“Did she come looking for you?”
Bo Si walked up to Teacher Li, dressed in a black overcoat, looking down at him from above.
Gu Yi followed over.
Teacher Li’s motion of burning paper paused for a moment. He raised his head and looked at the two of them in the night, first blank, then frightened.
He did not know Bo Si, but he was deeply impressed by Gu Yi. Gu Yi was Bai Nuo’s good friend when she was alive. Seeing him was like seeing Bai Nuo. Teacher Li’s whole body was trembling. “Gu Yi… you’re back…”
Gu Yi’s emotions were complicated, but he still suppressed them and asked, “Teacher, what happened to you?”
Teacher Li originally did not want to say it, but this matter had been pressing on his heart, and he was almost unable to hold on anymore. He needed an outlet, otherwise he would go crazy. “Bai Nuo… I see Bai Nuo every day. She is right beside me, staring at me every day, with her pure and innocent eyes, staring at me every day…”
“Is she really staring at you, or is that your own hallucination?” Bo Si asked.
Teacher Li shook his head and struggled to his feet from beside the fire basin. He slowly walked to the spot where Bai Nuo had jumped, his face devoid of blood, his voice hoarse. “I have wanted to be a teacher for a very, very long time. Now I finally am one, but I killed my student… She was my best student, the class monitor I was proud of, my most capable assistant. I valued her, she trusted me, but I killed her…”
Teacher Li was in unbearable pain. “I watched her being bullied by Lin Ming and that group of people. She came to me for help. I originally wanted to save her… But Lin Ming told me that if I interfered with him, he would make me disappear at school. I knew he had that ability! I was only a teacher, I could not stand against his family! I have a wife and daughter, I cannot lose this job, I cannot…”
“So you were afraid.” Bo Si spoke, helping him finish the sentence. “In the face of Bai Nuo’s desperate pleas, you chose to protect yourself, leaving her with a cold back. You were the teacher she trusted most, yet in the end, you became an accomplice in forcing her to her death.”
Gu Yi looked at Teacher Li and said, “Teacher knew long ago that all of this was done by Lin Ming, but you kept silent and let me leave the school, because you were afraid that one day the truth would come out and the fire would burn you?”
“I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to…”
Teacher Li said through tears, “I failed in my duty as a teacher. I indirectly killed Bai Nuo. From then on, I could see her figure every day. She came to my class to attend lessons. When I went to the cafeteria, she sat across from me. She looked at me, her face full of confusion, and kept asking, Teacher Li, why didn’t you save me, why didn’t you save me… I was going crazy. When I came home from work, her voice still followed me. I slept with my wife, and in the middle of the night, my wife would suddenly turn into her. She would still ask me, Teacher Li, why didn’t you save me… I pushed my wife away and got out of bed, and my daughter turned into her again. She said to me, Teacher Li, if you don’t answer me, I’ll keep following you until you are willing to answer me… I couldn’t take it anymore. This kind of torture would sooner or later drive me mad, so every night I came here to burn paper for her. I heard that if someone burns paper for a ghost, the road in the underworld will be a little easier, and it won’t become a lonely wandering ghost. Then, she won’t cling to the human world and refuse to leave, right?”
Bo Si gave a soft laugh. “She is not clinging to the human world at all, she just doesn’t understand. Teacher Li, then why didn’t you save her back then?”
“I…”
“Afraid of losing your job? Afraid of Lin Ming’s revenge? But what are those compared to a living life? If you had stood up and saved Bai Nuo back then, maybe many tragedies today would not have happened. Think about it, if the one being bullied were your own daughter, you would also hope that someone would help her at that time, wouldn’t you?”
Teacher Li was speechless, only tears falling silently.
Gu Yi looked at him, thinking of the scene that had appeared in his dream before, Bai Nuo with blood all over her face, asking again and again, why didn’t you save me, why didn’t you save me…
At this moment, it seemed as if that voice was ringing in his ears again, painful, hoarse, carrying confusion and deep sorrow.
Why didn’t you save me.
Why didn’t you save me, Teacher Li?
Gu Yi closed his eyes tightly, his heart aching as though cut by a knife.
Bo Si turned around and said to him, “Let’s go.”
“Will Bai Nuo take revenge on Teacher Li?”
After leaving the rooftop, Gu Yi asked softly.
Bo Si asked back, “Do you hope Teacher Li gets what he deserves?”
Gu Yi was at a loss and for a moment did not know how to answer.
Bo Si smiled and pressed a hand on Gu Yi’s head. “It may not necessarily be Bai Nuo’s resentment that has latched onto him, it may be that he cannot get over his own inner obstacle. Although he did not directly harm Bai Nuo, the shackles of morality and conscience have bound him. He hallucinates, always thinking Bai Nuo is beside him. That is not impossible either. If that’s the case, what he needs is a psychologist, and we can’t help him much.”
Gu Yi seemed to understand, though not completely. “Like you said, ghosts are not outside, but in everyone’s heart, is that what you mean?”
Bo Si nodded. “Smart, but it doesn’t raise your salary. As the saying goes, if you have never done anything against your conscience in your life, you won’t fear ghosts knocking at your door at midnight. Kid, remember this, in the future, never do anything against your conscience, or I will definitely fire you.”
“Boss, I won’t…”
Gu Yi had not finished speaking when his phone rang.
This was the first call he had received since getting a phone. It was from Xia Wan’er.
“Yi-gege, did you see the news? Oh my god, Lin Ming killed himself!”
Xia Wan’er’s loud voice rang out.
Gu Yi was shocked. “He… killed himself?”
“Yeah, I only learned the specifics through Qing Sang as well. His family and the Lin family are business friends. He told me that after Lin Ming went to the hospital, he became a bit crazy, as if he had been over-stimulated, and kept shouting that someone wanted to kill him, saying that Bai Nuo had come to take revenge on him. Of course the people in the hospital didn’t believe it, and were even planning to transfer him to psychiatry. In the end, not long after, Lin Ming killed himself.”
Xia Wan’er spoke with excitement, vivid and animated. “And do you know how he killed himself? Oh my god, it was too bloody, too cruel, too not manly… no no no, it should be said, too manly!”
Gu Yi asked urgently, “How did he kill himself?”
On the other end, Xia Wan’er was practically shouting. “He used scissors to cut off his little ding-ding! Not only that, he was like a madman, taking the scissors and stabbing his little ding-ding into a lump of rotten flesh, all bloody and mangled, you tell me, is this a lack of humanity or a collapse of morality, I can firmly say, he was possessed! Ai, but it was too late, after he stabbed his little brother to pieces, he took the scissors and stabbed himself to death, intestines ripped apart, guts spilling out, completely gone, ai, what a miserable death…”
Gu Yi held the phone, mouth open, unable to say a single word for a long time.
“Yi-gege, Yi-gege, what’s wrong with you, why aren’t you talking, at least say something back!”
Xia Wan’er shouted from the other side. Bo Si was somewhat speechless, snatched the phone from Gu Yi’s hand, and put it to his ear. “All right, we already know. You don’t need to describe it in such detail.”
“Boss Bo? Aiya, Boss Bo, I originally wanted to call you, but I didn’t have your phone number. Let me tell you…”
“You don’t need to tell me, I’ve already heard it all.”
“No way, I was calling Yi-gege, how could you have heard it, could it be that Yi-gege turned on speakerphone?”
“With your volume, do you even need speakerphone?”
“Boss Bo, listen to me…”
Bo Si hung up and said to Gu Yi, “Let’s go, we’re going to Bai Nuo’s grave.”
“What can we do there?” Gu Yi asked.
Bo Si said, “Lin Ming is dead. I think Bai Nuo’s resentment should already have been dispelled. Let’s go, at least I’ll take you to see her.”
Bo Si strode forward, and Gu Yi trotted to catch up.
When they arrived at the cemetery again, everything went smoothly. This time there was no Bai Nuo ghost blocking the road, and Bo Si drove quickly too. Not long after, they arrived.
Entering through the iron gate and standing before Bai Nuo’s gravestone, looking at the girl in the photo smiling so purely and beautifully, Gu Yi said nothing, only silently gazed at her.
Bo Si stood in the wind, his overcoat blending into the night. His figure was tall and slender, one hand casually in his pocket. After a long while, he spoke in a low voice, “As you said, blood debt for blood debt. Now, he has already repaid the debt he owed you. You can let it go now, right?”
The leaves rustled.
This time, however, the sound was exceptionally gentle.
Gu Yi turned his head and looked at Bo Si. “You’re talking to Bai Nuo?”
Bo Si did not answer, only said, “Some debts, from the very beginning, cannot be escaped. From the very beginning, the result should have been known.”
Hearing this, Gu Yi seemed to understand something. He asked softly, “Boss, did you already know Lin Ming would die?”
“You don’t want him to die?”
“But you said that would deepen Bai Nuo’s sin.”
“Yes.” Bo Si took a cigarette from his pocket. “Some things, even if you already know the ending, you still have to try. It’s not because I sympathize with that brat named Lin Ming, but because the person he hurt was simply too innocent. If, because of him, she cannot be reborn, it would indeed not be worth it. But now, she is no longer innocent either. She killed off everyone who owed her. I said from the start, the resentment of a red-clad fierce ghost is the heaviest. Her debt had to be repaid with her life. As expected, all of this is karma.”
“Bankrupt, without descendants, that was Lin Ming’s promise. As long as Bai Nuo left him, now…”
“Now, the Lin family’s fortune has been exhausted, all thanks to that beastly brat. Even the ancestral virtue cannot outweigh the sin he committed this time. Bankruptcy and no descendants were only a matter of time, so promises are not something one can make carelessly. After all, words have spiritual power.”
Gu Yi’s eyes dimmed. “Lin Ming is dead. Bai Nuo cannot be reborn. I don’t know how long she will have to suffer in hell.”
Bo Si gave a faint smile. “The way time is counted in hell is probably different from ours in the living world. Didn’t I say it? She will suffer for eternity.”
“Is there no way to lessen her sin?”
“Do you like her?”
Bo Si suddenly asked.
Gu Yi froze. “What?”
Bo Si lit his cigarette and took a drag. In the curling smoke, he asked again, “I mean, do you like this girl or not?”
This question seemed to stump Gu Yi.
He thought seriously for a long moment before saying, “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about that question. Bai Nuo was my only friend. For her, I could do anything, but liking her, I don’t know, and I don’t understand what that feeling is.”
Bo Si smiled. “How nice, still not understanding what liking means.”
Bo Si took only one drag of his cigarette before tossing it into the dirt and stamping it out.
He sat down cross-legged, his hands rapidly forming seals. The hem of his black clothing brushed the ground, and Gu Yi did not understand what he was doing. “Boss…”
“Don’t speak.” Bo Si said, his hand seals moving faster and faster. “I want to try whether I can transcend her.”