"We're in."
Jiang Qiao stood in the living room of a house, curiously looking around.
It wasn't very large.
But it was very clean.
That was his first impression.
The decor was old-fashioned, and the furniture was styled like it was from decades ago, but it had been well preserved and was basically undamaged.
The light overhead.
It was the pull-cord lamp commonly seen when he was a child.
The light was orange-yellow.
But it was very bright.
Not dim in the slightest.
"Spotless. There isn't even the usual greasy grime on the old table, yet it gives off the feeling that someone lives here." Jiang Qiao rubbed the table, but no dirt stuck to his fingertips.
It seemed the owner cleaned frequently, wiping the tables and chairs with dish soap.
The kitchen was at the front of the living room.
The kitchen stove bore traces of cooking fumes.
But not many.
There was still some food in the pot beside it. One glance told him it was stir-fried shredded meat, though it had already gone cold. A plate sat beside the pot. It looked as though the owner had encountered something and left while preparing to serve the food.
And had never returned.
However...
Jiang Qiao glanced at the plate. A ring of seal-script characters reading "fortune," "prosperity," and "longevity" surrounded it. The pattern in the center depicted a smoking chimney and a crane soaring away through the clouds...
He had seen this kind of pattern before.
At a funeral home.
So was this plate meant for the dead?
"This is the room beyond the door? Sure enough, I came to the right place. It looks like some period of the past was sealed away here." Jiang Qiao's gaze swept over the twelve-inch black-and-white television, and he came to