Wei Chen didn’t know how or why, but a smile slowly crept onto his face as he looked down at the baby girl in the crib.
"Awwww~ Bu~ Pffttt, pffftt!"
The baby girl moved her arms and legs toward Wei Chen as he smiled. He moved his face closer, and the baby girl started giggling and waving her arms.
"Awww, keke, Buu~ Awww~!"
It was as if she were trying to grab his face. Wei Chen didn’t move away until her tiny hand finally touched his face.
Somehow... the baby seemed to be able to perceive him.
But from Cindy’s perspective, she saw her baby girl giggling at an invisible man.
And that seriously creeped her out.
Her entire body went stiff.
A cold shiver ran down her spine, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She slowly looked around the room, her eyes darting from one corner to another.
Nothing.
There was absolutely nothing there.
Yet her baby was clearly looking at something.
Something Cindy couldn’t see.
"God..." she whispered, her voice trembling.
She quickly grabbed her phone with both hands and called Wei Chen’s parents.
"Mom... Umm... Can I... Can I change rooms? I think this room isn’t good. It’s getting a bit creepy."
"Why?"
"Err... It’s because... because..."
Cindy’s voice trembled as she struggled to explain what was happening.
Meanwhile, Wei Chen continued playing with the baby girl as if nothing strange was happening. The baby kept giggling and smiling, her little hands reaching toward the invisible figure standing beside her crib.
Every time the baby laughed, Cindy’s heart jumped.
She couldn’t stop staring at her daughter.
Then she slowly looked toward the empty space beside the crib.
Nothing.
She looked back at her daughter.
The baby was still smiling.
Cindy swallowed nervously.
"Nope... Nope, nope, nope..."
She began telling Wei Chen’s parents over the phone about what she had just seen, her voice becoming increasingly frantic as she tried to convince them that she wasn’t imagining things.
It took a while before she finally finished explaining everything, speaking in a stuttered and trembling voice as if she were narrating a horror story.
At the same time, Wei Chen was finally satisfied.
He smiled at the baby girl and waved goodbye.
The baby girl waved her tiny hand back at him.
Cindy’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
She stared at the baby’s waving hand before slowly turning toward the empty space beside her.
Her face went pale.
She pulled the blanket tightly around herself and sat completely stiff on the bed, not daring to move a single muscle.
She didn’t even dare look directly at the spot where Wei Chen was standing anymore.
Seeing his ex-girlfriend like that, Wei Chen slapped his own forehead as he finally remembered.
He had completely forgotten that Cindy was very afraid of creepy things, especially ghost stories and horror movies.
Of course, she loved listening to them, but only when someone was staying with her and they were listening together under bright lights.
There was absolutely no way she would listen to them alone.
And now she was facing something far worse than a horror movie.
There was an invisible man standing right beside her daughter, her baby was happily playing with him, and nobody else could see him.
Considering all that, the fact that Cindy hadn’t immediately fainted was probably the best she could do as a mother who was desperately trying not to pass out in front of her baby daughter.
Wei Chen took a step toward Cindy. He unconsciously wanted to apologize to her, but... he stopped mid-step.
He remembered who he was now.
He was not William Carter.
He was Wei Chen, an employee of the Underworld Palace.
He looked at Cindy’s pale face, remembering the last time he had seen her...
He had chosen his pride.
His job.
He had chased after some stupid acknowledgment from people whose faces he had never even seen, while overlooking what was truly important.
He should have stopped...
Listened to her.
Listened to his parents.
"Sigh..."
Wei Chen unconsciously let out a tired sigh.
He had no right to appear in her life again.
She had finally moved on... with this little baby girl. With the insurance money, his parents and Cindy should be able to live comfortably.
Even though he couldn’t appear before her as William Carter, or appear before his parents as their son, he could still help them as a stranger or even an acquaintance.
And his baby girl...
Wei Chen looked at the baby girl in the crib, who was still staring at him with interest. Her bright eyes were fixed directly on him.
His gaze then fell on the name tag attached to the crib.
"Lucy Carter."
A simple name...
This must have been a name Cindy had chosen for her. He hadn’t even left a name for his daughter.
He remembered that he had only told Cindy that if they ever had a son, he would name him William the II because it sounded awesome.
Come to think of it, it was a good thing she had a daughter.
If she had had a son and actually kept that silly name, he might have felt even more guilty.
Looking at Lucy, Wei Chen thought that maybe he could help her have a stronger body. At least... in the cultivation world, there were many great pills, charms, talismans, and even artifacts that could help her develop a stronger and healthier body.
With this in mind, Wei Chen smiled at the baby girl and waved goodbye one last time.
Lucy was of course waved back.
Cindy was creeped out all over again.
Wei Chen opened the door and left.
And that was the limit of what Cindy could take.
She finally fainted and fell asleep.
...
About fifteen minutes after Wei Chen left, his parents returned.
Both of them were alarmed when they found their beloved daughter-in-law unconscious on the bed, and they immediately called the nurse through the emergency line.
The nurse quickly arrived, followed by the doctor responsible for Cindy’s case.
After Cindy woke up, she immediately told them everything that had happened.
Of course, the doctor didn’t believe her.
"Doctor, I’m telling you! There was something in this room!"
"Mrs. Carter, you may have been frightened or disoriented. There is no one else in the room."
"Then check the CCTV!" She pointed at the camera resting on the ceiling.
The doctor hesitated before finally nodding.
"Okay... If it will give you peace of mind, let’s check it."
The doctor walked to the monitoring room along with Wei Chen’s parents.
When he arrived, the doctor told the security officer to check the footage.
The security officer nodded and pulled up the footage from the VIP room while the doctor stood beside him.
At first, everything looked completely normal.
Cindy’s parents-in-law left the room.
The door closed.
Then, a few minutes later, the door suddenly opened by itself.
The security officer frowned.
"Did someone enter?" he asked.
The doctor shook his head.
"No. Keep watching."
The footage continued.
Nobody had entered, and no shadow left a trace in the footage.
Yet the door remained open...
Then, it slowly closed again, as if someone had gently pushed it shut.
The security officer slowly leaned closer to the monitor.
"That’s... strange..."
The doctor still looked skeptical. As a man of science, he simply couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
"Check the corridor camera."
The security officer switched to the camera outside the room.
The corridor was completely empty.
The doctor’s expression finally changed.
"Go back to the room."
The security officer did as instructed.
On the screen, Cindy’s baby suddenly started giggling and waving her hands toward an empty space beside the crib.
The doctor stared.
"What is she looking at?"
"....."
The security officer swallowed hard.
The baby continued giggling, reaching toward something that wasn’t there.
Then Cindy looked toward the same empty space.
Her face went pale.
The security officer swallowed again.
"Doctor... is there someone who died in that room?" he asked.
The doctor didn’t answer.
He was still staring at the screen, his face a mixture of disbelief and trepidation.
The baby was still smiling at something invisible.
After a few seconds, the doctor quietly said,
"Okay... Move the patient to another VIP room."
He said it to the nurse who had come with him.
The nurse nodded.
"Right away, Doctor."
The footage of that scene became permanently imprinted in the minds of everyone who saw it.
The hospital quickly moved Cindy to another room and called a priest to perform an exorcism in the room the next day.
The footage even went viral on the internet and appeared on late-night television programs about ghosts and horror stories. Some teams even came to investigate the room and conduct their own ghost hunts.
But...
Wei Chen, who was the source of all that chaos, didn’t even know what he had done.
And even if he had known, he probably would have only felt a little guilty toward Cindy.