After emerging from the woods, Chen Ge dumped the passenger by the roadside. Still shaken, Old Zhang saw Chen Ge and shrank back.
"Old Zhang, you really ought to thank this guy. If he hadn't flagged the car down to rescue you, those robbers would've gotten away with it."
The taxi driver who had brought Chen Ge here stayed by Old Zhang's side. He wasn't entirely sure what had happened—he'd only seen Old Zhang being pinned to the ground, looking completely disheveled.
Night-shift cab drivers all went through safety training, so his first thought had been a carjacking.
"You have no idea what I went through," Old Zhang babbled, pointing at Chen Ge and the "corpse" on the ground. He couldn't explain it himself.
Tonight's ordeal had been far too much for Old Zhang. He'd probably need to convalesce at home for quite a while again.
"Are you all right?" Chen Ge picked up the grotesque Skull Crusher and found the backpack on the ground, stuffing the weapon inside.
"I-I'm fine." Old Zhang stared blankly at Chen Ge, unable to comprehend why a normal person would carry such a massive iron hammer while out in the middle of the night.
Chen Ge had clearly saved him. In theory, he should have been grateful. Yet for reasons he couldn't explain, every time he looked at Chen Ge, his whole body trembled with visceral fear.
"Glad to hear it. Be extra careful when driving at night."
Chen Ge said it casually. To put both drivers at ease, he called Captain Yan right in front of them and relayed the situation.
Hearing Chen Ge speak with the police on the phone, Old Zhang's impression of him gradually shifted. He was just an ordinary person who'd stumbled into a supernatural incident, and in Old Zhang's mind, the police were the guardians of the common folk. If Chen Ge knew the police and had genuinely saved him, then he had to be a good person.
Slowly letting his guard down, Old Zhang reflected carefully: Chen Ge had ridden in his cab twice and never once harmed him. "Looks like I misjudged him. This guy must be an undercover cop on a special mission. Oh no—did he abandon his assignment to save me? That kind of thing happens all the time on TV."
Though Old Zhang was an ordinary man, he had a decent heart. He had already made up his mind that when the police arrived, he would do his best to put in a good word for Chen Ge.
Chen Ge had no idea about Old Zhang's inner journey. After exchanging a few parting words, he asked the driver who had arrived later to take him to the Ghost Stories Radio office building.
"Number Five is the programming director of Ghost Stories Radio, and Number Twelve, Lychee, is tonight's podcaster. There's a good chance those two have been communicating behind the scenes."
With Number Five compromised, once Lychee got the news, she would very likely flee overnight.
To prevent that from happening and to avoid unnecessary complications, Chen Ge decided to go over there right now and help Lychee "find relief."
"No matter the reason, if you've committed a crime, you face the judgment of the law."
Chen Ge sent Captain Yan a message with his location. In less than twenty minutes he arrived at his destination.
"Thanks for tonight, brother. Go back and pick up Old Zhang—no need for you to handle anything else."
After paying the fare, Chen Ge entered the building alone.
Radio recording studios had extremely strict requirements for indoor environments. If the acoustic specifications weren't met, the more professional the equipment, the more susceptible it was to interference, exposing all manner of problems.
That was why a large midnight broadcast like Ghost Stories Radio maintained its own dedicated recording studio, typically situated at the very back of the office building.
Chen Ge slipped past the surveillance cameras with his backpack and paused at the entrance for a while, pulling out his phone to tune in to the midnight broadcast.
The ghost story Lychee was currently narrating was called "Radio Ghost Tales." Using herself as the prototype, she described in an eerie manner the various changes happening around her. There was nothing overtly terrifying, but the small details—so closely mirroring real life—made the listeners' skin crawl. Many of them had experienced something similar.
Checking the program schedule and tomorrow's preview, Chen Ge discovered that Lychee planned to turn "Radio Ghost Tales" into a series running all the way through next Tuesday.