Different Ways to Die
1:03 a.m.
Every light in the apartment building was out.
Lin Wanqing stood outside Room 217. Her phone screen was black. Only the faint light filtering through the window at the end of the hallway barely illuminated her shadow.
The words from earlier kept repeating in her mind.
“Wanqing, welcome back.”
She stared at her phone.
This time, there was no unfamiliar number.
No photograph.
Nothing she could trace.
It was as if those words hadn't been a message at all, but something someone had whispered directly into her ear.
Wanqing looked up at Room 217.
The door was still closed.
The police officer from earlier was gone too.
“Is anyone there?”
No one answered.
She pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight.
The beam landed on the number beside the door.
217.
The three digits sat silently on the door.
Then she noticed something.
There was a deep scratch beside the number.
As if someone had used a key to carve something into the wall next to the door.
Wanqing stepped closer.
The flashlight beam moved slowly across it.
It wasn't an ordinary scratch.
It was a character.
Return.
She froze.
Why that character?
She reached out and touched it.
A sound suddenly came from inside the room.
Knock.
Wanqing yanked her hand back.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
“Is someone in there?”
Another sound.
Knock.
This time, she heard it clearly.
It wasn't someone knocking on the door.
Something inside the room…
had fallen to the floor.
Wanqing stood outside the door as a terrible feeling began to take shape in her chest.
She knew she should leave.
But she couldn't stop thinking about the photograph she'd just seen.
The six people in it.
Xu An.
The police officer.
And the woman wearing her mother's bracelet.
If the photograph was real…
then those people had known one another ten years ago.
And her mother must have known too.
Just then—
The door suddenly opened a crack.
Wanqing stumbled backward in fright.
The door didn't open all the way.
It only revealed a narrow slit of darkness.
There were no lights inside.
She stood there for a long time.
In the end, she slowly moved closer.
“Is anyone there?”
No answer.
She pushed her phone through the crack.
The flashlight shone inside.
The living room was spotless.
Unnaturally spotless.
A couch.
A coffee table.
A television.
A floor lamp that wasn't turned on.
Everything was perfectly arranged.
As if no one had ever lived there.
Wanqing stood in the doorway without moving.
Then she remembered the words.
Don't trust the crime scene.
She began examining everything carefully.
There was a cup on the coffee table.
Half a cup of water remained inside it.
The surface was perfectly still.
A black jacket lay on the couch.
A small strip of white paper protruded from its pocket.
Wanqing stepped inside.
One step.
Two steps.
Three.
The soles of her shoes made the faintest sounds against the wooden floor.
There was no one in the room.
She walked over to the couch.
Reaching out, she pulled the paper from the pocket.
It was a receipt.
The date was today.
The time was 10:21 p.m.
Purchaser:
Xu An.
Wanqing frowned.
If Xu An was already dead…
then why had he bought something at 10:21 tonight?
She turned the receipt over.
An address was written on the back.
It wasn't this place.
It was a coffee shop.
17 South Street.
Wanqing took a picture of the address.
Just as she was about to leave—
Her phone suddenly vibrated.
She looked down.
A text message.
Don't look in the refrigerator.
Her hand stopped.
Across the living room,
the refrigerator door stood slightly ajar.
Wanqing stared at it.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three.
She didn't move closer.
She told herself not to look.
But the next second, she heard a soft sound from inside the refrigerator.
As if something had bumped against the glass inside.
She slowly walked over.
The flashlight beam pointed into the refrigerator.
There were only drinks and food inside.
And a clear plastic container.
A photograph lay inside it.
Wanqing didn't open the container.
She simply stood outside and looked.
The photograph showed a street from ten years ago.
The person in the photograph…
was her.
Wanqing's breath stopped.
She had no memory of ever being there.
She was even less likely to remember that photograph.
There was a date on the back.
July 14, 2016.
Wanqing stared at the date.
She was twenty-six this year.
Ten years ago, she had been sixteen.
That year, she had definitely been living with her father in another city.
At least…
that's how she had always remembered it.
She took out her phone and prepared to take a picture.
Suddenly—
A sound came from the kitchen.
Smash.
As if someone had knocked something over.
Wanqing spun around.
The flashlight swept across the room.
There was no one in the kitchen.
Only a cup beside the sink, fallen to the floor.
Shards were scattered everywhere.
She slowly moved closer.
Then she saw a trail of footprints on the floor.
Faint.
As if the soles of someone's shoes had been wet.
The footprints led from the kitchen to the hallway.
And then…
behind her.
Wanqing went completely rigid.
She didn't dare turn around.
The trail ended exactly where she was standing.
And ever since she had entered…
her shoes had been completely dry.
She stared at the floor.
Only one thought remained in her mind.
Someone had just been here.
Right behind her.
She slowly opened the front-facing camera on her phone.
Without turning around,
she looked behind herself through the screen.
There was nothing in the frame.
Only a wall.
She let out a breath of relief.
The next second,
a line of text suddenly appeared on her phone screen.
It wasn't a message.
The words had appeared by themselves over the camera view.
Don't trust your eyes.
Wanqing jerked her head up.
At that exact moment—
The lights in the room came on.
She instinctively shut her eyes.
When she opened them again,
the entire room looked exactly as it had before.
No footprints.
No broken cup.
No photograph.
The refrigerator was closed too.
Wanqing stood where she was.
A chill spread through her entire body.
She walked over to the refrigerator.
Pulled it open.
There was nothing inside.
The photograph from before was gone.
She immediately took out her phone and checked the picture she'd just taken.
It wasn't in her photo gallery.
There wasn't even a picture of her entering the room.
Standing in front of the refrigerator, Wanqing suddenly felt ridiculous.
Had everything that just happened been a hallucination?
But what about the broken glass on the floor?
She looked down.
The floor was spotless.
There was nothing there.
Just then,
footsteps sounded outside the door.
Wanqing quickly switched off her phone's flashlight.
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
Someone stopped outside the door.
“Ms. Lin?”
It was the police officer from earlier.
Wanqing let out a breath of relief.
“Where did you go?”
The man didn't answer.
“I asked you a question.”
He stood in the doorway.
“You went inside?”
“Yeah.”
The man's expression turned grim.
“Who let you in?”
“The door opened by itself.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
The man looked at her.
After a long pause, he said,
“Because no one has entered this apartment in three days.”
Wanqing froze.
“What did you say?”
“Xu An died three days ago.”
Her entire body went rigid.
“But that receipt…”
“What receipt?”
She pulled out the receipt.
The man took it.
He glanced at it.
His expression changed instantly.
“This isn't Xu An's.”
“What?”
“That name is fake.”
Wanqing stared at him.
“What about the photograph?”
“What photograph?”
“The one in the refrigerator.”
The man's gaze suddenly became extremely complicated.
“What did you see?”
“A photograph from ten years ago.”
“Of whom?”
Wanqing didn't answer.
Because she suddenly realized…
she couldn't remember the faces of anyone else in the photograph.
She only remembered herself.
And that bracelet.
Her mother's bracelet.
The police officer looked at her.
“Ms. Lin, you'd better come with me now.”
“Why?”
“Because there's something wrong with this apartment.”
He looked toward the living room.
“What kind of problem?”
“Every time a case has occurred here over the past ten years, the same thing has been left behind.”
“What?”
The man didn't answer.
Instead, he walked over to the wall.
He raised his flashlight and shone it across the surface.
A small section of the wall was a different color.
He reached out and touched it.
“There used to be a photograph hanging here.”
Wanqing walked over.
“What photograph?”
The man looked at her.
“A photograph of the victim.”
She froze.
“Every time?”
“Every time.”
“What about now?”
The man fell silent.
Wanqing followed his gaze.
There was nothing on the wall.
But then she suddenly noticed…
A tiny black mark in the corner.
She crouched down.
And shone her phone over it.
It wasn't a black mark.
It was a character.
The same one as beside the door.
Return.
Wanqing's heart suddenly began to race.
She reached out and touched it.
A hollow sound came from inside the wall.
Thud.
She froze.
Then knocked again.
Thud.
The man heard it too.
They looked at each other.
“It's hollow inside.”
They searched the room.
At last, they found a loose wooden panel in the corner.
A tiny hidden compartment was concealed behind it.
There was no money inside.
No weapon.
Only a black box.
There was no lock on it.
Wanqing reached out and opened it.
Inside was a stack of photographs.
The first.
Xu An.
The second.
The police officer.
The third.
A man she didn't recognize at all.
The fourth.
A woman.
The fifth…
Wanqing's hand stopped.
The person in the photograph was her mother.
She stared at the photograph.
There was a line of writing on the back.
The first person to die wasn't Xu An.
Wanqing turned to the next photograph.
It said:
She was only the first person to be forgotten.
She raised her head.
“Who was my mother, really?”
The police officer didn't answer.
“You knew her, didn't you?”
Silence.
“You knew her ten years ago.”
The man lowered his head.
“Yes.”
“How did she die?”
The man's expression grew extremely grim.
“No one knows.”
Wanqing froze.
“What does that mean?”
“Because we never found her body.”
The room fell silent.
She looked at the photograph.
For the first time, she truly realized…
Maybe her mother hadn't died at all.
Maybe one day ten years ago, she had simply vanished from everyone's world.
And now—
Someone was bringing her back.
Wanqing turned over the last photograph.
It showed a door.
The number wasn't 217.
It was—
301.
There was only one sentence on the back.
The next room is waiting for you.
Wanqing stared at the number.
Suddenly, she understood.
The welcome back from Chapter One hadn't been referring to this apartment building.
It had meant—
she had been here before.
She'd simply forgotten.