The Vanished Resident

I had seen that face for over twenty years, watched it gradually become what it was now. It was neither handsome nor ugly, with regular features and an alert, energetic look. But the reflection I saw in the water stain felt somewhat unfamiliar. The face was twisted, pale, with a ring of shadow around its head that looked like long hair.

Smack!

"What are you spacing out for, Lin Qi?"

"Gasp!" I sucked in a breath, reached behind me to rub my aching back, and looked up to see Guo Yujie's long, straight legs.

This woman was pretty, had a great figure, and was open and cheerful, like a tomboy. She had no concept of distance between men and women and loved getting handsy. But anyone who thought being friends with her was a chance to take advantage had clearly never suffered at her hands. Because she had another trait that overshadowed all the rest—she was born with monstrous strength! A shoulder bump here, an elbow jab there, a pat from her soft little hand...

Gasp! My back started hurting again. I hurriedly picked up the broken teacup pieces from the floor and threw them away, then went to get the mop.

By then, Guo Yujie had already taken my seat and clicked the mouse several times. "You were looking at something from that whatever agency?"

"Greenleaf Paranormal Agency," I supplied.

"How is it? Is it a ghost story? Is it scary?" Guo Yujie kept clicking away. "Huh? There are so many audio files! Is that what was on the USB drive? What does this file say?"

I stood in the corner of the office gripping the mop, not answering any of the questions she fired off one after another.

Was it scary?

It was no scarier than a horror movie. After all, there were no visuals, and even the people at Greenleaf had never seen that pale, black-haired ghost face. But to say it was not scary... Fang Guoying's voice was truly chilling, especially in that final phone call. It sounded like a scream from someone on the verge of death, enough to make your soul leave your body. He had truly been afraid—afraid to the point of breaking down.

But all of that felt distant to me, like a jumpscare in a horror movie. Once the rush of pounding heartbeat passed, it was over. Maybe it would suddenly come back to me at some random moment, but it would not be that frightening.

What I could not let go of was the final part of the file.

Greenleaf Paranormal Agency had not found those ghost faces, had not dealt with them, and could not determine whether they would appear again.

I probably would never visit Forest Park again for the rest of my life.

"Hey, Lin Qi, did you hear me? Did it really scare you?" Guo Yujie turned and called to me.

"You ask too many questions." I brushed her off and mopped up the water stain on the floor.

"Is it scary?" Guo Yujie selected one question from her countless others.

"It's all right." I continued brushing her off.

"This agency is really strange. Why do they love using audio recordings so much? And why make paper documents too?" Guo Yujie's attention shifted as she casually flipped through several file folders I had left on the desk.

Each folder had several USB drives attached to it, with labels bearing case numbers. In other words, every case had a paper file and a USB drive full of audio files. It really was a strange way of handling things, and impossible to make sense of.

"Maybe it saves time," I guessed.

"If they want to save time, they should just make everything audio." Guo Yujie let go, and the folder snapped shut.

Suddenly, a set of messy, dragging footsteps sounded outside the office. Before long, one fat figure and one skinny figure appeared at the doorway, swaying as they squeezed through the none-too-wide door.

"Brother Qi, Sister Guo." The fat one greeted us between gasps.

The skinny one simply collapsed over a chair, barely breathing.

"What happened to you two?" Guo Yujie asked curiously.

"Wasn't it because we had to find that whatever agency?" The skinny one snorted irritably.

"Greenleaf Paranormal Agency," I supplied again.

The fat one sat down too, making the chair creak.

"How did the search go?" Guo Yujie asked with malicious delight. She had clearly guessed the result from their condition and was asking even though she knew.

"Like hell!" the skinny one snapped.

"We first went to find the security guard at that residential compound." The fat one wiped his sweat and eagerly answered Guo Yujie's question. "The guard was new and had never seen anyone from the agency. He told us to find his captain. The captain also lived in the compound, on the third floor of Building Nine. We went there, and he said he had seen several people from the agency. They were all young, men and women, but he did not know their names. He told us to ask the neighborhood committee."

"Didn't we ask the neighborhood committee ages ago?" Guo Yujie cut in.

"Yeah, but the guard meant the former director of the neighborhood committee. She also lives in the compound, and she knew them, so we went to find her." The fat one wore a miserable expression.

"Fourth floor of Building Seventeen!" the skinny one cried hoarsely from the side.

"And?" Guo Yujie asked with great interest.

"She had a stroke last month. Now she does not even recognize her own daughter," the fat one sighed.

"That old lady was so helpful. She told us there was a household in the compound that had run into something evil and had contacted the agency. She even gave us their address." The skinny one held up his thumb and pinky at Guo Yujie. "Sixth floor of Building Thirty-One!"

"Ha ha ha ha!" Guo Yujie burst out laughing and started counting on her fingers how many floors the two of them had climbed in total.

"What did that person say?" I asked.

"They said they never went in the end. They went to a temple to burn incense instead." The skinny one sighed miserably.

"Then we had no choice but to use the old method and ask the agency's neighbors." The fat one continued.

The residential compound the skinny one and the fat one kept mentioning was called Workers and Peasants Sixth Village. You could tell from the name alone that it was an old residential area. Each building had six floors, with four households on each floor, making twenty-four households in total. Compared to modern high-rise apartments, that was not many people, but this was an old compound. Many residents had sold or rented out their homes, and the people actually living there had changed generation after generation.

No matter how troublesome it was, the work still had to be done. After all, this was one of the areas our demolition office was responsible for demolishing.

At present, the demolition office had only just been set up and was still in the preliminary investigation stage, looking into property owners who had the potential to become holdouts. Doing mediation and communication work before demolition was the guiding principle of the demolition office's old leadership. Minor staff like us, transferred into the demolition office, simply followed orders—investigating, digging around, chasing rumors, acting like a pack of paparazzi. Still, we really had found several property owners who looked certain to become stubborn, unyielding holdouts.

For example, this Greenleaf Paranormal Agency. It occupied the sixth floor of Building Six in Workers and Peasants Sixth Village. The entire floor was their office, with a sign reading "Greenleaf Paranormal Agency" hanging outside. It looked like a group of edgy teenagers playing house.

The demolition office did not care what a resident did for a living, as long as they agreed to the demolition. The problem was that we had never been able to find anyone. When we asked around, it seemed the place had been vacant for years.

An empty house was not a problem either. We could retrieve the records from the Housing Administration Bureau, see who owned it, and contact them directly.

But somehow, the house had never had any transaction records. The Housing Administration Bureau had no digital data on it, only paper files from thirty years ago. When we checked those files, we found they had been damaged, and the homeowner's name was completely illegible.

For our demolition office, this was the absolute worst-case scenario. If we had a name, we could use all kinds of modern information tools. Whether we could find the person or not, there were ways to handle it. But if we did not even know the name, then we were completely in the dark.