"Have you been good today?"
I didn't answer.
The hand behind the door was still gripping the handle.
The index finger bent outward, its nail almost pointing straight at the back of the hand. When Lin Xu collapsed in the rain, that finger had looked the same. She had clutched my pant leg. I crouched down and tried to lift her hand, but the bone shifted in my palm.
Very slightly.
Like someone snapping a branch that hadn't fully dried.
I still remembered that sensation.
Now, separated from me by a door, that finger slowly curled and beckoned me.
"Come in."
Something seemed to tighten around my chest.
Breathe in.
There was a poster on the wall of the hospital emergency room explaining that during a panic attack, you should breathe in slowly, then lengthen your exhale. I remembered four boxes on the poster, but I couldn't remember whether I was supposed to count to four first or exhale first.
One, two, three—
I hadn't finished counting to three when I suddenly sucked in a breath.
My wet shirt clung to my back, cold enough to make my teeth chatter. The place on my right shoulder where the taxi door had hit me throbbed in waves, while the silver ring on my ring finger felt so tight it was as if I'd only just put it on. Even the knuckle had begun to go numb.
The door opened a little farther.
The first thing to emerge from the darkness was half of Lin Xu's face.
Her wet hair clung to her cheek. A dark red stain had dried at the left side of her forehead. She wore the beige jacket from the night of the accident, the zipper pulled only to her chest, one side of the collar turned up.
I'd seen that jacket cut open.
The paramedic had run a pair of scissors from the hem all the way to the shoulder. The fabric had been soaked with rain and blood. Before yesterday's funeral, Lin Xu's mother had asked if I wanted to keep the buttons. I said no.
There was no way that jacket could be hanging intact on her body.
"Lin..."
Her name caught in my throat.
She took one step forward.
The motion-sensor light in the hallway came on.
The person standing inside the doorway wasn't Lin Xu.
It was Cai Chunlan from Room 703.
She was in her sixties, with short, tightly permed hair, wearing a purple house dress faded from washing. Her right index finger angled outward because of a deformed joint. Her nail was trimmed very short. There was no blood, and none of the injuries Lin Xu had left behind.
Cai Chunlan was holding my slippers.
"There's water all over the floor," she said. "Put these on, or you'll slip again."
It was her own voice too.
I stared at her, forcing a dry rasp from my throat.
"What are you doing in my apartment?"
As if she hadn't heard me, Cai Chunlan set the slippers by my feet.
Pink, and too small.
They were the same pair I'd heard footsteps in behind the door.
"Change your shoes first," she said.
I backed away.
My heel hit the threshold of the apartment across the hall, and I lost my balance. I reached for the wall. My palm pressed against a patch of cold, damp concrete, and I barely managed not to sit down on the floor.
Cai Chunlan raised her face.
The motion-sensor light went out at that exact moment.
The instant darkness descended, she became Lin Xu again.
I saw the torn beige jacket, the face too pale beneath the wet hair, and the blood at her temple—the blood I'd wiped for her, yet could never wipe clean.
"Yanchuan," she said softly. "Don't make a scene."
I turned and ran.
The elevator was to the left of the hallway, and the emergency stairs were to the right. I rushed toward the elevator and hit the down button three times with my thumb. The panel didn't light up. I pressed it again. Still nothing.
Behind me came the sound of slippers dragging across the floor.
Very slowly.
She knew I couldn't get away.
I turned and ran for the emergency stairs. I had just pushed the fire door open a crack when a hand braced it from inside.
A man from the eighth floor stood on the landing, still holding a bag of trash. He looked at the rainwater covering me and frowned.
"It's so cold outside. Where are you going?"
I let go of the door and backed away.
More footsteps rose from below.
The sixth floor, the fifth, maybe even lower. Shoes struck the concrete stairs—dress shoes, slippers, and the uneven, light patter of a child running. One floor after another, they climbed upward, without a single person speaking.
Only footsteps.
I yanked the fire door shut.
When the lock caught, it tore open the eighth-floor man's trash bag. An orange rolled through the gap, circled halfway around my feet, and stopped.
I stared at it.
Lin Xu put an orange in my lunch bag every day.
I didn't like oranges.
She said I was just too lazy to peel them.
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened behind me.
It was packed with people.
The first-floor security guard, the couple from the fifth floor holding a baby, the man from the ninth floor who was always smoking on his balcony, and two residents whose names I didn't know. Their shoulders pressed together, filling the small car without a gap.
No one stepped out.
They only watched me.
The first-floor security guard held down the door-open button and smiled.
"Come on in."
My back was against the fire door, one hand still gripping the handle. Someone on the other side of the stairs tapped twice.
"Open up," the eighth-floor man said. "I still haven't taken out the trash."
The tapping sounded completely ordinary.
That was exactly why it made it even harder to breathe.
The child in the elevator tilted his head.
"Why won't you go home, big brother?"
His mother lowered her head and covered his mouth.
The next second, she took her hand away and answered in Lin Xu's voice:
"Because he's being bad again."
Everyone in the elevator laughed together.
I wrenched the fire door open and tried to squeeze past the eighth-floor man. He hadn't expected me to charge, and his body shifted aside. I seized the opening and slipped into the stairwell, my shoulder slamming into his trash bag. Glass bottles and aluminum cans clattered down the stairs together.
"Move!"
I shoved him.
His lower back struck the railing, and he grunted.
I had run down half a flight before that sound reached me, and my feet stopped on their own.
Only for that one moment.
The people below looked up and saw me.
The old man from the sixth floor stood at the turn, holding a folded umbrella. He slowly spread his arms, as if he were about to catch a child learning to walk.
"Don't run. You'll fall."
I forced my way past him.
The umbrella handle caught on my sleeve. I flung my arm desperately, and the fabric tore. My whole body pitched forward. My knee struck the edge of a step, and pain whitened my vision.
The old man reached out to pull me up.
I saw his hand, but it looked like Lin Xu's five fingers, stained with blood after the accident.
"Don't touch me!"
I kicked his hand away.
The toe of my shoe struck his wrist bone. He flinched in pain, and the umbrella slipped from his palm.
I froze on the floor.
That wasn't Lin Xu.
It was only an old man trying to help me up.
At least it had been, for that one second.
"I'm sorry," I said.
My voice was so quiet I could barely hear it myself.
The footsteps above and below stopped in unison.
I knelt on the stairs. The surroundings suddenly fell silent, leaving only my own ragged, rapid breathing. I tried to stand, but my injured knee couldn't support me. My fingertips began to go numb, and the numbness crawled up my arm.
It wasn't a heart attack.
It was only panic.
I struggled to tell myself that.
But panic didn't stop just because you called it by name.
The old man picked up his umbrella and reached out to me again.
His lips didn't move.
Yet Lin Xu's voice rang out from every direction in the stairwell.
"See? You've hurt yourself again."
Someone supported me beneath the arms from behind.
Someone steadied my injured knee.
More hands reached in from every side. Not one of them gripped me tightly, yet they made it impossible for me to decide which way to fall.
"Let go..."
No one let go.
"I can walk by myself."
They acted as if they hadn't heard me.
Half supporting and half carrying me, they took me back to the seventh floor. By the time we passed the elevator, the people inside had already spread out to make enough room for us. Cai Chunlan stood at my door, still holding those pink slippers.
"How did you fall again?" she asked.
Her tone held reproach, along with a trace of the familiar concern that made me want to throw up.
"I told you, we can't leave you alone."
They brought me inside.
The door closed behind me.
Click.
The deadbolt slid into place.
The living room where I'd lived for three years was no longer the way I'd left it.
All the curtains had been drawn. Thick corner guards covered the coffee table. The wires on the floor had been tucked into white plastic channels, and the balcony door handle had been wrapped round and round with tape until it was sealed shut. Warm water, cut fruit, and a steaming bowl of porridge sat on the kitchen counter.
When I'd left that morning, there had still been cups from last night in the sink.
Now they were upside down on the dish rack.
Just as Lin Xu had always demanded: the openings facing down, every handle turned to the right.
The wall clock had been removed.
Lin Xu said the ticking would keep me from sleeping.
I'd never told her that what really kept me awake was the sound of her fingernails tapping my phone screen in the middle of the night while she went through it.
"Take off your clothes first," Cai Chunlan said.
I abruptly hugged myself.
She didn't seem to notice anything wrong with the sentence. She picked up a clean set of clothes from the couch. They were my old gray shirt and black shorts, with even my underwear folded on top.
My wardrobe was in the bedroom.
They hadn't only entered my home.
They had opened every drawer.
Someone tugged my wet jacket down from my shoulders.
I caught the collar behind my back.
"Don't touch me."
The person stopped for a moment.
I turned and saw the first-floor security guard. His hand was still pinching my sleeve, and a wounded expression surfaced on his face.
"I was only worried you'd catch a cold."
"I said don't touch me."
The living room fell silent.
Cai Chunlan, the security guard, the eighth-floor man, the old man from the sixth floor, and several residents who had followed us in at some point were all watching me.
No one was angry.
They were only disappointed.
That was worse than anger.
When Lin Xu was alive, every time she heard me say no, she would make that same expression first. She would fall silent, put my things away for me, and ignore me all night. Eventually, I'd start wondering if I'd gone too far and apologize to her on my own.
My fingers tightened around the collar against my will.
The silver ring pressed into my skin.
"I'm sorry" had already reached the tip of my tongue.
I bit it back.
The security guard's face twitched.
"You never used to talk to me like that," he said in Lin Xu's voice.
"You're dead," I said.
My voice sounded nothing like mine.
"Lin Xu is dead."
The clothes fell from Cai Chunlan's hands.
Everyone in the living room lowered their heads at the same time.
It wasn't grief.
It was as if they were looking at someone with a fever who had started babbling.
"You're too tired," Cai Chunlan said.
"I saw her body."
"Change your clothes first."
"She was cremated yesterday—"
"Yanchuan."
This time, it wasn't just one person calling me.
Everyone did.
My name pressed in from every direction, forcing its way into my ears and my chest. My breathing broke apart again. I opened my mouth to inhale, but only a short sound came out.
I needed to call the police.
My phone was still in my hand.
I swiped the screen open and found that the dialer icon was gone. The only thing on the display was a pink button that said "Together." The map hadn't loaded. A white heart spun in the center.
I held down the side button.
There was no power-off option.
I threw the phone at the wall.
It landed on the couch with only a dull thud.
Cai Chunlan immediately picked it up and checked whether the screen was cracked.
"You don't throw a phone like that," she said.
"It's mine!"
"That's why you should take care of it."
I charged toward the community intercom on the wall.
I pressed the button for the management office. It rang once before connecting.
"Help me."
I was practically pressed against the receiver. I spoke too quickly, my teeth striking my lip.
"Seventh floor. Someone broke into my apartment. They—"
A very soft laugh came from the other end.
The first-floor security guard was clearly standing right behind me.
Yet his voice was also coming from the management office.
"I know," the other person said. "Everyone is taking care of you."
I let go of the receiver.
The intercom didn't disconnect.
"Change out of your wet clothes," Lin Xu said from inside the wall.
I ripped the cord out of the intercom.
The voice stopped.
One second.
Two seconds.
The smart speaker on the dining table lit up white.
"Stop tearing things apart."
I rushed over and yanked out the plug.
The television turned on by itself. Its black screen showed no picture, only Lin Xu's voice.
"You'll get electrocuted."
I pulled out the television's plug too.
The touch panel on the kitchen range hood lit up.
"Yanchuan."
I covered my ears.
The voice didn't get quieter.
Because everyone in the apartment was calling my name.
I stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door. Immediately, someone pressed the handle down from outside.
Once.
Then again.
They didn't bang on the door or threaten me. They were only patiently confirming that the lock was truly engaged.
"I want to take a shower," I said.
There was a brief silence outside.
"The water's already drawn," Cai Chunlan answered.
There really was water in the bathtub.
There was no steam rising from it, but it was still warm. Beside it lay the body wash Lin Xu had bought, a dry towel, and a new razor. Someone had wiped a circle through the fog on the mirror, just wide enough for me to see my face.
I didn't remember there being steam when I walked into the bathroom.
My face in the mirror was gray. Water still dripped from my hair. Behind me was only the white door, with no one else in sight.
Cai Chunlan's voice sounded outside again.
"Do you need me to help you?"
I looked at the gap beneath the door.
Several pairs of feet stood outside.
The security guard's black dress shoes, the old man's brown cloth shoes, and Cai Chunlan's slippers. Every toe pointed toward the bathroom.
"No."
"Your hand is shaking."
I looked down.
My right hand really was shaking.
"Open the door. I'll help you."
"No!"
The feet outside didn't move.
I leaned against the sink and slowly sat on the floor. The chill of the tiles seeped through my wet pants and clung to my skin. The place where my knee had been hit throbbed nonstop. I tried to count my breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
Lin Xu's voice came from outside the door.
"Four."
My breath stopped cold.
"Five," someone else continued.
"Six."
They knew what I was doing.
They wouldn't even leave my breathing to me.
I climbed to my feet and shoved open the bathroom's small window. Wind from the seventh floor rushed in, carrying the damp smell of concrete after rain. Outside was a narrow light well, with no fire escape, only rows of tightly shut bathroom windows.
The window across from me on the fifth floor suddenly opened.
A woman leaned out.
"Don't get so close to the window," she said.
Someone upstairs opened a window too.
"It's dangerous."
More windows opened one after another.
Above me, below me, across from me. A face appeared in every black square, looking up or down toward my little window.
"Go back," they said.
I slammed the window shut and locked it.
The bathroom suddenly became too small.
The walls seemed to press inward, and the ceiling seemed to lower. I knew it was only an illusion, but I still couldn't stop myself from slamming my shoulder against the door.
"Let me out!"
Someone outside answered, "You're already home."
"Leave me alone!"
The handle stopped shaking.
Every voice fell silent.
I thought they had finally understood.
The next second, the latch slowly turned.
They opened the bathroom door from outside.
Cai Chunlan was holding a spare key. It had originally been hidden in the top cabinet in the kitchen, and even Lin Xu hadn't known about it.
At least, I thought she hadn't.
"You can't be alone right now," Cai Chunlan said.
She reached out to me.
I shrank back. My calf hit the bathtub, sending warm water sloshing over the edge and across the tiles. Everyone outside took half a step forward.
I wanted to tell them to get the hell out.
I wanted to say this was my home, ask them what gave them the right to come in, and snatch the key from Cai Chunlan's hand.
But the only words that came out were:
"I'm scared of this place."
No one moved.
I clung to the sink, breathing so hard I could barely stand.
"This home scares me."
The expression disappeared from Cai Chunlan's face.
Everyone outside turned toward the living room.
Toward the balcony door sealed shut with tape, the coffee table wrapped in padding, the cups they'd washed clean, and the bowl of porridge that had begun to congeal.
For the first time, they didn't look at me.
A few seconds later, Cai Chunlan withdrew her hand.
"Okay," she said.
The first-floor security guard went to unlock the door. The eighth-floor man put my phone in a plastic bag, and the old man from the sixth floor picked up the umbrella I'd kicked away. The others began gathering my clothes, wallet, and shoes, their movements quiet and efficient.
I didn't understand what they were going to do.
I didn't dare ask.
Cai Chunlan draped a towel over my shoulders. This time, I didn't have the strength to dodge it.
She wiped the rain from my forehead.
"If this place scares you," she said in Lin Xu's voice, "then we won't live here anymore."
It wasn't letting me go.
It was moving somewhere else so they could keep watching me.
They led me out of the apartment.
Residents stood packed along both sides of the hallway. No one blocked the way anymore. Everyone stepped aside, leaving me a path that allowed me to move only forward.
The elevator was already waiting on the seventh floor.
I stepped inside, and they followed.
As we descended, the floor numbers shrank one by one. I stared at the red six, five, and four, trying to convince myself that once I reached the first floor, once I walked out the main entrance, once I saw real police officers, everything would be over.
The elevator doors opened.
A police car was parked outside the lobby.
I didn't know who had called the police or when the car had arrived. Two uniformed officers stood by the entrance, one of them asking the building manager about the situation.
I shoved the person beside me away and stumbled out of the elevator.
"Help me!"
Both officers turned at once.
My legs gave out, and I almost dropped to my knees again. The younger officer hurried over, stopping an arm's length away instead of touching me directly.
"Sir, take your time. Tell me what happened."
It was his own voice.
I watched his mouth, and tears suddenly fell.
Not because I was sad.
Because I had finally heard a voice that didn't belong to Lin Xu.
"Take me with you," I said. "Please. Just get me out of here first."
The officer glanced at the people behind me.
All the residents stood silently in front of the elevator. Cai Chunlan held my dry clothes, the security guard held the plastic bag containing my phone, and the old man from the sixth floor held my umbrella open for me.
They looked like nothing more than a group of concerned neighbors.
"Okay," the younger officer said. "Let's get you back to the car first."
He opened the rear door for me.
I climbed inside and immediately hit the door lock from within. My fingers were shaking so badly that I missed it the first time, my nail scraping across the plastic panel. The second time, I heard a click.
The two officers got into the front seats.
As the police car pulled away from the apartment building, I looked back.
People stood on every balcony of the building.
No one waved.
They only watched the back of the car until the building disappeared behind the corner.
I rested my forehead against the cold car window. My chest was still tightening in waves.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
The driver didn't answer.
The younger officer in the passenger seat glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
"Somewhere safe first."
It was still his own voice.
I closed my eyes and tried to lengthen my breathing.
One.
Two.
Three.
This time, no one counted four for me.
I almost believed I'd escaped.
The driver reached over and pressed the central lock.
All four doors clicked shut at once.
"Don't be afraid," he said.
His voice was clear and gentle.
It was Lin Xu's.
"I'll stay with you all night."