Back in his seat. Textbook open. Nobody was looking at him.
Zhao Wei stared at the page and thought: Really, who can believe any of that.
Then: Don't think about it. Study. I have to pay Zhao Ming's hospital bills today. He shifted the pen in his hand. Thanks to that senior at school, I got introduced to another part-time job. That helps. He wrote a character in the margin, then another. Just focus. It's fine. Everything is
"But that kid is going to die soon."
Xue Lian was sitting beside him again. He had not heard her arrive. She was gazing out the front of the classroom, her hands folded in her lap, perfectly composed.
Zhao Wei's pen stopped.
"No matter how sick Zhao Ming looks," he said, very quietly, very precisely, "you cannot say something like that."
She did not reply. She also did not disappear.
"Zhao Wei," called a voice from behind him.
He turned. Chen Hao and Wei Dongbin were waving from across the aisle, both with expressions suggesting they had been somewhere else for some time.
"Zhao Wei, Zhao Wei! Dude!"
The teacher's voice cut through: "Why aren't you paying attention? It's your turn to read."
Zhao Wei turned to the front. "Ah. Ye-yes?"
He glanced sideways. The seat next to him was empty. He picked up his textbook and read the passage, and tried to feel like a normal person.
He had almost managed it when he felt something, a shift in the air at the edge of his awareness, a pressure that came from no direction he could identify. He turned toward the classroom window.
Something dark was there. Not a shape, exactly. More like the idea of a shape and intention hovering at the glass, its attention directed at him with unmistakable focus.
"*EH?!*"
It hit. Not physically, nothing moved, nothing made contact, but something invisible slammed into the space around him with enough force to knock him sideways out of his seat. He caught himself on the desk, then the floor, sprawling into the aisle with his chair skidding behind him.
"Zhao Wei, you brat!!" Wei Dongbin was at his side immediately, pulling him to his feet. "Not there? You alright?"
Chen Hao looked at the window. Then, back at the space where Zhao Wei had been sitting. His expression settled into something uncertain.
"Wasn't he there definitely...?"
Zhao Wei got to his feet, brushing his uniform off. His pulse, the pulse that should not have been there, was doing something irregular in his chest. He looked at the window. Whatever had been there was gone.
"I'm fine," he said. "I slipped."
After school, he walked home through the back streets of Tongzhou.
The afternoon crowd pushed past on both sides: commuters, students, the usual mix of people with places to be. A couple walked ahead of him, the woman leaning slightly on her companion's arm.
"Your face looks pale, sweetie."
"Yeah, I feel tired today..."
Zhao Wei glanced at them as he passed, and then looked again, because something was wrong about what he was seeing. Just for a second, there was something layered over them. Dark outlines. A quality of shadow that didn't match the afternoon light. He blinked, and it was gone, and they were just a couple walking on a Beijing street.
He walked faster.
Eh? Those people... just a few seconds ago they looked...
He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. What? Damn. What is wrong with me today?
The restaurant was busy for a Wednesday evening.
Zhao Wei tied on his apron, collected a tray, and tried to think about nothing at all. He had been managing it in three-minute intervals since school.
What's going on lately? I keep seeing strange things. Did I eat something bad?
"Zhao Wei," called his boss from the kitchen door, "you're needed at table three."
"OK."
He crossed the floor, tray in hand, and was two steps from table three when something stepped out from between the tables and walked directly into him.
The collision was real, solid, physical, his tray going sideways, glasses rattling. He grabbed the tray with both hands and managed to save most of it. The figure that had hit him stumbled back with a yelp.
"WAAAH! S-SORRY!!"
Zhao Wei steadied the tray and looked up.
The woman in front of him was unusual. She was dressed normally, roughly, in casual clothes, but there was something about the top of her head and the region behind her that did not match the rest of the restaurant. Ears. A tail. Moving. Actually moving.
"I'm really sorry," she said, bowing rapidly, "I didn't see your tail..."
Zhao Wei looked at her. "Eh...?"
She straightened and looked back at him, and something in her expression shifted. The apology faded. In its place came something more assessing, more focused, the look of someone who has just noticed something unexpected.
"Ho," she said. Her voice had changed entirely to lower, slower, and more interested. "This is a rare moment. Meeting a human undead..." She leaned slightly forward, as if testing the air between them. "And the smell of blood is still fresh. Hasn't been long since you died, huh?"
From somewhere behind Zhao Wei came a second voice, dry and faintly disapproving:
"Tsk tsk. The dead shouldn't mingle with the living."
Zhao Wei spun around. Nobody was there. He turned back.
"*WHAT?!*"
The fox-eared woman smiled at him. It was a warm smile, easy and genuine, the smile of someone who found the situation genuinely delightful. "Troubling, troubling. Didn't your master teach you anything?" She tilted her head. "It seems like there's a situation behind this, but you'll have to accept the truth as soon as possible."
Zhao Wei stared at her. "Who are you?"
"Me?" She shrugged pleasantly. "Just a passing citizen of Beyond Realm. The food here is tasty, so I stop by sometimes." She patted her stomach. "You'll understand everything when you get to Beyond Realm. Ah, I'll take the mountain herb noodles!"
She turned and walked back to her table as if the conversation had been entirely ordinary.
Zhao Wei stood in the middle of the restaurant floor with his tray and looked after her, and understood nothing at all.