyes.

Xiao Guan glanced at the documents and exclaimed in surprise, "Really? Such a beautiful teacher! How come I've never seen her before?" She took the documents in her hand and hurriedly flipped through them, saying, "Oh, is there a mistake?"

"What's wrong with what you wrote?" I was prepared that she didn't know Meng Ling, but I was still a little disappointed when she actually said it. When she asked this question, I thought something was going to happen and I was very excited.

“Here.” She pointed to Meng Ling’s departure date. “This is definitely wrong. I’ve been here for three years and I’ve never heard of such a teacher. But it says here that she left the school a year ago. If that’s the case, then there’s no way I wouldn’t know her!”

"Oh." I see. I was a little disappointed. "You've never heard of this name before?"

"No." She shook her head.

"Could you help me find any other information about her?" I said. "Please find any information that includes her name or photo."

"What do you need this for?" she asked in surprise.

“Planning sometimes requires an unexpected approach,” I stammered. Xiao Guan didn’t seem to believe me, but she didn’t ask any further questions and started helping me search through a pile of documents. This time, with a target in mind, the search was quick, uncovering a large stack of lesson plans, work reports, home visit notes, and even her own student files. Initially, I was simply searching for these documents out of curiosity, not understanding their purpose. However, when I saw the names of people connected to Meng Ling listed on the documents, I suddenly realized that this might be a way to prove Meng Ling’s existence. Last night, Xu Xiaobing and I were both wondering about her existence. This phenomenon was inexplicable: there was a wealth of evidence that she had existed, yet no one could prove her existence—only physical evidence, no witnesses, and it was impossible for so many people to lie. Even if she really was a ghost, someone must have seen her, as long as she had indeed existed.

The noise we made while flipping through the documents caught Ouyang's attention. He walked over to us and asked, "What are you looking for? Any valuable information?" His question made me a little flustered. Although Ouyang was easygoing, he was, after all, the planning director. It wouldn't be right for him to see me looking at unrelated information. My barely concealed panic made Ouyang laugh. "What's going on?" Without another word, he took Meng Ling's file from my hands. I was about to explain when he raised an eyebrow. "Isn't this Meng Ling?"

My heart pounded wildly, faster than ever before, like a restless cannonball pounding in my chest, making me wonder if my body would explode at any moment. I pressed my hand to my heart: "You know Meng Ling?"

“Of course.” Ouyang casually flipped through the file. “This girl is very hardworking, but there’s nothing to discover about her—what do you need her information for?”

"How do you know her?" I asked urgently, not bothering to answer his question. He then noticed my strange expression, looked at me with some surprise, closed the document, and tapped his fingers lightly on the cover: "Why did you look for her information?"

I was speechless for a moment, unsure how to answer, and my face flushed red. I hadn't expected to actually meet someone who knew Meng Ling, and so quickly at that. What was even more unbelievable was that this person was Ouyang. I desperately wanted to ask him everything about Meng Ling, but before that, I needed to find a reason to explain my interest in her.

But I can't find a reasonable reason.

Should I tell Ouyang everything? The thought had barely crossed my mind when it was immediately rejected—no one would believe such a thing, just as they thought Li Yuntong was mentally unstable, Ouyang would definitely think I was mentally unstable too.

“I have my reasons,” I whispered. The answer was so weak and feeble that I couldn’t help but bite my lip hard—how stupid of me.

Sure enough, Ouyang quickly asked, "What reason?"

"She's beautiful." For some inexplicable reason, I suddenly thought of saying that, and as soon as the words left my mouth, I was surprised myself—what kind of reason was that?

“But she’s a woman.” Ouyang seemed amused, but his eyes held a hint of sternness. “Whether she’s pretty or not is none of your business.”

"I have a friend who has a crush on her." Once a lie begins, it's hard to stop, especially since it's not a complete lie—the owner of the rental bookstore does indeed have a crush on Meng Ling. Although my actions weren't for the owner's sake, I didn't say I was looking for her information for my friend. I just said he has a crush on her. How Ouyang interprets it is his business... I desperately tried to justify myself in my mind.

I don't know if Ouyang believed me, but he changed the subject: "Have you found the information we need?"

"No." I lowered my head, feeling somewhat ashamed.

"Hurry up and find it." He handed the document back to me and turned to search other filing cabinets. I quickly gathered Meng Ling's documents and began diligently searching for the things I needed for work. Seeing my sudden serious expression, Xiao Guan stuck out his tongue and left. I secretly glanced at Ouyang; his expression was very focused, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. Ouyang is usually very humorous and not strict with us; he probably won't scold me this time, right? I felt quite uneasy. Searching for irrelevant information during work hours was definitely wrong, but he knew Meng Ling, and that was something I couldn't let slip. I clenched my fist in the shadows to encourage myself and began taking out my notebook to record the useful information I found.

Time flowed slowly as my mind raced through lines of signatures and handwriting, like a sieve constantly filtering out useless information. The valuable content was meticulously copied into my notebook. So focused was I oblivious to the surrounding sounds; it felt as if I were the only person left in the world. It wasn't until Ouyang patted my shoulder that I looked up from the ant-like pile of documents: "Huh?"

Ouyang laughed and looked at my notebook: "You really found quite a lot. Why are you so engrossed? I called you several times but you didn't answer."

"Huh?" I scratched my head.

"That's about enough for today, let's go." He said, putting the things I had found back in their places. "Any thoughts?"