They reached the top of the stairs as he finished speaking. The small door to the roof was locked, with only a weak sliver of light managing to filter through. Zhao Yunlan took a transit card from his breast pocket, thrust it into the lock, and gently turned it. The metal door, nearing the end of its life, creaked open. Holding his lighter aloft, Zhao Yunlan slowly walked through.
The roof of the eighteenth floor offered a wide view. Down on one side was Dragon City University’s greenery, like an old-growth forest; on the other was the heavy traffic of cars and people crowding the city’s main street.
At the roof’s edge stood a girl with her back to him.
Zhao Yunlan opened his mouth carefully. “Hey…”
He’d barely begun to speak when she suddenly, with no warning, climbed over the railing and jumped.
Out of sheer reflex, Zhao Yunlan lunged forward to grab her. By anyone’s standards, it was a swift response. He clearly managed to catch the back of her clothes, but his fingers went right through. Then she was gone, as if she’d been nothing but a mirage.
The cat bounced over like a rubber ball. “What is it? Was it human?”
“She was too fast.” Zhao Yunlan subconsciously rubbed his fingers together. “I didn’t have time to figure out whether she was…”
Zhao Yunlan had been born with his third eye open. Since childhood, he’d been able to see ghosts as plainly as he could humans, so a fleeting glance hadn’t been enough to tell him whether she was human or something else. Before the cat could speak again, there were hurried footsteps behind them. Zhao Yunlan turned and recognized the same girl, now walking slowly up to the roof, head down. Her features were too blurred to make out her expression.
This time, her pace quickened before he could get a single word out. She raced to the edge as if trying to beat the lunch rush to the cafeteria and flung herself over. Zhao Yunlan reached out and grabbed her shoulder, but the same thing happened again. His hand passed through her, and she vanished into thin air.
After that, it was like jumping to your death was the latest craze. Girl after girl, each one blurry-faced and rushing as if to get to the market, appeared and then dashed to leap from the roof. Zhao Yunlan made grabs for all of them, but not a single one was corporeal. Beads of sweat began appearing on his forehead.
At first, Daqing was at Zhao Yunlan’s side for each girl, but after the eighth jumper, the cat sat off to the side. His tail swished impatiently behind him, left to right, like a pendulum. “Give it up. These are either earthbound spirits or lingering consciousnesses from suicides here.”
Zhao Yunlan ignored the advice. He was strong in short bursts and had some martial arts training, so beating up the occasional thug wasn’t a problem. But overall, years of poor habits and a lack of exercise meant he wasn’t all that fit. After only a few rounds he was already a bit winded.
The black cat sighed. “One can be fooled once or twice, but not a third time. Eight times now and you still can’t tell she’s not human?”
“How do you know all eight are the same person? Can you prove there’s no human here but me? How do you know that when the next one runs out, we’ll still be in the same physical space as we were a moment ago? Will you be able to discern whether or not she’s human the moment she runs out? Remember, the third regulation is ‘Never assume.’ Or did you gobble that one up with your cat food?” Zhao Yunlan gave the cat a stern look.
The black cat, who was often annoying and rude, twitched his tail sheepishly. “Scolding me…?” he muttered. “This old cat’s lived for thousands of years, yet you dare act like a boss and scold me, you brat?”
Zhao Yunlan erupted. “If you don’t shut up, I’m taking away your cat food!”
Daqing was a cat who knew how to pick his battles. His tone changed at once. “Meow—”
Just then, a ninth jumper appeared. As soon as her face was visible, Zhao Yunlan yelled, “Miss, wait!”
But the girl turned a deaf ear. Like all the others before her, she hurled herself toward Mother Earth like an arrow shot from the bow.
“Fuck!” Once again, Zhao Yunlan’s hands closed on nothing. He slapped the icy-cold railing fiercely.
“Mm…” Daqing came closer and rested his front paws on the railing, sniffing carefully. “Actually, what you’re saying makes sense. Some earthbound spirits, like Aunt Xianglin10 relentlessly repeating her tales of woes, do reenact their deaths over and over again. But they’re usually not in such a rush to die.”
“Then what is it?” asked Zhao Yunlan.
“Resentment.” Daqing took on a solemn expression—no small feat for a cat with a face like a pancake. “Suicide is a type of death seen as defying fate. There’s a high chance that souls that die this way won’t enter the reincarnation cycle. Even worse, some souls become incomplete when crossing the chasm between life and death, yin and yang. That leaves them wandering the mortal world long after they’ve forgotten how they passed on—confused even in death.”
“Places where resentment is concentrated often make people feel uncomfortable, but can it actually hurt someone?” Zhao Yunlan asked. “I’ve never heard of a case like that.”
The cat paused. “No, I’ve never heard of that either. But resentment is caused by incomplete souls. Like will consume like, and once they’ve reached a certain amount of power, they can manifest physically. That’s why I suspected the girl we saw was a manifestation of resentment from the shards of countless suffering, devoured souls.”
“What can the physical form do?”
“Nothing, really. Resentment isn’t the same as evil. It’s not as aggressive. Anyone who can be misled or even hurt by resentment is often guilty of something to begin with,” said the cat. “But these ghosts don’t have the innate power to touch the victim’s body, let alone slice her open. There’s nothing to investigate here. Let’s leave.”
Zhao Yunlan hesitated.
The black cat sighed. “When you should have some shame, it’s like an alien concept for you; when you should be flexible, you’re stubborn. The Soul-Guarding Order has been passed down for millennia now. The regulations were reduced to nothing but a page of hollow words ages ago. Why do you keep clinging to them?”
“No, I still think—” Zhao Yunlan broke off. A tenth girl was approaching the roof.
Human and cat tensed at the same moment.
The girl’s eyes passed over them, unseeing, as she slowly made her way to the railing. Like the nine previous phantoms, she abruptly hoisted herself up onto the railing and jumped. But Zhao Yunlan, suspicious from the moment she appeared, made a lunge for her and got his arms around her waist. The sudden weight made the veins in the backs of his hands stand out. He’d caught a living, solid person.
Green eyes wide with shock, the cat leaped onto the railing.
Zhao Yunlan’s hold on the girl was precarious. He couldn’t bring all his strength to bear. In that position, holding on with only the strength of his arms, even a child would have felt heavy, never mind a grown adult. He had one leg jammed between the bars of the railing while the entire top half of his body dangled over.
Hanging below the railing, the girl suddenly seemed to wake up. With an ear-splitting shriek, she reflexively began struggling. Zhao Yunlan could only yell in her ear, “If you keep squirming, you’ll fall and there’ll be nothing left of you but a flat dried persimmon! Settle down!”
A loud snap came from the railing. Perhaps it hadn’t been repaired in years, or perhaps their weight was just too much for it, but regardless, it started to give way.
Zhao Yunlan seemed oblivious, still talking to the girl. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, just hang on—”
Another snap rang out, interrupting him, as the railing finally broke.
There was weird laughter by Zhao Yunlan’s ear, like the roof was mobbed with people—spectators indifferent to his plight. They cackled, enjoying the show.
“Meow!” Daqing yowled as if someone had stepped on his tail.
At that critical moment, as the railing fully collapsed, someone kicked the little door to the roof open. A figure rushed out in a blur of impossible speed.
Zhao Yunlan had managed to shift his weight to his heels and lean back. He wrenched himself around with the girl still in his arms and shoved her toward the new arrival—then he stepped wrong, his foot finding only empty air. One now-free hand found a grip on the ledge, leaving him hanging from the eighteen-story building.
Only then did Daqing finally recognize that it was Shen Wei who’d burst onto the scene, long after they’d thought he’d left.
Shen Wei immediately pushed the suicidal girl behind him, knelt, and grabbed the arm by which Zhao Yunlan was dangling. “Your other hand! Give me your other hand! Hurry!”