The Agency

The buildings in this old residential complex were laid out in neat, cramped rows. From the iron gate on the ground floor, the staircase was immediately to the right. A corridor ran along the front, beside the kitchens of the two middle apartments. There were windows in the wall, with exhaust fans installed in them. At mealtimes, the stairwell filled with the smell of cooking oil.

On the way up, I could still smell the oil and the mingled scents of food. Now, though, there was no smell at all. I couldn't hear the residents downstairs anymore, either. Even the Skinny Guy and the Fat Guy had gone quiet.

It was a little strange.

I held the doorknob, not turning my head for a long while. I had no idea how much time passed before I suddenly heard a noise from below.

"Thanks so much. Sorry for the trouble!"

It was the Fat Guy's voice.

I let out a breath of relief.

They'd probably gone into someone's apartment just now.

I turned and looked at the room in front of me.

The last rays of sunset were especially dim inside, like a smear of dark red blood. The reception room was right inside the entrance, and an office lay to the right. The filing cabinet stood in the corner of that room. From the doorway, I had to look closely to notice the unremarkable cabinet. But when I opened the door, I'd spotted it at a glance. I wasn't sure if that was because my last visit had made such a strong impression, or if it really was, as I'd suspected, some inexplicable force drawing my attention to it.

I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. Under its bright beam, the room's blood-red glow returned to normal.

Last time I'd come here, I'd only focused on the filing cabinet. The Skinny Guy and the police had searched the rest. This time, I wasn't in a hurry. I went to open the window first.

It was locked and seemed rusty, too. It took a lot of effort to get one window open. Hot air blew in from outside, easing the chill a little.

I brushed the rust off my hands and looked around the reception room.

Two sets of leather sofas faced each other in the center, with a glass coffee table between them. Dust had turned their original dark brown into a hazy gray.

Fang Guoying and Yu Meng had sat on these sofas to recount their terrifying ordeal, hadn't they?

My flashlight swept across the room, revealing a dead potted plant in the corner.

The place felt so uncomfortable because it had been abandoned for too long, right?

Thinking that, I went into the office next door.

There were four desks in the office, but only one had a computer. I opened the drawers. They were all empty. It wasn't until I reached the desk with the computer that I found a few pens and sticky notes left behind by its owner. Apart from those, there was nothing else.

I turned to look beside me.

The filing cabinet stood there quietly, but it kept appearing at the edge of my vision, demanding my attention.

I deliberately avoided looking at it and went farther inside, where I found a dormitory. There were five beds, exactly matching the number of Greenleaf Paranormal Agency members I knew about. Like the desks outside, only one of the beds had bedding and a curtain. The other four were empty. The wardrobe beside them contained only a few men's clothes. Judging from their sizes and styles, they belonged to a young man about six foot three. The bathroom had just one toothbrush and one ordinary-looking towel. The kitchen had all kinds of cookware and dishes, but no food or seasonings. The refrigerator was empty, too.

It made me uneasy. Then I thought, maybe only one person lived here. Maybe only the "boss" stayed here, while everyone else had their own homes and commuted to work. There was a woman among them, after all. It wasn't as if four men and one woman could all sleep in the same room, was it? The kitchen was easy enough to explain, too. A small agency could just hire someone to come cook lunch. But there wasn't a single morsel of food...

As I thought, I opened another door farther down. Beyond it was a corridor, with rooms on both sides and at the end. The rooms on either side were full of cardboard boxes. Some had been opened, while others were still sealed with packing tape.

I opened the nearest box. To my surprise, it contained a computer. I checked the other open boxes. They were full of computer towers, monitors, mice, keyboards... There were several sets, far more than four.

The room on the other side also had several boxes piled up. I opened one. It was another computer.

This wasn't a computer store or a tech company. Why were there so many computers here?

The thought had only just crossed my mind when I suddenly looked at an unopened box nearby.

I propped my phone to one side and used my key to slice open the box. A choking smell of smoke billowed out. I instinctively waved a hand, and a pile of ashes burst out like a shower of petals. I hurried back two steps. Once the commotion died down, I covered my nose and mouth and went closer, shining my phone into the box.

It was filled to the brim with ashes, like the pile left over after burning paper offerings for Tomb-Sweeping Day. I picked up a small scrap of paper that hadn't burned completely. On it was a blurry mark. It didn't look like a word so much as some kind of bizarre scribble.

A sudden flash of insight brought to mind the talisman Greenleaf had given Fang Guoying during the Water Ghost Face case.

Was it... that thing?

But why had it all been burned?

Spontaneous combustion...

My hand relaxed, and the scrap fell back into the box.

The chill that had just vanished crept back.

"Qi-ge!"

I jumped, almost dropping my phone. Without thinking, I hurried out of the room. For some reason, I broke into a jog, and when I reached the entrance, I saw the Skinny Guy and the Fat Guy.

"Why'd you come up here?" I asked.

"What's wrong with you?" The Skinny Guy jumped. "Why are you breathing so hard?"

I froze, only then realizing that my breathing had grown heavy at some point.

"Qi-ge, are you all right?" the Fat Guy asked with concern.

"I'm fine." I wiped my forehead. My hand came away covered in cold sweat.

"There's definitely something wrong with this place, isn't there?" The Skinny Guy wore an expression that said, I knew this would happen. "We'd better get out of here."

"Did you finish checking?" I asked.

"We asked everyone on the fifth floor. We were worried something might've happened to you, so we came up to check," the Fat Guy answered.

"Oh, then..." I started, then glanced over my shoulder.

The filing cabinet stood quietly where it was.

"What is it, Qi-ge? Did you hear something?" the Skinny Guy asked nervously.

"No, I was just going to say I haven't looked through the files yet. You've finished checking this whole building, so give me a call." I turned to the Skinny Guy.

The Skinny Guy raised a thumb. "Manly! A real man!"

I smiled, but my grip on the phone was so tight that the veins on my hand bulged.

Manly? No. I'd just... said it without thinking.

"Call us if anything happens," the Fat Guy said.

"Don't worry." I nodded.

They went downstairs. I waited until their heads disappeared into the stairwell, then slowly turned and walked to the filing cabinet. I opened it and started looking.

My earlier guess had been right. The files were arranged by date and number, and divided into two major categories: "Resolved" and "Unresolved." Last time, I'd pulled out a few at random, and they'd all been unresolved cases. This time, I searched for events they'd successfully dealt with.

The Skinny Guy had told me to look for the last case they'd handled. Before, I hadn't taken the "paranormal agency" seriously, so it hadn't occurred to me to look into it that way. Now that I realized this agency really knew what it was doing, I searched carefully.

Rustle!