The woman in the hospital bed had been dead for three hours.
Her ghost was still sitting beside her body. Holding her own hand. Staring at nothing.
I stood in the corner of the room. The machines were still beeping. The nurses were still checking monitors. No one had noticed yet. No one had pulled the sheet over her face. No one had called the time.
"Can you see me?" I asked.
She didn't look up.
"Please," I said. "I just need to know if anyone can."
Nothing.
I stepped closer. "My name is Chen Lü. I'm a lawyer. Well, I was. I'm looking for someone who can see the dead. Do you know anyone? Have you seen anyone?"
She kept staring at nothing.
I stood there for an hour. Then I left.
---
That was the third hospital.
The first one, I stood next to a man who died of a heart attack in the waiting room. His ghost paced back and forth, back and forth, like he was still waiting for his name to be called. He didn't look at me. Didn't answer. Just paced.
The second one, a child. Maybe seven years old. Her ghost was sitting on the floor, playing with something only she could see. I couldn't bring myself to talk to her. What was I going to say? "Hey kid, can you see me? I'm dead too. Wanna be friends?" Hahahah. Damn.
I left after five minutes.
The third one was that woman. The one who held her own hand.
None of them saw me or heard me. None of them could help.
---
I tried courthouses next.
Courtroom 7B. The place where I died. The chair where I used to sit was empty. A new lawyer sat at my table. Young. Eager. He was arguing a case about a woman who had been evicted. Her landlord had cut off her heat in winter. She had a child. The landlord had a good lawyer.
The young man was losing. He didn't even know it yet. He kept making the same arguments. Kept missing the same points.
I stood next to him and spoke directly into his ear.
"The statute. Section 4, paragraph 2. Cite it."
He didn't hear me.
"The landlord violated the implied warranty of habitability. Say it."
Nothing.
He lost the case. The woman cried. The landlord smiled. The young man packed his briefcase and walked out without looking back.
I stayed in the courtroom for a while after everyone left. My chair was still empty. My name was still on the door downstairs. My files were still in the office.
No one was waiting for me.
---
I spent three days like this. Or what felt like three days. Time doesn't move the same way anymore. It stretches. Loops. Slips when you stop paying attention.
Hospitals. Courthouses. Police stations. Places where people hovered between endings and explanations.
No one saw me. No one heard me. No one even looked in my direction.
I was starting to think Lin Yue was a fluke. A one-time thing. Maybe she could see me because she was dead too. Maybe that was the only way. Dead people see dead people. Living people don't.
Then I found the funeral home.
---
It was a small building on a quiet street. No sign out front. No lights except one behind the counter. The kind of place people don't notice unless they're looking for it.
People came here when everything else was already over. They came in cars with tinted windows. They came in suits they hadn't worn in years. They came with flowers and left without them.
I walked through the front door.
---
She was behind the counter.
Young. Maybe thirty. Dark hair pulled back. Glasses. A book open in front of her. She wasn't reading. She was staring at the same page. I could see it from across the room. The same paragraph. The same lines. She had been looking at them for a while.
I stopped in front of her.
"Can you see me?" I asked.
No response.
I waited.
She turned a page.
I almost left. I had been here before. Dozens of times. People who looked like they might see. People who almost looked at me. People who turned away at the last moment.
I was about to turn away myself.
Then she looked up.
---
Not at the door. Not at the counter.
At me.
Her gaze didn't slide past. Didn't hesitate. It stopped exactly where I was standing.
The light above her flickered once. Then steadied.
She held my gaze for a moment. Long enough to confirm. Short enough to deny it. Her face didn't change. Her hands didn't move. She just looked at me like she had known I was there the whole time.
Then she looked back down at her book.
I didn't move.
"Hahaha, damn, so you can see me," I said.
She turned another page.
"Hello. Let me introduce myself. I am Chen Lü. A dead lawyer. And I need your help."
"You're the first person who's looked at me since."
Silence.
"You work here. You must see things. People like me."
She closed her book. Slowly. Her fingers were steady. Her face was calm.
"I see them," she said. "I ignore them. They go away eventually. And I don't help dead people."
She opened her book again.
"I advise you do the same."
I blinked. Collected myself. Then I said with a calm tone:
"Hey kid, the fact that I ask for your help, you should be proud. Not every day the King of Hell asks for help."
No response whatsoever.
She turned a page.
---
Then she smirked.
"So you are that famous King of Hell?"
"That's right," I said quickly. "And in my name, I command you to help me, or —"
"Or what?"
"Never mind that. Just some words. Come, let's get to work."
I turned around and started walking to the door. But strangely, no sound behind me. I turned around. There she was. Just looking at me with a playful smile.
"What are you doing sitting there smiling stupidly? Come here quickly."
She stood. Walked around the counter. Her footsteps were quiet. She moved like someone who had learned to be quiet a long time ago. The floor didn't creak under her. The air didn't shift.
She stopped a few feet away.
"I never said anything about helping you."
I didn't hesitate.
"I really need your help to move something. That's it. Just moving something around."
Her expression didn't change.
"A phone. It has evidence. I can't touch it."
She tilted her head slightly.
"You are the King of Hell and you can't touch something? Are you sure you're King of Hell and not some King of Bullshit?"
Hahahaha. "You got me there. OK, enough talk. Let's go."
"Sorry, my shift isn't over yet."
She went back to her seat and started reading again.
I approached her and said:
"A woman was convicted of a murder she didn't commit. She died before she could appeal."
No reaction.
"The man who did it is alive. He has a phone. It contains messages. Proof."
Still nothing.
"I can't access it. You can."
---
She crossed her arms.
"Why should I?"
"Because you're the only one who can see me."
"That's not a reason."
"It's the only one I have."
She let out a short breath. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.
"Three years dead and you still argue like that."
"It works."
"Not on me."
She turned away. Walked back to the counter. Picked up her book. Put it down again. Her hands were steady. Her face was calm. But she was thinking. I could see it in the way she moved.
"What's her name?"
"Lin Yue."
"What happened to her?"
"Her husband was murdered. She was convicted. She died in prison."
A pause.
"She didn't do it."
"And the phone?"
"Belongs to the man who did."
---
Silence settled between us.
She tapped her fingers lightly against the counter. Once. Twice. Three times. She was counting. Deciding.
"His name?" she asked.
"Zhang Feng."
"Where?"
"Evergreen Court. Apartment 5C."
She exhaled slowly. Long. Quiet.
"I don't do this," she said.
"I know."
"I don't get involved. I don't fix things. I don't help people who are already dead."
"I understand."
She looked at me again. Longer this time. Her face was still. But her eyes — something in them had changed. Not sympathy. Not pity. Something else. Recognition.
Then —
"I'll look," she said.
I didn't speak.
"Once," she added.
Her voice sharpened slightly.
"I go there. I see what's there. That's it."
"If there's nothing, I walk away."
"If there is something..."
She paused.
"I still might walk away."
---
"That's fair."
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
"Please don't do that King of Hell bullshit again."
"Hahaha," I said.
For a moment, I almost added something else. About time. About how little of it mattered now. About how three years of watching people ignore you made you willing to take whatever help you could get.
I didn't.
She picked up her keys and walked toward the door. Stopped.
"If this turns into something else," she said, "if it gets complicated —"
She gave me a look. Flat. Unimpressed.
"Then I leave," she finished, and opened the door.
Cold air slipped inside. The night was quiet. The street was empty.
"This is a bad idea," she said.
Then she added: "I don't know why I'm doing it."
I followed her into the night.
"I do," I said.