I gulped. Suddenly, she looked up. Her face was very pale and her neck was covered with livor mortis. Her long hair floated up from her shoulders even though there was no breeze in the room.

I was not afraid anymore. Not because the ghost wasn"t scary, but because I knew her! It was Lulu!

The group packed up their things and were ready to go. Xiaoyong came to me and said, "Buddy, come with us!"

"You guys go on ahead. I"ll stay a while," I said casually.

Xiaoyong gave me an incredulous look, but eventually left at Chen Qianqian"s urging. When everyone left, I breathed a sigh of relief. I smiled to Lulu, "Wow, Lulu! Is it really going to be sunny tomorrow?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "You should get to work, we are about to open."

I nodded and went downstairs. As expected, the ghost house suddenly lit up after a short while. More and more ghosts came in, a few complaining about the delayed opening.

It was a particularly busy night and I was too busy to tell Sister Hua anything about Grandpa Huang"s granddaughter until after the guests left and the doors finally closed, and by then I was simply too tired to think about it, so I gave up. There was no rush.

The ghost house continued to have unusually good business for the next few days, keeping me hard at work from dusk till dawn. Perhaps because I felt there was no need to hurry, I still hadn"t told anything about Mrs. Huang to anyone. After a few days, I completely forgot all about Grandpa Huang"s request.

Working nights and sleeping days, I soon developed a routine of getting up at 11.00 p.m. and going to sleep at 5.00 a.m. All this was interrupted by a phone call.

The call was from Xiaoru. I was quite surprised, as I hadn"t heard from her in ages. I thought she just disappeared. It was only when she called me and started berating me that I realized I hadn"t checked my WeChat for a long time. Mea culpa.

I was going to look at my WeChat conversations but I was interrupted by Xiaoru"s rushed voice. She gave me an address and asked me to be there as soon as possible. I didn"t quite catch what happened but she sounded very agitated so I rushed out right away. After all, she was my friend... who also happened to be a very beautiful girl.

The place where Xiaoru wanted to meet was a fancy-looking coffee shop near Kaoshan Street. When I arrived, she was already there, animatedly scolding a group of young people. Coincidentally, I knew them - they were Xiaoyong and his friends. I wondered how they knew each other. Xiaoru and Xiaoyong had similar names... Heck, maybe they were siblings.

I walked over and said h.e.l.lo. Xiaoru gave the youngsters a moment of peace and asked me to take a seat. Xiaoyong seemed surprised to see my face when I appeared in front of him. He abruptly stood up and pointed to me, "Sister, it"s him!"

Xiaoru looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval. I wasn"t quite sure what was going on, so I slowly sat down next to Chen Qianqian and said, "So... you two are brother and sister?"

As soon as I spoke, Chen Qianqian burst into tears and started hitting me. "It was you! You killed Zhang Xue!" she cried.

I was completely confounded by her outburst and failed to react as her delicate fists pelted my arm. Huang Lei, sitting beside her, put his arms around her and whispered soothing sounds in her ear. He apologized to me on her behalf. "What"s going on?" I asked Xiaoru.

She sighed and pointed to Xiaoyong, "Start talking!"

My eyes turned to him.

It all started on the day I met Xiaoyong and his friends.

Chen Qianqian, Xiaoyong, Huang Lei, Zhang Xue and Qi Lin were college friends, and Chen Qianqian was the group"s weirdo. One day, they went to the cinema together to see a movie called "Die Xian". After the movie, she suggested they try playing Die Xian themselves.

They were just bored youngsters and didn"t believe in ghosts. They were only looking to have some fun. What"s more, Chen Qianqian suggested they do it in their old high school after hours. The students in that school always used to tell each other ghost stories. Thus, they went to a supposedly-haunted abandoned toilet, but it turned out the windows there were facing a small park where many people were resting on the gra.s.s or having an after-supper stroll.

Chen Qianqian said there wasn"t enough of a ghostly atmosphere there. That was when Xiaoyong told them how his sister, Xiaoru, recently met a ghost in the old ghost house. So, they decided to play Die Xian in the ghost house.

I ended up driving them away from there, and though they were a little disappointed by this, they didn"t think there would be any problems. However, the next day in cla.s.s Zhang Xue said that she had met a ghost. She lived alone and everyone could see she was terrified, so they decided to stay over in her apartment for a couple nights to protect her. Honestly, they all thought she was lying or just jumpy.

Nothing happened the next day, and Zhang Xue herself seemed to have calmed down, so they were all going to leave after playing a game of cards. After all, their parents might get angry if they stayed away from home for too long.

But something weird happened while they were playing cards. Cards kept disappearing from the table, and always appeared under Zhang Xue"s b.u.t.t. Zhang Xue never stood up for the duration of the game, so it was strange that the missing cards always appeared beneath her.

At first they all thought she was playing a prank on them, but soon they started feeling that something was wrong. The missing card was always the ace of hearts. It wasn"t easy to pick out that particular card from the deck each time.

When the next round of the game started, everyone paid extra attention. Huang Lei even made a small tear on the corner of the ace of hearts to mark it. However, the same thing happened again; the torn card appeared under Zhang Hue"s bottom!

Now they were really spooked. At that moment, the TV suddenly turned on with the sound muted, showing a woman talking and pointing to a big map behind her. Obviously, this was the weather report. However, it was 11.00 p.m. at the time. What channel would broadcast weather forecasts at that time of day?

Suddenly, they heard an awful crash from kitchen. Terrified, they all huddled together in the living room. Eventually, Xiaoyong and Huang Lei decided to go see what made that sound. Chen Qianqian and Zhang Xue were scared to be left alone, so they carefully followed them. When they turned on the lights in the kitchen, they saw some of the drawers and cupboards were open.

A bowl had fallen off the cupboard and shattered into many pieces. What scared them the most was that one of the shards was stuck in a big mouse"s neck, spraying blood all over the place. It was hard to believe a mouse could have so much blood inside it.

Chen Qianqian and Zhang Xue eventually calmed down after being comforted by the boys, but they were all afraid to leave now. After all, this was all too creepy.

They persevered until morning and left Zhang Xue"s house once the sun was up. After having breakfast downtown, they were ready to discuss what happened the previous night. Just then, a huge platter fell from the balcony of an upscale hotel and crashed on the pavement with a tremendous sound just half a meter away from them.

They jumped from their table, a little startled, but when they looked back, they saw Zhang Xue lying on the ground, a sharp shard of that huge platter stuck in her neck, her wound streaming with blood. She twitched once and then became still. She died, just like that mouse.