Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I moved into 704 three months ago.

To be more precise, I found myself another place to hide from the sun.

I died at Old River Bend three years ago, and I haven’t left this residential compound since. During the day, when the yang energy is heavy, I can only huddle in the underground garage, abandoned storage rooms, or vacant apartments. Only when the yin energy rises at night can I move around the building like a normal resident. The compound isn’t large and the buildings are old, so there are plenty of vacant units. I’m like an unregistered stray cat; whichever floor has its lights out is the floor where I’ll find a place to stay.

When 704 became available, the previous tenants had just moved out. The woman spent the entire moving day cursing, saying this floor was cursed. She claimed she always heard the old lady next door talking to thin air at night and even saw a woman in a white dress standing by the window. The man’s face looked even worse than hers; as he carried boxes downstairs, he didn’t even dare glance toward 703.

Three days after they left, I twisted the rusty lock on 704 and moved in.

I ran into Lin Wan on my very first night.

It was nearly two in the morning when she walked out of 703 carrying a bag of trash. At the end of the hallway hung a long mirror with a peeling frame. Usually, anyone passing by would instinctively glance at it. When Lin Wan walked past, she paused for a second and then sidestepped it, as if she were avoiding a puddle of filthy water.

I asked her, “Are you afraid of the mirror?”

She didn’t look at me. She just stared down at the faint, grayish shadow by my feet and whispered, “I don’t like the thing inside looking at me.”

She headed downstairs as soon as she finished speaking.

I stood there, watching her silhouette vanish into the darkness, already understanding the situation.

From then on, we rarely spoke, yet we both maintained a tacit silence. She didn’t appear during the day, and neither did I. At night, she would stand outside the convenience store downstairs for a while, catching the scent of the hot soy milk others bought, while I sat by the flowerbeds enjoying the breeze. She didn’t ask why I had no job, no deliveries, and no friends or family visiting me. Likewise, I didn’t ask her why her mother bought a birthday cake every year for someone who was already dead.

Granny Wu was the only one who didn’t play dumb.

On my second night after moving in, she left a bowl of lotus root and pork rib soup at my door. A sticky note was tucked under the bottom of the bowl.

A single sentence was written on it.

“The nights are cold. Even young people need to drink something hot.”

The handwriting was shaky, but it had been written with great care.