“Good afternoon, listeners. You are tuning in to the Yanluo City News Radio. Today is May 1st, Labor Day, 2006. I am your host…”
Jiang Ciying clicked her tongue in annoyance and snapped off the blaring, harsh-sounding radio.
“So boring. After all these years, they still do not have a single fresh program.”
Humming the latest pop song, she slammed her foot on the accelerator the moment the light turned green, quickly vanishing into the distance at the intersection.
This was an early summer veiled in a shroud of gray dust.
Following the opening up of policies in the 21st century, cities everywhere scrambled to construct towering high-rises. Even the small town of Yanluo was no exception. Returning here now, Jiang Ciying raised her head to see tall buildings standing densely on both sides of the road.
She was driving an eye-catching red car with the window rolled all the way down. Resting half her arm outside, she slammed on the gas to speed wildly down the suburban highway while soaking in the long-awaited summer breeze of her hometown.
The car drove along the main road into the bustling downtown, then threaded its way through narrow alleys before coming to a stop in a corner of the city.
Welcome back to Ligang Lane.
Jiang Ciying parked the car steadily, lifted her sunglasses along the bridge of her nose, and stepped leisurely out of the vehicle. Her deep-blue high heels sank into the dust and mud, looking completely out of place.
She walked into a crowded, foul-smelling mahjong parlor, raised a hand to cover her nose, and looked around in all directions searching for something. Finding nothing in the end, she helplessly turned around and headed toward the small door at the very back.
Turning the key, she pushed open the door and walked upstairs along the narrow path, instantly feeling a sense of relief as she finally distanced herself from the smells of cigarette smoke and sweat.
All the way up, until she crossed the dimly lit hallway and walked past the passageway where damp clothes were hung out to dry, she finally caught sight of a familiar figure not far ahead.
“Mom!” Jiang Ciying shouted, quickening her pace to run over.
The woman ahead, holding several bunches of keys, turned her head. The moment she saw Jiang Ciying, her eyes widened in immediate surprise. “Yingying, why are you back?”
“Yeah,” Jiang Ciying smiled brightly, placing both hands on Jiang Wenjuan’s shoulders. “Surprised? Happy?”
Jiang Wenjuan put up a stubborn front, but the smile on her face could not be contained. “Happy, of course I am happy.”
The next second, Jiang Ciying’s hand sank heavily and she almost lost her footing. Looking down, she saw that heavy bunch of keys land right in her palm.
“There are still a few households waiting for you to collect rent from. Mom is going back to cook braised prawns, your favorite, and wait for you.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Ciying was dumbfounded. Staring at the bunch of keys as if she had seen a ghost, she hurriedly grabbed her mother—who was about to make a run for it—sweat beading on her forehead as she insisted on returning them no matter what: “Hey, hey, hey! I just got back, why on earth should I do your chores?”
Jiang Wenjuan chuckled, gave her a fierce push, and, relying on her familiarity with the layout, scurried away in a flash, disappearing in an instant.
Furious, Jiang Ciying braced herself against the railing and shouted down toward Jiang Wenjuan’s retreating figure:
“Jiang Wenjuan, you are unreasonable!”
Collecting rent had always been Jiang Ciying’s most hated chore. Just looking at these heavy keys made her legs ache.
“I should not have come to look for you.”
Yet there was no other way now. With a sigh, she braced her body and headed back upstairs.
The tenants on the sixth floor were not many; they were mostly young renters, so making the rounds would not be too tiring.
“Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty… two?”
Having already reached the landing of the hallway, she looked down and counted the keys carefully when she suddenly noticed an unfamiliar room number.
Room 622. She seemed to have no recollection of it whatsoever.
Thinking this, she pulled the tenant ledger from her pocket and indeed found a record for Room 622.
“Is there really this household? Surely I did not miss it.”
Irritated, she tugged at her hair and headed back the way she came.
This time, she counted door by door, checking every single doorway on the entire floor, before finally stopping in front of door 621. She simply could not figure out where this Room 622 could possibly be.
“That is strange. Am I seeing things?” she muttered to herself in bewilderment, glancing around the hallway.
The stairway was empty and deserted. This dead silence made Jiang Ciying feel an inexplicable sense of unease and fear.
She surveyed her surroundings, then cast a sudden glance toward the far end of the hallway, a spot she had not stepped foot in all along. Staring closely at that somewhat gloomy corner, she actually managed to spot a doorway amidst the shadows.
She took a step forward, drawing a little closer to get a clear view of the situation there. But the moment she approached, that gloomy, damp aura frightened her into backing away.
She turned to leave, but no sooner had she taken a step than the harsh screech of an old wooden door echoed from behind her:
“Who are you?”
Jiang Ciying froze in her tracks, her heart racing from the sudden voice. She stood stiffly in place for a long while before slowly turning her head back.
In the gloom, that tightly shut door had been pushed open. A small head poked out from the crack. Her facial features could not be made out clearly, but her sharp, bright eyes stared dead at Jiang Ciying’s back from the darkness.
“Who are you?” The voice exploded in Jiang Ciying’s ears once again.
Though it was the exact same three words, this time the tone carried a distinct unfriendliness.
Prickles ran down Jiang Ciying’s spine as she was stared at by those eyes. Feeling a chill creep up her back, she instinctively tightened her grip on the keys. “I am… collecting rent.”
Upon hearing this, the girl opposite her instantly softened her fierce expression quite a bit, though her wariness remained undiminished. After a brief moment of thought, she slowly stepped out of the room.
“Collecting rent? Why is it not Aunt Jiang?”
The young girl pulled the door wide open. The faint indoor sunlight finally pierced through the gap to illuminate the hallway, and Jiang Ciying squinted slightly, finally managing to get a clear look at the other person.
That face was small and delicate, yet her features were exceptionally defined. Her skin was fair and smooth, instantly marking her out as a young girl, but those lifeless, dim eyes always gave off an indescribable sense of strangeness.
Jiang Ciying stared at her face for a long time, as if mesmerized. Paying no heed to her own rash behavior, her mind briefly went blank, leaving only her heartbeat growing increasingly violent.
The person opposite her grew thoroughly uncomfortable under her stare. Her gaze toward Jiang Ciying gradually turned cold, and she even muttered a few curses under her breath as she turned to retreat back inside the room.
Seeing that she was about to leave, Jiang Ciying slowly snapped out of it. With a slap to her forehead, she hurried forward, grabbing the doorknob just a fraction of a second before the door shut.
“Is this Room 622?” Jiang Ciying asked, taking a light breath while stretching her neck to look inside the room.
The young girl still wore a cold expression. Leaning against the doorframe, she looked Jiang Ciying up and down with displeasure. “Are you really here to collect rent?”
Jiang Ciying nodded, raising her eyes to look at the house number on the wall. Upon verifying the digits 622, she let out an obvious sigh of relief.
“Yes,” Jiang Ciying straightened up and offered her a friendly smile. “I am the daughter of that Aunt Jiang you mentioned, Jiang Ciying.”
With that, she extended her hand and looked at her expectantly. “Nice to meet you.”
Despite Jiang Ciying’s warm words, the girl opposite her remained completely silent. Her expression stayed icy as she stared at Jiang Ciying’s outstretched hand, deep in thought.
“What, are you afraid I am going to eat you?”
The person opposite remained silent. Jiang Ciying raised an eyebrow, deciding not to force it. Awkwardly and quietly pulling her hand back, she resumed a serious, professional attitude.
“Alright, my apologies.”
When the girl handed over the money, her expression was strange, as if she were hiding something unspeakable. She lifted her head to look at Jiang Ciying with a complicated expression, then hastily lowered her gaze again.
Jiang Ciying paused mid-count, casting a glance over at her, but this time she could not make out the girl’s expression.
Continuing her task, she stood in front of the doorway and counted the rent money over and over again.
Very quickly, she realized something was wrong.
No matter how many times she counted, that thick stack of small change in her hand was still short by three hundred yuan.
“Stop counting.” Suddenly, the girl spoke up. “It is short by three hundred.”
Jiang Ciying was taken aback. Raising an eyebrow with some amusement, she slowly lowered her body until she was at eye level with the young girl in front of her.
“Not enough? And yet you are still so righteous about it? Anyone who did not know better would think I owed you money.”
Nervously clutching the hem of her shirt, the girl still maintained a poker face, putting on a calm and experienced facade. “Um… our family has been a bit tight on cash lately, and we really cannot scrape together this much. Could you give us a few more days of leeway?”
Jiang Ciying stared into her eyes, but no matter how she tried to track her gaze, the girl always quickly ducked away, refusing to give her a chance to meet her eyes.
“As far as I know, you have already missed several months of rent to our family. Even if you are pretty, you cannot just be unreasonable, right?”
“Huh?” The girl blinked in a daze, lifting her head blankly. “Wh… what pretty?”
“Nothing.” Realizing she had spoken out of turn, Jiang Ciying guiltily rubbed her nose, averted her gaze, and tucked the money into her inner pocket.
The next second, a pair of cold hands suddenly grabbed her wrists, followed closely by the person in front of her leaning in.
“Or… can I work off the rent?”
Before she could finish, as if afraid that Jiang Ciying would refuse, she quickly added: “I can clean, fix radios, and I am good at sewing clothes too. You can make me do anything.”
Held by her wrists, Jiang Ciying found her words of refusal stuck in her throat. She opened her mouth several times before closing it again, and finally hesitated for a long while before leaving behind just a sentence:
“Forget it, I will go talk to my mom and see if we can give you a few more days.”
At that, the girl finally looked satisfied. She gently released her grip on Jiang Ciying’s hands and stepped back to a polite distance.
“Thank you.”
Jiang Ciying did not look back at her again. Three seconds after the girl let go, she stepped forward and disappeared into the sunlit hallway.
In May, the summer evening was sultry and restless.
Jiang Ciying lay on the living room sofa, boredly flipping open her clamshell phone and playing her usual music through the earphones.
“Just look at you. You went out for a year and did not accomplish a thing, and now you will not lift a finger at home. It is truly a waste of you being a university graduate.”
Jiang Wenjuan’s voice rang out from the kitchen. The sound of running water stopped immediately after, and she emerged carrying a plate of washed fruit, setting it on the table in front of Jiang Ciying.
Jiang Ciying sighed, hoisted herself up limply, and stuffed a piece of fruit into her mouth with a troubled expression. “Do not even mention it. I clearly graduated with a proper degree in fashion design, but when I got into the company, they would not let me do any real work and forced me to sew those tacky, shapeless rags instead.”
Jiang Wenjuan sat down beside her, crossed her legs, and turned on the television. She chuckled without looking back as she replied, “Sewing rags is sewing rags. Every beginning is hard; after sewing for a few more years, you will have your day in the sun.”
“I would love to,” Jiang Ciying said, laughing through her tears with a voice full of bitterness. “Except the factory went out of business.”
Jiang Wenjuan paused in her movements, turning back to look at her with utter disbelief in her eyes. “Went out of business?”
“Uh-huh.” Jiang Ciying stood up, stretched lazily, and then walked over toward her mother’s direction, wrapping her arms around her neck from behind. “So for this period of time, you will just have to trouble Ms. Jiang to support me, this unemployed vagrant!”
Jiang Wenjuan burst into a wide laugh, patting the back of Jiang Ciying’s hand with her gold-ringed fingers, unsure whether she was being sentimental or joking. “Alright, a year, three years, or even a lifetime—I will support you. Who asked you to be my, Sister Jiang’s, only daughter?”
As soon as the words “only daughter” were spoken, both of them froze, falling into a brief silence.
Jiang Ciying’s hands slowly pulled back. As if remembering something, a faint look of guilt surfaced on her face.
Noticing something was amiss, Jiang Wenjuan hurriedly changed the subject, taking the opportunity to push the fruit closer to Jiang Ciying. “If you do not have anything special to do tomorrow, come lend a hand at the mahjong parlor.”
Though reluctant, Jiang Ciying did not shake her head. She lay back down on the sofa, nibbling on the fruit in deep thought.
“Oh, right,” Jiang Ciying remembered something a moment later and raised her head. “The kid in Room 622 did not pay her rent in full, and also…”
“And she is short by three hundred,” Jiang Wenjuan answered with practiced familiarity the moment she heard it.
Jiang Ciying raised an eyebrow in surprise, curiously pressing further. “How did you know?”
Staring at the TV without looking back, Jiang Wenjuan explained, “Their family is always like that. They never pay the full rent every month, and are always short by two or three hundred. If it were not for pitying the mother and daughter, I would have kicked them out long ago.”
With that, Jiang Wenjuan suddenly sighed and waved a hand. “Whatever, whatever. I will not haggle with her over this bit of money. If she does not pay, forget it; if she gives it to you, just keep it as allowance.”
Jiang Ciying’s focus was not on the money at all as she pursued her previous question. “Pity? What do you mean by that?”
“Aiyah, that is a long story,” Jiang Wenjuan pouted, her brow furrowing as she spoke. “That girl only has a mother, and the mother seems to have some mental health issues—she cannot do any work. The whole household relies entirely on that one young kid to prop it up.”
Jiang Ciying grew interested. “Really?”
“Who knows,” she shook her head. “Half true, half false, I suppose. Otherwise, why would they be poor enough to rent a place like that?”
“What kind of place?”
“A haunted house.”