Chi Yan exhaled in relief, and kissed the glass bottle. He sort of guessed that it was Third Master Ye who saved his life again.
Soundlessly, the shadow kissed him back on his ear.
He checked the time, it's only 1.40am. Not much time has passed since he woke up, though it had felt like hours when he was frightened. Though Chi Yan barely slept, and he felt tired, he wasn't sleepy at all, or rather he was afraid to sleep due to the lingering fear. Instead of sleeping, he decided to watch some videos and turned the lights on.
After finishing a movie, Chi Yan finally felt relaxed enough to fall asleep. However, when he took off his earphones, there seemed to be a commotion going on downstairs. Outside the corridor, there was a flurry of movement and he heard words like 'suicide' and 'opposite block'.
Chi Yan pulled on his coat and went out to the balcony. It was quite dark outside, but he could sort of see the crowd, dimly lighted with their handphones. However it was too dark for him to make out what was going on down there. He looked at the opposite block, where the undergraduates lived. As it was after curfew, all the rooms were dark, with light only coming from the part where the toilets are. Chi Yan had already derived what was happening from the words he had heard, thus his eyes were drawn to the top of the other building.
All the dorm buildings were seven storeys high, and Chi Yan could see quite clearly from the sixth floor – a person standing on the edge of the parapat, one step and he would fall off. Behind him, Chi Yan could see the vague outlines of people, who kept a distance, not daring to go too close. He thought they must be staff or teachers.
When Chi Yan finally took a closer look, he froze.
Though there were so many people there, none saw the thing behind the suicidal person. Its deathly white hands were wrapped tightly around that person's neck, its long slimy tongue licking a path from his neck to his ears.
Chi Yan didn't see it at first, he suddenly did, but only because the thing had been staring at Chi Yan with its bloodshot eyes. It was looking at him, it had found him and wanted him.
Chi Yan had heard of the scapegoat theory.
Where someone died wrongfully, a vengeful ghost might form. It would linger at the area, day after day, looking relentlessly for a scapegoat. A young person, or someone weak mentally, especially one suicidal, would easily be haunted, and take its place.
A priest that his grandma had brought him to see had said, "This child was born naturally weak, and would be an easy target as scapegoat. Try to keep him away from waters where people had died, accident prone roads, houses in which people were killed. If it is necessary to pass by, keep your head low and move away from that place as soon as possible."
Chi Yan was clueless at that time, but now experiencing it himself, the memory sprang up vividly, and the more he thought about it, the harder his heart pounded. He unconsciously grasped the bottle over his shirt, desperately wondering why his luck had been so shitty.
The thing looked at him, and suddenly loosened its hands around the other person, as if it was going to come to Chi Yan. Chi Yan knew that while it seemed they were apart by a fair distance, but these things were different from humans. It could even appear behind him in a split second, and have him by the edge of the wall with its hand around his neck before he knew it.
These thoughts made his body tensed up.
Suddenly, he heard the creaking sound of a door opening, and a young guy wearing dark framed glasses appeared at the balcony to his right. The balconies of the dorm were side by side, separated only by a narrow gap. When the guy saw Chi Yan, he was slightly taken aback, but still gave a polite nod. Chi Yan returned the nod stiffly.
Because of this interlude, by the time Chi Yan looked back, the thing had disappeared. The student who was going the jump had fainted backwards to safety, and was now surrounded by people around trying to help.
Chi Yan felt the hairs on his neck stand. It was only a theory, the thing couldn't possibly have its eye on him, could it?
He slowly felt around his neck, his fingers feeling the wind-chilled skin, warming against his hand. He turned around and the room was still brightly lit.
There was nothing.
Chi Yan still felt uneasy, but that thing did indeed disappear, and there were no obvious signs of him being haunted. The student had been rescued in a close call, and the bystanders milling around earlier had dispersed, returning the place to silence, with only a few people left behind to settle the aftermath.
Chi Yan decided to go back to bed. After a moment's hesitation, he grabbed the tablet from the desk and brought it up into bed with him. Pulling the covers over himself, he closed his eyes.
Unexpectedly, he fell asleep quickly. In the depths of his consciousness, he felt someone lying beside him. Fuzzily, he could make out the person to be bigger than him, and could wrap him fully in his embrace, as warm as a guardian angel. Chi Yan felt at ease, and turned to hug the person back, his lips turned up slightly in a smile.
The next day he woke up to the blanket in his arms. Though he had barely slept, he still felt recharged. He quickly packed up his things, and after tidying up the room, got ready to leave. It was still pretty early in the day at 7.10am, and the dorms were still quiet and there was nobody around. Chi Yan walked to the carpark for his car, and suddenly something seemed to be pulling at his pants.
He thought it had been caught on a branch sticking out from the wall, and looked down to try and unhook it. However as soon as he did, he froze.
His pants leg was being pulled by a pale hand, spotted with corpse marks.
Heart palpitating, he forced himself to look over towards the hand. It was the thing he had seen last night, crawling on the ground now. It still had the same horrifying face with the bulging eyes, but unlike yesterday, it seemed to have lost the lower part of its body from a brutal blow. Its lifeless eyes stared at him, filled with hatred.
Chi Yan knew that this thing was giving its all to kill him. After all by killing him, it would be freed, otherwise, it might not survive to find another victim in its current state.
Fighting back his fear, Chi Yan stiffly reached out for the bottle worn around his neck, and took it off. His hand shaking, he held out the bottle towards the hand.
Before the bottle could touch it, the hand suddenly let go of his pants, as if a powerful force had pushed it back. Black smoke started to erupt from the thing's body.
Chi Yan didn't dare stay any longer, and quickly ran up the road, the bottle still clutched in his hand. When he finally saw other people, he let out the breath he was holding. Shakily, he found his car, and once he got in, he collapsed into the seat. He took a couple of breaths, but even then, it took him a few tries before his hands were steady enough to put the bottle around his neck again.
As he felt the cold bottle against his chest, he prayed silently, "Thank you, Third Master Ye for saving my life again."
Chi Yan was sure now, while the ashes couldn't stop the spirits from hovering around him, or their evil intentions towards him, it could still save his life. Priest Zhang was right – the ghosts were afraid of him.