Translator: Cinder Translations
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Fatty thought for a moment and realized Jiang Cheng was right. "Even though that's true, none of us had seen a ghost back then, and we had no idea about their habits. How could she be sure that a ghost had targeted her?"
Jiang Cheng smiled, "Do you remember those two people from Room 405?"
Fatty frowned. "That man in the suit and the guy with the baseball cap?"
"Exactly," Jiang Cheng nodded. "Why couldn't they sleep well last night?"
"Wasn't it because you were messing with them, scraping the wall with a coin to scare them?" Fatty paused mid-sentence, then his pupils suddenly contracted as if realizing something. He quickly said, "Doctor, do you mean someone intentionally planted the idea in her mind, making her believe that a ghost was around her and had its eyes on her?" He was getting more excited. "If she didn't leave, she'd die!"
"Yeah," Jiang Cheng acknowledged, then added, "That's not my theory; it's just one logical explanation that seems to fit the situation."
"But..." Fatty lowered his head in thought for a while. "The woman in the qipao didn't seem like someone who would fall for tricks that easily. She went out late at night, and the man in the suit and the guy in the baseball cap only panicked when we had just lain down. The risks and mental pressure they faced were completely different."
"Sometimes you don't need to say much. You just plant a seed of doubt, and the rest she fills in with her imagination."
"The smarter and more cautious someone is, the easier it is for them to get lost in that."
"Especially in a dream world where nothing follows normal logic. Every little doubt gets magnified. Caution is a good thing, but endless caution and suspicion can backfire."
Fatty took a long time to digest Jiang Cheng's words. By the time he let out a deep breath, most of the people in the cafeteria had already left. "Doctor, assuming everything you said is true, then who could have forced the woman in the qipao out into the hallway to be killed?"
Jiang Cheng seemed surprised that Fatty used the word "forced," but he liked it and thought it was very fitting.
"What do you think?"
"Based purely on proximity, the woman in pajamas from the same room would be the prime suspect, but you saw her—she's just a scared newbie," Fatty said with a grim look. "That leaves the man in the suit, the guy with the baseball cap, and the woman with the ponytail from Room 406."
Fatty's gaze deepened when he mentioned the woman with the ponytail. He licked his chapped lips and said, "I think that woman is no ordinary person. For some reason, I feel uneasy whenever I'm around her, like there's a chill surrounding me. Once I move away from her, it goes away."
"It's a killer's aura," Jiang Cheng's expression shifted slightly at the mention of the ponytail woman. "That discomfort you feel is her energy."
"If you observe closely, you'll see that her eyes are sharp, like a blade gleaming with cold light, ready to tear you apart bit by bit." Jiang Cheng leaned back in his plastic chair, staring ahead as he continued. "When I shook her hand, I noticed that her wrists are deeper than a typical woman's, and there are old calluses on her fingertips and palms. When she moves her arms, her elbows drop slightly, which both protects her ribs and prepares her to strike quickly. She's clearly trained, and not just any kind of training."
"Most likely, she's handled firearms, and possibly even taken lives. When she saw the woman in the qipao's body, with the missing jaw, she was the calmest of all. She even squatted down to notice that the tongue was missing."
Jiang Cheng took a breath. "For an ordinary person, that's unimaginable."
Fatty stared at Jiang Cheng and nodded firmly. "So, if you ask me, she did it! She lived right next door to the qipao woman, making the location perfect."
Jiang Cheng turned his head and stared at Fatty for a few seconds. He didn't give any confirmation or denial. He didn't understand why, when he simply analyzed the situation based on the facts, some people always jumped to conclusions after seeing only the surface.
Fatty did this. So did Fan Li from the last case.
"What's wrong?" Fatty asked, confused. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Could it be the man in the suit and the guy with the baseball cap?" Fatty's eyes widened. "That doesn't make sense. They were probably too scared by you to think about plotting against someone else."
Just then, a crisp bell rang.
Fatty jumped in fright.
It was the bell signaling the start of morning classes. The sharp sound during such an intense conversation made Fatty feel agitated.
"Let's go," Jiang Cheng stood up. "Let's check out another place."
"Oh, okay."
The two of them walked through the campus, which felt much larger than it actually was. Since the students were all in class, there were few people around, aside from one or two staff members.
Fatty couldn't understand why, but the staff they encountered all looked at them strangely, as if they were some kind of rare creatures.
"Doctor," Fatty finally couldn't hold it in after the third time. "Did you notice how weirdly they're looking at us?"
"Yeah," Jiang Cheng replied. "It's not normal. I noticed it back in the cafeteria. They were sneakier about it then, but now it's getting more obvious."
Fatty gulped, suddenly nervous. "They're not all ghosts, are they? And as time goes by, they'll reveal their true forms and kill us?"
He was getting more frightened as he spoke, his voice growing smaller. Before he could finish, he had scared himself, his legs trembling like sausages.
"Probably not," Jiang Cheng shook his head.
Fatty, desperately needing some reassurance, immediately perked up. "Why not, Doctor?"
"Because it's against the law," Jiang Cheng answered righteously. "Especially if they all turn into ghosts together—that's a serious crime. They'd all get thrown into the slammer."
Fatty: "???"
Ever since meeting Jiang Cheng, Fatty had been struggling with his facial expressions, often unsure whether to laugh or cry. Just like now, his face started twitching involuntarily.
"Doctor," Fatty said, trembling and trying to hold back his emotions. "If I didn't know you better, I'd suspect you were in cahoots with the nightmare creatures. Really."
At that moment, Jiang Cheng suddenly stopped walking.
(End of the Chapter)
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