Still panting, I asked, “I know her real name, but how am I supposed to find her birth details?”
Chúc An surveyed the room. “Knowing her real name doesn’t necessarily mean you know the corpse woman’s real name. She’s immortal and has lived for so long. There have to be clues around here!”
The room was small, so Chúc An and I split up to search.
We turned everything upside down—the closet, the desk, the bed… everywhere we could think of.
But we still found nothing.
Footsteps sounded outside the door again. “Xiao Yi, where are you?”
My sister had found me!
I didn’t dare make a sound. I signaled to Chúc An and crawled straight under the bed.
The next second, the bedroom door opened and my sister walked in!
She called my name as she searched the room.
I clenched my fists, my palms slick with sweat.
“Ah! I found you!”
My sister suddenly cried out excitedly, making me jump.
I bit down hard on my lip, afraid to make a sound.
She hadn’t found me. She was trying to lure me out!
The room fell silent, broken only now and then by my sister’s “hee-hee” laughter.
I don’t know how long passed before the footsteps sounded again, growing fainter until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Chúc An appeared from who knew where and whispered, “You can come out now.”
I turned on my phone’s flashlight and prepared to crawl out from under the bed.
The next second, my eyes widened when I saw a line of writing beneath it.
Trình Thư Ý, born at two a.m. on the first day of the twelfth lunar month in 1925.
Why was my name carved under my sister’s bed?
No…
It was my name, but it wasn’t my name!
My sister adopted me and only then changed my name to Trình Thư Ý. That meant she’d planned to take over my body from the very beginning!
“Chúc An, I found the birth details! The first day of the twelfth lunar month in 1925, at two a.m.!”
Chúc An counted on her fingers. “Just as I thought—a pure yin woman! She died with such intense resentment that she became a corpse woman. If you wear all seven qipaos, you’ll be willingly taking her place as a corpse woman, and you’ll bear all the consequences of that karma!”
As she spoke, Chúc An took a talisman from her pocket. “Get up and change clothes! Now that we have her birth details, everything will be easier.”
I covered my face. “Chúc An, could you turn around while I change? I’d be embarrassed if you watched!”
Chúc An said, “Just hurry up…”
After changing into a qipao, I took a trash bag from the bedside table and stuffed all the qipaos inside.
I ignored Chúc An’s outstretched hand, opened the bedroom door, and stepped out.
The living room was pitch-black, so I turned on the light.
The moment it came on, I found myself face-to-face with my sister, who had just come out of my room.
“Xiao Yi…”
I cut her off. “Don’t call me Xiao Yi. That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re the real Trình Thư Ý!”
My sister froze, then laughed. “Hee-hee. So you know everything! That makes it all the more impossible to spare you!”
As soon as she finished speaking, her fingernails grew longer. Her fair skin began to rot, her face twisted, her eyes turned bloodshot, and her lips became terrifying, razor-sharp fangs.
Her body swelled into a monster, and she charged at me.
I reacted quickly and dodged to the side, making her miss. She crashed into the table, shattering it.
She got back up and charged at me again.
This time, her back was facing Chúc An!
“Do it now!”
Chúc An stood still and tossed the talisman, which landed right on my sister’s back!
“Arrrgh!” My sister screamed in agony.
The talisman gave off a faint glow and burned her back. Her bloodshot eyes fixed on me, her gaze as if she wanted to devour me.
“I don’t want to be immortal! I’m so lonely. I only want to be an ordinary person. I’ve worked so hard for so long! And it was all for nothing! I won’t accept this, I won’t!”
My sister kept screaming, her voice growing fainter until all that remained was a sob.
Chúc An lowered her hand and stepped in front of me. “It’s over. She’ll burn to death. Give me the qipaos.”
“Oh, sure.”
I held out the bag. Chúc An reached to take it, but I slipped past her and went to my sister.
“So, Chúc An, why did you help me? From the beginning, you weren’t focused on me at all. You cared about those seven qipaos! I’m guessing you’re in poor health, right? Whether we were climbing stairs or searching for things, you’d be panting after just a few steps. Chúc An… whoever gave you that name must have hoped you’d be safe and healthy! Thinking about it, my sister wasn’t lying to me. If you take these qipaos and become their new owner, I’ll die!”
Chúc An looked rather surprised. “I thought you trusted me completely. You’re more cautious than I expected! I don’t mind telling you. I was the one who taught your sister how to make these seven qipaos! I’ve been sick every day since I was a child, and I’ve had to take medicine every day! I even joined the occult sect just to survive! I’ve tried so hard, and I’m still about to die! Don’t you think that’s funny? I’m fighting to stay alive, while your sister thinks she’s lived too long! She wants to be human? What’s so great about being human? Of all the myriad forms of life, being human is the most exhausting and painful! I don’t agree with her, but she did offer me a way out. I searched through every ancient text I could find and finally discovered this method: sew the seven layers of shed skin into clothes, and you can deceive Heaven’s will and exchange two people’s identities!”
I stared coldly at Chúc An. “You want eternal life, and my sister doesn’t. It was a perfect deal for you two, and you dragged me into it!”
Chúc An gave a soft laugh. “I had no choice. I want eternal life, but I don’t want to become a corpse woman! That’s why I need you as the middleman. As long as the ritual isn’t complete, if both of you die, the murderous energy of the qipaos will dissipate, leaving only their life-prolonging effect. All right, now you can die with your eyes open. Hand over the qipaos!”
I shook my head and pulled out the lighter I’d hidden in my pocket for a long time.
“I can’t give them to you. Something this dangerous should be burned!”
Chúc An scoffed. “You’re dreaming. This is corpse skin. A lighter can’t burn it…”
She stopped short, staring in disbelief at the flames suddenly leaping up.
“How is this possible? How can it burn?”
I let go of the bag and it fell to the floor. With nothing covering it, Chúc An could finally see that the fire had started from the talisman!
The talisman Chúc An had stuck to my sister.
“You…”
I finished for her. “Just as I expected, corpse skin won’t burn, but the talisman will! Chúc An, your plan has failed! Stop!”
Chúc An’s face went deathly pale as she rushed into the flames without hesitation.
“No! Don’t burn it! Don’t destroy it!”
I calmly backed away two steps and called 119 on my phone.
“Hello, I want to report a fire. My house is on fire.”
By the time the firefighters arrived that day, the qipaos had burned to nothing, and my sister had turned to ash.
Chúc An went insane because of it. She was dazed and incoherent, but whenever she heard the words “qipao,” she would start screaming.
Since she had no family, I eventually signed the consent papers and had her admitted to a nursing home.
I went to her house to pack up her things and found the ancient book she’d mentioned.
The last page of the book had been sewn…a contact.
I searched all over the internet and discovered it was a QQ number.
The other person’s username was “Buyer and Seller of Ancient Books.”
I added them, and they accepted almost immediately.
[Hi! Are you selling books or buying them?]
I thought for a moment, then replied: [Buying a qipao.]
They answered right away: [99,999. Pay upfront.]
I gritted my teeth and sent the money.
They sent back an address: [No. 404, Jiangnan Road, nursing home.]
Before I could reply, they went offline.
But this address… it was the nursing home where I’d sent Chúc An!
My heart clenched. I hurried downstairs, got in my car, and drove there.
By the time I arrived, Chúc An had disappeared.
I asked the nurse looking after her, who said she’d completed the discharge paperwork herself.
Before leaving, she’d left a note and said to give it to whoever came looking for her.
I took the note and saw the words: “Chúc An: Face-Reading Livestream, One Reading for 999.”
I thanked the nurse and left the nursing home.
Back home, I kept watch on livestreaming platforms day and night.
Five months later, I finally found Chúc An’s livestream.
She was connecting with another streamer.
The livestream was titled “Trying on My New Qipao.”
Chúc An’s voice rang out coldly: “Does this qipao feel cool and smooth to the touch, and freezing cold with a ghostly chill when you put it on?”
—THE END—