Chapter 53 — Man Proposes, Heaven Disposes

He put on this getup, then threw a down jacket over it to conceal it, and Chen Afu vanished into the night. At the inpatient department of Songjiang City First People's Hospital, Chen Afu moved with practiced ease. A few flits and he was inside the first-floor restroom, in the farthest stall, beginning his preparations. Because Wang Lin had suffered food poisoning, the IVs he received today included a component to aid excretion. In the middle of the night, Wang Lin was suddenly seized by abdominal pain. So he told his father, grabbed some toilet paper, and rushed to the toilet.

Ordinarily, for someone as rich as Wang Pu, arranging a deluxe room would have been no trouble at all. But these days the hospital was packed to overflowing, so Wang Lin had no choice but to take an ordinary room, without an indoor toilet.

"Zhitao, want me to come with you?" Wang Pu asked.

"No need. I'm going on ahead—I can't hold it in!" Wang Lin rushed out of the room in a panic.

In two or three strides he was in the restroom. Wang Lin picked a stall, pulled down his pants, and squatted. With a thunderous "plop," Wang Lin felt immensely relieved—when "knock, knock, knock," a sudden knocking came from outside the stall door.

Wang Lin was in the middle of a most satisfying dump, and said with some impatience: "I'm not done yet—what's the hurry?"

"Knock, knock, knock"—three more knocks.

Wang Lin frowned. "Who is it? What's wrong with you? Aren't there plenty of empty stalls? Why are you knocking on my door?"

Wang Lin was baffled. When he had come in just moments ago, there had seemed to be no one at all in the restroom—the doors of most of the stalls were hanging open. So how was it that someone had beaten him to this one?

"Red steamed bun, green steamed bun—are you after the red steamed bun, or the green steamed bun?" Out of nowhere, a hair-raising voice rose beside Wang Lin's ear. "What the hell is this? Are you out of your mind?" Wang Lin felt a chill crawl over his skin.

"Young man, is it the red steamed bun you want, or the green steamed bun?" the voice pressed on.

"Damn it!" Wang Lin flew into a rage and flung the stall door open with a bang, certain some kid was playing a prank on him. He was just about to give the brat a piece of his mind when he caught sight of something—he could not even tell what—standing right in front of him, drenched in blood, a green steamed bun in its left hand and a red one in its right, the red bun still dripping fresh blood.

"The green bun is made from brains; the red bun is made from blood. Young man, which will you have?" The monster suddenly split open a vast, bloody maw and leered horribly at Wang Lin.

"Mother of God!" Wang Lin felt his legs turn to jelly; he dropped straight down onto the reeking floor of the latrine, his eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness. "Heh heh heh heh." Chen Afu gave a satisfied chuckle—and only then did he take a look at the face of the man he had frightened senseless. One glance was all it took to give him a violent start.

Good heavens, wasn't this Wang Lin? His own immediate superior! Chen Afu cursed his rotten luck. How could he be so unlucky—every single time, he ended up frightening his own boss.

If Wang Lin ever found out that he had dressed up as a ghost to scare him, that would be the end of it. The man would tear him limb from limb!

At that thought, Chen Afu's earlier glee evaporated, and cold sweat broke out all over him. Fearing someone might discover him, he turned and fled the scene at a run, not daring to linger a moment longer.

This time Chen Afu had been thoroughly frightened. After he got home, his heart was still pounding with the lingering terror. Once he had hidden away his whole costume, he did not dare entertain a single crooked notion again. He reckoned he would have to lie low for a good while.

When Wang Lin came to again, he was already lying in a hospital bed. When his son had failed to return for so long, Wang Pu had grown worried and gone to look for him in the restroom, only to find Wang Lin unconscious inside, his trousers not even pulled up, his backside smeared with filth. Wang Pu hastily cleaned the muck off his son, carried him back to the ward, and sent for a doctor.

When Wang Lin woke, he would not stop crying out "Ghost!" and "Red steamed bun!" and the like, his eyes vacant and glassy—plainly he had been frightened out of his wits.

And worse still, Wang Lin had lost control of his bowels and bladder; eating, drinking, and every other function ended up in the bed. Wang Pu was in agony. Was Heaven out to destroy the Wang family? Why had misfortunes been coming in such relentless waves lately? Wang Lin had barely begun to recover when this new calamity struck. As for what had frightened Wang Lin, it would be some time before anyone could figure that out, for Wang Lin had now become addled—apart from "red steamed bun" and "green steamed bun," he said nothing else at all.

He had not yet sunk to the level of outright insanity, but he was clearly a little unhinged. Only after making inquiries did Wang Pu learn that Wang Lin had likely seen a "ghost." That the Songjiang City People's Hospital was haunted had already become a stock topic of gossip and jest among the long-term patients.

As for why the hospital had a ghost, accounts differed, and Wang Pu could make no sense of it either.

And so poor Wang Lin, who had just begun to feel that life was full of hope, was plunged headlong back into an ice cellar.

As for the state of Wang Lin's illness, Wang Pu did not tell Zhou Yanning. Better to wait until Wang Lin was a little more himself, and then tell her.

"Black Widow" frowned slightly as she looked over the new assignment her subordinates had taken on.

"This Bao Lin is a notable figure in Songjiang City. What he does, everyone here surely knows. Moving against him will not be so easy, I suspect." Black Widow pondered a moment before speaking.

"Boss, leave it to me." Blade stood up. He and Black Rat had not long recovered from their injuries and were itching for some action.

"All right, then. You and Black Rat will handle it together." Black Widow nodded. "But I hear Bao Lin has no shortage of skilled men under him. If you cannot beat them, do not force it."

"Understood, boss," Blade and Black Rat answered in unison.

By the time Huang Shu arrived with the Wang family's special squad at the so-called black clinic, the place was already deserted. He reported back to Wang Pu, who could do nothing but accept it.

Strictly speaking, the matter ought to have been reported to the police, but Wang Pu had lately been reluctant to deal with the authorities, so he had no choice but to swallow the loss in silence.

For Yang Cen, these two days had been neither busy nor idle. The New Year was almost upon them—one had to make some preparations, after all. He wondered whether Chen Shutang had come around yet. Xia Xue, for her part, had won the recognition of her comrades in the unit for the first time and was sent to gather information from Customs and to help discuss the matter of those smuggled Mercedes. On the surface, Songjiang City seemed calm, but in truth the wind was already rising and the clouds gathering. The sky was about to change.

To be continued.