Cao Hua

The girl in the passenger seat covered her cherry-red lips in shock, glancing at Zhao Qiang beside her with fearful eyes. What worried her most now was probably whether her boyfriend would kill her to silence her in broad daylight.

After Gao Tian said that, Zhao Qiang's expression changed.

"Gao, don't make things up. When did I ever—"

Gao Tian lazily cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, you absolutely never knocked her out from behind with a shovel while she was on the phone with another man; you absolutely never threatened to kill my whole family when I happened to pass by, forcing me to help you dig a hole; you absolutely never had to throw several more shovelfuls of dirt on her when her hands and feet suddenly started moving again while half her body was already buried; you absolutely never transferred five hundred thousand yuan to me as hush money; you've slept soundly all these years and absolutely never dreamed of her coming to find you, her face covered in blood..."

Then Gao Tian didn't give Zhao Qiang a chance to think. He rattled off several more details in one breath: what the weather had been like that day, what brand of shovel Zhao Qiang had used, and what luxury brand he'd been wearing under his school uniform.

The Memory Ghost's ability had begun to take effect. The more Zhao Qiang tried to contradict Gao Tian, the more he couldn't help probing into the details he mentioned—and the easier it was to get tangled up in them.

The more Zhao Qiang recalled, the more he felt that Gao Tian was telling the truth. Before long, his guilty conscience had him imagining even more details, trapping himself completely.

Everything came back vividly. He had "remembered" the past in full. Cold sweat trickled down Zhao Qiang's forehead as his Triangle Eyes glared at Gao Tian. He wished he could find another shovel right then and bury the only person who knew the truth.

No, his girlfriend knew now, too. More and more people in the world knew his secret.

"What the hell do you want?"

Zhao Qiang cut Gao Tian off, furious.

"Didn't I give you five hundred thousand yuan back then? That's no small sum. What more do you want?

"Are you short on money? If you owe anyone, I can settle it with the debt collectors. If you need a job, I can set you up with an easy one—a secure government position.

"Gao, don't think you can hold this over me for the rest of my life. If it comes to it, we can both go down. I'll find someone to take you out, then flee overseas."

The menace in his expression wasn't a bluff. Zhao Qiang wasn't the sort to scheme or put on an act. If he planned to do something, he said it plainly.

Gao Tian patted Zhao Qiang on the back, signaling him to relax.

"Don't tense up so much, Brother Qiang. I'm not the kind of person who'd blackmail you over one thing for the rest of your life. Besides, I don't care about money.

"I made it clear from the start. You find someone for me, and once you do, we'll be even. I'll keep what happened back then to myself. You can pretend I never existed."

He put the Yellow Fingernail Clipping back into the Transparent Bag and handed it to Zhao Qiang again.

"This person is dead. This is the DNA he left behind. Help me find everything there is to know about him from when he was alive.

"I know your family has run plenty of debt-collection companies, always with an excellent reputation. You have a lot of influence in the field.

"There's a story about an orphan who owed a loan shark. He was already over fifty and had never met his parents. To make sure he could repay his debt, your people actually tracked down his father, who was over seventy, at a nursing home.

"With that kind of ability to find people, helping me find one person isn't asking too much, is it?"

Zhao Qiang's expression shifted from light to dark. His Triangle Eyes fixed on Gao Tian for a long time before he finally reached out, reluctantly taking the Transparent Bag and slipping it into his coat pocket.

"What kind of person? How long has he been dead? Why are you looking for him?"

Gao Tian replied:

"He's been dead for about seven years. He was a man named Xu Yuan. He went to Honglong Elementary School.

"Why am I looking for him... Because he turned into a Ghost after he died and has been haunting me ever since."

Even in such a tense atmosphere, the girl in the passenger seat couldn't help snorting with laughter at Gao Tian's joke.

Zhao Qiang's expression was extremely grim, but he still managed a nod.

"Fine. If you don't want to tell me what happened between you and him, so be it.

"Add my number. I'll get in touch in about a week."

Gao Tian nodded, knowing that the matter was settled. He turned to leave.

The Memory Ghost's ability was unbelievably useful against Living People and intelligent Ghosts.

He also knew that he had "awakened" Zhao Qiang's memories. Zhao Qiang hated him enough to grind his teeth, and if he got the chance, he'd surely try to kill him.

With someone so ruthless, what difference did it make to kill one person or two?

But Gao Tian truly didn't care. He was part of the Supernatural Circle. Why would he be afraid of gangsters? While talking with Zhao Qiang, their eyes had accidentally met four times. That meant Gao Tian had used the Shattered Face Ghost's ability to steal four Puzzle Pieces from Zhao Qiang's face.

One more time, and with a single thought, Gao Tian could kill Zhao Qiang on the spot. Whether Xiao Qiang was alive or dead was now entirely up to Gao Tian. Zhao Qiang himself had no idea.

Just as Gao Tian turned to leave, Zhao Qiang seemed to remember something and suddenly called after him.

"Hey, are you going to Cao Hua's funeral this Sunday?

"When we were in school, he gave me the answers during every exam. I'm not a good person, but I still remember what he did for me. Now that he's gone, I'm planning to pay my respects.

"I remember you were pretty close to him, too."

Gao Tian stopped where he was. He heard his heart turn to stone, and his blood race like a runaway horse.

Cao Hua... was dead?

He understood every word, so why couldn't he understand them put together?

It had to be a joke. Old Cao had still been talking to him just three days ago, his mouth full of grease.

It had to be a joke.

Gao Tian slowly turned around. He heard his own voice come from his mouth, distant as if from another star system.

"Cao Hua is dead?

"Are you sure?"

Zhao Qiang spat on the ground, clearly offended that Gao Tian doubted him.

"What the fuck do you mean by that? You think I'd joke about a classmate dying?

"He died about two days ago. He'd been working overtime at his internship. I heard all his coworkers had left. When they came in the next day, Cao Ge was lying at his desk, and his body had already started to stink. There was no point even taking him to the hospital.

"The strange thing was, the computer screen right in front of his desk had exploded, too. It was like Cao Hua had used the last of his strength to punch the computer screen apart before he died.

"He died of a heart attack. Sigh, that kid pushed himself too hard even back in school. He studied fourteen hours a day. I told him back then, 'You're already in the top five in the grade and guaranteed admission to that 911 University. What the hell are you studying for? You should be like me—go to bars, pick up girls, enjoy campus life.'"

Gao Tian knew very well—better than anyone—that he had caused Cao Hua's death.

He could already picture what had happened.

At the internship, after all the other coworkers had left, Cao Hua had finished a day's work and remembered what his "godson" had asked him to do. So he'd opened the link and, using his well-practiced Network Technology skills, quickly recovered a backup of the deleted post.

But he hadn't expected to see something he shouldn't have. The post Xu Yuan had published might have contained some kind of Meme Contamination from a Supernatural Event. Or perhaps it had been a trap Xu Yuan had laid from the start, meant to hunt down anyone trying to uncover the Jialan Society's secrets.

Who knew? It didn't matter.

Cao Hua was dead. His cause of death was a heart attack.

As for the hole burned through the computer screen, Gao Tian guessed that a Vengeful Ghost had really crawled out through the internet and locked onto Cao Hua.

Whatever the case, the direct cause of Cao Hua's death was Gao Tian asking him to recover that supernatural post.

This was what happened when ordinary people were dragged into Supernatural Events. When faced with Vengeful Ghosts, people who lived in the Normal World were like ants, utterly incapable of protecting themselves.

This was the first time Gao Tian had understood that shallow truth, but he had learned it at the cost of his friend's life.

Gao Tian felt his soul leave his skull and drift higher and higher. Guilt weighed on him like a massive hill, crushing the breath from his lungs.

He was like a walking corpse, moving as if pulled by strings, with no sense of himself at all.

Numbly, Gao Tian took out his phone and pointed it at Zhao Qiang.

"I'm not going to the funeral. I have 227,651 yuan and 30 cents on me. When you go to the funeral, give it to Cao Hua's family for me."

Zhao Qiang might have been a bad person, but he wouldn't steal such a small amount from Gao Tian. He spent five figures on tips at nightclubs every day.

Zhao Qiang nodded.

"Got it. I'll give it to them.

"Why did you send such an odd amount? Never mind, I'll add some myself and send his parents five hundred thousand. That way, we can say we both contributed. How does that sound?"

Gao Tian had no desire to keep talking with Zhao Qiang. He turned stiffly and walked step by step in the opposite direction from the road.

He had caused Cao Hua's death. He was the one who had killed Cao Hua.

After returning to the Living Person Apartment, Gao Tian lay on the bed with the last of his strength. His mind was blank, and he couldn't think of anything.

No wonder Cao Hua had suddenly stopped replying to him on WeChat. He'd been dead for two days.

But that only strengthened Gao Tian's resolve to uncover Xu Yuan's true identity. Otherwise, Cao Hua's death would have been for nothing.

Aside from the lead through Zhao Qiang, he needed to find another Computer Expert who could dig up the backup of the post Xu Yuan had left behind.

But this time, the post had to be recovered inside the Living Person Apartment. It could suppress the abilities of all Ghosts. Otherwise, it would only lead to another tragedy like Cao Hua's.

While Gao Tian was still thinking, a strange sound came again from somewhere above the Fourth Floor.