Recap
Shen Ji spoke plainly: “A boy told me—the one you worship isn’t a wish-granting benevolent God, but a malevolent one.”
The scissors fell from her hand.
Shen Ji kindly helped her pick them up, casually pocketing a red paper figure.
“You’re not him? Who are you? Leave! Go now! Out! Out!” She panicked, shoving him outside the apartment and plastering talismans across the doorframe to seal it against wandering spirits.
After finishing this, she returned to kneel at the shrine, muttering indistinct prayers.
Shen Ji looked at the closed door, his face unreadable.
Can talismans truly bar certain beings? If prayers can truly bring one’s soul back, why prepare so many ghost repelling wards? Do the summoned souls wear the face of Gods? Is the God in the heart nothing more than the soul one longs for?
___Triggering content in this chapter, you have been warned___
The boy’s story was completely different from the old woman’s version.
After her son and daughter-in-law died in a car accident, the old woman lived alone with her little grandson. The child, who had no concept of death, kept crying out every day that he wanted to find his parents. The old woman, frail and aging, could do nothing to stop him.
Then one day, the grandson suddenly made a new friend. He often whispered to this friend behind the old woman’s back, and even developed the habit of waking at midnight to wander the house in a trance.
Several times during these nocturnal wanderings, he stole the house key, only to be found collapsed on the stairs the next morning. Each time he was found, he seemed to get closer and closer to the exit. When he finally fainted right at the apartment building’s doorway, the old woman made a decision out of fear he would run off: she chained him inside the room.
Ignoring his cries, she also took away his only “friend”: a shrine.
The old woman had never worshipped Gods, and had no idea where the shrine had come from. When she asked the boy, he couldn’t explain either. It’s easy to invite a spirit, but hard to send it away; she couldn’t throw it out, so she hid it.
She thought the boy would gradually forget about these episodes and return to normal. Instead, his temper grew worse by the day, until she could no longer bear to see her beloved grandson turn into a stranger. She threatened to smash the shrine.
But on that very day, the boy suddenly became obedient and sensible. Whatever she said, he agreed. Overjoyed, she thought the unclean thing had finally left. At his pleading, she stopped locking him up.
She never expected that the very next day, he would run away, taking the shrine with him.
A week later, he was last sighted at an amusement park. When the trembling old woman arrived, she found only the shrine lying quietly on the abandoned rides, as if waiting for her.
From then on, she prayed daily, burned incense, and performed rituals to summon his soul. Every day she went to the deserted amusement park to burn paper offerings, praying for his safety, praying for his spirit to return.
She never locked her door again, afraid her grandson would come home to find no way in, afraid that the Gods would have no path back.
Shen Ji descended the stairs to the building’s exit and saw the amusement park far away against the backdrop of dusk.
The couple on the fifth floor, the actor on the fourth, and the old woman — their stories originated within this apartment building, yet their lives remained inextricably bound to this cluster of derelict structures; even the landlord could not escape the curse of death.
The boy appeared behind him without warning.
Shen Ji asked, “Have you ever been to the amusement park?”
The boy replied, “I don’t remember clearly.”
Pointing toward the distant park, Shen Ji said, “Someday, when we have the time, I’ll take you there. It’ll always be there. Come and see.”
“If you’ve seen it, that means I’ve seen it too.” The boy stood in the shadows, refusing to step forward.
Shen Ji lowered his arm. “Are you…?”
The boy said, “I’m not a ghost. I don’t have a shrine, not to mention that I can’t answer the old woman’s calls. Do you think she’s free of suspicion as the killer?”
Shen Ji chuckled. “So you know everything.”
The boy’s face was full of sorrow. “I can’t be a child forever.”
“What did they do to you?”
“They… deserved to die.”
Shen Ji pulled the red paper figure from his pocket and handed it to the boy. “I took this out. If you miss your parents, you can write their names on it.”
The boy held the paper figure and wept. “What can I do with it?”
“Call out their souls.”
The next morning, Shen Ji went to the actor’s home. The actor had not yet begun to attempt to hang himself.
Shen Ji found him lying stiffly on the bed, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling — awake, or sleepless all night.
What was on the ceiling?
Shen Ji looked up. Nothing.
At seven, the alarm rang. The actor leapt up, stumbled, and fled the bedroom in panic.
Seeing his terror, Shen Ji thought about it again. Something in this room must frighten him — But what can frighten a mentally disabled fool so terribly yet still force him to sleep here every night.
Also, what was the meaning of the seven o’clock alarm? The blankets and candy were in the living room. The blankets made sense — since he avoided the bedroom. But the candy?
Shen Ji gazed at the ceiling, thinking hard, until his eyes widened.
Above the actor’s room was the couple’s apartment. This bedroom aligned exactly with the sickly young man’s room upstairs.
Shen Ji left the bedroom, but couldn’t find the actor. The door was open — perhaps he had left, or perhaps he was still hiding.
Searching the house, Shen Ji’s eyes finally settled on an inconspicuous rabbit doll in the corner.
Dirty, old, with yellowed stuffing poking out, it looked like a discarded amusement park toy. Its body was big enough to hide an adult.
Shen Ji crouched to meet its gaze. The oversized head tilted awkwardly, hollow eyes staring back with eerie emptiness.
The filthy doll clashed with the neat furniture.
Shen Ji removed the doll’s head — and met the actor’s eyes inside. “Actor, are you pretending to be a fool?”
The once-proud acting skills were now used to feign madness — was it for survival, or to escape suspicion?
The actor didn’t move, as if asleep with his eyes open.
Shen Ji said, “Candy is sweet, medicine is bitter. You gave me candy — do you want me to deliver it to the sick man upstairs? I can help you. I won’t ask why you are pretending, but you must tell me: are you the killer?”
Suddenly the actor jolted awake, terrified by the stranger in his home. He tried desperately to shrink deeper into the doll, but his head still protruded out like a sore thumb.
In a frenzy, he clutched his own throat, as if only by removing the extra head could he be safe.
He strangles himself mercilessly, nearly to death. But at the last moment, he lost all memory again, reverting to the simple-minded fool.
The fool resurfaced in the actor’s body, grinning vacantly at Shen Ji.
The actor was trapped inside, only occasionally able to show himself.
The fool had forgotten everything. The actor remembered it all. All the unbearable pain. The actor appears only to find ways to kill himself.
___
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