The CEO hadn't agreed at first. I let Chu Mi enter his dreams a few times, and in the end, he gave in.
The donation wasn't much, but Chu Mi's mother was still very happy. She warmly ushered me inside.
I looked around. It was just like my own dirt-poor home, so no wonder it had felt familiar the moment I walked in.
The only person missing was Chu Ninh.
I casually pretended to ask, “I heard Chu Mi had an older sister?”
Chu Mi's mother paused. “That child… was very close to her younger sister. After her sister died, she stopped seeing her, shut herself in her room, and wouldn't come out. It's been a week now, and she hasn't opened the door once.”
I ventured, “Could I go in and see her?”
Chu Mi's mother hesitated. “She… isn't like other children.”
I shook my head. “I know all about it. Chu Mi and I were pretty close.”
Chu Mi's mother stared blankly for a moment. “Really? Was she close to you? I'm so happy she had a friend.”
My breath caught, and I said nothing. I wasn't really her friend; Chu Mi's loneliness was the truth.
Chu Mi's mother opened Chu Ninh's bedroom door.
“After her sister was gone, I meant to teach her a few life skills, so she'd at least be able to get by after her father and I were gone. But now…”
Chu Ninh sat on a wooden chair beside the bed, using it as a table as she concentrated on drawing. Even when we came in, she didn't look up.
I went closer to look. Her drawing was clumsy, but I could just make out a girl in a dress, smiling brightly. The crooked lines made the red mouth look a little strange.
Not wanting to bother Chu Ninh, I asked her mother, “Why didn't you teach her life skills sooner?”
Chu Mi's mother paused, embarrassment showing on her face. She stammered, “Before… well, she had her sister…”
I was left speechless.
Why?
How could they have been so cruel to Chu Mi?
Chu Mi didn't react at all. It seemed she neither hated nor loved her mother anymore.
As if she could tell I was angry, she smiled and shook her head. “It's okay.”
I took a deep breath and forced a smile. “I'd like to talk to Ninh Ninh for a bit. Could you step outside?”
Chu Mi's mother looked a little puzzled, but agreed because of the money I'd brought.
After Chu Mi's mother left, I asked Chu Mi, “Is there anything you want to say to Chu Ninh?”
Chu Mi froze. “But she can't hear…”
“Possess my body.”
The Water Ghost suddenly appeared from the shadows. “No! Do you know how dangerous that is?”
Of course I knew.
If I didn't resist and let her possess me, then if she had even the slightest ill intent, I'd have little chance of fighting back.
But there was no other way. She hadn't been dead long, and simply maintaining her spirit form was difficult. Manifesting herself was almost unthinkable.
I smiled. “Trust me.”
The Water Ghost frowned at me, but in the end, said nothing more.
A soul left its body.
Chu Mi possessed my body.
Using my body, she slowly walked over to Chu Ninh and crouched down. In a soft voice, she asked, “The girl in your picture is wearing a dress. Is it the princess dress? The one your older sister gave her little sister?”
Chu Ninh stopped drawing and looked up, bewildered. “How do you know? Who are you?”
“Who do you think?”
Chu Ninh tilted her head and looked at the person in front of her.
They say that although people like her have limited intellectual abilities, they have a strong capacity to sense emotions.
I thought perhaps we simply saw the world differently. In that other world, Chu Ninh could see Chu Mi inside my body.
Suddenly, she threw her arms around Chu Mi and sobbed. “Little sister, little sister, where did you go? Don't you want me anymore? I'll be good. Please don't hate me, okay?”
Chu Mi was stunned. She'd always thought she'd hidden her hatred well, at least well enough that Chu Ninh couldn't notice. But Chu Ninh seemed to have always known.
Chu Mi hugged her back. “I just went somewhere very far away. When you grow up and become an adult, we'll definitely see each other again.”
The resentment in Chu Mi's eyes melted away, leaving them gentle and clear. “So, big sister, listen to Mom and Dad. Learn to do a few things and learn to live on your own, okay?”
Chu Ninh sobbed heartbrokenly. “No, I want you. I want you.”
Chu Mi gently patted her sister's back. “But, big sister, I'm tired too.”
When Chu Ninh realized that crying wouldn't make her sister give in, her voice grew softer. “Then I'll do things myself. You can stay with me, and you won't get tired. I'll try hard to learn to do things on my own.”
Chu Mi wiped her sister's tears and smiled freely. “No, I have to be a child too. And you have to learn to grow up a little more.”
“Goodbye, big sister.”
Right after that, she left my body without a trace of reluctance. The gloom had lifted from her face, and her smile was a little more open. “Thank you.”
“If you can, please visit her from time to time. Of course, it's okay if you don't.”
A golden light flashed, and her voice grew faint. “Thank you so, so much. You're a very, very good person.”
In the blink of an eye, her figure dissolved.
As if she sensed something, Chu Ninh stopped crying.
The whole room suddenly fell silent.
Only a sigh remained.
13
On the way back, the Water Ghost asked me, “Why?”
I knew what he meant. Why take such a huge risk? Why go to so much trouble? Why go this far?
I stopped and turned to look at him, my expression serious. “Because I want to be a really good person. Because someone once told me I'd grown into a really good person. And besides, Chu Mi… I've always felt that if I'd cared about her a little and been her friend, even if I couldn't have kept her from dying, at least I could have made her life a little easier.”
The Water Ghost shook his head. “It wasn't your fault.”
I sighed. “I know. I just feel like I could have done more.”
The Water Ghost frowned and, after a long while, finally said, “When you're poor, keep yourself pure; when you're rich, help the world. You, right now…”
I was truly at a loss. Was he calling me poor?!
I snapped, “You really got lucky dying young. You've never had to work a day in your life, have you?!”
The Water Ghost: “...Yeah.”
“I'll perform a rite to send you on your way and get you reincarnated right now. Let's see if you're really so honest!”
“...I just don't want you to risk your life. You should live well.”
He spoke with utter sincerity and solemnity.
As if my being alive truly mattered a great deal to him.
I opened my mouth, then suddenly asked him, “Water Ghost, don't you want to be reincarnated?”
14
The Water Ghost had been by my side for over five months, yet he'd never once brought up his own affairs.
He wasn't like the other ghosts who gathered around me.
He seemed to want nothing from me. But through countless nights, he curled up beside me.
I heard him murmur unconsciously in pain, “So cold, so cold.”
When a ghost dies in water and remains in this world, its soul must endure the agony of sinking and rising in icy water again and again.
How could it not suffer?
Could it be he was too embarrassed to ask me?
Then I’d just have to ask him myself.
But to my surprise, the Water Ghost answered bluntly, “Yeah. I don’t want to.”
…
“Why?”
The Water Ghost curled back into the darkness.
I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then… I suddenly heard his voice, so faint I could barely make it out. “I can’t forgive them.”
I found it even stranger. “You’ve been dead for years, and the evil energy around you is the heaviest I’ve ever seen. You’re carrying such deep resentment. But you never chose to take revenge on them.”
“I’ve never even seen you show signs of losing control of your evil energy.”
The Water Ghost was silent for a long time before finally speaking. “If I harm people, I’ll become a vengeful ghost and lose my chance to be reborn as a human. But I promised my mother that I’d still be her son in my next life.”
I paused for a moment. “So you plan to drift through this world forever? Your evil energy will keep growing. One day, you won’t be able to control it anymore.”
The Water Ghost fell silent for a while.
“If it really comes to that, just cut me down.”
His words suddenly irritated me.
“But doesn’t it hurt, drifting around like this?”
He slowly emerged from the darkness within my shadow.
He stood just inches away from me.
“It hurts. But since you came along, it doesn’t hurt as much.”
15
No amount of persuasion could convince a ghost who refused to be reincarnated.
Everyone has their own path.
I stopped trying to persuade him and just asked, “If there are other things you don’t want to talk about, I won’t ask. I just want to know—what’s your name?”
Curled up in the darkness, he looked at me in silence, his crow-black lashes beaded with tiny drops of water.
His gaze made me feel a little awkward.
“I mean, we’ve known each other for so long, and… and I guess we could call each other friends by now. Friends should know each other’s names, right?”
The Water Ghost’s voice was a little hoarse. “Tạ Hành.”
—END—