He felt as though he knew her.
He couldn’t remember where they had met, but he was certain he knew her.
Perhaps they had been separated by a very long distance, or by many, many years—by countless forgotten nights.
He had seen those eyes many times before.
“This girl—is her name Song Yi?” he asked.
“Yes.” The boy beside him answered, his voice carrying a hint of surprised excitement.
It was the first time Shen Wenta had ever taken the initiative to ask about something, and it was because of the unremarkable Song Yi.
Shen Wenta didn’t look away from the screen. “Do you have any clearer photos of her face?”
“Sure.”
The boy eagerly pulled up his photo album and sent over several clearer pictures.
Shen Wenta looked through them one by one. The more he looked, the more familiar she seemed.
He set down the phone and, for once, said the first truly human thing he had said all day:
“I seem to remember you mentioning her all the time. Why do you keep picking on her?”
With so many students at Hejing, the person most frequently mentioned by the people around him was this girl named Song Yi.
She seemed to be bullied over and over again, like a stone kicked around by everyone.
“Haha, it can’t be helped.” The boy shrugged, an utterly indifferent, self-righteous look on his face. “She’s just unlucky. Who can she blame?”
Shen Wenta tapped lightly against the edge of his phone twice, as if considering something. “Is that what you think?”
“...”
For some reason, the boy instinctively felt that Shen Wenta’s words held another meaning.
But when he thought about it, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with what he had said.
So he nodded and smiled. “Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?”
Shen Wenta nodded as well, then rose and left the classroom.
“I understand now.”
*
Shen Wenta had people print out photos of Shen Yi and stuck them all over his room.
The pictures were like silent talismans, occupying every corner of his life.
He always remembered that someone had been coming around him over the past few years, someone who liked fiddling with his musical instruments.
One day, Shen Wenta opened the door and found the bow of his violin placed on the right side of its case.
That wasn’t where he kept it. He always put the bow on the left.
He had never once placed it on the right.
He checked the security footage, but found nothing. He inspected the locks, but there were no signs of tampering. He even searched through the home-security records, yet no one had entered or left during that period.
So, for the time being, he referred to the intruder as the Invisible Ghost.
Shen Yi came to see him after he had covered his room with her photographs.
The moment she stepped inside, she nearly assumed that Shen Wenta’s true identity was that of her rabid male fan.
Her photographs were everywhere—the desk, the walls, every surface covered with pictures of her.
The scene was so bizarre that Shen Yi stood in the doorway and cautiously took half a step back.
During the first several dozen times she had come to him without warning, he had usually responded by pointing a gun at her or driving her away.
Back then, he hadn’t been accustomed to her existence. But after she came often enough, even without remembering her, he had grown somewhat numb to her presence. Most of the time, he treated her with surprising indulgence.
At that moment, Shen Wenta was sitting at the desk, propping up his face with one hand. He glanced sideways at her.
He had gotten the reaction he wanted: the ghost girl’s stunned expression.
Shen Yi stared at the walls plastered with photographs, her lips parting slightly. “What are you doing? Why do you have pictures of me everywhere?”
Shen Wenta didn’t answer. He picked up a photograph from the desk and compared it with her, shifting his gaze between the picture and her face twice.
“I think I know your real identity.”
“Song Yi.”
Shen Yi’s breath caught.
She hadn’t expected him to be the first person to figure out who she was.
“It’s strange. You look familiar to me, but I clearly don’t remember you.” Shen Wenta studied her. “Still, I’ve been thinking. I must have seen you many times. If a person has seen someone hundreds of times, then no matter how unfamiliar they are, some instinctive impression should remain. That isn’t something memory can deceive. It’s a natural sense of familiarity.”
Shen Wenta’s gaze settled on her face.
“But...” His voice dropped slightly. “Why are there two of you in this world? The other you is still at the Song residence, while the you standing here can come and go through my home without anyone noticing. What exactly are you? A ghost? A female spirit?”
Shen Yi was caught off guard by the questions.
For a moment, she had no idea where to begin explaining.
“You seem rather pitiful,” he continued. “The people I know often discuss you in class.”
The students at Hejing had too much time on their hands.
An excessively privileged life produced two kinds of people: those who pretended to be good, always polished and proper, and outright villains who couldn’t even be bothered to pretend, openly taking pleasure in bullying others.
They were bored, so they looked for entertainment at school.
Groups of them would gather to gossip, often discussing what they had done to someone. Those incidents became conversation pieces shared among them.
The name Song Yi was repeatedly mentioned in their conversations.
Shen Wenta had heard it too, but he had never been interested.
A girl named Song Yi had been bullied. Such things were far too common for him to even raise an eyebrow.
Until the appearance of those photographs made him feel a strange sense of familiarity.
“I’ve seen you dozens of times,” Shen Wenta said.
If he hadn’t repeatedly forgotten her, the two of them might have become quite close after so many encounters.
“But I don’t understand.” His pale face looked especially gloomy as he regarded her with an odd expression. “Why are you always bullied? And why are there two of you in this world? How did you come to be by my side?”
Shen Yi could only explain, “You can think of it this way: the other me is still alive for now, while the future version of me is already dead.”
“You’re dead?”
He seemed to have suspected as much, but he still looked somewhat surprised when Shen Yi confirmed it.
Shen Yi nodded.
Shen Wenta tilted his head and stared fixedly at her.
Once again, he said the familiar words, as if he had already spoken them dozens of times:
“Since we know each other, perhaps I can help you.”
Shen Yi didn’t take it particularly seriously.
After all, even if Shen Wenta had figured out most of the truth now, he would forget it later.
What could he possibly do to help her?
“How did you die?”
He had the determined air of someone who wouldn’t stop until he had gotten to the bottom of things.
Shen Yi immediately raised her hand and mimed pointing a gun at her temple.
The gesture was so unmistakable that no further explanation was necessary.
Shen Wenta’s pupils contracted slightly.
What followed was a rare, prolonged silence. He thought for a long time before finally coming up with a clumsy attempt at consolation—at least, clumsy by his standards.
“If you want to die, a gun isn’t a very good choice.”
Shen Wenta carefully weighed his words. “People instinctively avoid death and vital organs. Your hand will shake. It’s very easy for the shot to fail, leaving you in even greater pain. You’d better not do that.”
Shen Yi suddenly laughed.
It was the first time she had seen Shen Wenta so earnestly explain the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to die.
“Thank you for the advice.” Her expression was unusually gentle. “But I really didn’t think that much at the time.”
“Besides, my death was quite quick. There wasn’t any pain.”
