When Shen Xing realized someone was watching him, his heart began beating faster for no reason. The change showed up immediately on the monitor beside him.
He had no choice but to cough twice, then slowly open his eyes.
The first thing he saw was a middle-aged man with a slightly sallow complexion and a slight build. He was the one who had just spoken.
The man's hair was a little disheveled. He wore a gray jacket and slacks, and the jacket had yellowed with age, but he still couldn't bear to throw it away.
Yet his gaze was composed and deep, as if he could see right through Shen Xing's thoughts.
"So you're awake?" Li Naijing walked over.
Then she shrugged. "It's not a big deal that you heard us. You've already encountered something abnormal. We can't hide all this from you."
As she spoke, Li Naijing looked at the middle-aged man sitting beside Shen Xing. "Brother Zheng, what do you think?"
The man was Zheng Ruijun, head of the Special Case Investigation Unit at Yungu City's Public Security Bureau. When Li Naijing had first met Shen Xing, he hadn't shown up because he was busy with another case.
But this time, the commotion had been so great that even though the case in his hands was still unresolved, Zheng Ruijun had no choice but to come take a look.
He had actually entered the hospital room with Li Naijing, Xiong Wei, and the others. He simply hadn't said anything, and had moved quietly enough that he'd taken a seat beside the bed without drawing attention.
When Li Naijing asked for his opinion, Zheng Ruijun said nothing and merely nodded.
Apparently taking that as permission, Li Naijing turned to Shen Xing. "Do you believe there are ghosts in this world?"
Shen Xing paused, then slowly replied in a hoarse voice, "Before... I didn't. But now, I do."
The young man sitting on the other side of the bed said, "Actually, even now, those of us in the Investigation Team don't really believe in them."
His words left Shen Xing startled instead.
Li Naijing pointed to the young man, then to Zheng Ruijun, and introduced them. "This is Zhao Wenbo, and this is our team leader, Zheng Ruijun."
"Why don't you believe?" Shen Xing asked.
Zhao Wenbo smiled and shook his head without answering, as if it were a secret—or perhaps something that couldn't be explained.
Li Naijing said, "Because the things we've encountered are so bizarre—far too bizarre. We can't accurately or effectively define these strange incidents."
Shen Xing nodded thoughtfully.
"That Mange Dog that died in your bedroom—is it the same one you told Naijing about last time, the one you encountered in the garbage alley behind your residential complex?" Zheng Ruijun asked.
"Milk powder?" Shen Xing didn't understand at first. Then his expression turned awkward, and he nodded. "Yes, that's the one."
"Did you notice anything different the second time you saw it?" Zheng Ruijun asked, without thinking anything of the misunderstanding.
Shen Xing tried to pull his attention away from the image of milk powder that had popped into his mind and think carefully. "I didn't pay much attention to the dog the first time. It even dirtied my pants. The second time, I noticed something wrong with its eye. It was as if Lin Wanru's Blood Pupil had appeared in its eye socket."
Zheng Ruijun nodded slightly and looked at Li Naijing and Zhao Wenbo. They seemed to have guessed as much already; they'd just needed Shen Xing to confirm it.
"Did you see the Blood Pupil?"
The officers hadn't found the Blood Pupil in Shen Xing's bedroom afterward—well, apart from the Wooden Carving that looked a lot like it.
As for that carving, along with the half-body Wooden Carving of Hong Bin, it was still sitting on Shen Xing's workbench. It was only a handicraft, so the members of the case team hadn't considered it important.
Shen Xing appeared to be recalling what happened, but he was really trying to figure out what to say. After a pause, he replied, "In the heat of the moment, I think I stabbed the dog's eyeball with the Arc Blade, then yanked it out. After that, I saw the dog lying on the ground, but I couldn't hold on any longer and soon passed out. Later, I felt someone lifting me. I guess that was when you arrived."
"So after you dug out the eyeball, you never saw it again?" Li Naijing asked suspiciously.
Shen Xing gave a bitter smile and shook his head. "I'm not even sure I dug out the eyeball at all. You have to understand, everything was chaotic. My shoulder was bleeding badly, and I thought I was going to die. I had no time to worry about anything else."
"Why did you try to dig out its eye instead of stabbing one of the dog's vital organs?" Zheng Ruijun asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
Shen Xing looked at Li Naijing, still smiling bitterly. "You can ask Li Naijing about that. When Lin Wanru's body appeared, I noticed something wrong with the Blood Pupil. It terrified me. I even carved an unfinished eyeball out of wood because of it. Li Naijing knows about that too."
Zheng Ruijun looked at Li Naijing, who nodded.
Shen Xing continued, "So when the vicious dog was chasing and biting me, the moment I grabbed the Arc Blade, I almost instinctively thrust it toward the eyeball."
That was the gist of it. But what the investigators cared about most was where the Blood Pupil had gone.
Of course, Shen Xing wasn't concerned with what they cared about.
He only knew that so far, he'd collected two ghosts: Hong Bin and the Blood Pupil.
After talking a little longer, the Investigation Team members left, and Xiong Wei came over to Shen Xing's bed.
"Captain Xiong, you know about ghosts too?" Shen Xing asked before Xiong Wei could say anything.
Xiong Wei nodded. "I'm with the Homicide Unit. During investigations, I've run into strange incidents from time to time."
"Does every murder case involve a ghost?" Shen Xing asked curiously.
Xiong Wei smiled. "There aren't that many ghosts! We encounter them very, very rarely. And you heard Zhao Wenbo just now: even the members of the Special Case Investigation Unit don't really believe these strange incidents have anything to do with ghosts."
Shen Xing had a rough idea now. He nodded. "We can't prove it completely for now, but let's call them 'ghosts' for the time being."
To be honest, after the image of the Blood Pupil crawling along his optic nerve surfaced in his mind, Shen Xing wasn't sure whether that thing was actually a ghost. It might have been some kind of bizarre force, or perhaps Lin Wanru's resentment had gathered in her eyeball after her death and caused it to change in some unusual way.
In any case, even the Special Case Investigation Unit couldn't be sure, and he had no answers either.
"Phew!"
Shen Xing sighed. The events and changes of the past few days had left him utterly exhausted. Weariness washed over him, and he was about to close his eyes and rest again.
"Get some rest and focus on recovering. Until they find the strange eyeball Li Naijing mentioned, you'll need to stay alert." Seeing that Shen Xing wanted to sleep, Xiong Wei spoke as he took a red, hard-cover certificate from the briefcase in his hand.
"This is a 'Good Citizen' award from the Public Security Bureau. There's a ten-thousand-yuan prize, which will be deposited directly into your account to reward you for helping the bureau catch the murderer."
"Oh, if you're going to talk about this, then I'm wide awake." Shen Xing opened his eyes, immediately spotting the red certificate.
Xiong Wei laughed and placed it in the bedside cabinet drawer. He reminded him, "Remember to take it with you when you're discharged. You lost too much blood, but you'll be fine after resting for a while. The wound itself isn't serious."
Shen Xing thanked him, then casually asked, "The cost of my treatment this time..."
"The Public Security Bureau will cover it. Don't worry," Xiong Wei said.
"Then I'm relieved," Shen Xing said bluntly, looking as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
He ran a small business. Anyone would worry if they suddenly got stuck with such an expensive medical bill.
"Did they lock the door at my place?" Shen Xing suddenly remembered to ask.
Xiong Wei smiled. "They did. We also had one of the Public Security Bureau's partner companies replace your front door and bedroom door with security doors. The locks are new too. They'll bring the keys over by tomorrow at the latest."
"Mm, thanks!"
Shen Xing patted his chest. His compulsive worry vanished at once, and he closed his eyes, finally able to sleep in peace.
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