Whether alive or dead, this was the first time Qiumei had ever heard someone evaluate her like that.
Her parents had been sent to prison when she was very young, and her grandmother had taken care of her ever since.
The absence of both a father's and a mother's love had made her personality different from other children from an early age — brash and rough around the edges, with a hint of roguishness to match.
As she grew older, Qiumei gradually matured. Just when she had finally decided to leave her old self behind and truly try for once, she ran into Wenyu.
The bud had withered before it ever bloomed. But perhaps it was precisely because of everything she had endured in childhood that Qiumei hadn't been crushed by this sudden turn of events. She hadn't lost herself. She was still who she had always been.
That was exactly what Chen Ge appreciated most about her.
After watching the film Chang Gu had shot, Chen Ge still hadn't fully figured out why Wenyu had entered that school, nor why the left eye had appeared on her body, and he certainly didn't understand what had happened between Wenyu and her brother, Chang Gu. But he knew one thing — of all the characters who had appeared, Qiumei was the most innocent.
A group of strange audience members had materialized in the screening room. But stranger still was the living person who had suddenly scrambled onto the stage.
Qiumei's intact right eye slowly opened. Its blood-red iris carried a hint of confusion. What the other person had said made her feel warm inside, but something about it still felt off.
She slowly twisted her neck and looked toward Chang Gu, who was sitting in the middle of the screening room.
As if sensing something, Chang Gu raised his head from its lowered position. After a long moment, it seemed he had finally made some decision, and he let out a soft sigh.
His eyelids fluttered, and Chang Gu's long-closed eyes slowly opened.
"Who exactly are you?"
Chang Gu's left eye didn't look much different from a normal person's — just a ring of blood-red around the edge of the iris. But his right eye, which should have been the normal one, looked horrifying. The pupil seemed to have melted away, leaving only a cracked white sclera.
"My left eye is Wenyu's left eye. The eye-swap surgery failed. This eye can only sense simple changes in color, and occasionally I can see things that ordinary people can't." As he spoke, Chang Gu stared at Qiumei, who stood before the screen. After the surgery had failed, his left eye had retained a fraction of its abilities.
"My right eye has gone completely blind. I don't know the specific cause — maybe this is the curse of the left eye." Chang Gu coughed violently several times, then closed his eyes again. But in the few brief seconds they had been open, tears of blood had already seeped from his left eye.
"So my deductions were all correct." Chen Ge was still standing on the stage, only a few steps away from Qiumei.
"Not entirely. But it doesn't matter now." It took Chang Gu a while to rein in his coughing. "I'm willing to cooperate with you, but how am I supposed to believe what you've told me?"
Chen Ge had been worried Chang Gu wouldn't budge. As long as the man's tone showed any willingness, he had plenty of ways to make them friends.
Chen Ge pulled out his phone and scrolled to some local news briefs from Hanjiang. "There's no reason for me to lie to you. These news reports can serve as proof. If you still don't believe me, you can search the web yourself for information about the Western Suburbs Haunted House."
Chen Ge's attitude was thoroughly sincere, but Chang Gu was having a harder time accepting it — someone who pulled up local spiritual affairs bulletins to prove their identity was clearly not going to be simple.