Chapter 1
Gu Shuge was dead.
She had been in a car accident on her way home.
Right now, she was standing beside her own corpse. Her body lay sprawled in a pool of blood, twisted into a strange, unnatural position. Not far away, one of her shoes had fallen off—a black high heel, her favorite pair, the one she had especially chosen to wear today.
The car that had hit her had stopped up ahead. Beneath its tires, it had left a dark red track pressed into the road, with some thick white substance smeared across it. She could not tell whether it was bits of flesh or human tissue.
Gu Shuge stared blankly at it all. People slowly began gathering around. A middle-aged man came running out of the car that had caused the accident. Panic-stricken, he rushed to a spot three steps away from her body, then his legs went weak and he dropped to his knees. Sweat fell from his forehead in large, heavy drops.
It’s winter right now, though, Gu Shuge thought, somewhat inappropriately.
With trembling hands, the man reached into his pocket for his phone. Such a simple action took him a long time to accomplish. He held the phone in one hand and stretched out the index finger of his other, jabbing frantically at the screen.
This man was very timid. His hands kept shaking, so badly that he could barely hold the phone steady. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red. His clothes were wrinkled, his cuffs filthy, his hair messy and greasy, as if it had not been washed in a very long time. One look was enough to tell that he was someone worn down by the struggle of making a living.
Gu Shuge did not know how, even at a time like this, she still had the leisure to observe him so carefully. But the fact was, she felt as if she were an outsider. Even though she could recognize that the mangled corpse lying on the ground was her.
The driver haltingly explained their location to the person on the other end of the phone. Every few words, he would stop and draw a breath. He looks like he’s about to cry, Gu Shuge thought. Even though he was the one who had killed her, she could not help wanting to pity him.
The passersby watching whispered among themselves, or simply stood there in silence. Many of them looked as if they could not bear to see it; they covered their eyes and turned their heads away.
The state of her body really was terrible. So terrible that there was no need to go close. Anyone could tell with a single glance that she was definitely no longer breathing.
The driver knelt on the ground, covering his face as he choked back sobs and wept. Gu Shuge could vaguely make out his muffled voice repeating over and over, “I killed someone, I killed someone.”
He had killed someone. He had run her over and killed her. Gu Shuge could understand that, but she could not quite process it. If she was already dead, then what was she now?
She could hear sounds. She could see what was happening. She could even move. She was no different from an ordinary person.
Gu Shuge lifted her foot and very slowly took a step forward. She wanted to go over and look at that body. She was certain it was her. It was wearing her clothes, had her face, and beside it was a smashed cake box. That was the cake she had picked up from the bakery not long ago. Today was Shen Juan’s birthday, and the birthday cake was something she had ordered two days in advance.
She had wanted to give Shen Juan a surprise.
Only now, it seemed this surprise would not be delivered after all.
Gu Shuge’s calm mood finally began to unravel.
She took another step forward, intending to figure out what exactly was going on. The sound of police sirens approached from the distance, growing louder and more irritating. The pedestrians around them all moved aside, and a series of footsteps came from behind her. Gu Shuge stopped and turned around. A group of people in white coats were jogging toward her.
Gu Shuge instinctively wanted to move aside, but the doctors came too quickly. She had no time to dodge, and in the next moment, they were about to crash into her.
Gu Shuge abruptly held her breath—if she still had breath to hold.
The doctors passed straight through her body.
The police sirens, the footsteps, the whispers of the surrounding crowd—all of it suddenly wove tightly together, buzzing beside Gu Shuge’s ears. The world spun before her eyes.
The doctors ran up to her body. The one at the front bent down and listened to her heart with a stethoscope. Almost the instant it touched her, he shook his head at the colleagues behind him.
Doctors were accustomed to life and death. They sighed softly, then, after receiving permission from the police, stepped aside in a strictly procedural manner and let the officers come forward to collect evidence. Their movements were so practiced it was as if they had already experienced countless similar accidents.
Gu Shuge lowered her head and looked at her own palm. At last, she discovered what was different about herself. She was a phantom, like a holographic projection suspended in the air. Her appearance could be seen, but she had no physical form.
Her body was very light. More accurately, she could not feel her own weight. She was weightless and drifting, as if she might scatter and vanish at any moment.
Then what was she now? A ghost? A soul?
The police set up a cordon around the area. One officer was taking photographs, while two others were busy beside the body. The driver who had caused the accident was taken under control. He was still covering his face and crying, and the sound of his sobbing made Gu Shuge irritable. The doctors lifted her body into the vehicle.
Gu Shuge did not know what to do. She still could not accept that she had already died.
Perhaps it was because she had left her physical body behind, but human emotions seemed to grow faint, and feelings seemed to weaken. She felt very panicked, but this panic was abstract. She could not understand what exactly she was panicking about. She was simply panicking for the sake of panicking.
The people around her were still whispering. Words like “car accident” and “pitiful” kept pouring into her ears, turning into a whole page of chaotic noise that made her even more restless. The driver was escorted into a police car, and one officer was saying, “Find out the victim’s identity quickly and notify the family.”
When Gu Shuge heard the word family, she finally woke from that wandering-soul state. She felt a sharp, terrible pain in the place where her heart should be.
Shen Juan.
She murmured the name in her heart.
Her body had already been lifted into the vehicle, and the doctors had all climbed in as well.
Gu Shuge glanced at the bloodstains on the ground. An instinct arose inside her body, driving her to stay close to her corpse. She walked toward the ambulance and followed the stretcher inside.
At the instant the door closed, Gu Shuge felt as if someone’s gaze was fixed on this side. She turned her head to look, but all she saw were unfamiliar faces.
The driver shut the door from outside, cutting off Gu Shuge’s view.
“So pitiful. She was still so young,” she heard a female doctor say quietly.
Another male doctor sighed and said after her, “We’d better hurry and find a way to notify her family. Who knows how devastated they’ll be.”
After that, they began lamenting the impermanence of life. Gu Shuge seriously wondered if they had to lament like this every time an accident happened.
The vehicle was very crowded, but for her, that posed no difficulty. Her body floated there faintly, half of it overlapping with the female doctor.
The female doctor did not sense anything at all. She kept talking, and the topic had already shifted from “She was so young, how pitiful” to “What should we eat tonight? There’s a pretty good movie showing. Do you want to go watch it together?”
Gu Shuge stared expressionlessly at the body on the stretcher, which had already been covered with a white cloth.
The hospital was not far. She was sent directly to the hospital morgue. Perhaps because it was winter and there was no fear that the body would immediately decay, or perhaps because the rules were simply like this, she was not placed inside a freezer. Instead, she was laid on a bed in a separate little room.
The small room was very dim. If she were still human, she probably would have found this place gloomy and terrifying. Unfortunately, she was not. So aside from feeling that the light was dark and the space was cramped, she felt nothing else.
Gu Shuge moved closer to the bed. She felt that being near her own body seemed to make her feel a little better. She did not drift quite as badly. So she stood right beside the bed.
There was no one here, and there were no sounds. It was very quiet, with a suffocating sort of atmosphere. So Gu Shuge began thinking about what would happen when Shen Juan received the news of her death.
The moment this thought surfaced, she felt that panicked feeling return. This time, it was a little more concrete. It was not just panic, but also a heartache that made it hard to breathe. Gu Shuge bit her lower lip. She raised her hand, wanting to hold on to the edge of the bed, but her hand passed straight through it.
Once again, it told her clearly and plainly that she was already dead. She had become a ghost.
Gu Shuge clenched her hand into a fist. A fist should have been filled with strength, but hers was pale, translucent, and so weak it held no force at all.
The police worked very efficiently. Gu Shuge did not wait long.
She heard footsteps coming from outside the door—the sound of high heels striking tile. They approached from far away, growing nearer, very hurried.
Gu Shuge straightened up and stared nervously at the door. These were Shen Juan’s footsteps. She recognized them. Shen Juan had come.
The footsteps drew closer and closer, until they finally arrived outside the door. There came the sound of a hand pressing down on the handle. The door opened and was pushed inward.
Shen Juan walked in from outside. She was wearing an evening dress for a banquet, her hair pinned up and her makeup exquisite. Gu Shuge remembered. This afternoon, the company had held a reception to celebrate Shen Juan’s birthday. Shen Juan must have received the terrible news at the reception and rushed over in a hurry.
Her expression was the complete opposite of her composed and elegant appearance. She looked flustered, her steps long and urgent, and almost instantly, she was at the bedside. The body on the bed was covered from head to toe with a white cloth. Shen Juan raised her hand and gripped one corner of it.
Her fingers tightened around the cloth until they turned white. She stared fixedly at the place where the face would be, her eyes dry, bloodshot, and red. Yet her hand could not summon the courage to lift the cloth.
Gu Shuge took a step back, half her body sinking into the wall. She looked at Shen Juan’s face, and guilt surged up inside her until she wanted to cry.
“Sister,” Gu Shuge called. She was actually able to make a sound, but Shen Juan clearly could not hear it.
Shen Juan lifted the cloth little by little. Gu Shuge’s face was revealed little by little. That face was covered in blood. Half of it, whether because of the impact or the scraping, was ruined beyond recognition. It was hideous and terrifying. Even Gu Shuge herself did not dare look at it for long.
But Shen Juan did not look away. She even touched her face, as if confirming that this really was her. Gu Shuge saw that when Shen Juan’s fingertips touched her face, her hand trembled, as if she could not believe it, yet was being forced to accept it. Tears fell in large drops.
When humans stood helpless before death, the only way left to vent their grief was something as thin and inadequate as tears. Even Shen Juan—her dearest Shen Juan—could not escape it.
Immense sorrow drowned her soul in an instant. Gu Shuge was at a loss. Carefully, she lifted her hand, wanting to place it on Shen Juan’s shoulder, wanting to comfort her, wanting to tell her that she was here. But her hand passed straight through Shen Juan’s body.
Shen Juan’s face carried grief, anger, and unwillingness. From beneath the white cloth, she found Gu Shuge’s hand. The hand was a bloody mess, smeared with dust, filthy and gruesome, but Shen Juan seemed not to see any of that at all. Without the slightest trace of disgust, she held it in her own hand and called her name.
“Xiao Ge.”
“I’m here,” Gu Shuge answered urgently. “I’m here.”
But Shen Juan could not hear her. So she could only watch helplessly as Shen Juan suffered because of her.
“Ms. Shen.” A voice sounded at the door at an utterly inappropriate time.
Gu Shuge looked toward the doorway. It was a police officer. He wore a police uniform, but he did not look particularly tall or imposing. He was thin and gaunt, carrying a bit of awkwardness and fear as he spoke to Shen Juan’s back. “The bureau chief attaches great importance to this case. Captain Chen has already arrived at the accident scene. If you have time, you can go take a look as well.”
After saying that, he hurried away, as if he had only come to pass along the message. As for whether Shen Juan went or not, he did not dare interfere at all.
Gu Shuge knew that Shen Juan would definitely go. She was dead, and Shen Juan would definitely find out exactly how she had died.
And so, after a long while, she saw Shen Juan rein in her grief. Her entire person turned calm and still. But Shen Juan did not leave immediately. Instead, she gently placed Gu Shuge’s hand back on the bed, lifted the white cloth completely, bent down, and began searching her pockets.
Gu Shuge found it a little strange. Was she looking for something?
Shen Juan searched through all her pockets, but her hands remained empty.
Gu Shuge thought that the thing she wanted to find might be in her bag. Her phone, wallet, keys, and some small everyday items were all in her bag. That bag should still be at the accident scene.
There were still tears clinging to Shen Juan’s eyelashes. As she checked the pockets, her hands were not steady. They trembled slightly, but she searched very carefully. She found nothing, yet she still did not leave. She began undoing Gu Shuge’s buttons.
Gu Shuge immediately understood what she was looking for.
After three buttons were undone, the collar opened, revealing two red cords. Shen Juan pinched the cords and pulled them out. At the end was an amulet pouch, yellow in color and no different from the kind usually obtained from temples.
Shen Juan took off the amulet pouch and put it into her pocket.
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