The Fake Medium Hooked a Real Ghost novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: One Rule

The ghost gives his name and says he has watched Ye Ming for four years; Ye Ming makes him keep one rule, gets a cold hand on his wrist, and is booked against Sang Ruo for a rich guest.

Ye Ming's room in Shapowei was on the fourth floor, above a shop that sold dried squid, and the whole stairwell smelled of the sea.

He put the lamp on the desk, locked the door, and sat down with his coat still on.

"I know you're here," he said. "You can stop being polite about it."

The wall beside the desk was damp.

It had always been damp, with a brown stain in the corner that spread each winter.

Now a line of wet footprints came out of nowhere at the door, one after the other, and crossed the floor toward him.

They stopped a pace from his chair.

Ye Ming looked at them for a long time with no change in his face.

"Gu Chen," said the voice. "Pier inspector. I'm the one you scrolled past."

Ye Ming did not blink. "You're on the list."

"Yes."

"And you've been in that lamp for eight years."

"Seven of them on a shelf in Zhongshan Road," said Gu Chen. "I've watched four years of you."

Ye Ming's hand closed on the arm of the chair.

"Watched me do what?"

"You eat rice noodles on the Hall steps at dawn, before the others come," said Gu Chen.

"You tell a mother her son isn't angry at her. You wash your cup twice."

"Then you stand in the stairwell with your forehead on the wall."

The voice was dry and level, and it did not apologize.

"I couldn't speak to anyone. You were the one who looked at them instead of the clock."

The room felt very cold.

On the plaster behind the lamp a shape had come up out of the damp.

It was tall and narrow, with a long coat and a bent head.

It was a silhouette made of water, held there by the light.

Ye Ming saw the line of a shoulder, a jaw, and a hand hanging at its side with drops falling from the fingers.

He had expected to be afraid, and instead he felt only a calm, careful anger.

"Then I'll tell you what's going to happen," he said.

"I have a sister to feed and a job I'm good at. I'm not going to be haunted."

"I don't intend to haunt you."

"Did you ever want to follow me home?" he asked.

There was a silence long enough that Ye Ming heard the dripping.

"I wanted to," said Gu Chen.

It was said with no heat at all, flat and plain, and it made Ye Ming's throat tighten.

He took off his coat and laid it over the chair, taking his time.

"One rule," he said. "Only one, so listen. Where I can't see you, you aren't there."

"Say it again."

"I mean corners. I mean behind me, and the bathroom, and the bed, and the dark. If I can't see you, you don't watch me."

He turned to face the wall with the shape on it.

"You stay in the lamp's light, where I can see you," Ye Ming said. "Or you stay out of my way."

"That is the whole rule?"

"That's the whole rule. Keep it to the letter."

"I will," said Gu Chen.

The silhouette on the plaster moved, bending its head, and Ye Ming took it for agreement.

He went to the washbasin, turned on the tap, and let the water run for a moment.

Then he looked back.

The shape on the wall had slid along the plaster to the very edge of the lamp's circle, where the light thinned.

It stood there with its hands at its sides and its head turned to watch him, and went no farther.

"You said no corners," said Gu Chen. "This is the last place with light."

"I can see you from here," Ye Ming said.

"Yes."

"Then it's allowed."

He dried his hands with great care and did not smile, and he did not look at the shape again for a long while.

He knew what he was doing.

It was what he had always done to people who wanted something from him.

He gave them a look, and then he took it back.

Behind him he heard the wet footprints shift on the boards.

The silhouette had come closer, as quietly as it could.

Ye Ming allowed it a few more minutes of pretending to read a paperback from the desk, and then he lowered it.

"Good evening, Gu Chen," he said, and turned.

Something cold hovered at his wrist and waited, a hand's width off the skin.

"May I?" said Gu Chen.

Ye Ming held out his arm and did not look at it.

Cold fingers closed around his wrist.

They had weight.

For the first time they were a hand, long and hard-palmed.

Water ran over his skin, and the touch went straight up his arm.

"I haven't touched anything in eight years," said Gu Chen, low.

"I wanted to know if I still could."

Ye Ming did not pull away.

He let the cold hand stay a little longer than he should have.

"Let go," he said.

The fingers opened at once.

"I'm sorry," said Gu Chen. "It won't happen again."

"It will happen again, when I allow it."

On the desk his phone buzzed.

It was a message from Master Lu, three lines long.

Friday, the Shao villa, a very rich guest. Sang Ruo goes first, Ming second, bring the lamp. Whoever does better stays on the television list.

"Sang Ruo has a man in his ear," said Gu Chen from the dark edge of the light.

"I've heard him whispering through it for a year."

"Who?"

"Not a dead man," said Gu Chen. "I would like to watch him lose."

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