Du Xiaolan gave me a disdainful glance and stood up, saying, "I knew it, can't rely on you men. I'll just go myself."
I laughed, "Then bring me a drink too, freshly squeezed orange juice."
"Dream on!" With that, Du Xiaolan left.
I shook my head and, leaning on the table, couldn't stop thinking about a woman named Jiang Xiumei. It wasn't a feeling of liking her, but rather a sense that there was some compelling story in her that I was desperate to hear.
As expected, there were no customers at all today. At six o'clock in the evening, I closed the shop early and went home.
Since I was the only one who could drive, I was responsible for escorting Du Xiaolan back home. She had been working at this wedding company for much longer than me. When I asked her why the boss insisted on maintaining this wedding company in such a sluggish business environment, she said she wasn't sure either. She had only seen the boss twice – once at the interview and then at my interview.
Merchants don't make losing deals, but from my time at work to now, the money earned was not enough even to pay my salary, let alone the rent and Du Xiaolan's wages.
After dropping her off at her door, I drove back to my rental house.
As soon as I entered, that feeling returned. I immediately opened the bedroom door, and as expected, the black cat was there again, perched above the wardrobe.
Instinctively, I looked at the window. I had definitely closed it when I left, but now there was a gap just big enough for the black cat to come and go as it pleased.
Anxiously, I tightened my fists, gathered my courage, and took a step forward, softly asking the black cat on the wardrobe, "Are you lost?"
"Meow!" The black cat meowed, jumped from the wardrobe to the bed, glanced at me, then leaped onto the windowsill, climbed down the drainage pipe, and disappeared.
I closed the window again and lay on the bed, quietly staring at the ceiling.
Perhaps due to not sleeping well for two nights, I quickly fell into a deep slumber. Hazy and unaware of how long I slept, I felt a weak, gentle hand lightly touching my face.
This feeling was very strange, as if an intimate person was lovingly caressing a lover in bed. I let out a comfortable hum, ready to reach out and hug the person, but suddenly stopped this impulse.
I lived alone in this single-person apartment, and besides my ghost bride, I didn't have a girlfriend.
And who is the person touching me right now?
This thought arose in my mind, and I abruptly opened my eyes. In the dim light of the bedside lamp, I saw a skeleton dressed in a phoenix crown and a robe lying next to me, its empty eye sockets gazing quietly at me.
I shouted out in fright, hastily sitting up from the bed, and jumped to the ground without even putting on clothes. When I looked back again, the bed was empty, nothing was there.
I wiped away the cold sweat oozing from my forehead, reassuring myself that I must have just been dreaming, and turned to walk into the bathroom to wash my face.
Turning on the faucet, the icy water washed over my face, rubbing my eyes with my hand, I leaned over the mirror and saw that the marks on my neck had slowly faded, I rubbed my face with my hands.
Just as I put my hands down, I saw a ghastly skeleton appear behind me in the mirror, wearing a red robe that seemed to ooze blood, just at that moment, my face in the mirror turned pale, and the skeleton suddenly tilted its head, locking eyes with my reflection in the mirror.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly from the bed.
Looking at the familiar bedroom, this wasn't the bathroom, I was clearly in bed.
"A dream within a dream!" I slapped my forehead, the dream just now really scared me. I took a deep breath, feeling a breeze blowing in from the window.
Still not fully recovered from the nightmare just now, I quickly looked toward the windowsill, and saw that the closed window from before now had a slight opening.
"A black cat?" This uneasy thought arose again, mechanically turning my neck, my gaze roamed from the window, and when I looked at the pillow, I saw the black cat blinking its shiny green eyes at me.
"This..." I didn't know what to say for a moment, this was too bizarre, I had clearly locked the bedroom window, so how did this black cat manage to open it?
This question echoed in my mind, and I couldn't help but imagine that as I fell asleep, an invisible figure opened the window, and the black cat entered with its shiny green eyes.
I swallowed hard, quickly shook my head. The idea of the black cat being supernatural wasn't completely baseless, and the fact that it had repeatedly come into my bedroom, could it really have brought some kind of spirit with it?
This thought flashed in my mind, and I quickly dismissed it. I could see things that ordinary people couldn't see, and even if there were ghosts in the room, it wouldn't escape my eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I uneasily reached out to touch the black cat. Its fur was very soft, and as I gently petted it, the black cat made a comfy purring sound.
"Why did you come to my room?" I asked in a low voice, knowing it was more like talking to myself, because the black cat couldn't speak.
The black cat meowed, stood up suddenly, and silently leapt onto the windowsill, glanced at me, and crawled down the drainpipe.
The black cat had appeared three times, and each time it seemed to glance back at me, as if it had something to say. I didn't dwell on it, but in order to figure out what was going on, I got dressed and rushed out.
I waited for the elevator for a long time, and when it didn't arrive, afraid the black cat would leave, I ran down the stairs, by the time I got downstairs, the black cat was squatting next to the trash can, quietly looking at me.
Although it was well past two in the evening, there were still many people out and about in the summer night, with street stalls bustling with people, many drinking and shouting loudly.
Gasping for breath, the black cat meowed and headed forward, looking back at me every few steps, as if afraid I wouldn't catch up.
This scene made me even more convinced that the black cat definitely had something to tell me, so I quickened my pace and followed the black cat.
After walking for more than twenty minutes, we turned at a intersection ahead, and a decrepit old building appeared before my eyes.
The black cat turned its head and meowed at me before running into the barrel building.
I quickened my pace and followed. The barrel building was very dilapidated, with no elevator, and not even any lighting tools like motion-sensor lights.
The black cat was very fast and had disappeared without a trace by the time I reached the third floor.
A gust of cold wind hit me as I stepped onto the third floor. There was no light emanating from any of the floors, indicating that the barrel building had been deserted for a long time and no one was living there.
Based on my years of experience, these places were the kind that lonely spirits and wild ghosts preferred to inhabit.
Just as I was about to give up and go back downstairs, a meow came from above.