Thriller Zone: From the Mental Hospital to the Ghostly World

Officer Zhong glanced at his watch and stood up.

After finishing their meal, the group waited in the tea restaurant for a while, and it was now 2:05 PM.

There were far fewer pedestrians outside, and some vendors were even lying on plastic chairs, fanning themselves and dozing off.

Boom!

As soon as Tian Qinghe stepped out of the restaurant, he immediately pulled his leg back. The next second, a basket of fruit fell at his feet.

"Fuck your mother! You bastard!"

A loud, forceful shout came from the fruit stand next door.

When the group turned around, they saw the stall owner standing with her hands on her hips, pointing in their direction and spewing extremely vulgar profanities.

The fruit in front of her was all knocked over and spilled on the ground, creating a very messy scene.

"?"

Chen Ji turned his head to look at the side with some curiosity, and suddenly paused.

"it's him!"

Li Bo shouted and grabbed the newsboy who was making faces next to the tea restaurant!

"let me go!"

"It's just some fruit!"

Caught off guard, the newsboy thought Li Bo was helping the fruit stand owner, and immediately began to wriggle like an eel, trying to break free.

"All right."

Officer Zhong walked up to him and said rather seriously.

The newsboy paused for a moment, his eyes darting around, but he didn't dare to move again.

"Open your bag," Officer Zhong said.

As soon as he finished speaking, the newsboy burst into tears, so quickly that everyone was startled.

"Officer, I'm only ten years old. I'm just selling newspapers. I haven't broken any laws!"

"Go catch the criminals! Why are you bullying a child like me? Waaaaah..."

His howling instantly echoed throughout the entire street, drawing the attention of passersby.

Chen Ji noticed that the newsboy didn't have a single tear on his face, and he would occasionally steal a glance at Officer Zhong.

"Stop making a scene here."

Officer Zhong clicked his tongue, stepped forward, opened the newsboy's fanny pack, and took out a large stack of thin booklets.

They were all self-published street vendor publications.

He flipped through the pages quickly, then narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows slightly.

There are at least five books here, all with the same cover:

A ghost story every day

Li Bo tugged at the newsboy's collar: "Where did you get these books from?"

The newsboy ignored him and continued to cry loudly, pretending to cry.

"A sir!"

The fruit shop owner stormed over, her voice rough as she said:

"You don't need to ask. He's incredibly cunning; not a single word he tells is true!"

"It was all that fat man Hua's doing!"

"Fatty Hua?"

Xu Yuanshuang was stunned for a moment.

"It turned out to be him."

Officer Zhong nodded, signaling Li Bo to put the newsboy down.

In the blink of an eye, the little boy disappeared like the wind, running off to hide in some corner.

Zhong led the group forward to an old, dilapidated tenement building before speaking:

"Fatty Hua is a seller of pirated CDs."

"Oh, and there are also smuggled jewelry, privately printed books, fake bags and shoes, basically everything."

He pointed upstairs: "This guy has been to the police station several times; his main hideout is here."

"The newsboy probably got his books from him."

The expressions of the several entrants changed slightly; the mission had finally made a new breakthrough.

Fat Man Wah may very well know the author of "A Ghost Story Every Day".

After a few minutes.

In a dirty and messy room on the third floor of the tenement building.

Officer Zhong stood helplessly in the corner; there was no room to step, just piles of cardboard boxes and trash.

A fat man in a floral shirt sat on the sofa, chattering incessantly like a machine gun:

"...I already told you, nobody reads these kinds of books anymore, but that loser just wouldn't listen..."

"I told him, 'Go find a class to teach. Writing third-rate ghost stories all day won't scare anyone.' His face immediately changed..."

As he spoke, he pulled a book out from behind the sofa. It had the same cover and title, but it was much thicker than the one at Ah Xiang's house.

Fatty Hua flipped through the pages rapidly, pointing to the story inside:

"This is it, the one about that cat-faced old woman. He said it's his proudest novel."

He clicked his tongue and complained, "Isn't this treating the readers like idiots? Who hasn't heard this story before?"

"It came from the mainland a few years ago, and even the kids on the street know what it's about!"

Fatty Hua got more and more excited as he talked, and shoved the book in front of Officer Zhong, but the officer immediately took a few steps back, unwilling to look at the contents of the book.

"Would you like to take a look?"

He was a little embarrassed, so he spat to the side and handed the book to a few other visitors.

Except for Chen Ji, all the other entrants shook their heads.

“We’ve already seen it, watching it again won’t make a difference.”

Chen Ji spoke calmly to the group.

This means that if there really is a curse, seeing it once or twice will make no difference.

Anyway, it's already been spread.

He took the book, lowered his head and read it carefully, and soon his brows furrowed tightly.

This book, "A Ghost Story Every Day".....

It's different from the version they read.

Fat Man Hua's book is more meticulously produced and contains more stories, but most of them are ghost stories plagiarized from various places, many of which are well-known strange tales.

For example, there's the story of the famous old lady from Snow City on the mainland who killed people after she grew a cat's face.

The author simply changed the place names in the story to Xianggang.

Chen Ji closed the book and thought for a moment.

As Inspector Chung said, apart from Ah Heung's case, there have been no other murder cases recently.

This book has likely been sold to many people.

Therefore, this publicly available version should be harmless.

"Fatty Hua, do you have any other versions?"

Chen Ji said, "For example, the author's first draft."

The fat man paused for a moment, then squinted and thought for a while.

"It seems so..."

"There's only one story inside, along with some drafts and such."

"The first one was about a ghost bride or something, and it wasn't very scary."

Officer Zhong's eyes flashed, and he immediately pressed for an answer:

"Where is that book now?"

Fatty Hua mumbled, "Did you put it at home?"

"If you want to see it, I'll bring it over tomorrow."

As he said this, his eyes darted around, which Liu Zi keenly noticed.

"Fatty, are you telling the truth?"

Liu Zi said casually, "Are you trying to get rid of us quickly and find another hideout?"

Liu Zi's past was complicated, and many of the people he associated with were similar to Fatty Hua, who were involved in the gray industry.

Therefore, he knew exactly what Fat Hua was thinking.

“Inspector Chung.” Li Bo nodded as well.

"I think we should arrest him and take him to the police station first, then go to his house to investigate tomorrow."

Before Officer Zhong could say anything after hearing what the two men said, Fatty Hua immediately started crying loudly.

The dry wailing sound was strangely similar to that of a newsboy; both were trying to gain sympathy.

"Officer, I really didn't lie to you. I'll definitely bring that book over to you tomorrow!"

"I haven't done anything heinous, I'm just selling books, there's no need to invite me for tea!"

Immediately afterward, Fatty Hua took a deep breath, his chubby belly heaving violently, and recited at lightning speed:

"I have an elderly mother in a cradle, an eighty-year-old baby at home, and my wife just gave birth. My whole family is waiting for me to take care of them. I can't go back in—"

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Officer Zhong impatiently stopped Fatty Hua from reciting, giving him a disdainful look.

"You can't even recite it properly, that's what you said last time too."

"Never mind, just remember to wait for me here tomorrow."

Chen Ji was speechless for a moment, then looked at Fatty Hua with a smug look in his eyes and a fawning smile on his face.

Officer Zhong turned and left, too lazy to argue with him any longer, seemingly not wanting to stay there for even a second longer.