I was an orphan. No parents. No relatives. The police couldn’t find anyone else to claim my body. In the end, it was Yichen who signed the papers, Yichen who stood in that freezing morgue peeling back the sheet from my corpse.
He didn’t cry. Not once.
Instead, he touched my nose lightly with his finger and whispered, almost amused,
"I wonder if you think this end was worth it."
Even then, so calm. Too calm.
He told the officers everything about me, my favorite color, my profession, the star shaped birthmark on my hand. With every word, he revealed how deeply he had memorized me, even as he denied ever being serious about us.
And still, he never came to my funeral. He never once stood over my coffin. He was too busy starting up his new company.
"You’re the most extravagant man alive," I whispered later, when he burned me a Prada dress without blinking. "But I guess that’s what I loved most about you."
"Still," I told him one evening as he lit the fire basin, "no one has ever cleaned my grave."
"I paid people to," he muttered.
I rolled my eyes. "You should’ve just burned me the money. I could’ve swept it clean in one breeze."
His lips twisted. "Fine. I’ll burn more later."
I stamped my foot. "Three years. Aren’t you even curious if I’ve changed? Maybe I aged. Maybe I look different."
He actually smiled. "You’ll never change. You’ll always be twenty-five."
And in that instant, his words made the silence unbearable. Because he was right.
I’ll never be twenty-six.
The day after I died would have been my birthday. But my life froze that night with blood on the pavement.
He broke the silence with a question.
"What’s it like? On the other side?"
"Lonely," I said. "A man tried hitting on me once. For a moment, I almost said yes. Then he drank the soup, forgot me, and left. Typical."
He laughed softly. "So you’re sneaking around behind my back."
"And you never brought only me home either."
We sparred like that, ghost and mortal, two halves of a ruined love story, trapped together beyond time.
But when the news alert chimed that night, his smirk died.
"Three-year sentence completed. Assault convict released."
The photo stole my breath. A clean-faced man in an orange uniform, cigarette at his lips.
The man who had killed me.
My hands shook. I hid my fear with a wave, voice airy.
"See you, roommate. A girl’s gotta run sometimes. Even dead girls."
Without waiting for Yichen’s reply, I vanished into the dark.
Haunting Yichen drained me. Ghosts don’t float without cost we burn through what little energy sustains us. After lingering too long, I always had to crawl back into the soil of my grave, to rest where my ashes lay locked inside that cold urn.
Almost every day, I saw Old Man Huang, who swept fallen leaves from the graves and rambled endlessly about his romance with the cafeteria widow. Eavesdropping on him was torture if purgatory had café chatter, it would be exactly that.
I never told Yichen. He avoided cemeteries altogether and would never understand. So I let Old Man Huang ramble. He was the only living person who regularly spoke to me. Taking that away would have been worse than silence.
At night, I sometimes shared leftover offerings with my ghost-sister, Chen Ruyan. She had been my neighbor in life and became my neighbor in death, claimed by cancer years before me.
One fog-heavy night, while nibbling a mooncake, she nudged me.
"Su Mei, why haven’t you reincarnated yet?"
I shook my head, chewing on rice cake. "Not ready."
"You’re clinging. Why?"
"You haven’t reincarnated either," I shot back.
Ruyan laughed, brittle. "That’s because I’m watching that bastard of mine twist in the arms of his so called true love. It’s hilarious."
I smirked despite myself. Her ex only realized he loved her after she died. Typical man discovering truth when it’s too late.
"Okay, but you don’t tell me you’re just hanging around to watch those men who killed you get what’s coming?" she asked.
"No," I said flatly. "Powerful men never get punished. Their pawns rot in prison while they walk free. Evil men live long lives. Heaven’s unfair."
The wind carried my voice through the silent cemetery.
"It’s not about them. I stay for only one person."
To be sure Yichen wouldn’t break his word, I hurried back to his apartment.
He was home that day, not at work. Dressed simply white T-shirt, gray sweatpants but somehow he made simplicity sinful. At thirty-one, he hadn’t aged a day. His beauty was maddening: sharp cheekbones, that languid posture that could unravel any woman.
When I drifted in, he was on the phone. Her voice, sweet like rock sugar melted in pear water, spilled through the receiver.
"So, what kind of flowers would you like this time? I’ll keep the freshest ones," the flower shop girl said brightly.
"And actually, I’d recommend lilies for indoors," she added nervously, "though the flower language isn’t exactly... I miss you."
Yichen cut her off. His voice was stripped of feeling. "Not for the house. I need them for the cemetery."
There was a silence. The girl faltered, flustered. He only murmured a soft apology and asked instead for jasmine.
My heart clenched. Jasmine, pure, white, delicate.
I brushed my fingertips over his cheek. His skin was warm.
Then I forced myself to smirk, fluffing my hair, leaning on the window like an old flame in a seedy romance. I whistled.
"Hey, handsome. You all alone in here?"
Yichen tipped his head lazily, lips curving into that slow, devastating grin.
"Yeah. But my wife will be back soon. Better hurry, sweetheart."
I laughed and slid the strap of my blouse off my shoulder, swaying with feigned sultriness.
"Then quick unless you want her to catch us."
He closed his eyes, still smiling. "Stop messing with me, Su Mei."
I dropped the act and sat beside him. "Promise me you’ll go to the cemetery tomorrow."
A long hum. "Maybe."
"Not maybe, Yichen. Absolutely."
He leaned back, jawline sharp beneath the dim lamp. His Adam’s apple moved as he exhaled before he answered at last:
"Fine. Absolutely."
It was enough.
I whispered, "Yichen, do you love me?"
He replied without pause. "No."
The silence cut through me like a knife.
But then his voice cracked, raw and trembling beneath his calm.
"Su Mei, you can ask me again. Ask me as many times as you want."
Chapter 02
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