I dug my fingernails into my palm and pretended to nod casually.
“I know. I was just reminding you. If it's inconvenient, forget it. It's not like I need it that badly.”
“Anything else?”
All the words I had prepared caught in my throat.
I wanted to ask him why he had thrown away my things.
Why he had given my wedding ring to someone else.
Why even Yuan Bao no longer needed me.
In the end, only one question came out.
“Are you going to marry her?”
Pei Zhou's gaze passed over me and settled on the sea, but he said nothing.
I lowered my head and kicked at the sand.
“That's good, then.”
“She seems to have a better temper than I do. She doesn't act spoiled like I did either.”
“At least you won't have to fly more than ten hours in the middle of the night just to buy her a handbag anymore.”
I looked up and smiled.
“Pei Zhou, congratulations.”
The dream began to collapse.
In the final second, he suddenly called out to me.
“Suìsuì.”
I instinctively turned around.
But he only stared at my face without saying a word.
The next moment, I was forced out of the dream.
Pei Zhou suddenly jolted awake in bed.
He sat upright, gasping for breath, his forehead covered in cold sweat.
Lin Wantang woke as well.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
Pei Zhou was silent for a long time before answering hoarsely,
“Yeah.”
So he had dreamed of me.
For the Pei Zhou of today, I had become a nightmare.
## 4
Pei Zhou and Lin Wantang's wedding was scheduled for the following month.
When the news appeared on the financial news, I was crouching in the living room watching Yuan Bao eat.
The reporters praised them as a perfect match.
The comments were filled with blessings.
Some people even dug up photos of me from six years ago, sighing that Pei Zhou had finally moved on from the pain of losing his wife.
Lin Wantang held a tablet and leaned against Pei Zhou's shoulder.
“They all say I look like her.”
Pei Zhou glanced at the screen.
“You two don't look alike.”
I couldn't help looking at her.
Their eyes and brows were different.
So were their mouths.
She was gentle and quiet, while I had always been spoiled and noisy.
There really wasn't a single thing they had in common.
Lin Wantang's eyes curved as she smiled.
“Then what do you like about me?”
Pei Zhou raised a hand and tucked the strand of hair beside her cheek behind her ear.
“I like everything.”
He had said those same three words to me before.
I had once asked him what he liked about me.
He had praised me from head to toe.
He said I was beautiful, that I was adorable when I smiled, and that even when I got angry, I made people want to indulge me.
I told him he had no principles.
He lowered his head and kissed me.
“I love you. Why would I need principles?”
Now, he gave someone else the exact same indulgence.
Yet hearing it no longer hurt as much as it had the first time.
Perhaps even a ghost's heart could eventually grow numb.
That evening, Lin Wantang tried on her wedding dress in the dressing room.
Her waist was slender, and the white veil cascaded down around her, as gentle as a handful of moonlight.
Pei Zhou leaned against the doorway and watched her.
She spun around once, the train of her dress passing straight through my body.
“Is it pretty?”
“Pretty.”
“Prettier than every dress you've ever seen before?”
Pei Zhou didn't answer immediately.
The smile on Lin Wantang's face faded.
“Are you still thinking about her?”
“No.”
“Then why didn't you answer?”
Pei Zhou walked over and placed the veil over her head.
His movements were so gentle they were almost tender.
“You're the most beautiful.”
I suddenly remembered my own wedding.
That day, Pei Zhou had gotten drunk and refused to let go of me.
Everyone kept urging him to kiss me.
But he had red eyes and refused.
“My wife is too beautiful today.”
“What if I ruin her makeup by kissing her?”
The entire hall had erupted in laughter.
After we returned to the bridal chamber, he knelt beside the bed and massaged my feet, saying high heels were a design hostile to humanity.
From then on, every car he owned had a pair of my slippers inside.
I lowered my head and looked at the car Pei Zhou was driving today.
There was also a pair of slippers beneath the passenger seat.
Light blue, size thirty-six.
Lin Wantang's size.
I stood there looking at them for a long time.
Then, suddenly, I felt like I could finally let go.
Pei Zhou had simply taken the way he had once loved me and used it to love someone else.
There was nothing wrong with that.
People couldn't stay trapped in the past forever.
Neither could ghosts.
Midnight was approaching, and the return-to-the-living-world token was gradually becoming transparent.
A ghost messenger stood outside the door, ringing a bell.
“Jiang Sui, it's time.”
I turned around for one last look.
Lin Wantang was already asleep.
Pei Zhou sat beside the bed, his head lowered as he reviewed the wedding arrangements on his phone.
His expression was calm, as though he had truly let go completely.
I still had two chances to enter his dreams.
But I no longer intended to use them.
Some goodbyes only needed to be said once.
I removed the return-to-the-living-world token from my wrist and gently placed it beside Pei Zhou.
Even though he couldn't see it.
“Husband, this is the last time I'll call you that.”
“Drink less from now on, and remember to eat on time. Yuan Bao is getting old. Be a little more patient with it.”
“And one more thing. After you get married, treat her well.”
I paused for a moment and forced myself to smile.
“Don't keep remembering me.”
The Ghost Gate slowly opened behind me.
Cold, gloomy mist curled around my ankles.
My body gradually became weightless, pulled toward another world.
Just as I was about to step through the Ghost Gate, a sudden, anguished meow rang out behind me.
## 5
Yuan Bao suddenly sprang up from the foot of the bed.
As if it had gone mad, it rushed to Pei Zhou's side and slammed its paws against the return-to-the-living-world token I had left behind.
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