w.a.n.g Dahu knew that he had clearly died, died on that rainy night, died under the knife of a crazy woman who came out of nowhere.
A knife through the heart, died on the spot.
He personally saw his own body being delivered to the morgue, being pushed into the oven to be cremated, and then becoming a jar full of ashes buried in grave.
“If it’s like that, right now I’m a ghost?” w.a.n.g Dahu laughed bitterly.
According to legend, only the souls that still had strong “lingering affections” with the living could turn into ghosts and w.a.n.g Dahu could understand that the reason he had not yet “gone to the next life” was because in his heart he could not let go of someone.
His precious, his wife, his Ran Ran.
Because he couldn’t let go, his soul still followed at their side, although he could only see, he still wanted to be by their side.
…
“Dahu, come eat dinner!” Li Qingran sat at the dining table, calling gently.
On the table were four dishes and two sets of tableware.
In the room was one person.
One ghost.
“Tick, tock, tick tock…” There was only the sound of the clock hands slowing winding.
After two hours, Li Qingran silently stood up, began to clean up the dishes on the table, throwing each dish in the trash, then went into the bedroom and lay on the bed.
w.a.n.g Dahu heavily followed behind him.
On the bed, Li Qingran just lay there like that, not moving, just staring up with disbelieving eyes opened wide.
“Still can’t sleep?” w.a.n.g Dahu heart brokenly stroked his pair of eyebrows.
From the moment he died, Ran Ran couldn’t sleep a wink.
Every night, every night, just like this, he opened his eyes widely and silently stared.
“Dahu.” Li Qingran called softly.
“I’m right here!” w.a.n.g Dahu replied. “I’m right here, I’m right here, I’m still by your side!!…” He kneeled next to Li Qingran, and cried until he felt numb, “Ran Ran, I’m still here! Don’t torture yourself anymore, don’t be like that anymore… I’m begging you… Don’t be like that anymore!”
I’m already dead but you’re still alive!
If my death tortures you to this point, I’d rather we never fell in love.
So-
Quickly forget me!
…
w.a.n.g Dahu was gone for one month, Li Qingran quit his job, every day just sitting quietly at home from sunrise to sunset.
w.a.n.g Dahu was gone for two months, Li Qingran learned how to smoke and drink, causing his already thin body to become unbearably weaker and skinnier.
w.a.n.g Dahu was gone for three months, Li Qingran lost too much blood and was rushed to the emergency room, but an hour before the emergency operation, there wasn’t a shadow to be found.
No one knew where he went besides w.a.n.g Dahu.
In the middle of the dark night, at the cold grave.
On the photo, w.a.n.g Dahu still smiled was as usual, heartless and indifferent.
Li Qingran gently pressed his cheek on it.
“You really have died!” His voice was quiet and sorrowful. Thinking about how back in the day that person would point his fingers at the heavens and swear that he would love him his whole life, Li Qingran was suddenly overflowing with hatred, “You cheater!”
Seeing Li Qingran lose weight to the point of being unrecognizable, w.a.n.g Dahu anxiously floated around and around in the air, “Ran Ran, hurry back to the hospital! Your stomach just stopped bleeding, don’t run around anymore!”
“Dahu!” Suddenly, Li Qingran whispered, “I’m tired, really very tired! I want to see you, so please forgive me.”
“Ran Ran… Ran Ran… What do you want to do? Don’t do anything crazy!” In the air, w.a.n.g Dahu watched in terror as Li Qingran took out a knife from his pocket.
His face was very calm, calm to the point of despair.
“This is the symbol of our love that you gave me when we got married, I remember vividly at that time you said: Ran Ran, this lifetime, I’ll definitely make you happy, if later I betray you, hurt you, you should to use this knife to stab me to death immediately… Do you know? When I heard those words, I was overjoyed!”
One drop, two drops, tears coldly slid down.
This was the second time w.a.n.g Dahu saw Li Qingran cry.
The first time was when he died. At that time, he clutched his b.l.o.o.d.y body and wept in despair.
This time he was calm and brought along sweet memories.
Suddenly an extremely bad feeling rose in w.a.n.g Dahu’s heart.
He screamed and shouted with all his might, desperately reaching for the knife in Li Qingran’s hand.
But it was useless.
Because he was a ghost.
Because he had died long ago.
When the sharp blade of the knife cut deeply into that tiny weak wrist, when fresh blood flowed as freely as water…
w.a.n.g Dahu disappated.
In this world, is there anything as painful as seeing the person you love die in front of you with your own eyes and being unable to do anything?
All the things Li Qingran experienced these past few months, now it was his turn to experience.
“Ran Ran… Ran Ran…” At this moment, w.a.n.g Dahu hated, he really hated, he hated the woman who killed him.
And he regretted, extremely regretted.
If he knew he would die early, he shouldn’t have provoked that person.
If so, maybe they wouldn’t have done something stupid like this.
"A a a a a —" w.a.n.g Dahu’s heart hurt, really hurt, compared to the time he was stabbed with the knife before, it hurt even more, “Someone, anyone, please save him… Save my Ran Ran…”
In the midst of the miserable moaning, he witnessed the pure white dress s.h.i.+rt dyed red with blood.
Pooling onto his cold grave.
“Dahu.” Li Qingran slid onto the ground, his hands lifted up towards the heavens, on his face was a comfortable smile as if he was at peace, but when w.a.n.g Dahu wanted to wanted to take them, they fell lightly.
“Qingran—!” A dreadful roar resounded.
w.a.n.g Dahu only felt that under his feet a large crack suddenly appeared. Just like that, he fell continuously without end, his head spun and then he lost consciousness.
…
“Dahu, Dahu…” There was a voice by his ear impatiently calling him. w.a.n.g Dahu’s eyelids twitched, the owner of the voice saw and called even more urgently, “Dahu, Dahu…”
w.a.n.g Dahu finally opened his eyes slowly, what appeared in his vision was a wrinkly face.
“Oh good, good, the child has woken up!” A hoa.r.s.e male voice spoke up, “Why is the child’s nape still swollen? Later, let’s go to the village clinic and get some medicine for the swelling, after a few days you’ll be able to jump around again like normal.”
“That’s right, that’s right, my Dahu is alright!” The old woman pulled him from the bed into her arms, gently appeased him, “Dahu, does it still hurt? Look at this face full of tears…”
Dahu was dumbstruck, or you could say it was unbelievable.
He used strength to blink, and asked uncertainly, “Grandma?”
“Yes! Grandma’s here.” The old woman in distress stroked her grandchild’s face, “Why are you so mischievous? You could play with anything but you wanted to climb the paG.o.da tree. Look, you fell from the tree and hit your head, scaring me to death!”
At this time, w.a.n.g Dahu was in complete shock.
What’s going on?
What exactly is going on?
Didn’t grandma die several years ago? And… And his voice… why does it sound like… like…
His whole body shook, w.a.n.g Dahu lifted his hands.
Tanned, chubby, obviously a child’s hand.
“Dahu, what are you doing? Grandpa, quickly come here, our Dahu seems like he’s not doing well!” Scared that he hurt his head, the old lady shouted hastily.
w.a.n.g Shuomin was also worried, he quickly ran up and examined him, “Little Tiger*, how do you feel? Does your head hurt?”
*I wanted to give this a childhood nickname feel because the word here is Hu-zi with zi being child and Hu being his name, which means tiger.
w.a.n.g Dahu blinked and replied in alarm, “Grandpa, how, how old am I this year?”
“What is this child asking!? Won’t you be seven this year?” The old man saw the situation wasn’t good, and put on the sweater he just took off, “Not good, let me bring Dahu to the district hospital.”
At this time, w.a.n.g Dahu was actually quite calm. Who knows what he thought of, but his expression suddenly changed. He hurriedly grabbed the old man’s sleeves, “Grandpa, I’m all right, earlier when I woke up I was a bit dizzy, I’m much better now!”
The old people were not satisfied.
Especially grandma, who continued asking about subjects such as: What are your parents’ names? Where is your house? and so on.
Only when w.a.n.g Dahu could answer every question did she stop.
Knowing her grandchild was truly all right, the two elderly people finally breathed out a sigh of relief. They coaxed Dahu to sleep before one person went to the clinic to buy medicine and one person went into the kitchen to make lunch.
After both of them to left the room, w.a.n.g Dahu, who was lying on the bed, suddenly opened his eyes.
Actually, even now he still felt like he was lost in a fog.
How did he turn into a child?
No! More accurately, how did he come back to this time?
Is this a dream? But in this world is there such a realistic dream?
He stroked the nape of his neck that, although bandaged, still swelled into a lump that ached his entire body.
w.a.n.g Dahu had some impression of the time he fell out of a tree. He remembered clearly that in his past life, he wasn’t careful, fell out the tree, hit his head, and was brought to the district hospital for emergency treatment. It was because of this incident that his mother kept blaming his grandparents. Even years later she didn’t bring w.a.n.g Dahu to go visit them.
“That means I really have returned to the past… I’m, I’m really a human?” He could feel warmth radiating from his body
If you didn’t become a ghost, you would never know the hards.h.i.+ps of being a ghost.
The feeling of only being able to watch, only being able to hear, but cannot touch, cannot reciprocate.
“Ran Ran, Ran Ran, Ran Ran…” w.a.n.g Dahu tightly bit the quilt wrapped around his body, each teardrop was like a stream flowing down his face. He remembered the image of Li Qingran slitting their wrist, the image of their body covered in blood lying in front of his grave, that small body trembling constantly in agony.
Indeed, there’s still no way I can let you go.
w.a.n.g Dahu’s face expressed determination. If G.o.d agreed to give me a chance to live again, then at this time, I will definitely love you even more and more.
Therefore—
Ran Ran, wait for me.
Translator’s notes:
There are some cases where I changes a few p.r.o.nouns because it made more sense that way in English. The syntax makes the fragments stand out more in the original language but it’s a bit awkward in English.
Also this is one of those cases where I think the Vietnamese names sound better. Dahu looks like Tofu to me for some reason and it ruins the mood. w.a.n.g Dahu’s name actually means something like Great Tiger King. In case anyone wonders, the Vietnamese names are: Gong = Vương Đại Hổ / Shou = Lý Thanh Nhiên