[Mo Ka’s vision went black, and he fainted into Chen Ge’s arms. Chen Ge frowned at the uninvited guest who had collapsed against him in the middle of the night, then carried him inside and laid him on the sofa. The door had been left open. Through the crack, something that looked like a foot seemed to flicker in and out of sight. Chen Ge glanced over from the corner of his eye, but there was nothing there. He walked over and closed the door.
“Hey, wake up.” Chen Ge patted Mo Ka’s face. Mo Ka frowned and opened his eyes. When he saw a shadowy figure bending over and staring at him, he panicked and threw a punch. Chen Ge caught his hand. “Treating the person who took you in like this seems a little impolite.”
After Mo Ka clearly saw his face, he pulled his hand back. “Sorry. I thought…” The place Chen Ge had grabbed felt burning hot. By now it was already daylight. Mo Ka quickly swept his gaze across the whole room. It was simple and neat, almost as though no one actually lived there.
“I’m not crazy. Last night…” Mo Ka didn’t know where to start. If he told Chen Ge the whole story, he would definitely think something was wrong with his head. Mo Ka could only lower his head. A call from Hao Shuai broke the silence. “Something unexpected happened last night, so I couldn’t make it back. Everything okay on your end?”
“Let’s just say I’m fine. When are you coming back?”
“Still a few more days.”
Mo Ka lowered the phone. He knew what he was about to ask might be too much, but he had no idea what else to do. “Chen Ge, um… can I stay here until my friend comes back? The moment he gets home, I’ll go upstairs.” Only after he finished speaking did Mo Ka realize he had called Chen Ge by name as naturally as if they already knew each other. Chen Ge was definitely going to think he was suspicious. In the end, though, Mo Ka was the only person who cared. Chen Ge didn’t react at all. He pushed open the floor-to-ceiling glass door leading to the balcony and walked to the railing.
Mo Ka remembered what Hao Shuai had said and thought of Gao Shan Shan. Chen Ge stood outside without a mask. Did he not want to live either? Mo Ka had no idea what purpose his next action served or what he hoped to get from it. He took out the mask he always carried, walked over to Chen Ge, stood on tiptoe, and gently covered Chen Ge’s mouth and nose with it. “I won’t let you die!” At that moment, it was the only corny line he could think of.
“Even if you wanted me to die, I have no intention of doing so.”
“Then why are you standing outside without a mask? That’s basically slow suicide.”
“Maybe one day, if I’m in a good mood, I’ll tell you why.”
“And what day is ‘one day’?”
“Definitely not today.” Chen Ge put the mask back onto Mo Ka’s face. “Think about yourself before lecturing other people.”
Mo Ka felt the warmth and breath Chen Ge had left behind on the mask, along with that faintly sweet scent that somehow wasn’t cloying.
“Chen Ge, do you believe ghosts exist?” As Mo Ka asked, his eyes accidentally drifted toward the balcony of his own apartment before immediately pulling away. Fortunately, there was nobody there. Everything looked the same as usual. Then, as if he needed to make certain of something, he abruptly looked again.
No.
It wasn’t the same as usual.
There was a battered bunch of plastic roses on the balcony.
Mo Ka remembered very clearly that there had been nothing there yesterday. Later, Gao Shan Shan had died. He had gone downstairs and called the dedicated hotline that now handled corpses, then waited for them to arrive. After coming back upstairs, he had never gone onto the balcony again.
Then… whose flowers were those?
Hao Shuai’s words surfaced in his mind again: Right, Shan Shan will be coming over in a little while, and I still need to go buy a few things.
Were those the flowers Hao Shuai had bought for Gao Shan Shan?
Mo Ka carefully combed through his memories again and again. Ever since Gao Shan Shan died, he hadn’t actually seen Hao Shuai in person. Every interaction had been through phone calls and text messages.
Without realizing it, Mo Ka grabbed Chen Ge’s clothes.
Could the person he had seen last night really have been Hao Shuai? Could everything have simply been some elaborate prank?
A figure flashed past the gap in the curtains.
Hao Shuai!
“Did you see that?!” Mo Ka tugged on Chen Ge’s clothes.
“See what?”
Mo Ka was about to explain when Chen Ge added, “That man in your apartment?”
“So I wasn’t imagining it.” Mo Ka turned toward him. “Can you come upstairs with me and take a look? I’m begging you. I normally don’t talk this much to strangers, much less ask them for things like this. Just consider it an act of kindness and earn yourself some good karma. If you want money, I’ll pay you. I can treat you to hot pot too. My family runs a hot-pot restaurant. Whatever else you want me to do, I’ll do it.”
“I want you to let go of me first.”
“No, no. I’m afraid that if I let go, you’ll disappear.”
“You should be more afraid of what you’re thinking right now.”
Chen Ge pried his hand off and walked several steps away before turning back. “Are you coming upstairs or not?”
Seeing that Chen Ge was actually willing to accompany him, Mo Ka hurried after him, his hand unconsciously grabbing onto Chen Ge again.
The door to the nineteenth-floor apartment was still standing open just as it had the night before. Perhaps it was psychological, but the instant Mo Ka stepped inside, he felt a freezing chill.
Hao Shuai’s bedroom door was tightly shut.
Mo Ka swallowed and carefully turned the handle.
The room beyond was dim.
Hao Shuai was asleep on the bed.
Mo Ka finally exhaled. “So it really was you! You were behind all of this, weren’t you? Is scaring me really that much fun, you ass-selling bastard? Look what time it is and you’re still sleeping.”
He walked over to the curtains and yanked them open. Although daytime had become murky in the world they lived in now, it was at least better than night.
“I’m talking to you…”
Mo Ka turned around as he spoke, only for his voice to stop.
There was nothing on the bed.
The blanket lay perfectly flat.
Mo Ka still rushed over and threw it aside.
Nothing.
Unwilling to accept it, he pulled the blanket up again and again until he no longer had the strength.
Mo Ka backed out of the room one step at a time. Slowly, he turned toward Chen Ge, who was waiting in the living room. With his head lowered, he muttered, “It was me. I killed Hao Shuai and Gao Shan Shan. That’s why they came looking for me.”
Mo Ka began searching frantically through the apartment. “Where are the bodies? Where did I put the bodies?”
Suddenly, he froze.
His gaze landed on the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Mo Ka rushed toward it like a madman and threw open the door.
Gao Shan Shan’s and Hao Shuai’s severed heads were smiling at him.
Their mouths stretched into huge, hideous grins.
Mo Ka’s legs gave out beneath him, and he dropped to the floor, desperately pushing himself backward with his feet.
Chen Ge grabbed his shoulders. “Hey. Calm down.”
“I killed them. I killed them. If this isn’t a dream, then I must have schizophrenia.”
“Mo Ka.”
It was the first time Chen Ge had called Mo Ka by name.
His voice was light and warm, effortlessly pulling Mo Ka back to his senses.
Mo Ka had never known his own name could sound so pleasant.
“Look carefully. There’s nothing inside.”
Mo Ka looked at the refrigerator again.
Just as Chen Ge had said, there was nothing there.
“So it was a hallucination. There really is something wrong with my head.”
“It wasn’t a hallucination.”
Chen Ge looked behind Mo Ka.
A pair of hands with purple-painted fingernails were slowly reaching toward Mo Ka’s head.
Long strands of hair fell downward.
From within that hair, a pair of eyes met Chen Ge’s.
A mouth stretched into a grin.
Mo Ka could sense something behind him. He tried to turn his head, but Chen Ge pressed him into his arms instead. Chen Ge’s lips were right beside Mo Ka’s ear.
“We should go.”
“What is it? What’s behind me?”
“Nothing.”
Click. Click. Click. Click… click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click…
The reaching hand drew closer and closer.
Chen Ge caught it.
A foul stench rushed through the room. The flesh around the wrist was rotting.
A scream tore through Mo Ka’s eardrums.
He lost consciousness.
Eventually, the ringing of his phone made him open his eyes again.
He was lying on Chen Ge’s sofa.
The call was from Hao Shuai.
“Hello? Mo Ka, get out of that apartment. You can’t stay there anymore! Ever since we started handling Shan Shan’s funeral, I thought there was something strange about her parents. I originally wanted to see Shan Shan one last time, but they kept stopping me. I kept pressing them until they finally admitted the truth. Because of the air, Shan Shan’s body decomposed too fast. Everything except her skin dissolved into corpse fluid, and not long afterward, even her skin disappeared. All that talk about filling and restoring her body at the funeral home was a lie. Her parents just wanted Shan Shan to leave this world with some dignity. She was already dead, so I didn’t think it was my place to pry into someone else’s family matters, but just now I happened to tell my mom that Shan Shan had killed herself and only her skin remained. My mom told me I absolutely couldn’t go back there. The television stations have been suppressing all news like this. People who commit suicide and leave behind only a layer of skin will do everything they can to take away the last person they saw before they died. Their skin gets filled with filthy things, and they won’t disappear. But as long as you go somewhere that hasn’t been polluted…”
Hao Shuai’s voice weakened as he tried to comfort Mo Ka.
But where in the world could anyone still find an unpolluted place?
Mo Ka couldn’t find an unpolluted place either.
But there was an unpolluted person right in front of him.
It seemed that if Mo Ka wanted to stay alive, he would never be able to leave Chen Ge for the rest of his life.]
(This story is entirely fictional.)
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