Slice of Life

During my first year of graduate school, I hailed a ride and ended up in a Maybach.

That was when I met a man.

And from that moment on, the trajectory of my life was changed forever.

After announcing his marriage at a concert, the top-tier singer suddenly broke down in tears.

It was because he had just received news of my death.

Zhou Yan. We met at six and said our goodbyes at twenty-four.

I never had the courage to tell you that I truly, deeply loved you.

I used every trick in the book to marry my wife.

In front of others, she refused to acknowledge me. Behind closed doors, she kept me at an even colder distance.

I knew she hated me.

But I could live with being hated by her.

Until one afternoon, at the dining table, she suddenly said to me, “He’s back from overseas. We… should spend some time apart.”

I froze.

From the day my wife and I met until now, seven years had passed.

And I still hadn’t managed to warm her heart.

Looking at her indifferent face, I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. “Okay.”

She had always been efficient and decisive. That very night, the villa was emptied out, leaving only me behind… She had even taken the housekeeper with her.

I drank beneath the moon until dawn, yet my mind only grew clearer.

I had waited all these years. Suffered all these years. What right did I have to give up now?

Who the hell did some bastard back from overseas think he was, daring to compete with me?!

A serial killer targeting young women had appeared in our small town.

He even had a following of brainless sycophants who helped spread his message: “Women are better off staying in their place.”

As I was about to head out, my neighbor cautioned me, “Are you wearing a skirt? It’s not safe lately.”

I smiled. “You’re right. He isn’t safe.”

It is a little-known fact that criminals are even more vulnerable than women or children.

After all, whether they end up dead or maimed, they can never step into the light.

Why couldn’t he just stay in his place?

He just had to go and catch the eye of a lunatic like me.

One month after I died.

My childhood friend, the top celebrity I had long since cut ties with, did something completely out of character.

He canceled every job and shut himself away to write music.

In the end, he bid farewell to the music industry with a song called I Miss Her.

Everyone said he must have gone insane to give up such a dazzling future.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on New Year’s Eve, at the height of my fame.

The host prompted me as part of the program, asking me to call someone and wish them a Happy New Year.

Without the slightest hesitation, I dialed his number.

His voice trembled on the other end.

“Happy New Year to you too.”

This time, I want to live toward hope.

I was the freest child in the village.

All the other kids envied me because no one ever told me what to do.

But the truth was, my parents had divorced, and neither of them wanted me.

That was why they left eight-year-old me all alone in a mud-brick house up in the mountains.

During the day, it was all right.

But at night, the mountain wind howled, and the drunk old bachelor would reach his hand in through the crack in the window. “Jingjing, are you scared all by yourself? Uncle Dog will keep you company!”

I suspect my cat has someone on the side.

Lately, it keeps coming home late, and there’s always a sweet cucumber scent lingering on its fur.

Even more infuriating, winter has only just arrived, and it’s already wearing a flashy red vest that clearly costs four figures!

I took this as a provocation, so I rolled up a note and attached it to the cat’s collar: “Thank you for the vest, but this cat already has an owner.”

The next day, my cat came home, and the note around its neck had been replaced by one in an unfamiliar hand, written with absolute certainty. “Sorry, but this cat can only be mine.”

A new neighbor moved in next door-a man who radiated a wild, untamed energy from head to toe.

He always came home late at night.

On the rare occasions I ran into him in the elevator, he was quiet and withdrawn, looking nothing like a decent guy.

Until one night, without the slightest warning, the water in my apartment cut off.

Halfway through my shower, I stood there in silence for a long moment before wrapping myself in a bathrobe and knocking on my neighbor’s door.

“Bro, can I borrow your bathroom?”

Five years ago, I left Qi Tan in a fit of pique.

Later, after he won the Best Actor award, he stood at the Hundred Stars Awards Ceremony holding my photograph, pleading for help to find me. “My lover has been missing for a month,” he said. “Please, help me find her.”

But the news of my gruesome death had already broken countless times back in 2018. Qi Tan, however, had suffered a trauma-induced bout of amnesia, forgetting everything that happened after I died.

On the day his manager announced that Qi Tan was retiring from the industry indefinitely, the news of his suicide exploded across the headlines.

I am a Bone Demon, trapped for countless years within that cold, desolate graveyard.

No one can see me, and no one can hear me. I have spent centuries in solitary silence.

Until one midsummer, when the sun was shining just right.

A young girl came to sweep the graves, but she mistakenly offered her tributes to me.

I took a bite of a crisp peach and said, “Truly sweet.”

She froze for a moment, then covered her mouth and stifled a giggle.

“Next year, I’ll come again.”

True to her word, she returned year after year, bringing me crisp peaches every time.

Later, she died, and her remains were carelessly tossed into the graveyard.

Her five-year-old daughter, clutching the hand of a younger brother who had only just learned to walk, came to the graveyard day and night to wail for their mother.

I couldn’t stand the noise.

I possessed her body, crawled out from the straw mat, and clumsily gathered those two little brats into my arms.

“Keep crying, and Mother will eat you.”