The twelfth plane, J city
The rest of the school day went by rather uneventfully. Zhai Xiaoyi paid attention to his classes, and even took notes from time to time. At lunch, people surrounded their desk.
Since the cafetaria’s food was below standards, most students brought their own lunch from home. Now these people all sat on top of nearby desks or leant on them as they ate and talked between each other.
Zhai Xiaoyi was busy with his phone. He wasn’t really listening, until someone turned to him to ask a question.
‘Xiaoyi, where have you been these days? I remember three weeks ago, the principal came in and told the whole class that you were in the process of transferring. But now you show up like nothing’s wrong? I thought you were long gone.’
The one who spoke was a slightly overweight boy with short, curly hair. He threw his empty box back into his bag, and jumped on top of the desk in front of Zhai Xiaoyi. They had become friends when the boy first transferred to the school, but this friendship wasn’t long lived.
‘Ah, I don’t know anything about that. I was sick these couple of weeks, bedridden, completely unable to even open a textbook.’ He lied without conscience, and seemed to be deep in thought for a moment.
‘But it might be true. Thinking about it, my dad really wanted me to move back to the capital the last time we spoke. He might have started the transfer without my consent?’ He said all that, but his voice was still without the slightest hint of worry.
‘Wait, don’t tell me he can do that? You live in the city now, don’t you? You’re the one paying for the rent and last time you even paid for all your textbooks!’ His deskmate, the tall boy from before frowned at that.
‘Yeah, he can do it. Maybe it is exactly that, the reason he wants me to move back, that I don’t rely on them enough.’ Zhai Xiaoyi shrugged. ‘I’ll ask him later.’
‘Does that mean you’ll still be coming this weekend then?’ A short girl with brightly painted lips asked. She looked at him hopefully. ‘Yiyan said she’d make sure to come if you’re there. Please?’
Zhai Xiaoyi remembered that this was about a weekend resort some people had been planning to go to back when he came to school a month ago. It seemed that they still hadn’t gone.
He shook his head regretfully. ‘No, sorry. I have something to do this weekend. But I hope you guys will have fun.’
‘Ah, it’s nothing. I was just hoping, that’s all.. Right, what will you be doing then?’ The girl didn’t seem too heartbroken.
‘A friend of mine wants to introduce me to someone he likes. It’s supposed to be a double date, he said? Ah, I completely forgot about that, I will have to find someone. But all of you guys are going to the resort, right?’ Zhai Xiaoyi put down the pen he was fiddling with. He looked at his contacts, but everyone he could trust to not think too much of it already had plans.
‘Well, we are all going. Maybe you can ask Yiyan though? I don’t think she’s coming.’ The girl typed quickly on her phone, and spoke without even looking up. Zhai Xiaoyi vaguely remembered that he had a classmate called that, although she didn’t seem to be in the classroom today.
‘Yeah, I might ask her. You.. You don’t think she will misunderstand, will she?’ Zhai Xiaoyi had a faint bad feeling, but he couldn’t exactly place it.
‘No, she’s really broad minded. I’m sure it will be fine.’ She finally put away her phone, just when the bell rang marking the end of the break. Zhai Xiaoyi nodded, and messaged the number from before again.
‘Well? Is there anything?’
‘Is it not only two yet? I haven’t even started looking.’ The reply was quick as always.
‘Then you better start now. I have to meet up with them in less than two hours.’
‘Relax, I’ve got it. You’ll have everything you need by then, more even!’
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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‘You asked about two people, but I only found one. Lin Ran, twenty five, graduated from the community college on the main street. Her grandmother left a coffee shop to her, she died five years ago.’
‘The shop seems to be a family business in C street, run by women – of the same name? It seems that it’s a tradition in the family to give the mother’s name to the firstborn girl. Or, it might just be an inside joke? I’m not clear on that.’
‘The other name, Lin Xu, doesn’t seem to exist. I found three matching people, one of them is a veteran uncle from the south side of the city, another is a little master from a rich family and the last one died last year. None of them have relations with the coffee shop.’
‘Lin Ran’s great-grandfather had the same name, but the man’s been dead for more than sixty years, so I don’t think he’s the one you’re looking for. Another thing is…’ He spoke swiftly, and by the time Zhai Xiaoyi cut him off he felt like his head was spinning.
‘Alright, alright! That’s good. Can you find anything more on the great-grandpa? I think he’s the one I’m looking for.’ He walked into a small shop, his eyes narrowing as he smiled, waving to the old lady sitting behind the counter.
‘Sure. When do you need it for?’ The other side’s voice became lower as he put Zhai Xiaoyi on speaker phone. The young man tapped his pen to a piece of paper and circled a name on it.
He was sitting on the terrace of a luxury hotel, but only had an old laptop in front of himself. The phone in his hand also didn’t seem like one he got in the last decade.
‘As soon as you can. I told you I’m meeting them in half an hour.’
‘Mhm. I’ll text you the details. Don’t forget the ice cream you promised. Bye!’ He ended the call quickly, pulling up the records of death from the few hospitals in town as far back as he could.
Unfortunately, all of them were very old fashioned. They only started using the electronic system about fifteen years ago, so he guessed that the rest of the records were only available in the archives, on paper.
He knew that there were a few newspapers that were especially popular around the time of the man’s death, but he couldn’t find any from that year online. He guessed those could be of help.
Strange deaths were something people liked to hear about, and this person being someone Zhai Xiaoyi asked about was the greatest guarantee for a strange death. But he only knew a vague date of death, everything else seemed to be hidden under the dust of the past.
‘The dust of the past..’ He laughed lightly, as he scribbled something down on the paper. ‘I like that.’
He stood up from the table, sweeping down the flower petals fallen on his sweater with a hand. He picked up the papers scattered on the table in front of him and closed his laptop, quickly stuffing everything under his arm.
There was still some time until three thirty and he intended to look for more information Zhai Xiaoyi could use, but he felt his body suddenly turn weightless. In the moment before his world turned into complete darkness, all he heard was deafening silence.
At the same time, in front of the small shop Zhai Xiaoyi had just stepped out of.
He stuffed the small bag under his arm, looking around himself. The streets seemed normal, but he felt a strange fluctuation of the air around himself.
The feeling went away as quickly as it came, and he didn’t think much of it. There was still some time until the appointed time, and he walked in a comfortable pace in the direction of the street the coffee shop was supposedly in.
He had his phone in his pocket, but he still would have noticed if he got a message. Tian Xihua said that he would text him, but he spent more than ten minutes inside the shop and he had already walked for a while since then too, but there was still nothing. He pulled out his phone to send him a message.
‘What’s up? Did you find anything?’
He waited. There was no reply.
‘Is everything alright?’ This was the first time he ever had to wait for a response from the other.
He waited for another five minutes, but there was still no answer. He’d already reached the coffee shop, but he was reluctant to go in. In the end, he couldn’t wait any longer. He put his phone away as he stepped inside, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad had happened.
Lin Xu was sitting at a table near the windows, and he saw the youth at the door. He waved to him excitedly and gestured towards the seat on the other side of the table.
‘Sit down, sit down. Is there anything you’d like? I’ll call my sister over in a moment!’ He stood up quickly, and in less than a minute he returned with a cup of coffee in one hand and Lin Ran’s arm in the other. He dragged her over to the table, and placed the cup in front of the boy.
Zhai Xiaoyi let out a barely audible sigh, and stirred the coffee in the cup. He leaned back in the booth, his back sinking into the pillows placed on the double seat.
He took a sip of the hot drink, and pulled out a pen from his bag, spinning in around his fingers as he looked up to the two sitting across him.
Lin Ran, who had changed into a dark green sweater and had her hair up in a tight bun was biting her finger, half of her face hidden behind her palm. She looked anxious, as if afraid that the boy would go back on his word.
Her brother still wore the same, washed out clothes he had on the last time he saw them. He looked strangely pale in the direct sunlight, but not too different from an extremely pale living person.
He reached for a napkin, and wrote a few words on it. He then directly pushed it in front of the two, pointing at the writing with the tip of his pen. There were three stick figures surrounded by the words, and he pointed at the first one. He tried to recall what Tian Xihua told him.
‘This is you, Lin Ran. On legal documents, you’re twenty five this year, in reality, I’m guessing around sixty years older. You own a coffee shop, which was part of your grandmother’s inheritance. Firstborn girls in your family all have your name, I advise you to be more careful about that. Names aren’t worth being found out. Then,’ He pointed at the other stick figure, ‘This is your brother.’
‘Legally your great-grandfather, Lin Xu. He died about sixty years ago and he’s here, because as you’ve told me, he’s looking for someone. This,’ He pointed at the last figure who had a question mark as a face, ‘Is who you’re looking for. What can you tell me about them?’
Lin Xu sucked in a breath and whispered to his sister. ‘I told you he’s good! Old Han wasn’t wrong for once!’
Lin Ran tried to step on his foot again. ‘He knows how to use search engines, what’s so good about that?’
‘Who are you looking for?’ Zhai Xiaoyi didn’t care about what they thought of him. He wanted to get as much information as he could, and leave to check on Tian Xihua.
‘It is my girlfriend.’ Lin Xu spoke reluctantly. ‘When I died, I was on my way to meet her. It was our anniversary, so you can guess how easily my obsession formed. I want to see her one last time before I leave.’
‘Why now?’ That was the main thing Zhai Xiaoyi didn’t understand. ‘Why didn’t you look for someone after you died?’
Lin Xu seemed ashamed. ‘I, I lost myself a bit back then. I did some things I shouldn’t have, and got my pass revoked for two decades. When I came back.. She had moved out of the city not long after I died. She sold the house we planned to live our entire lives in, took the money and got married a couple years after.’
‘By the time I got back she had children, and I only ever saw her when I waited in front of the elementary school for her to come for her kids. I got my pass revoked again. This time it was only five years, but I completely lost track of her by the time I could come back. This is everything I know.’
Zhai Xiaoyi nodded as he took notes into his phone swiftly. ‘Write down her name.’ He handed the phone to the ghost, who could barely hold it. It almost fell out of his hand with every letter, and he could only hold it up with a lot of willpower.
Lin Ran helped him hold it, and spoke to Zhai Xiaoyi, ‘Thank you for helping us. If there is anything you need help with..’ She wanted to have the chance of asking him for help later. After all, Lin Xu was not the only one with an obsession in the café.
‘I’ll solve it myself.’ Zhai Xiaoyi didn’t seem to understand what she wanted. In truth, he didn’t like to depend on people too much.
‘Alright. If you find something..’ Lin Ran took the phone from his brother, and quickly typed in a string of numbers. ‘This is my personal number. Please call or text me if there is something. There isn’t much time left.’
Zhai Xiaoyi took the phone back and held the cup that was still only half empty as he stood up. He waved goodbye to the siblings in an exaggerated manner as he exited the shop.
His phone hadn’t buzzed the entire time he was inside the coffee shop. He called the number from before, but the call didn’t even connect.
He felt somewhat relieved. Maybe something just happened to Tian Xihua’s phone, and that’s why he couldn’t message him back. It was such an old phone anyway, and he had tried to persuade the other to buy a new one countless times. Maybe he’d finally be forced to get a new model, and he would text him when he bought it.
He decided to go home first. If there was still nothing from Tian Xihua during the night, he would directly go to his house in the morning.
The air that felt humid throughout the entire day got colder and somewhat drier as evening came. The lights in the stairway of the apartment complex weren’t on yet, but it was already dark outside the building.
Zhai Xiaoyi sped up his steps. Suddenly, there was a scream from in front of him, and he ran forward.
He arrived just in time to see his downstairs neighbour, an old lady slip and try to grab onto the railing, but she still fell. He reached out and held her firmly, but he didn’t have time to grab after the bags she dropped accidentally, and a bunch of fruits scattered on the floor beneath them. He helped the lady stabilize herself, and only spoke afterwards.
‘Auntie Wang, you should be more careful when it is so dark in here. I’ll find the repairer uncle to ask about the new lights tomorrow.’
‘Ah, xiao Zhai, is it you? No need to trouble yourself, I have to find old Zhang because of the shower in my apartment anyway. Right, there was a young girl this morning looking for you, did you find each other?’
Zhai Xiaoyi was in the process of picking up fruit, and spoke as he was handing an apple over. ‘Auntie Wang, that girl, did she tell you that we were friends? You need to remember from now on, if anyone comes, I don’t have any friends in this city. That girl too, she was a stalker. I spent my morning trying to get rid of her. Please, if anyone else comes, tell me instead of letting them in.’
He smiled innocently as he used Lin Ran as an excuse to never have to wake up to knocking in the morning again.
‘Is that so? Then I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let her in. I won’t let in anyone who says they’re your friends from now on!’ She nodded seriously, having decided to protect the young man’s privacy no matter what.
Zhai Xiaoyi talked for a bit longer about trivial matters with the old lady before saying goodbye and finally arriving at his door. He inserted the key into the lock, but just as he was about to turn it over, a wave of nausea hit him.
He felt the fluctuations in the air just like earlier that day, only they were unbearably strong this time. He felt like his head was going to split in two, and he covered his face as he saw the world go dark around himself.
Ten minutes later as the yellow lights came on one by one, the corridor seemed completely empty.
From the keyhole of the last door on the floor hung a bunch of keys held together by a metallic ring, still swaying as if someone had just let go of them.
The author has something to say:
Auntie Wang: I will protect this young man. Even if I need to beat the stalkers back myself, I will! Look at him, he doesn’t even have any friends in the city. Isn’t that just too pitiful?
Man, he is too shrewd to claim that Lin Ran is his stalker so that he could sleep more in the morning ◖⚆ᴥ⚆◗
Hahah improvisation is the key to living well
Truer words have never been spoken~~
BTW, thanks for this amazing story🌸
Your work is fantastic 😜
Thank you so much for reading! I’m glad you like it:)
So he disappeared and the guy who made his ears itch disappeared.. so will they find Lin Xu’s person?
Thanks for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter ❤️❤️❤️