7.
Sure enough, that girl came back.
She was dressed provocatively and was taking out her keys to unlock the door.
Vương Lộ Dao really wasn't outside anymore.
She must have seen that I wasn't coming out and assumed nobody was home, so she'd left.
I breathed a sigh of relief, opened the door, and hurried outside.
Hearing the noise, the girl turned around and greeted me with a smile. “Heading out, Mr. Hạo?”
I smiled and replied, “Yeah.”
She asked, “Do you have a girlfriend now? She's pretty, too.”
I hurriedly looked around. It was just the two of us—where was this girlfriend supposed to be?
I eyed her suspiciously. Could something be wrong with her, too?
She said nothing more, only smiled as if she understood everything, then went inside and shut the door.
Her words left me even more confused.
But I didn't feel like thinking about it. I shut the door and ran straight off.
I had to get out of there.
I took the elevator down to the underground parking garage, and my sense of safety returned.
I got in the car and drove off at once.
I didn't truly breathe easy until I was out of the complex.
I took out my phone, intending to call Old Yang.
But as soon as I pulled out my phone, I suddenly shuddered and slammed on the brakes.
The tires let out a long screech and the car lurched, scaring me so badly I nearly pissed myself.
When the car stopped, I flung open the door and rushed out.
I looked inside the car. There was nothing there. But just now, in the reflection on my phone, I'd clearly seen Vương Lộ Dao right behind me.
Only then did I remember what the girl had said: “Do you have a girlfriend now?”
Vương Lộ Dao had never left. She was still right beside me.
Cold sweat streamed down my back.
Without stopping to think about the car or my phone, I took off running, charging straight ahead.
On the road, I flagged down a car and told the driver to take me to the place where Old Yang usually ate late-night snacks.
Thank heaven, Old Yang was there.
I hurried over and dropped into a chair.
Old Yang looked at me in surprise and asked with a laugh, “What's wrong with you? See a ghost?”
I immediately downed his glass of water, then hurriedly replied, “Yeah, I saw a ghost.”
Old Yang's expression turned serious, and he asked what had happened.
I told him to hurry and think of a way to get Vương Lộ Dao to leave. She was right behind me.
Old Yang immediately looked behind me and said there was no one there.
I asked him, “Really?”
“Really,” he replied.
I turned around trembling and looked. There really was nothing there. Then I borrowed his phone and used it to check behind me, but still couldn't see anything.
“Did she leave?”
I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if I'd just escaped death.
After that, I told Old Yang everything that had just happened.
When I finished, I pleaded desperately with Old Yang for help. “If this keeps up, Vương Lộ Dao is definitely going to kill me. Even if she doesn't, I'll be scared to death.”
Old Yang took a drag on his cigarette and said, “There must be a reason Vương Lộ Dao keeps clinging to you like this.”
I said anxiously, “She just wants me to take her to Da Nam Village. The problem is, I clearly took her there last night, but she still came back. Why?”
Old Yang stubbed out his cigarette and said, “The only thing we can do now is go to Da Nam Village and investigate from the source.”
That made sense.
After what had just happened, I flat-out refused to go home and stay alone, so I decided to spend the night at Old Yang's place. He didn't object.
But before going to his place, I still asked Old Yang to drive me to find my car.
I'd paid over a hundred thousand for that car. I'd be heartbroken if I lost it.
When we got to the car, I asked Old Yang, “Is Vương Lộ Dao in there?”
He shook his head, then boldly got into the car to prove he wasn't lying.
How strange.
Why had she suddenly disappeared?
I asked Old Yang, “Do you have some kind of special ability? Even Vương Lộ Dao is afraid of you and doesn't dare bother me anymore.”
Old Yang laughed heartily and said, “A fortune-teller once told me I have a very strong bazi, so evil spirits can't get near me. That's why I've been driving a night-shift taxi in peace for over twenty years.”
Now that's impressive.
8.
As soon as dawn broke, we finished breakfast and drove to Da Nam Village.
We stopped at the village entrance and walked in.
Just then, a middle-aged man came over.
I quickly offered him a cigarette and asked if he knew where Vương Lộ Dao's house was.
The man looked at us suspiciously and asked, “Why are you two looking for her?”
I explained, “We're friends of Vương Lộ Dao. We came here to find her.”
The man said, “She's dead.”
I hurriedly asked, “How did she die?”
The man sighed and asked if we knew about the accident on the road ahead.
I replied, “Of course.”
He said, “Vương Lộ Dao was the one who died in that accident that night. She wasn't the only one who died. My younger brother and sister-in-law died, too. My brother had been taking his wife to the hospital to give birth, but both of them and the baby in her womb all died. No one survived.”
I trembled all over. Old Yang had been right—they really were ghosts.
The man took a drag on his cigarette and advised me not to go to Vương Lộ Dao's house, because it was a terrifying place.
I asked him, “Why?”
He said, “Vương Lộ Dao has been dead for more than ten days, but she still hasn't been buried. Her body is still lying in the mourning hall at home.”
Curious, I asked, “Why?”
He immediately lowered his voice. “The car Vương Lộ Dao was riding in crashed into the back of a truck. The truck was carrying steel plates. The car was going too fast and slammed straight into them, severing Vương Lộ Dao's head and spraying blood everywhere. It was horrifying. The traffic police came afterward, but they couldn't find her head anywhere. So her mother refuses to bury her until they find it.”
After saying goodbye to the man, I asked Old Yang, “Are we still going?”
Old Yang nodded firmly and said, “We should at least go to Vương Lộ Dao's house and see what's going on.”
Vương Lộ Dao's house was a three-story home with a courtyard out front and three parking spaces on the right. It looked fairly well-off.
When we entered the courtyard, a middle-aged woman was sitting there, basking in the sun.
I immediately asked if she was Vương Lộ Dao's mother.
She said she was.
Then she asked who we were looking for.
I replied that we were friends of Vương Lộ Dao. We’d heard she had died, so we’d come to pay our respects.
She looked sickly, as if she wasn’t feeling very well.
Just then, I suddenly remembered that on the first night, Vương Lộ Dao had told me her mother was ill, so she had to go home to visit her.
I sat down in front of her, about to speak, when I saw that the living room had been turned into a mourning hall. The stark contrast of black and white made it look gloomy and eerie.
Vương Lộ Dao’s black-and-white memorial portrait in particular brought back the terrifying experience I’d had the night before.
I couldn’t help trembling. I hurriedly moved aside, afraid to look at the mourning hall, worried that Vương Lộ Dao might suddenly appear there and wave at me.
9.
I asked her why Vương Lộ Dao hadn’t been buried yet.
She said Vương Lộ Dao had been beautiful in life, and even in death she deserved to be whole. How could she be buried now that she was missing her head?
Only later did I learn more.
She had divorced early and raised Vương Lộ Dao on her own.
After she started earning money, Vương Lộ Dao built her mother a big house to live in and was always dutiful to her.
But Vương Lộ Dao had never married, and she worked in the city, coming home for only two or three days a month. So her mother was almost always alone in the house.
Years of hard work, getting up early and staying up late, and irregular meals had taken their toll. Now that she was old, her health had worsened, and her illnesses were catching up with her.
Some time ago, she had been bedridden and could barely get around.
Kind neighbors in the village looked after her for two days, then called Vương Lộ Dao, hoping she would come home to care for her mother.
When Vương Lộ Dao got the news, she hurried home that very night. But near the entrance to the village, she was in a traffic accident and died on the spot.
It was truly heartbreaking.
Just then, Old Yang crouched down too and asked the middle-aged woman if she had ever dreamed about Vương Lộ Dao.
She didn’t say anything.
I thought she hadn’t heard, so I repeated the question loudly.
Only then did Vương Lộ Dao’s mother answer that she hadn’t.
I didn’t understand why Old Yang had asked her that.
After talking a little longer, Old Yang guided me in lighting an incense stick for Vương Lộ Dao and begging her to let me go.
On the way back, Old Yang said he’d figured out what was going on.
I asked him what he’d figured out.
Old Yang said Vương Lộ Dao was probably a “place-bound spirit.”
I asked what a “place-bound spirit” was.
He explained that a “place-bound spirit” was the soul of someone who had been in a great hurry to finish something in life but died an untimely death before they could do so. After death, their ghost would keep reliving their final experience.
Only then did I understand.
That night, Vương Lộ Dao had been hurrying home to visit her sick mother. She’d been in an accident just before reaching home and died without getting to see her mother again. Because her wish had gone unfulfilled, she kept repeating the journey from the city to Da Nam Village.
Old Yang said, “That’s right. That’s exactly it.”
I immediately asked him, “I already took her back to Da Nam Village. Why is she still following me?”
Old Yang thought for a moment, then said, “As long as Vương Lộ Dao hasn’t seen her mother and hasn’t been buried, she’ll keep repeating that journey.”
I asked, “Then what should we do?”
Old Yang replied, “It’s simple. Find Vương Lộ Dao’s head and bring it back so she can go home and see her mother. Then it’ll all be over.”
“Find a human head?”
A chill suddenly ran through me. I didn’t dare go.
Old Yang said, “If you don’t go, Vương Lộ Dao will follow you forever, until you die.”
Terrified, I said, “But I don’t know where Vương Lộ Dao’s head is. There’s no point in her following me.”
Old Yang explained, “At night, Vương Lộ Dao can lead you to find it.”
I hurriedly begged Old Yang to come with me.
“If Vương Lộ Dao is so afraid of you, I won’t be in danger with you there.”
But Old Yang refused.
He said, “My bazi is unusually strong. If she sees me, she’ll turn and run, and we won’t get anywhere.”
I begged him over and over, nearly falling to my knees in front of him. I even promised to pay him tens of thousands once this was all over, and offered to give him half up front as a deposit, but he still refused.
With no other choice, I gritted my teeth and went.