7
I got back to the office, and the sky fell.
A coworker had killed herself.
I barely had time to grieve for her before her work landed in my lap.
All of it.
I asked my boss, “Does that mean I get her salary, too?”
My boss said no.
“Oh, I’ll hang myself outside your house. Then you’ll be honest.”
My coworker’s work was complicated and tedious, and the documents were a jumble of handwriting, even with her own pronouns and symbols.
But she had an excellent sense of security.
Every file on her computer was locked.
“Girl, you make three thousand a month… What could possibly need protecting?”
I complained to a coworker.
She looked dazed. “She… had a hard life, too. I went to her funeral two days ago and heard a lot.”
“Hey, do you know about Down syndrome?”
“Yeah.”
I was puzzled. “She doesn’t look like she has it.”
My friend’s eyes filled with pity. “Yeah, but she had an older sister.”
My friend’s halting words slowly pieced together the life of a woman in my mind.
“Parents who have a child with Down syndrome often have another child to take care of them. She was that child.”
8
Her name was Chu Mi.
Her family wasn’t well-off. Both her parents were farmers. But fortunately, they were honest and hardworking, and had enough to get by.
That was until they had their first child: a girl with Down syndrome and congenital heart disease.
It was practically a catastrophe for this family, which had little to spare. The surgery was expensive, and the child needed constant care.
They borrowed money from everyone they could, sold their only house, and rented a place in the city where they worked while getting their daughter treatment.
When Chu Ning, the girl with Down syndrome, was ten, she finally had heart surgery.
But her parents thought: they would die someday. A hundred years from now, who would take care of their precious daughter, who couldn’t look after herself and whom they had raised with such difficulty?
Parents who love their children plan for the future.
So they decided to have another child to care for Chu Ning.
For poor people, having a child is the cheapest long-term investment.
That was how Chu Mi came into the world. She was born to take care of someone else.
That was why her parents were so strict with her. They trained Chu Mi as if they were preparing a perfect nurse.
They didn’t teach her how to grow up to be a good person, how to make it in society, or how to survive other people’s cruelty.
Nurses didn’t need to learn those things.
They taught her how to soothe Chu Ning when she cried, how to plan her meals to make sure she got enough nutrition, and how to comfort her when she got upset about taking a bath.
So she took care of Chu Ning while struggling to figure out how to grow up herself.
Her family hadn’t wanted to send her to school because it would be inconvenient when it came to caring for Chu Ning.
But Chu Mi was sharp enough to realize how important an education was.
She begged them, “If I finish school and earn money, I’ll be able to take better care of my sister.”
Her parents thought, that made sense.
Only then was Chu Mi allowed to go to school. But going to school wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
School is a miniature society. And in society, bullying the weak and fawning on the powerful are commonplace.
It took almost no observation at all to see that Chu Mi was poor and an easy target.
She was quiet and timid, and whenever she looked up at someone, she had a pleading expression.
So doing other people’s homework, running errands, and cleaning the bathroom all became part of her daily routine.
Once, while doing someone else’s homework, she forgot to change a few answers. The teacher saw that the two papers had the exact same wrong answers and called the other girl’s parents.
After that, Chu Mi was beaten, cigarette butts were pressed against her chest, and cold water was thrown over her.
But she didn’t tell anyone.
If she did, who would help her?
She was even afraid her parents would think she was causing trouble and stop letting her go to school.
Fortunately, she was good at enduring hardship, and that turned out to be an advantage.
The only consolation was that Chu Mi got decent grades.
Even though she spent most of her time caring for Chu Ning, she still got into a pretty good college.
She’d been worried that her family wouldn’t let her go to college, since tuition wasn’t cheap.
When she cautiously brought it up with her parents, their reaction was unexpected.
“Really? That’s wonderful! Someone in our Chu family got into college!”
For once, her parents hugged her and rejoiced for her. Their eldest daughter was finally no longer the center of their world.
It was only for a moment. But in that moment, she suddenly felt alive.
She thought maybe her parents did love her. It was just that poverty, work, and pressure had left them with no energy to love her after loving her older sister.
Her sister didn’t understand what it meant to get into college, but she managed to recognize that it was a good thing.
She tried hard to hug her little sister. “You’re amazing, little sister. You’re the best.”
And so Chu Mi went to college. But the more people read and the more people they met, the more they realized how big the world was.
How could she be content to live only for someone else?
In her final year of college, Chu Mi resolved to earn a lot of money.
She imagined it all so beautifully. Once she had money, she’d hire a nurse for her sister.
She’d be free, and once her parents had less to worry about, they’d have a little love left to give her.
But the world wasn’t so easy. The job market was crowded with graduates like Chu Mi.
Most of them were confident, outgoing, and generous, while Chu Mi was thin, dark-skinned, and quiet, wearing a cheap, wrinkled outfit that didn’t fit.
Compared with everyone else, she had no advantages.
In the end, she got a job at this company that paid three thousand a month.
Her boss said, “As long as you work hard and strive to improve, my position will be yours sooner or later.”
So Chu Mi worked overtime all night.
I heard her take calls from her parents countless times: “Why aren’t you home taking care of your sister yet?! Are you trying to get away from us? You ungrateful wretch! Get your ass home, now!”
I heard her sigh again and again and saw her hair falling out in clumps.
Looking back, would she have felt better if I’d said a few kind words to her?
Could it have kept her from reaching the end of her rope?
If only I’d done a little more…
9
On the fifth day of taking over Chu Mi’s work.
All right, I’ve done enough.
Oh my God, why is this karmic payback so cruel?!
I still couldn’t crack her encrypted files.
I was so angry I yelled my head off.
The Water Ghost saw that I was still at the office at midnight, so he came to keep me company.
“Chu Mi’s soul hasn’t been reincarnated. It’s wandering nearby. Should we call her over and ask?”
I was surprised. “She hasn’t been reincarnated?”
The Water Ghost shook his head.
I patted him on the shoulder. “That’s quite a network you’ve got! How do you do it?”
He paused. “You learn it when you’ve been dead long enough.”
I was stunned. Out of habit, I tried to avoid bringing up his past, as I had countless times before.
But for some reason, as if compelled by some unseen force, I blurted out, “How long have you… been dead?”
He thought for a moment. “Twelve years.”
Another long silence.
The Water Ghost broke the silence. “You have something that belonged to Chu Mi. With your abilities, it should be easy to summon her.”
I nodded. It might be a little disrespectful, but I was truly out of options.
The talisman burst into flames.
“Soul, return!”
The talisman burned away, and Chu Mi’s figure slowly appeared in the flames.
She looked dazed. “Why am I here?”
I hurriedly explained why I’d summoned her. Chu Mi seemed sluggish, but she wasn’t angry. Calmly, she explained the meaning of the symbols and codes in the documents.
She even apologized. “I’m sorry my death has caused you so much trouble.”
Me: “…”
Who apologizes to someone for their own death?
As I sorted the documents, I casually asked, “What made you take your own life? I mean, it’s pretty normal. Working at this company could drive anyone to it.”
She froze, then said softly, “Yeah.”
She didn’t want to talk about it. But I wanted to help her.
So I stopped what I was doing and asked seriously, “You haven’t reincarnated because your lingering attachment hasn’t faded. What is it that you can’t let go of?”
Honestly, I had a bad feeling. She’d been treated that way her whole life, and in the end, she’d taken her own life so decisively.
If her lingering attachment wasn’t about killing her parents, then it was already pretty mild.
Chu Mi’s eyes were blank. “Can’t let go?”
I nodded. “Tell me. I can help you.”
A glimmer appeared in her eyes, but quickly faded. Her expression turned cold. “No need.”
The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted.
The Water Ghost silently emerged from the shadows behind Chu Mi.
Chu Mi’s aura surged. Her expression changed, and she looked as though she were in pain, struggling against something.
She showed signs of turning into a vengeful spirit.
I shook my head at the Water Ghost, signaling him not to intervene yet.
Let’s wait a little longer. I had a feeling that someone who apologized for troubling others even after dying wouldn’t turn into a vengeful spirit.
Sure enough, after a while, her aura gradually settled, and her expression softened.
She didn’t turn into a vengeful spirit.
Cold sweat streamed down Chu Mi’s face. She turned and started to leave.
I called after her. “You know that if this keeps up, sooner or later you won’t be able to control yourself.”
She bit her lip and said nothing.
I touched her chest, over her heart. “Chu Mi, are you angry?”
She froze. Her eyelids trembled, and the corner of her mouth seemed to lift into a smile, only to twist into a strange curve.
Like a calm sea suddenly whipped into waves, she abruptly shouted, “Why shouldn’t I be angry?!”
The window glass shattered at once.
“They never even saw me as their daughter!”
Her voice softened. “They… never even saw me as a person!”
I stood very close to her, close enough to see the blazing fire in her eyes.
“So your lingering attachment is revenge?”
But she suddenly choked back her pain. “No.”
“No… If that were it, things would be so much easier.”