I tilted my head to look at him, my gaze sincere and my expression solemn. “Miss Chúc, I was prejudiced against you before. I failed to recognize your talent. If I offended you in any way, I hope you won’t take it to heart.”
I nodded. “It’s all right. Everyone misjudges people sometimes. I once suspected you couldn’t count, too.”
From the main staircase, the way up to the second floor opened onto an elegantly decorated, curved hallway. Rooms lined one side, while the other was a wall hung with decorative paintings.
Tần Tuyên moved stiffly, his voice growing tense as well. “Miss Chúc, I’ll introduce each room. You can tell me if you notice anything wrong.”
We walked side by side around the hallway as he spoke slowly. “Starting from the stairwell entrance, on the left, there are four rooms for my wife Ý Như’s adoptive parents and biological parents. Her biological parents are the Giang family, and her adoptive parents are the Lan family. You just met them.”
“The fifth room belongs to Ý Như’s adoptive older sister, Lan Linh; the sixth is for Ý Như’s disciple, Diệp Nhất Vũ; the seventh is my master bedroom; and the last one, the eighth, belongs to my younger sister, Chi Chi.”
“Miss Chúc, those are the eight people living in this big house.”
His voice trembled slightly. “But this house has had only seven bedrooms since it was built. They’re all nearly identical in size and layout.”
“After I noticed something strange, I counted them many times. Sometimes there were eight rooms, and sometimes there were only seven.”
I suddenly asked, “When are there seven?”
“I’m not sure. For example, the first time I noticed something was wrong, I went straight upstairs to count, and there were seven rooms. The next time, when I brought a master here to take a look, there were eight.”
I closed my eyes and let my consciousness expand without limit, until I could see the flowers in the yard swaying in the wind and dark clouds massing on the horizon.
When I opened my eyes, I tilted my head and said, “A storm is coming.”
Tần Tuyên pressed his lips together and looked at me anxiously, asking in surprise, “What?”
I smiled. “Let’s count again now. Just the rooms.”
As my consciousness expanded, it was like silk thread, like water, like mist, like lightning. In a short time, it could wipe away every outside notion, thought, and intention, along with powers too strange to fathom.
Just then…
Tần Tuyên nodded, even though he didn’t understand what I meant.
So we walked around the hallway a second time, counting. “One, two, three… seven.”
The hallway suddenly fell silent. A few seconds later, his trembling voice rang out. “Miss Chúc, I wasn’t lying. There are seven rooms again!”
I looked at him and shrugged. “No, the house hasn’t changed. There have always been only seven rooms.”
“Mr. Tần, you have another relative.”
His eyes suddenly reddened. “R-really?”
His voice caught in his throat. His expression was a mix of fear and a strange hint of hope and excitement.
I cut him off. “So the task now is to find that relative. Whoever among these eight people doesn’t exist is very likely the key to this strange case.”
“Now, Mr. Tần, you have to answer one question for me.”
He gradually calmed down and said earnestly, “Ask whatever you like, Miss Chúc. I, Tần Tuyên, swear I’ll tell you the truth and hide nothing.”
I narrowed my eyes, looking at the doors stretching along the hallway, forming a striking geometric pattern.
On paper, the people living here were a family, but in reality, they weren’t close. The only reason they had gathered was his wife, Giang Ý Như. So where was Giang Ý Như? The hallway fell silent once more.
When Tần Tuyên spoke again, there was a hint of hesitation in his voice. “Miss Chúc, you don’t know?”
I was taken aback. How would I know?
He was silent for a while, then said, “I thought you’d know who the owner was just by looking at this house.”
At his words, something suddenly came back to me. I asked in surprise, “Giang Ý Như—the wealthy female novelist who earned billions in royalties when she was only twenty? Wasn’t she…?”
I trailed off and apologized.
“It’s all right. I didn’t explain clearly.”
Tần Tuyên’s voice sank, his expression turning heavy and lonely. “Ý Như passed away three years ago.”
An hour later, I sat in the study on the first floor of the villa, the faint scent of tea in the air as I listened to Tần Tuyên tell me about Giang Ý Như.
When people outside the family talked about her, they often called her the fake heiress and the real heiress. But in truth, it was the exact opposite: both her biological parents and her adoptive parents were very poor.
Ý Như became famous for her writing at sixteen, and by twenty she had achieved the kind of financial independence many people envied.
When she was twenty-one, the Giang family came to find her and said that the wrong baby girl had been sent home from the hospital years ago. Longing for the love of a family, she bought this big house so both families could live together, along with her adoptive older sister, Lan Linh, who had also been switched at birth.
“Ý Như and I met at charity events. Back then, she deliberately kept her background secret. We got to know each other and fell in love like any ordinary couple. I’ve never met anyone as full of feeling and kindhearted as she was.”
“She often cried because she felt other people’s suffering so deeply. My younger sister Chi Chi and I were orphans. She was afraid of hurting my pride, so she supported our education under someone else’s name.”
“She once met a boy with a gift for writing, Diệp Nhất Vũ, while donating supplies in a mountainous region. She got him out of a coal mine, brought him to live in the villa, and took him on as her disciple.”
At this point, he fell silent for quite a while. Sitting across from him, I could feel his grief, pain, and longing surging through the room like a wave.
Only when thunder rumbled outside the window again did he regain his composure. In a low voice, he said, “A wonderful girl like her—perhaps even God couldn’t bear to let her go.”
“Three years ago, on the night of her twenty-ninth birthday, her old illness returned, and she passed away far too young.”
“I miss her so much. So, so much… It’s strange, but I can’t stop thinking: If only she could come back. I’d gladly give up everything just to see her again, even if she came back as a ghost or a spirit!”
Another, even louder bolt of thunder exploded outside the window.
I looked out at the sky.
It was pitch-black, with thunder and lightning raging.
Rain lashed the glass windows in a frenzy.
I turned to stare at the man before me, clutching his head in anguish.
“Mr. Tần, have you ever considered this? If Giang Ý Như really did appear in this strange way, it would mean only one thing…”
He raised his head, confusion in his eyes. What did it mean?
I slowly began, “It means that in the…”There’s resentment in her heart—deep, deep resentment. She’d rather let her soul be scattered than stay dead and not come back to collect what she’s owed.”
Tần Tuyên stared at me in shock. I sighed. “And now, she’s here. Right among you.”
A brilliant bolt of lightning tore across the night sky, illuminating the redwood furniture in the room and Tần Tuyên’s pale, doubtful face.
He shook his head, then said firmly, “Impossible. You’re mistaken. Ý Như was kind and beautiful. Everyone loved and was grateful to her. Even when she was ill, she always stayed optimistic and cheerful. How could she have held any grudges?”
“Besides, if she really did appear, it would surely be because she misses the people who love her—not to collect a debt, as you say!”
“Miss Chúc, you may have some ability, but you never even met Ý Như. Please don’t slander her again.”
By the end, Tần Tuyên was glaring at me, his face flushed with agitation.
I silently repeated to myself: Eight hundred thousand, eight hundred thousand… So what if the client had money and a little of that boss-like swagger? It was still better than working for a boss who rode me like a horse every day and barely paid me a thing.
I gave a soft laugh and patiently began, “Mr. Tần, you’re a university lecturer, so I’ll explain this in terms you’ll find easier to accept.”
“Put simply, spiritual entities can be divided into two types: remembrance entities and resentment entities. Remembrance entities have a spirit level below 7. They can only pass through the pineal gland—in other words, they can only do things like appear in dreams. Resentment entities have a spirit level above 37. They can disrupt magnetic fields and, in turn, break through the boundaries of the physical world.”
I looked out the window and pointed. “Mr. Tần, take a look. Winter is supposed to be a time when yin gathers and yang is nurtured, yet right now thunder is crashing and lightning is streaking across the sky. Lightning is yang fire, and a thunderstorm in the middle of winter is a sign that yin and yang have fallen into disorder.”
“A resentment entity is, at its core, a negative magnetic field that hasn’t dissipated. If it gathers for long enough, it can destroy the balance of the five elements and cause this kind of reversal of yin and yang. Besides, three years of resentment can take form. You said Ý Như died three years ago, so the time is almost here.”
Tần Tuyên stared blankly out the window, then turned back to me and gritted his teeth. “Are you saying… you suspect what?”