Chapter 624: Unexpected People

Listening to all this, Lin Dongxue couldn’t help but feel a bit melancholic. Chen Shi said, “It seems like he really enjoys staying here.”

“Yeah, just like a child!” The old lady smiled with satisfaction. “Although he can’t speak, I understand what he wants just by his whines—whether someone has come or if it’s raining outside. At night, when he can’t sleep, I tell him stories about Meng Jiangnu weeping by the Great Wall, or the Little Horse Crossing the River. He kneels in front of me, listening so attentively… Sometimes he reminds me of my deceased son. My son was honest and hardworking, toiling on construction sites. He worked a whole year without pay until his coworkers had him stand on top of that crane and called the reporters to expose it. The boss finally paid up. My son went up there, climbed more than a hundred meters on that windy day, and once he got up there, he never came down…”

The old lady’s tone was remarkably calm, as if she had recounted this story many times before, her sighs carrying a sense of resignation.

“Officer, I don’t know what trouble the dog has gotten into, but please, be lenient. He’s a good kid. If he causes trouble outside, there must be a reason. He wouldn’t just provoke others for no reason.”

Chen Shi lied to her, “We just want to find him and understand the situation. When did he leave?”

“Last week. He hasn’t come back since.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Of course, I’m worried. If you find him, no matter what trouble he’s in, please let me see him, okay?”

“Okay, we’ll let you know.”

Leaving there, the two inquired with neighbors. They said the dog had returned the day before yesterday, just before the second incident occurred. It was clear the old lady was lying, intentionally covering for this ‘adopted son,’ but Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue didn’t confront her about it.

Leaving the village, Chen Shi sighed, “We’re all just drifting souls in this world.”

“I’ll contact my brother to set up a surveillance perimeter around here!”

“Okay!”

Xu Xiaodong called, saying he had an important discovery, but he couldn’t explain over the phone and asked them to come back quickly.

It turned out Xu Xiaodong had found someone near the scene of the second incident—surprisingly, it was Zhou Xiao’s girlfriend, Wang Ying. She wasn’t there at the time of the incident but had appeared on the nights of the 12th and 13th, before the incident.

Chen Shi praised Xu Xiaodong for finding this clue amidst all the surveillance footage—a person seemingly unrelated to the case who appeared at the crime scene beforehand. Just this fact alone warranted another visit.

Lin Dongxue suggested, “Wang Ying should still be at work! Should we go to her workplace?”

“Let’s send her a text!”

Lin Dongxue messaged her, expressing a desire to meet. Wang Ying didn’t reply until evening, saying, “Sorry, I’ve been working and didn’t check my phone. I’m heading home now.”

“We’ll come to you!”

Two hours later, the three arrived at Wang Ying’s residence. Chen Shi had printed out the surveillance footage of her appearances and directly showed it to her, asking, “Miss Wang, how do you explain this?”

“Do I have to explain everywhere I go?” Wang Ying was taken aback, not expecting their visit to be about this.

“Of course, you don’t have to explain, but you were at the scene of a homicide on the night of the 14th. You appeared there earlier. There must be a reason, right?”

“What!? Who was killed… I couldn’t stop him.” Wang Ying bit her lip.

“Stop who? The Silent One?” Chen Shi pressed.

Wang Ying looked down, silent for a while before speaking, “Actually, I’ve stayed at Kangfu Psychiatric Hospital for rehabilitation.”

This surprised all three of them. It turned out she, Zhou Xiao, and the Silent One all knew each other. Wang Ying continued, “On that night, Zhou Xiao came to tell me he had seen the Silent One. He gave the director’s address to the Silent One. I was scared. If the director was really killed, would Zhou Xiao be guilty of incitement to murder? I didn’t want him to go to prison, so I wanted to stop it. I wanted to tell the Silent One that murder wouldn’t solve anything; that person had already received retribution… I went there to stop him, but after two days of waiting, I didn’t see him. I thought he had stopped, but who knew…”

“Why didn’t you just tell us that day?” Chen Shi asked.

Wang Ying started crying, covering her face, “I didn’t want you to catch the Silent One. The real villain is the director! It’s those nursing staff! We’ve all suffered greatly… Two male officers, can you please step aside for a moment? I have something to show Officer Lin.”

Chen Shi and Xu Xiaodong went to another room. Through the door, they heard Lin Dongxue’s astonished voice, “Is this the director’s doing!?”

“Yes! Now you understand why we hate him so much.”

“Old Chen, Xiaodong, you can come out now.”

The two returned to the living room. Wang Ying sat there gloomily, holding a teacup. Remembering the past made her look sad. Lin Dongxue said, “She has a long scar on her waist. That hospital harvested patients’ kidneys for money.”

Wang Ying calmly recounted, “Hidden in their admission contracts was a inconspicuous line, ‘If Party B cannot provide treatment fees, Party A is allowed to collect treatment fees through labor dispatch or medical experiments.’ This was a huge trap. Those of us patients, once our families no longer cared, or if we had no families, the director’s subordinates would take us to the basement, draw blood and prepare files. We were like livestock waiting to be slaughtered. Once someone needed a kidney of a certain blood type, that person would be taken away. When they returned, they’d have an ugly scar!” Wang Ying’s lips trembled, tears falling into the cup. “That place had no real medical treatment at all. Their idea of treatment was massive doses of medication. We ate rotten food, slept under cold blankets, and every night, the cries of patients echoed in the corridors. I had a roommate who developed a fever after having her kidney removed, crying all night in the next room. Two nursing aides were playing cards in the duty room, laughing. They heard but didn’t care. In the early hours, my roommate stopped crying. There was no sound at all. As dawn broke, I saw those two nursing aides carrying out a stretcher. Later, the director told us she had recovered and left the hospital!” Wang Ying forced a bitter smile, shaking her head. “This was the only disappearance I witnessed firsthand. Many patients disappeared overnight. Because our bodies were already so weak, taking away a kidney meant death. The night I was brought back from the operating room, I cried all night. I was so scared I wouldn’t survive the night, so scared I would also ‘disappear’!”

She looked up, tears in her eyes as she looked at the three of them. “That place is hell, and the director is Satan. He ruled there alone, where absurd and bizarre things happened every day. But this world has forgotten us. We’ve just died ahead of schedule, leaving behind numb bodies to pass the days. Until someone stood up to resist…”