My name is Ji Sheng, eighteen years old, a freshman in college.
Originally, I was just an ordinary girl, nothing special at all, but an incident three years ago completely changed my life.
It happened when I was fifteen, right before graduating from middle school. To buy a graduation gift for the boy I had a crush on, I saved up my pocket money for a long time, but no matter how hard I tried, I was still ten yuan short.
I didn’t want to miss the chance to give him a gift just because of ten yuan, so I mustered up the courage to steal ten yuan from my dad’s wallet when he wasn’t paying attention.
After getting the money, I felt a bit guilty because my dad gave me a decent amount of pocket money, but I still dashed out of the house.
I hadn’t run far when the clear, cloudless sky suddenly turned gloomy. Dark, heavy clouds quickly gathered over the city, and in an instant, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.
A heavy rain was about to pour down, so I quickened my pace and headed straight for the gift shop.
Just as I was about to cross the sidewalk in front of the gift shop, a bolt of lightning struck down from the sky… After that, everything went black, and I knew nothing.
When I woke up, I learned that I had been struck by lightning and had been unconscious for a full month.
According to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the probability of a person being struck by lightning in a year is 1 in 1,400,000, and the probability of dying from a lightning strike is 1 in 700,000. If a person lives to be 80, their lifetime probability of being struck by lightning is only 1 in 5,000. And of all people, I happened to be that one in 5,000.
It’s true—if you do something wrong, you’ll get struck by lightning!
I thought that once my body recovered, everything would be over, but it turned out things weren’t that simple.
Ever since the lightning strike, I started hearing strange sounds, and before long, I began seeing things that ordinary people couldn’t.
Those things seemed like human souls.
I felt like I was sick, but I didn’t dare tell anyone around me.
My mother passed away when I was very young, and my dad raised me all by himself, which wasn’t easy. He’s a bus driver, and his work takes up most of his day. When he comes home from work, he’s often so tired that he falls asleep as soon as he lies down.
Besides, our family’s financial situation is average—not too bad, but not great either. If I were to see a psychologist, the high cost might be too much for my dad to handle.
I didn’t want to cause him any trouble.
…
At first, this situation wasn’t too severe. It only happened occasionally, and as long as I quickly shifted my attention away from those things, I could still manage to live my life. But as time went on, I noticed that the strange occurrences around me were becoming more and more unbelievable, even frightening.
Let me start from when I officially began my college life.
On the first night after moving into the dorm, I could hardly sleep at all. In the darkness, there was a faint, drifting sound of crying—a woman’s voice, weeping miserably. The sound sent chills down my spine.
Besides me, there were three other girls living in the dorm: Jiang Meixin, Jian Ran, and Tang Shishi. All three of them were sound asleep. Jian Ran, who slept across from me, was snoring loudly.
The moonlight was cold and thin, seeping in through the slightly open window. The night breeze was chilly, and even though I wrapped myself tightly in my blanket, a cold draft still crept down my neck.
“Creak.”
The door suddenly made a sound. I peeked out and could vaguely see it had opened a crack.
My heart skipped a beat, leaping into my throat.
By the moonlight spilling through the window, a dark shadow surged through the crack and headed straight for me.
I immediately ducked my head under the covers, not daring to look at that shadow again.
But just then, I felt something cold and icy quietly slip into the bed, touching my foot…
“Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, all gods and immortals, appear quickly, heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, all gods and immortals, appear quickly…” I desperately repeated this mantra in my mind, but the icy sensation did not fade. That thing grabbed my foot.
I shuddered violently, my entire body feeling as if it had been filled with lead, instantly stiffening and unable to move.
By instinct, I sensed that what had slipped under the covers was a person—only, that person’s body had no warmth at all, cold as ice.
More precisely, it might have been a ghost.
A human couldn’t appear so suddenly like this.
“Finally found you.”
A sinister voice suddenly whispered in my ear—a woman’s voice.
I gasped sharply. The next second, the hand gripping my ankle tightened its grip. I felt a sharp pain in my ankle, as if the bone were about to be crushed.
“Who are you?”
“You collected my soul but did not ferry me across, leaving me to wander the world as a lonely wandering ghost. How will you compensate me?”
“…”
I was utterly confused, having no idea what she was talking about.
“Tell me, how will you compensate me?”
As her words fell, I felt that icy body under the covers slowly crawling upward. Then, the covers were flung aside. By the moonlight, I clearly saw a woman pressing down on top of me. Her jet-black hair hung straight down, almost covering her entire face. I could only vaguely make out her wide, bloodshot eyes, filled with deep resentment.
I couldn’t move. It felt like ghost pressing on the bed—my body completely disobeying my mind.
“Who are you? I don’t even know you,” I tried my best to stay calm.
The woman sneered, her pale arm suddenly lifting. Like a puppet on strings, I was driven by her will, slowly rising from the bed.
I couldn’t control myself. An invisible hand seemed to be pulling me, dragging me step by step toward the window.
The slightly open window was blown wide by a chilling gust of wind. I climbed onto the windowsill, the cold wind hitting my face and making me shiver.
If nothing unexpected happened, the next step would be to leap…
“Now you can taste what it’s like to be a lonely wandering ghost,” the woman spoke again.
I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was standing behind me, staring at me with wide eyes, ready at any moment to manipulate my consciousness and make me jump.
This was the fifth floor. If I was lucky, I might survive, but becoming half-crippled was inevitable.
“I have no grudge against you. Why are you targeting me?”
The woman didn’t respond.
“Hey, even if you want me dead, at least let me die knowing why…”
Before I could finish, I was shoved hard from behind.
Losing my balance, I plummeted straight down.
The howling wind and the rapidly approaching ground snapped my mind into clarity. I struggled desperately, screaming like a madman.
However, shouting had already lost all effect. In the darkness, it seemed as if no one could hear me, and even if someone did hear my cries, what could they do?
I was about to make intimate contact with the ground.