04
The next morning, when I woke up, Tống Lưu Nhi was already gone.
Half an hour earlier, he had sent me a message: “Mom, you don’t need to see me off. Get a little more sleep. I’ll let you know when I arrive safely.”
I stared at those two lines for a long time. I didn’t know what Tống Lưu Nhi had been thinking when he sent the message. I only knew that I… felt awful.
My mind was in turmoil, but in the end I grabbed my car keys and rushed out of the house.
When I reached the high-speed rail station, I stopped the car and ran inside. There was only one thought in my mind: I wanted to see him again.
But when I finally found him, it felt as though my heart had been torn to shreds.
I could never forget that man’s face, not even in death.
It was Tần Đại Quý.
As I recalled, he had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for raping several underage girls. Now he had served his time.
The world spun before my eyes. What did Tống Lưu Nhi have to do with him? Why had he shown up in the city where I lived?
It had to be Tống Lưu Nhi who told him. What on earth were they plotting?
I had even felt guilty toward Tống Lưu Nhi… How stupid of me. He really was the devil’s child, carrying evil blood in his veins. How could he ever be a good person?
They both saw me. Tống Lưu Nhi immediately shoved Tần Đại Quý away and ran toward me in a panic.
“Mom, I…”
I summoned every ounce of strength I had and slapped him hard across the face. Almost out of control, I screamed:
“Don’t call me Mom! You and him are exactly the same—you both make me sick!”
Tống Lưu Nhi’s eyes reddened. He looked at me pleadingly, seeming to say something, but I couldn’t make out a single word. I turned and walked away without hesitation.
On the way home that day, I got into a car accident.
I died on the spot.
Before I died, one thought was still in my mind: If I’d known death would come so quickly, I should’ve risked everything to take that bastard Tần Đại Quý with me.
Someone yanked the door open with a bang, cutting off my memories of when I was alive and startling Tống Lưu Nhi, who had been fast asleep, awake.
My older brother, Tống Lượng, and my sister-in-law, Trương Huệ Anh, stood in the doorway, scowling at Tống Lưu Nhi as they berated him:
“You little bastard, what are you doing back here again? If the building management hadn’t called, I wouldn’t even have known you were standing there at the door. How many times have we told you? You’re not welcome here!”
“Your mom’s dead, you murderer! Who are you trying to make feel sorry for you now?!”
My head exploded with a loud boom.
Tống Lưu Nhi was… a murderer?!
05
I looked at Tống Lưu Nhi as if he were a stranger. “You… you killed someone? How could you kill anyone?!”
As for Tống Lưu Nhi, he seemed used to his aunt and uncle’s insults. He pulled his cap brim low, said nothing, and silently walked away.
“This is your home! Where do you think you’re going?!”
I shouted after him. Behind me, Trương Huệ Anh kept hurling abuse, while I stood there, stunned and bewildered.
I had always thought my brother and sister-in-law were kind and considerate people. After all, they were the ones who had raised Tống Lưu Nhi. Even if they didn’t treat him like their own child, surely they wouldn’t say such cruel things to him?
Or had Tống Lưu Nhi gotten into a fight with his cousins and accidentally committed a crime? Panicking, I hurriedly floated into the house.
I searched the whole house, checking every nook and cranny. My brother and sister-in-law had three children—two girls and a boy—all younger than Tống Lưu Nhi.
Their son, Tiểu Phúc, slept in the small bedroom; their older daughter, Tiểu Hoa, slept in the storage room; and their youngest daughter, Tiểu Thảo, had been stuck sleeping in the bathroom off the master bedroom.
There was also a guest room. I’d always thought that was where Tống Lưu Nhi slept, but no—the room had been turned into a tea room.
This was my home, yet my own child didn’t even have a decent place to use the bathroom. I was so angry I laughed.
My sister-in-law slammed the door shut and kept grumbling:
“What a nuisance! We made it perfectly clear back then that his mother, Tống Uyển, couldn’t stand him and hadn’t left him a thing.”
“All right,” my brother said, patting her shoulder. “He doesn’t have the nerve to stay here anyway. He still wouldn’t transfer the house into our names. Ungrateful brat.”
“It’s fine. Even if he wants to come back someday, once we’ve taken over the house, he won’t be able to kick us out. Is he really going to sue us?”
My ghostly form trembled.
So, for nearly twenty years, they hadn’t treated Tống Lưu Nhi the way I’d always thought they had.
Whenever I went back to my hometown, or they brought Tống Lưu Nhi to visit me, they always acted so warm and affectionate…
It had all been an act, just to get more money from me to support him.
But when I thought about it… hadn’t I vaguely sensed it all along?
I simply hadn’t cared enough about Tống Lưu Nhi, so I’d deliberately looked the other way instead of finding out whether they truly loved him.
I drifted downstairs in a daze and saw that Tống Lưu Nhi still hadn’t left. He was sitting on his scooter, staring blankly into space.
I went closer and saw that his electric scooter was showing a low-battery warning.
All the charging stations in the complex were occupied. Tống Lưu Nhi’s scooter could only make it a short way before it ran out of power.
He let out a long sigh, took off his helmet, and had no choice but to push the scooter along.
In the silent dead of night, on an empty street, there was just one person, one ghost, and one scooter, quietly making their way down the road together.
I stared at his back, stunned. He was taller than he’d been four years ago, but visibly emaciated. His shoulder blades jutted sharply through his thin shirt, making my eyes ache.
I still had eight hundred thousand in my savings account. My brother and sister-in-law had taken the house and car. Surely I could at least leave him some money?
How had he ended up living in such misery?
Tống Lưu Nhi kept walking. I was a ghost, so I didn’t get tired, but he didn’t seem to feel weary either. Head bowed, he walked nonstop for two hours.
“Where are you going, anyway? Is your rented room really that far away? Why don’t you stop and rest for a while?”
I babbled the whole way. It wasn’t until we entered the inner-city slum that Tống Lưu Nhi finally slowed down.
“You live here? Why are you staying somewhere so remote?”
The area was chaotic and unsafe, with buildings packed tightly together and an environment that was dirty and stifling. Most of the people who lived here were low-income migrants.
He turned left, then right, and after walking for about ten minutes, stopped outside a… foot-washing shop.
06
This was clearly no respectable foot-washing shop. It was still open, with dim, suggestive red lights dangling inside, and every so often, sounds too obscene to bear drifted out.
Houses like these, where the buildings on either side practically touched, were decades-old, cramped and damp, with almost no soundproofing.
The wild, unrestrained howls made even me, a ghost, blush. Yet Tống Lưu Nhi remained completely unmoved.
A long extension cord hung down from a third-floor window on the side of the building, its outlet dangling just about at an adult’s waist.
Tống Lưu Nhi plugged in his scooter to charge and was about to head upstairs. Just then, the shop door swung open. A woman came out carrying a basin of foot-washing water, and somehow, the whole basinful splashed right onto Tống Lưu Nhi.
The fat woman didn’t look the least bit sorry. With a cigarette pinched between her fingers, she blew a stream of smoke toward Tống Lưu Nhi.
“I hear you went running to the landlord to tattle again, you little bastard. You think I’m scared of you just because you’ve been to prison?”
“If you can’t stand the noise, why are you still living here? I work nights. If you can’t sleep, come on into the shop and let your big sister here… give you a taste of the real thing.”
Tống Lưu Nhi shook his head hard, spraying water from his hair. Disgust was plain in his eyes. “I don’t like eating pork.”
It took the woman a few seconds to understand what he meant. Her face changed at once, and in a rage, she flung the basin aside, planted her hands on her hips, and let loose a torrent of abuse.
“You little bastard, with no father or mother, and you still pretend to be so pure? I hear you never had a father, and your mother slept around and had you. She probably died of some filthy disease, too…”
Before she could finish, Tống Lưu Nhi kicked her and sent her sprawling.
“Tống Lưu Nhi!”
I jumped in alarm. He might have been skinny, but that kick was no joke. The woman was huge, and when she crashed to the ground, even the floor seemed to shake.
Tống Lưu Nhi’s eyes were bloodshot. He pinned the woman down and raised a fist, punching her square in the face.
“I warned you. Say whatever you want about me, but don’t you dare go after my mother! Believe me, I’ll kill you right now!”
“Help! Is anyone there? Somebody, help me…”
She screamed. Hearing the commotion inside the shop, four men rushed out before long. One of them was wearing nothing but his underwear, and the others came scrambling after him.
The men rushed in, dragged Tống Lưu Nhi away, then all piled on, punching and kicking him.
Tống Lưu Nhi couldn’t fight off so many people. They cornered him against the wall, leaving him unable to fight back.
“Stop beating him! Stop! I’m calling the police! Is anybody going to do something?!”
I screamed, but they only beat him harder. Tống Lưu Nhi was covered in blood. He didn’t beg them to stop—not even a single time—and he didn’t make a sound.
I was so frantic I stamped my feet, but there was nothing I could do.
“Tống Lưu Nhi, apologize! Just say one word! Tell them to stop beating you!”
Seeing that Tống Lưu Nhi stubbornly refused to speak, the men hit him even harder, kicking him repeatedly in the stomach and head as if they meant to kill him.
“That’s enough. Don’t beat him to death.” The fat woman spat on Tống Lưu Nhi. “You stray dog, you dare lay a hand on me? I work in this business. You think I don’t have people backing me?”
She raised her foot and stomped hard on Tống Lưu Nhi. The men also wrecked the electric scooter parked nearby before they finally stopped.
“Tống Lưu Nhi… Lưu Nhi, are you okay?”
I reached out with trembling hands to help him up—but my hands passed right through his body.