After I died, I discovered that my husband, Carter, could still see me. He wept tears of joy, saying we could be together forever. Later, he started coming home less and less. Even later, I saw the girl trailing behind him. She looked exactly like I used to. One day, that girl suddenly came down with an incurable, mysterious illness. The occultist said a dark, unclean entity was trying to harm her. Carter slowly turned and looked at me, while I stood there entirely lost. 1 I couldn't process what was happening. I shook my head frantically at him. No one else could hear our conversation, nor could they see me. "Carter, it's not me. You know me better than anyone." At the same time, Lily, lying weakly on the bed, began to whimper. "Carter... it hurts so much..." Carter didn't speak. He just kept staring at me floating in mid-air. His eyes were filled with scrutiny and dissatisfaction. I remembered what the occultist had just said: "This young lady might be entangled by a dark entity." Lily looked terrified, shrinking into Carter's embrace while crying. "Carter, I've never done anything bad in my life. Why would a dark entity want to haunt me?" Carter comforted her, "Lily, this isn't your fault." At the time, I didn't understand what he meant by that. Now I do. He meant it was my fault. I was the "dark entity." Lily asked the occultist, "Sir, is there any way to suppress this thing?" The occultist pulled out several warding sigils and a carved ashwood dagger. Lily took the dagger, waving it around fearfully. Whether intentional or not, the tip of the blade pointed directly at me. In an instant, I felt an agonizing, tearing pain rip through my soul. I couldn't dodge. I was practically pinned in the air. Even without a physical body, the torment made me feel like I would dissipate in the next second. And Carter just kept looking in my direction, completely indifferent. Lily dropped the dagger, then picked up the warding sigils and looked at Carter. "Carter, could you help me put these sigils up?" I watched Carter. Watched him walk over and take those pieces of paper. Then, he smiled and patted Lily's head. "Okay." Once the sigils were plastered in all four corners of the room, the holy energy blasted my already exhausted soul straight out of the house. This was my marital home with Carter. The home we had shared for seven years. I scrambled up pathetically, trying to phase through the front door, only to find it was utterly futile. The residual pain from the ashwood dagger lingered. After my failed attempts, I collapsed and curled up in the corner of the porch. The front door opened. I scrambled up, overjoyed. "Carter..." Carter looked at me, his expression incredibly complex. "Hazel, from now on, don't come inside anymore." "Maybe you didn't do it on purpose." "But her health is truly fragile. Don't hurt her anymore." I didn't know what to say. It's hard to describe how I felt hearing those words. The man in front of me no longer seemed like the Carter who once swore he would love me for the rest of his life. A year ago, when I died, he had cried so heartbrokenly. Why had everything changed? "But this is my home. Our home. Why can't I go inside?" "Because you're dead!" "Because you are a wandering spirit now. You fear nothing, but she can't handle it. Your presence affects her, makes her sick." "Hazel, you never used to be this unreasonable." As Carter turned to go back inside, I could only murmur to myself. "I didn't hurt her." His footsteps paused, but then he closed the door. He was wrong. I wasn't entirely fearless. I wondered if he had noticed that my soul was fading, becoming more transparent. 2 I used to watch horror movies and thought that when people died and became ghosts, they possessed strange, terrifying powers. That they were truly afraid of nothing. They could even haunt the living. But after my own accidental death, I realized I wasn't one of them. I had no powers whatsoever. Aside from Carter, I couldn't make anyone else see me. In the very beginning, I even felt like I could dissipate at any moment. Because my body would often flicker and turn transparent. Whenever Carter noticed, he would cry and beg me not to leave him, and my condition would vastly improve. Today, he probably didn't notice. I curled up in the corner, laughing bitterly. I wasn't the only wandering spirit in this neighborhood. There were many other strange, hostile things. Right now, I couldn't even keep my form solid. I didn't know how I was going to survive tonight. When did things get this bad between Carter and me? Probably starting from when he stopped coming home at night not long ago. I used to be able to follow him wherever he went. But that night, I suddenly found I couldn't. Maybe it was because of his parting words: "Don't follow me tonight." I remembered his friends had tricked him into visiting a psychiatric ward. They thought he was losing his mind from grief over my death, because he frequently talked to thin air. Later, paparazzi caught photos of Carter Sterling, the billionaire CEO, visiting a psychiatrist for "talking to himself." It caused a huge scandal. For days, Carter felt like he was being mocked behind his back. I still remember how devastated he was by my death. When he first realized he could see me, he wept with joy, nearly going crazy with happiness. He said heaven was moved by our love, allowing us to stay together in this way. But now, it seemed this "heaven-moving" love had become a burden to him. He didn't want the world to view him as abnormal anymore. So he drastically reduced the times we went out together, and even our conversations dwindled. Soon after, he brought Lily home. I didn't know who she was. I only knew she sweetly called him "Mr. Sterling," and they could communicate openly in the sunlight. While I could not. Even before she fell ill, it had been a long time since Carter and I had a proper conversation. "Well, well, isn't this the little canary from the big mansion?" "What, you got kicked out?" "I told you long ago, the living and the dead don't mix. Why don't you come play with me—" There weren't many wandering spirits in this area, but the few that existed were vicious. I had personally witnessed one of them tear another newly deceased soul to shreds. I stood up in terror, calling out to Carter. "Carter, I'm so scared..." A pale, rotting hand reached out to grab me. "Aren't your man and his new toy madly in love? I saw them making out in his car not long ago. Tsk, the guy has no spine—he had to put on his 'respectable' mask the second he stepped out." "You're a dead woman. Why keep bothering him? Let him find true love!" I refused to believe the spirit's words. I only knew that Carter had sworn he would never betray me. But the harder I pounded on the front door, the louder the soothing music inside became. They were dancing to the music, Lily laughing joyously in his arms. Maybe he would post it on social media. Maybe his friends would congratulate him on finally stepping out of his grief. Then he would become a normal person again, rather than a lunatic deemed insane because his dead wife's ghost refused to leave. 3 When dawn broke, the dark things finally retreated. I wasn't afraid of the sunlight. It was just that right now, I was so incredibly weak I couldn't even twitch. Those hostile spirits enjoyed tearing souls apart for fun. But I was different from the others. Every time I was torn to shreds, I would miraculously piece myself back together. They found it fascinating. In the past, I spent every night in Carter's bed, where they couldn't enter. From now on, that probably wouldn't be the case. I felt so lost, wondering how I would survive all the nights to come. The door finally opened. Carter rushed out, carrying Lily in his arms. I stayed curled in the corner, watching him quietly. My body seemed even more transparent. "Hurry, to the hospital!" He didn't acknowledge my gaze. Only after placing her in the car did he turn his head, frowning as he shot me a glance. That one look contained so many emotions. Mostly, it was blame. But I didn't even understand what I had done wrong. I wanted him to stay with me, to ask me if I was in pain. But maybe that was never going to happen again. When Carter returned from the hospital, I was still curled up in the corner. "Hazel, let's talk." My voice was hoarse. I gave a faint laugh. "Out here?" He had no intention of letting me back into the house. "Let's just talk here. If you go inside, she might feel sick again when she gets back." "Some things need to be made clear right now." Before he could continue, I cut him off. "I have never harmed her." But Carter exploded in sudden fury. He stood up, throwing a punch that passed right through my ethereal body and slammed into the wall behind me. "Then you tell me why, ever since she moved in here, she's been coming down with all these bizarre, unexplainable illnesses!" "Don't tell me it's all a coincidence! Hazel, I'm not a fucking idiot!" His eyes were red, his emotions wildly volatile. "You know perfectly well that people think I'm mentally unstable. To help me, she threw away her own reputation." "She's the only one willing to believe that I can actually see you." I sat up abruptly. "You told her you can see me?" Carter didn't think that was the main issue. "If she wasn't willing to believe me and stay by my side, my reputation and the company's stock would tank, do you understand?" "Everyone would think I'm a clinically insane psychopath!" I looked at him calmly, feeling a mix of helplessness and resignation. "Carter, you fell in love with her, didn't you?" I was just laying the truth out in the open. But that made him even more agitated. "Why is your mind so filthy?" "I said I would never betray you, and that won't change. Is your wild paranoia the reason you decided to hurt her?!" I didn't have the energy to repeat myself. "So what do you want me to do?" He let out a heavy breath. "Leave this place for a while. Stay far away from me for now." I asked him, "If I leave, and she still gets sick, proving it wasn't me, will you let me come back?" He fell silent. He didn't speak. I think I had my answer. 4 If I was going to leave, I had to do it now. Once night fell and those things came out again, I might never be able to leave. I knew that once Carter made a decision, begging him was useless. And I wasn't going to beg him anyway. Avoiding his gaze, I struggled to my feet and began to walk away. "You're leaving just like that?" "Honestly, you were probably getting sick of this too. I just gave you a convenient excuse." I left decisively, and ironically, he was the one unhappy about it. Unwilling to say another word, my soul felt unimaginably heavy. Every step was agonizingly difficult, but I refused to linger even for a second. I heard his footsteps behind me. But then they abruptly stopped. Followed by a fit of violent, violent coughing. "Mr. Sterling? What's wrong?" "We're about to take you to the hospital to visit Ms. Evans anyway, you should get a checkup too." "Could it be... that dark entity wasn't satisfied with hurting Ms. Evans, and now it wants to hurt you too?" At this point, I had no desire to defend myself. It was all pointless. Whatever Carter said next, I didn't care. If he chose to believe it, defending myself ten thousand times wouldn't change his mind. After leaving the estate, I was completely lost. This was my first time being a wandering ghost. I didn't know why I ended up like this. I was dead, yet unable to pass on. Before Carter told me to leave, I physically couldn't move far from him. Was it really like he said? Did his love move heaven, allowing me to stay by his side? Thinking about it now, that theory was hilariously absurd. So where could I go now? I didn't know. I only knew my body was becoming increasingly transparent. It hadn't actually been that long since my death. Yet I had already forgotten so many things. Suddenly, I lost consciousness in a split second. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself inside a temple sanctuary. Although I had no clear memory of it, standing there gave me an inexplicable sense of familiarity. There was no one else in the temple. Just me, and a single, burning lamp. The wick was weak; the candlelight was no longer bright. But when the wind blew, the flame remained entirely motionless. Memories suddenly flooded my mind, scrambling to the surface. "I ask for nothing else. I only hope my wife finds peace and safety, that she survives this ordeal, recovers quickly, and returns to me." "If it's permitted, I want to live with her, and die with her." "I refuse to live in this world alone." The man had climbed to the highest peak, taking one step and bowing his head to the ground with every single stride. When he stood up, his forehead was swollen and bleeding. I remembered now. That was probably the year Carter loved me the most. During the company's annual gala, he went on stage to give a speech. A heavy crystal chandelier above him came loose, and no one noticed. I was the one who rushed forward and shoved him out of the way, taking the crushing impact myself and falling into a deep coma. While I was unconscious, I could only faintly hear Carter's desperate murmurs. He said if I didn't pull through, he was ready to die with me. In my unconscious dream state, I learned that because of Carter's absolute devotion, the sanctuary had quietly lit a "soul-bound lantern." It used both of our souls as the wick. If one soul disappeared from the other's side, the other would die. I thought, I can't let him die. That sheer will to live woke me up. Back then, I thought that having a soul-bound lantern was a wonderful thing. As long as we loved each other, nothing could ever tear us apart. But today, floating in this temple, I learned another secret. The reason I was anchored to this world wasn't because Carter's love had moved heaven. It was simply because, right after I died, I begged the Warden of the Afterlife to let me return.
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