Light Against Shadows

Chapter 19

He paused a moment. He murmured to the air, "He knows already... oh, alright."

Wei cleared his throat and addressed Yunlan again. "Qing helped me clear him out of most of it, so it will be easier now for his body to react."

They kept silent the rest of the way, until they were only a few minutes away from Wei's apartment.

"I need to drive to the station, Hong took my car when she came back," Yunlan told him, then he paused in thought. "Would you mind coming inside? You could take a look at the other missing cases."

Wei turned to him with his mouth open. "More people missing? How many?"

"During this last week, thirteen people disappeared just like that. Only one has been found yet, and you saw him today."

Yunlan parked the car in front of the police station and they both got out.
Wei hesitated before following him. He felt nervous about meeting other people who now knew who he was, but he kept a straight face. After all, it wasn't the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

They went in and they were greeted by Ling. "Two more disappeared today. One of the first, a young man who went missing five days ago, has been found. Same condition as the other one."

Fifteen people missing and only two had been found, barely alive. Zhao cursed. What was going on all of a sudden?

"No children?" Wei asked.

Ling seemed to notice his presence only now. "Oh, the ghost guy! Can you help us find them like you found the kid?"

Wei stiffened instinctively but there was no malice in Ling's words, so after a second he relaxed his shoulders a bit.

"Yeah, he could ask his invisible friends to help us all!"

Hong's bitter remark was different though. There was nothing friendly in her tone.

"I'd ask them myself, if I was... you know." She touched her head making it clear that she meant 'crazy'.

Something strange clicked inside Shen Wei. He had felt so good earlier, talking to Yunlan about his life, saying things he had never once said out loud, and now he realised that he was tired of denying who he was. His ghost friends were important to him, an important part of his life, and Hong's hostility annoyed him terribly.

"It's better if I ask them, they only react to kindness."

Wei had kept his tone of voice normal, but it caused the reply to have even more effect.

Yunlan smiled brightly, angering her even more than Wei had. Ling laughed, joined by Chu who had come closer.

"Good one, man."

Wei smiled, very much surprised. He was the outsider, so he kind of expected them to side with her. This day was turning out to be full of surprises.

"You don't mind what you read about me? Don't you think I'm weird?"

Chu shrugged. "People say I'm weird too, because I talk to dogs."

"Many people talk to their dog," Wei pointed out. It was nothing strange, people got attached to their pets and treated them like part of the family. Wei liked that, it showed they cared.

Yunlan laughed. "He doesn't have a dog. It's not 'his dog' he talks to, it's every canine he meets on his way."

Chu shrugged again. "I like dogs."

"Dogs are real." Hong put her word into the conversation. "Real and alive, not crazy fantasy."

Wei fully turned to her this time. Even if all that mess with people missing and the involvement of Shadows scared him and worried him, it had still been one of the best days of his life, and her attempts at ruining it were pissing him off.