Hutong fantôme - Chapitre 7
Wenshan was delighted to hear this and continued, "Sigh, it's all because of those guys in the office. These past few days, they've been sleeping on the sofa when they're tired."
Wang Yu looked at Wen Shan with a puzzled expression, waiting for his explanation.
"Oh, it's like this. The station gave me a task these past two days: to monitor an extremely dangerous criminal who lives in the building across from our house. We have to keep an eye on him day and night."
"Aren't you a police officer? This is the work of criminal investigators. When did it become your business?"
“This—” Wenshan didn’t expect to make such a big mistake here, but he reacted quickly. “It’s just that we don’t have enough manpower. We’re all working for the revolution, so we don’t have time to worry about this. Besides, this criminal is a schizophrenic. I happen to know Lu Kang well. By the way, Lu Kang has also been temporarily requisitioned to work for us. Look, even a great doctor like him doesn’t care. What am I? I’m just providing a place.”
"Has the criminal been caught?"
"Not yet, my colleagues and Lu Kang will be keeping watch here later tonight." Wen Shan's face was full of apology, and he was very sincere.
"Then... what should I do? I need to sleep, this is so inconvenient," Wang Yu said anxiously.
Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [13]: "That's what I was just about to tell you. Why don't you just make do for a few more days? This is an opportunity for me. Maybe if the case is solved, the higher-ups will see that I've performed well and have detective talent, and they'll promote me."
"This...this..." Wang Yu was speechless. Frustrated, she paced around the room a few times before saying, "No, I won't be able to sleep like this. How about I go stay at Wu Na's house for a few days?"
"This isn't a good idea, to bother them," Wenshan thought to himself, secretly pleased but forced to feign helplessness.
"What's wrong with that? Anyway, she lives alone, and we haven't seen each other in ages. I'd be driven crazy by your noise if I stayed home anyway, and I have to go to work. Let's go out and get something to eat, I'm starving."
Okay.
After dinner, Wenshan took his wife to her friend's house. On his way home, he called Lu Kang. Lu Kang asked where he was and offered to pick him up. Wenshan replied that it wasn't necessary, as he could easily hail a taxi, and suggested meeting at home.
The belongings Lu Kang brought to Wenshan's house were packed in a large package. He immediately got to work upon entering, first taking out several small cameras and securing them to the corners of the room's walls with tape, along with a small television and a small box with many switches. Lu Kang explained that the cameras were wireless, and the images would be transmitted directly to this receiver, and then to the monitor. "I'll put the receiver and monitor in the inner room later. I can't be in the same place as you. After you're asleep, I'll turn on the receiver."
"So you don't need to sleep all night?"
"No, I'm going to put something on you in a bit. It's to record your brain and body activity while you're sleeping. When you move, the receiver will wake me up."
"What if I want to go out?"
“And this,” Lu Kang handed him a pager-like device, “This is a tracker; I’ll be able to track you.”
After setting up these big machines, Lu Kang pulled out a bunch of things with messy wires from his bag. "Stand up and take off your shirt."
Wenshan took off his shirt, and Lu Kang tidied up the tangled wires. It turned out that each wire had a small chip at the end, and Lu Kang had used small pieces of tape to fix these chips to various parts of Wenshan's body, including his temples, the back of his head, and his neck. The other ends of the wires were connected to a connector. Lu Kang took out a long, black box, plugged in the connector, and said, "Tie this around your waist."
After doing all that, Wenshan took out two bottles of beer. "Let's have a drink. I don't know why, but I always want to have a drink before bed every night."
Lu Kang politely declined, saying, "I won't drink. You can have some if you want."
They chatted casually for a while, then Wenshan started to feel sleepy and kept yawning. He said to Lu Kang, "It's about to start, you go do your thing." After saying that, he fell asleep.
Lu Kang quickly turned on the camera, returned to the room, and turned on the receiver and monitor.
Wenshan quickly fell asleep, and even snoring could be heard.
Lu Kang wasn't actually asleep. He kept staring at the monitor, occasionally flipping through the books he'd brought. He knew sleepwalking wouldn't happen right after falling asleep, but he wasn't sleepy at all. This was the first instance of doubt he'd encountered since taking a course in soul studies. If his hypothesis was correct, it would be a rare research opportunity that would greatly benefit his academic studies. The theories of soul studies were extremely profound and difficult to understand, mainly because actual examples were so few and hard to come by. Currently, most of the theoretical work internationally relied on logical reasoning, and even some seemingly plausible examples often appeared weak due to a lack of direct, visible evidence. But Lu Kang still firmly believed that another unknown space did exist, a space intimately connected to humanity yet transcending it. Because this space lacked the most basic matter found in human living spaces, it was often mythologized as something otherworldly. But the invisible didn't necessarily mean it didn't exist! Lu Kang was convinced he could find and explain it; if necessary, he was even willing to personally contact this space.
Wenshan seemed to have lived a very long time in a daze. When he regained consciousness, he found himself standing in that empty passageway again. He didn't know when he had started walking, and he kept walking and walking, as if his body was moving passively without his own control.
The receiver in Lu Kang's room immediately detected Wen Shan's movement, and the waveform on the screen began to fluctuate violently. Because the fluctuation of the waveform exceeded the value Lu Kang had preset, the small red light on the receiver began to flash. At this moment, Lu Kang was engrossed in the book by the old Scottish author. Seeing the red light flashing, he quickly sat down next to the monitor. He saw that Wen Shan had stood up, his expression serene, his eyes half-closed and lowered.
Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [14]: Wenshan was a little slow, but he still dressed in an orderly manner, then turned around, went to the door, put on his shoes, took out his key, opened the door, and went out.
Lu Kang quickly turned on the tracker, and a small blue dot representing Wenshan's location immediately started jumping around happily. The crosshairs showed that Wenshan was nearby and slightly ahead.
After Wenshan closed the door, Lu Kang quickly grabbed another video camera and left.
Wenshan walked along the empty passage. There was no concept of the passage's passage, and Wenshan couldn't even feel his feet touching the ground. It was a passage devoid of any objects; he only needed to take alternating steps.
Lu Kang saw that after Wen Shan came downstairs, he didn't go straight to the road, but instead walked around in circles in the open space below, his face tilted back towards the sky, his movements mechanical and stiff. He quickly recorded this scene.
After about ten minutes, Wen Shan lowered his head, looked straight ahead, and began to walk outside. Lu Kang quickly followed him from a distance.
Wenshan then saw the residential building, which suddenly appeared in front of him. He stopped and stared at the window on the third floor. Just like the previous two nights, the light was on, and half of the curtain hung quietly on it.
Lu Kang followed Wen Shan to the hospital dormitory building. Wen Shan was right; this was the place he had been to for the past two nights. Seeing Wen Shan stop upstairs, Lu Kang stopped a short distance away near a bicycle shed, adjusted the camera lens, and centered Wen Shan's figure in the frame. He couldn't miss any detail; a single mistake in movement could ruin everything.
Wenshan stood there for an unknown amount of time before starting to walk again, heading towards the building. After only a few steps, he suddenly stopped, hearing a series of rapid, heavy breaths.
He slowly turned around and saw a figure peeking out from under a large tree on his left, watching him. The figure's breathing was clearly coming from all directions towards Wenshan. Wenshan took steps, one after another, towards the tree.
A panicked face appeared before Wenshan's eyes, its pale face trembling slightly. Then he saw the mouth on that face move, but the sounds didn't seem to come from that mouth; rather, they came from all directions around Wenshan's body.
"You've finally found me. You couldn't hide from me... you couldn't hide from me..."
At the same time, another old, hollow, and enormous voice drifted over Wenshan's head. Wenshan saw his hands slowly extend, reaching towards that panicked face, "Who—did you—give—to?—Quickly—speak—"
The eyes on that face suddenly widened, as if subjected to a sudden, intense shock; the face rapidly turned ashen, and the voice trembled violently: "Who are you? Who are you?"
Suddenly, that face disappeared from Wenshan's sight.
seven
When Wenshan woke up, the first thing he saw was Lu Kang sitting on the coffee table, smiling at him. He quickly sat up and asked impatiently, "How was it? How was it?"
Lu Kang nodded slowly and said, "Not bad, you did very well?"