SUN FUSHENG
Chapter 01
The old man surnamed Sun who lived upstairs jumped to his death in winter.
When he died, Chen Huai was squatting outside brushing his teeth. When the old man fell, Chen Huai still had a mouthful of foam, and then he heard a heavy thud, like the sound of internal organs smashing apart. The old man’s wrinkled white undershirt, washed so many times it had lost its shape, lay soaking in a pool of blood. Warm blood melted the icy snow, red spreading over white.
Chen Huai did not scream. He choked, swallowed every bit of toothpaste foam in his mouth, set the enamel cup on the ground, pulled open the creaking old door of his rented room, and slipped inside sideways.
As he walked toward the bed, he heard the old woman next door begin shouting at the top of her lungs. Chen Huai paused with his hand outstretched, then turned back and walked over to the window. The neighbor was already using an elderly person’s phone, the kind that looked like an old PHS handset, to call 120.
If Chen Huai remembered correctly, this should have been the third person to die this year.
This was the oldest building in the area with the cheapest rent. Most of its tenants were elderly people living alone, and there were quite a few solitary deaths. The cleanup crews came several times a year.
After going inside, Chen Huai rinsed his mouth again, washing away all the toothpaste foam. As he listened to the murmuring discussions outside, something suddenly struck him on the forehead. He raised his eyes toward the ceiling and discovered that another piece of plaster had fallen off. After hitting his head, it drifted across the surface of the water in the washbasin.
A crowd had gathered outside. Most of them were clicking their tongues and gossiping. Very few were genuinely mourning the old man who had died.
Chen Huai put on a new down jacket he had bought on sale and laid out on the bed beforehand, pulled the zipper all the way to the top, then went back to the window beside the building entrance. The crowd had completely surrounded Sun Fusheng’s body. He stood at the window in a daze for a while before finally withdrawing his gaze. In those brief few seconds, no one knew what he was thinking.
Only Chen Huai himself knew that, in that moment, he had been hesitating over whether to change the date of his death and help Old Man Sun take care of his funeral arrangements first. After all, he had eaten a few of the old man’s steamed buns.
The next second, he decided against it. The community workers would take care of the old man’s affairs sooner or later. He and Old Man Sun were neither relatives nor friends, so why wade into this mess? He should just follow his plan and quietly die today. By the time his body was discovered, Old Man Sun’s affairs should probably have been dealt with too. The timing would be nicely staggered.
Inside the wardrobe was a thick hemp rope he had bought from a hardware store, more than sturdy enough to hang a person.
Chen Huai was very superstitious. He had even tucked a spray-painted golden turtle into the pocket of his down jacket, hoping it might bring him a little wealth in his next life.
Everything was ready. He had positioned the stool, took one last look at the beam on the ceiling, then, in one decisive motion, pulled open the wardrobe and lowered his gaze, only to freeze.
A blue thing, like a clump of dyed dandelion fluff, looking light and soft and loose, something like ghostly will-o'-the-wisp, floated out of his damp-smelling wardrobe.
The ghost wailed mournfully, “I am a melancholy blue corpse~ I am a melancholy blue corpse~”
Chen Huai stood where he was without so much as moving an eyebrow, merely lifting his eyelids.
Maybe he had not slept well last night.
He was seeing ghosts.
Seeing that he remained unmoved, the blue ghost flame began swaying the little flame on top of its head even more vigorously. It seemed to leap a little higher, like steam rising from a pot.
“You can’t see me?” it said.
Chen Huai searched the wardrobe for the rope he had bought, most of his body buried inside it. The smell of dampness was strong. He began to suspect that the wooden wardrobe was so damp it was no wonder it had grown some filthy blue thing. So people really did see all kinds of bizarre hallucinations before they died. But he had not even hanged himself yet, so how had he already reached the stage where his life was flashing before his eyes?
As he searched, he lazily answered the ghost flame, “Who are you?”
“A melancholy blue corpse.”
“Oh. Don’t know you. You’ve got the wrong person. Leave my house. Thanks for your cooperation.”
The ghost flame ground its teeth and began threatening him. “You’ve been chosen by me. You need to help me fulfill a wish, or you’ll end up just like that old man who died!”
Chen Huai could not find his rope anywhere in the wardrobe. He began to suspect the little thing had swallowed it. Turning around, he glanced at it, both hands tucked into the pockets of his down jacket. His icy hands had warmed a little against his own body heat.
Then he suddenly laughed, his eyes curving. “You threatened the wrong person. If you hadn’t come here to get in the way, I’d have already died exactly as I wanted.”
Ordinarily, a normal person would panic at the sight of something supernatural like this. Chen Huai, however, did not look surprised in the slightest, as though things like this had happened countless times before.
The ghost flame floated silently before him for a while. A trace of blue light reflected in Chen Huai’s pitch-black pupils. Outside, the sound of an ambulance drowned out the birdsong. The wide vehicle struggled and trembled as it squeezed into the narrow, run-down alley, but that worthless life had long since passed any hope of being saved.
Amid all that noise, one man and one ghost silently stared at each other for two seconds. The ghost did not even have a physical body, much less eyes.
Chen Huai lowered his gaze and said calmly, “Your luck as a ghost is pretty bad too, finding someone like me. I never planned to live in the first place. Why don’t you sneak into someone else’s wardrobe instead? I can tell you which household has the kindest people.”
It suddenly said something completely inexplicable.
“You’re the kindest person I found.”
Chen Huai lifted the corner of his mouth, though he had no desire to smile. “Are you blind?”
The ghost began circling around as it counted them off.
“Half a year ago, a lame cat came to your door to hide in the shade. You bathed it and fed it, put it in the basket of your bicycle, and rode for an hour to take it to a rescue center.”
“Three months ago, Granny Zhou, who lived at the end of the first floor, died alone in her home. Granny Zhou had no family. You carved a wooden memorial tablet for her, burned incense, and kowtowed to her.”
Chen Huai stared fixedly at it. His expression fell silent, his eyes utterly still. In the end, he did not say a single word.
The ghost continued, “Old Man Sun, who jumped to his death today, used to occasionally call you over to his home for meals back when he wasn’t confused yet. Last night, you put 1,523 yuan and 50 cents on his windowsill. You left all the money you had to him, then planned to die cleanly today.”
In the rented room, barely more than ten square meters, only two windows the size of a person’s head let any light into the lifeless space. On the little table beneath the windows sat a stove that had barely been used, right beside the sink.
The cramped room, so small that even breathing could not conceal the sound of another person breathing, fell quiet.
Chen Huai shut the wardrobe door and turned around. “I didn’t know I was such a good person.”
“You ran into the room before you’d even finished brushing your teeth because you wanted to get the phone from your down jacket pocket and call an ambulance. Someone was just faster than you.”
Chen Huai’s movements stalled for a moment, the guilty unease of having his thoughts seen through rising in him. He looked away and gave a derisive laugh. “What would a ghost know about the human heart?”
The blue flame swayed a few times. “Why can’t a ghost understand the human heart?”
It floated toward Chen Huai, hopping up and down on his shoulder. Blue afterimages kept flashing before his eyes, and he caught the faint fragrance of magnolia. He was dazed for two seconds before hearing its voice again.
“I know everything about you.”
The ghost flame drifted downward. Chen Huai pulled out his hand and caught it. It was like a clump of blue feathers falling into his palm, so light it had no weight at all.
“Chen Huai, don’t doubt me.” It settled into his warm palm. “I came to save you.”
A few loud knocks sounded against the door. Someone outside had begun pounding on it. Chen Huai came back to himself and looked toward the door, where several shifting silhouettes appeared against the mottled window.
“Were you outside watching when the old man jumped just now? The police are here. They want to ask you what happened.”
The voice interrupted the strange conversation between Chen Huai and the ghost flame. Chen Huai had only just blinked when he opened both hands, and the little flame dropped from his palm. It wobbled a few times, then struggled hard to float back up, like some clumsy, heavy bird.
Chen Huai walked toward the front door. He first glanced outside through the window, then pulled it open. A dark mass of people had gathered outside, their gazes converging on him.
Cold wind rushed into the room all at once. Without the slightest concern for being seen, the ghost flame floated onto Chen Huai’s shoulder. The expressions of the people outside did not change, and it seemed none of them could see it.
The first person to start shouting for people earlier had been Chen Huai’s neighbor. He did not even know her surname. He only knew that she liked wearing brightly colored clothes, standing amid the ice and snow like a flower.
There were also several people in police uniforms, who seemed to have only just arrived. They squeezed their way over and asked him a few questions, such as what time the old man had jumped, what Chen Huai had been doing at the time, and whether there had been anyone else upstairs besides Old Man Sun.
Chen Huai looked calm, his tone equally flat. “There was no one upstairs. He was very old and had dementia. A lot of people knew about it.”
The officer nodded vaguely a few times, then asked whether Old Man Sun had any acquaintances here, whether he had always lived alone. Chen Huai did not answer. Someone beside him answered for him instead.
“There, there, that kid right next to you. He used to go over to Old Man Sun’s place to eat all the time. He’s the one who knew the old man who jumped best.”
Chen Huai still said nothing. The police officer looked him over a few times and said, “All right. Come to the station and give a statement.”
He got into the police car, and the ghost flame was still perched on his shoulder, like a piece of gum he could not shake off. It was talkative, too.
“I bet you wanted to roll your eyes and curse him just now. Old Man Sun clearly had his own biological grandson, so why did they have to drag you, his fake grandson, into things when they wanted to know about him?”
Chen Huai glanced sideways at it. Since he could hardly start talking to himself for no reason in a police car, he simply ignored it.
It, however, would not let up.
“You’re thinking again about when this hallucination is going to disappear. You must have gone crazy.”
The car was quiet. The police officer in the passenger seat made small talk with him and asked how he had come to know Old Man Sun.
Chen Huai answered bluntly, “I was so poor before I was practically starving to death. He gave me a few steamed buns. I saw that he was easy to fool, so I kept going to his house to eat. The old man couldn’t recognize people anymore and mistook me for his grandson.”
“You don’t look that old yourself. How did you end up that poor? Where are your parents?”
“Dead.”
“All of them?”
“More or less.”
The police officer clicked his tongue, then began talking to him about government policies, saying that orphans like him could apply for all kinds of assistance, go to college properly, and even make some contribution to society.
The tires carved tracks through the thick snow, and Chen Huai’s body swayed with the movement of the car. He could not take any of it in. Turning his head, he rolled the window halfway down. The piercing wind slipped into his nose and mouth. Chen Huai narrowed his eyes and took a breath.
The ghost flame hid farther behind him and said resentfully, “Seriously... you’re going to blow me out.”
Then it began making a suggestion.
“Chen Huai, after you finish giving your statement, go to Old Man Sun’s place one more time.”
Chen Huai looked at it silently.
The ghost flame began explaining, “Take back the money you left on the windowsill. And of course, more importantly, Old Man Sun has a diary of mine from when I was alive. I need to get it back.”
He turned his gaze away, felt around in the pocket of his down jacket, then took out his phone and typed:
【I never said I’d help you. You’re on your own.】
Even though he said that, Chen Huai still rolled the window back up.
It was not because he pitied it that much. After all, he had known this ghost thing for less than two hours.
It was only that, at that moment, Chen Huai watched the streetscape flashing past outside the window and thought, if he had successfully died just now, would he have become a weightless flame of soul like this too?
Was Sun Fusheng the same?
Like this little blue thing, he had lived, and then died.
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