419 Are you Not Afraid?
Holding the murderer’s collar with one arm, Han Fei lifted him up and walked towards Bai Xian who was still in catatonic shock. “Brother Bai, you saw that I was only defending myself. He was the one who came after us with the knife first.”
Bai Xian was weak in his knees. As he saw Han Fei approach, his lips trembled and he stammered, “Yes, he did.”
“Do you have some extra clothes on you? It was so urgent earlier, I might have gone overboard with my counter-attack.”
“Of, of course.” Bai Xian removed his expensive suit and tore off a big piece of his shirt. “Is this enough?”
“That’s fine.” Han Fei accepted the fabric and bandaged the murderer’s wound, to prevent the man from dying from blood loss.
“You even know how to do first aid?” Seeing how familiar Han Fei was, Bai Xian was shocked. Why would an actor know these skills so well?
“I learned it a long time ago. Most of the time I use it on others.” After Han Fei dealt with the murderer’s wound, he started to search for clues on the murderer. “The Butterfly’s disciples are all very professional. The weapons they use are made from special materials that can escape safety inspection. This man doesn’t look like he is Butterfly’s disciple. Even though he’s large, he doesn’t have fighting experience. I’ve planned 7 to 8 countermeasures but never got the chance to use any of them.”
When his hand reached into the man’s coat pocket, Han Fei found the man’s phone. “Fingerprint lock?” Holding the man’s finger one by one, Han Fei tested them against the phone, and soon he unlocked it. Bai Xian poured in cold sweat seeing this. ‘So fingerprint lock is not that safe after all.’ With his head lowered, he silently changed the fingerprint lock on his phone to password lock.
Han Fei looked through the man’s phone and finally found the thing he wanted in the contact list. “For the past two days, he has been keeping in contact with a person who is named Little Brother.” He used the cloth to wipe away the blood on the murderer’s face, he did look like the security guard earlier. “They should be twins but why would a pair of twins come to this place to pretend to be ghosts?”
“Yes, what is their goal?” Bai Xian finally calmed down. “Unfortunately he has fainted or we can ask him directly.”
“It’s alright, his little brother is still outside.” Han Fei looked through their chat messages and after familiarizing himself with the older brother’s typing style, he messaged the little brother on the man’s phone. “There are people from outside here, why didn’t you notify me?”
“I’ve already shouted so loudly, or did you run into someone else?” Soon the little brother replied.
“In any case, come to the second floor now!”
“Now? Do I have to? I mean shouldn’t we leave this place while we still can?”
“Don’t dawdle! I’ll be waiting for you in the first room on the left!”
“Okay, I’m going now.”
Bai Xian stood to the side and observed Han Fei communicate with the murderer’s brother. Now he understood why Han Fei could play such a good antagonist. Han Fei’s only difference from the devil was his kind and shy face.
Dragging the unconscious man, Han Fei and Bai Xian came to the top of the stairs. A few minutes later, weak footsteps came from the steps as well as a flickering light. “Big brother? Are you there? I’m coming…” The man in the security guard uniform slowly moved to the 2nd floor. He knocked on the door of the first room on the left but there was no answer. With a racing heart, the guard tried the door and realized it wasn’t locked. As he pulled the door open, a man who was propped up against the door, careened towards him. The guard subconsciously reached out to catch him. When the guard saw the man’s face, his pupils narrowed and his arms shook. “Big brother?!” If his big brother was unconscious, who was messaging him earlier?
His body petrified and the fear in his heart reached the maximum. He took an involuntary step back and he knocked into something with his back. ‘I remember the wall is still very far away!’
A hand fell on the shoulder and then an arm tightened around his neck. “Do you want to live or die?” A man’s warning rang in his ears. The guard almost collapsed from fear. His body shook so hard. “Why are you and your brother here?”
“It was my brother who called me here, he used to work here as security. He said there’s money to be earned.” The man stammered.
“I need more details, what exactly are you two doing here.”
“Find a pair of children’s white shoes.”
“White shoes?” Han Fei gripped the back of the man’s neck and pressed him against the wall. The guard screamed and begged for mercy.
“Calm down, I just want to know the truth. If you cooperate well, I will not harm you.” Han Fei stared into the guard’s eyes. “After all, we are all good people.”
The guard saw his fainted brother and the bloodied bandage on his head. He nodded hurriedly, “I, I will tell you everything.” Giving up resistance, the guard sat down beside his brother. He had run into a professional this time. To save his life, he didn’t dare to hide anything, he told Han Fei everything he knew.
“10 years ago, when my brother was still very young, he was the security guard here. This place was like paradise in the morning but very strange things happened at night, the most common was the inexplicable children’s cries. My brother was quite brave so he would go looking for the source of the crying to find out the truth. He looked for a long time before he confirmed the cries came from the plastic surgery hospital located at the deepest part of the park.
“The hospital served only the most exclusive clients, all the members drove into it. The guards had no clearance to enter. Therefore, my brother had no idea who was inside the hospital. In his impression, plastic surgery normally was for adults, not for children. Curiosity compelled him to focus on the hospital and he noticed something. Theoretically speaking, the hospital only served the richest clients but my brother noticed a few malnourished and extremely thin children entering the hospital occasionally. They looked like they had been fetched from an orphanage.” The male guard explained.
“Children fetched from an orphanage?” That was indeed something Han Fei didn’t expect.
“I swear to God I’m telling the truth. My brother saw this with his own eyes.”
“Okay, keep going. What happened next?”
“When the children were sent to the hospital, even though they were poorly dressed and very afraid, their eyes still had the innocence of children. However, when they were sent out from the hospital at night, the innocence in their eyes would disappear, it felt like they had been changed into little puppets.”
This hooked Han Fei’s interest. “Their personalities changed? Personality implant?” Han Fei had no idea how this surgery was done. From the guard’s words, Han Fei believed this hospital run by Immortal Pharma was doing something extremely immoral.
“I’m not too sure but I heard from my brother that the orphans who left the hospital would receive free physical treatment, the hospital would also help them find adopted families so that they could have a carefree life.”
“That’s nice.” Bai Xian had a good impression of Immortal Pharma, after all the company’s medicine had saved many lives… of those who could afford them.
“The orphans who left were treated, does that mean there are orphans who couldn’t leave?” Han Fei’s voice sounded creepy in the dark. The guard was surprised that Han Fei had guessed what he’d say next. He nodded. “An extremely small percentage of children went into the hospital and never came out.” Wind blew across the corridor. Waste paper scratched against the floor filled with children’s footprints. The temperature dropped.
“Do you have any evidence of that?” Since this involved Immortal Pharma, Han Fei was very cautious. The guard opened his lips and then looked at his unconscious brother. His face paled and his lips trembled. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Why would you suddenly bring that up?” Bai Xian panicked. He was familiar with horror movie cliché, normally when someone asked this question, the characters would start to die.
“My brother had encountered a ghost at this building, it was a child wearing white shoes. Once you encounter him, he’ll keep on staring at you with his face appearing everywhere.” The guard’s hands gripped together. His body shook harder.
“That’s not enough evidence to prove the boy is a ghost.”
“My brother first spotted the boy during his 3 am patrol. The hospital started its normal operation after dawn. The worker found the dead body of the boy behind the shoe rack. The coroner said that he died 2 days ago.” The guard was already covered in cold sweat as he talked about these things.
“My brother remembered that boy because he had a strange personality. When the boy was first sent to the hospital, he tried to escape. His face was covered in burn scars. My brother didn’t think too much of it, after all, my brother thought the boy was here for facial reconstruction surgery.”
“And then?”
“That day when the boy was recaptured, the best doctor at the hospital, Doctor Xia got into a fight with his client. Doctor Xia was famed for his good temper, no one knew who angered him that day. Soon Doctor Xia apologized to the client and everything seemed to go back to normal. However, based on what my brother said, the strange events only started then.” The guard explained. “Doctor Xia and his wife stopped showing up at the hospital. Lesser children were sent to the hospital. The surveillance machine at the surveillance room kept having problems and it would capture strange footage. Like shoes falling from the shoe rack for no reason, things crawling past empty corridors, cameras with human face tracing would move on their own when there was no one there.”
The guard’s voice lowered. He became more timid like there was something looking at him from the dark corridor.
“Are those footage still available?” Han Fei asked.
“Most of them have been deleted but my brother recorded one of them. He has changed his phone many times through the years but he never deleted that video. It is also because of that video that we came looking for white shoes.” The guard pointed at the phone Han Fei was holding with shaking hands. “You can check the last video on the list.”
Han Fei looked through the phone for a long time before he found the hidden video. He clicked on it and surveillance footage recorded on the phone appeared.
The corridor at midnight was exceptionally quiet. About 5 seconds later, a pair of white shoes suddenly appeared on screen. After a small pause, the shoes started to move like someone was wearing them! The video was very short, only half a minute long, but it was terrifying.
But the key was the 3 of them were standing on the corridor featured in the video. The temperature continued to drop, Han Fei glanced towards the spot where the video captured the white shoes. At the end of the corridor, someone had placed a pair of white shoes there.
“When did they appear? Have they always been there?” When their attention was pulled to the white shoes, the phone Han Fei was holding suddenly came out with the crying of children. They lowered their heads to look and saw the phone had automatically played the next video.
In the video, a boy was tied to a chair, he was insulted and beaten. His face was burnt and extremely ugly. Han Fei looked and there were many similar videos in the hidden folder.
“My brother didn’t record those! He was just the security guard here, he never told me about these things!” The guard’s face twisted from fear. He waved his hands. “I don’t know anything about these! I swear!”
“Your brother has lied to you. He’s back here not for money but to save his life.” Han Fei felt chilled too. He stared at the white shoes at the end of the corridor. He picked up the fainted murderer and used him as a meat shield.
