The Actor 08

The Shopkeeper of the herbal medicine store had been feeling uneasy lately when suddenly, the shop door was knocked.

"Knock, knock."

The Shopkeeper responded, "Coming, coming!"

"Knock, knock."

"I'm here." Just as the Shopkeeper's hand touched the door panel, Old Li, the medicine assistant, suddenly grabbed him, holding an oil lamp.

"You scared me! What's the matter, Old Li?" The Shopkeeper turned around, nearly frightened out of his wits.

Under the upward glow of the oil lamp, Old Li's face looked eerily sinister, his aged features deeply lined. "Shopkeeper, you mustn’t open this door."

The Shopkeeper patted his chest, puzzled. "Why not?"

Old Li stared at the door as another knock came from outside.

"Knock, knock."

"Living people knock three times; ghosts knock twice," Old Li rasped, his voice thickening the already tense atmosphere. "Shopkeeper, have you forgotten? That assistant, Bai Jingtian..."

"Y-you... have you been drinking again?" The Shopkeeper’s expression darkened. Was Old Li mocking him?

"I’ve done nothing wrong—why should I fear a ghost’s knock?" he snapped. Indeed, no one in the shop knew he had killed Bai Jingtian. Old Li slept early every night despite living in the shop—he couldn’t have seen anything.

As if to prove his point, or perhaps out of sheer defiance, the Shopkeeper yanked the door bolt open and pulled the panel wide.

A stranger stood at the doorstep, wearing a fashionable Western-style hat. "What took you so long, Shopkeeper?"

Relieved, the Shopkeeper turned triumphantly to Old Li—only to freeze. The spot where Old Li had stood was empty. He frantically scanned the shop, but it was completely deserted.

"This... this..." The Shopkeeper’s panic was real now.

"Shopkeeper, aren’t you letting me in?" The guest sounded impatient.

The Shopkeeper’s gaze darted toward Old Li’s closed bedroom door. "Ah, yes, come in."

"Shopkeeper, if a ghost wants to enter, it can’t unless you invite it in."

A chill ran down the Shopkeeper’s spine. When he turned back, the guest was already inside, standing mere inches from him.

And when he looked up, he saw a paper effigy’s face!

This was no person—it was a paper figure wearing a hat!

"Ah!" The Shopkeeper’s legs gave way, and he collapsed to the floor. "D-don’t come any closer!"

The paper figure didn’t move but let out an eerie laugh that seemed to come from all directions. The Shopkeeper’s eyes bulged, and a dark stain spread across his trousers.

Meanwhile, Old Li’s door cracked open slightly. Peering out, Old Li watched in confusion as the Shopkeeper muttered to himself, opened the door to nothing, and then collapsed in terror.

Old Li was no fool—he believed deeply in spirits.

"Bai Jingtian has returned," Old Li whispered, trembling as he tried to shut the door. That night when the Shopkeeper strangled Bai Jingtian, he had watched in secret too. But he hadn’t intervened—after working here for over twenty years, he resented how Bai Jingtian had cut into his wages. The boy deserved it. When the constables came, Old Li claimed he’d been asleep and knew nothing.

Suddenly, an eye pressed against the narrowing gap, locking gazes with him.

Beneath it, a mouth twisted into a grotesque smile. "You saw, didn’t you?"

Old Li’s eyes rolled back, and he fainted dead away.

"Boring," sighed the group of ghosts observing from the shadows. "Xiulian had better nerves than this."

"Should we come back another time?"

Bai Jingtian cradled a pillow. Fang Zhiyi glanced at it. "Leaving already?"

Bai Jingtian looked back at the Shopkeeper, now sitting in a daze, and nodded. "We’ll visit again someday."

"Jingtian, that pillow is lovely," Xiulian remarked.

A faint smile crossed Bai Jingtian’s pale face. "My mother made it for me."

"Oh, where is she now?" another ghost asked.

Bai Jingtian lowered his head. "Dead. A sudden illness took her."

The ghosts murmured in sympathy.

Huang Shuren broke the somber mood. "My turn next?"

Fang Zhiyi studied his charred face. "Finally made up your mind?"

Huang Shuren nodded.

He had been a simple, honest man in life, well-liked by his village. Orphaned early, he never married—until his friend Zhang Guangyao introduced him to a widow with two children.

Huang Shuren didn’t overthink it. He believed hard work could provide for even a larger family.

But he was wrong. Dead wrong. Only in death did he learn the truth.

The widow was Zhang Guangyao’s lover, passed off to Huang Shuren as a cover. When he came home early one day and caught them together, he even considered forgiveness—until he stepped inside. The widow pinned his arms, her children clung to his legs, and Zhang Guangyao split his skull with his own axe.

To hide their crime, they set his house ablaze. No one knew Huang Shuren was still alive as the flames consumed him, leaving his face blackened, his head gaping.

For years, he haunted the mountains, terrifying woodcutters—until Fang Zhiyi dragged him away.

Did he resent them? Of course. But resent whom? Even as a vengeful ghost, he couldn’t bring himself to harm his former wife or friend.

As Yu Zhaodi put it, he was more saint than specter.

But now, after witnessing his companions’ tragedies, something in him shifted.

The widow had packed her bags, ready to elope with Zhang Guangyao tonight, abandoning his plain, dull wife.

Zhang Guangyao arrived on time. As they fled through the woods with the children, the widow dreamed of a new life—unaware her lover’s hand kept drifting toward the axe at his waist.

He hesitated, glancing at the boys. His own flesh and blood.

A widow was disposable. But sons?