The woman had no idea what was happening and was still watching the gathering crowd with concern.
They were inspecting the things carried out of the room. Boxes and plastic bags were opened, and their contents taken out one by one. Some people went into the room and searched it carefully.
The restaurant owner looked around and said to Xin-jie, "See? There aren't any mice. We always keep the place clean, so there wouldn't be any mice. Did you see something else? It couldn't have been cockroaches, either. We do a thorough cleaning every day. There wouldn't be any bugs here, either. You must have seen something else, right? Maybe a napkin got blown somewhere?"
Xin-jie looked grim. Some of the others seemed uneasy, others agitated; none of them looked in a good mood. They really had seen something.
I saw an earlier memory of the woman.
It was still on the restaurant's second floor. The woman was sipping her drink and looking up at the decorative painting on the opposite wall when she saw a black hand move the roses covering the painting.
The hand appeared at the edge of the picture and vanished in an instant, but the rose petals didn't stop swaying right away.
The woman froze, then leaped up excitedly. She still had a straw in her mouth, and when she moved, she knocked over her drink.
The woman couldn't see ghosts. I saw the ghost standing beside the picture frame.
That memory flashed by. Next, the others seemed to see something, too, jumping at every little thing. They searched the second floor. Their emotions were out of sorts. They knew they'd seen something, but weren't sure what it was. They desperately wanted an answer that would put them at ease.
The woman saw something again