The next day, A Van, dark circles under his eyes, told us to meet in the dorm at eight that night. He said he wanted to get to the bottom of this. I thought it might have something to do with the dreams we’d all had about Tưởng Hân Đồng.
At lunchtime, I ran into Dong Xin again in the cafeteria. Remembering that she studied art too, I led her to a secluded corner and asked, “Dong Xin, have you ever heard of Tưởng Hân Đồng? The girl who hanged herself in the cultural hall a few years ago?”
The chopsticks in Dong Xin’s hand stopped. She lowered her head, hiding her expression.
After a long while, she replied, “I didn’t know her.”
But from the sadness in her manner, I was sure she knew something and just didn’t want to talk about it.
I didn’t feel comfortable pressing her. All I managed to notice was that her phone wallpaper showed a woman.
When she saw me looking, she hurriedly turned the screen facedown and said it was a picture of her older sister.
At eight that night, A Van, Old Third, and I were all at the dorm. Little Fatty texted to say he had something to do and couldn’t come. A Van led us off campus.
It was pitch-black outside, not a star in sight. Darkness washed over us like a tide. Guided by the faint light from our phones, A Van stopped in front of an old residential building.
He took a deep breath, then knocked. A little while later, we heard a dry cough from inside. The door opened.
An old man stood there, his face deeply lined, his hair snow-white, his hands thin and bony.
His hoarse voice held a hint of irritation. “You’ve got the wrong person. Go on, get out of here.”
With that, he started to shut the door.
A Van hurriedly held it open and said, “Uncle Guo, I know you were the one who found Tưởng Hân Đồng’s body that year. We just want to know what happened.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know anyone named Tưởng Hân Đồng. I don’t know anything about the cultural hall. Get out of here!”
He trembled, his voice full of fear, and pushed with all his might to close the door. But with his frail strength, how could he possibly overpower A Van?
“Uncle Guo, if you don’t know Tưởng Hân Đồng, how do you know what happened at the cultural hall? I hadn’t even mentioned it.”
I noticed A Van’s voice was starting to tremble, too.
The old man stopped struggling and raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot. He let go and turned to walk inside.
6
The three of us looked at one another. That was an unspoken invitation. A Van went first, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
In the darkness, it seemed we were drawing closer and closer to the truth…
The house was incredibly old, with peeling walls and a low ceiling that made us feel as if we were walking inside a coffin.
We walked down a narrow hallway and reached a small living room. A little bulb hung from the ceiling, its filament glowing red-hot and casting a pale yellow light. The light seemed to lay another hazy shadow over everything around us.
Uncle Guo slowly sat down in a wooden chair. He lowered his head, his face sinking into shadow, so I couldn’t make out his expression.
“Uncle Guo, could you tell us what you saw when you found her?” A Van broke the silence.
“Why do you want to know? If you’re just curious, I advise you not to dig any deeper.” Uncle Guo’s aged voice rang out.
“She’s come back. Every day, we dream of her singing mournful songs in the cultural hall. We’re being tormented to the point of madness…” Old Third clutched his head and pulled a stack of talismans from his pocket, saying that no matter how many he put up, he still kept dreaming about Tưởng Hân Đồng.
Uncle Guo looked at each of us in turn, his hand trembling as he picked up a glass of water and took a sip. Beneath the dim yellow light, he slowly began to speak. “She was a good girl, gentle and kind. Sometimes she’d feed the stray cats around here, and now and then she’d talk with me. But she was hounded to death by a strange man and her own boyfriend.”
He paused, swallowed hard, then continued. “There are lots of books in the cultural hall. She loved to read and would often borrow my spare key. But I never imagined that the day she borrowed it, she wouldn’t return it. Early the next morning, while making my rounds around campus, I found the side door of the cultural hall wide open. I went inside. The place was empty, not a soul in sight. But as I stood in the middle of the room, something fell down. It was a red embroidered shoe. I looked up at the spot it had fallen from and saw the hem of a red skirt and Tưởng Hân Đồng’s heavily made-up face. No one knew how she’d managed to hang herself from a beam so high up, dressed in a red wedding gown.”
“Later, the police came and ruled it a suicide. But before she killed herself, several intimate photos and videos of her and her boyfriend had been spread online at the school. Her boyfriend showed up and kept insisting it wasn’t his fault. He said Tưởng Hân Đồng had betrayed him first, so he’d taken revenge. Oh, right—I also remember she had a younger male cousin. He rushed over and knocked her boyfriend down, and the two of them fought for a long time before the police finally pulled them apart. That cousin must be about your age now. I remember him clearly: he wore glasses and a cartoon T-shirt, and he had a mole beneath his chin.”
Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine. A vague fear coiled around me like a vine. I saw the horror reflected in A Van’s eyes. Old Third had gotten to his feet, about to say something, but the words caught in his throat.
I heard an unfamiliar voice come from my own mouth. “Little Fatty, do you have a mole beneath your chin…?”
7
The three of us left Uncle Guo’s house and walked down the dark alley, unconsciously huddling closer together.
Uncle Guo’s words kept echoing in my mind: “She never left, because she wants revenge.”
It seemed the story from that year still held deep secrets that had yet to come to light…
The song she had sung in my dream rang in my head again: “The one you should love, you don’t; who stays and who doesn’t, who should stay but doesn’t…”
In that moment, I understood. The people she hated, the ones who deserved to be cast into hell, had yet to arrive. And she would send every last one of them to hell…
8
When we returned to the dorm, I switched on the light in the dim room. A figure appeared in the middle of it. It was Little Fatty.
He lowered his head. The whole room fell silent, All we could hear was our breathing.
After an unknown length of time, Little Fatty spoke. “You’ve probably figured it out by now. I’m Tưởng Hân Đồng’s cousin. I’ve always wanted to know how my sister died. But Trịnh Hưng has gone insane, so there’s no way to ask him anything else. And now my sister is appearing around us again—why…?”
He raised his head, his eyes bloodshot and gleaming with a cruel light. “I don’t know who brought that embroidered shoe back, but it’s the one that went missing after my sister died. One shoe disappeared before she went into the crematorium. I searched everywhere for it, but never found it. I never expected it to show up here after all these years…”
In that moment, I couldn’t believe my ears. But weren’t those shoes Đồng Hân’s? There were so many things I wanted to ask, but the words caught in my throat. I didn’t dare tell them that I was the one who had found the shoe…
That night, my bed started creaking again, as if something were repeatedly tugging at it in a steady rhythm.
9
The next day, I texted Đồng Hân and arranged to meet her where we had first met.
She seemed to be squatting down, burning something. The flickering flames made her profile look hazy. In that moment, I realized in astonishment that her profile looked exactly like Tưởng Hân Đồng’s in the photograph.
I slowly approached her and saw that she was holding sheets of yellow paper money, each one being swallowed by the flames.
“Đồng Hân, the older sister you told me about—is she Tưởng Hân Đồng, the girl who killed herself a few years ago?”
She said nothing. She tossed the remaining paper money into the fire, then brushed the bits of ash from her hands. Her eyes followed the flames as they slowly died down.
She spoke. “That’s right. She was my twin sister. Today is the anniversary of her death. I wasn’t there when it happened, so I don’t know anything. I’ve always wanted to ask Trịnh Hưng why he made those private photos public.”
Tears slowly ran down her cheeks. I pulled her frail body into my arms. She was ice-cold, and I hoped I could share some of my warmth with her. She rested her head against my chest and cried for a long time. For a moment, I seemed to forget my fear.
“Let’s go together and find Trịnh Hưng. We’ll get to the bottom of what happened.”
She looked at me in surprise, then smiled faintly and nodded.
After getting Trịnh Hưng’s address from Little Fatty, I skipped my afternoon classes and asked a friend to sign me in. Đồng Hân didn’t seem particularly concerned about the consequences of skipping class.
I took her to the address we’d been given. It was a luxurious apartment. Trịnh Hưng’s family seemed well-off.
We took the elevator to apartment 1202. I knocked gently.
The man who opened the door was scruffy and unshaven, holding a bottle of alcohol. He looked dazed, as if he’d just woken up.