A Guest In A Ghost House - Chapter 208 Old Lady
Wu Jian just coughed on purpose and said, “Dear old lady, may I ask you something? Do you know Chen Long?”
The old lady looked back quickly and said in a hurry, “What happened to Chen Long?”
“Well, what’s your relationship with him?” I took a few steps forward.
The old lady said, “He is my grandson. What happened to him? Does the school have no holiday?”
I and Wu Jian just looked at each other and it seemed that the old lady didn’t know that Chen Long had asked for leave. However, I saw the old lady was so old, and I coughed slightly and didn’t told her that Chen Long had asked for leave.
Wu Jian laughed and said, “Chen Long is fine but it just seems that he is always worried about something in his heart. You know, as teachers, we still have to pay more attention to this kind of thing.”
Then Wu Jian blinked to me and I directly gave him a white eye. I just thought he was really skilled with telling lies but I also guessed that this could just cheat this old lady. Sure enough, the old lady believed what he said. She became very enthusiastic and even hurriedly invited us to come in and sit down.
I and Wu Jian followed this old lady to enter the dark room. The room was full of the smell of rotten. I estimated that Chen Long thought his grandmother’s nose didn’t work well, so he didn’t deliberately cover the smell of his body. Accordingly, the smell in this room almost let me vomit while eating.
The house was very small and the living room was also the dining room. A small table was sit down here, which only could allowed one person barely get past. Then, there were two rooms in the left side and right side of the house, one of which was filled with bad smell. I guessed that was Chen Long’s room.
The old lady looked a little embarrassed. Then she took the dining stool and let us sit down, but she also unceasingly said sorry to us and told us that the place was too small.
I sat on the bench that constantly gave out the sound of “squeak”, replying to the old lady politely, and Wu Jian began to induce the old lady to tell him something. The old lady, although very old, obviously hadn’t much social experience and it also seemed that she hadn’t chatted with others for a long time, because when she began to talk about her grandson, she told everything about her grandson to us.
Even Wu Jian didn’t guide her, the old lady couldn’t help but to tell about all the thing about Chen Long, from his childhood to growing-up.
Of course, under the guidance of Wu Jian, the point of her words she said the period of time since Chen Long disappeared.
About this point, Wu Jian nodded and whispered to me that Chen Long did go to a construction site to move bricks and would work late every day.
After chatting with the old lady for some time, we bade a farewell to her. Actually, it was I who proposed that we should leave. As soon as we went out, Wu Jian asked me why I hurried to leave and he said at least, we should go to Chen Long’s room to see what clue we could find.
After turning around a corner, I asked Wu Jian curiously, “What clue you want to find?”
Wu Jian opened his mouth, but he was suddenly stunned. Indeed, Chen Long now had been identified. However, now the point was not the clues, but that how we could let Chen Long believe he had already died.
What’s more, I finally understood why Chen Long always was unwilling to believe he had died, obviously because Chen Long and her grandmother were dependent on each other, and once he died, his grandmother would have a hard time living alone. In addition, judging from that he asked for leave to work, he cared a lot about his grandmother.
Besides, after all, Chen Long was also a college student, so would he really be completely unresponsive to what happened to him? I didn’t believe this.
I told Wu Jian what I thought, and he also nodded his head, but just as we were about to leave, we saw a figure limp out from the path on one side.
Then, I and Wu Jian had a looked at each other. Although the sky had begun to darken, we could still recognize at a glance, that man was Chen Long.
His walking posture was very strange, as if his joints were too flexible, and he even always swung his leg while walking. As for his face, it looked puffier. At the same time, one of his hands was pressing on his shoulder heavily and I could clearly see that his shoulders had been deformed.
Chen Long didn’t notice us and directly went back to his home. At this time, the old lady also came out to greet him and asked him whether he felt tired today. She even told him that if he felt very tired, stop doing this work.
When the old lady was looking at Chen Long, her eyes were filled with love. However, I thought it very weird. His body was different from that of others now, especially his shoulders, which had obviously been deformed because muscles rotted and lost the elasticity. Couldn’t the old lady notice that?
In the short time when I talked with the old lady, I could see that there was something wrong with the old lady’s nose, but her eyes worked very well, because while she was chatting with us, she even still was stitching insole.
After Chen Long and the old lady talked as usual for a few time, he went to the small side-room for shower and the old lady came over in our astonished eyes.
I and Wu Jian just looked at each other and didn’t know what the old lady was going to do.
She came to us and looked at us for a long time before she said, “You are good people and you should already know that.”
“Know what?” Wu Jian just laughed.
The old lady smiled, “Don’t you smell that heavy smell?”
I was surprised to say, “Your nose.”
The old lady shook her head and said, “Although it doesn’t work well, it’s still useful and that fish also was left by me on purpose. There are not many neighbors around, but there is always someone to ask about this.”
I had learned that the old lady’s experience was not the same as we thought and in fact, she was obviously very smart. However, what only I felt very weird was why she would suddenly talk to us about this.
The old lady closed her eyes in pain and opened it after a long time, “You guys are police officers, right? Xiao Long’s father is also a police officer offer, the same as you.”
Wu Jian just looked at the old lady in amazement and I didn’t make a sound. Now the whole process of this thing was mastered by the old lady.
Then she said, “Xiao Long is a good boy, but since childhood, his life is hard, very hard bitter. Now, it is impossible to continue to hide this, but you don’t have to worry about this because I will discipline him well and also won’t let him do bad things. Besides, he also won’t do, either. OK?”
The old lady’s eyes were full of entreaties and her hand hanging on one side was trembling constantly. She looked excited. I glanced at Wu Jian but didn’t speak. He also just scratched his head, saying, “Dear old lady, this is not that we don’t help you, but that Chen Long will be very painful in this way and even if he becomes a ghost, he will easily do some bad things.”
The old lady was stunner for a moment and then looked at Wu Jian in disbelief. Then Wu Jian poked me with his finger, so I could only go forward to tell the words that Yan’er told me to the old lady.
The old lady’s expression became even more painful and tears flowed down her wrinkled face. After a long time, she began to speak, “I get it.”
The old lady did not speak any more. I and Wu Jian waited for a while, and had to speak, “Well, dear old lady, I go to have a good chat with your grandson now. We can come to you again tomorrow. What do you think?”