Chapter 4

A-piao.

These two words surfaced in Gu Shuge’s mind. Back when she was in high school, she had read some supernatural novels. In those novels, ghosts were given all kinds of names, such as “good brothers,” “spirits,” and “a-piao.”

A-piao suited her current state best. She was floating faintly in space.

Gu Shuge thought for a moment, then tilted her body to the left and lay sideways on the sofa. As a result, her entire body floated against the surface of the sofa, forming a side-lying posture.

Gu Shuge turned over and lay flat. Fortunately, the sofa was long enough. She was just over 1.7 meters tall, and it could more or less accommodate her perfectly.

This time, she was prepared. When she discovered that she had not sunk into the sofa, but had instead maintained a lying position on top of it, she did not find it strange.

After lying down properly, Gu Shuge did not stop. She wanted to try more. So she stretched out her left leg in a very inelegant manner, trying to reach the coffee table in front of the sofa.

The moment she stretched her leg out, Gu Shuge guiltily glanced at Shen Juan. She came from a good family, and naturally, she had been brought up well. Her daily manners, whether sitting, standing, dressing, or eating, had always been proper and disciplined. Moreover, in front of Shen Juan, she had always paid great attention to her bearing. She had never dared to be the least bit impolite, afraid that she might ruin the image she had in Shen Juan’s heart.

But now, Shen Juan was right in front of her, and she had made such an inelegant movement.

Gu Shuge felt both guilty and melancholy. No matter what she did now, Shen Juan could no longer see her.

She quickly touched the coffee table with her leg. Her leg passed straight through it. So she immediately withdrew it, no longer daring to keep lying down. She swiftly got up, sat straight and proper, then let out a soft sigh.

She sat there in silence for a while before opening her mouth and saying in a low voice, “I just wanted to see what I can do now, and how I’m different from people.”

After trying it out, she could “sit” and “lie down” on the sofa, but when it came to touching other objects, she still could not touch them.

Shen Juan had no reaction at all. She could not hear Gu Shuge’s voice, nor could she sense her existence.

Even though Gu Shuge could still see and still feel, the truth was that to Shen Juan, she really and truly was already dead.

Gu Shuge’s straight back slowly bent down. Death, after she had been separated from her body for most of the day, finally made her feel pain and agitation belatedly. Like Lin Mo and the driver earlier, she also began to feel at a loss.

Where should she go? What should she do? Was she going to leave Shen Juan completely?

“Sister, I don’t want to go,” Gu Shuge said softly to Shen Juan.

Shen Juan did not look toward where she was. She sat on the sofa without leaning against the backrest, and her body was not straight either. It was a lonely, fragile posture. There was no focus in her eyes. She seemed to be looking at the floor in front of Gu Shuge, yet also seemed to be looking somewhere else. Her whole person had no vitality at all.

Gu Shuge was very panicked. She felt a kind of oppression pressing down on her spirit. She drew a breath and, just as she had every time she had suffered a setback in the past, asked for help. “Sister, help me.”

Shen Juan still did not move. Gu Shuge could tell that she was probably thinking about something. Whenever she was thinking, she liked being quiet and undisturbed. Gu Shuge knew this habit of hers, so every time Shen Juan did not speak, Gu Shuge would not speak either, giving her peace and not disturbing her.

Now that Gu Shuge had become a ghost, this old practice somehow continued.

Gu Shuge stopped speaking too.

Her mind was a mess, and she no longer wanted to keep sitting there, enduring this helpless panic. She simply stood up and continued the experiment from earlier.

She could “lie” and “sit” on the sofa. Her gaze landed on the dining room, where there were chairs. She walked over, stopped beside a wooden dining chair placed against the wall, took a deep breath, and sat down.

She stopped. It was as if an air barrier had supported her body, allowing her to press close against the chair’s surface and form a seated posture.

Gu Shuge leaned back against the back of the chair and did not [unauthorized copy]pass through it. She successfully maintained a leaning posture. After thinking for a moment, she lifted both legs and formed a cross-legged sitting position on the chair. That worked too. She was sitting cross-legged on the chair.

Shen Juan was not here, so Gu Shuge did not need to worry about her image and could relax a little more. She continued experimenting and walked over to the dining table.

Their dining table was also somewhat historic. It was a long table that could accommodate eighteen people dining together. There were no utensils on it, and the places in the middle meant for decorations such as candlesticks and vases were empty as well. The entire table was clean and bare.

Gu Shuge planned to sit on it. She did not press her hand against the tabletop, because it would definitely pass through. Fortunately, her height of more than 1.7 meters meant that even without using the tabletop for support, she could sit on it simply by standing on tiptoe.

She failed.

Her bottom passed straight through, and her body seemed to become embedded in the table.

Gu Shuge paused for a while, walked out of the long table, and tried several more times, but she could not succeed.

She thought about it, then simply bent her legs and planned to lie down on the floor. Her back touched the floor, then her body sank downward, until half of her body was embedded in the ground.

Gu Shuge: “…”

She pulled her hand out of the floor and placed it before her eyes to look at it. It was not particularly transparent. One could make out a complete image, but it was not a solid body either. When her palm blocked her view, it was like a thin sheet of plastic painted flesh-colored. Her line of sight could pass through her palm and see the objects behind it, just not very clearly. She could only make out a rough outline.

She bent her fingers again. There was no obstruction. Her joints were as flexible as they had been when she was alive.

Gu Shuge did not get up from the floor. Tentatively, she tried sinking farther down. Her body met no resistance. First her legs, then her body, then her head—one part after another sank beneath the floor. It was like diving underwater while swimming. The difference was that she did not feel any buoyancy.

Before Gu Shuge’s eyes was nothing but darkness. She kept going downward, and the darkness grew denser and denser.

Would she sink straight into hell, then be caught by little demons and thrown into the path of reincarnation?

Gu Shuge thought this at a rather inappropriate moment.

But what she imagined did not come true. The darkness seemed endless.

She did not know how much time passed. In the dark, one’s sense of time always became very blurry. Gu Shuge could not see anything changing, so she pushed down with both legs, and her body actually began to float upward.

In the end, just like the earth-escape techniques shown in films and television dramas, her head emerged first, followed by her body, then her legs, each part of her body drilling out of the ground one after another.

Gu Shuge returned to the house. The lights inside were still off.

She sighed softly. If someone told her that everything happening now was nothing more than a dream, she would definitely believe it. Everything she had just experienced was far too bizarre.

Unfortunately, the truth was that no one could see her, and no one could speak to her. She really was dead.

Gu Shuge suddenly remembered something else. She spread her palm open and blew a breath onto it.

There was no feeling of airflow.

So whether she sighed or breathed, none of it was real. It was only a form, just like “lying down” and “sitting,” only human postures and habits left behind from when she had been alive.

To confirm this idea, Gu Shuge made the motion of holding her breath, then stood still without moving. Time passed, second by second. After a long while, Gu Shuge slowly blinked and resumed “breathing.” While she had been holding her breath just now, she had not felt any suffocation, and her lungs had not borne any burden.

She understood a little now.

The things she was doing now were all habits left behind from when she had been alive. None of them were real. Even walking was probably only a habit. She could move by floating, just as she had when she was underground.

She also understood somewhat why she could sit on chairs and sofas, but could not sit on the table. Chairs and sofas were meant for sitting. When ​stolen content​craftsmen made them, they had incorporated that intention into them. Perhaps every object had something like a soul. So on seats, she could “sit.” A sofa originally had the function of lying down, so she could also “lie” on it.

Then were her panic, as well as the guilt and heartache she felt when she saw Shen Juan, also fake? Were they only habits too?

The moment she thought this, a dull, stuffy pain came from the place where her heart was. Gu Shuge lowered her head. She raised her hand and pressed it to her chest. This time, her hand did not pass through her body. Did this mean her hand could not pass through the same kind of substance, or did it mean her heart was actually still there?

Gu Shuge did not understand.

She could not help making another action only humans would make.

She sighed.

Having lost the mood to keep exploring, Gu Shuge returned to the living room, still moving in the posture of walking.

By the faint glow of the garden lights, she saw Shen Juan lowering her head, looking at something in her hand.

Gu Shuge walked closer and leaned her head over, only to discover that Shen Juan was looking at the amulet pouch she had taken from Gu Shuge’s body. She was staring at it with deep concentration, as if some secret were hidden inside it.

Gu Shuge did not understand.

This amulet pouch had been given to her by Shen Juan two years ago. She had kept it close to her body for two years. In the beginning, she had often taken it off to look at it, and she had even secretly opened it before. The mouth of the pouch was not sealed, so opening it was very easy. Inside were a Buddha statue and a talisman paper. The talisman paper was no different from the common kind. What was strange was that Buddha statue.

She did not know what material the statue was made from. It was black, like jade, cool to the touch and very smooth, but when examined carefully, it was not jade. It seemed to be some kind of mineral she had never seen before. The style of the Buddha statue was also very unusual. Most common Buddha statues had kind brows and gentle eyes, carrying a sense of compassion. But this Buddha statue was more like a wrathful guardian deity. Not only was it not compassionate, it looked fierce and menacing instead.

Gu Shuge had found it strange before too. Shen Juan was not someone with religious beliefs, so why had she given Gu Shuge an amulet pouch like this and even required her to keep it close to her body? But she had long been used to trusting Shen Juan, so when she could not figure it out, she simply set it aside and did not pursue the matter.

Now, the amulet pouch had returned to Shen Juan’s hands.

Gu Shuge crouched down in front of her and also began looking at the amulet pouch she had carried against her body for two years.

It still looked the same as before. Its owner had gone through death, yet it remained perfectly clean, unstained by blood and untouched by dust. The yellow fabric was somewhat coarse, but for some inexplicable reason, it gave off a sense of being beyond the dust of the mortal world.

“It shouldn’t have.”

Gu Shuge heard those three words.

Shen Juan had said them.

Gu Shuge raised her head and saw pain and despair melting into the tears in Shen Juan’s eyes.

What shouldn’t have? Gu Shuge was confused. Then, all of a sudden, something flashed through her mind, and a memory hidden deep inside her surfaced.

She remembered now.

That day, Shen Juan had handed this amulet pouch to her and said, “You must keep it close to your body at all times. Even when you sleep, it cannot leave you.”

At the time, Gu Shuge had said, “This is the kind of thing only children wear to ward off evil. I don’t want it.” But even though she said that, she still accepted it and properly tucked it into her pocket.

Shen Juan had looked at her helplessly, then said one more thing.

That sentence surfaced clearly, stirring an echo through her memories.

Shen Juan had said, “It can help you block one fatal calamity.”