"Starting with the first bus stop."
Cheng Xiaoqing stood an arm's length away from me.
She was still crying.
That made me even more afraid to move.
If all she had on her face was Lin Xu's smile, I could have treated her as something else. But tears were rolling down her own cheeks while her lips interrogated me on behalf of a dead woman. She might still be able to hear me, or she might be trapped inside her own body, watching.
I shrank backward.
The mattress creased beneath me. There was only a wall behind my back.
"What is the first stop called?" she asked.
I bit the tip of my tongue between my teeth.
I couldn't say it.
Cheng Xiaoqing reached toward me.
She grabbed the edge of the thermal blanket without touching my skin. Lin Xu rarely grabbed me right away, either. She would first straighten my collar, tuck the blanket around me, and then ask again in a voice so gentle it was impossible to refuse.
"Yanchuan, tell me."
The instant that name left her mouth, my entire right shoulder went rigid.
Footsteps sounded outside the curtain.
I wanted to call for Lu Bo'an, but all that came out of my throat was a breathy, leaking sound.
Cheng Xiaoqing moved closer.
I saw the toe of her shoe cross the seam between the floor tiles. That was the boundary I had silently accepted a moment ago. She had promised to stand by the curtain, but now she had already taken three steps.
"You promised."
My voice was so quiet, I thought she might not have heard me.
Cheng Xiaoqing's hand paused.
The corners of her mouth were still curved upward, but her brows drew together sharply.
"You promised you wouldn't come closer," I said again.
Her fingers suddenly clenched around the thermal blanket.
I was yanked forward, and a sharp pain shot through my right shoulder. But she looked as though another force was pulling her backward too, her knees trembling faintly.
"Xiaoqing."
She closed her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, two voices forced their way out of her mouth at once.
"Go—tell me."
The first word was her own.
The next three were Lin Xu's.
I seized that moment and shoved the entire blanket into her hands.
Not her.
I was only handing over the thing she was holding.
Cheng Xiaoqing lost the strength to pull and stumbled backward into the privacy curtain. A string of rings scraped rapidly and loudly along the track.
Lu Bo'an swept in from outside.
"Stay right there!"
Cheng Xiaoqing turned to look at him.
Lin Xu's smile vanished.
She looked down at the thermal blanket in her hands as if she had touched a piece of clothing that didn't belong to her, then immediately let go.
"I..."
She retreated to the edge of the curtain, her back pressed against the fabric.
"Did I walk over there?"
I gripped the collar of my hospital gown tighter and didn't answer.
The tears on her face hadn't dried yet.
"I heard you say I promised." Cheng Xiaoqing stared at the floor. "There's a stretch before that I don't remember."
She didn't say she was fine, and she didn't ask me to believe her.
"I'm going out."
This time, she backed out beyond the curtain on her own.
Lu Bo'an didn't stop her. He stood between us and waited until the curtain fell back into place before asking if I needed a doctor.
I shook my head.
My right shoulder hurt so badly that even my fingertips were throbbing, but it was still better than having anyone come closer.
"The funeral home sent over the footage from before the cremation," he said.
My stomach seemed to drop all at once.
"You don't have to watch it now."
I immediately thought of Lin Xu's white phone.
And of the finger bent outward behind the door on the seventh floor.
If she wasn't in the footage, if the coffin had been empty from beginning to end, then at least I could blame everything on someone who was still alive.
But she had already been cremated.
The police had investigated the death, and the crematorium had records too.
I didn't know which answer would make it easier for me to stay alive.
"I'll watch it," I said.
Lu Bo'an confirmed once more. "Now?"
I nodded.
He didn't hand me the phone. Instead, he placed the screen on the small table at the foot of the bed, then stepped back to a distance I could tolerate.
There was no sound in the footage.
The timestamp read 3:51 p.m. yesterday.
The scene showed a service corridor in the crematorium: gray walls, white lights, and a gurney coming in from the right. The coffin lid was already open, and the workers were carrying out the required inspection before placing the body in the furnace.
The first thing I saw was her hair.
The second was her temple.
There was a wound there that I had deliberately avoided looking at during the funeral.
My breath stopped.
The surveillance camera was far away, and her face was only palm-sized, but I still recognized her.
Not Cai Chunlan.
Not one of my coworkers.
Lin Xu.
Her eyes were closed, and the cold white light made her face look like wax. Her right hand rested on her abdomen, and the finger beside her ring finger was bent at an unnatural angle.
It was exactly like the one that had reached out from behind the door.
The emergency curtain in front of me suddenly became my front door.
The damp stairs, the crack in the door, and the shadow of the bent bone all came rushing back together. I gripped the bed rail. I was wearing dry clothes, yet my back felt covered in rainwater again.
"Pause it."
Lu Bo'an pressed the button at once.
It was worse.
I closed my eyes, but the hand remained behind my eyelids.
"Turn it off."
The screen went dark.
I lowered my head and counted the buttons on my hospital gown.
One, two, three, four.
When I reached the fourth, I forgot whether I had skipped any before it and had to start over.
Only after Lu Bo'an saw that I had stopped clutching the bed rail to death did he say, "The footage confirms that the body never left."
I understood what he meant.
The hand I'd seen behind the seventh-floor door hadn't really returned from the coffin.
But that wasn't any better.
She didn't need her own body.
Anyone's hand could become hers.
I looked at my right hand.
The silver ring was stuck on my swollen ring finger, leaving a dark red band around my skin. In the footage, Lin Xu's hand had rested against her chest in the same position. The only difference was that her finger would never swell or hurt again.
Suddenly, I desperately wanted to know whether the skin beneath the ring was still mine.
The instant my left thumb touched the edge of the ring, someone outside the curtain sucked in a breath.
I stopped immediately.
No one came in, and no one told me to put it back on. But I still pulled my left hand under the blanket, as if I'd already been caught.
Lu Bo'an saw it and didn't ask.
The screen was black, but I began to wonder whether the body had been wearing a ring. I clearly remembered seeing her right hand, yet my attention had been fixed entirely on the broken finger. I couldn't remember whether there had been anything on her ring finger.
"Where's her ring?"
"The item log doesn't list a ring."
"She had it at the funeral."
I remembered Lin Shufen slipping a thin ring back onto her daughter's finger and crying that she couldn't let her go alone. But the footage was too small for me to be sure.
"Do you want to watch it again?" Lu Bo'an asked.
I shook my head at once.
Then I regretted it.
What if her ring was missing too? What if the one on my hand now wasn't the original? The four characters engraved on the inside, Don't lose it, proved nothing. Lin Xu had bought a pair when she had them made.
I clenched the collar of my hospital gown between my teeth to keep myself from asking more.
Watching it again might only give her another chance to look at me through the screen.
"The phone," I reminded him.
Lu Bo'an opened another segment.
At 3:58 p.m., a worker took a white phone from inside the coffin. A Polaroid was tucked inside the transparent case on the back. In the picture, I had my head tilted while Lin Xu leaned against my shoulder.
The phone was placed in a clear evidence bag and labeled.
At 4:22 p.m., I appeared at the pickup counter.
In the footage, I was wearing the same black shirt as yesterday. My shoulders were slightly hunched forward, and I was wearing the silver ring on my right hand. I took the pen and signed the receipt, my movements so steady that I didn't look anything like the person I was today.
The worker handed me the bag.
Without even looking at it, I hugged it to my chest.
"I don't remember."
"Keep watching," Lu Bo'an said.
I wanted to tell him to turn it off.
But the me in the footage had already turned and walked toward the family waiting room.
At the other end of the hall, Lin Xu's mother came to meet me. She grabbed my arm and talked for a long time. The camera had no audio, so all I could see was myself nodding repeatedly.
She pointed toward the waiting room.
I carried the phone inside.
There was no camera in there.
At 4:36 p.m., I reappeared in the hall.
My hands were empty.
Fourteen minutes were missing.
I stared at the door to the waiting room.
The footage continued.
At 4:40 p.m., I walked to the water dispenser and took a paper cup. The water filled it to the brim, but I didn't drink. I just stood there, watching it spill over my fingers.
A relative passed by and turned off the dispenser.
I turned to her and smiled.
It wasn't Lin Xu's smile.
It was my own.
That chilled me more than anyone's face turning into hers ever could.
I didn't remember the paper cup, my wet hand, or smiling. The Gu Yanchuan in the footage looked sad and exhausted, but completely normal. No one would have stopped him to ask where those fourteen minutes had gone.
"Does he look like me?" I asked.
Lu Bo'an didn't answer immediately.
"He looks like you," he said.
Looks.
I watched the person on the screen walk out of frame, and my stomach clenched.
What if whatever had taken over me didn't need Lin Xu's voice, gestures, or smile? What if all it had to do was keep me walking, signing, and delivering whatever needed to be picked up to wherever it needed to go, just like normal, so no one could tell?
I lowered my head and looked at the hospital gown I'd just changed into.
I wasn't even sure who had buttoned it up one button at a time.
Yesterday, I remembered standing near the gray door, with someone handing me a towel. After that, only a few disconnected sounds remained: Lin Xu's mother crying, the wheels of a cart rolling past, someone saying, Don't let Yanchuan be alone.
During those fourteen minutes, I might have left the phone with her.
I might also have handed it to someone else in the room.
"Who else was in the waiting room then?" I asked.
"The funeral home's entry and exit records only list family members," Lu Bo'an said. "You, Lin Xu's mother, and two relatives. The camera didn't record inside."
"They could all become her."
The instant I said it, I looked toward the curtain.
Cheng Xiaoqing's shadow was still there.
She hadn't come in.
Lu Bo'an said, "That's why I don't plan to bring a group of people in for questioning. We'll start by confirming where Lin's mother took the phone."
I shook my head.
"You don't have to see her."
I shook my head again.
It wasn't that I didn't want to see her.
I didn't know whether she would use Lin Xu's voice on the other end of the phone.
The work phone on the table began vibrating just then.
The caller ID read: Lin Shufen.
Lin Xu's mother.
Every muscle in my body tensed at once.
Lu Bo'an didn't answer. He looked at me and waited for me to decide.
The phone stopped vibrating.
Two seconds later, it rang again.
When it rang a third time, several people in the emergency room turned their heads at once.
I was afraid they would answer for me.
"Answer it," I said.
Lu Bo'an tapped the call button and left the phone on the table without putting it on speaker.
"Ms. Lin, this is Lu Bo'an."
He listened for a while, his expression unchanged.
"Mr. Gu is currently in the hospital. We need to confirm something with you about the phone."
The voice on the other end suddenly grew louder.
Even without speakerphone, I could hear a woman crying and calling my name.
"Is Yanchuan there?"
Lu Bo'an didn't answer.
"Just let me say one thing to him. Really, just one thing."
I shook my head hard.
Lu Bo'an said, "He's not available right now."
The phone fell silent for a moment.
Then Lin Shufen's voice became very close, as if her lips were pressed against the receiver.
"Don't scare him."
It hadn't become Lin Xu's voice.
It was the hoarse, sobbing voice of a mother.
"The phone is at my house. Yuxu put it back in Xuxu's room himself yesterday. He said it was the one thing Xuxu couldn't let go of."
I grabbed the hem of my hospital gown.
I didn't remember saying that.
"You can't take the phone away," she continued. "Xuxu has already lost everything."
Lu Bo'an asked why she had called on her own.
The sound of her sniffing came through the phone.
"Because she kept reminding me that Yanchuan would need me today."
My ears began to ring.
"Who reminded you?"
Lin Shufen didn't answer directly.
"Her phone stayed lit all night," she said. "Your name was on the screen the whole time. I didn't dare touch it. When I passed by in the middle of the night, I heard the ringtone Xuxu used to play whenever she called you."
That phone's ringtone wasn't music.
It was a recording I had made long ago saying, "Answer the phone." Lin Xu had saved it while I was testing the recording for her and set it so it would play only when I called.
After she died, who was using my voice to call her?
I remembered the report I'd made at 1:42 p.m.
My throat immediately felt as though a hand had closed around it from the inside.
She asked again whether I was nearby.
Then, as if she knew for certain that I could hear her, she said slowly and clearly:
"Yanchuan, don't blame Xuxu."
"She just loved you too much."