Chapter 3 Story 2 Mysterious Carriage Fee

Early the next morning, I came to Zhao Bochu's villa again.Butler Gu enthusiastically led me up to the third floor, and I finally met Mr. Zhao for the first time. Mr. Zhao's bedroom is very large. He is lying on an equally large bed, and the light is very dim.Mr. Zhao's face was a little swollen, maybe because he didn't see the sun all day long, and his face looked very pale.When he saw me coming in, he stretched out his skinny hand, waved it, and said, "Mr. Zhuang, please sit down. I heard that today you are going to tell me a story about traveling expenses?" I nodded, only then did I realize that besides Mr. Zhao, there were two other people sitting in a dark corner in the room.A man and a woman, the man in his forties, wearing a pair of glasses, behind the lens a pair of small eyes flickering with uncertain light, looks very sinister.The woman is only in her twenties and very beautiful.

Butler Gu quickly introduced to me that these two are Mr. Zhao's son Zhao Puzhe and daughter Zhao Qianlian.They are also curious and want to listen to the ghost stories told by me, a professional. I smiled, sat on the head of Mr. Zhao's bed, motioned to housekeeper Gu to turn off all the lights, and then lit two dim candles - telling a ghost story must have the mysterious atmosphere of telling a ghost story. Three months ago, I accepted an invitation from a radio station, and I had to go to the radio station every night to do a program.The name of this program is "Talking about ghosts in the middle of the night". As the name suggests, it tells the audience some creepy ghost stories in the dead of night.Although this program was broadcast very late, but the ratings are very high, I also love this program.

One day at the end of the month, probably because the spicy crayfish I ate at noon was a bit stale, so I spent the whole afternoon shuttling between the living room and the toilet at home, feeling so weak that I had no strength at all.When it was dark, Xiao Zhou, the host of the radio station, called me a few times before I struggled to change my clothes and went downstairs, called a taxi, and went straight to the radio building.I can't let the program open the skylight. This is professional ethics, and there are many people who can tell ghost stories. If I open the skylight for one episode, maybe other masters will take my place in the next episode. It's not worth it!

As soon as I entered the building, a girl in a beige T-shirt came up to me and said to me, "You are Mr. Zhuang Qin, right?" I noticed that she was holding a notebook in her hand. I nodded quickly.I guessed that this was another enthusiastic audience who came here for the name, so I freed my hand and took out a pen, hoping to wait for her to hand over the notebook so that I could sign it for her. Sure enough, she handed over the notebook and said, "Mr. Zhuang, I am the cashier of the financial department of the radio station. You can call me Xiaoqing. Please sign this. This is your transportation expenses for this month."

It turned out to be the carriage fee... I couldn't help laughing at my self-indulgence.However, it is of course a good thing to have money. After signing, Xiaoqing handed me an envelope, and I weighed it. I was very satisfied with the thickness of the banknotes inside. After taking the fare, I walked towards the elevator.At this time, Xiaoqing suddenly said to me: "Mr. Zhuang, the main elevator is broken today, you have to take the freight elevator upstairs." She pointed to the left corner of the lobby on the first floor. I know that this old antique elevator on the radio station has some inexplicable problems from time to time, and I was going to write a ghost story about this elevator.So I thanked Xiaoqing, put the envelope in my trouser pocket, turned around and walked to the left.

The buildings in every place are similar, the passenger elevators are beautifully decorated, and the freight elevators are full of paint splashes, like a forgotten world. It was the first time for me to take a freight elevator to go upstairs. I took a few glances before I found the elevator button on the car wall. I pressed it lightly. After a few seconds, the elevator arrived with a bang, and the green door opened slowly. Open like the mouth of a beast.For some reason, I always felt a little uneasy.I walked slowly into the elevator and was about to wait for the doors to close.At this moment, I suddenly heard Xiaoqing's voice: "Mr. Zhuang, wait a minute! I'm going upstairs too."

Turning around, I saw that Xiaoqing had stepped in with one foot.I hurriedly pressed the button in the elevator, trying to make the elevator door open again.However, the yellow button seemed to have lost its function, and there was no response at all.The door continued to close slowly, and Xiaoqing was about to be caught.I hurriedly shouted: "Xiaoqing, come in quickly! The door is about to close." I don't know why, after hearing what I said, Xiaoqing didn't speed up and rush into the elevator.Instead, she stood blankly on the door line of the elevator, looking at me fixedly.From the corner of her mouth, a line of blood suddenly flowed out, a black line of blood.Then, black blood flowed from the eyes, nostrils, and ears at the same time.

I was shocked, I didn't know what happened, so I hurried to pull her.Only then did I realize that her face was unusually white, so white that she didn't look like a human being, but rather a corpse. "What's the matter, Xiaoqing, what's the matter with you?" I asked in surprise. Xiaoqing raised her eyelids, then said three words to me slowly and word by word: "Travel fare." Blood was still flowing from her eye sockets.Seeing that the elevator door was about to pinch her body, I was in a hurry and reached out to pull her, trying to drag her into the elevator.As soon as I grabbed her bare arm, I immediately felt a biting cold, like touching a piece of ice.I suddenly withdrew my hand, and only then did I feel that my fingers were slippery and greasy. When I looked down, there were a few fat and big white maggots shaking their heads and tails on the tips of my fingers!

I glanced at Xiaoqing again, and saw blood-red muscles falling down one by one on her arm.The muscles fell on the door line of the elevator, making a "bajibaji" sound.This is a horrifying scene, and even I, a writer who has experienced many battles and is good at telling ghost stories, can't contain the fear in my heart. My heart seemed to have stopped beating, and I was dripping with sweat, as if I had just been fished out of cold water.It was just less than a second of blank thinking, and when I realized it, the elevator door had already closed, clamping Xiaoqing's body.Her head and torso were inside the elevator, from the waist down and both legs were outside the elevator.

The elevator went up slowly, and I saw the light gap between the two iron doors gradually disappear, and I knew that this was the elevator that had gone up between the two floors. Xiaoqing's body trembled slightly on the ground, and then a puddle of black blood oozed out from her waist, and then gradually spread to the surroundings, forming a pool of bright red blood.In just a moment, the entire elevator was filled with a stench, and the ground was also covered with black blood. I opened my mouth wide, feeling like a ball of cotton was stuffed in my chest, unable to speak a word.I wanted to scream, but it felt like my throat was tightly strangled by an invisible hand. The airflow couldn't break through the confinement at all, neither could it go up or down.This is a nightmare feeling, I can't breathe anymore!

At this moment, with a "ding", the elevator door opened.I jumped out of the elevator, and I could finally breathe fresh air.Like going crazy, I ran to the program recording room, screaming loudly while running: "Come on, come on, it's not good, something serious happened!" Several radio crews rushed out of the studio, hugged me, and asked me what was wrong.They complained to me that the program was being recorded in the live broadcast room, and my screams were so loud that it actually affected the sound collection work of the equipment. I didn't bother to listen to their complaints, and said with a trembling voice, crying: "A woman! A woman named Xiaoqing! The cashier of your radio station! He just died in the freight elevator! His body was caught in two by the elevator! There are people everywhere in the freight elevator." It's all blood!" A staff member patted me on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Zhuang Qin, you just found out about it now? Xiaoqing had an accident in the afternoon, and it happened in the passenger elevator in the lobby. The police have already arrived in the afternoon and cleaned up the place. at the scene..." I faintly felt that something was wrong, obviously I saw Xiaoqing die in front of me just now, why did the staff say that Xiaoqing happened in the afternoon? They must be mistaken!So I shouted loudly: "No, no, no! Xiaoqing died just now. Before she died, she gave me an envelope containing the transportation expenses!" I took out the envelope that Xiaoqing gave me, but the staff After seeing it, they retreated one after another, looking at me as if they had seen a ghost. In the recording room, two more people walked out, one was Wang Cai, the producer of the radio station, and the other was a policeman in uniform.They must have been startled by my cry. The police came up to me and kindly asked me what happened.With a vibrato, I repeated intermittently what I had just seen.After hearing this, the policeman frowned.He calmly said to me: "Mr. Zhuang, you must have hallucinations. Xiaoqing did die in the afternoon. The reason why I am still on the radio is to investigate this matter. We went out in the afternoon. At the scene, the matter is very clear, and there is nothing to investigate. If you insist that Xiaoqing died in the freight elevator just now, why don't we go and watch the surveillance video together." The police took me into the monitoring room of the radio station.Looking at the picture in the surveillance video, I couldn't help being dumbfounded. In the picture, I walked into the freight elevator alone.When the door was about to close, I suddenly screamed like a madman.In the picture, my eyes are wide open and my hair stands on end, as if I have seen the most terrifying thing.When the freight elevator went up to the studio level, the door opened and I ran out screaming and waving my arms in the hallway like a madman! "Originally, there was no camera installed in the freight elevator. It was precisely because Xiaoqing had an accident this afternoon, so we quickly installed the camera in the afternoon, and this scene happened to be captured." Wang Cai explained to me. "Mr. Zhuang, you must have told too many ghost stories, which caused psychological tension. I suggest you see a psychiatrist." The policeman said to me sarcastically. Indeed, after watching the surveillance video, I have nothing to say.After a long time, I murmured: "I didn't lie, I really didn't lie. I saw with my own eyes that Xiaoqing died before being caught by the elevator door. She also told me Three words: 'Travel fee'!" "Did she get caught by the elevator door after she died? Did she even mention the fare?" The police suddenly became interested. He turned his head and asked the producer Wang Cai: "What is the fare?" Wang Cai was stunned for a moment, and said: "The transportation fee is the transportation subsidy we provide to those who work overtime to record programs. We work late, and usually the bus has already closed when we get off work, so we can only take a taxi home. The transportation fee is the payment Money sent to colleagues." "Who usually pays for the carriage and horse fees?" the policeman asked. Wang Cai's voice suddenly became lower, and he said sadly, "It's me." The cop nodded and made a phone call.On the phone, he asked the forensic doctor to determine the time of Xiaoqing's death again.In addition, he also asked Wang Cai to hand over to him the list of distribution of carriage and horse fees and the account of the amount. That night, because of excessive fright, I didn't record "Talking about ghosts in the middle of the night" that day.But the next day, I received a news that surprised me——Wang Cai committed suicide. Wang Cai jumped from the roof of the radio building.He fell to pieces, leaving only a pool of blood on the ground.Black blood. In his suicide note, Wang Cai told everyone that Xiaoqing was killed by him. Over the past few years, Wang Cai has been withholding a part of the traveling expenses paid to overtime workers in the station before distributing them.After a few years, he checked it himself, and the number of interceptions was beyond his imagination.Recently, there was going to be a big audit at the end of the year in Taili. Wang Cai was worried that the fire would not be contained in the paper, so he asked Xiaoqing, who had already seen some clues, to raise his hands high, and threatened and lured.Helplessly, Xiaoqing refused to accept this and threatened to report on Wang Cai. In desperation, Wang Cai killed Xiaoqing.In order to fake the scene, he dragged Xiaoqing into the elevator, left her outside the elevator from the waist down, and pressed the "down" button cruelly.In an instant, Xiaoqing's body became bloody and bloody, and the blood splashed into Wang Cai's eyes, causing a sharp pain in his eye sockets. But he never expected that Xiaoqing used another method to let me, a ghost story teller, inadvertently gain insight into the truth.When the police asked the forensic doctor to re-examine the time of Xiaoqing's death and asked him to hand over the transportation expenses and pay the account, he knew that he was doomed.Helpless, he had no choice but to jump down from the roof of the radio station like a bird without wings. After hearing the news, I took out the envelope of transportation expenses that Xiaoqing gave me from my trouser pocket.The moment it was opened, several thin RMB bills floated out from inside.I shrugged my shoulders and remembered a sentence: "Take people's money and help them eliminate disasters."Xiaoqing must have wanted me to help her reveal the real culprit when she gave me the money, right?Fortunately, Xiaoqing didn't give me the ghost paper. And after this was over, the first thing the radio station did was to remove the old elevator and replace it with a beautiful new one. The only depressed person is me.Since I saw Xiaoqing's ghost, the people on the radio station kept me at arm's length, and I lost my job of telling ghost stories late at night, and another colleague took my place.I pray for that colleague that no more unburial souls are encountered in this building. "Papapa—" Several people in the room applauded together. Zhao Bochu lay on the bed and said to me: "Mr. Zhuang, this story is really good. Although humans and ghosts have different paths, ghosts can always find a way to reveal their grievances. After all, ghosts are more powerful than humans. " I smiled slightly, didn't say anything, turned around silently, and prepared to leave. In my heart, there has always been a secret.However, I will not tell this secret to anyone, including Zhao Bochu's family. In fact, Xiaoqing is my cousin, my dearest cousin.Before the accident, the last call she made was to me.She told me that Wang Cai had tampered with the fare, which might be detrimental to her. In the afternoon, when I learned about Xiaoqing's death, I knew that Wang Cai was responsible for all of this.I didn't see Xiaoqing's ghost in the elevator. What I did was all I was doing. The purpose of doing this was to use Xiaoqing's mouth to direct the police's investigation to the carriage fee and Wang Cai. I didn't choose to report directly to the police because I still wanted to use this plan to make Wang Cai think that Xiaoqing's ghost had returned.I want to scare him!If he was so scared that he committed suicide, that would be the best ending. As it turns out, I succeeded.I think I can say peace to Xiaoqing. When I was going out, a crisp voice stopped me: "Mr. Zhuang, what story are you going to tell us tomorrow?" It was Zhao Qianlian, the daughter of Mr. Zhao, who was asking me. I turned around and asked, "Miss Zhao, are you a college student?" She nods. "Then what major do you study?" I asked again. "I study handicraft design." Zhao Qianlian replied. I nodded and said, "Okay, tomorrow I will tell you a ghost story about college students and handicrafts." When I was leaving the house, Housekeeper Gu handed me the envelope containing the transportation fee again.He did not forget to bow gracefully, and then told me that he had never withheld a penny from the fare.