Chapter 654 - All the Tenants [2 in 1] (1/2)
Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Millman97
When Chen Ge saw Lee Zheng and Jia Ming, the two at the door saw him as well.
“Chen Ge?” Lee Zheng and Jia Ming said in unison. Neither of them had expected to run into Chen Ge here.
“Why are you here?” Lee Zheng had one hand behind Jia Ming. Even though he was extremely surprised by Chen Ge’s appearance, his hand had not moved an inch.
“Don’t get too close to him, he might not be Chen Ge,” Jia Ming whispered in warning. He looked quite scared. “Have you forgotten what I told you before? The shadow looks exactly like Chen Ge!”
Standing from the perspective of an outsider, there was nothing wrong with what Jia Ming said. A living person appearing at the hotel in the middle of the night in a small town shrouded in blood fog… there had to be some hidden issues about this.
“You posed me so many questions, but coincidentally, I also have many questions to ask you.” Chen Ge also did not dare to put his guard down around Lee Zheng and Jia Ming. Before he arrived at Li Wan City, Lee Zheng had sent him a series of messages, telling him that Jia Ming had escaped from police custody and all the police officers were out and about trying to recapture the criminal.
However, just two hours after that, Lee Zheng and Jia Ming both showed up in Li Wan City. No matter how he thought about it, there was definitely something strange about this development. Lee Zheng had his hand hidden behind Jia Ming, so the barrel of his gun was probably poking right into Jia Ming’s back to prevent Jia Ming from doing anything irrational. Since the man was packed, Chen Ge did not dare act too rashly. Guns were ineffective against Specters, but it would definitely be effective against him.
“In any case, we should all calm down first.” Maintaining the stalemate in the lobby would only be a waste of time. Chen Ge decided to show his hand first. He took out his phone and showed Lee Zheng his call record. “Inspector Lee, I am Chen Ge. There is no doubt about that. I am here because I received an SOS call.”
Chen Ge pointed at the phone records between Fan Chong and himself. “This man was once my Haunted House’s visitor, and he has been acting strangely recently. He told me many strange things, and out of curiosity, I left him my contact number. But to my surprise, he went missing tonight, and I have no idea whether if he is still alive. I am the last person he contacted, so to investigate his disappearance more thoroughly, I rushed to Li Wan City as fast as I could.”
Lee Zheng asked Chen Ge a few more questions. Seeing as Chen Ge answered all of them correctly, he sighed slightly in relief. “After Jia Ming escaped from the hospital, we searched for him through the city and eventually the team managed to confirm his escape route was heading toward the eastern part of town.
“Initially, we thought he was trying to run into the mountains to hide, but after expanding the search zone, I discovered something weird through the surveillance. When he was walking past one of the junctions, Jia Ming covered up his face. Even though he was still wearing his original clothes, his gait was strangely unnatural. I compared the surveillance again and again before coming to the conclusion that Jia Ming probably found someone to take his place at that junction.
“After ordering the rest of the team to continue with the original search, I turned down the other side of the junction to continue the search. The heavy rain proved too difficult for the search effort. It was very hard to look through the rain, but thankfully, the effort was reward. In the end, I caught up to this b*stard at the end of the road. After a round of chasing, I only managed to detain this guy after we entered Li Wan City.”
After hearing what Lee Zheng had to say, Jia Ming waved his hands hurriedly. “Everything I did was because I was forced to by the shadow. If I did not follow his orders, he would have had more than one hundred ways to make my life a living hell.”
“You were forced? How come it feels like you’ve purposely been trying to lure me to this place? What are you planning with this shadow? Admit everything honestly, this is the last chance you have.” Lee Zheng had entered Li Wan City because he was trying to capture Jia Ming, it was an acceptable reason, but for Chen Ge, it also felt quite forced. He had this feeling that there was something off about Jia Ming and Lee Zheng, but he could not really tell what was really wrong about them.
“Inspector Lee, this place is very dangerous. Come in here first, don’t stay at the entrance for too long.” Chen Ge activated the recorder and proactively walked toward the hotel entrance. “Did you run into anything scary on the way here?”
“This blasted place sure is strange. It is raining so heavily outside, but there is not one patch of ground in this small town that is wet. I believe it probably has to do with this blood fog.” Lee Zheng did not answer Chen Ge’s question. With his hand on Jia Ming, he shoved the man into the hotel.
Chen Ge was familiar with how scary Li Wan City was, this place was crawling with ghosts and murderers. Technically speaking, Inspector Lee could deal with murderers with his gun, but how did a normal person like him deal with all those ghosts and monsters?
From how they acted, Jia Ming and Lee Zheng were merely nervous—there was no trace of terror in their eyes.
“Could the shadow be hiding in one of them? Is that why the monsters and ghosts in Li Wan City actively stay away from them?” One was the police, the other a criminal, but Chen Ge had no idea whom might be the hiding place for the shadow. “I cannot jump the gun too soon. Both of them might be who they say they are, and the shadow might be hiding somewhere else.”
Ever obtaining the black phone, the shadow was the most difficult adversary that Chen Ge had faced. He believed that the shadow had gotten both Jia Ming and Lee Zheng here at the same time to confuse him. Chen Ge was cautious around Jia Ming and Lee Zheng, but the two did not trust Chen Ge entirely either. They already knew that the shadow had the ability to transform and mimic another person. Perhaps from their perspective, it was not that hard to believe that the ‘Chen Ge’ before their eyes might be a disguise taken on by the shadow.
“Take any seat you wish. Mind waiting for a moment? I have a few friends who are waiting for me upstairs.” Chen Ge headed up the stairs.
After he turned around, he heard Jia Ming whisper very softly to Lee Zheng, “I’ve told you everything I know about the shadow, and now you’ve met him in person. This proves that I am not lying! Chen Ge is the shadow! We need to leave this place as soon as possible before it is too late! He will definitely kill us to get us silenced!”
“You worked so hard to lure me here just to let me see something like this?” Lee Zheng retorted in a chilling tone. “Since you are able to lure me here, then you would have some method to lure Chen Ge here as well. Plus, it is still undecided whether he is the real shadow or not.”
“It cannot be clearer, and you still want to suspect me?” Jia Ming raised his voice. “Think back to the things that this man has done in the past. Do you think those things are doable by a normal person? He is merely making use of you and the entire police force; he is using all of you to cover up his sin.”
“Cover up his sin? Do you even understand the definition of sin?” Lee Zheng pressed Jia Ming onto his seat at the dining table. “Be honest and be quiet. Stop disturbing me with your misinformation, and don’t do things that you shouldn’t. I know how to make my own judgment.”
Lee Zheng and Jia Ming conversed softly as Chen Ge walked away. When he reached the top of the stairs, there came a knock from the hotel front door.
“Is someone there?” A young man who carried a black schoolbag stood at the entrance. He looked rather polite and weak. “I wish to stay here for the night.”
The young man was in the middle of his puberty, and his voice was changing. Other than that, he looked like a normal high-schooler who probably ran away from home. Pushing his spectacles up his nose, he took a long detour away from Lee Zheng and Jia Ming. He carefully moved to the counter. “Is someone here? Is the boss around?”
Chen Ge, who stood on the second floor, saw everything clearly. “The boy looks similar to the boy that I saw on the high-schooler’s phone when I was on the bus. Therefore, he should be either Bei Wen or Bei Ye.”
When he was taking the last bus on Route 104, Chen Ge had run into an unassuming high-schooler. He had gotten onto the bus because he was in search of his missing schoolmates, and he had shown Chen Ge the picture of his mates. In a pure stroke of luck, the high-schooler that he had described seemed to match the high-schooler who helped Gu Feiyu when he took the bus. To prevent an accident from befalling the high-schooler, Chen Ge had chased him off the bus and promised him to get to the bottom of the truth and help his friends if it was possible.
“When I was playing Xiao Bu’s game, I did run into a high-schooler at the hotel.” Chen Ge gripped the railing, and his gaze wandered between the high-schooler and Lee Zheng. “In Xiao Bu’s game, there were four tenants at the hotel, they were the woman, the high-schooler, the police officer, and Xiao Bu. Now that the police and the high-schooler have showed up, isn’t it time for the woman who can change her skin to show up?”