Possession (Conclusion) Part 1

Ji Leshui ran too fast. Before Lin Banxia could react, he saw him disappear in a flash. He stood frozen on the spot, staring blankly at the useless clothes-drying pole in his hand, then glanced at the room behind him. The sound of the opera was still singing, just reaching the part, "My son's father cultivated the righteous path and rode a crane to the west, while I, your mother, was taken by the King of Hell into the underworld..."

After a moment of contemplation, Lin Banxia turned and stepped into the apartment, slowly walking to the bedroom door and looking inside. The old lady was still lying in the rocking chair, a cat docilely curled up on her chest, letting out contented purrs. Just as Lin Banxia was wondering whether he should go in for another look, his shoulder was gently tapped.

He was slightly taken aback, then turned his head to see a familiar person—Li Su standing behind him, looking at him with a surprised expression.

"What are you doing here?" the two asked at the same time.

"Ji Leshui said he saw Song Qingluo being held by two people and taken into this building," Lin Banxia decided to explain first. "We were worried something might have happened to him, so we came to check."

"Oh," said Li Su. "He and I came here to take care of something." He smiled. "Was that your friend who just ran out screaming? He gave me a scare."

"Yeah." Amidst the eerie opera music, the two carried on a calm conversation. The atmosphere was a bit strange for a moment, but Lin Banxia was completely oblivious. "That thing in the room... what's... what's going on?"

Li Su said, "A small experiment."

As he spoke, he walked to the cabinet in the living room, pulled out a red cloth from somewhere, and then, to Lin Banxia's shock, poured the ashes from one of the urns onto the red cloth.

Lin Banxia said in surprise, "What are you doing?"

Li Su didn't turn his head. "Wait."

Lin Banxia then watched him pour the ashes from the remaining urn into the now-empty one. The moment the ashes were poured in, the opera music in the room stopped instantly. Before Lin Banxia could even wonder why, he noticed that a woman's figure had appeared at the living room window to his right. She stood by the window, leaning out, and looking outside.

Lin Banxia's eyes widened. He realized this scene seemed almost identical to the one Ji Leshui had described.

Sure enough, the woman soon made a move. She slowly pushed the window open, climbed onto the windowsill, and then, took a leap—

The scene Ji Leshui described over a month ago unfolded before Lin Banxia's eyes again. This time, Lin Banxia finally reacted. He staggered back a few steps in fright, exclaiming, "Damn," his heart still pounding.

Li Su looked at him, bewildered. "Are you scared now?"

Lin Banxia: "Isn't this pretty scary?"

Li Su: "..."

Lin Banxia: "0.0 She jumped."

Li Su fell silent. He had also seen the scene in the bedroom, which was a hundred times more terrifying than a person jumping from a building, yet Lin Banxia had shown no reaction at all, even re-entering the room.

"What on earth is going on?" Lin Banxia clutched his wildly beating chest and silently moved a little farther from that window.

Li Su gave Lin Banxia a deep look and sighed, his tone filled with regret. He said, "It's a long story..."

Lin Banxia: "Then take your time."

Li Su said, "See this urn? Notice anything different about it?" As he spoke, he took the urn down from the shelf.

Lin Banxia looked at it carefully, compared it to the one next to it, and had a sudden realization. "It seems a bit bigger."

"Yes, a bit bigger," Li Su said. "Song Qingluo mentioned before that in your residential complex, your doorplate might not be the only Aberrant Object. I thought he was mistaken, but it turns out to be true." He poured the ashes from the urn back into a normal-sized one, then poured the ashes from the red cloth into the slightly larger urn. Almost simultaneously, the opera music in the room started up again.

"Because we suspected something was wrong with the items in the room, we came to inspect them and found that the problem was with this urn," Li Su said with a smile. "As long as a person's ashes are placed inside, it will endlessly repeat the scene of that person's death, accompanied by some abnormal phenomena, like the window opening, music coming from the bedroom, and so on."

Lin Banxia was stunned. He looked at the three memorial photos hanging on the cabinet and asked, puzzled, "So the scene I saw before was the experience of one of these three deceased people."

"Correct," Li Su said. "But although we've roughly figured out the situation with the urn, we still lack some detailed data, such as how often these scenes repeat, and why you and your friend saw two different scenes when only one urn was active—"

Lin Banxia was suddenly struck by a thought. "Right, why did Ji Leshui and I see different things?"

"Well, that's a long story." Li Su sighed. Since it was nighttime, he wasn't wearing a mask or sunglasses. Standing in the darkness, his pale pink pupils revealed a hint of sorrow. "Do you want to hear it here?"

Lin Banxia thought for a moment. "Let's go downstairs first. I'm a little worried about my friend."

Li Su said, "You don't have to worry about that. Song Qingluo and my partner are downstairs; they should have just caught him."

As they were talking, they heard the ding of the elevator arriving, followed by hurried footsteps. Lin Banxia turned his head and saw a panting Ji Leshui outside the door with two people behind him.

"Are you alright?" Song Qingluo was one of them. He looked at Lin Banxia and asked softly.

"I'm fine," Lin Banxia replied with a smile.

"Why don't we go downstairs to talk?" Li Su said with a shrug. "The atmosphere here doesn't seem quite right."

"Okay," Lin Banxia nodded.

Then, Li Su produced a new urn from somewhere and transferred the ashes from the slightly larger urn into the new one he was holding. The moment the ashes were poured out, the opera music in the room stopped, leaving only silence. Li Su carefully wrapped the larger urn in the red cloth and gently placed it into a black box his partner was carrying.

Only then did Lin Banxia see the partner Li Su had mentioned. In the dim light of a mobile phone, Lin Banxia could barely make out the man's face, which was almost completely obscured by a thick beard. The man had a high nose, wide-set eyes, and deep-set eye sockets. His pair of green eyes stared at Lin Banxia unkindly, and he clearly wasn't of Asian descent. Although his chin was covered by an exaggerated beard, one could vaguely tell that he was actually quite handsome, forming a sharp contrast with Li Su's delicate features beside him. However, it was impolite to stare, so Lin Banxia glanced at him once before looking away.

Ji Leshui still hadn't quite recovered and was hanging his head listlessly. Lin Banxia patted his shoulder in comfort and briefly described what Li Su had just said, concluding that there were no dead people or ghosts, so he shouldn't be so scared.

Ji Leshui shed tears of sorrow, saying he would rather face ten burly men than a single ghost. For burly men, he could get help from police uncles, but what could he do about a ghost?

Lin Banxia laughed at his words.

Li Su and his partner tidied up the room, neatly rearranging the urns. They then lit a few sticks of incense in front of the memorial photos and said a word of apology for the disturbance before heading downstairs with Lin Banxia and the others.

It was getting late. Ji Leshui's plan to buy some braised dishes and have a drink with Lin Banxia was completely ruined. The two of them were originally planning to head back, but Li Su smilingly suggested they all go for a late-night snack.

"It's so late, will it be safe?" Ji Leshui was a bit cowardly.

"What's there to be unsafe about?" Li Su said. "Weren't you curious about what happened in the room just now, Banxia? That story is a bit long, you know. Why don't we talk as we walk?"

Lin Banxia was quite interested in the story, so he agreed. "We can go. Leshui, do you want to go back and rest first by yourself?"

"No—" Ji Leshui quickly refused. "I want to be with you guys." He didn't dare go back alone now.

So in the end, the five of them headed towards the barbecue restaurant in the adjacent neighborhood.

On the way, Li Su told Lin Banxia that rather long story.

"The owner of the apartment is a man with a beautiful daughter." Li Su's voice was pleasant, soft and gentle, somewhat similar to Song Qingluo's. "The daughter fell in love with another girl. You know, for some parents with traditional mindsets, this kind of thing is hard to understand."

Lin Banxia listened quietly.

"The two girls fought for a long time, but were eventually separated. The daughter couldn't bear to see her father heartbroken, so she married a man she didn't love. Her beloved girl, not long after she got married, ended her own life... by jumping from a building." Li Su said, "When the daughter found out, she was devastated, but that was only the beginning of her ordeal. Her married life was not happy. The man often used violence against her, beating her until she was unrecognizable... Fortunately, she had a grandmother who loved her."

Lin Banxia said, "That's the, old lady?"

"Correct," Li Su said. "Seeing her granddaughter living in such misery, the grandmother also felt guilty. She felt she should have stopped her father back then, so she planned to bring her here and help her leave that man... But... it was all too late."

"The enraged man cut off the daughter's head. Her head, in the same manner as her beloved's death, fell from a high window and rolled a long way. The incident caused a huge stir at the time; many people saw her head. The man was sentenced to a heavy prison term, and there was no way to undo what had been done." Reaching this point, Li Su wanted to light a cigarette, but just as he put it to his lips, his partner beside him reached out and snatched it away. Li Su was about to say something, but seeing his partner's unfriendly gaze, he was forced to back down, saying sheepishly, "I won't smoke, I won't smoke... Later, the grandmother also died. It was said she died of illness, undiscovered in her home for several days. By the time someone noticed, her face had been mostly gnawed away by cats. But even before she died, she refused to forgive the girl's father. The father later came back to arrange the funeral and was never seen again."

Lin Banxia said, "But, why did Ji Leshui and I see two different girls and their different death scenes?" Just as he asked, something clicked in his mind, and he realized, "Could it be that in that urn—"

"Smart." Li Su laughed. "I heard that after losing his daughter and mother, the man was filled with regret. He privately contacted the family of the person his daughter loved. Of course, this is all hearsay with no definite proof, but the memorial photo hanging on the urn can serve as evidence."

If we cannot be together in life, at least we can not be separated in death—in a story of despair, there remained at least a trace of sorrowful romance.

"The owner enshrined both urns in the room and hung three memorial photos, probably to seek some solace for his heart. Unfortunately, his luck wasn't very good; the urn holding the two's ashes had some problems," Li Su said. "According to the information I found, the owner's mental state is also very poor. I wonder if he saw the same scenes you once saw. However, based on our current experiments, these scenes don't always appear; they require a certain probability to manifest. Of course, how high that probability is still needs further investigation."

Lin Banxia thought that his and Ji Leshui's luck really wasn't very good.

By the time the story was finished, they had arrived at the barbecue restaurant. Although it was very late, because it was a Saturday, there were still quite a few customers.

The group found a table and started ordering.

Li Su said, "By the way, did I forget to introduce him? This is my partner, Li Ye."

Li Ye didn't speak, just gave Lin Banxia a slight nod.

Lin Banxia asked curiously, "You're not Chinese?"

"Russian." Li Su smiled and patted Li Ye's shoulder. "He's a true man!"

Li Ye gave Li Su a blank look.

Li Su threw up his hands. "He's just really boring, just like Song Qingluo, tsk tsk tsk."

Song Qingluo said coldly, "No one will think you're mute if you don't talk."

The two men's looks were out of place with their surroundings, attracting some curious glances. They were clearly used to it; one was cheerfully telling jokes, while the other had already started pouring drinks for himself.

Li Ye poured three glasses but left the one in front of Li Su empty. Li Su tapped the empty glass with his finger. "What, am I getting special treatment?"

Li Ye gave him a nonchalant look.