The messages explained that the monster Jia Ming had conjured up was skilled at disguises and voice mimicry — meaning it could imitate Li Zheng's voice. But Chen Ge had been on the ghost bus and, by pure coincidence, couldn't answer calls, so Li Zheng had had to contact him via text. This was presumably something the creature hadn't anticipated before making the phone call.
"Could the one sending me messages actually be Jia Ming?"
The moment the thought took root, it spread like poison through Chen Ge's mind. A cold sweat broke across his body.
His finger hovered over the screen for a long while before Chen Ge finally typed a reply to Li Zheng: "Don't worry. I'll stay in New Century Paradise tonight. I'm not going anywhere."
"Mm, just wanted to let you know. That guy has a vendetta against you, and now that he's wanted across the city, there's a good chance he'll come looking for you. Stay inside the park. I'll arrange for some people to stake out the area nearby."
"You've gone to enough trouble already."
"Letting him escape was our failure in the first place. No need to thank us. Whatever you do, don't wander off tonight — the moment you step outside New Century Paradise, we can't guarantee your safety."
"Understood." After Chen Ge gave his assurance, Li Zheng sent no further messages, as though his objective had been fulfilled.
"Something feels off." Chen Ge stared at his phone. He no longer cared about disturbing the other passengers and dialed Captain Yan directly, wanting to verify what Li Zheng had just told him.
It was nearly midnight, but Captain Yan still picked up — a testament to how much weight he placed on Chen Ge.
From Captain Yan, Chen Ge learned that Li Zheng hadn't been lying. Jia Ming had indeed escaped.
After hanging up, Chen Ge still couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. "Could the Shadow have slipped out of Jia Ming and attached itself to Li Zheng?"
If that were the case, things had just gotten far more complicated.
"Jia Ming told a story at the hospital. He saw the Shadow and Jiang Long inside the villa — Jiang Long was kneeling on the ground, drenched in blood, while the Shadow stood beside him holding a knife. That scene is interesting. Combine it with the fact that Jiang Long's neighbor's dog had just been killed, and you could deduce that the killer was Jiang Long himself. A real estate tycoon has no reason to go around killing dogs. Obviously, the Shadow forced him into it — it was slowly eroding his will. From this you can see that for the Shadow to possess and control someone, there must be certain limitations. The weaker a person's willpower, the easier they are to overcome."
"Li Zheng is a frontline officer. Controlling him would be extremely difficult for the Shadow — though not entirely impossible." Li Zheng's text had served as a wake-up call. The Shadow had escaped, and tonight Chen Ge could trust no one. "Xiao Bu once told me that the next time I go to Liwan Town, my life will be in danger. Now I've barely set foot in the eastern suburbs, and Jia Ming, who was under police guard, has met with trouble. Isn't that just a little too convenient?"
Chen Ge was about to put his phone away when the screen lit up once more. This time it was Fan Cong.
"You're a popular man." The doctor glanced back over his shoulder, signaling for Chen Ge to keep his voice down. Standing out here wouldn't do him any favors.
"I only have a handful of people in my contacts. Who knows what's gotten into them today?" Chen Ge pulled out his earbuds, plugged them in, and answered the call.
"Boss Chen! I beat the game! I know now! I finally know!"
"Take it easy, and keep your voice down. I can hear you fine." Chen Ge lowered his voice. He really had been making too much of a commotion.
"I kept using the save point you left and kept trying. I found eleven side quests — eleven missions corresponding to eleven murder scenes, representing eleven lives. I risked everything to explore, pushing the game forward bit by bit, and finally I cleared all eleven side quests." Fan Cong's voice was electric with excitement.
"Eleven side quests?" The number eleven was one Chen Ge had just seen in Li Zheng's message — to deal with police interrogation, Jia Ming had told eleven stories.
Many of the scenes in Xiao Bu's game were strikingly realistic, as though they had actually happened in the real world.
Chen Ge suspected that the eleven quests Fan Cong had cleared were the very same eleven real murder cases Jia Ming had recounted to the police.
"The town in Xiao Bu's game is modeled on Liwan Town, so these eleven murders must all be connected to Liwan Town." After a moment's thought, Chen Ge asked quietly, "After completing those eleven side quests, did you receive any hints? Or a reward, or something like that?"
"That's exactly what I'm calling about. After clearing all eleven quests, the computer screen started bleeding. The originally gray-and-black art style changed again — every building turned blood red. The keyboard and mouse stopped responding at the same time, and Xiao Bu in the game interface lost control. She stood there inside the game, waving at me through the screen. Seriously, at that moment I almost felt like she was going to drag me into the game."
"Get to the point. What happened next?"
"She started moving on her own, entering one of the blood-red buildings. That was when a line of bloody text appeared at the bottom of the screen — 'Mom might be here.'" Fan Cong took a gulp of water. His excitement still hadn't subsided.
"What did the building look like?" Chen Ge pressed immediately.
"Nothing special on the outside, pretty ordinary. But on the outer wall there was a poster for an amusement park. Boss Chen, this is the most important thing I wanted to tell you!" Fan Cong took a deep breath. "The amusement park on that poster has to be New Century Paradise. I found your haunted house in it."
"You found my haunted house on that poster?" The words slipped out of Chen Ge's mouth before he could stop them.
"Yeah. I don't know what it means, but I think whoever made this game might know you. It has to be some kind of super easter egg." Fan Cong's tone was brimming with excitement.
"The park doesn't use posters for advertising anymore. The exterior of my haunted house hasn't changed in years. The poster you saw might have been left behind by my parents." Only Chen Ge himself could understand the full weight of those words. He had never expected to find a clue from his parents hidden inside Xiao Bu's game.
He turned Fan Cong's account over in his mind once more. After all eleven side quests were cleared, Xiao Bu had entered a special building and left a message saying her mother might be inside.
Whether Xiao Bu had found her mother, Chen Ge didn't know. But he had discovered that there was a very high probability his own parents had entered that building.
"Did they leave that clue on purpose — or is this poster a trap set by the Shadow?" Because the Shadow's abilities were so extraordinary — it could disguise itself as virtually anyone — after a brief moment of deliberation, Chen Ge suddenly asked Fan Cong a question: "What brand is your electric scooter?"
"Huh? Aoniao. Why?" Fan Cong was still riding high on his victory. He'd stayed up for days to finally beat the game and was desperate to share his joy with someone. He hadn't expected Chen Ge to ask something like that and answered on reflex.