DDT - Chapter 90
Chapter 90: Female Ghost × Little Pitiful One (20)
A lot had happened at Chang City Third Hospital recently. First, there was the case of the yellow-haired man, and now, an incident where a stepfather attempted to assault his stepdaughter in a visiting room.
Fortunately, the doctor on duty in the monitoring room noticed something was wrong and promptly called the police. Just as everyone was about to break down the door, the lock on the visiting room clicked, and the door swung open.
The crowd of onlookers and the anxious nurses would likely never forget the sight that greeted them: a small, frail girl dragging out a large, unconscious, bare-chested man with just one hand.
As the stepfather was hauled out of the room, many people saw the dark bruises rapidly swelling on his chest. Before the police even arrived, he was sent to the emergency building to be treated for his injuries.
A few nurses led Yi Shuhan to their break room to rest and wait for the police. Chi Junluo, draped over Yi Shuhan's shoulder, played with a strand of her hair. She felt a slight sense of regret. In previous worlds, whenever she encountered scum who tried to harm the heroine, she would have made sure to destroy the man's vital parts. Unfortunately, the circumstances this time didn't allow for it.
Chi Junluo sighed with disappointment. If she had known, she would have kicked him in the crotch first. Who knows, there might have been an unexpected reward.
Yi Shuhan sat alone in the quiet break room. The other nurses were busy dispersing the patients and their families who had gathered to gawk and see what would happen next. Hearing a sudden, soft sigh, Yi Shuhan remembered that there was probably a ghost sister clinging to her back.
After the series of events that had just transpired, Yi Shuhan's conviction that Chi Junluo was a hallucination or a split personality was shaken once again. She had never received any training; there was no way she could have executed such a difficult flying kick. Even if she had managed it, it wouldn't have had that much power.
So, all of this must have been Chi Junluo's doing, right?
"Chi Chi," Yi Shuhan said softly.
She sat on a low stool in the break room, her head bowed and her hair cascading over her shoulders. She exuded the aura of a pitiful little animal, which made Chi Junluo's heart ache.
"I'm here." A gentle voice, carried on a faint current of air, brushed past Yi Shuhan's ear. Yi Shuhan froze and said nothing more.
"What's wrong, Shuhan?" Chi Junluo asked gently, worried about the heroine's state.
"You really exist, don't you?" Yi Shuhan was still fixated on this question.
"Yes. Whether you believe it or not, I am by your side." Chi Junluo's voice drifted by Yi Shuhan's ear. Yi Shuhan raised a hand to touch her own ear, which had grown warm. There were still a few things she wanted to verify.
The break room fell silent once more.
A short while later, the door creaked open, and two young female police officers walked in. They led Yi Shuhan to a temporary office in the hospital to give her statement.
The officers taking the statement were also two young women. Perhaps out of consideration for the victim, the male officers had gone to the monitoring room to collect surveillance footage and to speak with Yi Shuhan's attending physician and the nurses to understand the situation.
The statement wasn't complicated. The officer asked about Yi Shuhan's relationship with the assailant who had been knocked unconscious, briefly inquired about her family situation, and then asked if similar incidents had occurred before.
Yi Shuhan kept her head down, her small hands resting on her lap. She didn't answer the officer's question right away. Instead, she asked, "Officer, will my mother find out about this?"
The female officer looked at the thin girl before her with a pang of sympathy. "Your mother and stepfather are your legal guardians," she replied. "Your stepfather has done something wrong, and as your sole guardian now, your mother has a right to know. My colleagues contacted her half an hour ago. She has already dropped everything and is on her way to the city."
"Oh," Yi Shuhan mumbled.
Chi Junluo gently placed her hand over Yi Shuhan's. She wasn't sure if Yi Shuhan felt it, but her fingers twitched slightly.
"Officer, will that man be arrested?" Yi Shuhan asked.
"If there's sufficient evidence, he will face criminal charges," the officer explained. Yi Shuhan nodded, a dark glint in her eyes. She then told the officer about what had happened that night several months ago.
The statement concluded not long after. Before leaving, Yi Shuhan asked one more question. "The incident that happened at the Third Hospital a while ago… did all those people get the punishment they deserved?"
The officer was organizing her notes and didn't think much of the question. She figured that patients in the hospital were somewhat cut off from the outside world, so it was normal for news to travel slowly. She answered, "Several of the main culprits were sentenced to death. Only one, the yellow-haired one, received life imprisonment because he suffers from a mental illness."
Yi Shuhan nodded. Having gotten the information she wanted, she thanked the officer and left the temporary office.
Two nurses were waiting at the door. When they saw Yi Shuhan emerge, they escorted her back to Room No. 1.
The door clicked shut, and the sound of the nurses' footsteps faded away. Yi Shuhan sat on the floor, her back against the soft wall. She pulled out the few drawings she had hidden so well and examined them, a faint smile gracing her lips.
What the policewoman said confirmed that the incident with the yellow-haired man wasn't a figment of her imagination. Those things had really happened. She had really seen those ghosts. That meant none of it was a hallucination. Chi Junluo—Chi Chi—was real, too. It was just that only she and the little boy could see her.
Having figured this out, Yi Shuhan felt a great sense of relief. She nodded in satisfaction and carefully hid the drawings again.
She called out to Chi Chi, and the girl and the ghost began to chat happily in Room No. 1. Yi Shuhan no longer dwelled on the questions she had asked Chi Junluo before. Since Chi Chi was hiding something from her, it must be something she didn't want to talk about. As good friends, she certainly wouldn't force Chi Junluo to speak about things she didn't want to.
Everyone has a past, after all.
The afternoon passed in a flash. The dinner bell rang, and with Chi Junluo on her back, Yi Shuhan headed to the cafeteria.
Although the cafeteria food was very plain and unremarkable, Chi Junluo hadn't tasted human food in a long time. The aroma made her swallow unconsciously.
In the cafeteria, Yi Shuhan ran into the little boy, Shi Qi, again. After a polite greeting, the two ate their dinners in silence. Just as Yi Shuhan was about to get up and leave, Shi Qi called out to her. What he said next surprised both the girl and the ghost. Shi Qi said he had prepared something that would allow a ghost to eat human food.
Yi Shuhan was a bit dazed. She hadn't expected Shi Qi to take the matter to heart and actually find a solution.
Yi Shuhan went back to get some more food. Shi Qi ran to his room and returned with an exquisite square ceramic box, which was just the right size to hold the meal—no more, no less.
Then, the two of them slipped out of the cafeteria. Shi Qi told her to meet at the fifth-floor stairwell at midnight. The fifth floor was the top floor, with few patients, and nurses rarely patrolled there at night.
After confirming the time and place, Yi Shuhan parted ways with Shi Qi for the time being. Shi Qi would hold onto the food, making it less likely to be discovered.
As Yi Shuhan was heading back to her room with Chi Junluo on her back, another nurse came to find her. Yi Shuhan's mother had arrived from the county. She had just finished giving her statement to the police and was now waiting for Yi Shuhan in the temporary office.
Hearing that her mother had rushed over, Yi Shuhan felt a little stunned. It had been a long time since she had seen her mother, and with what had happened today, she suddenly felt a wave of apprehension.
She followed the nurse to the temporary office. From a distance, Yi Shuhan saw her mother waiting at the doorway. Her mother saw her too and rushed over to meet her.
"Han Han!" Her mother embraced her poor child the moment she saw her. That afternoon, she had been minding the shop at home as usual. Yi Shuhan's stepfather had gone to work at the construction site like he always did. She never expected to receive a call from the police a short while later. What they told her on the phone nearly made her blood pressure spike and drop dead on the spot.
With her daughter in trouble, she had immediately closed the shop, rushed to the bus station to buy a ticket to the city, and spent the entire journey fraught with anxiety. The moment she arrived, she hailed a taxi to the Third Hospital, no longer caring about the cost. All she wanted was to see her child as soon as possible.
But when she got to the hospital, before she could even see her daughter, she was pulled aside by the police to give a statement, which delayed her for a long time. Only now was she finally seeing Yi Shuhan.
The surrounding nurses and police tactfully stepped away, giving the mother and daughter some space.
Her mother had never dreamed that the man who had entered their lives, the man she had tolerated for the sake of giving her child a complete family, would be the one to nearly destroy it completely.
It was only during her statement that she learned from the police that this wasn't the first time!
She found out that months ago, on that night before Yi Shuhan was sent to the hospital, the scumbag stepfather had already made a move on her child. The beast she had seen lying by the door with a bloody head hadn't been injured in a fight with someone else—he had been knocked out with a stool by her own daughter acting in self-defense.
Her mother hugged Yi Shuhan tightly. She couldn't bear to imagine what would have happened. If that shameless old bastard had succeeded either time, her child's life would have been ruined.
In the temporary office, the mother and daughter, who hadn't seen each other in months, talked for a long time. Her mother was filled with regret over her decision to remarry and her failure to resist. Seeing her mother so distressed, Yi Shuhan couldn't bring herself to mention that her stepfather often beat her when her mother wasn't around. She didn't want to make her mother even sadder.
They talked for about two or three hours. As it grew late, her mother reluctantly said a temporary goodbye. Because the beast of a stepfather was still lying in a hospital bed, the case would require their cooperation for a while longer. Her mother "walked" Yi Shuhan back to Room No. 1. Seeing the room without even a single window, her heart ached even more for her child. Yi Shuhan had truly suffered these past few months.
Her mother told Yi Shuhan that she would find a small hotel in the city and stay for a few days. They would have more chances to see each other. She told Yi Shuhan to rest well and that she would come to see her again tomorrow.
After a tearful farewell with her mother, Yi Shuhan returned to Room No. 1. She closed the door and sat quietly on the mattress, waiting for midnight to arrive.
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