Chapter 3
The scene looked perfectly normal. It was exactly what an accidental traffic collision should look like. Captain Chen stayed near Shen Juan, while the other officers kept their heads lowered, busily working.
They looked around for roughly an hour and still did not discover anything unusual.
Gu Shuge did not find that strange. She also believed this was an ordinary traffic accident. She had not made any grand announcement about returning to the country. Although the cake had been ordered in advance, she remembered very clearly that because she had wanted to come back in secret and give Shen Juan a surprise, not only had she never mentioned it to anyone, but even for a small thing like picking up the cake, she had come personally instead of asking anyone else to do it.
No one knew she would come to this bakery, much less arrange a flawless car accident in advance.
The sky darkened. Gu Shuge calculated that it should be around five o’clock, and the police were also preparing to wrap up. The evidence that needed to be collected had long since been collected. She guessed that the only reason so many officers were still staying at the scene was probably because Shen Juan was there, out of consideration for Gu Group.
Shen Juan was preparing to leave as well. An ordinary sedan drove over, and a female police officer got out. Gu Shuge paid attention to her expression. Her face was relaxed, and her steps were light, with no urgency to them. It probably was not that she had found some clue and come specially to report it.
Shen Juan also glanced at her, likely making the same judgment. With just that one glance, Shen Juan stopped paying attention.
The restless young officer from earlier immediately jogged over when he saw her. He patted her shoulder and asked with a smile, “Why are you here? Aren’t you off work?”
The female officer smacked him back once and said cheerfully, “I just finished taking a statement, so I came over to take a look. Did you guys find anything?”
The two youngsters looked full of youthful energy as they hooked their arms around each other’s shoulders and began talking.
Gu Shuge followed beside Shen Juan. At this distance, she could just hear their conversation. The female officer did not pay attention to their surroundings. She deliberately lowered her voice, her tone carrying a hint of mystery and a great deal of sympathy as she said, “That driver who caused the accident is way too unlucky. His family is especially pitiful. His daughter has congenital heart disease and is very weak. His wife has to take care of their daughter, so she can’t go out to work. His parents aren’t in good health either. They can do some odd jobs, but their income is limited, and even supporting themselves is a problem. You could say all the financial pressure is on him alone. Now he got into an accident from driving while exhausted and killed someone. He definitely won’t escape a prison sentence of under three years. That family is probably ruined.”
When the young officer heard that, he sighed in sympathy too, then quickly put on an expression of sharing gossip and said, “You think it’ll be as easy as under three years? Do you know who he hit? I’m guessing they might make him rot in prison for the rest of his life. Or if they’re even harsher, they could push hard in the direction of intentional murder and maybe even get him sentenced to death.”
The female officer immediately grew interested and asked him, “Who was it?”
But the excited young officer did not answer. He had seen Shen Juan walking toward them. Nervously, he jabbed the female officer with his elbow. The female officer also noticed something was wrong and immediately fell silent.
Gu Shuge followed Shen Juan as they walked past them without looking sideways. She was rather zen about things. Even when she had been alive, she had been fairly tolerant of other people’s idle gossip. Now, she certainly would not waste her anger on something so useless.
She only looked toward Shen Juan worriedly. Shen Juan’s expression was calm, as if she had not heard a single word.
That made sense. Even Gu Shuge herself was not angry, and Shen Juan’s state of mind had always been steadier than hers. How could she care about this kind of gossip? Gu Shuge looked at Shen Juan’s profile and badly wanted to reach out and touch her.
But she did not dare. Even knowing full well that Shen Juan would not feel it, she still did not dare.
After they got into the car, Lin Mo, who had gone to say goodbye to Captain Chen, also returned.
Shen Juan closed her eyes. Gu Shuge thought she was going to rest for a while, so she copied her and closed her eyes as well, trying to inhale. Then she discovered that ghosts could breathe too.
“Find a private detective and look into that driver, especially his daughter’s illness.” In the darkness, Gu Shuge heard Shen Juan’s voice.
Gu Shuge opened her eyes, a little surprised. Did Shen Juan think there was something suspicious about the accident? The scene clearly showed no trace of anything deliberate. Was it the driver’s family situation that had made her suspicious? But killing someone for money was so common in movies and television that it seemed as natural as drinking water, while in reality, it was a line that was very hard to cross.
Lin Mo answered cleanly, “Yes.” His work efficiency really was very high. Back when he had recommended himself to her, it turned out he truly had the confidence to back it up. As soon as he finished speaking, he took out his phone and began contacting people on the spot.
In less than five minutes, he had settled on a private detective and reported the detective’s resume to his superior.
After finishing his report, Lin Mo raised his eyes to the rearview mirror, softened his voice, and said, “Chairman, I contacted a funeral company. Where should Miss Gu’s funeral arrangements be held? The mourning hall can be set up in advance.”
With those words, the atmosphere inside the car instantly sank.
Shen Juan’s eyelashes moved slightly. Gu Shuge could feel her grief flowing through her veins like blood. And so Gu Shuge’s own heart clenched into a knot as well.
Shen Juan did not answer him. Instead, she said, “Go home.”
The driver had originally been so quiet he seemed not to exist. Now, he started the car with practiced ease and drove away smoothly.
Lin Mo looked as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself. It seemed he wanted to comfort her, yet felt there was nowhere to begin.
Gu Shuge grew a little anxious. She glared at Lin Mo, thinking that anything would be better than nothing. He should say something, anything, so Shen Juan would not be left alone to sink into her grief. But Lin Mo put away that hesitant expression and, carefully keeping to his duty, took out his phone, sent a few messages, and busied himself with work matters.
The atmosphere in the car grew even heavier.
Gu Shuge stared blankly ahead. She finally understood. She did not exist. No one could see her, so no matter what she did, it was useless.
Shen Juan’s skin was very pale, almost translucent. Gu Shuge had always known that Shen Juan’s skin was fair. When Gu Shuge was little, she had liked to stretch out a finger, poke Shen Juan’s face, and say, I want to grow up fair and pale like Sister too.
After she grew up, although she was still very close to Shen Juan, she actually no longer dared look at her for too long. It was not that she did not want to. She simply did not dare.
Now, she could look at her boldly. But that fear, formed over so many years, seemed to have become instinct, dissolved into her body. After looking at Shen Juan for a while, she awkwardly shifted her gaze away.
She does not exist, Gu Shuge thought. So it does not matter if she looks at Shen Juan a little longer. No one will notice, and Shen Juan will not notice either. She tried to convince herself.
But her eyes seemed fixed in one direction, and no matter what, she could not make herself turn her head and look at Shen Juan.
Just like that, Gu Shuge repeatedly tried to persuade herself, failed, then continued persuading herself, and failed again.
Before she realized it, they had arrived outside the house. Lin Mo got out and opened the car door.
Gu Shuge did not need to use the car door. Now she could come and go freely; passing through walls was as easy as passing through air. But she also did not choose to overlap with Shen Juan’s body and get out together with her. She went to the door on the other side and simply passed straight through it.
Once outside the car, she still found it a little magical. So she stretched out her hand, let it pass through the car door, then pulled it back out. To humans, solid objects that existed in reality were, to her, no different from air.
But to humans, she was probably no different from air too. For a person to pass through her body would be as easy as her passing through this car door.
Shen Juan walked into the house.
Lin Mo and the driver both stayed outside. Gu Shuge followed behind Shen Juan. She looked back once and saw that both the driver and Lin Mo seemed somewhat at a loss, not knowing what they should do next.
Go home, Gu Shuge thought. Other than going home, what else could they do?
She turned back and followed Shen Juan into the house.
Her home was in the urban area, close to the city center. Logically speaking, this place should have been the noisiest and most bustling area, but when the older generation of the Gu family built this estate, they designed a layout that created quiet amid the clamor. Through the greenery in the garden and the arrangement of the surrounding buildings, all the noise and dust were kept outside, making this place as tranquil as a hidden paradise beyond the world.
The house was European in style, but not thoroughly Westernized. It retained a few classical architectural elements, and once blended together, it had something of that inclusive, dignified, and substantial feel from the Republican era, when Western influences were first moving eastward.
This estate already had more than fifty years of history. It had been renovated many times in between, but from the outside, one could still see faint traces left behind by rain and wind. History had always been the finest ornament for families of wealth and power.
But inside the house, it was another matter.
Gu Shuge followed Shen Juan into the living room. She had not returned to the country for two years, yet now that she was home, there was not the slightest sense of unfamiliarity. Everything here was exactly the same as when she had left.
The furnishings in the living room were simple and grand. The position of the sofa, the placement of the coffee table, a vase, a painting—every little object seemed to have been arranged with unique design in mind, placed neither too far nor too close, but precisely in the best position. It matched the tone of the house itself, forming the kind of refinement and elegance only found in a family of old wealth and high status.
But within that refinement, there was none of the haughtiness of the powerful and privileged. Instead, it seemed warm and simple.
On the east wall hung a photograph of a sea of clouds taken from a mountaintop. Amid the vast, endless sea of clouds, one towering mountain peak after another pierced upward, revealing small clusters of sharp summits, like solitary islands in the ocean. Mist curled and drifted in fine wisps, otherworldly and transcendent, as if it were an immortal realm.
This was a photograph she had taken. She had snapped it casually, yet it had a rare and beautiful atmosphere. After that, no matter how deliberately she chose her angles, she could never take another like it.
Shen Juan had printed the photograph and hung it on the wall. After so many years, she had never taken it down again.
There had once been a hole beneath the expensive armchair. When Gu Shuge was young, she had imitated the way criminals hid things in detective novels and dug into the floor. Inside the hole, she had placed the little red flowers she had earned from kindergarten.
Later, the hole was discovered. Her father had someone repair the floor, then placed an armchair over it to block the spot, in case she came back to destroy it again.
From then on, although she never dug holes in the floor again, this method of hiding things from novels had left a very deep impression on her. So much so that later, after she grew up, she still wanted to hide her most important thing in a place absolutely no one would ever discover, turning it into an eternal secret.
This was the place where she had grown up, and it held countless traces of her. Gu Shuge felt that every corner was so worth missing.
After Shen Juan entered the house, she sat down on the sofa.
Gu Shuge looked around the house, then finally drifted over and sat across from her.
What is she thinking? Gu Shuge looked at Shen Juan.
But she did not look for too long. Soon, she shifted her gaze away, lowered her head, and looked at the floor in front of her. Yet Shen Juan’s face became clear in her mind—her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Her features were distinct, but carried a tiny bit of strangeness and distance.
It was probably because she had not looked at Shen Juan properly or spoken with her properly for too long. Gu Shuge thought dejectedly that they were clearly the closest people to each other, yet she did not even dare gaze at her from afar.
They sat facing each other like this.
The sky outside the window darkened, but the living room lights were not turned on.
The garden lights were controlled automatically and would switch on by themselves once the time came. Their glow reflected into the living room, leaving half of Shen Juan’s face in darkness and the other half in light.
No one came to disturb them. Everything around them was so quiet it seemed as if even time had stopped. They could remain forever in this half-bright, half-dark stillness.
This was a relatively safe state.
And so Gu Shuge finally had time to properly explore her current condition.
She raised her hand and tentatively pressed her palm near the sofa’s surface. As expected, her hand passed straight through it. But right now, she was sitting on the sofa, and her entire body had not sunk into it.
She could complete the action of “sitting.”
Gu Shuge carefully felt it out again. She discovered that sitting now seemed a little different from sitting as a human.
When she had still been human, sitting down meant feeling a solid object beneath her, supporting her body and allowing her to form a seated posture. But now, she felt as if she were floating above it. She could not feel the sofa’s existence, but she could keep herself close to the sofa’s surface in a seated posture, hovering over it.
This was very magical.
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