The little girl stopped crying and turned to stare blankly at
Those pitiful eyes of hers seemed capable of melting even the hardest of hearts. No matter how cold or unyielding a person might be, they couldn't help but soften their expression when faced with her.
The nurse could no longer hold back. She pulled the little girl into a hug, pressing her cheek against the child's head and gently patting her back.
If you only looked at the nurse and the two children inside the bedroom, the scene would seem wonderfully warm — like an older sister working tirelessly on her own, bravely raising two little siblings. Poor and struggling, perhaps, but still dreaming of happiness and something beautiful.
But with Chen Ge added to the picture, things took on a distinctly eerie quality.
He stood in the doorway, every muscle in his body tensed, as though he were alone in a dense forest with a predator locking its gaze on him.
"Judging by the proportions in
Having dealt with Fan Yu before, Chen Ge clearly remembered that the boy's eyes could see ghosts. Which meant the enormous spider monster in Fan Yu's drawing was, at this very moment, standing right behind him!
His fingers pressed down on the voice recorder's switch, and bluish veins surfaced along his arm.
Before coming here, it had never crossed his mind that he'd encounter a ghost in such a warm, welcoming welfare home.
"Fan Yu and the little girl seem to be on good terms. Fan Yu and I are practically acquaintances. Does that mean, by extension, that the little girl and I are friends too?" Chen Ge muttered to himself in the doorway, his voice pitched just loud enough to carry behind him.
"Stop crying. Your sister's gone — I'll take you to find her again tomorrow." Fan Yu patted the little girl's head. He was especially kind to her.
"Mm." The little girl rubbed her swollen eyes, wriggled free of the nurse's embrace, and reluctantly sat down on the small mat in the bedroom, still clutching the spider's corpse in her hands — unwilling to throw it away.
Hearing Fan Yu say the girl's sister had left, Chen Ge finally relaxed. He walked into the room, picked up the broom behind the door, and swept the shards of glass into a corner.
Standing among the three of them, the nurse felt rather awkward — as though she'd been completely overlooked, as though nobody cared that she was even there.
"Mr. Chen, let me get that." The nurse swept the glass fragments into a dustpan, then took Chen Ge by the arm and steered him out of the room.
"You saw the situation in there, didn't you?" A note of helplessness bled into her voice. "Jiang Ling has been in my care ever since she arrived at the welfare home. For the first half year or so, she called me 'Mom' — incredibly clingy, like a little angel. But ever since Fan Yu showed up, everything changed. The girl follows him around all day long and only listens to him."
"Am I picking up a hint of jealousy in your voice?" Chen Ge leaned against the wall. His impression of this welfare home was genuinely positive — they were doing real work here.
"I am not!" The nurse shot him a glare. "If Jiang Ling wanted to play with the other kids, I'd never stand in her way. The issue is that Fan Yu isn't normal! You saw the things he draws — do you think it's appropriate for a five- or six-year-old girl to be looking at that kind of stuff every day?"
"Okay, that's a bit much." Chen Ge didn't know how to explain things to the nurse. He couldn't exactly say that everything Fan Yu drew was real.
"A bit much?!" The nurse shut the bedroom door and pulled Chen Ge into a corner of the living room. "Jiang Ling was found by the police at a murder scene. You have no idea what this child has been through. When she was first brought to the welfare home half a year ago, she couldn't even speak. She was terrified of absolutely everyone. It took six months of patient psychological counseling from Dr. Chen before she started to improve."
Chen Ge's expression turned serious. "Can you tell me about her past?"
The nurse lowered her voice. "I only heard this from the police. Jiang Ling's family used to be very happy. Four of them, living in a remote rural area. They weren't wealthy, but they were content."
"Her father was an honest, straightforward farmer. Her mother apparently wasn't a local — fair-skinned, pretty. She also had an older sister who inherited their mother's good looks."
"About a year ago, her father borrowed money to lease a plot of land and plant a peach orchard. They grew peaches. The family lived quite far from the village and didn't mix much with the neighbors."
"Just as the peaches were about to ripen and their living situation was about to improve — that's when everything went wrong."
She let out a sigh, sympathy and anger mingling in her eyes. "First, Jiang Ling's older sister vanished. Not long after that, her father and mother were poisoned. Someone laced their rice soup and dishes with a massive dose of rat poison. The killer had every intention of wiping out the entire family."
"Was the killer caught?"
"No." The nurse shook her head. "The police didn't release much information. All I know is that the killer didn't take any money and it wasn't about anything else. I suspect it was one of the villagers — someone jealous of how happy Jiang Ling's family was. That area is quite remote, and aside from other villagers, hardly anyone ever goes out there. And in the days leading up to the incident, people from a neighboring village kept sneaking over to steal unripe peaches. One time, Jiang Ling's father caught a thief in the act, and they actually got into a fight in the orchard."
After hearing the nurse's account, Chen Ge had to admit the villagers did sound like plausible suspects. Murder usually carried a motive — deliberate revenge. That reason held water.
"After the police investigated, they couldn't find the person responsible anywhere in the village. The only survivor at the scene was Jiang Ling, who hadn't drunk the soup. But after watching her parents collapse after their meal, the girl was traumatized beyond words. The police suspected Jiang Ling had seen the killer's face, but they had no way to communicate with her. Ever since that incident, the little girl's mind has had some… problems."
"As you can see, when she sees a spider, she screams for her sister. Things that terrify everyone else — she gets excited and runs toward them. Can you picture that adorable little face pressed close to a spider web, leaning in toward a spider?"
"And the longer I've been around her, the more other issues I've noticed."
"Her understanding of the world is quite confused. She'll call the blankets on the bed 'Mom' and the hanging ropes 'Dad.' When you ask her why, she can't give you a reason."
The nurse sounded genuinely dejected — you could tell she truly cared about the girl. "Our welfare home has been trying to correct Jiang Ling's distorted perceptions. She doesn't call ropes and blankets 'Mom' and 'Dad' anymore. We just needed to fix her association with spiders, and this little girl could have lived a normal life. And then Fan Yu showed up and, in a matter of sentences, undid every bit of our progress."
"Let's set Fan Yu aside for now." Chen Ge was preoccupied with the
"Jiang Ling's sister vanished before the incident even happened. The police at one point suspected that the killer might have been the sister, who left and then came back. But they've never found Jiang Ling's older sister."