As soon as she stepped inside, Lu Mian was taken aback to see a policeman smiling and greeting the two men. She recognised him; he was the young officer who had spoken to her the last time he’d come to the hospital to take Lin Yue away.
After exchanging greetings, the two men headed off elsewhere with the air of regulars.
Only once the pair had vanished from Lu Mian’s sight did she step forward quietly. “Hello, officer. Were those two just now decent people?”
The young officer gave Lu Mian a brief once-over before replying, “They’re auxiliary staff at our police station. I remember you—you’re the one who called the police at the hospital last time to have a classmate arrested.”
‘What do you mean, “reporting a classmate”?’ she thought. ‘I’m actually very friendly with my classmates.’ The young officer’s tone was rather rude. So absorbed by his remark, Lu Mian even forgot that Taoist priests could serve as auxiliary staff.
Facing Lu Mian’s resentful glare, the young officer spoke calmly: “What brings you here?”
“Your station called me and asked me to assist with an investigation into a missing person case,” Lu Mian replied truthfully, pulling up her call history.
The young officer was stunned. “It’s you again!”
He looked at Lu Mian with astonishment. This girl really had the worst luck—encountering a mad classmate at university and getting caught up in outrageous incidents during her part-time work. He couldn’t fathom what kind of bizarre luck she possessed.
“What’s wrong with me?” Lu Mian tilted her head in confusion.
“Nothing. Just come with me.” The young officer said no more, leading Lu Mian inside.
As Lu Mian stepped into the police station, before she’d even had a proper look around, she spotted those colourful heads. Weren’t they the Five-Coloured Glutinous Rice? What were they doing here?
“Officer, it’s her. She was the one working at our shop that day. I only let her work as a ticket seller; I know nothing else about it.”
Lu Mian looked in the direction of the voice. Wasn’t that the haunted house owner?
“Tian Shenglai has gone missing. We’ve learnt from his friends that you sent him threatening text messages. Your boss claims this was your own personal act.” The young officer made no move to stop the haunted house owner’s accusation, speaking calmly.
Lu Mian scanned the crowd of colourful-haired people and immediately noticed the blue-haired boy was missing. She instantly realised what had happened, and shock washed over her. How unfair! Not only did that heartless boss pay her a pitiful wage, but now he was framing her, a hard-working employee. She simply couldn’t stand for it!
“Are you certain that was my own personal initiative?” Lu Mian’s wide eyes met the haunted house owner’s, brimming with righteous indignation.
Facing that gaze, the haunted house owner experienced a rare moment of self-doubt. Surely he hadn’t left any evidence behind? He’d destroyed the CCTV footage, and that piece of paper was gone too—there was simply no proof.
With that thought, the haunted house owner’s gaze hardened. “In any case, I certainly didn’t ask you to do any of this.”
Lu Mian glanced at him, took out her mobile phone, and played the recording.
“Just hand them out to customers carrying the leaflets. Remember, even if ten people come in, if only one of them has a leaflet, then only give it to the person holding the leaflet. Hand them out in the order written on the paper.”
The recording was short—just that one sentence.
Lu Mian looked up at the police officer. “I started recording as soon as he spoke, but I didn’t catch the whole thing. This is the second half of what he said—it should count as evidence, shouldn’t it? Oh, and I took a photo of the piece of paper he gave me; it’s in my phone’s gallery.”
Lu Mian opened her phone’s gallery and handed it to the young police officer to look at.
The young policeman took the phone; his gaze towards Lu Mian held a touch of complexity. It was the first time he’d seen someone pull out their phone so quickly to prove their innocence. He couldn’t help but ask, “What made you think to record it?”
“I thought my wages were too low, and he was giving me extra work on top of that. I thought I’d record it, so later I could get him to give me a bit of a bonus.” Lu Mian flashed a shy smile, a smile that was entirely driven by a desire for money.
After the police had checked Lu Mian’s phone and returned it to him, they turned to the haunted house owner. “Do you have anything else to say?”
It was clear that the haunted house owner was the bigger problem. If the text messages were simply part of the haunted house’s standard practice, there would have been no need to conceal them. Moreover, the fact that he had specified they were only sent to customers with flyers made it even more reliable to question him.
The haunted house owner was dumbfounded. In the space of just a few sentences, how on earth had someone managed to record it?!
It wasn’t as if the ghosts hadn’t slipped up before; occasionally, things would escalate to the police, and he’d simply framed his staff. Having been in constant contact with ghosts, a normal person’s mind would have long since lost its sanity. His frame-ups had always been successful—so how had he fallen into the clutches of this damn girl this time?
Lu Mian glared at the haunted house owner with intense resentment and couldn’t help but spit out a ‘Pah!’ What a heartless boss—he actually tried to frame her. Thank goodness she’d kept a record of her work.
Although she didn’t think Tian Shenglai’s disappearance had much to do with the haunted house’s text messages, framing her was simply too much. She really fancied putting a sack over his head and giving him a good thrashing, but unfortunately, that would make it easy for the police to catch her.
Lu Mian withdrew her gaze, feeling rather regretful.
“Lu Mian, you can head back to school for now. Thank you for your help; we’ll summon you again if we need you later.” ” The young officer turned to reassure Lu Mian.
Lu Mian nodded and turned to leave.
There were only three lessons this morning, and they were due to finish at 10:40. Returning to school now wouldn’t allow her to attend any classes, so she might as well go to the interview.
Lu Mian contacted the headteacher of the nursery and arranged an interview for half past eleven. After receiving the headteacher’s confirmation, Lu Mian took a bus to Golden Sun Kindergarten.
…………
“Captain Zhou, we’ve questioned the owner of the haunted house, but he’s sticking to his story that he knows nothing. We now know that Tian Shenglai was last seen in Liushu Village, and according to the taxi driver’s statement, they even passed a police car from the Dongtang District Police Station.” The young policeman, having finished questioning the haunted house owner, was briefing a policeman with a dignified appearance, holding a stack of documents.
“What were the Dongtang Police Station officers doing in Liushu Village at night?”
“Someone from Ningjiang University reported that villagers in Liushu Village were illegally detaining her classmate. The person who filed the report was Lu Mian. When the officers from Dongtang Police Station rushed over, they did indeed see villagers surrounding a male university student, though the villagers later explained it was a misunderstanding. By the way, the person who filed the report was Lu Mian.”
“Her again? Surely it wasn’t her who reported that female student who assaulted someone at Ningjiang University last time, was it?” Hearing that familiar name once more, Team Leader Zhou let his mind wander.
To his surprise, however, he saw his subordinate nodding earnestly. “It was she who first reported that female student to the dormitory supervisor for singing and disturbing others’ rest.”
“It really is her?! What sort of peculiar constitution does she have?!” Captain Zhou’s normally stern expression was now tinged with astonishment.
The night before last, they’d received a report from Ningjiang University about a student running amok on campus, injuring a dorm supervisor and a security guard. Upon arriving at the scene, they discovered that the female student in the frenzy was none other than Wu Yun, who had died in the Ningjiang University six-person murder case thirteen years ago. The reappearance of someone whose cause of death had never been determined back then was beyond their jurisdiction; they had no choice but to hand her over to the Special Operations Division.
It now seemed that this student, Lu Mian, was truly extraordinary; she seemed to be involved in cases involving both humans and ghosts.
“So, Captain Zhou, shall we call her back?”
“No need. She’s just an ordinary student; she should stick to her studies.” Captain Zhou declined his subordinate’s suggestion.