Chapter 1068: The Ninth Child

"Stay calm!"

Chen Ge quietly made his way onto the dam. He slowly approached the mother and son, and called out when he was about five or six meters away.

At this distance, even if the other party did something impulsive, he would have enough time to save them.

Hearing Chen Ge's voice, the mother looked back in surprise—she hadn't expected anyone else to be here this early in the morning.

"Can we talk?" Chen Ge extended a hand, staying where he was and maintaining an appropriate distance so as not to put too much psychological pressure on the other party.

Having been through so much, Chen Ge was now practically a professional suicide interventionist.

"Is there some kind of misunderstanding?" The woman smiled. She took the boy's hand and tried to lead him back up to the top of the dam, but the boy refused, whimpering through his mouth and using every ounce of strength to resist.

The woman's tone of voice, as well as her manner of speaking, seemed perfectly normal—nothing like someone who had been backed into a corner by life.

Letting out a breath of relief, Chen Ge slowly walked toward the pair. "How could you climb over the guardrail with a child? That's incredibly dangerous—what if you slipped and fell? This reservoir is extremely deep. Apparently there are fish nearly two meters long living in it."

"I'm terribly sorry. I'll be more careful in the future." The woman held the boy's hand, positioning her body in front of him, seemingly not wanting Chen Ge to see the child's face.

"Stay away from the water, especially with a young child." Chen Ge knew there were water ghosts in Donggang Reservoir. The little boy was standing at the very edge of the dam, constantly reaching out to touch the water's surface. If the water ghosts appeared at that moment, the consequences would be unimaginable.

It took a great deal of effort before the woman finally managed to drag the boy back behind the railing. The child didn't seem able to speak—he made indistinct sounds from his throat, gripping the railing with both hands and thrashing about nonstop.

"He seems to really like water?" Chen Ge felt something was off.

"It's not that he likes water. The child just likes coming to Donggang Reservoir to play. I don't know why either, but if he doesn't come here at least once a day, he'll fuss for the entire day."

"Your child—" Chen Ge's gaze passed over the woman to the child she was shielding behind her.

The boy had an incredibly cute face, though perhaps because of all his crying, his eye sockets were especially red, with visible bloodshot veins in his eyes—not like the clear, bright eyes of other children.

"I'll be more careful in the future." The woman didn't answer Chen Ge's question. She didn't want to discuss her child with a stranger.

Taking the boy's hand, the woman said gently to the child, "It's time to go."

Her voice carried a hint of heartache and affection. It was clear she loved this child deeply, even though this child was different from other children.

"I once heard some things from the reservoir caretaker, though I don't know whether they're true or not." Chen Ge said softly. "He told me there are water ghosts in this reservoir, and a sunken coffin. Some children saw clumps of black grass floating on the water and, curious, went to investigate. But those weeds were actually the hair of water ghosts. When the children got close to the water's surface, they were dragged down by the water ghosts and locked inside the coffin."

While saying this, Chen Ge had been watching the child carefully. He didn't notice any unusual reaction from the boy.

"You still believe in things like that? The caretaker was probably just trying to warn the kids who come to play here, to keep them from swimming in the reservoir." The woman didn't believe in these ghost stories.

"I have some photos here." Chen Ge took out his phone. He found the photos the police had taken when they dredged the reservoir for bodies, as well as photos of the numerous dolls that had been retrieved from the coffin.

The morning sun slowly rose and the light mist over the reservoir dissipated. The scenery was beautiful, but the people on the dam had no heart to admire it.

Chen Ge held up his phone, displaying the photos he'd saved.

To anyone passing by, Chen Ge would have seemed quite strange as well—stopping a mother and child this early in the morning, telling scary stories, and showing terrifying photographs.

A normal person's reaction would probably have been to brush him off and find an excuse to leave. But the mother's response was different. Right in front of her own child, she kept refuting Chen Ge.

Even after seeing the photos, the woman still didn't believe any ghost stories. Moreover, she kept emphasizing to Chen Ge that all tales of ghosts and monsters were nothing but fabrications.

Chen Ge hadn't paid it much mind at first, but gradually he began to feel something was off.

The woman's behavior didn't seem like she was trying to convince Chen Ge—it was more like she was trying to convince herself, over and over again.

Could she know something, but refuse to believe it?

Chen Ge had a favorable impression of this woman. After having gone through those doors during the Underworld Child mission, he now had great respect for parents who treated their children extremely well.

While Chen Ge and the woman were each trying to convince the other, the little boy suddenly started crying and fussing again for no apparent reason. He gripped the guardrail and shook it violently, trying to get close to the water.

"Did something happen to your child here before?" Chen Ge turned his gaze back to the child. He felt he wasn't going to get anything useful from the adults.

"No, the child has been like this for a very long time. He can only calm down here—I can't figure out the exact reason." Every time the woman mentioned her child, her voice would become soft. It was clear she didn't want to hurt her child, nor did she want outsiders to think her child was different from others.

"I used to work at a welfare home for a while, and I knew a similar child—though the place that child desperately wanted to go was a haunted house." Chen Ge walked to the boy's side, crouched down in front of him, and followed the boy's gaze into the distance. "Are you searching for something? Is there something underwater that bothers you?"

The woman didn't want Chen Ge talking to her child. She pulled the boy behind her, but the boy gripped the railing and refused to let go, crying and fussing.

The woman was probably long used to all of this. No matter how much the boy cried and fussed, she didn't get angry—only the worry in her eyes could no longer be hidden.

"Can you tell me your name, little one?" Chen Ge had always considered himself good with children, but this boy in front of him completely ignored him, only crying and fussing.

"I have toys here—would you like to play?" Chen Ge opened his backpack to look inside, then quietly closed it again.

"I'm sorry, we've been out long enough. It's time to go home." The woman picked up the still-crying boy, trying to carry the child away by force.

Chen Ge continued staring at the water and asked tentatively, "Are you searching for memories of the past?"

Seeing that the woman was about to leave with the boy, Chen Ge stood up. He said one more thing:

"Are you searching for the Underworld Child's past?"

He was just probing, feeling that this child was somewhat strange—that was all. But what he didn't expect was that after he uttered the words "Underworld Child," the child actually stopped crying.