Jin San remained still, not daring to move. There was no sound, not a single noise in the air. His heart was trembling, and it trembled more and more violently. He could clearly feel his legs shaking uncontrolbly. He wasn′t sure if she was human or a ghost, and he wasn't certain how much longer he could hold on, but he was waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to make the first sound.

  The voice never returned, and the woman seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Disappeared into thin air! Could she really be a ghost? Could there really be ghosts? Jin San, panicked, reached out behind him, trying to find something to hold on to.

  Just then, a cold hand gripped his.

  "Does your wife's hand feel nice?" A chilling, terrifying ugh echoed from behind Jin San. With a scream, he bolted forward, crashing into the wall. A sticky, wet substance began to drip from his nose, accompanied by a strong smell of blood. Jin San didn't care about that anymore. He shouted into the darkness, "Are you human or a ghost? What do you want from me?"

  "Husband, don't you recognize me?" The woman's voice suddenly turned soft and filled with longing.

  "I... I′m not your husband! I'm not! I'm Jin San, not Bao Mu!" Jin San yelled hoarsely, his voice straining with desperation.

  "Husband, have you really forgotten Yin'er? I′ve been thinking about you all the time," the woman′s voice became so tender it made his bones feel weak—unfortunately, Jin San's bones were already feeling soft.

  "What Yin'er... I don't even know you... I'm really not your husband!" Jin San felt the urge to cry. He suddenly realized that some things couldn't be expined away just by wanting to, and not everything could be crified in a way that others would believe.

  "You really are a heartless man. Once Yin'er died, you completely forgot about me! You ungrateful wretch!" The woman's voice suddenly became filled with grief and anger.

  "Dead? You're Yin'er?" Jin San's voice cracked as he spoke, disbelief cing his words.

  "Husband, of course I am Yin'er."

  "You said Yin'er is dead?" Jin San could barely hear his own voice over the pounding in his head.

  "Yes, Yin'er is dead."

  "Ghost!" Jin San screamed as he bolted out of the back hall. Though his body was bruised in multiple pces from the collisions, and his skin ached from the impact, none of that mattered to him now. The most important thing was to escape—he had to run, he had to get away!

  The street was empty, just like during the day, as if no one had ever lived in Chánchú City. It was eerily quiet, unnervingly still, and overwhelmingly silent. Jin San was panting heavily as he trudged forward with heavy steps. A bothersome stone appeared beneath his feet, and before he knew it, he tripped over it, falling ft onto the ground. His body hit the dirt with a hard "thud." The sound was jarring in the unnaturally still night. Normally, someone would have run out to curse, or at least someone would have come to check what had happened, or perhaps a passerby would have been here.

  Unfortunately, all those usual things that should have happened tonight did not.

  Jin San gritted his teeth, enduring the pain as he sat up. The torn skin revealed strands of red blood, and a few drops of blood dripped down his damaged pants, falling obediently to the ground. He spat fiercely onto the ground. "This is fucking unbelievable. All the bad luck in the world seems to be falling on me, Jin San!"

  At that moment, a dry leaf fluttered down and nded on his arm. Jin San shook his sleeve and flicked it to the ground in annoyance. Another dry leaf floated down, and with irritation, Jin San lifted his head to look up.

  The tree stood in the yard, and the yard's wall was about the height of a person. The door to the yard was a rge, pitch-bck wooden sb. A wooden sb? Doors are supposed to have gaps, which means they should consist of two pieces of wood that can be pushed open. But this door was just one solid piece, smooth and glossy bck. Jin San stood up and walked toward this strange door, reaching out to push it with all his might. But the door didn’t budge—it was firmly fixed in pce. Jin San looked around, and, just like before, no one was in sight. He gathered all his strength and kicked the wooden door with a forceful blow. But the door remained immovable, while Jin San, in pain, grabbed his foot and cried out in agony.

  "Bao Mu, what are you messing around with in the middle of the night!" Jin San was startled by the sudden voice, jumping nearly three feet in the air.

  "Ah, Bao Mu, you really have some guts, huh! Still acting crazy?" Jin San finally recognized the speaker—it was that Boss Mo from earlier who had threatened to kill him.

  Jin San quickly took several steps back, maintaining what he thought was a safe distance from Boss Mo. "What do you want? I haven't wronged you; you're not really pnning to kill me again, are you?"

  "Hmph, if you haven't offended me, why would I kill you? You know the rules of my shop, yet you still cause trouble! Look at you, scared out of your wits!" Boss Mo put her hands on her hips and shot Jin San a disdainful look.

  "Good thing you're not going to kill me. I'm not Bao Mu, so how would I know the rules?" Jin San lowered the hand he had been guarding his chest with and let out a sigh of relief.

  "Of course you wouldn't know! I don't open my shop on the first day of every month to honor my dead husband! Looks like you're really gone mad!" Boss Mo scolded, but with a chuckle.

  Jin San lowered his head and didn′t reply. He hadn't expected that the fierce-looking Boss Mo was actually someone with sentimental feelings.

  Boss Mo sized Jin San up, then couldn't help but ugh. "Look at you! You look like a mess! Like a little bastard!"

  Jin San felt a wave of disgust at her words, so he ignored them and casually asked, "Why is this door made of one solid piece of wood? Doesn't it open?"

  Boss Mo's face turned pale in an instant. She gave Jin San a cold, piercing gre. "Bao Mu, are you pretending, or have you lost your mind again?"

  "I…" Jin San couldn′t make sense of why everyone he met kept calling him crazy. Was the real Bao Mu really a madman?

  "It's getting te. You should go rest," Boss Mo said irritably. She touched her face, then gnced sideways at the bck, oily door before quickly turning and leaving.

  "Stupid woman! A woman like her deserves to be chopped to pieces by her own knife!" Jin San spat, cursing viciously under his breath. He truly hated women like her with all his heart.

  Jin San looked up at the wooden door again. It was indeed a strange pce, but unfortunately, he hadn't learned anything about the door from Boss Mo. Perhaps it was just an ordinary door after all. The night had deepened, and Jin San could feel his eyelids growing heavy. He sat down on the steps in front of the wooden door.

  He didn't dare go back home; perhaps the ghost was still waiting for him. So, he decided to spend the night here. Jin San was too exhausted, and soon, he drifted into a deep sleep. In the distance, he seemed to hear the familiar sound of a rattle…

  Boss Mo vigorously wiped her beloved kitchen knife, muttering curses under her breath. "That damn Bao Mu, knowing full well that I take a day off every month, he still came to bring bad luck. I should've just chopped him up today, that fool pretending to be crazy!"

  "Boss, I'm done," the young waiter said, his pale face looking even more drained.

  "Go rest in your room," Boss Mo replied reluctantly. As the young man disappeared up the stairs, she sniffed and muttered under her breath, clearly irritated, "All he does is so little work, and yet I'm still paying him. My money really is wasted on this guy."

  With a sharp motion, she smmed the kitchen knife down onto the chopping board, causing a few wilted leaves to fall onto the floor. Grumbling, she bent down to pick up the fallen vegetables, her mood clearly sour.

  A pair of beautiful three-inch golden lotuses caught Boss Mo's eye. They were exquisitely embroidered shoes, with white satin uppers, each adorned with a blood-red Chánchú.

  Toad—Chánchú! Boss Mo was startled, her eyes widening in terror, her heart racing as if it had leapt into her throat.

  "Something's wrong! Something's happened!"

  "Everyone, come out!"

  "There's a big problem!"

  "Boss Mo is dead!"

  Suddenly, a loud commotion erupted outside, and the voices blended into one shrill cry that seemed to pierce through the morning air.

  Jin San was jolted awake, his heart pounding. He vaguely remembered hearing something before he fell asleep, but couldn't quite grasp what it was. Rubbing his eyes, he realized the sky had brightened. Stretching zily, he tried to shake off the unsettling feeling from his dream.

  "Bao Mu, what are you doing here?" Bai Donggua didn't know when he had already arrived next to Jin San.

  "Oh, it's you. Did something happen? I thought I heard someone shouting," Jin San asked casually while yawning.

  "Boss Mo is dead." Bai Donggua's voice was very low, but just loud enough for Jin San to hear.

  "What?" Jin San suspected that his ears were ringing, so he asked again.

  "You'll know if you go take a look." Bai Donggua reluctantly added.

  "Ah?" Jin San still thought his ears were ringing, but he had already decided to go take a look.

  After Jin San left, Bai Donggua looked at the wooden door. He could clearly feel his hands sweating, so he immediately left without looking back.

  Boss Mo was sitting upright on one of the stools in his restaurant. Jin San remembered that he had sat on that stool before. However, when he sat there, he was still alive. Now, Boss Mo had indeed become a dead man. The kitchen knife that had almost cut Jin San before was now seamlessly embedded in Boss Mo's neck.

  Jin San quickly covered his mouth; Boss Mo was dead, killed by his own cleaver, just as he had cursed yesterday.

  A pair of three-inch golden lotus shoes y obediently in Boss Mo's hand, which was covered in hair, the blood-red shoes gleaming as if alive, causing all the onlookers to scream.

  It was just a pair of three-inch golden lotus shoes, quite ordinary except for their unique pattern, but Jin San couldn't understand why everyone was so terrified when they saw the shoes.

  Boss Mo just died like that, and Jin San still hasn't come to his senses from the shock. He still can't believe what his eyes have seen.

  The screams have stopped, but Jin San can still feel the terror in their hearts.

  "What happened?" Jin San was the first to ask, not even knowing who he was asking.

  No one paid attention to Jin San's question.