Chapter 359: Charlie

"My name is Charlie..."

Charlie said, and then, under Ye Nan's questioning, Charlie told him everything about himself.

Charlie originally had a family that, while poor, was still happy. His parents loved him very much. But at some point, Charlie's parents stopped appearing. Some said they were dead, others said they had gone to another continent. In short, Charlie lived here all alone.

And Charlie's friend was the ice structure next to him, which was called "Charlie's Friend." According to Charlie, Charlie's Friend appeared by his side after his parents left.

"Uncle, isn't Charlie's Friend very good-looking?" Charlie smiled innocently, his brilliant golden hair fluttering in the air. At some unknown moment, the acid rain and wind had stopped, and even the black sky seemed to have a hint of blue.

"Charlie's Friend is indeed very good-looking," Ye Nan said, stroking Charlie's hair kindly. "But Charlie, don't you want to see your parents?"

"My parents?" Charlie looked at Ye Nan in confusion. "My parents don't want me anymore, so I don't want them either."

"But your parents love you," Ye Nan tempted him again. He more or less understood that neither Charlie nor Charlie's Friend were creatures of the real world; they should belong to the category of ghosts. He just didn't know why Melina Shilu could see Charlie but not Charlie's Friend.

However, Ye Nan intended to take Charlie out of this alley and then use a computer to check on his parents to see if they were dead or what had happened.

"Mom and Dad love me?" Charlie murmured, looking at Ye Nan with a puzzled gaze. "How do you know my mom and dad love me? Do you know them?"

"Since you call me Uncle, I must know your mom and dad. Think about it, would your mom and dad let you call a stranger Uncle?" Ye Nan smiled somewhat awkwardly; he felt like a big bad wolf tempting a little white rabbit, extremely evil.

Charlie thought for a moment and felt that what Ye Nan said was very correct, so he said, "Then Uncle, do you know where my mom and dad are?"

"I do. But I can't say. I need to go talk to your mom and dad. Only after they agree can I tell you." Ye Nan spouted some nonsense. In his perception, the darkness around this area formed a small barrier, blocking out the acid rain and car exhaust wind from outside, while also blocking Ye Nan from leaving.

Of course, it would be easy for Ye Nan to break it open with force, but if he did that, Charlie would inevitably be hurt, and he didn't want to hurt this innocent little boy.

"Then where are my mom and dad?" Charlie asked again.

"Didn't I tell you? I can't tell you. I need to go discuss it with your mom and dad. By the way, you can come with me, but you have to leave your friend Charlie here." Ye Nan pointed at Charlie's Friend.

"Why?" Charlie looked at his friend, feeling somewhat reluctant.

"Because Charlie's Friend cannot appear in front of others," Ye Nan said, stroking Charlie's head with a light laugh. "If Charlie's Friend appeared in front of others, they might be scared, because Charlie's Friend is too good-looking, and others would want to take Charlie's Friend away. So Charlie's Friend cannot come along."

Charlie was different from Charlie's Friend. The latter was completely invisible. If he took him out, there was no telling what kind of chaos it would cause. So Ye Nan coaxed Charlie into leaving Charlie's Friend here. Moreover, leaving Charlie's Friend here could also verify Ye Nan's guess.

"Is that so?" Charlie hesitated for a moment, then ran back, whispered a few words in his friend's ear, and then ran back. "Uncle, let's go. Charlie's Friend will wait here for Charlie."

"Then let's go." Ye Nan pulled Charlie with one hand and held Melina Shilu with the other, slowly leaving the alley, leaving Charlie's Friend alone in the alley. Ye Nan's psychic power remained on Charlie's Friend, waiting for Charlie's Friend's reaction. But to his regret, until he turned the corner, Charlie's Friend had no reaction at all. He had no choice but to helplessly withdraw his psychic power. But what he didn't know was that after he withdrew his psychic power, a black blizzard immediately began to fall in the alley.

Walking out of the alley, the acid rain immediately poured down, wanting to corrode everyone's clothing. However, Ye Nan timely expanded his psychic field, excluding the acid rain and car exhaust wind.

Passing through the alley and walking down the street, Ye Nan's steps led him back to the teahouse. This teahouse was exactly where Ye Nan had met the young boss.

The reason he chose this place was, firstly, because it was close, and secondly, because this young boss had given Ye Nan a hint of a good impression.

Pushing open the door, he saw the young boss working hard next to the computer again. Ye Nan immediately shouted, "Boss, we have a customer."

"Coming, uh..." The young boss put down the computer and said "Coming," but immediately got stuck because he saw Ye Nan.

Having been bamboozled by Ye Nan not long ago, seeing Ye Nan come back, he immediately felt strange.

"Could it be that he's here to check my progress? But this is too fast. I haven't done anything yet."

"Boss, look at how many people I have," Ye Nan said, sitting down.

"Three people, what's wrong?" the young boss asked in confusion. He found Ye Nan's purpose in asking this question very strange; it was truly unusual.

"Sure enough, he can see them."

Hearing the young boss's answer, Ye Nan immediately relaxed. What he feared most was that the young boss couldn't see Charlie, which would mean he was being haunted. But now that the young boss could see Charlie, it meant Charlie was normal.

"It's like this. I have a matter I want you to help me check. It's mainly to check on a person named Charlie. His parents are gone, missing. He misses his parents very much, so help me check where his parents went."

"Uncle, didn't you say..."

"Don't speak."

Before Charlie could finish speaking, Ye Nan interrupted him. "You just need to watch from the side. I will give you an explanation later."

"Could it be that he is testing my ability?" the young boss muttered. Just now, Ye Nan had interrupted Charlie's words, clearly not wanting Charlie to say certain things. In his eyes, this was Ye Nan intending to test his ability: telling him nothing, only giving him a name and some subtle clues.

"But he's underestimating me too much." The young boss's fingers tapped on the computer twice, and he quickly entered the government database and began to search. Before long, he found the information.

"There are 13,000 people named Charlie. But there is only one whose parents are missing. This is the police record from that time."

"It says above that Charlie's mom and dad were found dead at home, and their state of death was extremely miserable. When they died, their eyes were wide open, presumably having been frightened by something."

"My mom and dad are dead? Weren't they missing?" Charlie looked at Ye Nan blankly. "Uncle, are you lying to me?"

Ye Nan ignored Charlie and instead carefully thought about what the young boss had said. "Extremely miserable state of death" proved it wasn't suicide, but murder. "Frightened"—Ye Nan felt it should be related to Charlie. No matter how he looked at it, it felt like a horror movie....

"How did my mom and dad die?" Seeing Ye Nan ignoring him, Charlie immediately began to shake him.

"You are Charlie? You don't know your mom and dad are dead?" Seeing that Charlie seemed to know nothing, the young boss immediately became curious. "It says above that when your parents died, you were clearly there."

The young boss felt more and more strange. Even the thought he had started with, that Ye Nan was testing him, was shaken.

From the current situation, Ye Nan was here to help Charlie check on his parents' situation, and Charlie seemed not to know his parents were already dead. But the data clearly stated Charlie was present at the time. He felt it was very eerie.

"Could it be that he was stimulated into forgetting his memory?" the young boss thought to himself. Some things the parties involved didn't want to recall, so gradually, they would forget certain things about themselves.

Ye Nan looked at Charlie, who was constantly shaking his arm below, and immediately felt there was something wrong. If he hadn't met Charlie's Friend, he would also have thought it was Charlie forgetting. But Charlie's Friend appeared very eerily, and he had a premonition that Charlie's Friend was the problem.

"Boss, keep checking. Check if Charlie had any ice sculptures or any ice toys, the kind with a crown," Ye Nan said.

"Oh." The young boss responded, followed the data down, and then said, "Charlie's parents often abused Charlie. Before Charlie's parents died, Charlie had been missing for a period of time. Someone reported that Charlie deliberately retaliated against his parents because when Charlie's parents died, Charlie was right in the room. However, when the police intended to take Charlie for questioning, Charlie's body was found frozen on the ground, with many ice cubes on it. But in fact, it wasn't snowing at the time."

"This is strange. Since it wasn't snowing, how could Charlie be frozen to death, and there were ice cubes on him? Wait..." The young boss suddenly widened his eyes, quickly looked over it again, and finally turned around, trembling, pointing at Charlie, his words broken. "You... aren't... you... already... dead?"

"Sure enough!" The first time he saw Charlie, he knew Charlie didn't exist. He had no body; all he had was endless darkness. Perhaps it should be said that the one standing in front of Ye Nan now should be Charlie's soul, or perhaps it should be called resentment.

"Charlie, tell me, did you kill your mom and dad?"

Charlie suddenly held his head and sat on the ground, murmuring, "It wasn't me, it wasn't me who did it."

"Not you? It was you." Ye Nan pressed step by step. "Because your parents abused you, you harbored resentment, and then you killed them, is that it?"

In reality, Ye Nan himself didn't believe Charlie would kill. After all, Charlie was just a little boy. No matter how much he resented them, he wouldn't kill his parents. But him not killing didn't mean others wouldn't help him kill. This person was very likely Charlie's Friend. In fact, he still hadn't figured out what Charlie's Friend was.

"It wasn't me, it wasn't me, I didn't kill Mom and Dad." Charlie roared loudly, tears streaming down his face. "I didn't kill them, Charlie loves Mom and Dad very much, Charlie wouldn't kill his own Mom and Dad."

"Charlie, don't be afraid. They bullied you, so Charlie's Friend helped Charlie kill them." ===== CHAPTER 360 =====