I answered, "Mm."
Gu Mo scoffed. "What do I care whether they're happy or not? And besides, wasn't Yezi the only one left behind back then? And now—even now—we're still in this sorry state! Do you even know what we're up against? Can't you get it through your head?!"
Gu Mo's voice grew louder and louder. It wasn't until I heard Nangong Yao shout "Gu Mo" from the other end of the phone that he stopped yelling, leaving only his heavy breathing.
"I know," I said quietly. "I know what we're up against. But I think it's the same."
"The same?" Gu Mo gave a derisive laugh.
"You helped the Duan family, and those fourteen years were truly happy for them. You did it—you did it again, at least. You resolved a supernatural incident and gave your clients peace of mind." Gu Mo's words hadn't discouraged me, and I went on. "Ye Qing said it in the case files. It came up again in the recording from '17, at the end. You'll be all right."
Silence fell over the other end of the phone again.
"I'll save every one of you. Save you, and protect my family and friends. Ye Qing wants to change things as they are now. I don't know if I can do that. But I think I can give you fourteen years... at the very least, more than ten years of peaceful, worry-free life."
I clenched my phone in one hand and balled the other into a fist.
I didn't know what I was capable of.
My sympathy for and admiration of the people at Greenleaf had been abstract.
Until then, I'd had no idea what a good life actually looked like.
Air conditioning in summer, heating in winter, lying around on your phone, electricity and