"There's a new ghost," the nurse said hesitantly. "Li Wangxi answered a phone call, and then she started acting strangely. She mentioned some kind of deal, trading a person for someone else. So she was..."
From what I'd heard, I could tell the nurse wasn't deliberately holding anything back. She really didn't know what had happened. She only knew the rough outline, but even that was enough to unsettle people in the real world who had grown accustomed to the Ghost King.
Probably not many people dared to use the phone anymore.
In the end, the nurse kindly reminded me to be careful when answering calls and not to pick up just any phone.
I thanked her for her concern and didn't ask anything else.
I was certain she didn't have two sets of memories.
The timelines in the dreams might have overlapped, but it was more likely that she hadn't known exactly what had happened in the first place. She didn't know whether Li Wangxi had died, only that Li Wangxi had been attacked by the Ghost King and that a new Ghost King had appeared.
I'd probably have to ask Li Wangxi and her colleague to learn the details. They were the ones involved, so they would know best.
But the two of them were probably being kept under protection now—or, more accurately, being questioned.
I finished the cold porridge, set the empty thermos aside, and put away the note.
There was no phone in the bedside cabinet, and I couldn't tell what was happening. I simply lay back down.
I felt exhausted, but whenever I quieted down and stopped thinking about anything else, those memories clung to me like a bone-deep affliction. I couldn't shake them off.
I'd thought that if I looked at them enough times,