His eyelid twitched. The middle-aged man struggled to remain calm and cast another uncertain glance behind Gao Ming.
There was no mistake. His child had come home, bringing a woman who was falling apart in every sense of the word.
Faced with this unexpected turn of events, the middle-aged man's mind raced, but he could not remember his next line.
The sound of chopping meat came from the kitchen. Mother was urging him on, but the middle-aged man opened his mouth and, in the end, managed only, "Come in?"
Dressed in his school uniform, Gao Ming stood at the door. Hearing his father's familiar tone, he felt dazed for a moment, as though he had returned to that rainy night when he came home from a high school outing. He had stumbled through the doorway, distraught, overwhelmed by shock and terror.
Holding the woman's wrist, Gao Ming entered the rental unit. Everything was just as it had been when he left, as though time had frozen.
"Why did you suddenly come looking for me?" Gao Ming stood beneath the light, listening to the sounds of cooking in the kitchen and watching his father's completely rigid expression.
None of the Gao Mings who had entered before had ever said this. For the middle-aged man inside the rental unit, this was another entirely new "line."
"We called you more than a dozen times, and you never answered. We were worried, so we thought we'd come check on you." Many of the middle-aged man's movements had already become muscle memory. He instinctively reached for Gao Ming's schoolbag, only realizing after extending his hand that this Gao Ming had not brought one.
Had he traded knowledge for a female ghost?
"Give me your dirty clothes." The middle-aged man thought fast. "You're old enough to