Chapter 535: Chapter 534: Return to the Company
Liu Zheng turned over, looking at the messages from his company group chat, and he felt somewhat dazed.
In the past few days, a lot had happened at his company. First, the boss had an affair, and then vice-president Liu Haiyang resigned, followed by someone jumping off a building.
All these events were undoubtedly bad news for Liu Zheng, but to him, they didn’t hold any practical significance. What he wanted most now was to find that boy.
He was the attending doctor at this hospital, and although he had never met the boy, he had heard quite a bit about him from other doctors.
Liu Zheng had also fantasized that if the boy really survived, he would take him away from this city, fly far away.
"Young man, what’s the matter with you? Are you feeling unwell?" A woman in a white coat came in. She glanced at Liu Zheng and asked.
"Thank you, doctor, I’m fine." Liu Zheng gathered his emotions and smiled at the woman.
The woman nodded, "I saw you with your phone just now, were you about to make a call?"
"Yes, I need to make an urgent call to a friend," Liu Zheng said with a smile.
"Oh, go ahead then!" The woman nodded.
Liu Zheng dialed the number, but the other party’s phone was turned off. He sighed, putting the phone down.
"What’s wrong, can’t get through?"
"Yeah, can’t get through."
The woman patted Liu Zheng on the shoulder, "Young man, don’t worry, your friend might be on a business trip. When he comes back, I’ll help you contact him, okay?"
Liu Zheng nodded, not refusing the woman’s offer, for he also understood that many people in today’s society preferred this kind of privacy.
...
Two weeks flashed by, and one evening, Liu Zheng received a call from an unknown number. He didn’t recognize the number, so he did not dare to answer immediately.
He glanced at the time, it was six-thirty, so he dialed back the number. However, a cold voice came from the other side, "The user you dialed is temporarily unable to receive your call, please try again later.
Liu Zheng hung up the phone, somewhat disappointed.
Over the past two years, Liu Zheng had developed a deep emotional connection with the boy. He knew that the boy was an orphan who had been sent to a welfare home. Later on, Liu Zheng met the boy there.
Two years ago, Liu Zheng received a call from the boy, saying that he had found a corpse in the mountains and asked Liu Zheng to come for a rescue.
The corpse had been dead for three days, and Liu Zheng initially thought it was a joke. After all, who would toss a body into the mountains?
But when he arrived next to the corpse, he realized the boy had not lied. It was indeed that very body.
At that moment, he saw that the boy’s complexion was pale, lips were blue-black, and his body stiff.
Liu Zheng knew that the boy must have been murdered, but what he didn’t understand was how the body ended up there if it was indeed a case of poisoning.
At that moment, Liu Zheng felt exceedingly heavy-hearted. He thought, perhaps God took pity on the orphan and sent a ghost to bring him back to life.
"Hello?" Lost in his thoughts, Liu Zheng suddenly received a text message from an unknown number.
The message was simple, asking him to go to the mountains to rescue the orphan and he was willing to pay double the price.
"Mountains?!" Liu Zheng frowned, thinking the boy must be in some village, as he remembered rescuing a group of kids in a village at the foot of the mountains.
After hesitating for a long time, Liu Zheng finally agreed to the deal.
He changed his clothes, packed his bag, and stepped out.
He reached the mountain road and hailed a taxi.
"Driver, to the mountain area in the northwest suburbs," Liu Zheng said his destination.
...
When Liu Zheng got out of the cab, it was already four o’clock in the afternoon. He had been to this mountain range countless times since his childhood and was very familiar with it.
He gazed at the towering mountain range before him, his eyes sparkling with excitement. Was the boy named Wang Xiaohu lying within this mountain range?
He strode rapidly towards the mountains.
The image of the boy surfaced in his mind, a surge of heat rushing to his head, as if he saw the boy beckoning him.
"Brother Xiaohu, I’m back!"
The mountain path grew narrower as he ascended, but for Liu Zheng, this became a form of training. Running on the mountain trail, Liu Zheng felt relaxed in body and soul, as if he were floating.
...
Five minutes later, Liu Zheng stood at the edge of a steep cliff.
By the cliff stood a figure, a man with a robust build, dressed in a tight black outfit.
Liu Zheng was stunned, for he recognized that this man was the boy he had encountered in the orphanage.
"How come you’re here?"
The boy turned his head to glance at Liu Zheng and said indifferently, "Have you forgotten? I’m a ghost messenger!"
"A ghost messenger? Are you really a ghost messenger?" Liu Zheng asked incredulously, "So did you come looking for me on purpose?"
"Mmm, I have come to you with an unjust case, needing your help to resolve it!" The man nodded.
"Alright, tell me," Liu Zheng replied nodding.
"Okay, let me tell you my story. It’s a bit long, but I hope you can listen patiently!" said the boy.
"Of course!" Liu Zheng quickly responded.
And so, the boy slowly began a story about a ghost.
It turned out that the boy, named Wang Xiaohu, was an orphan from the orphanage, where he had lived for twenty years. Twenty years ago, the orphanage’s leader, being overwhelmed by work, left him behind in the orphanage to take care of the children.
But a few days later, the orphanage suddenly caught fire, and all the children were burned to death. And Wang Xiaohu, due to the delayed arrival of rescuers, was severely burned over a large portion of his body when extracted from the fire, his face badly disfigured to an extreme ugliness, and he was taken to a nearby hospital.
During that time, Wang Xiaohu was in a coma, and after examination, the hospital declared his left leg to be crippled.
The doctors said he might never wake up again.
Thus, he was sent to the orphanage to live as a little beggar, surviving on begging day by day.
Every night, he would dream about strange things including mice, spiders, wolves, snakes, and more.
In his dreams, he also saw a horde of monsters attacking the orphanage.
Wang Xiaohu understood that these were simply his own fears playing tricks on him; there were no real monsters. However, he would always wake up frightened and then fall asleep again, which annoyed him profoundly.
Every time he woke up, he had to drink a bowl of soup, which was the milk powder meant for the children.
That night, he still dreamed of those things; he dreamt a mouse was crawling across his bed, and when he reached out to grab it, the mouse suddenly turned to ashes and dissipated into the air.
"I can’t go on with dreams like these," Wang Xiaohu said in fear and anxiety.
So, he started taking medicine, but even after taking it, the nightmares continued relentlessly.
That night, Wang Xiaohu dreamt of a monster that leaped from the bed, lunging at him with bared fangs and claws in a frightfully grim appearance.
However, powerless to resist, he simply let the creature tear at him.
Just at that critical moment, a shadow darted into his dream; he felt a warm current surge through his entire body, and then the monster vanished, with his dream world returning to its original state.
Wang Xiaohu opened his eyes to find it was already the wee hours of the morning; his forehead drenched in cold sweat. Touching his forehead, he discovered it was covered with fine beads of sweat that slid down his temples, dripping onto the pillowcase and soaking it through.
"Phew, thankfully it was just a nightmare, or I would have been a goner."
