Invisible Man
Dinner, Ning Ning had it at a coffee shop.
The person who bought dinner was Wen Yu.
He handed the menu to the waiter, the waiter bowed slightly before leaving. Wen Yu asked Ning Ning, “Am I causing a lot of trouble for you?”
Ning Ning shrugged, smiling at him with a bit of helplessness.
She had originally planned to go home already, but she had gotten a call from Director Shi halfway through, telling her not to leave as Wen Yu was about to catch up with her.
Anyone could see that Wen Yu was forced to come over by Director Shi, the purpose of this meal was equivalent to matchmaking.
“After a few days, when my father’s health gets a little better, I will explain things to him clearly.” Wen Yu also smiled helplessly. “So that he won’t call and bother you anymore.”
“Director Shi is a very good person, I will be very happy to talk to him.” Before Ning Ning could finish speaking, Wen Yu’s phone rang. Both of their expressions changed. They looked at each other at the same time, both thinking: Is that Director Shi calling to check on them?
Wen Yu took a look at his phone in a hurry, then breathed a sigh of relief. He stood up and told Ning Ning, “It’s one of my patients. Apologies, I’ll go take the call.”
After leaving his seat, Wen Yu went over to a window that had no one around to answer the call.
“Doctor Wen.” Madam Qin’s voice rang out from the phone, her voice was trembling slightly.
Hearing that her emotions were a bit out of the ordinary, Wen Yu asked gently, “Madam Qin, is something the matter?”
While he was taking the call, the steak and salad were served. Ning Ning was holding a toothpick with her right hand, on the toothpick was half a piece of an apple. She was chewing on it slowly when she suddenly saw Wen Yu enter in a hurry. He grabbed his coat that was draped over the back of the chair and told her, “Apologies, I have an urgent matter to attend to, I’ll be off.”
Ning Ning was stunned. Shi Zhong Tang walked over from behind Wen Yu, bending down and saying by her ear, “Follow him.”
After frantically putting down her chopsticks, Ning Ning got up and chased after him. It might be due to the urgency of the matter, Wen Yu’s pace was also urgent. Ning Ning seemed to be half jogging along the way, finally catching up to him at the carpark. She shouted while feeling out of breath, “Wait up.”
Wen Yu who had opened the car door and was about to enter his car turned his head around.
“He had just answered a call from a patient,” Shi Zhong Tang said behind Ning Ning, “if I’m not mistaken, the patient should be entangled with a certain masked person. We have to follow him, he won’t be able to deal with a masked person alone.”
Ning Ning had a cold expression on her face. She walked over and said, “Let’s go together.”
Wen Yu looked very vexed, “I’m about to go deal with a work matter…”
“Director Shi just gave me a call, I’m guessing he will call and check on us later.” Ning Ning interrupted him. She apologised to the innocent Director Shi in her heart, then continued to spout nonsense, “Before he recovers, we cannot stimulate him. Let’s continue to play a couple, alright?”
Thus, when Madam Qin looked out of her peephole, she saw that there was one extra person.
“Who is she?” Miss Qin did not open the door, asking cautiously through the door.
Wen Yu took a look at Ning Ning, he was unsure of how to answer, Ning Ning overreached and answered for him, “Hello Madam Qin, I am Doctor Wen’s girlfriend, my surname is Ning.”
“…Why did you bring your girlfriend along?” Madam Qin’s voice sounded cold and displeased.
“When you called him, he was already off work and was having dinner with me.” Ning Ning explained.
But Madam Qin seemed to be unwilling to accept her explanation, or Madam Qin was unwilling to complicate what had happened behind the door, she did not want another person to know what had happened.
“…Then we should forget it for today,” Madam Qin said, “the two of you should go back.”
Ning Ning bit on her lips. Just as she was thinking about ways to persuade her, Wen Yu—who was beside her—suddenly spoke up.
“Madam Qin, she is in the same situation as you.” Wen Yu glanced at Ning Ning beside him. “She also has an additional invisible person by her side.”
Ning Ning was astounded by his glance, as if a reflex, she looked at Shi Zhong Tang beside her, Shi Zhong Tang was also coincidentally looking at her. The two of them had a trace of surprise in their eyes, as if asking: How did he know?
After a few moments, the door slowly opened.
The instant she clearly saw Madam Qin, Ning Ning raised her hand to cover her mouth so that she would not scream.
The woman was drenched in blood. The blood had already coagulated, it stuck to her hair, strings of them hung by her cheeks, it caused her originally fairly beautiful face to look quite sinister and frightful.
Wen Yu quickly stood in front of Ning Ning, stuffed the car keys in her hands and said, “Go back to the car and wait for me.”
Ning Ning stood behind him and looked at Madam Qin who was standing across from her, feeling a little horrified in her heart. Anyone who saw a person in front of them being drenched in blood would feel horrified. It would not be as bad had the blood belonged to her, but what if…it belonged to someone else?
What exactly happened behind the door?
“Go back to the car and wait for us.” Shi Zhong Tang’s hand landed on Ning Ning’s shoulder, forcefully giving her shoulder a squeeze, then he followed behind Wen Yu, the two of them walked through the door one after another.
Madam Qin shot a weird look at Ning Ning, then she closed the door.
Ning Ning folded her arms, walking back and forth for a while, she finally sighed and returned to the car and sat there.
After ten or so minutes of kicking her heels, Ning Ning took her phone out. She hesitated for a moment, then entered: [Masked people].
She pressed the search button, a Baidu Encyclopedia1 page showed up, there was also a song, images of men wearing masks, a movie with this name, et cetera.
She did not want any of these.
After thinking about it, Ning Ning entered a new term: [An invisible man around me].
This time, quite a number of posts showed up from all sorts of forums, Baidu Post Bar2, and even on personal blogs.
Ning Ning tapped on a post, reading every line of the content carefully, she furrowed her brows. “How could this be?”
She had thought that this was an exception, thus she opened a few other posts consecutively, but the contents were about the same. Finally, she opened a blog. The blog was written in the style of a diary: “There is an invisible person around me (12)”.
“My wife is dead.” Ning Ning read the diary. “She was dead beside me when I woke up early in the morning, suffocated to death by a pillow. I called the police, then sat by the bed and had a smoke. Did I do it? I had drunk a little too much last night…my vision is still blurry at the moment. I think I saw the furniture moving by itself again, a chair floated to my front, the chair cushion was dented down, it felt like there was a person sitting in front of me…”
The car door beside her was suddenly opened. Ning Ning turned her head and saw Wen Yu sitting beside her, his expression was quite gloomy.
“Who died back there?” Ning Ning asked.
Wen Yu quickly took a look at her. “Don’t ask.”
“The person who died was Madam Qin’s boyfriend.” Shi Zhong Tang told her from the backseat, “His head was cracked open with a hammer, everything spilled out. It’s a good thing you didn’t go in and see it.”
The back of Ning Ning’s head hurt just from hearing it. She remained silent for a moment before asking, “Did you call the police?”
Wen Yu did not say a word, but after a few minutes, the sound of police sirens were approaching them, the red and blue lights on top of the cars pierced the night sky. “I’m afraid I will have to stay back to give my testimony.” Wen Yu looked at the police car below the apartment, he turned around and said to Ning Ning, “You can go ahead and leave first.”
Ning Ning was not in a hurry to get off the car, she asked instead, “Do you think that Madam Qin is the murderer?”
Wen Yu, “It doesn’t matter what I think, the police and the forensics will provide the correct answer.”
“But sometimes, the police and forensics cannot provide the correct answer either.” Ning Ning stared at him. “For example, what if there really is an invisible person by Madam Qin’s side?”
Wen Yu gazed at her for half an instant before he slowly turned his head back. Through the car window, he looked in the direction of the apartment, saying blandly, “She came to look for me recently with the intention of getting me to conjure up a mental illness for herself.”
Ning Ning frowned. “You think that she killed someone and wanted you to fake a diagnosis of mental illness for her?”
Wen Yu, “I cannot confirm that, but it is a possibility.”
Ning Ning gazed at him. She did not know how she could persuade him. Bring him to take a look at Life Theater? Or, tell him that there was a man that was invisible to him sitting in his car right now?
“…If she wanted to get away with murder by using mental illness to exonerate herself, I will not help her.” A policeman walked down from the apartment across the street. He was slowly turning his head around as if he was looking for something. Wen Yu said, “But if she really is schizophrenic and is suffering from hallucinations thinking that there is an extra person in her house—who is a murderer—then I cannot ignore her.”
After he finished speaking, he opened the door and got out of the car, walking over towards the policeman.
“The murderer is a masked person, the ex-husband of Madam Qin.” Shi Zhong Tang said from behind Ning Ning.
Ning Ning looked at Wen Yu who had just met up with the policeman in front of her. She murmured, “You don’t want Wen Yu and your father to be able to see you, but other masked people don’t seem to think that way…”
Shi Zhong Tang fell silent for a moment before he laughed. “That’s right, they don’t think that way. For the sake of their loved ones and relatives to be able to see them, some masked people…are willing to do anything.”
“Ah!!!”
Upstairs, in the bloody bedroom, Madam Qin struggled in the policeman’s arms. She pointed in front of her as she shouted in anger and surprise, “Are you people blind? It’s him! He’s the murderer!”
A man wearing a rabbit mask was standing in front of her, the snow white rabbit mask was dyed red with blood.
The policeman looked at the direction Rabbit Mask was standing in. Then, as if he had not seen anything, he turned back and told Madam Qing angrily, “Where’s the person? Stop trying to feign madness!”
“He’s right there! How can you pretend to not see him?” Madam Qin started crying. A hand reached out in front of her, a bloodstained finger wiped her tears.
“Dear, I’m so happy.” Rabbit Mask was so close to her, a pair of eyes full of love and madness were so close to her too, his laughter was twisted with excitement. “You can finally see me…”
“Ah!! Get away!!”
Madam Qin’s scream pierced the night and was carried out of the window.
Wen Yu and the policeman at the foot of the apartment building looked up.
“…Besides insisting that there was an invisible person in her own room, was there anything else that was strange about her?” The policeman looked back at the notepad in his hand, he continued to record the testimony.
The fingers of Wen Yu’s right hand by the side of his body curled up slightly. Within the pocket of his pants, right beside hand, was what Madam Qin had handed over to him…a ticket.
1Baidu Encyclopedia is basically the Chinese equivalent of Wikipedia, wiki article.
2Baidu Post Bar is a popular Chinese forum, wiki article.
No no no no, I don’t want him to go to the theatre! But again, if one person could make it out of there safely, I think it’d be WY. And what happened with little Chen?
Wen Yu got the ticket! He is the one that can handle this matter better than anyone. I am looking forward to cheer him. But at the same time, I am afraid that something might happen to him….. Yu’er, be safe and dig out all this trash.*sigh* My hero!! PROCEED!