When Ning Shao woke, her back was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her clothes clung damply to her skin, and she felt as if she’d been soaked through. Her fever had broken, but her head was still heavy. She sat on the bed for a long while before she finally came around.
Pulling herself out of the discomfort, she rubbed her eyes and the bridge of her nose. The fragmented experience of sleep paralysis had been a nightmare, a fever dream.
Everything that had felt so real in the dream was full of flaws now that she was awake.
For one thing, Lin Yan was dead. He could no longer hide under her bed, in her closet, or even outside her balcony window as he used to, waiting for her to fall asleep before crawling out and knocking her unconscious with ether.
At the thought, Ning Shao drew a deep breath and was about to get out of bed when she belatedly realized how cold the room was. Waves of chill wrapped around her, making her limbs tremble.
What was more, the room was pitch-black. Not a trace of light could be seen.
She’d slept so long that darkness had swallowed all the light outside, leaving only thick blackness.
Ning Shao’s bare feet touched the floor. Instead of the wooden flooring in her bedroom at home, she felt ice-cold tile beneath them. The chill cleared her head completely, and her first reaction was confusion.
‘Where am I?’
She was still calm and rational. Reaching out, she felt along the wall for the light switch.
As the light came on and fell across her fingers, each slender, pale one looked as delicate as the root of a scallion, supple and nimble, made for holding a scalpel. A faint blush colored her fingertips.
Yet because of Lin Yan’s unrelenting harassment, Ning Shao had been forced to give up her bright future, her chance to work as a doctor at a city hospital, and the scalpel she’d once been so proud of. Instead, she’d gone to a township to give patients injections and dispense medicine.
Ning Shao’s attention was drawn to the unfamiliar room before her.
One thing was certain: this wasn’t her bedroom.
Her expression tightened.
When she opened the bedroom door and saw what was in the living room, she finally understood. Her fever had addled her; on the way home, she’d gone into the wrong apartment and ended up next door, in Grandma Lin’s home.
But she clearly remembered finding some cold medicine and taking it before bed. And the last place she’d gone had been her own bedroom.
Perhaps her illness had muddled her memory. That was a perfectly reasonable explanation; there was nothing strange about it.
After all, she didn’t believe in ghosts.
But her illness was getting worse. If her memory was this blurred, she should go to the clinic for an IV. She had no idea how long it would take to get better with medicine alone.
Ning Shao was about to head back to her own home when something made her turn and glance at the bedroom where she’d been sleeping. She had been inside Lin Yan’s room before, but it had been so long that she’d forgotten. Only now, as she came out, did she remember.
With her fever so high, she’d somehow wandered into Lin Yan’s bedroom and lain down on his bed to sleep.
Ning Shao’s eyes widened, and her heart thudded twice in rapid succession. Even knowing she’d done it while her mind was muddled, she still felt disgusted and panicked by her own actions.
But when she remembered that Lin Yan was dead, her tumultuous emotions gradually settled.
Lin Yan, now dead, couldn’t know about this. If he did, he’d probably slobber like a rabid dog in heat, growing even more deranged, restless, and feverishly excited.
Ning Shao didn’t dare think about it.
She hurried away from Lin Yan’s bedroom and was about to leave the living room when she noticed that the kitchen light was on.
The living room lights were off; only two electric candle lamps glowed blood-red, casting light on the walls as if someone had splashed them with a whole basin of blood. That made the kitchen’s white fluorescent light stand out all the more, impossible to ignore.
—Had she turned it on?
The thought of being in the same house as Lin Yan sent her mind spinning. She had no time to think it through.
Even though Lin Yan was nothing more than a corpse lying in a refrigerated coffin, Ning Shao couldn’t bear to stay another moment. She hurried to turn off the kitchen light and left.
…
Once outside, Ning Shao took a deep breath in the empty corridor, where the motion-sensor lights were on, and let out a long breath. Then she carefully checked the number on the door and went into her own apartment.
After washing up, she sat in her air-conditioned bedroom and called Lin Yan’s father.
Grandma Lin was critically ill in the ICU. Ning Shao didn’t want to arrange Lin Yan’s funeral, so she had no choice but to contact his father.
Fortunately, she had a good memory and still remembered Father Lin’s phone number.
“Beep… beep…”
Father Lin answered quickly.
But as soon as he heard who was calling, he hung up.
Ning Shao knew he hated her, so it was no surprise that he’d hung up. When she got through on the second try, she stated her purpose bluntly.
“Grandma Lin is critically ill. You’re Lin Yan’s father, so you have to come and take care of this.”
She spoke quickly, a habit she’d developed through years of dealing with patients.
Father Lin didn’t have time to hang up before she finished.
Silence filled the line. Several times, Ning Shao thought he’d hung up, but seeing that the call was still connected on her screen put her at ease.
But Father Lin’s answer was neither refusal nor agreement. He said:
“I can’t take care of it.”
His voice on the other end carried the faintest tremor, as if he were afraid of something.
Ning Shao: “?”
After a long silence, Father Lin gave a cold laugh. “He’s obsessed with you like a madman. You should be able to take care of his corpse.”
With that, he hung up. When she called back, a cold electronic voice told her, “The number you have dialed is powered off…”
Ning Shao’s expression grew grave.
She didn’t understand what Father Lin meant by “I can’t take care of it.”
Why couldn’t the body be dealt with? Was arranging a funeral that difficult?
As she pondered this, her phone rang again. She looked down. It wasn’t Father Lin; it was her only close friend, An’an.
They’d met in their first year of high school. Even without Lin Yan, Ning Shao wouldn’t have made friends back then. Studying came first for her, so she couldn’t spare time even for friendship.
An’an was different. Even though she knew Ning Shao was difficult to get along with and had no interest in wasting time making friends, she still helped her without asking for anything in return, staying by her side and offering emotional support.
Later, because of Lin Yan, Ning Shao had feared An’an would get hurt, so she deliberately distanced herself from her.
Now that Lin Yan was dead, Ning Shao no longer had to worry that Li An’an would be hurt.
She answered, and Li An’an’s excited voice came through the phone.
“A Shao[1]The prefix “A” before a name is a familiar form of address in spoken Chinese, often used between close friends or family. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3733355_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3733355_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, you’re back in Jiangcheng?”
Ning Shao hadn’t told anyone. Li An’an had found out from the IP location displayed on her social media account. When Ning Shao confirmed it, the young woman’s delight practically spilled through the phone.
They chatted for a while, and eventually the conversation turned to their class reunion.
“Because of that man, you hardly ever went out,” Li An’an said. “Now that he’s passed away, you should get out and see people again. Everyone’s coming to the reunion tomorrow. You should come too, A Shao.”
When Ning Shao was a student, she’d devoted all her energy to studying. After graduation, Lin Yan had hounded her, forcing her to keep hiding and moving from place to place. Now she really should get out and reconnect with the world, even if she didn’t like the idea.
As for Lin Yan’s funeral, the body had to be kept for seven days[2]Seven-day intervals have significance in some Chinese mourning traditions, including rites on the seventh day after death. Keeping a body for exactly seven days is not a universal Chinese funeral … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3733355_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3733355_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, so there was no need to rush. Father Lin had to come back and arrange his funeral. No matter what, it wasn’t her place, as an outsider, to get involved.
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