Second type of death

Chapter 10

I walked briskly along the street, passing two intersections, and finally arrived at a bustling street. The neon lights and the constant flow of people, which used to bore me, now seemed strangely welcoming. I looked around the street; the teahouses and coffee shops seemed too quiet, their dim lighting not what I needed. What I needed were lively and gaudy places like KFC and McDonald's, because there were so many vibrant people there.

Seeing people like that always inspires me.

At KFC, I stared at the menu for a long time, realizing that any one item would cost me several meals. I almost wanted to leave, but at that moment I desperately needed the lively atmosphere of the place, so I gritted my teeth and bought a sundae and some fries. The moment I paid, I thought about how I would have to be extremely frugal for the next few meals, and I almost reached out to take the money back—but the aroma of the sundae made me pick up the tray involuntarily, inwardly cursing myself for lacking willpower—anyway, this would be my dinner for today, even though it was only a little past 4 pm, far from dinnertime.

Sitting by the window, I ate my chocolate sundae while slowly reflecting on everything that had happened that day. Now I finally dared to think about these things. After my conversation with Li Yuntong, my heart had been filled with fear. Under that melancholic sky, I dared not think about these things, afraid that the gloomy scenery of Yunsheng Street would amplify the horror of the events. The lights inside KFC were bright, students and young people chatted loudly, and people hurried past the large glass walls. Even with those thoughts swirling in my mind, I no longer felt any fear.

No matter how hard I tried to think about it, I couldn't understand what had happened. Finally, I freed my mind from these terrible things and focused on enjoying the delicious food in front of me.

12

By the time I returned to No. 6 Yunsheng Street, it was almost completely dark. Raindrops pattered intermittently in the darkness, creating a world both shimmering and shrouded in darkness. The lights along Yunsheng Street flickered on like fireflies at sea, making the street appear as a ship adrift in the night, the darkness like turbulent waves, as if the ship was about to sink. The sudden transition from the bustling street behind me to this silence felt abrupt; my feet seemed to lack solid ground, and it took me a while to adjust to the darkness.

There's a light in room 302. Who could it be? Meng Ling? Or Xu Xiaobing? I so wish it were a warm light, with a friendly person under it. But now, that light feels colder than the darkness. It means I have to face someone I don't trust, someone I don't even know, or even something inhuman.

I stood on the street for a long time, my courage rising and falling, while my fear steadily increased.

What if it really is Meng Ling waiting for me there? Who knows who Meng Ling really is?

I stood in the darkness for who knows how long. The courage I had built up at KFC was slowly being depleted. What filled my heart was not only fear, but also resentment. I thought of the people at KFC who were about my age and seemed carefree. I was carefree too, so why did I have to go through this?

Why did I have to go through this? It's so unfair. I looked up at the sky silently, but the sky was invisible; darkness concealed everything.

The temperature was dropping, and the damp, chilly air was almost unbearable. Regardless of my fears, at this moment, I had nowhere else to go but room 302, with its single, cold light shining through—standing on the street for too long would definitely catch a cold, and catching a cold at this time of year would be a truly miserable experience. Reluctantly, I turned on my flashlight and slowly went upstairs. The green light in the second-floor room had disappeared, which was strange. I shone the flashlight around, and the door was still ajar, but the room was completely dark, without a single ray of light.

What a strange building. I walked up from the first floor to the third floor without hearing the neighbors talking. Although the lights were on in their rooms, it was so quiet that it seemed like no one lived there.

The only room making noise was my room, 302. I could hear the steam hissing from the rice cooker and the clinking of vegetables coming out of the door. I tried to be as quiet as possible, carefully inserting the key into the lock, turning it quickly, and then suddenly pushing the door open.

The chopping sound stopped. Xu Xiaobing turned around in the kitchen and looked at me, holding a cleaver in one hand and half a lettuce head in the other, staring at me in surprise. I quickly scanned the living room but didn't see anyone else.

"Where did you go?" Xu Xiaobing asked me.

I ignored her and quickly searched the entire house, including Xu Xiaobing's room—but still found no one else.

"Are you looking for Meng Ling?" Xu Xiaobing put down what she was holding, wiped her hands on her apron, and slowly walked towards me.

If Xu Xiaobing's expression weren't like this, if she were still as fearful and pale as she was at Grandma Li's house, perhaps I would believe she hadn't lied to me. After what happened that afternoon, I was already inclined to believe she hadn't lied. However, apart from being slightly pale, she was very calm, showing almost no sign of guilt. There was even a certain confidence in her sharply drawn eyebrows, which immediately made me start to doubt her again. Once this doubt arose, it swelled like fermentation, and anger accompanied the doubt once more.

"What exactly do you want?" I thought I could deliver a righteous and stern rebuke, but what came out of my mouth sounded more like aggrieved, which made my face suddenly burn, and I silently berated myself for being useless.

"What did you say?" Xu Xiaobing asked, maintaining her calm tone. "You mean me and Meng Ling?"

"I don't care why you did this," I said, trying my best to keep my voice from trembling—it always trembles violently when I get excited, and it was no exception now, no matter how hard I tried, it still shook in a jagged wave. "What you're doing is disgusting, and I will definitely find out the truth. Although I am indeed very naive and lack social experience, I am not afraid of despicable people like you!" Although these words were spoken in a trembling voice, they made me feel very satisfied, filled with a sense of justice. However, deep down, I knew that most of these words were false; at least I was genuinely afraid.

Xu Xiaobing seemed somewhat helpless. She walked to the sofa and beckoned to me, "Come and take a look at this."

"What?" I asked, maintaining my indifferent expression.

"These are Meng Ling's files." She pointed to a large pile of folders on the sofa. Only then did I notice how many folders there were. I had only been looking for Meng Ling at first and hadn't even noticed this. It seems I am indeed not as meticulous as Xu Xiaobing.

Although I wanted to pretend to ignore it, I couldn't resist my curiosity. Before I could stop myself, I had already picked up a document and was reading it. It was a trade agreement, and the signature of Xu Xiaobing's company representative was none other than Meng Ling.

"She really is from your company." A chill ran through me—even when I was at my angrier with Xu Xiaobing, I still clung to a sliver of hope that she hadn't lied to me. Now, it seemed that hope was gone. As a result, I felt no anger at all—Xu Xiaobing had become a completely irrelevant person; there was no need to be angry at such a person. At least I could be certain that these things were man-made, and the idea of ghosts or spirits could be ruled out.

“That’s right, she is indeed from our company.” Xu Xiaobing pushed all the documents in front of me. “These are the documents I compiled at the company today. Meng Ling handled a lot of company business.”

"Oh." I felt I didn't need to say anything more. Since Xu Xiaobing showed me Meng Ling's documents, she must have something else to say to me.

Sure enough, she continued, "I didn't expect there to actually be such a person." She looked at me, and I gave a cold laugh.

“Don’t treat me like this,” she continued, maintaining her indifferent expression, but her brows betrayed barely concealed anger and impatience. “Don’t think you’re the victim. I’m innocent too.”

Hearing her say that, I felt a surge of disgust and got up to leave, not wanting to hear anything more she had to say. Unexpectedly, she suddenly stopped me, shouting, "You absolutely have to hear me out!"

“You’re lying anyway, I’m not going to listen!” I shouted back.

Seeing that we were about to start arguing again, Xu Xiaobing's previous indifference and composure were torn away like a thin film by our anger, leaving only her big, angry eyes bulging out of her cheeks, as if she wanted to devour me; "You can listen to what I have to say, and if you don't believe me, that's fine," she said forcefully, "but you have to listen to it!"

Actually, I really wanted to hear what she had to say, but her attitude was so annoying that I refused to be manipulated by her. I sneered, "I just won't listen, what can you do about it?"

She flew into a rage, slamming the documents to the floor: "Fine, don't listen then! You think you're so great? You don't believe me, fine, but you son of a bitch!"

She actually swore, which surprised me. I was considering whether to yell "Fuck you!" back when something even more surprising happened—she cried. A person maintaining an angry expression while tears streamed down their face made me feel terrified, as if I had done something wrong. I wanted to comfort her, but I was also a little unwilling, so I sneered, "You're still crying? I'd like to cry too, to make you look so wronged!" I turned and went back to the sofa, crossed my legs, and sat down. "Fine, then tell me, I want to hear what you have to say!"

"I'm not saying anything more!" she said, almost jumping up and down.

"Say what you have to say, or I'm really not listening." My mood wasn't exactly great either—were Xu Xiaobing and I just incompatible? In just a few days, it seemed like we spent more time arguing than talking.

She sat down heavily beside me, making the sofa wobble. She stared straight ahead, while I flipped through the documents. Neither of us looked at the other, and only her angry voice echoed in the room: "When you saw the name Meng Ling at Grandma Li's, you felt cheated and were very angry. But what about me? If I felt cheated like you, I would feel much better, at least I wouldn't be so scared! Of course, I wouldn't rush out like you without asking any questions, because I know very well that there is no one named Meng Ling at Huinan Technology Company!"

I flipped through the documents forcefully, deliberately making a loud noise to express my displeasure. She glanced at me and said, "Could you please keep it down?"

I tossed the file aside, put my hands behind my head, and started looking up at the ceiling. There were many water stains on the ceiling, and a few spider webs in the corner. I pretended to be very interested in staring at the spider webs, but I was listening carefully to what Xu Xiaobing was saying.

She continued angrily, "After you stormed out, Grandma Li got angry with me too, asking if I was going to terminate the lease as well. Given my family's situation, how could I just terminate the lease so easily? The deposit for the apartment was a large sum of money. Of course, I could only say that I didn't mean it. Grandma Li scolded me for a long time before I dared to ask her if there was a mistake in the record, or maybe there was no such person as Meng Ling at all. This earned me another scolding. After she finished scolding me, she turned to the last page of the record book, where photocopies of our ID cards were pasted, and Meng Ling's ID card was also pasted on it."

"Oh?" I put my hand down and listened carefully—why didn't I see an ID card? I didn't even know what Meng Ling looked like.

Xu Xiaobing ignored my reaction and continued, "After seeing Meng Ling's ID card and the agreement she signed, I felt it couldn't be a mistake. Thinking about everything that happened in this house, I became truly frightened. I really wanted to talk to you, but I didn't know your phone number. I asked Grandma Li several times, but she was also confused by the situation and couldn't remember such a person at all. All the evidence was there, even the money. I hadn't figured out what to do when she urged me to go to the company to ask what was going on. That reminded me, and I immediately ran to the company. On the way, I called all my colleagues, except for the boss. I asked everyone, but no one recognized Meng Ling, not even those who had worked there for several years."

"When I got to the company, I opened the door and started rummaging around without even putting my bag down. I didn't know what I was looking for, I just kept searching randomly for a long time without finding anything useful. Later, after calming down and thinking about it, I opened the company's filing cabinet and searched through the personnel files for a long time before finally finding Meng Ling's file."

She tossed a file onto my lap, opened it, and a small black-and-white photo immediately caught my eye. The photo showed a girl with long, straight hair, big eyes, and a very innocent look. The name on the file was Meng Ling, and the position was indeed Assistant General Manager. Her personal background was simple: after graduating from a university in Beijing, she first worked as a teacher at a primary school in the southern part of the city. Three years later, she moved to Huinan Technology Company as Assistant General Manager. And in the interview evaluation section, the evaluator was none other than Xu Xiaobing.

"So it seems you were the one who recruited her into Huinan," I said.

“Yes, I saw this too.” She shook her head. “When I saw this file, I was completely stunned. I never thought Meng Ling actually existed. What surprised me most was that I had recruited her into the company—and I had no recollection of her at all. I was the only one in the company at the time. I stared at Meng Ling’s photo, and the more I looked, the more frightened I became. It was as if her eyes were staring at me, as if she was about to step out of the photo.”

Her words made me realize the same thing. Meng Ling's eyes did indeed seem to be staring at me, her curved lips forming a half-smile. Originally, I only thought she was pretty, but now, after Xu Xiaobing's description, Meng Ling's smile took on an indescribable eeriness. The light shining on the photo made her eyes seem to move. I quickly slammed the document cover shut.

“I did the same thing you did,” Xu Xiaobing said. “I put the document in my bag and continued searching through the other documents. I just couldn’t believe that a complete stranger would suddenly appear in the company. If she really was one of our employees, she would have left many traces. Sure enough, I found many of Meng Ling’s signatures in the filing cabinet and other places, and even a few of her handwritten work summaries. In those summaries, she mentioned suggestions for the office renovation, and our office was indeed renovated according to the methods she described in her summaries… These discoveries terrified me; I was so scared I didn’t know what to do.” Fortunately, this time when she talked about being scared, she didn’t stare at me with wide eyes like she used to.

"And then?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Then I brought these things back. After I got back, I quickly opened my bedroom door and found some photos that had been taken at my old company. I didn't expect them to be real!" Her eyes suddenly widened. Looking into those eyes, my heart skipped a beat—it seemed she couldn't break this habit. She stared at me with wide eyes, goosebumps rising on her face. Before she could say anything more, I was already terrified by her expression, my hair standing on end.

I got goosebumps too—I had no idea what she had seen. The more she didn't say, the more terrified I became. Classic scenes from horror movies started flashing before my eyes. I couldn't help but urge her, "What's wrong with the photo?"

"She's in the photo!" She said in a low voice, then fell silent, just staring blankly at me. The temperature in the room seemed to drop suddenly. I hugged my arms and involuntarily whispered, "What?"

“She’s in the photos. I’ve seen these photos before, and I’ve seen her, but I didn’t know it was her. I just thought she was someone unrelated!” she said in an incredulous tone. “She’s in almost every group photo, in every single one!” She suddenly stood up and went into her room. I was alone with Meng Ling’s files, feeling a little scared. Just as I was about to ask her where she was going, she came out with a stack of photos in her hand. I took them, and with her directions, I quickly found Meng Ling in the group photos. She was smiling brightly, standing with Xu Xiaobing and other colleagues, looking quite outstanding.

“She does work for your company,” I said.

“That’s right, after seeing these documents and photos, I believe it too,” Xu Xiaobing nodded. “But no one remembers her. I even called the boss, and he said he’d never heard of such a name before, and he’d never even hired a long-haired female assistant; all his assistants have short hair. Look,” she picked out one of the many photos, “this one scares me the most.”

I suddenly felt a little scared and turned my face away, saying, "If it's too scary, I won't watch it."

"See? It's not scary." She handed the photo to me.

The photo wasn't exactly scary, but it was definitely unsettling. It was a photo of two people, Xu Xiaobing and Meng Ling, their heads close together, looking very intimate. Xu Xiaobing's arm was around Meng Ling's, and Meng Ling's hand was making a horn shape on Xu Xiaobing's head. And the location where the photo was taken was all too familiar to me—it was the living room we were currently in, and the sofa Meng Ling and Xu Xiaobing were sitting on was the very sofa we were sitting on right now. The thought made me jump up, throw the photo aside, and exclaim in a panic, "This was taken in this house!"

“Yes!” Xu Xiaobing’s face was covered in goosebumps, just like mine, layer upon layer, making me worry that her skin would stay like this forever. “It was in this house that Meng Ling and I sat on this sofa and took this photo together,” she murmured, lowering her voice as if in a dream, looking at me as if longing for an answer, “but I have absolutely no recollection of her.”

"That's terrible," I said. "Doesn't anyone in your company really know her?"

“No,” Xu Xiaobing said.

I gaped, completely bewildered. How could this be? Had they all lost their memories? I shook my head. How could that be? Since collective amnesia was impossible, the problem must lie with Meng Ling.

As I was thinking, Xu Xiaobing suddenly asked expectantly, "You believe me now?"

"Huh?" I looked at her, wanting to deny it, but she quickly said, "If you don't believe me, you won't find this photo scary."

She was right. If I hadn't believed her, the photo wouldn't have been scary at all.

Why did I believe her so easily?

Should I believe her?

I can't think of any reason why I would believe such an absurd story, but in fact, I have already believed it—because the story is so absurd that it can't possibly fool anyone. Even if Xu Xiaobing is incredibly stupid, she couldn't possibly fabricate such a story to deceive people. Besides, everything is clearly written in Meng Ling's file, including her ID number, making it extremely easy to verify whether Xu Xiaobing is telling the truth. Even if Xu Xiaobing and Meng Ling colluded to deceive me, they wouldn't have the power to manipulate so many people or tamper with so many files. Therefore, although there's no reason for me to believe her, I also can't find a reason not to, so I believe her.

“Okay, I believe you,” I said. “But this is the last time. If I find out you’re lying to me again, I won’t believe you anymore, and I’ll call the police!”

“What do you mean by ‘rediscovering’? Did I lie to you?” Xu Xiaobing said, dissatisfied. “I never lied to you at all, so there’s no question of ‘rediscovering’.”

"Okay, stop nitpicking. What did you do next?" I asked.

"Later," she suddenly changed the subject, asking, "do you still remember the things Grandma Li recorded?"

"Grandma Li recorded quite a lot, which item are you referring to?"

"Rent, do you even remember the rent?"

What's wrong with the rent?

“I’ve only been here for a month and have only paid rent once,” she said. “Do you remember? In Grandma Li’s record book, my rent was paid by Mengling.”

"Um."

"The few days after I moved here were when I was short of money, and it was quite possible that I wouldn't be able to pay the rent..." Her voice was somewhat hesitant.

"What do you want to say?" I felt my patience was running out. Did she really have to be so long-winded?

“I mean, according to Grandma Li’s records of the rent payment dates, I really couldn’t pay the rent at that time,” she pursed her lips. “I’m used to keeping accounts, you know, someone like me has to plan every penny I spend. Even the cost of taking the bus, I keep a very clear record in my ledger…”

"Did you record this rent in your ledger?" I interrupted her.

She shook her head, then nodded. I didn't know what she meant, and was about to ask again when she slowly handed me a small black diary, turning to a page for me to see. It was densely filled with numbers and Chinese characters, indeed meticulous in every detail, with accounting units accurate to one decimal place—if the currency unit "fen" still existed, I estimate her accounts would be accurate to two decimal places, and if "li" were used… Just as I was lost in thought, Xu Xiaobing pointed to a line and ordered me to look—"February 12th, owes Meng Ling 300 yuan in rent."

"Huh?" I looked up at her.

She nodded.

"You really owe her money..." I didn't expect to blurt out such a question: "Have you paid her back yet?"

She shook her head: "There is no record of repayment."

"Huh?" I felt like I had a tiny idea, but it was so faint that I didn't even know what it was. Driven by that idea, I asked, "Is this your own handwritten record?"

She nodded vigorously: "It can't be wrong, I can still recognize my own handwriting."

"See, how can you blame me for not believing you?" I was still trying to grasp the thought in my mind, so I just blurted out some random words.

“I know,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”

"I'm thinking about it."

“I just find it strange,” she continued. Actually, I really wanted her to shut up and let me think it over, but that might lead to another argument, so I let her continue. “Since I was able to record her lending me money, it means I must have recognized her at the time I recorded it. Why don’t I remember her at all now? I…”

She wanted to continue expressing her feelings, but I interrupted her.