The most likely possibility was that Zheng Wei's mother had already died.
It was easier to accept that a ghost had made some problematic food, causing an unbelievable change in someone's body.
If a living person had done this, the situation would be much more complicated, and it wouldn't fit with what had happened at the takeout shop and the fried chicken shop.
An old woman who had died and become a ghost without anyone knowing. She probably hadn't meant to take anyone's life, but she might have harmed the people around her without realizing it.
Greenleaf still needed to deal with You Jing first, and I had no idea how their investigation was going.
The five of us made it to the end of the workday, distracted the whole time.
Right on schedule, Wu Ling called.
I answered immediately.
Wu Ling's voice was as steady as ever as she recounted the results of their afternoon investigation.
"...We found the landlord and spoke with him. He didn't know anything. Then we found Han Jiesheng's contact information, but he's out of town on a business trip and won't be back for three days. The mountainous area he went to was affected by the storm, and communications are down, so we can't get in touch with him. We can go see your colleague's mother first."
I was glad we could deal with Zheng Wei's situation first.
Compared with You Jing, what had happened to Zheng Wei's mother was right there around us, so it naturally concerned me more. I felt sympathy for You Jing, but it was only the sympathy one felt for a stranger. Besides, You Jing had been in her current state for twenty years. In terms of urgency, her situation couldn't compare to the danger facing that boy, Yu