Chapter 2

I watched the assistant leave, and when I turned back the bullet-screen was going wild in front of my eyes.

"She can see us!"

"There's hope for her now! Someone can finally hear us!"

"Throw her out, quick! Once she has your fortune it'll be too late! She's going to kill you!"

I pressed my fingers to my brow and got out of the car for some cold air.

Under my breath I called myself ridiculous.

They were just a few strange floating shadows. How had I let myself take them seriously?

What if it was all a hallucination from too much stress?

But then again, the bullet-screen knew about Leila's birthmark.

I couldn't gamble with my own life.

The test results would take a few days.

While I waited, I went to work and came home as usual, buying her all sorts of things.

On the surface I gave nothing away, but underneath I never stopped watching.

The way she talked, the foods she liked.

Even the little way she frowned matched the Leila in my memory exactly.

More and more I felt I was the one losing my mind.

But as the days went by, the bullet-screen's warnings grew more and more urgent.

I couldn't keep waiting in peace.

On the third night, I told her the company needed me for overtime, that I might be out all night.

She nodded obediently. "Take care of yourself, sis. Don't wear yourself out."

I drove off and set the navigation straight for the orphanage from all those years ago.

The whole way, the bullet-screen kept guiding me:

"Yes! Go to the hill behind it! Under the crooked pine!"

"Out the back gate of the orphanage, go left two hundred meters and you'll see the tree!"

"A little farther in! Don't let the old gatekeeper spot you!"

Following the bullet-screen, I circled around to the hill behind the orphanage.

Sure enough, there stood an old crooked pine, standing alone in the tall weeds.

The night was deep, and the wind pushed through the trees with a low moaning sound that made my skin crawl.

I took the newly bought shovel out of the trunk.

Following the spot the bullet-screen gave me, I dug down one shovelful at a time.

"Half a meter more to the left! Yes! Right there!"

"Dig down! About a meter deep and you'll see the bones!"

I dug the whole night through, until blisters broke and bled on my palms.

The pit was nearly two meters deep.

But all I turned up was yellow earth and tree roots. Not even a sliver of bone.

As the sky began to gray, I threw down the shovel and sat at the edge of the pit, gasping, worn out.

The raw smell of the earth hit my nose, and I actually laughed out loud right there.

Cursing myself for being truly insane.

I had a perfectly good life, and instead I'd believed some floating nonsense on a screen and come out to this wilderness in the dead of night to dig up a body.

The bullet-screen was still flooding the screen:

"How can there be nothing? That's impossible!"

"Did she move it ahead of time?"

"Don't refuse to believe us! We can see how it ends! In the end she really does kill you!"

A hallucination. It had to be a hallucination.

I stood up and brushed the dirt off myself.

Ignored it all and drove down the hill.

I took a detour to the breakfast restaurant at a five-star hotel and got two breakfasts to go.

It wasn't until the food was in my hands that it hit me: Leila had been allergic to seafood since she was little.

When we were kids, our parents died and we ended up on the streets.

I went begging at the back door of a seafood restaurant and got a bowl of noodles cooked in seafood broth.

Leila was starving, and she ate a little less than half the bowl.

That very night she swelled up red all over, couldn't breathe, and nearly went into shock.

I looked at the seafood-stuffed pastry in my hand and frowned.

Well, I'd already bought it. Worst case I'd eat it myself; she could have the other dishes.

Back home, she was already up, crouching by the door, waiting for me like a good girl.

"You're back, sis!"

"It smells so good."

She ran over and took the bag from my hands.

Sitting at the table to eat, she opened the container, her eyes lit up, and she reached straight for the seafood-stuffed pastry.