Chapter 7 Section 6

  "Plop!" Two icy objects hit Cheng Chou's neck.

  "Ah!" Cheng Zhou covered his neck and jumped up with a loud cry.

  "Hehe."

  "What's that noise?" Cheng Zhou hastily turned his head around, and as he did, he saw a small figure running towards the entrance of the building surrounded by warning tape. He opened his palm again to find two watermelon seed shells still carrying icy saliva lying in his palm.

  This little stinker!

  "Hey, you little devil! Stop right there! Don't go in, kid, don't..."

  Before he could finish shouting, a small figure had already disappeared from the entrance.

  It's really infuriating!

  What to do? Go in or not go in?

  A person who normally wouldn't be caught dead in a haunted house at an amusement park is standing outside the public restroom, hesitating.

  Go back and call someone? But what if the child runs off to another place after coming back? And what if we run into that dark shadow again on the way...

  With a stamp of his foot, helplessly, Cheng Chou had no choice but to rush to the number one forbidden place in J country that he had just sealed off in his heart this afternoon.

  Before entering the men's restroom, Cheng Zhou hesitated for a moment and plucked up the courage to turn his head back towards the small bridge from earlier.

  The small bridge is still a small bridge, nothing has changed. The mountain path with poor visibility is also empty and deserted.

  Was it his own illusion? Or what kind of beast was it? Could it be a giant ape? Or a big monkey? The man's gaze wandered, not daring to think in other directions.

  Cheng Zhou didn't want that little kid to stay too long at the crime scene, and he also didn't dare look anymore. He immediately turned his head and walked towards the bathroom.

  Where's the little devil? Where did he run off to? Why isn't there a police station here?

  Cheng Zhou stepped across the police tape and into the men's restroom, furrowing his brow. He carefully avoided stepping on the human-shaped outline drawn with chalk on the floor and a dark stain of blood, as he made his way past the markers left by the police.

  He suddenly remembered that George had told him that the police didn't seem to have found anything that could indicate the identity of the deceased.

  He scratched his head and began to worry about the consequences of rushing into a crime scene like this and being discovered by the police.

  I don't know if the Japanese police will charge him with obstructing the scene. The man sighed, thinking that if they found the little kid, the police here shouldn't be so inhumane, right?

  Chengzhou pushed open a slightly ajar room on his right with one hand and took a peek inside, but there was no sign of anyone.

  "Little friend, where are you?" Cheng Zhou shouted from outside the room.

  In front of a row of rooms, most doors are open, only a few seem closed.

  He waited for a while, but there was no response.

  "Alright, you want to play hide and seek with me? You little brat, why did you have to choose this murder scene to play in? Aren't you afraid of running into a ghost?"

  Muttering to himself, he stepped over the dry bloodstains on the ground and pushed open the second slightly ajar door.

  To be honest, he really wanted to rush out and never set foot in this Mt. Takao again! He wasn't a coward, but his courage was absolutely not that great either. Don't laugh when I say it out loud, places like cemeteries, haunted houses, hospitals at night were all places he absolutely did not want to set foot in, let alone a murder scene discovered during the day!

  "Little friend, where are you? Come out quickly, this isn't a good place to play."

  What smell? The tip of his nose twitched a few times, and Cheng Chou felt the bloody smell getting more and more pungent. This was not his imagination, it really was. He really smelled a strong bloody smell, fresh like his mother had just killed three chickens in front of him.

  The yin energy is very heavy...

  Cheng Zhou rubbed the goosebumps on his arm, and he noticed that the layout of this bathroom was basically the same as most men's bathrooms he had seen in Japan.

  Across from the urinals and individual stalls is a row of sinks, above which is a continuous half-length mirror. I don't know if it's in accordance with the average height of Japanese people, but all the mirrors in the restroom are not high up, so to get a clear view of yourself in the mirror, you have to bend down or stand back a bit.

  Mirror...... Huh? Who is that in the mirror...

  Cheng Zhou's eyes became dots, his body involuntarily retreated a little, and his pupils dilated a little.

  He simply couldn't believe what he was seeing!

  A man!

  A hunched, middle-aged man of slight build slowly crawled along the ground and gradually sat up.

  But there was clearly nothing on the ground in front of him! Except for that curled-up human-shaped chalk drawing...

  The man in the mirror is sitting sideways, and from the mirror you can only see his profile.

  A slightly balding head, eyebrows that only reach the middle of the brow bone, thin and gaunt cheeks, dry lips, and eyes like those of a dead fish.

  Even if it's just a side view, you can tell that this person is usually the kind of person who is quite harsh on others and good at pushing their own mistakes onto others. Why can you see through him? Because there are always people like that around him.

  This person... I seem to have seen him somewhere before?

  The man's face in the mirror was pale and stern, his eyes bulging out, staring unblinkingly at the void below, as if adapting to something or searching for something.

  Suddenly, the man in the mirror moved. Slowly, he raised his sparse-haired head.

  Chengzhou opened his mouth wide.

  Even from the side, he clearly saw that there was a slit on the man's neck, with a bright red color like a baby's mouth, only to flow out not saliva but strands of fresh blood.

  The man's face showed a puzzled expression, slowly raised his hand to his neck, touched it, and then started scratching the wound repeatedly like an itch.

  The wound gradually opened up. From the neck to the chin, from the chin to the lower jaw, from the lower jaw to the cheek...

  The wound is rotting quickly.

  Cheng Zhou took a small step back, then another, he had to leave here, while he was still sober, no matter what, he had to get out of here.

  He was so nervous that he forgot what was behind him wasn't an exit, but a private room. He backed away...

  "Bang!" The hollow echo resounded in the bathroom.

  Chengzhou's back bumped into a room door, and the door of the room was knocked open.

  Chengzhou's body froze instantly.

  The man in the mirror stopped scratching his neck and slowly turned his head this way.

  A small hand appeared behind Cheng Zhou's back, slowly reaching for his neck... and gently poked him.

  "My goodness!"

  Cheng Chou let out the most miserable, the most terrifying, and the loudest scream of his life.

  With a thud, because he dodged too hastily, his back, which had just turned to the side, heavily bumped against the door panel.

  He turned his head and saw the culprit who had scared him half to death standing on the white toilet lid with his arms around his shoulders, looking at him with a scowl on his face, still wearing that one and only precious blue shirt of his!

  "You, you, you... this..." Cheng Zhou pointed at the arrogant little Mao head, and for a moment, he couldn't say anything.

  The little furball jumped lightly and landed on the ground, passing by Cheng Zhou's side, walking barefoot with a pattering sound.

  "Where are you going? Be careful! Outside there's...". He forgot how to say "ghost" in Japanese.

  Cheng Zhou thought that the little kid was probably scared of something and hid in the room, but when he saw an adult coming, he thought it was okay and ran out boldly, while this grown-up...

  Gritting his teeth! Cheng Zhou lowered his head and rushed out of the room, embracing a small figure squatting in front of the chalkboard, who was pinching something with their small hands, and rushed out of this haunted public restroom.

  After a gust of wind had passed, the bathroom returned to its usual midnight stillness.

  The white fluorescent lights illuminated every corner of the men's restroom, with white chalk outlines of human figures on the ground, a dark stain of blood stuck to the floor tiles, and some scattered around. To the right was a row of individual stalls with all doors open, to the left was a row of sinks, above which were a row of half-length mirrors.

  The mirror reflects... an empty floor and a row of uninhabited individual rooms opposite.

  "What are you doing here? Halt!"

  The beams of several flashlights shone on the big and small ones.

  Cheng Zhou found himself more grateful for the police's arrival than he had ever been before, and his eyes instantly became moist.

  The little kid in his arms glanced at him disdainfully, raised his small hand and stuffed something into his mouth.

  "Are you again? What are you doing running here in the middle of the night? When did you sneak in?" The young police officer, Nan Shan, who had questioned Cheng Zhou during the day, clearly recognized him and interrogated him with a suspicious expression. He had just been patrolling around this area, so why hadn't he seen this person?

  Despicable police officer. The grateful feeling suddenly disappeared as Cheng Chou raised the child in his arms a little higher.

  "Ah, your kid."

  Several patrolling police officers noticed the child in his arms together. Nanshan stood still on the spot, and two patrolling policemen walked over.

  "Has the child been found? Where was he found?" A middle-aged policeman in his forties with a non-threatening smile looked at the little boy who had lifted his head to look at them.

  Cheng Zhou turned his head and pointed to the public toilet behind him with his chin, both hands pushed forward, "Here, your kid. Now that you've found it, you handle it." I'm going back to sleep now.

  "Our child?" The middle-aged policeman did not understand the meaning of this Japanese sentence.

  "In short, it's not mine. Finding his parents is your responsibility."

  The middle-aged policeman hesitated and reached out to take the child.

  "The clothes on his body... If possible, remember to return them to me." This sentence was never even uttered by Cheng Zheng.

  Because... because just a moment ago the little kid who was blinking his eyes and watching the police suddenly twisted his head, hooked his hands, and tightly hugged Cheng Zhou's neck, with his two legs also tightly clamped on his waist, looking like he would never let go.

  "Ah!" You want to strangle me? You little stinker!

  "Hey, think of a solution! This kid is not my child. Please hurry up and take him away." Cheng Zhou used both hands to gently pry the child's small hands off his neck, not daring to use force, fearing he might break the child's hands.

  A single move, and the threads don't budge.

  Good grief! Where did this kid get so much energy?

  The police officers looked at each other in dismay, staring at the child who had transformed into a koala, wanting to laugh but feeling too embarrassed to do so.

  "Hey there little friend, I'm Suzuki. What's your name? Why don't you come down first? We have some things to ask you. Is your home on this mountain?" The middle-aged policeman asked the child in a gentle tone from behind Cheng Chou.

  "Mr. Cheng, can you tell me how you found this place? And when did you come here? Why didn't I see you?" The young police officer Nanshan kept sizing up the suspicious-looking Cheng Chou from head to toe.

  "Why did you come over during the day and then run back here at night? Did you go in? Did you move anything inside?"

  "Where did you go last night? Who else did you see besides the station staff? You said this kid was with you all night, is there anyone who can prove it?"

  Questions came out one after another like a string of pearls, but unfortunately, Cheng Chou listened without understanding.

  The man looked at him with a bewildered expression, not knowing what he was talking about. Nanshan always felt that this person seemed to be pretending. He had seen many people like this before, typical of those who wouldn't shed tears until they saw the coffin! However, it didn't matter, as long as the evidence was solid, he wasn't afraid that he would deny his crime later on.

  On the other side, Detective Suzuki continued to play the role of a kind uncle, constantly persuading the children to get down from Cheng's body.

  "Little friend, do you know this uncle? What's his relationship with you?"

  Uncle? Hey! Am I so old? Should be called big brother or not.

  "Can you speak Japanese? Can you understand what I'm saying?" Mr. Suzuki smiled.

  You smile and I smile too, the kid winks at him and shakes his head with a grin.

  Suzuki's eyebrows immediately drooped. What a naughty little brat, knowing how to lie and deceive at such a young age.

  "Alright, I'll just pretend you don't understand. So can you tell me who's holding you?" Suzuki-san told himself to be patient with the child.

  The child leaned on Cheng Zhou's shoulder, sucking his thumb into his mouth.

  "Little friend, Suzuki uncle knows you're a good kid. If you tell your uncle who this uncle is to you, I'll buy you some candy later, okay?"

  Don't care.

  "Strawberry cake?"

  The child tilted his head and began to think, hmm...

  "McDonald's?"

  Mmm...

  "Tempura?"

  Mmm...

  "Or do you want both?"

  Hmmm...

  "Little friend," Suzuki's patience was wearing thin, his large face closing in on the child as he pulled out all the stops, "Tell me, who is he to you? I'll treat you to ramen!"

  "Dad."

  "What?"

  "Huh?"

  This crisp and tender dad, Cheng Zheng almost forgot that there was a haunted public toilet behind him, and also forgot that in front of him were three Japanese police officers staring at him.

  Chengzhou poked his ear and looked at the little ghost in his arms again. Heaven knows he even suspected that the child couldn't speak.

  But this little kid, suspected by Cheng Zhou to be a mute and an abused child, was staring at him with a pair of big, bright, pure, and innocent eyes, smiling and glancing at him.

  "What's your name?" Cheng Zhou asked again in Japanese.

  "Dad!" The crisp voice and accurate pronunciation would tell any Chinese person present that the child is calling out to their father in standard Mandarin.

  Cheng Zhou stared at Xiao Mao Tou for a while, "Hehe, kids of this age like to call anyone they see 'Dad', hehe..."

  Cheng Zhou smiled foolishly at the police officers who were staring coldly at him.

  "Sorry to trouble you, but could you come with us to the station? Also, we need to inform your contact person in Country J. Hmm, is it Mr. Kawai and Hiroshi, who's in charge of this meeting at your company?"

  Cheng Zhou's expression suddenly became unbearably bitter. This child really wasn't his!

  As expected, being careless and sloppy will lead to suffering.