Chen Xuanqiu, having lived two lives, had never witnessed such a terrifying sight. Consequently, she suffered from insomnia the entire night.
The next morning, Chen Xuanqiu appeared utterly dispirited, her complexion haggard. Her long hair clung damply to her delicate face.
“Did you not sleep last night? You look so drained.”
Fang Jianbo asked, surprised.
“N-no…”
Chen Xuanqiu stammered her reply. Recalling the events of that night, a shiver of dread swept through her, causing her to tremble involuntarily.
“Why didn’t you sleep? Can you tell me what happened?”
Fang Jianbo inquired, his tone as gentle as possible, his eyes filled with pity.
“I… I saw a woman last night. She was sitting on that bed…”
Chen Xuanqiu glanced at the adjacent bed, her bloodshot eyes wide with terror.
“A woman? And then?”
Fang Jianbo frowned slightly. Having encountered supernatural phenomena himself, he naturally wouldn’t dismiss her words.
“Then?”
Chen Xuanqiu shook her head dazedly, unable to continue. She didn’t know how to explain, nor whether anyone would believe her story.
“Why is it so cold today?”
Chen Xuanqiu pulled her blanket tighter.
“Cold? How can it be cold in April or May? It’s perfectly sunny outside.”
Fang Jianbo, feeling puzzled, reached out and touched Chen Xuanqiu’s forehead.
“Oh my god, you’re burning up, my silly sister!”
Fang Jianbo recoiled his hand, scalded, and rushed to find a nurse.
Soon after, Chen Xuanqiu was back on an IV drip. The doctor’s diagnosis was a common cold.
Though her mind was muddled, Chen Xuanqiu vaguely understood that her cold must be related to the female ghost’s assault the previous night. The “evil wind” had been so intensely cold, leaving her limbs icy for a prolonged period.
Instinctively, Fang Jianbo felt the situation was more complex than it seemed. He called Captain Kong to report.
“She keeps talking about a woman speaking, but I haven’t heard anything,” Fang Jianbo explained.
“I believe there are two possibilities for her condition,” Captain Kong analyzed. “The first is that the kidnapping has caused her psychological distress, and the second is that there truly is something malevolent at work in that hospital room.”
“What should we do then?” Fang Jianbo inquired.
“Here’s what we’ll do: I’ll go to the Panyun Temple and invite an expert to take a look,” Captain Kong mused. “If there’s a malevolent entity, I’ll ask them to remove it. If not, then the young girl might be experiencing mental health issues.”
“If it’s the latter scenario, we’ll need to inform her parents.”
Fang Jianbo hung up the phone and walked back into the hospital room, his expression grave. Compared to a mental illness, he genuinely hoped Chen Xuanqiu had seen a ghost; after all, that would be much simpler to resolve.
Due to her fever, Chen Xuanqiu’s consciousness was muddled, drifting between dreams and wakefulness. She had even forgotten her fear.
After an unknown passage of time, Chen Xuanqiu had a dream. In it, she found herself in a strange country, where the streets were lined with Western-style buildings. People spoke a language she had never heard before, yet, strangely, she could understand it perfectly.
Much like her first “hallucination” on the sports field, she was utterly unable to control her own actions or words. She could only watch as her body moved with a will of its own.
The dream was remarkably vivid, almost like a memory. Chen Xuanqiu and her “cheap sister” played in a plaza, accompanied not only by her mother, Melissa, but also by an elderly foreign couple. Her dream-self referred to them as “grandpa and grandma.”
It felt like a day had passed, or perhaps a year, before Chen Xuanqiu finally awoke from her dream. She then made a peculiar discovery: the language she had heard in her dream felt as though it had been etched into her very soul by an invisible blade, impossible to forget.
“Learning a language in a dream—that’s truly unheard of,” Chen Xuanqiu chuckled self-deprecatingly. Her fever still hadn’t broken, making her smile appear quite haggard.
‘Was this merely a dream, or a memory carried by this body?’ Chen Xuanqiu wondered. She speculated that the latter would undoubtedly be preferable. After all, her current “cheap mother” was foreign, and would inevitably speak her native language to her. If Chen Xuanqiu knew nothing, she would be in trouble.
‘This question should soon be answered,’ she thought. Thinking of her family, who were already on their way, a flicker of anticipation stirred within her.
Chen Xuanqiu waited patiently in bed. As evening approached, Captain Kong returned for another visit, this time accompanied by a middle-aged man in his fifties.
Though dressed in casual clothes, the middle-aged man carried himself with propriety. His swift, decisive movements gave off an air of immense reliability.
“This is a friend of mine; he’s a doctor,” Captain Kong explained. “I heard you were ill, so I specifically asked him to come take a look.”
“It’s nothing, just a cold,” Chen Xuanqiu quickly declared. She truly didn’t want to trouble anyone further with her affairs.
The middle-aged man, however, seemed to pay her no mind. He proceeded to scrutinize Chen Xuanqiu from head to toe.
Chen Xuanqiu felt his gaze was incredibly sharp, as if he possessed x-ray vision. Her expression grew unnatural as she considered her own ‘occupation of another’s nest.’
After thoroughly examining Chen Xuanqiu, the middle-aged man began to look around the hospital room.
“What is he looking at?” Chen Xuanqiu asked Fang Jianbo, puzzled.
“He’s a Taoist priest,” Fang Jianbo whispered in response.
Chen Xuanqiu’s entire body trembled, and her face instantly turned deathly pale.
“What’s wrong?” Fang Jianbo asked, bewildered.
“N-nothing…” Chen Xuanqiu stammered her reply. Her heart, however, pounded in her throat. ‘Could he possibly see that I’ve taken over someone else’s body?’
“Didn’t you keep mentioning strange voices? That’s why Captain Kong asked him to come,” Fang Jianbo explained.
‘It’s all my big mouth’s fault,’ Chen Xuanqiu lamented, filled with remorse. She secretly vowed that if she could get through this, she would definitely become a more tight-lipped person in the future.
The middle-aged man observed for a long while before calling Captain Kong out of the room.
Chen Xuanqiu grew increasingly restless, like a criminal awaiting judgment.
****
“Taoist Jin, what’s the situation?” Captain Kong asked urgently once they were outside the ward.
“There’s nothing unclean in the hospital room,” the middle-aged man replied.
“What about the young girl?” Captain Kong pressed, still uneasy.
“There’s nothing unusual about her either; it’s simply a common cold,” the middle-aged man responded again.
“Alright, thank you for your trouble, Taoist Jin,” Captain Kong said, expressing his gratitude repeatedly. However, his expression showed no relief. The absence of any malevolent presence was the most troubling outcome, indicating that the young girl was indeed ill—and with the most difficult kind of illness: a mental one.
After seeing off the middle-aged Taoist priest, Captain Kong finally returned to the hospital room.
Chen Xuanqiu watched Captain Kong apprehensively, cold sweat drenching her hospital gown. She felt like a criminal on the execution ground, seeing the executioner approach.
“Don’t worry,” Captain Kong said, reassuring Chen Xuanqiu. “Taoist Jin said there’s nothing in this room, and you just have a simple cold.”
“Phew!”
Chen Xuanqiu felt as though she had just walked through the gates of hell, letting out a long, shaky breath.
“So, doesn’t that mean she…” Fang Jianbo began, looking at Chen Xuanqiu with pity.
“Shut up,” Captain Kong quickly interjected.
Chen Xuanqiu, having narrowly escaped disaster, was simply too overjoyed to notice the expressions on the two police officers’ faces.
Initially, Chen Xuanqiu harbored some doubts about the Taoist’s words. However, throughout the rest of the night, she heard the woman’s voice no more.
‘So what I saw the night before last was real,’ Chen Xuanqiu calmly analyzed after a full night’s sleep and her cold having subsided. ‘The female ghost was incinerated by a wisp of flame.’
‘What kind of flame is so potent that it can burn a ghost?’ she mused further. Recalling the situation, she remembered distinctly that the small flame seemed to have ignited from within her “heart,” its source an inexplicable surge of heat.
‘A surge of heat?’ Chen Xuanqiu carefully re-examined the sensation. A clue suddenly surfaced in her mind: the impression of that heat surge was strikingly similar to how she felt when Dr. Wei injected her with the super female hormone in the laboratory.
‘Could this heat surge be connected to that super female hormone?’ Chen Xuanqiu naturally wondered. A strong curiosity about the composition of the super female hormone ignited within her.
‘How did the Wei grandfather and grandson duo develop their super female hormone? What ingredients did they use?’ Chen Xuanqiu murmured to herself. A profound sense of powerlessness washed over her, knowing that both the Wei grandfather and grandson were dead. She surmised this might forever remain an unsolved mystery.
By noon, Chen Xuanqiu finally welcomed her family in this new world.