"Could it be her?"
Holding his own memorial portrait, Tong Guan abruptly turned toward the doorway of Unit 1002. At that moment, he distinctly heard faint noises.
It sounded as though someone torn by indecision was pacing outside, too hesitant and frightened to take even a step inside.
Tong Guan's face turned deathly pale in an instant. His neck began to stiffen, and a simple turn of his head took several seconds.
How glaring that warm yellow light seemed now.
His mother's smile, his father's sternness, the warmth of their home... had all of it truly been nothing but illusions and obsessions?
He could not tell.
"Am I really a ghost? When exactly did I die?"
Tong Guan's thoughts seemed frozen, moving terribly slowly and growing increasingly confused.
As his mind grew muddled, the lights throughout Unit 1002 began to flicker, and the scene wavered unnaturally.
"Rustle, rustle, rustle..."
Powdery dust began falling from the ceiling, settling on the leftovers still giving off faint warmth on the dining table, the green plants whose rainwater had yet to be wiped away, the windows freshly fitted with clean gauze curtains...
And on his parents' faces, and the version of himself twenty years younger!
Gray haze and darkness descended at the same time. All of Unit 1002 resembled a collapsing building, everything that had existed there being completely buried.
His memories collapsed, and with them, this supernatural incident ceased to exist.
The final image froze on his father's hand resting on young Tong Guan's shoulder, his mother's smiling eyes fixed on the boy's face.
Perhaps that sight was what did it. Holding his own memorial portrait, Tong Guan's eyes reddened and his veins bulged. The taut string inside him snapped in an instant, taking his unwavering composure with it.
Reality had given the