During the coldest part of winter, Grandpa Yu passed away. He died with a smile.

Yu Zhen knelt before the coffin, head bowed, burning joss paper. Outside, the wind and snow were heavy, causing the dilapidated wooden doors of the Taoist Temple to creak. The small lightbulb overhead wasn't fixed in a socket and swayed with the draft that leaked in, stretching and shortening the shadows of the coffin and Yu Zhen. Against the dim light, they looked like ghostly figures.

"I asked you to move in with me, but you refused. Look at you now, you can't live there anymore. What's so good about this rundown place anyway? Who comes to a Taoist Temple for fortune-telling these days, especially a broken-down one built in the countryside."

Yu Zhen sniffled, raising a hand to wipe his face, smearing it with paper ash mixed with tears. He looked utterly wretched.

"I offered to renovate it for you, but you wouldn't let me. I wanted to come back and keep you company, but you wouldn't allow it. I can grow my flowers anywhere, why were you so stubborn." As he spoke, his voice choked up, and his previously straight back hunched over. He wiped his ash-stained hands across his face again.

The wind grew stronger, and snow drifted inside.

He picked up a new bundle of yellow joss paper, unwrapped it, and continued burning it. His gaze swept over the Peace Bead hanging from his wrist, and he remembered how his grandfather would coax him with a serious face when he was a child. A lump formed in his throat. He reached out, took it off, tightened his fingers, and tossed it directly into the brazier.

"You always said I was blessed with good fortune, that I suffered in my past life and was here to enjoy this one. But look at the life we lived, the two of us... You loved making up stories to coax me, why couldn't you have coaxed me for a few more years."

The Peace Bead, strung on a red cord, made a soft "pfft" sound as it fell into the brazier. The flames in the basin leaped up high, and then the acrid stench of burning plastic rose up. The flame and foul smell licked Yu Zhen's face as he hunched over. He straightened up, clutching his singed bangs, and smelling the increasingly strong odor, felt a fresh wave of grief wash over him.

"You even lied to me about this! What 'ancestral treasure that can stabilize the soul' Peace Bead? This is just a plastic ball!"

And he'd even thought of burning it as an offering so the old man could have a good reincarnation!

The tears he had just managed to suppress welled up again. He looked at the white cloth covering the coffin, took a deep breath, and was about to start wailing again when an earth-shattering crash came from outside the temple, shaking the lightbulb overhead.

The cry caught in his throat. His eyes widened, lips pressed tight, and shoulders hunched as he froze for a few seconds. When he came to his senses, he scrambled to his feet and ran outside.

Qingxu Temple was in a remote location. For miles around, there was nothing but woods and fields, with a small hill at its back. Few people ever came by. Outside the temple, there was only a narrow, bare dirt road leading out, lined with trees that looked somewhat eerie at night.

Due to the snow, the dirt road was a stark white, which made the two deep tire tracks in the middle of it seem all the more horrifying.

Yu Zhen ran closer. He saw that the tracks led straight into the small woods by the roadside. At the end, a red sports car with a nearly demolished front end was pinned under a broken tree. He gasped in shock, quickly circled around to look into the driver's seat, and vaguely saw two figures slumped inside. He tried to pull the car door, but it wouldn't open. He called out to them, but there was no response. Shaking, he took out his phone to call the police and an ambulance, his heart pounding as he muttered.

"I just want to give Grandpa a proper send-off. Why did you rich people have to crash in this godforsaken place in the middle of the night... Hello, this is Lotus Gully Village, Anyang Town..."

After the call, he wiped the snow from his face with his sleeve and tried to pull the car door again. It still wouldn't budge. Seeing that the people inside remained motionless, as if they were already dead, he trembled, feeling the urge to cry again.

What a mess.

"Don't die, please don't die."

He mumbled with a trembling voice, looked around, and found a brick. Closing his eyes, he smashed it hard against the rear door's window, then dropped the brick, reached in, opened the back door, and climbed inside.

Without the car window in the way, Yu Zhen could finally see the situation inside clearly.

A man and a woman were slumped in the front seats. Both looked very young. The man in the driver's seat was firmly shielding the woman in the passenger seat beneath him, his head and body covered in blood. The woman was blocked from view, so he couldn't see her condition.

Yu Zhen first checked the man's condition. His skin was warm, but he didn't seem to be breathing. His fingers trembled, and he muttered the salvation sutras his grandfather had taught him as a child before moving his hand to the woman below.

A steady pulse throbbed clearly from where his fingers touched. The breath he had been holding was released in a rush. He immediately leaned forward, not daring to move them too much for fear of causing secondary injuries, and carefully searched for their wounds, wanting to stop the bleeding first.

"Hang in there, the doctors will be here soon. Hang in there."

The man's body temperature was fading bit by bit, while the woman's pulse remained steady. Yu Zhen untied the white mourning sash from his waist and somewhat clumsily bandaged the wound on the man's arm. Thinking of his grandfather in the Taoist Temple who would never open his eyes again, the tears he had been holding back finally fell.

"Don't die..." Why do people have to die?

Pat.

A warm teardrop landed on the back of the man's lowered hand. As if scalded, the man's long, handsome fingers suddenly twitched.

Huh?

Yu Zhen froze, staring wide-eyed at the pale, bloodless hand in front of him. His lips trembled, then pressed tightly together as his heart began to race.

'It's just my imagination, right? Although I don't want another person to walk the road to the underworld today, and I was just deluding myself by bandaging him, he was already cold. How... how...'

"Don't..."

"Ah!"

He screamed, dropped the sash, and scrambled out of the car. Without looking back, he ran into the Taoist Temple and collapsed before the coffin. He grabbed a bundle of joss paper and desperately stuffed it into the brazier, which was down to its last embers, muttering nonstop, "It's not real, none of it is real. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. How could something like a corpse reviving possibly happen? It's not real, it's not real."

The snow slowly stopped.

Outside the Taoist Temple, the sirens of police cars and ambulances wailed. Yu Zhen hid behind the temple's courtyard gate, peeking out through a crack. He saw two police officers walking toward him and quickly pulled his head back. He took a couple of deep breaths, knowing he couldn't hide, and simply turned to pull the gate open.

"Did you call the police?"

The older officer stopped and asked when he saw Yu Zhen come out to meet them.

Yu Zhen glanced quickly at the accident scene surrounded by police cars and an ambulance in the distance. He nodded a little timidly and mustered the courage to ask, "Excuse me, how are the two people in the car?"

"We've cut them out. The man is seriously injured, but the woman only has minor injuries, nothing life-threatening," the younger officer replied. His gaze fell on the mourning armband on Yu Zhen's arm, and he discreetly glanced at the coffin and memorial setup in the main hall of the courtyard before nudging his colleague.

The older officer also saw the situation inside the courtyard. He looked at Yu Zhen's still youthful and innocent face, a hint of sympathy in his eyes, and softened his tone. "Are you here all by yourself? Where's your family?"

Yu Zhen shook his head. "There's no one else, just me."

Then he looked toward the ambulance again and asked for confirmation, "The man is... just seriously injured?" And not dead?

His question was a bit strange. The two officers exchanged a glance, guessing he was probably frightened. The older officer spoke reassuringly, "He is seriously injured, but thankfully the bleeding was stopped in time. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have made it until the doctors arrived. Did you bandage him?"

Yu Zhen nodded again, his fingers clenching and unclenching as his panic subsided a little.

It seemed it was just his imagination after all. His hands were cold from the winter weather; he had probably misjudged.

"Did you smash the rear window of the car too? What did you use? Can you tell us in detail?" the officer continued, taking out a notebook to take notes.

Yu Zhen calmed down and answered the officer's questions honestly. At the officer's request, he even went to the scene and found the brick he had used.

By now, the tree on top of the sports car had been removed. The car doors were wide open, and the occupants had all been moved to the ambulance. Just as Yu Zhen pointed out the brick to the police, the ambulance started up and drove away with the patients down the dirt road.

"The road is slippery from the snow, and this place is so remote. I wonder if that male patient will make it to the hospital."

One of the young officers remarked with a sigh. Yu Zhen heard him and glanced sideways at him. Just as he was about to bid the officers farewell and return to the temple, his vision suddenly went black. A chill spread up from the soles of his feet. His body swayed, and he collapsed to the ground.

"Hey! What's wrong?"

"Young man, what's the matter with you? Are you feeling unwell?"

"Quick! Someone help me get him up!"

The chill invaded his entire body, and a sharp pain throbbed in his head. As his body was being moved, Yu Zhen forced his eyes open. He saw the officer's lips moving up and down above him, but what he heard was another voice, low, cool, and unfamiliar.

"Don't cry."

'Cry about what? Who's speaking?'

"Wait for me."

'Wait for who? Who are you?'

He shook his head. A sudden warmth bloomed in his chest, the pain in his head lessened, and his icy limbs slowly warmed up. His consciousness suddenly broke free from the fog brought on by the pain. All his senses returned to reality. Before him was the older officer's concerned face, and in his ears was his gentle voice.

"Young man, what happened? Here, have some hot water first."

A thermos was pressed into his hands. Yu Zhen opened his mouth but couldn't speak. He shook his head, handed the thermos back to the old officer, and got up, walking toward the Taoist Temple in a daze.

An illusion, it was all an illusion. He must be having hallucinations from lack of rest.

In the ambulance, a nurse was wiping the blood from the man's face. She saw his lips move as if he were saying something and leaned down slightly.

"Don't cry..."

"Don't cry?" the nurse said, puzzled. The vehicle suddenly lurched violently, startling her. She quickly reached out to hold the gurney steady and raised her voice, "Drive slower! Are you trying to make the patient's injuries worse!"

"Sorry, sorry! The ground is covered in snow, I didn't see a pothole," the driver quickly explained.

"Quiet."

The doctor, who had been focused on treating the patient's wounds, suddenly frowned and spoke. The nurse shut her mouth, glanced at the doctor, then back at the patient on the gurney. She took in his handsome features, now cleaned of blood, and thought of the completely deformed front of the sports car. She sighed inwardly.

These rich people... what a waste.