Chapter 110
Chapter 110
The next day, Qin Song came downstairs with a head of messy hair and two dark circles under his eyes, then went to the front desk to return the razor blade.
The Chinese-speaking girl from yesterday was no longer there. In her place was a chubby girl.
The chubby girl sized Qin Song up and, in polite English with a Singaporean accent, asked if he needed any help.
Qin Song gave her a perfunctory wave and handed her the blade.
She took it and asked for his room number.
Qin Song tossed out, “416,” pulled a mask from his pocket, put it on, and walked out of the hotel.
He searched on his phone and found a Chinese-owned pharmacy near the hotel, then followed the navigation over.
When he pushed the door open and went inside, the owner was explaining something to a female customer. Qin Song caught bits and pieces; they seemed to be talking about colds and antivirals.
He wandered once around the shelves, then walked up to the owner.
“Hello, do you have any sleeping pills?”
The owner looked up at him and said, “No. We don’t sell sleeping pills, but we do have melatonin.”
Qin Song said, “That works too.”
He took a bottle. The owner added, “We’re running a promotion right now. If you buy two bottles, you get a bottle of multivitamins for free.”
So he reached out and took another bottle from the shelf.
Carrying the bag out of the pharmacy, he planned to find a place to get his hair cut.
At the entrance to the pharmacy, there was a girl with very big eyes eating a popsicle. When she saw Qin Song, she smiled and greeted him. “Hello.”
Qin Song glanced at her and had no intention of responding. He didn’t know whether she was Chinese or Malay.
She turned around again to face Qin Song directly, pointed at the bag in his hand, and asked, “What’d you buy?”
Qin Song found it very strange. The big-eyed girl was acting as if the two of them had been neighbors for years and had simply run into each other at the wet market buying groceries. She was way too familiar.
Qin Song looked down at the bag in his hand and said quietly, “Melatonin.”
The girl sucked on her popsicle and said indistinctly, “That stuff has side effects. My mom never lets me take it.”
Qin Song gave an “Oh” and started to leave.
The girl clearly wasn’t done chatting. She said again, “Are you here on vacation? Or did you move here?”
Qin Song said, “Vacation.”
The girl suddenly pointed toward the hotel where Qin Song was staying. “You’re not staying there, are you?”
Qin Song asked in surprise, “How did you know?”
The girl pointed at her own eyes. “Because you look awful.”
Qin Song was a little baffled. “What does one have to do with the other?”
The girl held the popsicle in her mouth, looked left and right, then lowered her voice. “You don’t know something happened at that hotel?”
Qin Song frowned. “What happened?”
The girl said, “Last summer, a man killed a woman in one of the hotel rooms and stuffed her body under the bed.”
The hand Qin Song was using to hold the pharmacy bag went rigid.
The girl continued, “But the strangest part was, after he was arrested, he gave some details about how he did it. He said he’d stuffed the body under the bed lying faceup. But when the police found the body, it was clearly lying facedown on the floor! The space under the bed was really narrow, and the body’s back was pressed tightly against the bed frame…”
A fine layer of sweat beaded on the tip of Qin Song’s nose. He asked, “So what happened?”
The girl shook her head. “Nobody knows. But my guess is the corpse turned itself over under the bed.”
She finally finished sucking on the popsicle, tossed the little wooden stick into the trash can, and wiped her mouth. “You look like your eyes have gone black, and your whole expression is off. I guessed right away that you must be staying at that hotel. I’ve lived in Singapore for six years, so I know this area very well.”
Qin Song thought for a moment, then said, “I’m more of a materialist. To be honest, I don’t really believe in all those things you’re imagining. I’m in bad shape because I’ve had insomnia lately.”
The girl said, “I’m just kindly giving you a warning. If you don’t believe me, then forget it. But you’d better check under your bed anyway. I don’t think you’d want to sleep in the same room with some weird thing above and below you, right?”
Qin Song was starting to get impatient. He said, “I have something to do. I’m leaving.”
The girl nodded. “Then go do your thing. Oh, right, let me remind you anyway. When you stay at that hotel, remember to avoid 416. That’s the room where it happened back then!”
Qin Song’s mind went off with a boom. He stopped in his tracks and stared blankly at the girl.
The girl shrugged innocently.
Just then, a middle-aged woman pushed open the pharmacy door and came out. Qin Song had seen her earlier. She had picked out several antiviral medications in the pharmacy.
The middle-aged woman waved at the big-eyed girl. “Jingjing, let’s go home.”
Jingjing waved reluctantly at Qin Song. “Fine, big brother, let’s chat next time! Protect yourself!”
Qin Song stood frozen in place, unable to say a word.
The middle-aged woman looked at Qin Song, then said to Jingjing, “You head home first. Mommy’s going to buy some fruit.”
Jingjing didn’t even look at her and just walked off on her own.
The middle-aged woman came up to Qin Song and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, young man. My daughter has some mental issues. She talks nonsense all day… No matter what she said to you, please don’t take it to heart. I’m sorry about that!”
Qin Song relaxed slightly and nodded. “It’s fine. She didn’t say anything she shouldn’t have.”
The middle-aged woman left, but Qin Song remained standing where he was.
He thought, This girl called Jingjing is mentally ill, so the ghost story she told definitely can’t be trusted… But why, of all things, did she happen to say his room number?