Chapter 5

Gu Shuge remembered.

She had already gone through one fatal calamity before. It was just that the incident had been too sudden, too coincidental, and too insignificant, so she had never taken it to heart. If she had not remembered those words Shen Juan had said to her, she probably never would have connected that small accident with the car crash that had killed her.

One week ago, at night, she had been walking home from school. Because she did not live far away, and public security in that area had always been very good, Gu Shuge had not chosen to drive. Instead, she had slowly walked back.

Those few days, her mind had been filled entirely with thoughts of returning to the country. The next sentence in the source text is corrupted and unreadable, but the time should have been after nine o’clock. Once night fell, the residential area became very quiet. Along the way, she only encountered two or three pedestrians, all of them bundled in thick down jackets, heads lowered as they hurried past.

For some reason, she suddenly felt a burst of coldness. This chill was different from the physical assault brought on by cold weather. It was more like sinister needles silently piercing through her skin and into her body, gathering at her chest into a skinny, bony hand that suddenly seized her heart.

Gu Shuge’s scalp prickled. So she quickened her pace as well and headed home.

At the time, she had not thought too much about it. After all, walking alone at night down an empty street and suddenly feeling a chill crawl up one’s spine was a fairly common experience.

So although she felt uneasy, she only wanted to hurry home. She had never thought in the direction of anything supernatural.

When she passed in front of a row of apartments, she suddenly tripped. She nearly fell, but fortunately, she reacted quickly and hurriedly steadied herself. At the exact instant she stopped, a potted plant fell [unauthorized copy]from above, almost brushing the tip of her nose before crashing to the ground.

With a sharp crack, the flowerpot shattered. Soil scattered all over the ground. She was so frightened it felt as if her soul had left her body. Her whole body went rigid, and she did not dare move at all. After roughly ten seconds, a girl stuck her head out from the second floor, looked down, and called repeatedly in English, “Are you okay?”

Only when someone called out to her did Gu Shuge finally draw a startled breath. She did not immediately answer. The girl seemed even more frightened than she was and called several more times, “Hey, hey, are you okay?”

Gu Shuge wanted to say she was fine, but her throat seemed blocked. So she raised her head. When the girl saw her look up, she seemed a little relieved and muttered, “Don’t move. I’ll come down and check.” As soon as she finished speaking, she disappeared before waiting for Gu Shuge’s reply. From the look of it, she was a reckless sort of person.

Gu Shuge gradually recovered from the lingering fear, but she did not leave right away. She lowered her head and looked at the “murder weapon” that had nearly struck her. She even bent down, pinched up a clump of soil scattered all over the place, and rubbed it between her fingers.

The girl who had caused the trouble came down quickly, panting as she ran up to Gu Shuge. She was still saying, “Don’t move. Be careful not to cut your hand.”

The soil was wet and stuck to her fingertips, making her uncomfortable. So Gu Shuge straightened up and stopped studying it. When the girl saw her face, she switched to Chinese in surprise and delight. “You’re Chinese?”

When one was away from home and met another Chinese person, although it was not quite the delight of meeting an old friend in a foreign land or the feeling of becoming close at first sight, there was still a bit more familiarity and warmth. Added to the fact that this girl had been enthusiastic and cheerful the whole time, Gu Shuge also smiled at her and said, “I am.”

The girl made a motion as though letting out a long breath of relief, tapped the flowerpot shards with the tip of her shoe, and said full of apology, “I was tidying up the balcony and wanted to move the flowerpot down to the ground. I didn’t expect to lose my grip and drop it. Thank goodness you’re okay. Otherwise, I would’ve been scared to death.”

She said so much in one breath, and her tone was very sincere. Gu Shuge was not someone who fussed over every little thing. Seeing this, she [bailiantales.com]responded casually with a few words, then left.

It had only been a small accident. Although dangerous, fortunately, it had not led to any major disaster. So even though Gu Shuge had been frightened at the time as if her soul had left her body, she had not taken it to heart. After a few days, she had even mostly forgotten it.

But now, looking back on it, every single detail was unexpectedly clear.

Gu Shuge recalled what had happened that night.

Although the flowerpot had shattered all over the ground, she could still piece together its size from the fragments in her mind. It was not the kind commonly placed on balcony railings, only a little bigger than a bowl. It was much larger, roughly the size of two or three basketballs.

Gu Shuge frowned. Then she remembered that the girl had said she had failed to hold on to it, which was why the flowerpot had fallen. She felt she might be overthinking things. The flowerpot was big, so losing her grip on it was reasonable.

Once suspicion arose, everything started to look sneaky and conspiratorial. Gu Shuge mocked herself inwardly.

All of a sudden, it was as if lightning flashed through her mind. One tiny detail abruptly magnified inside her head. Gu Shuge froze. A slightly larger flowerpot could be explained, but there was one thing that could not be explained.

There was something wrong with the soil in the flowerpot.

She remembered that the soil had been a little different. It had been wet, and more importantly, its cohesion had been very high. It was like mud from the bottom ​unauthorized copy​of a river, damp and sticky. If one dug up a clump and threw it onto the ground, it would still remain a clump and would not scatter at all.

If that kind of soil had fallen from the height of the second floor, especially with a plant’s root system holding it together, it could not possibly have scattered so loosely. Normally, it should have stayed intact around the roots, with only a few bits of loose soil spilling around it.

Now she could be certain. That flowerpot had not fallen from the second floor at all. It should have come from a higher floor, at least the fourth floor or above. Thick soil had filled the entire flowerpot, increasing its density. It would not have been much different from a stone of the same size.

Then what was with that girl? She had absolutely no need to pretend the flowerpot had fallen from the second floor. Either way, it was a “slip of the hand.” What difference did it make whether it had fallen from the actual floor or the second floor? And pretending it was from the second floor left behind such an obvious flaw in the soil.

What had originally been a small accident instantly turned into a murder shrouded in heavy fog. Gu Shuge felt goosebumps rise all over her body, as if some slimy creature like a leech had wrapped itself around her. It was both chilling and unbearably disgusting.

Her spine went cold for a while. Then she suddenly remembered—wait, that was not right. She was a ghost now. How could she still have such human sensations?

The moment this thought arose, all the goosebumps covering her instantly disappeared.

Gu Shuge: “…”

Next time, she should probably stop reminding herself that she was no longer human. She thought this somewhat dejectedly.

Shen Juan turned on the light, then opened the amulet pouch. A yellow talisman paper and a Buddha statue fell into her palm. Shen Juan stolen contentturned both objects over and over, examining them. Gu Shuge also leaned closer.

She had looked at the talisman paper and the Buddha statue many times, so she recognized them at a glance. These two things seemed exactly the same as before, but in truth, they had undergone the slightest little changes in the tiniest details.

The talisman paper was not as bright as it had originally been. Before, it had been a vivid yellow, but now, it had dimmed slightly, as if a layer of mist covered its surface. The Buddha statue was also a little different. It had originally been carved to look fierce and menacing, but now, the statue’s vicious expression seemed to have softened, carrying a faint trace of the compassion a Buddha statue ought to have.

Gu Shuge guessed that these changes might have happened because, after blocking one “fatal calamity,” the amulet pouch had already lost its effect.

Shen Juan examined the talisman paper, the Buddha statue, and the amulet pouch inside and out several times. Gu Shuge looked at her worriedly. She did not know whether Shen Juan had opened it and looked inside before giving it to her. But even if Shen Juan had opened it, that had been two years ago. She probably could not remember such tiny details.

Gu Shuge remembered only because she had looked at it countless times. Every time she missed Shen Juan, she would hold the amulet pouch in her palm. Over time, this amulet pouch had become something she entrusted her longing to. She had opened it again and again, then put everything back again and again. Back and forth, over and over, as though it would never end.

After Shen Juan carefully examined the amulet pouch inside and out many times, she placed the Buddha statue and talisman paper back into it. Gu Shuge grew troubled. She was thinking about how to tell Shen Juan about that “small accident” she had experienced before.

She sat down on the sofa, propped up her chin, and racked her brains for a solution.

Shen Juan could not see her. Shen Juan could not hear her voice. She could not touch any object either. They were like one person in two dimensions and the other in three dimensions, with a thick dimensional wall between them that could not be broken.

There was no way to communicate at all.

How could she “talk” to Shen Juan? Gu Shuge had no idea. Somewhat irritated, she stomped her foot, then watched helplessly as her entire foot sank into the floor until it was submerged past the instep.

Gu Shuge froze, then helplessly cursed.

Now, more and more problems were piling up.

Leaving aside the mysterious matter of the amulet pouch, and leaving aside that murder wrapped in fog, the first thing Gu Shuge cared about was what exactly was going on with her current state. Was she a ghost? If she was a ghost, why was she still lingering in the human world instead of going to be reincarnated?

At the thought of reincarnation, Gu Shuge panicked and instinctively looked toward Shen Juan.

Shen Juan was still tightly clutching that amulet pouch. Gu Shuge did not know whether she had noticed the slight changes in it. The way Shen Juan gripped it was like a helpless drowning person clinging to a useless straw.

Death was already as terrible as something could possibly be. But her current state made this utterly terrible thing feel a little less frightening.

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

She lowered her head and looked at Shen Juan’s hands. Suddenly, she froze helplessly.

Shen Juan raised a hand to cover her face. A moment later, tears seeped through the gaps between her fingers. She did not make a single sound. She was very quiet, yet sorrow seemed to have seeped into her very bones.

That day, Gu Shuge had seen Shen Juan’s tears too many times. But she still felt as if her heart were being cut by knives.

“Sister…” She stood up, crouched down in front of Shen Juan, and carefully raised her head to look at her. “Don’t cry. I’m fine. I’m doing very well now.”

Shen Juan could not hear her voice, could not see her, and did not know she existed. She remained trapped in grief.

Gu Shuge knew that anything she did now would be futile. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Raising one hand, she carefully placed it on Shen Juan’s knee. She knew her hand would definitely pass through, so she controlled the force carefully and let her hand hover less than a millimeter above Shen Juan’s knee.

This way, it looked as if she had placed her hand on Shen Juan’s knee.

It was a gesture of comfort.

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

They had not seen each other for two years. So from the moment she decided to return to the [unauthorized copy]country, she had been filled with anticipation.

This anticipation was like the night before going to an amusement park as a child. Time seemed to be stretched tenfold. She would close her eyes and try hard to fall asleep, hoping that when she woke, morning would have arrived. But excitement and anticipation would make her mind especially alert. So she would secretly tell herself, Don’t think about it. Just treat it like an ordinary night, and you’ll be able to sleep.

But deep in her subconscious, she would still be excited for tomorrow’s outing. No matter how she adjusted her mindset, in the end, she would still count the time in anticipation, feeling every minute and every second pass like an old person with weak legs, dragging heavy steps slowly forward.

During this period, she had also endured it minute by minute, second by second. She had finally waited until today. Finally, she had returned. Finally, she had been about to see her.

Yet now, life and death separated them.

Gu Shuge looked at Shen Juan’s face. Shen Juan’s tears made her heart shatter. She glanced at the clock on the wall. The hour hand had already passed eleven and was pointing close to twelve. This day was nearly over.

Gu Shuge pressed her lips together. She gathered her courage, wanting to call her “Shen Juan,” but before the words could leave her mouth, her gaze caught sight of a photo frame placed on the shelf behind and to the side of the sofa.

It was a photo of her older brother and Shen Juan together.

That tiny bit of courage Gu Shuge had just gathered disappeared completely in an instant. She tried hard to curve the corners of her mouth and said, “Sister, happy birthday.”