They brushed past each other.
"Hey!"
Chen Ge stood by the elevator and called out to her.
The woman stopped and turned around. Between the gap left by her cap and face mask, a pair of beautiful eyes blinked, filled with confusion.
Judging by her eyes alone, this woman didn't look much like the photo the police had provided. She probably wasn't the patient from Room 2 that Chen Ge was looking for.
"Hey, aren't you that celebrity from TV? Could I take a photo with you?" Chen Ge admitted he was being a bit impulsive, but he couldn't think of what else to say, so he came up with a clumsy excuse on the spot.
"Sorry, you've got the wrong person." The woman's voice was faint, as though she wasn't feeling well. The moment she finished speaking, she started heading for the exit.
She seemed to regard Chen Ge as some kind of creep, practically breaking into a jog to get away.
"She doesn't match the police photo much, but the patient from Room 2 has Dorian Gray Syndrome and has had multiple plastic surgeries. That face can't be used as a standard for identification."
With modern cosmetic surgery techniques, changing your overall structure was still difficult, but swapping out facial features was trivially easy.
Operating on the principle that it was better to chase a thousand false leads than let a single genuine suspect slip away, Chen Ge slung his pack over his shoulder and took off after her.
He ran out of Residential Building 3 and followed the woman into the underground parking garage. After circling left and right a few times, she had vanished.
"Where did she go?" The parking garage had surveillance cameras installed, and Chen Ge was afraid of being misunderstood by security, so he didn't dare continue the search. He retraced his steps back to Building 3.
He took the elevator to the fourteenth floor and knocked gently on Wang Xin's door.
"Anyone home?"
Footsteps sounded from inside, and someone opened the door in slippers. "Who are you looking for?"
Behind the door stood a middle-aged woman wearing a black-and-white skirt suit. She was well-preserved—her skin was firm, and she looked significantly younger than her actual age.
"It's me. Last time I treated Wang Xin—"
Before Chen Ge could finish, the middle-aged woman recognized him. "
"Doctor Chen?" The address felt strange to Chen Ge. Even though no one had ever called him that before, it carried a peculiar sense of familiarity. "I'm not a professional doctor."
"You cured Wang Xin's illness. In my eyes, that makes you the best doctor there is. Stop being modest—I've already asked
"I'll take you up on that, then. I mainly came today to check on Wang Xin's condition, and also to ask about a few things."
"There are apples and bananas on the coffee table. Just a moment—I still have some tea I brought back from the office."
"There's no need to go to any trouble." Chen Ge sat down on the sofa. Coming to see Wang Xin today was secondary; his real objective was to track down the patient from Room 2 and complete the tape ghost's favorability mission.
Needless to say, he certainly wasn't going to tell any of this to Wang Xin's foster mother. Maintaining a good image was still important.
While Chen Ge exchanged pleasantries with the middle-aged woman, the bedroom door opened and a thin, frail girl stepped out.
It had only been a few days, but Wang Xin's complexion had improved considerably. Before, she had never been willing to leave her room. Now she had come out on her own accord.