I clutched the old photo tight and drove to the spot near Meng Yifan's place.
He was waiting for me outside a tiny diner, leaning against the wall like his legs couldn't hold him up. Even from a distance, I could see how deathly pale he was—his eyes sunken, dark circles under them so thick they looked painted on. He looked just like me. Like we'd both pulled all-nighters in hell. And in his hand, he was clutching a crumpled black plastic bag, the kind you get from a convenience store. Something was bulging inside it, and my gut twisted into a knot.
"Chen Mo," he said, his voice so hoarse it was barely a whisper. "We're fucked. Properly fucked this time."
He didn't waste any time. He held out the bag, and I leaned in to look. My blood ran cold. My throat tightened up so fast I could barely breathe. I stumbled back a step, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Wh-whose is this?" I stammered.
Inside the bag, wrapped in a crumpled newspaper, was a single shoe. A red high heel. Scuffed at the toe, the strap frayed at the edge—identical to the ones on the skeleton, identical to the ones the girl had been wearing.
"How the hell should I know?!" Meng Yifan exploded, his voice cracking. His eyes were red-rimmed, like he'd been crying. "Someone knocked on my door last night! Same time as yours—midnight! Same question—Is Li Xiumei home? I didn't open it! I didn't dare! She banged on that door for hours, Chen Mo! Hours! I didn't sleep a wink! As soon as the sun came up, I was gonna go find a goddamn fortune teller, or a priest, or anyone who could help! But when I opened my door? This was sitting on the step. Right there. Like a gift."
My skin crawled. A cold sweat broke out across my back. So it wasn't just me. She'd haunted him too. Same night, same time, same question.
"Me too," I said, my voice so quiet I could barely hear it. "She knocked on my door too. Banged for hours. I climbed out onto the windowsill. I saw her standing on the sidewalk, staring up at me. Thirteen floors up, and I could see her face clear as day."
Meng Yifan swayed on his feet, like he was gonna pass out. He grabbed the wall for support, his knuckles white. We stood there in silence, the sound of cars passing by on the street the only thing breaking the quiet. What the hell were we supposed to do? If this was a person—if someone was stalking us—we could call the cops. We could get a restraining order. We could fight back. But this? This wasn't human. This was something else. Something that didn't show up on cameras. Something that made cell phones die. Something that knocked on your door at midnight, asking for a woman who'd been dead for fifteen years.
We'd already given the cops the security footage from that house. They'd looked at it—looked at Meng Yifan yelling at thin air, looked at me standing there like an idiot—and told us, politely, that we should go see a psychiatrist. Like we were crazy. Like we'd made the whole thing up.
"Wait a second," I said, suddenly remembering something. "Your girlfriend—she lives with you, right? Was she there last night? Did she hear the knocking too?"
Meng Yifan's face went from pale to ashen. He looked like he was gonna throw up. "She was there," he said, his voice trembling. "She heard nothing. Not a single knock. She thought I was losing my mind. She even tried to open the door, to prove there was no one there. I had to tackle her to stop her. She called me a psycho."
He ran a hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping. "I had to sleep in the spare room. Locked myself in. Sat there with a baseball bat till sunrise."
A chill ran down my spine. So cold it felt like ice water was running through my veins. The knocking—only we could hear it. Xie Peng and Li Xingyang were fine. Meng Yifan's girlfriend was fine. But us? We were cursed. We'd seen her. We'd talked to her. And now she was dragging us into her mess.
"Did you call Xie Peng and Li Xingyang?" I asked, my voice tight.
Meng Yifan nodded, his jaw tight. "Called 'em first thing this morning. They're fine. Slept like babies. No knocks, no ghosts, no red high heels on their doorsteps. It's just us, Chen Mo. Just me and you."
He stared at me, his eyes wide with fear. "I think it's 'cause I opened the door that night. At the house. I think that's why she's following us."
I shook my head, my mind racing. "It can't be that simple. If it was just one ghost—how could she knock on both our doors at the same time? How could she be standing outside my window and banging on your door? That's impossible. Unless…"
I didn't finish the sentence. I didn't need to. Unless there was more than one of them. Unless we were dealing with something worse than a single vengeful spirit.
I pulled the old family photo out of my pocket and handed it to him. His eyes went wide when he saw it—wide as saucers. He stared at the woman in the black dress, at the red high heels on her feet, and his hand started shaking so bad he almost dropped the photo.
"Where the hell did you get this?" he whispered.
"Taped to my door," I said. "Same time I found out you had the shoe."
We stood there, staring at the photo, like it held all the answers. Like if we looked hard enough, we could figure out who the woman was, who Li Xiumei was, why this was happening to us.
"Fuck this," Meng Yifan said, suddenly. He crumpled the photo in his hand, his face set in a grim line. "We can't just sit here and wait for her to come for us. We need to find out who she is. We need to find out why she's haunting us. Before it's too late."
We went into the diner, sat in a booth in the back, and ordered two plates of fried rice that neither of us touched. We talked for hours—talking in circles, mostly—trying to figure out how to find out the identity of the skeleton in the wall. The cops weren't gonna help us. They thought we were crazy. We needed a way to get information—official information—without getting arrested for obstruction of justice.
Then Meng Yifan's face lit up. Like he'd just remembered the winning lottery numbers.
"Hey," he said, leaning across the table. "Remember that house you sold in Garden Villas last year? The one with the oak floors and the backyard pool? The buyer was a cop, right?"
I blinked. Then it hit me. Yeah. I remembered. The owner had been desperate to sell—had to move overseas for work, so he'd listed the place for $900,000. I'd marked it up to $1.05 million and sold it to a detective named Liu for $1.02 million—cut him a $30,000 discount to sweeten the deal. Meng Yifan had made a $120,000 commission off that sale, and split it with me 50-50. We'd gone out for steak dinners to celebrate. The guy—Detective Liu—had been so grateful, he'd insisted we were friends. Said if we ever needed anything, we just had to call.
I pulled out my phone, my hands shaking. I still had his number saved. Detective Liu. He worked in the homicide division. He had connections. He could get us the information we needed. If he was willing to help.
I called him right there and then. He answered on the third ring, his voice gruff and tired. I explained the situation—omitting the parts about ghosts and knocking and red high heels—and asked if he could help us find out the identity of the woman in the wall.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then he sighed.
"Kid," he said, his voice low. "I want to help you. I really do. But this case? It's active. Homicide. Classified. If word gets out I leaked information to a couple of real estate agents? I'd lose my badge. I'd lose my pension. I'd end up flipping burgers for the rest of my life."
My heart sank. But then he paused. And I heard the sound of a lighter clicking on the other end of the line.
"But," he said, slowly. "You're a good kid. You gave me a hell of a deal on that house. And friends help friends. Thing is… getting this information? It ain't gonna be cheap. There are people I gotta talk to. Favors I gotta call in. It's gonna cost you."
I didn't hesitate. I didn't care if it cost me every penny I had. "Money's not a problem, Liu Ge," I said. "Whatever it takes. I need to know who she was."
He grunted. "Meet me tonight. Eight o'clock. Imperial Fragrance Restaurant. Fancy place. You buy. And bring cash."
Imperial Fragrance was one of the nicest restaurants in the city—steak dinners cost $200 a pop, minimum. Liu Ge was a shrewd old bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing.
That night, Meng Yifan and I showed up at the restaurant an hour early. We sat in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes, trying not to throw up from nerves. At eight on the dot, a black sedan pulled up, and Liu Ge got out—wearing a tailored suit, sunglasses even though it was dark out, looking like he owned the place.
We shook hands. We led him to a private booth in the back, away from prying ears. Meng Yifan didn't waste any time. He pulled a fancy cigarette case out of his pocket—full of the good stuff, the kind that cost $100 a pack—and slid it across the table to Liu Ge.
"Liu Ge," he said, smiling his best real estate agent smile. "Chen Mo told me you're a smoker. Just a little gift. To say thanks for taking the time to meet with us."
Liu Ge picked up the case, flipped it open, and nodded. He looked pleased. "You boys know how to treat a guest. Alright. Let's cut to the chase. You wanna know who the woman in the wall was. Fine. I'll tell you. But first—you gotta swear. On your mothers' graves. That you never repeat a word of this to anyone. If this gets back to my captain? I'm ruined. And so are you."
Meng Yifan and I nodded so fast our necks hurt. "Cross our hearts," I said. "Not a word."
Liu Ge leaned back in his seat, steepled his fingers, and fixed us with a hard stare. His voice dropped to a whisper, so quiet we had to lean in to hear him.
"The woman you found in the wall," he said. "Her name was Li Xiumei."
My blood ran cold. Li Xiumei. The name she'd been asking for. The name we'd been hearing for weeks.
"She was a suspect in a triple homicide," Liu Ge continued. "Fifteen years ago. A family of three—parents and a little girl—were found dead in their apartment. Stabbed to death. Robbed. Li Xiumei was their neighbor. She was seen leaving the building the night of the murders. She had a criminal record—petty theft, drug possession. We chased her for fifteen years. Ran her prints through every database. Checked every morgue, every jail, every homeless shelter in the country. We thought she'd skipped town. Disappeared. Changed her name."
He paused, taking a drag of his cigarette, the smoke curling up around his face.
"We never thought," he said, his voice heavy. "That she'd been dead the whole time."