"Captain Li, I've found the suspect in the rehabilitation center kidnapping case. She's living in Xinkang Apartments in the old city district." Chen Ge relayed the woman's physical description to Captain Li.
"You sure you're not mistaken? The person you're describing doesn't match the description we received at all. She shouldn't be capable of carrying out crimes like kidnapping."
"Her information is a near-perfect match for the Patient in Room Two of Ward Three. She could be an accomplice. I'm about fifty percent sure." Chen Ge kept his voice low, afraid the taxi driver might overhear and get the wrong idea.
"Alright, I'll go stake the place out myself."
After getting Captain Li's response, Chen Ge hung up and headed back to the Fanghua Yuan residential complex.
Entering through the rear gate, Chen Ge deliberately avoided the surveillance cameras.
"The drunk in the elevator saw the white shadow again a few months ago — it ran without making a sound. That thing is definitely not alive. There's a ghost living in the building, but Fanghua Yuan hasn't had a single casualty report in recent years. Either something happened and it was covered up, or there's more to the story."
Slipping into Building Three, Chen Ge placed the red-cloth-wrapped pig-butchering knife in an easy-to-reach spot. If anything went wrong, he could pull it from his backpack in an instant.
Following the emergency stairwell upward, it took half an hour for Chen Ge to map out the entire structure of the building. "Building Three has no basement and only twenty-three floors — so why does the elevator panel have twenty-four numbers?"
It was a question he still hadn't figured out. Wang Xin's foster mother's warning had spooked him enough that he wasn't about to casually step into that elevator.
After circling the building, Chen Ge returned to the thirteenth floor. With Captain Li watching Xinkang Apartments, there was nothing for him to worry about there. All he needed to do now was hold his position in Building Three.
"If the tenant in Room 3133 really is Patient Number Two, then the white shadow the security guard saw is most likely something nasty that's latched onto the second patient."
For a monster behind a door to remain outside, it had to attach itself to a living person. Their relationship was something like symbiosis.
Walking through the corridor, most of the rooms on either side were unoccupied. It was eerily quiet.
"I wonder if I'll run into the white shadow tonight."
Looking down the hall, one room had its door open, with light from inside spilling into the corridor.
"Someone's here?" Chen Ge headed toward the door. The closer he got, the more unsettled he felt. "Isn't this Room 3133?"
The white paper that had been posted on the door had been torn off and crumpled into a ball on the floor.
Chen Ge peered inside. The floor was tiled, the furniture sparse, and the living room was divided by a curtain down the middle.
"The tenant came back?" After leaving Xinkang Apartments, Chen Ge had spent another half hour wandering the building, so timing-wise it was possible.
He lingered at the doorway for a minute or two. No sounds came from inside, and he couldn't see anyone moving.
Chen Ge extracted the wooden handle of the pig-butchering knife from his backpack's zipper and quietly pushed the door open, stepping inside.
He adjusted the door back to its original angle, confirmed he hadn't left any footprints, then moved deeper into the room.
The apartment wasn't large. Two things stood out as odd: the bathroom had an enormous bathtub, and the kitchen contained a locked chest freezer in addition to the refrigerator.
"Hiding a body?"
It wasn't that Chen Ge had a dark imagination — under the circumstances, he genuinely couldn't think of any other explanation.
All the interior doors were open. After leaving the kitchen, Chen Ge went straight into the bedroom. Several dark-toned coats hung in the wardrobe, and a large black leather suitcase sat on top of the cabinet.