"Holding the teacup, I thought for a long time, until I saw a figure reflected in its surface."
"When I faced the cup, the figure reflected in it was also facing me."
"I suddenly realized—when I had turned to look at the mirror earlier, the version of me in the mirror hadn't turned his head! He was facing me, as if..."
Jia Ming couldn't finish, as though someone had seized him by the throat. Terror bled into his eyes. "A chill crept up from behind me. The living room sofa faced away from the bathroom, and I could feel something standing right behind me! Like a person standing there!"
"I didn't dare turn around. I rotated the teacup, letting my gaze slide downward, trying to use the cup's surface to see what was behind me."
"I turned the cup little by little. The chill behind me crept closer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Just before I could see what was behind me, I felt a faint tingling on the exposed skin of my neck—as though hair had fallen across it."
"My arm trembled uncontrollably. The teacup slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor, coffee splattering everywhere."
"I screamed. I grabbed the ashtray and fruit bowl off the coffee table and hurled them behind me, then bolted for the front door without looking back."
"Both hands fumbled with the lock. I turned to look back into the room. There was nothing there. The only difference was the TV signal had gone haywire—no picture, just a flickering blue-and-white static background."
"It was deathly quiet. The only sound was the harsh crackling hiss from the television."
"I didn't dare stay in the apartment. I wanted to run outside, but then I remembered the boy I'd seen in the stairwell—the one whose head and legs were bent at impossible angles—and I lost my nerve. I was terrified he might be right outside the door."
"The stairwell wasn't safe either. I didn't know what to do. My body went rigid in the doorway."
"While I hesitated, the images on the TV screen flickered faster and faster. I began to make out—between the flashing frames—the face of a woman, slowly growing clearer!"
"I couldn't stay a second longer. I threw open the door and ran."
"I didn't look around. I sprinted all the way to the street, but even the dimly lit road couldn't make me feel safe. I ran like a madman until I finally collapsed in the middle of the road, under the glow of the streetlights, and only then did I stop."
When Jia Ming finished speaking, his forehead and back were drenched in cold sweat. Every listener in the room wore an uneasy expression.
The way Jia Ming spoke, combined with his panicked, terrified demeanor, made his story feel almost real—like everyone present had been there with him.
The policewoman's grip on her pen tightened visibly. Li Zheng glanced at
"His story is quite interesting. I'll give a brief analysis." Chen Ge stood up and sat down beside the hospital bed. "Jia Ming initially said he saw someone at Jiang Long's villa holding Jiang Long at knifepoint, forcing him to do something agonizing. And he was very certain that the person looked exactly like me."
"After stumbling onto that, he fled back to his own apartment. When he entered the stairwell, the old lady said something to him—'walk more quietly'—which means she saw someone else in the stairwell besides Jia Ming, and that person was close enough for the old woman to assume they were together with him." Chen Ge smiled at Jia Ming. "If what he says is true, then from that moment on, something was following behind him, and it's highly likely that this thing was the very person he'd seen at the villa—the 'me' who held the knife to Jiang Long's head. Setting aside how difficult it would be to silently tail someone, and setting aside how 'I' could have fooled him yet been spotted by an old woman—if we assume all of this is real, let's continue the analysis."
"Next, he ran up to the second floor to his apartment, and when he opened the door, he saw a pair of feet and a child's head at the third-floor landing. The position where this child appeared is worth noting—it was on the third floor."
"Jia Ming himself said the old lady's son's family of three had died in a car accident. The third floor was kept for the deceased, as a memorial."
"Here's a bold guess: that child on the third floor is the old lady's grandson, the boy who died in the car accident. But here's the strange part—Jia Ming had been staying with the old lady for quite some time without seeing any ghosts. Why did he suddenly see one that night?"
Chen Ge analyzed with great seriousness, though to Li Zheng and the policewoman, it looked more like one patient in a mental hospital counseling another.
"The answer is simple. The child ghost saw the person behind Jia Ming too. Notice the posture the child was in—standing at the stairwell corner, head craning downward, as though peeking. That tells us the person behind Jia Ming may have been far more terrifying than Jia Ming himself." Chen Ge's smile widened. "A human scaring a ghost—now that's something I've never heard before."
"After entering the room, there's another detail. When Jia Ming realized the person in the mirror was moving opposite to him, he felt something approaching from behind. As he rotated the teacup to see who it was, he felt what seemed like hair brushing his neck." Chen Ge paused. "This is extremely important. 'I' have short hair—as do most men. When you lower your head, your hair couldn't possibly fall down far enough to touch your neck. That means whoever was standing behind him was a woman. Or rather, it would be more accurate to call her a female ghost."
"Later, when he tried to flee the room, the TV malfunctioned. Images flickered across the screen, and a woman's face faintly emerged. This corroborates from another angle that if there was a ghost in the room, it was a female one. Combining this with what came before, this female ghost's true identity is likely the old lady's daughter-in-law who died in the car accident."
"In Jia Ming's story, two ghosts appeared, and both were connected to the tale the old lady had told him. The most likely reason for this is that something Jia Ming did that night placed enormous psychological pressure on him, causing him to subconsciously give himself certain psychological suggestions. He hallucinated, projecting the ghosts from the story into reality." Chen Ge worked in some professional terminology he'd picked up from Dr. Gao, tossing in the occasional English word he didn't actually understand himself—but which lent an air of expertise nonetheless.
Under his explanation, the tension in Li Zheng and the policewoman's faces eased, and they nodded repeatedly. Compared to ghosts, they far preferred the theory that Jia Ming had simply lost his mind.
Having successfully cleared himself of suspicion, Chen Ge regarded Jia Ming with a calm gaze. Perhaps something in that look reminded Jia Ming of something terrible—or perhaps Jia Ming sensed the danger. His body suddenly seized, and he collapsed onto the hospital bed in a dead faint.
"I didn't touch him." Chen Ge raised both hands and stepped to the side of the ward, watching the doctors and nurses rush in and out. His fists slowly clenched at his sides.
There were things he hadn't told the police. In truth, he believed Jia Ming hadn't been lying.
The person who looked exactly like Chen Ge—that had to be the Shadow. As for why the Shadow looked like him, even Chen Ge didn't know.
Everything else Jia Ming described was probably true as well. The Shadow had followed him home, been spotted by the old lady, and alarmed the spirits residing on her third floor.
The child ghost was the old lady's grandson. The female ghost was her daughter-in-law. There was likely also a male ghost in the apartment that Jia Ming hadn't encountered.
"The Shadow followed Jia Ming home. Those three spirits were trying to protect him, but the gap in power was too great. They could only use their own methods to warn him—to make him aware of the danger." Chen Ge knew there was a high probability Jia Ming had told the truth, but he would still muddy the waters, because he couldn't be certain whether the Shadow was still clinging to Jia Ming.
The Shadow was cunning. All of this could also be a trap the Shadow had set, using the police as a weapon.
"Proving whether Jia Ming is telling the truth or lying isn't actually that hard." Chen Ge called Li Zheng out of the ward, obtained the location of the old lady Jia Ming had mentioned, and then left the hospital directly, intending to go there himself.
He wanted to know what the old lady had truly seen that night. He also wanted to find those spirits and ask them what they had felt at the time.