Chen Xiaoqiu came with me to Greenleaf. We didn't say a word the whole way.
It was her first time at Greenleaf, and she looked around. The first thing she noticed was the missing dust mark on the sofa.
I felt a little embarrassed. After all, that mark had been left by my butt, so I could only say, "I found the iron box in the room inside."
Chen Xiaoqiu's attention shifted. She followed me down the inner corridor.
As soon as I opened the cardboard box, I saw the iron box inside. The cat bones lay quietly within it.
Chen Xiaoqiu fell silent too.
I couldn't help asking, "Do you still think I'm imagining things?"
Chen Xiaoqiu raised her eyelids. "Maybe someone at Greenleaf is just playing tricks."
"Then they must be master thieves." I joked. I didn't mind that Chen Xiaoqiu refused to believe in the supernatural. I figured the people at Greenleaf wouldn't mind either. They wouldn't take it as an insult.
"Let's go." I closed the cardboard box.
Chen Xiaoqiu had just stepped outside when she stopped.
I saw her turn her head to the right and asked, "Is something wrong with that painting? Is it a famous work?"
I couldn't make sense of that abstract painting, but maybe Chen Xiaoqiu could. She looked like the cultured, intellectual type.
"Oh. My memory isn't wrong." Chen Xiaoqiu said something that made no sense to me. "When we came in, there really was a painting on that wall, not a door."
My head buzzed. I hurried out of the room and turned around!
At the end of the corridor was indeed a door, not the abstract painting I'd seen last time!
Even though I'd come to trust the people at Greenleaf and thought they were friendly, a chill