Burning (1)

I waited downstairs at Building 6 in Workers and Peasants Sixth Village. In what felt like the blink of an eye, Skinny and Ma Yibing arrived. I checked the time. An hour had passed since Skinny called me, not the blink of an eye I'd thought it was. My hand had gone numb from gripping the lighter in the same position for so long, but it still felt just as cold as when I'd first picked it up. My body heat hadn't warmed it at all. I didn't know whether the lighter was the problem or whether I simply couldn't warm up after standing in the cold wind.

Skinny clutched a transparent plastic bag. In the streetlight, I could clearly see a bundle of pitch-black fabric inside. Ma Yibing trailed a few steps behind him, carrying an iron bucket and a bottle of cooking oil. His eyes were fixed on the bag in Skinny's hands, and he was on high alert.

"Let's go." I flexed my fingers, and a dull ache ran through them.

Skinny's face was covered in sweat. He looked as if he were facing a formidable enemy as he turned to urge Ma Yibing to hurry up.

Ma Yibing probably still had no idea why we'd come here to burn a kimono. He had no room to think about it, though. The kimono that had burned and then reappeared had claimed all of his attention.

As we went upstairs, Skinny told me how they'd found the kimono.

Though "found" wasn't really the right word.

They'd gone to the drama academy and entered the theater club's office. The kimono had been in the room where they kept props and costumes, hanging neatly on a rack alongside the other clothes from The Big Family, as if no one had touched it.

Skinny had worked up the nerve to inspect it closely. There wasn't a single scorch mark on the kimono. It was completely intact, just as Chen Xiaoqiu had once said: made with fine materials and exquisite craftsmanship, and preserved in excellent condition. It looked like an artwork kept in a glass case, not a costume hanging in a student clubroom.

Skinny had asked Ma Yibing to find a plastic bag and put the kimono inside. He'd been afraid it might react when he handled it, but it had acted like an ordinary piece of clothing. He'd carried it in his hands all the way here, and nothing unusual had happened.

"Oh, right. I asked around, too. Starting with that Fan Wen, the theater club has performed The Big Family four times."

I slowed my steps. "Four times?"

"Yeah. Which means..." Skinny bared his teeth in a grimace.

Which meant four people might have died before this. If we counted Zheng Xiaorui, that made five—exactly the number of people I'd seen beneath the cherry tree.

But that didn't seem like the right way to count.

I shook my head.

The three of us climbed to the sixth floor.

Ma Yibing shivered and finally remembered to ask, "Where are we going, anyway?"

Skinny and I didn't answer. We walked straight ahead.

The hallway lights were off. Maybe they were broken, or maybe a ghost was behind it. We chose to assume they were broken and calmly turned on our phone flashlights.

As the light swept across the hall, Ma Yibing spotted the Greenleaf sign and asked cautiously, "Is there some kind of expert here?"

Skinny and I still didn't answer him.

Skinny waited for me to open the door.

But just before I put the key in the lock, I hesitated and knocked twice.

Skinny jumped, and Ma Yibing stared at me in confusion.

"Why are you knocking?"

"Is this your place?"

They asked completely different questions, in completely different tones.

Skinny sounded terrified. Ma Yibing sounded surprised.

I waited a while, but no one answered from the other side of the door. Naturally, no one came to open it for us. As I unlocked it, I said, "Um... I'm coming in."

Skinny grew even more frightened. He wasn't even this scared of the kimono. He hugged it to his chest and shrank in on himself like a little girl. "Hey, hey, hey, Brother Qi, what are you doing?"

Creeeak—

The door swung open with a loud sound, perhaps because everything around us was so quiet.

Both of them jumped.

"Come in." I took a deep breath and entered the office first.

The office was even quieter than outside. There wasn't a sound. I looked around but didn't see anyone. I couldn't tell whether I felt disappointed or relieved.

Ma Yibing came straight in. My actions had spooked Skinny, and now he seemed even more timid than Ma Yibing.

"Hurry up! Don't waste time!" I snapped at Skinny.

With the look of a man bravely marching to his death, Skinny took a huge step into the office.

"Close the door," I said.

"Maybe we should leave it open?" Skinny suggested. He pushed the door even wider, making it easier to escape later.

"Stop arguing!" I snapped again.

Skinny gave me a suspicious look and studied me for a long while, but couldn't figure out what was going on.

I walked over and shut the door myself.

Skinny jumped in fright and hurried two steps away from me.

"Give me the bucket and the clothes." I held out my hand to them.

Ma Yibing was eager to get this over with, so he cooperated.

Skinny handed me the kimono.

I poured oil over it and threw it into the iron bucket. I'd been clutching that silver lighter the whole time. I didn't know what kind of divine or ghostly object it was, so I could only pray it would work and burn the kimono to ashes, without any more trouble. After praying, I silently recited "Amitabha" in my heart, then muttered to the kimono, urging it to pass peacefully into the next life and stop bringing harm to the living.

As I murmured, I opened the pure-silver lighter. A flame leapt up, its warm glow lending a little warmth to the cold, gloomy space.

The moment the kimono touched the flame, it whooshed into a ball of fire and burned incredibly fast.

"So we're in the clear now, right?" Ma Yibing asked us with a nervous laugh.

Skinny's face was grim. "How did Lanlan burn?"

Ma Yibing's smile froze. "I... heard she used a match... and burned it just like this..."

"She burned it just like this, and not a single bit of ash was left?" Skinny asked.

Ma Yibing began to panic.

It was better not to think about things like this. Once you did, everything seemed wrong.

A kimono wasn't paper. Even paper left ashes behind. How could it burn so easily?

"Maybe it was made of some special material..." Ma Yibing thought for a long time before coming up with that explanation.

Skinny looked ready to say something like "ghost material." He had just opened his mouth when the ball of fire in the bucket burned out completely.

The kimono had several layers and was a sizeable garment. Even with oil poured on it, there was no way it should have burned so fast.

Ma Yibing didn't believe his own "special material" nonsense, but he didn't believe any other "truth," either. He said urgently, "It's burned up. Let's go!"

Skinny glared at Ma Yibing. "We should wait a little longer, at least. What if it comes back..."

Before he could finish, I felt a gust of cold wind brush past me. I abruptly raised my hand. My arm moved stiffly in a circle and reached behind me.

Skinny and Ma Yibing were both startled by what I did. Skinny even backed away three paces, putting as much distance between us as he could.

My arm pulled me sideways, and I looked in the direction it had reached. My hand was clenched into a fist. I must have been gripping something, but I couldn't feel it at all.

Just as Skinny and Ma Yibing were about to ask what was happening, something appeared in my fist.

A piece of black fabric. It spread and grew in my hand, becoming a garment. The cherry tree appeared too, from its crown down to its roots.

Skinny and Ma Yibing both sucked in sharp breaths.

I couldn't make a sound. The kimono I was gripping by the collar wasn't hanging down like an ordinary garment. It stood upright in midair, as if there were something inside it...