I pushed the shop door open and bolted out. The October sun blazed brightly in my face—warm, real. People walked the streets, cars passed by, the smell of frying oil drifted from the breakfast shop across the way. Everything felt like the normal world.
I stood on the sidewalk outside the shop, gasping for air. That cold, stale feeling in my lungs finally began to dissipate.
Following Old Chen's instructions, I didn't ride my bike. I walked home. Anxi Hall was about two kilometers from my place—ten minutes by bike, over half an hour on foot.
I chose the busiest route, sticking to the main road. People surrounded me—office workers, shoppers, parents with strollers.
Every so often I glanced back. The street was always crowded, no shadow following me.
But I couldn't shake the chill at the nape of my neck. Like something was watching me from somewhere I couldn't see.
When I got home, I locked the door behind me, drew all the curtains, and turned on every light in the apartment.
I sat on the living room sofa, staring at the front door, motionless. My phone was charging, volume turned all the way up. Old Chen said he'd call.
Time ticked by. Outside, the sky began to darken. Autumn days are short—the sun sets around five thirty.
Through the gap in the curtains, I watched the last sliver of orange fade from the horizon. Dusk pressed in from the east, like a gray veil being draped over the city.
Then my phone rang.
It was Old Chen.
"I'm here," he said. "At the shop. Come over now."
"You said to leave before dark. It's already dark."
"Things are different now." Old Chen's voice was exhausted. "Just come. I have something to show you. Call me when you get to the door—I'll come out."
I tried to ask more, but he hung up. That was Old Chen—always speaking in halves, never explaining the why or how.
I put on my jacket, hesitated, then grabbed a fruit knife from the kitchen and slipped it into my pocket. Didn't know if it'd help, but having something in my hand felt better than empty.
I took a taxi to Anxi Hall. By the time I arrived, it was pitch black. Most shops on the street were closed. Only Anxi Hall's lights were on.
The fluorescent tube's white light spilled through the glass door, painting the sidewalk in a sickly pale glow.
I stood across the street and called Old Chen. It rang twice before he picked up.
"Here? Wait, I'll open the door."
I saw Old Chen's figure emerge from inside. Through the glass, his movements were slow. He still wore that faded navy gown. He walked to the door, took out keys, unlocked it, and waved me over.
I crossed the street. As I approached the door, I noticed the elegiac couplet was still hanging on the wall—right where you'd see it as soon as you walked in.
Under the fluorescent light, the words were crystal clear: my name, my birthday, today's date, and the phrase "Rest in Peace."
Old Chen stood by the counter, his face gaunt, bags under his eyes heavier than usual—like he hadn't slept in days. In his hand was an old notebook, its cover made of brown paper, edges frayed and worn.
"Come sit." He gestured to the chair in front of the counter.
I went in and sat down. Old Chen placed the notebook on the counter and opened it.
The pages were filled with handwritten notes—dense, cramped. Some pages had photos or slips of paper taped to them. The paper was yellowed, edges curled. It looked like it had been around for years.
"What is this?"
"Notes from my days as a mortician." Old Chen sat down in the swivel chair behind the counter and turned the notebook toward me. "Look at this page."
He pointed to a page with a black-and-white photo taped to it. In the photo was a brush—the very one I'd used. Below the photo was a passage, the handwriting messy and difficult to decipher.
"This brush came from southeastern Guizhou, made by an old craftsman. The handle is bamboo from a hundred-year-old coffin. The bristles are hemp used for wrapping corpses. When this brush writes names, it connects to the underworld.
When writing a deceased person's name, if the brush moves on its own—adding a stroke—it means the brush has been possessed by the dead person's unfinished business. Do not erase it, or else..."
The rest was blotted out by ink. Illegible.
"Or else what?" I asked.
Old Chen didn't answer directly. He flipped to another page. This one had a newspaper clipping taped to it—the paper was yellow and brittle, dated July, thirteen years ago.
The headline read: "South City Wreath Shop Owner Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances."
The brief article said that the previous owner of Anxi Hall, an elderly man surnamed Lin, was found dead at his workbench one morning. In front of him lay a completed elegiac couplet.
The name on the couplet was his own. The coroner ruled it heart failure, time of death around eleven PM the previous night.
"The previous owner," Old Chen said. "He was my senior brother. That brush belonged to him first."
I stared at the clipping, feeling the fruit knife pressing against my thigh through my pocket.
"He erased that extra stroke," Old Chen said. "Just like you did."
I looked up at him.
"Old Chen, that customer—Zhou Jianguo—do you know him?"
Under the fluorescent light, Old Chen's expression looked strange. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he pulled a folded piece of paper from the notebook, unfolded it, and pushed it toward me.
It was a copy of an obituary. The deceased was Zhou Deming, died three days ago, aged sixty-seven. The obituary stated clearly that Zhou Deming had one son, Zhou Jianguo, a doctor at the city's First People's Hospital.
But next to the date, there was a handwritten note in Old Chen's scrawling handwriting: "Zhou Jianguo was stabbed by a patient's family member two days ago due to a medical dispute. He died yesterday afternoon after failed resuscitation."
I stared at those words, reading them three times.
"Zhou Jianguo is dead?"
"Yesterday afternoon." Old Chen said. "His father Zhou Deming died three days ago. Father and son, one after the other."
Something exploded in my head. Who was the man who came to the shop yesterday afternoon to pick up the couplet?
"You're sure he's dead?"
"Absolutely. He ordered the couplet five days ago—he was still alive then. After he died, I thought the order was off, didn't think much of it." Old Chen's voice was heavy. "Until you told me yesterday that a Mr. Zhou came to pick up the couplet."
I felt dizzy, something sour churning in my stomach, rising toward my throat.
Yesterday afternoon at four o'clock— that man in the black jacket, hair damp from rain, face ashen. He walked in, filled out the form, paid, spoke. Everything had felt so real.
The chrysanthemum petals on his shoes. The way his hand shook as he wrote. That line—"It's fine, just leave it."
"Then who did I see yesterday?"
Old Chen didn't answer. He closed the leather-bound notebook, his hands clasped on top of it. His knuckles were thick, skin rough like old tree bark.
"Not everyone who comes to a wreath shop is alive," he said. "Some don't know they're dead. Some know but aren't ready to go. And others..."
He paused, his gaze drifting past me toward the elegiac couplet on the wall.
"Are looking for a replacement."
The fluorescent tube flickered again. The mechanical joints of the lucky cat clicked—then froze, stuck. The shop fell deathly quiet. Even the distant sound of cars on the street vanished.
Then I heard it.
From the workroom—very soft, very faint—the sound of a brush writing on paper. The tip gliding across the surface, that soft, continuous scratching, like silkworms eating mulberry leaves.
Old Chen's face drained of color. He jumped to his feet, the chair crashing backward. He ran around the counter toward the workroom, and when he pulled back the cloth curtain, he froze.
I stood up, walked over, and peered in behind him.
On the workbench lay a brand-new blank elegiac couplet. The brush hovered in mid-air—no hand holding it. It floated there, the tip dancing across the paper, writing character by character, neat and precise.
Ink seeped from the tip without being dipped. It kept flowing, as if the brush handle held an endless supply.
It was writing the upper section—the deceased's name.
"Song Du."
That was my name.
Old Chen reacted faster. He shoved me back and lunged forward, reaching for the brush.
But before his fingers could touch the handle, he recoiled as if struck by lightning, stumbling back several steps and crashing into the shelf behind him. Funeral paper and incense sticks clattered to the floor.
"It won't let me touch it," he gritted out. His right palm was bright red, like it had been burned.
The brush kept writing. After the upper section, it wrote the elegiac phrase. Not "Your Voice Lingers" this time—four characters I'd never seen before.
"It's Your Turn to Go."
Then it paused, as if thinking. The tip trembled slightly in the air. A drop of ink fell from it, splattering on the rice paper, blooming into a small black flower. Then it continued—writing the lower section.
I didn't need to look to know whose name it was writing.
The "person" who came to pick up the couplet yesterday—he'd written his own name, but not with his own hand. The brush had written it for him. Now, who was the brush writing my name for?
For whatever was breathing behind me.
For that faceless shadow that had said, "Thank you for your name."
The lower section was done. The brush gently lowered itself onto the brush rest, its movement elegant and natural—like a calligrapher finishing a masterpiece and setting down their tool.
Then it stopped. Just a regular brush, bamboo handle glossy with age, tip still damp with ink, hanging quietly on the rack.
I looked at the brand-new elegiac couplet on the workbench—white paper, black ink, not yet dry. Upper section: my name. Middle: "It's Your Turn to Go." Lower section: three characters.
Zhou Deming!
The old man who'd died three days ago.
When Old Chen saw that name, his face changed completely. His lips trembled, and he squeezed out a sentence, his voice hoarse as if something had ground it up.
"He wasn't looking for a replacement," Old Chen said, his voice shaking. "He was finishing his son's last job for him.
Zhou Jianguo took this order for his father's couplet before he died. After he died, he didn't know he was dead. He came to pick it up.
He wrote your name on it—not to take your life, but because he made a mistake. He thought you were..."
"Thought I was what?"
Old Chen didn't finish. He stared at the couplet on the wall, then at the new one on the workbench. Suddenly he turned, walked to the counter, and flipped through his leather notebook to a certain page.
He looked at it for a few seconds, then handed it to me.
On that page was a yellowed photo—two young men together. One I recognized: a younger Old Chen, hair still black, no wrinkles on his face.
The other was a few years older, thin, wearing black-rimmed glasses, looking scholarly.
"This is my senior brother—Old Lin," Old Chen pointed to the man with glasses. "The one who died in the shop thirteen years ago."
I looked down at the photo. Old Lin's face was ordinary—the kind you'd lose in a crowd.
But his eyes—even in an old photo—held an indescribable weariness, like he'd seen too many things he shouldn't have.
"He used that brush for over ten years," Old Chen said. "Never had a problem. Then one day, he wrote a couplet for a young man.
The kid had died in a car accident—barely twenty. Halfway through writing, the brush moved on its own, adding a stroke. He erased it."
"What happened then?"
"Then that night, Old Lin's name appeared on that young man's couplet. The next day, he was dead." Old Chen closed the notebook. "The coroner said heart failure, but I know better. He was taken."
"Taken by whom?"
Old Chen looked at me. In that gaze was a lot of things—but most of all, an emotion I couldn't name, like guilt mixed with fear.
"That brush picks its master," he said. "It writes a name, and that person must go. But the rule is: someone has to erase that unwanted stroke first.
That extra stroke is a test—to see if you'll follow the rules. You erased it, which told it you didn't accept what it wrote. So it showed you what it could do."
I understood. But I had one more question.
"What about Zhou Jianguo? When he came to pick up the couplet, he'd been dead for two days. Didn't he know?"
Old Chen shook his head.
"Some people die and don't realize it. They live in their last memory, repeating the same thing over and over. Zhou Jianguo's last memory was coming to pick up his father's couplet.
So he came, took it, and realized the name was wrong—he saw it had your name on it."
"So he came back? To return the couplet?"
"Yes. But he didn't know he was dead. He couldn't communicate with you directly.
All he could do was hang the couplet back up, write your name on the door, try to warn you." Old Chen's voice grew quieter. "But he didn't know—every time he touched that couplet, another line would appear. Birthday, death date, elegiac phrase... until it was full. And when it's full..."
He stopped, his gaze shifting to the couplet on the wall.
I looked too.
And I saw it.
At the very bottom of the couplet, next to "Rest in Peace," was a new line of text—so small it was barely visible, written with the thinnest tip of the brush. You'd have to lean in close to read it.
I walked closer.
The line read: "Respectfully presented by Zhou Jianguo, filial son, on behalf of his father Zhou Deming."
What did that mean?
I turned to ask Old Chen—but before I could speak, all the lights in the shop went out.
Fluorescent tubes, desk lamp, the sign outside, even the tiny red bulb in the lucky cat's base—all extinguished simultaneously.
Darkness crashed over me like a bucket of cold water. Old Chen and I were submerged in it, unable to see anything.
"Old Chen?"
No answer.
I reached forward, touching the cold glass of the counter. I followed it toward where Old Chen had been standing. My fingers brushed his gown sleeve—coarse cloth—then higher.
My hand passed through the gown. Nothing there.
The sleeve was empty. Like Old Chen's body had vanished into the darkness, leaving only an empty garment draped over the chair.
"Old Chen!"
I shouted. My voice echoed in the dark shop. No response.
I pulled out my phone, trying to turn on the flashlight. But the screen went black again—only two characters in the center: Song Du. Nothing worked, like the phone no longer belonged to me.
Then, in the pitch-black darkness, I heard a voice.
From behind me—very close. Close enough that I could feel the breath against the back of my neck.
"Don't be afraid."
It was Zhou Jianguo's voice. The same voice from yesterday afternoon—the man who'd sat at the counter, face ashen, saying "It's fine, just leave it."
"I just wanted my father's couplet to look nice," he said.
His voice was soft, carrying an indescribable guilt—like a worker who'd messed up a job, carefully explaining to the customer.
"I didn't know it would write your name. I really didn't."
In the darkness, I felt a hand rest on my shoulder. It was cold—not freezing, but the cold of autumn morning dew, with a hint of dampness.
It patted me gently, twice—like a consolation.
"When I find my dad, I'll give your name back."
The hand withdrew.
The lights came on.
The fluorescent tube hummed twice, then glowed again, bathing the shop in that sickly white light. The red bulb in the lucky cat's base lit up, and its mechanical hand started moving again—click, click.
The desk lamp cast a warm yellow glow. Everything was back to normal.
I was alone in the shop.
Old Chen was gone. His navy gown lay draped over the chair by the counter—empty, sleeves hanging limply on either side, like he'd evaporated right out of it.
His reading glasses lay on the floor beside the chair, lenses dusted with a fine layer of ash.
In the workroom, the brush hung quietly on the rack. On the workbench lay two elegiac couplets—one taken from the wall, one freshly written by the brush itself.
Both had my name on them.
But the content had changed.
On the one taken from the wall, the lower section had changed from "Respectfully presented by Zhou Jianguo, filial son, on behalf of his father Zhou Deming" to blank. Those characters had vanished, as if erased, leaving only faint ink traces.
And on the newly written one, "It's Your Turn to Go" had been replaced by four ordinary characters: "Your Voice Lingers."
Like someone had corrected everything while I wasn't looking. Or like the brush had finally realized it had written the wrong name.
I stood in the empty shop, staring at those two couplets, and a ridiculous thought crossed my mind.
Zhou Jianguo hadn't come to harm me. He'd just wanted to finish one last thing after death—to make his father's couplet look nice. He'd erased that unwanted stroke not out of malice, but because he didn't know the rules.
Then the brush started writing his name—but he was already dead, and you can't write a dead person's name twice. So the brush moved up the chain, finding the next person who'd handled that couplet.
Me.
And Old Chen? Where had he gone?
I remembered his words: "Not everyone who comes to a wreath shop is alive." When he said that, his gaze had drifted past me toward the couplet on the wall.
Now I realized—he wasn't looking at the couplet. He was looking at something on the wall behind it, something he recognized.
I walked to that wall, reached out, and touched it. It was ordinary white paint, yellowed in places, slightly warm from the fluorescent light.
Nothing special. But I noticed a thin crack along the base of the wall—like something had scratched it, running all the way down to the floor.
I reached into my pocket, intending to take out my phone to take a photo. Instead, my fingers touched something else.
A piece of paper.
I pulled it out. It was a folded note—no idea when it had been slipped into my pocket. I unfolded it. Old Chen's handwriting, scribbled in ballpoint pen, rushed and messy.
"Xiao Song, I'm going to find Old Lin. I've been too scared all these years, but today I have to go. The shop is yours now. Remember—this brush picks its master, and now it's picked you.
From now on, when writing couplets, if the brush moves on its own—don't erase it."
"Oh, and Zhou Jianguo's payment? Can't refund it. He gave me ghost money."
I flipped the note over. On the back was another line, even smaller—added as an afterthought:
"Tell Sister Huang she got the wrong incense last time. It's Great Compassion Mantra, not Rebirth Mantra. She's been burning Great Compassion Mantra for the dead for three months now."
I held that note, standing under Anxi Hall's sickly white lights, and suddenly I wanted to laugh. But before my mouth could curve up, my eyes burned.
The wind chime on the door jingled.
I snapped my head up. Outside the glass door, the street was empty. Night had fallen thick. Across the street, a streetlamp cast a dim yellow glow. A stray cat emerged from behind a trash can and sauntered across the road.
The wind chime jingled again.
This time I saw it—it was the wind. The rolling shutter door swayed slightly in the breeze, and wind from the gap brushed the wind chime's string.
No one was there.
I glanced at my watch: 8:43 PM. I'd been standing in the shop for what felt like hours, but it had only been minutes.
Time worked differently here, like it had been stretched or compressed by something.
I folded Old Chen's note and put it in my wallet. Then I picked up the keys from the counter and turned off all the lights in the shop.
The moment the fluorescent tubes went dark, I heard a very soft sound from the workroom—like the brush shifting slightly on the rack, brushing against the inkstone beside it.
I didn't look back.
My hands were steady as I locked the door. I pulled down the rolling shutter, secured the padlock, and flipped the "Closed" sign to "Resting."
Then I crossed the street to the 24-hour convenience store across the way, bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
I don't smoke, but tonight I wanted one.
The convenience store's white fluorescent lights were blinding. The cashier was scrolling on his phone, the fridge compressor humming.
I stood at the door, tore open the cigarette pack, took one out, and lit it. The first drag made me cough tears. The second was better. By the third, I barely felt it.
Smoke rose slowly under the streetlamp, melting into the night.
I looked back at Anxi Hall across the street. Dark, just like all the other closed shops on the block.
But I knew those two elegiac couplets were still lying on the workbench—their ink probably dry by now. When I opened the shop tomorrow morning, I didn't know if they'd still be there.
Maybe Zhou Jianguo had found his father and swapped the name back.
Maybe not.
I pulled out my phone. The screen lit up normally—all the icons were there.
In my text messages, that message from yesterday appeared again: "Your name looks nice written like that." The sender was an empty number. I didn't delete it.
Some things are better kept as reminders.
I stubbed out the cigarette, ready to walk home, when my phone vibrated. A new message.
I looked down.
From Old Chen.
"Tell Sister Huang the Great Compassion Mantra works too—it just takes longer to guide them to the other side."
I stared at that message for ten full seconds, then called him back. It rang twice, then connected. But there was no voice—only a strange rustling sound, like a brush writing on paper.
Then Old Chen's voice came through, distant—like he was speaking from the end of a very long corridor.
"Oh right, I forgot to tell you—there's a pack of cigarettes in my gown pocket. Keep them safe for me. I'll have one when I'm back."
The call ended.
I held the phone, standing on the street at midnight. To my side, the convenience store blazed with light. Across the street, Anxi Hall sat dark and silent.
The wind blew, carrying the chill of autumn and the faint smell of burning paper money from somewhere far away.
I remembered Old Chen's favorite saying: "Do this job long enough, and you'll learn—living people have rules, but dead people have more."
I never understood that before.
Now I was starting to.
I put my phone back in my pocket and turned to walk home. After about ten steps, I suddenly remembered—Old Chen's gown was still draped over the chair by the counter. I'd forgotten to grab it when I locked up.
His cigarettes were still in the pocket.
I stopped, hesitated for three seconds. Then I turned around and walked back to Anxi Hall.
I took out the keys, unlocked the padlock, pulled up the rolling shutter, and pushed open the glass door. The wind chime jingled. The air inside was cold and still, with a faint smell of ink.
I walked to the counter, reached into Old Chen's gown pocket. Nothing in the left pocket. In the right—my fingers touched something.
Not a cigarette pack.
A piece of paper.
I pulled it out and read it by the light of my phone screen. Only one line, in Old Chen's handwriting—but even more rushed than the first note, like he'd been in a terrible hurry.
"Don't bother looking—I don't smoke. Just wanted you to come back."
Every hair on my body stood on end.
I spun around, staring toward the workroom. The cloth curtain was swaying slightly—like someone had just passed through it. The fluorescent tube flickered once, lit, went dark, lit again.
On the workbench, the two elegiac couplets were still there.
But the words on one of them had changed.
"It's Your Turn to Go" had reappeared. And below those four characters, in the lower section, a new name had been added. Not Zhou Jianguo. Not Zhou Deming.
Old Chen's name.
I stared at those three characters, my mind blank. The phone slipped from my hand, hitting the floor, screen facing up. The call interface popped up automatically—showing an active call to a number.
Old Chen's number.
The call connected. But it wasn't Old Chen's voice that came through. It was a voice I didn't recognize—old, hoarse, like it was coming from deep underground.
"You're Song, right?"
The voice said.
"Your name looks nice written like that."
The call ended. The fluorescent light went out.
In the darkness, I heard the wind chime jingle once. Then again.
Someone pushed open the shop door.