I never liked horror movies because ghosts are scary, but the lady standing in front of me was a beautiful and elegant woman in her sixties. She even had a cigarette. I mean, if the afterlife is this good, when my time is up, I'll have nothing to complain about.
I looked at her and asked, "How can I help you?"
She smiled at me and said, "I am Alicia Chen, and my real name is Chen Zhuzi." She winked. "You can simply call me Alicia."
I couldn't seem to understand why the Chinese always had fictitious English names. I didn't understand this trend, and I didn't know who initiated it, but it existed long before I was born, probably because of the popular Hong Kong actors at the time. Ninety-nine percent of everyone I knew had English names. I could understand why some Chinese wanted to change their names, while the other ninety percent didn't have to give themselves English names. For example, if your name was as beautiful as Cheng Zhuzi, what was the point of giving yourself an English name? I believed that foreigners could pronounce Zhuzi…Zhu…Zi… it wasn't difficult to pronounce. But if you were a Chinese man with the name Ho Long, you had to give yourself an English name as soon as possible, or legally change your full name. Imagine your English-speaking friend or colleague trying to introduce you to others by telling them your name and nationality.
Your colleague would say, "Man, in my department, there's a very smart person. He's the best. He can calculate difficult math problems in his mind." Your colleague would applaud. "Do you know that Ho Long is a Chinese man?"
"I don't know, but I heard they're small."
"No, they're not small." Your colleague would do his best to protect your dignity. "He's big, bigger than me."
The dumbass would smirk and say, "Really? Now that's interesting."
Your colleague would continue, "Some are big, some are small. You don't know Ho Long is a Chinese man?"
"I don't know, I guess it's four inches?"
"What?"
"If it's not four inches, then five inches? Or could it be six inches?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You tell me," the idiot would look at your friend suspiciously. "You were the one asking how long a Chinese man is. I've never seen a Chinese man's 'popsicle.' How can I give you a correct answer?"
"What? You're talking about the man's 'popsicle?' I just want to tell you that Ho Long is the Chinese genius who works in our department. His surname is Ho, and his name is Long. The company's employee of the month. His picture is displayed at the door."
"Oh…you mean that Ho Long…"
"Yeah, that Ho Long."
There are enough reasons to change the name Ho Long, because when your colleagues try to introduce you to foreigners, it will cause all kinds of misunderstandings.
"One of my children killed me. I want you to figure out which of my two children killed me." Alicia took a breath, and the smoke she exhaled turned into a heart shape. "I have a safe with keys. There are two million dollars in it. If you solve the case, the money will be yours."
I said, "Well, Alicia, the problem is that I'm not a detective and I can't solve the case. Maybe your money is best spent on a real detective. I can arrange it." I looked at Xiao Lan. "Xiao Lan, are you a detective?"
Xiao Lan shook his head.
Alicia said, "I don't want any police to intervene. I just want to know who killed me. I don't want it to appear in the front page news." She inhaled another puff of smoke. "No matter who killed me, the murderer is still my child."
I asked, "If you don't want to do anything, why make things difficult?"
"Of course I'll do something about it." She took another puff of cigarette into her non-working lungs. "I'm going to leave the murderer with nothing."
Xiao Lan asked, "Where do you want us to start?"
Alicia said, "I brought vacation home, but my children didn't know. I hid most of the legal documents there."
Xiao Lan said, "Okay, we'll leave after breakfast."
Since Xiao Lan had already said yes, then I had no more say because I guessed my opinion didn't matter here.
It took us forty-two minutes to drive to Alicia's secret house. The street was very narrow. Xiao Lan and I parked the car on the street, and we walked to Alicia's house. Then we stood in front of Alicia's house, where there was a key entry input.
Alicia said, "The key pass is 039152." I looked up and was taken aback, because her head was sticking out of the door.
I pressed the numbers on the keyboard, and the door opened slowly. The odor of decay was very strong. I kicked the door open with my foot, and a wave of odor rushed out into the empty street.
Fortunately for us, this house was the last house on the dead-end street, and no one passed by unless everyone thought there was a dead body inside. We walked into the room. Everything was in order, but there was a lot of dust. I looked at all the pictures of Alicia on the wall, from the first time she married her husband to the last picture before her death.
Then Alicia and her white cat walked slowly up the stairwell. So, Xiao Lan and I decided to follow her. Alicia walked into the first room on the left, her white cat slowly following behind. I was so scared that I stopped and stood behind Xiao Lan.
Xiao Lan asked me, "You scared?"
"I've never done this before, so of course I'm scared."
Xiao Lan said without a hint of warmth, "Get used to it."
Xiao Lan opened the door, and we entered the room together. The room was large with a king-size bed. I looked around the room and saw a huge picture of Alicia sitting on a table. This was a young version of Alicia in her early forties. She had put her left hand on the table. She was holding a burning cigarette in her right hand and propped her elbow on the table. Alicia looked up at the sky.
Xiao Lan stopped, staring at the king-size bed and at Alicia. He lifted the quilt, and a black and blue body lay there. "Who is on the bed?" I was taken aback by this horrible scene and jumped back, hiding behind Xiao Lan. "Is that you in the bed?"
Alicia flew towards the bed angrily. She made the body stand up. She looked at us and was as confused as we were. "What? This isn't me. Then where am I?"
I said, "You told us that this is your vacation home, and your children don't know it. How could you not be the person in the bed?"
Alicia said, "I don't know. I thought I was the one lying here."
Xiao Lan asked, "What is the last thing you remember?"
Alicia said, "We were having dinner here?"
Xiao Lan asked, "Who?"
Alicia said, "Me and White."
My trembling lips could finally open. "White? Who is White?"
"My cat."
Xiao Lan said, "You are not Alicia Chen, you are White." Xiao Lan turned to me. "Jig, open White's mind."
"Huh?" Xiao Lan must be stupid or have Alzheimer's. I thought about it for a few minutes. I had no clue what the hell 'Open Mind' was, and I didn't know how to carry out an "open-minded exorcism." "What?" I gave Xiao Lan an ugly look. I gritted my teeth and spoke as quietly as possible. "I don't know how to do that."
Xiao Lan spoke loudly without sparing my pride, "You spent an entire year learning, and you tell me you can't perform the 'open mind exorcism'?"
"Well," I started to raise my voice. "You're the one who left me with no one to rely on. You just let me be with those unknown and unkind people. When I woke up, I...I..." I sniffed a few times. "I was running for my life. All the people who practiced with me in my dreams didn't even care about me. Everyone, everyone hates me." I started sobbing. "They don't like me at all. If I wasn't smart enough, I probably would have been crushed by that heavy snowfall." I happened to meet Xiao Lan's gaze. He rolled his eyes and looked at me, shaking his head stupidly, as if I were acting like one of those entitled people. I pointed my finger at him. "The look on your face just now... It's the same look that those evil creatures gave me. I..."
Xiao Lan said impatiently, "You what?"
"I never accepted any of this nonsense voluntarily," I turned and walked towards the door. Then I turned around to make myself clear. "I hate you."
Xiao Lan shouted, "Jig!"
I faced Xiao Lan angrily, "What?"
"Jig, don't turn back. Just walk like that toward me."
"Hmph…" I turned to face the door. I was staring at the heinously decomposing corpse on the bed. The ugly old woman in her seventies roared with blood pouring out of her mouth. I could taste the fresh and rotten smell in the air. The black and blue rotten hands stretched out and grabbed my neck.
Alicia shrieked, "Meow!" Then she disappeared.
The monster lifted my body off the ground, and I started kicking, but my feet didn't touch anything. Before I fainted, I heard Xiao Lan shout, "Darkness be gone!"