Number 023—New Year's Day Ghost Fetus (5)

"We thought she'd been ****ed, that someone at the hotel had drugged something there. It had to have been done by hotel staff, so we called the hotel manager and demanded an explanation, or we'd call the police. At first, they denied it. They even said we were out of our minds, trying to scam them for money with this kind of trick. I did want to get money out of them, but I wasn't lying. Something really was wrong that night. Wouldn't I know whether I'd gotten into bed or not? I was about to call the police, and I was going to call the newspaper too. Neither of us was afraid of an investigation. It didn't matter if things blew up. We weren't locals anyway. Once we went back home, who would know about this?"

"Mm. Did you call the police afterward?"

"No. When their manager heard we were going to make a scene, he backed down. He paid us tens of thousands in compensation, gave us a pile of local specialties, and helped us book tickets to some attractions in People's Celebration City... Well, something like that. So we let it go."

"Did you buy emergency contraception?"

"Oh, the manager bought that for us. People back then didn't really understand those things, but the manager had studied abroad. Since he wanted to settle privately, he had someone buy the pills and deliver them to us. I guess he was afraid we'd show up a few years later with a child and cause him trouble."

"How many more days did you stay in People's Celebration City?"

"Mm, another two days, I guess. We'd originally planned to stay another half month. Since someone else was paying, we could have had more fun. But Yinan couldn't sleep well. Even after changing rooms, she had nightmares every night and said she could hear children laughing. I didn't think much of it. I thought the hotel's soundproofing was bad, and someone next door was making noise. She wasn't in the mood to have fun anymore, so we went back home. We took the train. There weren't many people on it, and the aisle was empty. Two children were running back and forth there. Yinan suddenly lost her temper. I'd never seen her get that angry. She screamed at those two kids, scared them into crying, and even tried to hit them. I held her back, but nothing I said worked. I just heard her cursing at the children, then arguing with their parents. In the end, even the conductor came over and moved us to different seats. After that... she quieted down. She didn't speak or move. Just looking at her gave me the creeps, so I went to smoke. When I came back after two cigarettes, she was still like that. That train ride... it felt unbelievably long. Like it ran forever before reaching the station."

"After returning home, did she show any unusual behavior?"

"There was too much unusual behavior! She kept having nightmares and said children were laughing beside her, calling her Mommy. There weren't any children in the homes around us, upstairs or downstairs. There was no way those sounds could have been real! I took her to see a doctor, and he prescribed sleeping pills. She could sleep then, but during the day at work... One day, I got a call from her workplace saying she'd hit someone. When I got there, I found out that lately, she'd sometimes just stand there blankly in the middle of work. Sometimes she'd ask her coworkers whether they could hear children's voices. This time, one of her coworkers had brought their child to the office. She chased after the child to hit them, then got into a fight with the coworker. I... from that moment on, I felt something was very wrong. Not the same kind of wrong as what happened on New Year's Day. A different kind of wrong. Yinan must have run into something evil."

"Those symptoms do indeed sound like a paranormal encounter."

"Exactly! That's what I thought! It was obvious where the problem was, wasn't it? It was the hotel! Something must have happened that New Year's Day! After hearing about it, my mother went to ask a famous spirit medium from our hometown to help Yinan. The kind who performed spirit dances. I never believed in that stuff before, but with Yinan like that, we had to try anything. That spirit medium made me uncomfortable just looking at her. She was all strange and seductive, like some old demon hag from Journey to the West. Yinan didn't react when she first saw her, but once the woman started dancing, she suddenly covered her ears and screamed, telling her to shut up and all that. The commotion was huge. Even our neighbors came running over to see... Sigh..."

"What did that spirit medium say?"

"She said Yinan was carrying a ghost fetus. She got pregnant after sleeping with a ghost, and the little ghost in her belly was making trouble."

"Did she get rid of the little ghost?"

"..."

"Mr. Zhou?"

"She said... that day, she said the little ghost was bound together with Yinan. To get rid of it without hurting Yinan, she needed to make some preparations. I didn't know what she needed to prepare. I thought she was just trying to jack up the price. But with Yinan like that... neither my mother nor I cared how much she charged. But I don't know whether she was putting on an act or whether she really needed to prepare something. She left that day and arranged to come back the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow... when the day came, she didn't show up. My mother went to her house, knocked for ages, but nobody answered. There was nothing we could do. That spirit medium had skipped town, so we had to find another way."

"Mm. You never went looking for that spirit medium again?"

"No. Not then. Later, my mother heard that she died that year. By the time her body was discovered, it had already decomposed. No one knew exactly when she died, but I think... I guess it was after she took on our case..."

"Could you tell me that spirit medium's name?"

"I'm not really sure. My mother didn't know either. Everyone just called her Zhao Old Immortal."

"What about her address?"

"She lived in the old district of North City. Get off at the last stop on Route 739, walk forward to that residential complex, and ask around for Zhao Old Immortal. Everyone there knows her."

"Okay. Please continue with what happened to your wife."

"After that, Yinan... she became completely dull and unresponsive. She barely reacted when spoken to, and she stopped talking about hearing children laugh. My mother and I tried to find another capable person, but we couldn't find one right away. Then, around the end of February, I was bathing her and found that her belly had started to bulge. Ever since she became unwell, my mother and I had been taking care of her. I asked my mother, and she said her stomach hadn't looked like that the day before. Neither of us could sit still anymore. If we couldn't find someone capable, then we had to take her to the hospital for an abortion. Yinan didn't react at all. I took her by the hand, and she followed me. We took a bus to the hospital. That bus... it was clearly afternoon, not rush hour, but it was packed beyond belief. There were too many people. At first, my mother and I each held one side of Yinan. But somehow, when it was time to get off, we looked over and Yinan was gone. We searched the bus for ages. Everyone on board thought we were crazy, and the driver even cursed at us. I had no choice but to tell them my wife wasn't mentally well... Everyone on the bus helped us search. In the end, a young girl told us she'd seen Yinan get off earlier. We got off too and started asking people on the street. Before we found her, we heard someone beside us shouting that someone had jumped off a building."

"Was it your wife?"

"I didn't know at first. The person shouting had their head tilted back, pointing at the roof of a department store nearby. The building was less than ten stories high, so you could barely make out someone standing on top. I wasn't the first one to recognize her. My mother saw her, called to me, and kept patting and pulling at me in panic. I didn't know what to do. I shouted Yinan's name at the top of my lungs. The people around us heard it and knew I knew her, so they started giving me suggestions. But in just that brief moment... from when someone shouted that she was going to jump to when Yinan jumped, it was only that brief moment. She didn't hesitate for long before she jumped... My mother and I both went weak in the legs and had to hold each other up. People around us were screaming and yelling, and my ears were buzzing. Then those people scattered away, and I saw Yinan. She... she was smiling. Smiling in relief. Later, I thought that maybe dying then was a good thing for her..."

"What about the fetus in her womb?"

"Ah..."

"Mr. Zhou?"

"That ghost fetus... Hiss... that ghost fetus..."