Wang Hailong was drenched in sweat. He panted his way through the crowd. "My brother spoke last night! He's outside the park right now — says he has something really important to tell you!"
"Take me there." Things were unfolding just as Chen Ge had guessed. He glanced at the tourists waiting in line, said a few quick words to Uncle Xu, and opened the haunted wedding scene first. Then he left with Wang Hailong.
"Sorry for interrupting your business again." Wang Hailong wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Shenglong has suffered too much these past five or six years. I just can't calm down."
"I understand."
The two arrived at the park entrance. Across the street sat a hotpot restaurant's delivery truck, its side emblazoned with sweeping calligraphy — Longhu Workshop.
"Over here." Wang Hailong led Chen Ge toward the truck. "You've seen what my brother looks like. He's afraid of scaring people, so he doesn't dare show his face."
Having been locked in a standoff with the Slender Ghost for five or six years, Wang Shenglong's mind was as clear and pure as a child's. But his body had become severely deformed. He spent almost the entire year confined to his room, so heavy he couldn't even get onto his bed, forced to lay a blanket on the floor instead.
Thinking of the boy, Chen Ge was reminded of the bell-ringer from Notre-Dame — Quasimodo.
He remembered that when they first met at Heming Apartments, Wang Shenglong had drawn him a picture.
In the drawing, a monster stood on the boy's shoulder, its gaze fixed on the people beside him, as though ready to leap onto someone else at any moment.
Wang Shenglong had been trying to tell Chen Ge through that picture that he had his reasons — that if he didn't do as the Slender Ghost commanded, the monster would jump onto his family and hurt others.
He had shouldered all the injustice alone, enduring that unfair game for a full five or six years without speaking a single word.
Wang Hailong opened the back door of the truck. In the deepest part of the cargo hold loomed a mountain-like shadow.
"Shenglong, I brought Boss Chen here. Whatever you have to say, tell him now."
At Wang Hailong's words, the shadow took two steps forward, and the entire small truck rocked.
"Don't move — I'll go in instead." Chen Ge and Wang Hailong climbed into the truck and shut the door behind them.
This was the second time Chen Ge had gotten a close look at Wang Shenglong. From his appearance alone, there was no way to estimate his age. His features were buried beneath layers of fat, his body as wide as it was tall.
"Mm…"
Having gone years without speaking, Wang Shenglong had forgotten how to form sounds. His voice came out strange, unable to produce complete words.
"Take your time. Whatever you want to say, write it down." Chen Ge kept his distance from Wang Shenglong at first, standing right by the truck door, ready to bail out at the first sign of trouble.
But after observing for a while, Chen Ge noticed that Wang Shenglong was truly different from before.
The most obvious change was that the foul smell — the one only Chen Ge could detect — was gone.
Wang Shenglong fished a notebook from beside the seat, struggled to grip a watercolor pen, and wrote three characters on the page.
"I won."
Three simple words, yet they had cost Wang Shenglong five or six years. And those three words had destroyed a person.
Each stroke on the paper was written with tremendous force, and the emotions churning inside Wang Shenglong were plainly visible in every line.
"Boss Chen, do you remember the story I told you before?" Wang Hailong, afraid Chen Ge might not understand, leaned in and whispered. "When my brother was little, he played a game with a ghost — seeing who would speak first. That game lasted nearly six years. From the looks of it, my brother won."
After saying this, Wang Hailong lowered his voice and added, "Boss Chen, my brother just got better. Whatever he says, please just go along with it."