It had been roughly twenty minutes when hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor once more—sounding like a large group of people rushing toward the hospital room.
Bang!
The closed door was slammed open. Li Zheng and two other officers charged into the room, their expressions vigilant.
"Chen Ge!" Li Zheng shouted his name, one hand already resting at the small of his back, prepared for the worst.
"Captain Li, I'm over here!" Seeing Li Zheng's familiar face, Chen Ge ran straight toward him and couldn't help pulling the man into a tight embrace. "Long time no see!"
A trace of fatigue that couldn't quite be hidden crept into Chen Ge's voice. Li Zheng gently patted him on the shoulder. "We… didn't we just see each other yesterday? What's wrong with you? Did you hit your head?"
"Not exactly." Chen Ge let go of Li Zheng. "The suspect has already been taken away by the orderlies here. He should be on his way to Hanjiang Central Hospital by now."
"What did he do? Was this room the primary crime scene? Is that why you stayed behind—to preserve it?" Li Zheng and Chen Ge were very close; their familiarity went beyond the typical officer-and-civilian dynamic. He would often, in a moment of absent-mindedness, think of Chen Ge as a colleague—a colleague with extensive "operational" experience, no less.
"That man is extremely dangerous. It appears he's connected to the comas of a large number of students. All you have to do is release a statement saying he's been taken into police custody, and plenty of the students' parents will come looking for you." Chen Ge wasn't lying. The gates of the Medium-Sensitive Ghost School had drawn vast quantities of students' residual souls behind them. Stripped of consciousness and obsession, those children had all become something akin to vegetative patients—most of them lying in hospitals, the rest taken home to be cared for.
People rarely learned to cherish something until they had lost it. When a perfectly healthy child suddenly slipped into an unresponsive state, many parents had spent the long months wallowing in regret and self-blame. If only they had spent more time with their child, paid more attention—the child never would have done something so reckless.
The Ghost School had lured in a great number of students. It wasn't just Hanjiang; Chang Gu had once leveraged those very parents' help in his search for Chang Wenyu. So the moment the police made Chang Gu's whereabouts public, parents were certain to come forward.
Whether the police believed what they had to say was another matter entirely.
Chen Ge wasn't particularly worried about Chang Gu exposing him. The man's living body had collided with the Ghost School's will, and he had lingered in the blood mist for an extended period—whether he would even wake up was still anyone's guess.
"Connected to the comas of a large number of students? That's a major case." Upon hearing Chen Ge's words, Li Zheng's first instinct wasn't to question the claim but to think about what steps to take next. Subconsciously, he already believed Chen Ge—after all, the man standing before him had a rather "glorious" track record.
"Yeah. You should get cracking on the investigation. I'll head back to the haunted house for now. If you need anything, just say the word—I'll cooperate fully!" Chen Ge's mouth was saying one thing while his body was already drifting toward the doorway.
"Don't rush off. I still have plenty to ask you." Li Zheng grabbed Chen Ge's arm.
…
The questioning and interrogation lasted far longer than Chen Ge had anticipated. Li Zheng hadn't cut him any slack simply because they were close friends; he went through each item methodically, and by the time they were done, over an hour had passed.
Outside the window, the sky had brightened completely—it was nearly time for the amusement park to open.
Li Zheng knew Chen Ge had it rough, still needing to run the haunted house. In truth, Chen Ge was in terrible shape right now, looking as though he might pass out at any moment. "We'll leave it here for now. Until the suspect regains consciousness, you'd best not go anywhere—stay put in the park, especially at night."
"Understood."
When Li Zheng and the other officers went out to question the doctors and witnesses, Chen Ge seized the opportunity to wrap the mirror fragments on the floor in a bedsheet and stuff them into his backpack.
"The mirror holding the Painter's memories was very likely shattered on purpose by Bu Xiao. It should be hiding inside one of these shards right now, ready to flee at any moment. This one is far cleverer than the previous principal—he knows he can't escape just yet, so he's playing for time."