Working with Hou Dayong was hardly the right decision, but given the dire situation where we couldn't locate my sister or Old He, it was the only unavoidable choice. At least he could lead us to where my sister had gone.

I nodded in agreement. Hou Dayong flashed a relaxed, wry smile, shifted his shoulder, and pulled open a door beside the cold storage unit, gesturing for us to follow him inside.

He led the way, with me right behind, and Wang Jue following me. Wang Jue’s help had already surpassed the realm of great favor; even "unforgettable" felt inadequate to describe it.

The door opened onto a corridor—like every corridor in the funeral home, it was long, pitch-black, and profoundly silent, making entry feel like stepping into another world. The three of us trod along the hallway, our footsteps echoing with a steady tap-tap-tap, the silence amplifying the corridor's deep obscurity. The lighting here wasn't just dim; it was a sickly, jaundiced yellow—the kind of antiquated illumination I only recalled from air-raid shelters.

I remembered, back in elementary school, the annual trip organized for tomb sweeping. The most heart-stopping part of that ritual was having to traverse a three-kilometer-long air-raid shelter to reach the Martyrs' Cemetery. That shelter was cavernous and high, yet long and black, its lighting identical to this corridor’s—a dim, hazy glow that obscured everything around you. Before one such sweep, I’d fashioned a small flashlight using batteries and a tiny bulb and showed it off to my classmates at school. They thought I was brilliant, having so easily solved the shelter’s lighting problem.

So, armed with my magnificent little flashlight and my backpack, I set off with the others. Once inside the shelter, the mischievous kids started mimicking ghost calls, some even pretending to be phantoms to scare the rest. The timid ones either burst into tearful wails or clung desperately to their friends’ hands, while others shouted frantically, "Ming Xiaoyu, hurry up and turn on your flashlight for us!"

This was the moment I’d been waiting for! Proudly, I pulled out my homemade device, connected the battery terminals, threaded the copper wire, and flipped the switch... Good heavens! Something entirely unexpected happened! The small bulb emitted a light so faint it couldn't hold a candle to a single match!

That incident significantly damaged my reputation, earning me the nickname "King of Bragging" from then on.

Childhood was joyful; growth, however, is fraught with bitterness. If the adult world possessed the same humor as childhood, that would be wonderful, but unfortunately, the corridor we were now walking down was no air-raid shelter, and the person ahead was no classmate. The price of error now wouldn't merely be saddled with a boastful nickname; the danger of losing my life was present at any second.

Wang Jue, walking behind, tugged lightly at my sleeve now and then, making eye contact with me when I looked back, signaling me to remain highly vigilant.

This hallway was the longest I had ever walked in my memory. Tap-tap-tap... I couldn't tell how long we walked—perhaps half a century—before a door appeared ahead. As we reached the threshold, Hou Dayong turned back, looking at me, and murmured softly, "You must be very familiar with this place." He reached out and pulled the door open, revealing a clear, still lake instantly spread out before our eyes.

He was right. Gazing at the rippling, clear water, long-sealed memories—the villa, Uncle Oub holding antique reading glasses, black-and-white photographs, brown picture frames, green-lace curtains, the study, the beautiful youth—surged into my mind like a flood. We were back at the very location where that day’s disaster began, the genesis of all misfortune, the place the police had once dismissed as a hallucination. There was no mistake; everything had happened, solid and real, without a trace of fantasy.