Chapter 37: I Do Not Exist
Of course, yesterday when Chu Jiang communicated with the ride-hailing driver, the driver was fine.
It can only be said that the situation happening with Sun Xiaoman might not be as simple as Chu Jiang imagined.
After calming Little Man down, Chu Jiang asked his biggest question, "I only asked you to bring me a rice noodle roll, but how did you know I wanted one with double eggs?"
Little Man didn't expect Chu Jiang to ask this, "I, I just bought it based on my own preferences. I usually like to add an extra egg..."
Was it just a coincidence?
So Chu Jiang continued to inquire, "Since sunrise today, how many times have we met?"
"Twice, once when you opened the door in the morning, and now," Sun Xiaoman answered sentence by sentence.
That's where it gets interesting, after you went out to buy breakfast, I saw another person who looked just like you coming out of the room on the first floor.
"Her reaction to the situation was similar to yours, and in the end, she also left the hotel under the pretext of buying breakfast."
"I suppose that couldn't be your twin sister, right?"
As Chu Jiang asked the question, he looked directly into Sun Xiaoman's eyes, which made her even more nervous; at the same time, Chu Jiang also noticed that her legs were starting to shake.
Their reactions were too similar, it was almost identical.
"I, I..."
"Let's start by talking about why you secretly cried in the middle of the night, I think you also really wanted to confide in someone, right?" Chu Jiang said in a gentle tone.
Sun Xiaoman finally struggled for a bit, but she still revealed this secret, or rather, this nightmare that had been haunting her for weeks.
"About three weeks ago, I noticed some strange things happening around me."
"For example, there was a tenant who thanked me for no reason. But I didn't know what I had done for them, at first I just thought they were polite and didn't think much of it."
"But later on, a cleaning lady asked me if mangoes tasted good or if they were sour."
"But I haven't had any mangoes recently, and it was only when she asked me that I found out she had given me a bag of mangoes from her own garden yesterday, and I happily accepted it."
"But I have no memory of this happening at all, so I asked the lady if she had mistaken me for someone else."
"But the lady was firm in her statement, saying it did happen and that I had forgotten."
"So the two of us went to my usual room, and to my surprise, I actually found a bag of unripe mangoes stuffed under the small table, I have no idea when they were put there."
"The reason why I came to this place right away is because I always have uneaten fruit and I habitually stuff it under the table."
"The cleaning auntie saw the evidence and advised me even more, telling me not to stay up late, and saying that I have a terrible memory at such a young age."
"At that moment, even I started to doubt myself and went to bed early that day."
Sun Xiaoman's expression grew even more gloomy as she talked about this, "I didn't expect that all of this was just the beginning."
"In the following week, I encountered the same things over and over again, as if there was another me in this world, appearing in every corner of my life's path."
"This other person would replace me in social interactions, and everything about her would behave just like me, to the point where others mistook her for me."
"I once tried to temporarily close my business and go on a trip to relax, but that... that ghost-like thing! Wherever I went, it followed."
"It almost never appeared in front of me, but it always lingered around me. As long as you spend enough time with me, everyone has a chance to see the imposter and have some kind of interaction with it."
"Because of this, I returned from another place in despair and temporarily cut off all my social connections. I tried not to communicate with any of my friends around me anymore. They send messages and call, but I don't respond."
"I once thought, maybe this is the purpose of that spooky thing. It takes this opportunity to deepen communication and relationships with the people around me."
"But what surprised me was that when I stopped contacting my friends, it also started to stop contacting my friends."
"On one hand, I'm glad it didn't bother others. But on the other hand, I feel even more desperate. It's almost like it's thinking of completely replacing me."
"I worry that one day, there won't be my presence in this world anymore. It will kill me and then live on as me, with my appearance and identity."
When Chu Jiang heard this, he could almost be sure that there was definitely a ghost causing trouble.
However, for now, the harmfulness of this ghost should not be high, at most only a C.
As for the individual danger, it seems okay for now. At least there haven't been any victims yet. Sun Xiaoman looks like she hasn't been injured except for being a little depressed and sleep-deprived.
Now it's time to analyze the patterns, maybe this will become the first ghost that Chu Jiang independently discovers the pattern of and seals away.
Yes, Chu Jiang is determined to get involved in handling this matter, even if it's just as practice.
This world is too scary. It's not easy to come across such a "gentle" ghost. Shouldn't we try feeding it to Ghost Diary instead of fighting with Slender Man, who is a higher-level A-class ghost?
Even the Stretching Ghost is very dangerous, not easy to catch.
Based on what we can see now, this ghost has the ability to completely copy the body and thoughts of a living person. It will linger around the victim, living as if it were the victim.
The ultimate goal is most likely what Sun Xiaoman said. It will kill Sun Xiaoman and pretend to be human, taking on her identity.
But to achieve this goal, it needs certain conditions and a little time. That's why the ghost hasn't taken any action yet, and Sun Xiaoman is still alive.
To get more detailed information, we still need to gather more intelligence from Sun Xiaoman.
While Chu Jiang was thinking, Sun Xiaoman continued speaking, "Encountering such a scary thing, I have thought about calling the police, but I don't have any evidence."
"To find evidence, I tried starting with the surveillance footage, like finding two people recorded at the same time."
"Even if they are not in the same scene, as long as they are in the same time frame, it can at least prove that there were indeed two Sun Xiaomans."
"But it's very strange that no matter what, I can't record any evidence."
"When the impostor is alone, the surveillance cameras can't capture her, as if she is invisible; when the impostor talks to people, they can capture her image, but I disappear!"
As Sun Xiaoman said this, she almost started crying, "Can you imagine that scene? At the same time, the impostor is talking to guests on the third floor, and I am at the front desk on the first floor."
"The surveillance on the first and third floors is working fine, but when it captures the impostor's image, there is strangely no one behind the front desk on the first floor. It's as if I don't exist."
