C22 Sleepwalking

The child wandered on aimlessly, the woman in red pushing the buggy slowly behind her. She did not seem surprised to see me in the street at midnight, nor did she feel any fear, and did not look at me from the moment she appeared to the moment she brushed past me.

I noticed that the woman in red kept her distance from the child as if she didn't want to disturb him. When I picked up the glass bead and stood up, they were already far away from me, and I hurried after her. It seemed that the woman in red was the child's mother.

If this mother and son pair happened to pass by the night that Zhang Songlin died, I would have been able to see something. I only followed a few steps when I heard the child's laughter coming from the carriage pushed by the woman in red.

Could there be another child?

As I was wondering, I saw the woman take out a doll from the stroller. The laughter came from the doll, and I had never felt the child's laughter so creepy. At this time and place, there was always an indescribable feeling.

In the midst of the puppet's laughter, I saw the child playing in front of me stop, wait for the woman in red to get close, then she would turn off the doll's laughter, and the child would once again move forward on its own.

The woman in red would repeat this every once in a while, and gradually I understood what she meant. Once the child had gone far away, she would inform the child by the sound of her laughter, and I would silently follow her at a distance. She would ignore me from the start, probably not want to be disturbed.

The 3 o'clock in the morning ringtone and the laughter of the children mentioned in the Zhang Songlin case file should have been caused by the mother and child in front of me.

The further west I went from Taoboreal Hall Street, the more remote it became. After an hour or so, I lost the mother and son in a shabby residential building. The surroundings were very spacious and there were no other buildings around, so I guessed that mother and son must have entered a residential building.

The residential building seemed to be very old, its mottled exterior was covered with weeds, and the windows in many places were dilapidated. It seemed that there were very few people living here.

But the residential building was not small, and I had no idea where my mother and son had gone. I stood downstairs looking anxiously for a long time, intending to try my luck by going up the stairs. This was an old-fashioned residential building, without an elevator, the stairs were very narrow, and the light in the passageway, perhaps because it was unmanned and mostly damaged, was very careful as I groped my way through the darkness.

It was almost to the third floor. In the darkness I could just barely hear a faint, melodious sound, like a woman's singing, and then I could hear the clear, delicate notes, and the more I walked, the clearer my voice became, and by the fourth floor I could just barely make out the melody of Peking Opera, and I could still make out a few words.

The Alliance Mountain Swearing the Sea for the Prevention of Metamorphosis,

A woman who had lost her life could only grieve.

… ….

Who would be singing Peking Opera in this dilapidated residential building in the middle of the night? I was wondering, as I walked up to the corner of the fifth floor, if anything had happened tonight. The woman in red, who I had been following, was standing at the foot of the stairs, staring at me from above without saying a word.

In the dim light, the woman in red lowered her hands. Her pale face was devoid of any color, and her face, which was covered by her long hair, had a pair of cold eyes. I was stunned on the spot.

It took me a long time to calm down. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked into her eyes, thinking it must be the woman who was singing the Peking Opera. There was a dim light on the terrace on the fifth floor, this was a little brighter, and my gaze fell on the child next to the woman, who was squatting alone at the corner of the stairs with a few plastic bowls in front of him.

"Why have you been following us?" The woman's voice was soft and cold.

I took out my ID and walked slowly up the stairs, slowly, as if afraid to alarm the mother and son, who didn't like being disturbed, until I stood on the first step of the steps below the woman in red and the light illuminated the ID in my hand.

"I'm investigating the case and would like to ask you about some matters." I looked at the silent child beside me and said to the woman in red calmly.

The woman in red didn't seem to be afraid of me. She didn't even look at my ID.

"It's pretty cold at night, why did you take your child out so late to play?" I asked curiously as I put away my ID.

"This child has sleepwalking. Every night, he would wake up and go out by himself, not daring to disturb him. That's why I stayed behind with him." The woman's voice was very soft.

I suddenly understood. No wonder the child's eyes were lifeless. This woman's face was pale, probably due to staying up all night. It must have been hard on this woman.

"I still don't know your name..."

"Mu Hanzhi." When the woman in red spoke, her eyes never left the child. It was obvious that she had poured a lot of feelings into the child.

"Since this child is sleepwalking, have you ever taken him to be treated?" I asked, concerned.

"He was treated, but it didn't have any effect. When the time comes, he will wake up and then go out to play with his friends. The neighbors don't want their children to play with him, I'm the only one with him at night." Mu Hanzhi replied indifferently.

I turned my head to look at the child. Suddenly, I remembered something from my childhood. Like him, I had been rejected since I was young. Perhaps I could understand his feelings and sigh as I was a pitiful person.

"You just said that you would follow him every night when he sleepwalks. Do you remember when you passed by the Taoboreal Hall on the eleventh of May this year?" I looked at Mu Hanzhi and asked seriously.

"I've been there before. This child walks the same route every night and passes through the Taoboreal Hall." Mu Hanzhi answered with certainty.

"Since the time when this child wakes up and the route to return is fixed, that means every time you guys pass by the Taoboreal Hall, it would be around 3 in the morning." "I continued to ask somewhat eagerly." Please think about it carefully. Did you guys see or hear anything special while you were in Taoboreal Hall that night? "

"This child has been sleepwalking for some time. Perhaps it is because he is sick, but no child is willing to play with him. Slowly, he will wake up on time every night and mutter to himself that he is going out to wait for a friend." Mu Hanzhi's answer caused the normal atmosphere to slowly become a little strange.

"Waiting for a friend? What are you waiting for your friend for? " I asked curiously.

"Bring it back to play with him." Mu Hanzhi then turned her gaze back to the child.

"He... Where did he bring his friends back from? " I asked, frowning.

"Taoboreal Hall."

Hearing this, I took a deep breath and looked at Mu Hanzhi silently.

"Then he'll bring it here. He'll play until dawn."

The place Mu Hanzhi pointed out to me was the place where the kids were squatting. I saw five plastic bowls placed in front of him.

"There used to be seven bowls here." Mu Hanzhi said indifferently.

"Seven?" I looked at her doubtfully.

"When you asked me about May 11th, I remember very clearly, because it was that day that the seven bowls here became five." As Mu Hanzhi said till here, she looked at me with a gaze that made me feel ice-cold. This child has been squatting here talking to herself ever since she came back. "

"What did he say?" I asked anxiously.

"Dong Dong He has clearly disappeared, only the five of you are left." Mu Hanzhi replied.

"Who is Dong Donghe?" I asked, surprised.

"This child imagined that there would be no one to play with, and as time went by, he began to fantasize about coming here." Mu Hanzhi's expression was a little dejected as she explained. That day, when she came back, he threw away two of the bowls, leaving only these five. "

I looked at Mu Hanzhi silently for a long time, then slowly shifted my gaze onto the child, and focused my gaze onto the five empty bowls in front of him. At that moment, I couldn't help but think of the seven bottles of corpse oil that I dug out from Taoboreal Hall's backyard.

There had been seven bowls, two thrown away after the night of May eleventh, and five left.

I thought back to what Mu Hanzhi had just said and couldn't help but compare these numbers. I slowly looked at the child at the corner and the empty bowl in front of him.

"Apart from these, are there any other discoveries?" I tried not to let my imagination run wild.

"As for everything else …" Mu Hanzhi said to me calmly after thinking about it for a while. I remember something else. "

"What is it?"

"Because a child can't be frightened while sleepwalking, I remember very clearly that night, when I passed by the Taoboreal Hall, I heard the stone lions on both sides of the Taoboreal Hall's entrance growl. When I walked closer, the noise disappeared again." "Mu Hanzhi said to me calmly, looking very calm. Then I saw. The eyes of the knocker at the entrance of the Taoboreal Hall lit up, but it disappeared when I went in. "

I took a deep breath and looked at Mu Hanzhi blankly without saying anything for a long time. I did not have the skills to investigate, so I believed that Yun Duruo would question me in more detail if she was here.

I had always thought that these were not enough to make people believe me, but Mu Hanzhi didn't seem like a busybody. A woman whose heart is entirely tied to a child would not care about things that are false when they are heard from the rumors. It's clear that Mu Hanzhi told me with her own eyes.

I gently rubbed my cheeks. Initially, I thought that I could get some clues from this mother and son, but after talking with Mu Hanzhi for awhile, I realized that I was getting more and more confused.