Qi Ran had to use considerable effort to stop herself from looking at Miss Ah Qiao beside her.
She felt her brain had completely turned to mush. It took a long moment of thought before she could finally pull herself free from this whirlpool of self-doubt—twin sisters, defective products, Tao. Too many coincidences made it impossible for her not to sink into conspiratorial speculation.
“What did you say?”
She heard her own voice ask Miss Ah Qiao beside her. Strangely, her voice sounded much calmer than she felt.
Miss Ah Qiao seemed to notice something was off with her emotions. Even she refrained from making any mocking remarks. Instead, she shook her head and said, “Don’t worry. You and your sister couldn’t possibly be Ghost Birth Infants.”
She continued, “It’s obvious. After the Tao Family obtained the Ghost Birth Infant technique, they didn’t destroy it completely. They kept it as one of their last-resort, desperate measures. And the result is known to everyone. The Tao Family was exterminated. Dead beyond dead, even the yolk was shaken loose. Yet even so, not a single whisper about Ghost Birth Infants arose. That leaves only two major possibilities. One: they failed and only produced two stillborns. Two: they didn’t fail. The Ghost Birth Infants were successfully created, but they never got the chance to harvest them. An accident happened first, and the Ghost Birth Infants are still sleeping within these two coffins.”
Qi Ran was about to ask, confused, why there was no time, when it hit her. “Not everyone in the Tao Family knew about the Ghost Birth Infants. It was a secret!”
“Exactly,” Miss Ah Qiao nodded. “After all, it was an act against the natural order and human ethics. No matter how united the Tao Family was internally, it was impossible for everyone to accept such a thing. The most likely scenario is that only the Tao Family Head and a handful of others knew about the Ghost Birth Infants. All of these informed parties died abruptly, so the matter of the Ghost Birth Infants was ultimately forgotten among the dust.”
“…”
Miss Ah Qiao knew her hesitation and sighed lightly. “Ghost Birth Infants, Ghost Birth Infants. These twins must have been born without father or mother. Yet Qi Jianguo and Li Wanying, those two were genuine living people. Besides, do you know what a true Ghost Birth Infant actually looks like?”
Qi Ran shook her head.
Miss Ah Qiao said quietly, “The first Ghost Birth Infant to appear in the world, and also the last, was born in the 1960s… Have you heard the story of the No. 81 Western Mansion on Chaonei Street in Northern China?”
Qi Ran paused. A memory did surface—a horror movie released three years ago. “I’ve heard a bit. It was made into a movie, a terrible one.”
“Movie? Haven’t heard of it… Forget it, I’ll just tell you roughly what happened,” Miss Ah Qiao sighed. “It was chaos caused by a group of crazy warlords. Heaven knows how those amateurs managed to figure out the Ghost Birth Infant method. But in the end, they succeeded. They planned to follow the example of a century ago and establish a new Heavenly Kingdom, with the pair of Ghost Birth Infant twin sisters as its Empresses.”
“A nation ruled by Ghosts?” Qi Ran said. “That sounds truly unsettling.”
“Of course, it was a pipe dream. How could Ghost Birth Infants possibly obey the orders of those insects?” Miss Ah Qiao said helplessly. “Within just half a night, before dawn even broke, the entire mansion was devoid of any living presence. It became a dead mansion. In the end, the army came and simply leveled it with artillery fire. This audacious affair came to an end.”
“Did the Ghost Birth Infants die?” Qi Ran asked.
“Initially, people thought they did,” Miss Ah Qiao shook her head and sighed lightly. “But they didn’t. The elder sister devoured the younger, defective sister, making her sibling her own Shadow, completing the final step of becoming human. After all, Ghosts have no shadow. Without a shadow, they cannot walk under the sun.”
“The Ghost Birth Infant, having transformed into a human, was a walking nightmare. She wore a crimson wedding dress, lived in that shelled and abandoned No. 81 Western Mansion, and wandered alone through Northern China. Born with an inherently extreme Yin body, any ghost or monster felt an instinctual pull to obey her. She began gathering ghosts and monsters, seeking revenge against those who had shelled the No. 81 Mansion. It was manageable at first. But after the death of an important figure, the entire Circle in Northern China went nearly mad. Under the pressure of certain retribution, everyone was searching for that Ghost Birth Infant.” Miss Ah Qiao stated flatly. “In the end, the Tao Family intervened, hunted down and eliminated her. But they paid a terribly painful price, losing many of their own.”
Listening to Miss Ah Qiao’s words, Qi Ran could easily imagine that scene. A woman in a blood-red wedding dress, standing alone in a dark, dilapidated Western mansion. All the ghosts were her family… and her family members were all ghosts.
Could a Ghost die? What would that feel like?
Qi Ran couldn’t imagine it.
“Besides, if you were a Ghost Birth Infant, you wouldn’t have any need for me,” Miss Ah Qiao sighed. “A mere sports car trying to kill a Ghost Birth Infant is far too fanciful.”
Qi Ran nodded.
Behind her, Jiang Zhique watched Qi Ran. She hesitated for a long time but couldn’t bring herself to say anything to hurry her.
It wasn’t that she was timid, it was that Qi Ran was acting too strange. She stood right between the two inner coffins, hands resting on them, head bowed as if muttering to herself, and occasionally nodding. Who wouldn’t suspect she was possessed by a ghost? Zhique considered letting the Torch Dragon out first, but feared the uncontrollable entity would only make matters worse.
“Qi Ran, are you alright?”
She probingly asked the girl with her back turned. Her finger was already resting on her tattoo.
If Qi Ran had indeed fallen here, it would be the worst outcome for her. It would mean she was about to face at least four unknown ghosts. She didn’t believe the Torch Dragon Pattern was enough to ensure her survival.
“Me? I’m fine.”
Qi Ran came back to herself and said, “I believe the Ghost Birth Infant should be inside the coffin.”
“Then you plan to…?”
Qi Ran nodded. “I’m going to let it out.”
“Are you crazy?” Jiang Zhique blurted out.
Qi Ran’s voice sounded casual. “Don’t worry, I have a way to keep you alive.”
With that, she placed her hands on the inner coffin.
Before the stunned Jiang Zhique could voice a rebuttal, a young man’s voice came first from the staircase.
“Wait!”
“Has being cooped up so long made the young ones outside this brainless?” The young man couldn’t hold back any longer. “Consider it my loss. What do you want?”
Qi Ran stopped her movements. “I remember saying this once at the very beginning, so my answer remains the same: a way for us to leave this place.”
“That truly isn’t possible. Don’t rush to open the coffin yet; hear my explanation first.” The young man spoke rapidly, as if afraid this foolhardy girl would throw all caution to the wind if a single sentence wasn’t clear. “Do you know why I don’t just leave myself? Because if you leave from here, you’re heading to certain death anyway. Perhaps it would even get me, and the people living above, killed along with you.”
“The people above?” Qi Ran asked. “This little shop has a third floor?”
“The next time someone new enters, the staircase on your side will reveal a lower floor,” the young man said ominously. “At that time, you will become the second floor.”
“Why not go downstairs?”
“Some have tried to go downstairs. But once you step onto a floor that doesn’t belong to you, this building comes alive.” The young man’s voice became tainted with fear. “It will start eating people.”
Qi Ran said quietly, “Isn’t waiting here just another road to death? I don’t see any food or water.”
“There’s no need. Here, you don’t need to eat, nor do you need to sleep…” the young man said. “You will grow thin, but you will never starve to death.”
“Here, time never passes. Outside, time flows on. If the curse on this shop is ever eliminated, everyone will return to their original timeline upon entering the shop. Understand? You just have to wait patiently. Wait for the real-world shop to be destroyed, and everything will return to normal.”
Qi Ran suddenly asked, “When did the person on the highest floor enter?”
The young man was taken aback. A moment later, he replied, “I’ll need to ask. But the floors shouldn’t number very high; we’ll know the answer after the message is passed.”
A while later, the young man’s voice returned. “There are three floors above me. The person on the topmost floor says they came in ’92.”
“You entered in ’04?” Qi Ran asked.
“Yes,” the young man admitted frankly. “You should have seen the sublet notice posted outside the door. That’s the year the previous floor’s occupant entered this place.”
Qi Ran asked again, “How did you initially know of Qi Xin’s existence in the real world?”
The young man sighed. “Go to the wall on the far right side of the shop. You should find a mirror covered with paper. Tear the paper off, and you can see the real world. I saw the Young Miss Xie there, and your car parked not far outside the shop.”
Jiang Zhique, hearing this, looked toward the wall on the right.
Sure enough, high up, there was indeed a rather large mirror, tightly sealed by white paper.
