TL: Hua
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He Qin tried to contact Wen Zheliu and called out his name in the team channel, but there was always a busy signal on the other side. Therefore, he concluded that the other party must be trapped in the ghost realm right now and unable to get out.
His eyes were grim as he muttered a curse. He could only follow Wen Zheliu’s initial coordinates as he sped over, praying in his mind that the little thing wouldn’t run too far before he arrived.
The dazzling headlights on the front of the car were like the fangs of a ferocious beast, tearing through the hazy night, crushing countless pale ghost hands twisted like jungle vines along the way, and roaring ferociously towards the edge of the town.
“…Mr. Owen?” Wen Zheliu asked softly, “Is that you?”
There was a moment of silence outside the door, and a hoarse male voice sounded: “Although I don’t know who you are, you are undoubtedly very smart.”
“…I’m flattered,” Wen Zheliu said with mixed feelings in his heart, and he was a little speechless. Within a day, he was praised for his cleverness by two people about whom he didn’t know whether they were dead or alive. He also didn’t know whether he should be happy or embarrassed. “Just now…. A woman also said that.”
Unexpectedly, the man at the door panicked: “You met my wife?! How long has she been away from here? She won’t turn around and come back again, will she?! Sorry, my friend, but I’m afraid I have to get out of here……”
“Wait!” Wen Zheliu couldn’t tell if he was really scared or not; he had to stop him first and tell him his inner doubts. “You don’t have to worry, Mr. Owen; I can assure you that your wife has already gone far away. What’s more, according to what she just said, you are the most suspicious one; what’s going on here?”
Leighton Owen, outside the door, gave a bitter laugh.
“The Midnight Happy Show has ruined my life,” his whispered voice filtered through the door, raspy and muffled like a stream of bubbles from a drowning man struggling deep in the bottom of a river. “I guess you’ve heard of it too, right?”
“Yes.” Wen Zheliu couldn’t help but nod, “I know.”
The man murmured: “Since this damn program aired—well, I admit that it’s really popular, making anyone who doesn’t talk about it socially the most unpopular old-fashioned person ever. But at the same time, it broke my family and turned us into this ghostly appearance…”
Wen Zheliu pondered for a few seconds, then said, “You mean that you are a victim of the Midnight Happy Show, not an accomplice?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Of course!” Owen’s tone was pretty intense: “Since watching it, my daughter has become grumpy and irritable. You know what? She even went to the pharmacy to buy rodenticide and insecticide to put in the food and water that the whole family ate and drank. Fortunately, I found them early! Her mother has also become sensitive and anxious. She thinks I’m going to kill her all day and looks frightened when she sees me. May poisoned everyone’s bowls, and I wanted to teach her a lesson, but she (the wife) actually yelled at me for being a murderer who’s going to kill the innocent May!”
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Some of what he said did match up with the information in the newspaper… Wen Zheliu wondered while trying to appease him: “Mr. Owen, please don’t be agitated. I understand your difficulties; as you say, you’re the only one in your family who’s normal, and everyone else has been affected by the Midnight Happy Show, right?”
“Yes,” Owen insisted, “that’s it.”
“Then what is your intention for coming to me?” Wen Zheliu continued to ask, “Also, May said that it was indeed you who killed your wife and that your youngest son broke his neck during a dispute between his parents. Why do your words contradict hers? With all due respect, Mr. Owen, some of you must be lying.”
“I didn’t kill my wife!” Owen stressed restlessly at the door. “After arguing with her, she disappeared, and I was the one who sent out a missing person’s notice looking for her. As for our youngest son, it was his own unsteady footing. He just fell from the spot where he used to sneak up on me every day, and I’m also very saddened by what happened!”
The more he listened, the more wrong he felt. Then he asked another question: “So, are you a human or a ghost?”
“I’m a human; if you don’t believe me, you can open the door and take a look!”
“Then why did the newspaper say that a family of three fell in a pool of blood?” Wen Zheliu frowned, “and that the murderer was their eldest daughter?”
“I escaped, sir,” said Owen bitterly. “Fate doesn’t allow me to die yet. That day, my wife, who had been running away for many days, sneaked back while I was away and wanted to take the children out of here. But May poisoned the water again… She was so persistent, and she really succeeded. I couldn’t make it back because I was working overtime at the factory. After that day, I lost my wife and little son forever. May also committed suicide by taking poison with a crazy, trance-like smile …… From then on, I was the only one left in the world.”
So the family of three refers to May, May’s mom, and May’s brother? Then….
“That’s even more strange.” Wen Zheliu said sharply, “Your words are full of loopholes. According to what you said, your son was not killed by May at all. He fell and broke his own neck. Why didn’t you clarify this with the newspaper and instead let them publish such provocative and misleading false reports? And why, a week after your wife’s death, did you still put up that missing person notice? Did the newspaper and the police just let you put it up?”
Owen remained silent for a long time. Wen Zheliu gently raised his hand and opened the peephole to look out again.
He heaved a sigh of relief because the person standing outside the door was not a ghost but a tall man with a gloomy expression and a slightly pale face under the light of the corridor.
Just as he was sizing up the man’s clothing, Owen spoke up, “Sir, I assure you that everything I say is true. The police in town were already very lax, plus I was paying for the newspaper out of my pocket. They promised to publish it for two weeks… After going through all this hellish experience, where do I still have the heart to care about finding people or clarifying things?”
His tone was sad and bitter, and there was a trace of a self-deprecating, bleak smile. Everyone who heard it would feel sad. Having made these defenses, he added, “Sir, believe me, leave this place with me. May will soon come out of the garden, and I know that she loved that garden very much. She will linger in it for a long time, even after death… But she will be back soon with her poisonous sweet soup and meals, and she will insist on watching you eat them all, one bite at a time. No one will be able to save you then! Believe me, don’t you trust the words of a heartbroken father in a life-and-death situation like this?”
Wen Zheliu stared at the regular swaying pendulum on the wall, not at all flustered by Owen’s urging. He said softly, “Wait, let me sort out the timeline…”
He made a fist with one hand and slowly tapped the palm of the other, muttering, “Since the Midnight Happy Show was aired, it has greatly affected the mind and reason of the people in the surrounding areas, making them more and more crazy… This is the main premise.”
“If I just sort out the timeline according to Owen’s statement—in fact, he’s also the one who gave the clearest and most comprehensive explanation, which pushed me to believe his statement— When the midnight Happy Show started, the family became dysfunctional; the wife suffered from persecutory delusions; the daughter repeatedly poisoned the family; the son hated his family and wanted to push his father down the stairs… Then there was the wife’s huge fight with her husband over the daughter’s poisoning, believing that Owen was trying to kill her daughter. She ran away from home, causing Owen to publish a missing person notice in the newspaper…”
By this point in the story, Wen Zheliu had already begun to notice that something was wrong.
“…… A week after the missing person notice was published, the wife came home to look for her children while Owen was at work and tried to take them away. At that point, the daughter drugged the mother again, poisoning the mistress of the house and committing suicide herself. As for the youngest son, perhaps out of panic or perhaps in a hurry to check up on them, he inadvertently fell down the stairs and died. Owen was the only one left from then on…. Hmmm, when put together like this, it seems that everything is connected, but why do I still get the feeling that…..”
Just when he was at a loss, the communication device on his waist suddenly rang.
Wen Zheliu’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t help smiling and hurriedly picked up: “Brother, are you all right?!”
“It’s all good,” He Qin’s voice was as usual, without a trace of fatigue: “I’ve received the message you sent me, and I’m rushing to your place now. How is it? Is everything alright?”
Wen Zheliu sighed and briefly explained the whole matter to He Qin on the other end of the communicator.
“…That’s it; it’s complicated and tiring.” He shook his head and said, “Now I don’t know what to do.”
He Qin didn’t speak for a long time, as if he were also pondering. Suddenly, he said, “You might as well try to believe Owen.”
Wen Zheliu frowned. “Brother?”
“As you said, he’s indeed the person who has disclosed the most information to you at present, and the timing is mostly right,” He Qin analyzed calmly. “Leaving aside the questionable tabloid, the part of the town newspaper about finding a person and poisoning is true, isn’t it?”
Wen Zheliu frowned even tighter, and he whispered, “Brother, I don’t seem to have told you about the contents of the town newspaper before.”
“It’s just a town newspaper; it’s flying everywhere; do you think I can’t see it?” He Qin’s tone was tinged with laughter. “Alright, that’s all I have to say; make your own decision.”
Wen Zheliu fiddled with the communication device in his hand in bewilderment. He unconsciously tapped on it and answered, “Oh, yes…”
Before the words left his mouth, his gaze suddenly froze.
—— In the draft box of unsent messages, there are five coordinate points that he failed to send.
What kind of news did He Qin receive? Why would he lie to him?
Was the voice coming out of the communicator really He Qin’s? Or rather, who or what was he communicating with along the way?
Wen Zheliu’s body temperature cooled from head to toe. The muscles on his cheeks couldn’t stop twitching, and he couldn’t say a word.
Now that he thinks about it, after his wireless earphone buzzed, “He Qin”‘s tone was a little off. He kept urging him to trust a stranger with an unknown background, saying, “It’s okay to trust her for now; let’s see what she wants to do.” But according to He Qin’s usual nature, he wouldn’t say such words. He would only say stuff like, “Stand there honestly; don’t run around with people you don’t know”!
He was deceived by a ghost—a ghost disguised as He Qin! Until now, this impostor was still finding clumsy excuses in an attempt to deceive him!
Wen Zheliu was trembling with anger. When he spoke again, his voice had become as cold as solid ice, and he asked in a soft tone: “Brother, do you remember the last person who disguised himself as you and was found out by me?”
“He Qin” hesitated: “…what’s the matter? Why are you asking this all of a sudden?”
“What’s the matter? Why did you ask this all of a sudden?” Wen Zheliu sneered and repeated this sentence sarcastically: “Then I’ll tell you, you low-quality counterfeit bastard! The last one to impersonate him was Saint Nun Theresa, who did fortune-telling for ten yuan! Who the hell do you think you are? How dare you pretend to be him!!”
Gritting his teeth and yelling, he yanked off the communicator, his cheeks flushed with anger. Disregarding politeness and gradual progress, he stood directly in front of the peephole, looked up and down at Leighton Owen, who was still waiting outside the door, and sneered viciously, “Electric-driven small motor… Yes, I forgot about this condition. Now that I think about it, isn’t that the core component that makes up a chainsaw, Mr. Owen?”
Wen Zheliu when deceived by ghost: Calm
Wen Zheliu when ghost impersonated He Qin: Listen up, you piece of sh*t-
Thank you for the chapter
thank you for the chapter! (˘︶˘).｡*♡