DNSTU 1. The Return

Fifteen Minutes Later

“Beep.”

“Beep.”

“Beep.”

The call finally connected.

“This is Xiang Ye. I’m calling from the public restroom at the Jiangzhou City long-distance bus station, in the Nanshan district. If you’re really the one who can help me, listen carefully. In fifteen minutes, a man and a woman claiming to be my parents are going to put me on a bus headed for Qingshui. The license plate number is Jiang A5X62T. There’s something wrong with them. I suspect they want to kill me, or take something from me.”

A slender, pale hand gripped the phone. The veins beneath the skin stood out, tense. His voice came fast and low, deliberately quiet, just like the sudden downpour outside the window.

Urgent. Sharp. Cold.

“There’s someone watching me, too.”

“Something is wrong. I—”

A dull thump.

Something struck the window.

He turned his head sharply. Outside the glass, a dry branch hung from the ledge, swaying but not falling. It was probably the source of the sound.

Beyond the glass, across the rainy blur, a shadow stood holding an umbrella. It was a human figure, blurry but unmoving. Just over ten meters away, it stood staring straight at him.

Chills crept up his spine.

Was it a coincidence?

Or was it the same pair of eyes that had been watching him from the shadows all along, appearing again?

Xiang Ye clenched the phone tighter. He was alone in the restroom. The air was beginning to press in around him.

That person outside had not moved at all. Wind and rain battered the windows, compressing the air even more. The pressure seemed to bear down on his lungs, forcing his heart to beat harder, to resist suffocation.

His brows drew together, and he could not hold back a dry cough.

The sound of coughing broke the silence, but the other end of the line remained quiet.

Utterly silent.

So silent he began to wonder whether anyone had answered at all.

Xiang Ye gave a dry, self-mocking laugh. He raised a hand and wiped at the corner of his mouth, as if there were blood there. There was none. He turned, ready to leave.

The restroom door suddenly opened.

A man walked in.

He was tall. Taller than Xiang Ye by at least half a head. He wore a black trench coat. His build was lean and athletic. His expression was cold and sharp, like a blade ready to be drawn at any moment. Everything about him radiated danger.

Xiang Ye took note of the details because the man’s black boots were damp, with traces of rainwater and mud. The trench coat looked like it was made of waterproof material. Raindrops still clung faintly to its surface.

For a small, remote bus station like this, the appearance of such a man was far from ordinary.

Right now, Xiang Ye was suspicious of everyone. But this man really did seem to have come in just to wash his hands.

He glanced coldly at Xiang Ye, then walked straight to the sink and turned on the tap.

The sound of running water blended with the rainfall outside, forming a two-part harmony. Xiang Ye watched the man’s back as he lowered his head and began washing his hands, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Xiao Ye? Xiao Ye? The bus is almost here, Xiao Ye.”

A woman’s soft, syrupy voice called from outside the restroom. It was getting closer. Closer and closer.

It sounded like she was about to press right up against the door, like she might barge in at any moment.

Xiang Ye’s nerves jumped. He glanced out the window.

The person holding the umbrella was gone.

The man at the sink showed no reaction to the woman’s voice. He simply kept washing his hands.

But how long did it really take to wash one’s hands?

Xiang Ye felt that everything was off. So off that the world itself seemed to be twisting out of shape.

“Xiao Ye? Are you still there? Mom’s waiting for you, Xiao Ye.”

As her voice urged him on, Xiang Ye silently slipped the phone into his pocket, pulled down the brim of his cap, and pushed the restroom door open to leave.

What he did not know was that, the moment the door closed behind him, the man at the sink lifted his head.

His face, reflected in the mirror, showed no particular expression. He pulled a paper towel from the dispenser, dried his hands, and turned to glance out the window.

On the other side, Xiang Ye stepped out and came face to face with the woman waiting just outside the men’s room.

She wore a pink suit, her long hair pinned into an elegant bun. Though she was clearly older, the way she had taken care of herself made the outfit look perfectly natural on her.

She smiled warmly, even a bit too sweetly.

“Xiao Ye, you were gone so long, Mom started to worry. Are you feeling alright? Anything uncomfortable?”

Xiang Ye didn’t answer. His eyes moved past her and scanned the space behind.

“Where is he?” he asked.

She replied, “Your dad went to buy some food. There’s a vendor over there selling corn and sweet potatoes. He was afraid you’d be hungry, so he went to grab something for the road. You’re still growing. You need to eat more. We haven’t been together as a family in so long. Once we’re back home and safe, Mama will cook whatever you want, alright?”

They spoke as they walked back toward the ticket gate.

Passengers carrying all kinds of bags had already formed a long line. The entire hall was thick with smells of sweat, food, gasoline, and that distinct humidity that came with a rainy day.

The mix made Xiang Ye feel vaguely unwell. He fought the itch in his throat and kept alert to the movements around him.

Soon, the man who claimed to be his father appeared.

He was holding a plastic bag stuffed with food from the station shop. But his shoes were wet.

Xiang Ye stared at them.

Was he the one standing outside the bathroom window just now? Watching from the rain in silence, just to stop him from escaping?

What were they really after?

A mechanical voice broke into his thoughts.

“Attention all passengers. The bus departing from Jiangzhou to Qingshui is now arriving. Please prepare for boarding. Attention all passengers…”

Xiang Ye looked up at the clock on the wall.

Five minutes until departure.

Outside the glass doors, the wind and rain were relentless. A gust blew in through the crack in the frame, and even though it was already June, the chill in the air bit straight through the skin.

That sudden cold reminded Xiang Ye of three days ago, the day when everything began.

Xiang Ye was not born with that surname. His original name was Shen. He was not technically an orphan, but his parents had died in an accident when he was very young.

He should have been raised by his grandparents, but his late father had severed ties with the family years earlier. His grandparents refused to acknowledge him and handed him off to someone else without a second thought.

That someone was an eccentric old man with the surname Xiang.

Old Xiang had never married, even at his age. People said he adopted a child just so he would have someone to take care of him in his old age. He changed Xiang Ye’s surname to match his own.

Xiang Ye lived with him in a half-finished residential tower in Jiangzhou City’s Nanshan District. They stayed there for ten years.

The old man had been living there even longer. That building had once been part of one of the most prestigious developments in Jiangzhou. Nestled between mountain and water, the view had been spectacular. But construction stopped halfway through, the developer disappeared, and all sixteen buildings in the complex were left to rot.

Years passed. Weeds grew wild. The people still living there were those who had sunk their life savings into a home and had nowhere else to go.

This spring, Xiang Ye turned eighteen. The old man died.

Now that he was legally an adult, Xiang Ye was not sent to an orphanage. He inherited the old man’s only asset, a unit in the abandoned complex, and managed to take the national college entrance exam.

Three days ago, June fifteenth, it had rained again.

The rain came down in sheets. The building groaned in the wind. Upstairs and down, in rooms with no windows, the wind howled like footsteps through the halls. Xiang Ye paid it no mind.

He sat by the window, wrapped in a blanket, tending the charcoal fire. Occasionally, he strummed his ukulele. From time to time, he took a bite of the meat roasting over the fire. Even if the whole building were to collapse around him, it felt like none of it had anything to do with him.

In Xiang Ye’s short life, that day should have been ordinary.

But something extraordinary happened.

Xiang Ye saw his parents.

The same parents who had supposedly been buried for ten years.

“Bang. Bang.”

Urgent knocks on the door broke through the sound of music. Xiang Ye turned his head, puzzled.

He was the only resident in Building 7. Visitors were rare.

And in weather like this, who would come all the way here in the rain?

“Bang. Bang. Bang.”

The knocking continued.

Xiang Ye frowned slightly, then finally threw off the blanket and rose lazily from his recliner. He walked to the door and peered through the peephole.

He froze.

That face was far too familiar.

And yet it felt completely foreign.

It took him a full two seconds to snap out of it and realize that these were his parents.

“Xiao Ye, Xiao Ye? Is that you? Are you inside? Open the door, it’s dad!”

The man outside kept knocking, but Xiang Ye was already overwhelmed by a wave of sheer absurdity that clenched around his chest.

“You said you’re… who?” he muttered under his breath.

“It’s dad, Xiao Ye. Open the door. Your mom is here too. Let us in first, and we’ll explain everything. Xiao Ye…”

A woman’s voice followed faintly from behind the door, but whatever she said was already drowned out.

His mind was filled with noise.

It was a constant hum, messy and overwhelming.

It was a stormy day. To have parents who had died years ago suddenly appear at his door felt less like reality and more like the beginning of a horror film.

Just then, a gust of wind burst through the window.

The charcoal stove tipped over, spilling hot coals across the floor. The edge of the blanket caught fire, but the rain swept in almost immediately, dousing the flames with a wet hiss.

Xiang Ye rushed to stamp it out, bracing against the wind and forcing the window shut.

That was when he noticed something strange.

The latch on the window was bent out of shape. Twisted.

It no longer worked properly.

That was right. If not for something strange, how could a newly installed window have been blown open so easily?

Who had damaged the latch?

As Xiang Ye frowned and tried to make sense of it, the people outside, getting no response for too long, forced the door open.

After ten years apart, the so-called family finally stood face-to-face in the same room.

The man was out of breath. He looked at Xiang Ye with a relieved expression and said, “Thank goodness, you’re alright.”

The woman’s eyes had already filled with tears. Her lips trembled as she stepped forward toward him.

“Stop right there.”

Xiang Ye picked up the ukulele, gripping it like a bat. He stared at them and asked, “Who are you people?”

“It’s me, Xiao Ye,” the woman said through tears. “Mom isn’t dead. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry it took me this long to come back. Xiao Ye, don’t you recognize me? Look at me. I’m your mother.”

Xiang Ye looked down at her feet. There was a shadow.

But that did nothing to ease the doubt in his heart.

No one could easily accept something like this.

If they were not ghosts, then why had they disappeared for ten years? Why had they suddenly come back now?

Everything was too strange. So strange that there was no room for sentiment.

The woman seemed shaken by her son’s cold stare. She tried to speak again, voice rising with emotion, but the man beside her reached out and held her back.

The man stepped forward and looked at Xiang Ye with heavy eyes.

“Xiao Ye, I understand that you don’t trust us right now,” he said. “But you need to know that no matter what has happened, your mom and I would never hurt you. There were reasons we disappeared for ten years. We finally managed to come back, and the first thing we did was come to find you. I don’t have time to explain everything, and some things are not easy to explain, but you need to pack your things and come with us. This place isn’t safe. We have to leave immediately.”

“I think going with you would be even more dangerous.”

“Be good, Xiao Ye. Do you remember the red birthmark on your back?” The man tried again. “If I were an impostor, how would I know about something like that?”

“I really am your father. I know life must have been hard for you these past years. It’s normal for you to feel angry at us. But you can’t stay here any longer. You’re in danger.”

Xiang Ye raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of danger?”

The man met his eyes. His gaze was filled with sincerity and helplessness.

“Someone is going to try to kill you. That’s why your mother and I haven’t come back all these years. We were afraid we would drag you into it.”

“Then let them come.”

Xiang Ye caught sight of a small flame still flickering on the blanket. He stepped on it and put it out.

The man and woman exchanged a look, clearly not expecting such a calm response from him.

But Xiang Ye’s attention had already shifted again.

His eyes returned to the warped window latch.

Xiang Ye lived on the ninth floor. From that height, with nothing blocking the front of the building, how had anyone managed to tamper with the window latch?

It had been raining earlier when he got up to close the window. He was certain the latch had still been intact then.

In the hour since, he had spent most of his time near the window. No one could have climbed up to the ninth floor in the middle of a storm, damaged the lock, and escaped unnoticed right under his nose.

Unless it really was something supernatural.

A ghost?

Xiang Ye had always been fearless. But even he felt a chill down his spine at the thought.

He tightened his grip on the ukulele and met the eyes of the man and woman once more. Their voices continued to urge him, gentle and persistent.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said.

The man looked frustrated, but helpless. “You—”

“Don’t push him,” the woman interrupted softly, pulling on her husband’s arm. “It’s natural that the child can’t accept it right away. But the most important thing is that we’re together again. Isn’t that something to be happy about? Give him a few days to adjust, alright?”

Her voice was gentle, and her eyes were filled with guilt as she looked at Xiang Ye.

“Mom won’t force you, alright?”

The man hesitated, caught between decisions. In the end, he clenched his jaw and gave in.

“We’ll stay a few days. But Xiao Ye, you really can’t stay here too long. Think it through quickly. We’ll stay nearby to protect you, but you need to be careful. The longer you wait, the more dangerous it gets. Do you understand?”

Xiang Ye took out his phone.

“If it’s really that dangerous, why don’t we call the police?”

“No. You can’t,” the man said quickly, cutting him off. “This can’t be exposed to the authorities. If calling the police could solve anything, we wouldn’t have had to fake our deaths ten years ago, and you wouldn’t have ended up here. Reporting it could actually put them in even more danger.”

Realizing he could no longer hide everything, the man finally decided to reveal part of the truth.

There was nowhere proper to sit in the room, so Xiang Ye returned to his recliner and sat down again. He wiped off the rainwater, and that was enough.

For the next half hour, he listened to a version of events completely different from what he had always known.

His father’s name was Shen Yanzhi. He had been an ordinary office worker. His mother, Song Ling, had been a full-time housewife. Their life had been happy. The couple loved each other dearly and had a sweet, cheerful son. The only flaw in their perfect little family had been that Shen Yanzhi had severed ties with his own parents in order to be with Song Ling.

Song Ling had been from another province. In Jiangzhou, she had no relatives, no support.

In Xiang Ye’s memory, he had never seen a single person from his mother’s side of the family.

Ten years ago, Shen Yanzhi’s company had arranged a vacation trip and allowed employees to bring family members along. He had been delighted to take his wife with him, but while they were away, a flash flood struck.

At the time, Xiang Ye had been in school. The police contacted his paternal grandparents to handle the aftermath. By the time the news reached him, his parents had already been placed in urns.

He had never once questioned the truth of the story.

After all, his parents had not been the only ones who died in that flood. Everything about it looked like a tragic accident.

That had been the version he had always believed.

But now Shen Yanzhi told him the flood had indeed occurred, and they had indeed been swept away. But someone had saved them.

The police never found them. For ordinary people, survival in such a situation was almost impossible. By the time Shen Yanzhi’s parents arrived at the site, they accepted their son’s death without question, and the case was quickly closed.

In reality, Shen Yanzhi had called his parents to tell them he was alive. But they only accepted his survival because he told them to.

That was how a dead man stayed dead.

This was called a faked death.

Everything that followed, from his grandparents walking away to Old Xiang taking him in, had been part of a plan to keep him hidden from their enemies.

His grandparents had not discarded him. The only way to protect him had been to push him as far away as possible.

But who were those enemies?

“It’s all my fault.”

Song Ling covered her mouth to keep herself from crying aloud. Only after her emotions had calmed a little did she speak again.

“Xiao Ye, have you ever wondered why you’ve never met anyone from my side of the family?”

Xiang Ye gave no answer. He was drinking his tea.

Song Ling continued.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Before her words had even faded, there was a sharp sound.

The loose window burst open again under the wind.

Raindrops struck Xiang Ye’s face, cold as ice.

He held the teacup tightly, his black eyes fixed on Song Ling.

“I don’t,” he said. “So what’s your point?”

Something in her heart seemed to tighten.

“You might not believe it now, but I really can see ghosts. I come from a very special place. That place is like hell. I did everything I could to escape from it. I thought that once I met your father, we could start a new life together.

“But they wouldn’t let me go. They refused to stop. They tried to drag me back, and when that failed, they started using you and Yanzhi to threaten me. We had no choice but to disappear.”

Shen Yanzhi spoke up quickly, as if to echo her words.

“That’s right. We’ve been in hiding for ten years. We thought we could keep it that way. But now… I got word that they’ve found you. They might try to harm you. That’s why we rushed back. We came to take you away.”

At last, their story was complete.

It all sounded reasonable.

Too reasonable.

And that was exactly the problem.

Ghosts?

Xiang Ye looked again at the twisted latch. His fingers rubbed absently against the side of the teacup. At last, he spoke.

“I need time to think.”

To Shen Yanzhi and Song Ling, he already seemed more composed than someone his age should be. Still, they knew better than to press him further. Instead, they decided to settle in the empty apartment next door to keep watch from nearby.

That unit also had windows. It was unfinished, bare concrete, but laying out some bedding on the floor would be enough for a few nights.

When Xiang Ye saw they were really going to stay next door, he didn’t try to stop them. His head was a mess.

The tea had long gone cold. He had forgotten to drink it.

He stood in front of the broken window, staring out at the wind and rain. In the distance, deep in the overgrown woods, the cry of a bamboo partridge rang out again. The sound was sharp and eerie, as if lifted straight from an old verse.

Do not proceed, brother.
(xíng bù dé yě, gē ge)

It was an old phrase. It meant the path ahead was treacherous. It could not be walked.

Xiang Ye still could not convince himself that ghosts were real.

Some of what that couple had said might be true. The birthmark, for example, was something no outsider could have known. But the rest had no way to be verified. His grandparents had both passed away over the last ten years. Even the old man was gone.

But the old man had left him something before he died.

“If you ever run into trouble one day,” he had said, “make that call.”

He had spoken as if he were certain danger would come. Even at the end, cigarette still in hand, he had taken a slow drag and exhaled a lazy curl of smoke.

“Did you ever pass the fifteen-hundred-meter test?”

“No,” Xiang Ye had answered.

“Hmph. You can’t even run properly. You’ll probably be down here with me before long.”

“Quit cursing me,” Xiang Ye had snapped.

That curse was the old man’s last word to him.

Xiang Ye had lived eighteen years as an ordinary person. At first, he hadn’t thought much of it.

Not until now.

Because now, he sensed it clearly.

The danger the old man had spoken of, had finally arrived.