A Secret (GL) - Chapter 5

Gu Shuge remembered.

She had already encountered a fatal calamity once before, but at the time, it had seemed like such a sudden, minor coincidence that she hadn’t taken it to heart. If she hadn’t recalled what Shen Juan told her, she likely would never have connected that small accident with the car crash that ended her life.

One evening a week ago, she was heading home from school. Since she lived nearby and the area was generally very safe, she chose to walk back slowly instead of driving.

Those days, her mind was entirely consumed with thoughts of returning to China. It was a misty London night; the damp air carried a biting chill that made one’s mind exceptionally clear. Yet even so, her thoughts remained a bit scattered. It must have been after nine o’clock; the residential area became very quiet once night fell. She only encountered two or three pedestrians along the way, all of them bundled in thick down jackets, walking briskly with their heads down.

Somehow, she suddenly felt a wave of eerie coldness. This chill was different from the physical sting of the weather; it felt like a series of sinister needles silently piercing through her skin and into her body, coalescing at her chest into a skeletal hand that abruptly seized her heart.

Gu Shuge felt her skin crawl, so she quickened her pace toward home.

At the time, she didn’t think much of it. After all, having your spine tingle while walking alone on an empty street at night is a fairly common experience.

So, despite the creeping dread, she only wanted to get home quickly and didn’t consider it from a supernatural perspective.

As she passed a row of apartments, her foot suddenly tripped. She nearly fell, but thanks to her quick reflexes, she managed to steady herself. At the very moment she stopped, a potted plant plummeted from the sky, crashing onto the ground so close it nearly brushed the tip of her nose.

The pot shattered with a loud crack, spilling soil everywhere. She felt as if her soul had left her body; she stood frozen, not daring to move. After about ten seconds, a girl peeked out from a second-floor balcony, looked down, and shouted in English: “Are you okay?”

Hearing the shout, her racing heart began to steady. She didn’t speak immediately. The girl seemed even more frightened than she was, shouting again: “Hey, hey! Are you alright?”

She wanted to say she was fine, but her throat felt blocked. She looked up. Seeing her look up, the girl seemed somewhat relieved and muttered: “Don’t move, I’ll come down to check.” Before Gu Shuge could respond, the girl disappeared—she seemed like a rather reckless person.

Recovering from the shock, Gu Shuge didn’t leave immediately. She looked down at the “murder weapon” that had nearly struck her, even leaning down to pinch a clump of the scattered soil, rubbing it between her fingertips.

The girl who caused the accident came down quickly, running toward her out of breath, still saying: “Don’t move, be careful not to cut your hand.”

The mud was damp and uncomfortably sticky on her fingertips, so she straightened up and stopped investigating. When the girl saw her face, she switched to Chinese with surprise: “Are you Chinese?”

Meeting a fellow Chinese person while abroad usually brings a sense of warmth, even if it doesn’t reach the level of “meeting an old friend in a distant land.” Additionally, since the girl had been acting enthusiastic and cheerful, Gu Shuge gave her a small smile and said, “I am.”

The girl let out a long sigh of relief, tapped the pot shards with her toe, and said apologetically: “I was tidying the balcony and wanted to move the pot to the floor, but I lost my grip and it fell. Thank goodness you’re okay, otherwise I would have been scared to death.”

She said all this in one breath, her tone very sincere. Gu Shuge wasn’t one to hold a grudge; she exchanged a few polite words and left.

It was just a small accident—dangerous, yes, but fortunately, no great disaster occurred. So even though Gu Shuge felt like her soul had left her body at the time, she didn’t dwell on it. Within a few days, she had almost forgotten it.

But looking back now, every detail was incredibly vivid.

Gu Shuge re-examined that night’s events.

Although the flowerpot had shattered, she could still reconstruct its size from the pieces. It wasn’t the typical small pot—hardly bigger than a bowl—that people usually keep on balcony railings. It was much larger, roughly the size of two or three basketballs.

Gu Shuge frowned, remembering the girl saying she “lost her grip.” She felt she might be being overly suspicious. A large pot is easy to drop; it seemed reasonable.

Once suspicion takes root, everything starts looking like a conspiracy, Gu Shuge mocked herself.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning seemed to flash through her mind. A tiny detail magnified instantly in her brain. Gu Shuge froze. The size of the pot could be explained, but there was one thing that could not.

The soil in the pot was wrong.

She remembered the soil being different—it was wet, but more importantly, it was highly cohesive, like silt from a riverbed. It was moist and sticky; if you threw a clump on the ground, it stayed as one mass without scattering.

If that kind of soil fell from the height of the second floor—especially with plant roots holding it together—it was impossible for it to shatter into such fine pieces. It should have remained largely wrapped around the roots, with only a few small crumbs of dirt scattered around. That would be normal.

She could be certain now: that flowerpot didn’t fall from the second floor. It must have come from a much higher floor—at least the fourth floor or above. With heavy soil filling the pot, the density increased until it was no different from a stone of the same size.

So, what was the deal with that girl? There was no reason for her to pretend it fell from the second floor. It was a “slip” either way—what difference did the floor make? And she wouldn’t have left such an obvious flaw with the soil.

What was originally a small accident instantly transformed into a fog-shrouded murder attempt. Gu Shuge felt goosebumps erupt all over her body, like slimy leeches clinging to her skin—it was both terrifying and utterly revolting.

Her spine felt chilled for a moment before she suddenly remembered—wait, I’m a ghost now. How can I have such human sensations?

The moment the thought occurred, the goosebumps vanished instantly.

Gu Shuge: “…”

Next time, I shouldn’t keep reminding myself that I’m not human, she thought dejectedly.

Shen Juan turned on the light and opened the talisman pouch. A yellow slip of paper and a Buddha statue fell into her palm. Shen Juan examined both items over and over. Gu Shuge leaned in as well.

She had looked at the paper and the statue many times before, so she recognized at a glance that while they appeared identical to before, there were tiny changes in the details.

The yellow paper wasn’t as bright as it used to be. It had been a vivid bright yellow, but now it had dimmed slightly, as if covered by a thin layer of fog. The statue was also different; it had originally been carved with a fierce expression, but now the wrathful face seemed to have softened, revealing a hint of the mercy a Buddha statue ought to have.

Gu Shuge guessed: did these changes happen because the talisman had lost its power after blocking one “fatal calamity”?

Shen Juan checked the paper, the statue, and the pouch inside and out several times. Gu Shuge watched her worriedly. She didn’t know if Shen Juan had opened the pouch to look inside before giving it to her. But even if she had, that was two years ago; she likely wouldn’t remember such tiny details.

The only reason Gu Shuge remembered was because she had looked at them so often. Every time she missed Shen Juan, she would hold the pouch in her hand. Over time, this pouch became the vessel for her longing; she would open it and close it, over and over again, in a cycle that felt like it would never end.

Shen Juan finished her meticulous inspection and put the statue and paper back into the pouch. Gu Shuge began to fret, wondering how she could tell Shen Juan about the “small accident” she had experienced.

She sat on the sofa, propping her chin in her hands, racking her brain for a solution.

Shen Juan couldn’t see or hear her, and she couldn’t touch anything. It was as if one of them were in the second dimension and the other in the third; the dimensional wall was too thick to break.

There was simply no way to communicate.

How could she “talk” to Shen Juan? Having no leads, Gu Shuge stomped her foot in frustration, only to watch as her foot sank entirely into the floor, submerged up to the ankle.

Gu Shuge paused, then helplessly pulled it out.

Now, the accumulated questions were mounting.

Setting aside the mystery of the talisman and the murky attempted murder, Gu Shuge was primarily concerned with her current state. Was she a ghost? If so, why was she still in the human world instead of moving on to reincarnation?

Thinking of reincarnation made Gu Shuge panic. She instinctively looked at Shen Juan.

Shen Juan was still tightly clutching the talisman pouch. Gu Shuge didn’t know if she had noticed the subtle changes, but her grip on the pouch was like that of a helpless drowning person grasping at a useless straw.

Death was already as bad as it gets. But her current state made this terrible situation slightly less frightening.

At least she could still see Shen Juan. This gave Gu Shuge great comfort.

She looked down at Shen Juan’s hands. Suddenly, she froze in distress.

Shen Juan raised her hands to cover her face. A moment later, tears began to seep through her fingers. She didn’t make a sound—it was quiet, but the grief seemed to have soaked into her very bones.

Today, Gu Shuge had seen Shen Juan’s tears too many times. Yet her heart still felt as though it were being cut by a blade.

“Sister…” She stood up and crouched in front of Shen Juan, carefully looking up at her. “Don’t cry. I’m okay. I’m fine right now.”

Shen Juan couldn’t hear her, couldn’t see her, and had no idea she was there. She remained submerged in her grief.

Gu Shuge knew that anything she did now was futile. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She raised a hand and carefully placed it over Shen Juan’s knee. Knowing her hand would pass through, she controlled her movement, letting her hand hover less than a millimeter above Shen Juan’s skin.

From the outside, it looked exactly as if she had placed her hand on Shen Juan’s knee.

It was a gesture of comfort.

Gu Shuge remembered that she had come back this time specifically to wish Shen Juan a happy birthday in person.

They hadn’t seen each other in two years. From the moment she decided to return, she had been full of anticipation.

This anticipation was like the night before a trip to an amusement park as a child; time seemed to stretch ten times longer. She would close her eyes and try to sleep, hoping to wake up to daylight, but the excitement kept her mind hyper-alert. She would tell herself: Don’t think about it, just treat it like an ordinary night, so she could fall asleep.

But her subconscious would still be racing. No matter how she adjusted her mindset, she would eventually end up counting the seconds, feeling time crawl by like a frail old man dragging heavy steps.

During this period, she had also endured every second, finally waiting for today, finally returning, finally about to see her.

Yet they were now separated by life and death.

Gu Shuge looked at Shen Juan’s face; the older woman’s tears broke her heart. She glanced at the clock on the wall. The hour hand had passed eleven and was pointing toward twelve. The day was almost over.

Gu Shuge bit her lip. She gathered her courage, wanting to call her name—”Shen Juan”—but before the words could escape, her gaze caught a photo frame on the shelf behind the sofa. It was a photo of her brother and Shen Juan together.

The bit of courage Gu Shuge had just gathered vanished instantly. She forced her lips into a small curve and said:

“Sister, happy birthday.”