Li Yafei huddled on the bed, her blanket pulled over her head, her entire body shaking like a leaf.
The subdivided flat she lived in was only two square meters. Once the door was closed, even turning around was a struggle.
The cramped space was filled with the smell of cheap cosmetics and curry fishballs, a scent she had grown up with.
But the makeup on Li Yafei's face was ruined from crying, leaving two black streaks under her eyes that made her look ridiculously comical.
“Ximei, get up and eat.”
A gentle knock came from outside the door. Four soft taps, followed by a familiar, raspy voice:
“I made your favorite lotus seed and lily bulb sweet soup. I put rock sugar in it. Drink it while it's hot.”
The voice was slow and nagging, exactly as it had always been.
Li Yafei covered her mouth, tears of fear and uncertainty streaming down her fingers.
Her given name was Li Yafei; only her grandma would call her Ximei.
Ever since her parents divorced, they had both started new families. Neither of them wanted to take her in, so she could only grow up with her grandma in this Mong Kok subdivided flat.
Her grandma used to push a small cart on the streets to sell fishballs.
Twelve fishballs to a bowl for ten dollars. The unsold fishballs had to be brought back for them to eat themselves, which led her classmates to call her the "fishball girl." Li Yafei had always found it deeply embarrassing.
“Don't go fooling around with those shady ruffians. It's not safe late at night. Your parents might not care about you, but Grandma does.”
Outside the door, her grandma was still softly nagging. The sound of cloth shoes stepping on the floor, the sound of a chair being dragged—everything was exceptionally real.
But this was not her room.
And the person outside the door was not her grandma.
Li Yafei trembled violently.
Her grandma had been hit by a truck while crossing the street and died on the spot.
The hospital had pressed her for funeral expenses several times, but she couldn't produce the money. Her grandma's body was still kept in a freezer at the public morgue, freezing without any dignity.
She wanted to ask her parents for money, but both sides kept passing the buck, and neither was willing to pay.
Li Yafei had even contemplated doing paid dating.
But she actually didn't know what had happened.
Last night, she had picked up a golden piece of paper money at the mouth of an alley. It looked quite valuable, so she casually stuffed it into her pocket.
Li Yafei went to find a local thug named A'kai to borrow money from him. He said borrowing money was fine, but they had to take photos—
Li Yafei didn't think much of it. It was just those kinds of things anyway. She was pretty, and having some photos taken wouldn't hurt her.
But who could have known? The camera was set up, and A'kai had already booked the room, but before they could even shoot, as soon as midnight passed, she found herself back in this subdivided flat where she had lived for over a decade.
Was it a dream?
Li Yafei felt somewhat dazed.
...
“Ximei? Are you not feeling well?”
The knocking sounded a few more times, the tone carrying a hint of worry:
“Open the door and let Grandma see. Do you have a fever?”
Li Yafei buried her face in her knees, not daring to make a sound or move. She kept hypnotizing herself:
The person outside the door is not Grandma.
Absolutely not.
Grandma is already dead. She had watched her being pushed into the mortuary with her own eyes.
What was that thing outside the door?
She held her breath, straining her ears to listen to the movement outside.
The sound of footsteps hovered right at the door, rustling, as if someone was peering inside through the crack of the door.
After a long time, the person outside let out a soft sigh:
“If you don't want to get up, sleep a bit longer. The sweet soup is on the table by the door. Remember to drink it when you're hungry.”
“It's late at night, don't open the door for just anyone. I'm going out to sweep the trash.”
The footsteps gradually faded, followed by a click as the lock of the outer room gently clicked shut.
Hearing the sound recede, Li Yafei finally let go of her mouth, panting heavily.
She didn't dare go out immediately. She sat on the bed to recover for a long time, her heart still pounding wildly, as if it would leap out of her throat at any moment.
Li Yafei lowered her head to look around.
The room was tiny. Celebrity posters were pasted on the walls, their corners curling slightly.
A folding table was tucked under the bunk bed, with her cosmetics, lipstick, mascara, and a half-eaten box of fishballs scattered across it.
Everything was arranged exactly like her room.
But for some reason, she felt something was off.
She crawled off the bed, walked to the door, and habitually reached out to grab the doorknob—only to grasp empty air.
The doorknob wasn't on the left.
Li Yafei froze.
In the room she had lived in for over a decade, the door opened to the left, and the handle was on the left. She could find it even with her eyes closed.
How could the door be on the right?
A chill instantly shot up her spine. She whipped her head around to look at the poster on the wall.
The celebrity's face was originally turned to the left.
She remembered it clearly. When she pasted it back then, she had even argued with her grandma, saying it should be pasted straight. But her grandma said the wall was on the left, so it looked better with the face pointing toward the room.
But now, the person on the poster had their face turned to the right.
It was completely reversed.
Li Yafei stumbled and threw herself at the folding table, scrambling to pick up the lipstick on it.
She had saved up her allowance for two months to buy it, and she had traced the logo in front of the mirror countless times.
Now holding it in her hand, the logo was reversed.
The letters were all mirrored and crooked.
She grabbed her mascara, compact powder, the comb on the table, the mirror... everything was reversed.
Left and right were flipped, a mirrored symmetry.
This was not her room.
This was a mirrored room that looked exactly like hers but was completely flipped.
Li Yafei's legs gave out, and she knelt on the floor.
She remembered the ghost stories her grandma used to tell her. She said that after people died, they would go to the underworld, where everything was reversed, the opposite of the living world.
So, was she dead?
But she had clearly only picked up a piece of paper money.
Li Yafei bit her arm. She could feel the pain.
Supporting herself against the wall, she stood up and cautiously opened her bedroom door.
Outside was an even smaller living room, only about three or four square meters. It had a folding table, two plastic chairs, and a single wooden bed squeezed into the corner, covered with a faded white sheet—the place where her grandma usually slept.
The kitchen was on the balcony, separated only by a cloth curtain, emitting a faint warmth—exactly like the layout of her home.
Except, everything was completely reversed.
Her grandma's bed was originally on the right, but now it was on the left.
The folding table was originally by the window, but now it was by the door.
On the calendar hanging on the wall, the numbers were all mirrored, and even the dates were written backward.
On the table sat a blue-and-white porcelain bowl with a reversed pattern, filled with lotus seed and lily bulb sweet soup.
Li Yafei walked over. Looking at the sweet soup, her eyes couldn't help but turn red again.
In the past, every time she returned late, her grandma would leave a bowl for her, keeping it warm in the pot. It tasted sweet and comforting.
Suddenly, she wasn't afraid anymore. She turned and ran toward the main door.
If this was the underworld, then that grandma must be her real grandma!
What was so good about living in the mortal world anyway?
She had no money, no one loved her, no one at school respected her, and the boys only played with her because they wanted to take advantage of her.
She couldn't even scrape together her grandma's funeral expenses.
It would be better to just die.
...
“Grandma! Grandma! Wait for me!”
Li Yafei pulled open the front door. Outside was a long, narrow corridor, cramped and dim.
Doors of subdivided flats lined both sides, one next to another, packed tightly like a man-made beehive.
The familiar layout was now inverted in her eyes.
Clotheslines stretched across both sides of the corridor, hung with clothes that dripped water onto the floor.
The floor was always wet, always mixed with an unpleasant musty smell.
Everything was completely reversed.
Usually, she would turn left to go downstairs when she left her flat, but now the stairwell was on the right.
The flyers, doorplates, and fire hydrants on the wall were all mirrored.
It was as if the entire world had been flipped upside down.
...
“Grandma? Where are you?”
Li Yafei held onto the wall as she walked down, tentatively calling out, her tears flowing from anxiety:
“Don't leave me alone again.”
Footsteps came from downstairs, hurried, accompanied by a few curses:
“Crazy! Where the hell is this place?”
“A'kai, weren't we shooting a schoolgirl video in the hotel??”
The two male voices were very familiar, but Li Yafei's expression instantly changed.
It was the loan sharks, A'kai and A'le.
Why were they here too?
Could there have been a massive explosion at the hotel, and all three of them died?
The footsteps drew closer and closer, turning directly onto the sixteenth floor.
A'kai walked in front. He had dyed yellow hair, wore ripped jeans, and had a scar on his face from a past fight.
A'le followed behind. He was a bit chubby, with a protruding belly, panting heavily.
When the two of them looked up and saw Li Yafei, their eyes lit up.
“Ximei! You really are here!”
A'kai walked over quickly, reaching out to grab her. Li Yafei instinctively backed away, her tone a bit sharp:
“Why are you guys here too?”
“I don't know!”
A'kai spat, his face full of bad luck:
“Yesterday, when Ah-Le and I were waiting for you at the alley entrance, we saw golden paper money falling from the sky and picked up a couple of sheets. When we woke up, we were still in the hotel, but the surroundings were foggy. We walked around a few times and it was like a ghost wall; we couldn't get out at all.”
“I knew you lived here, so I came to find you and see if you knew what was going on.”
A'le added, his eyes scanning her up and down with obvious ill intent:
“Perfect. Since we ran into you, let's go together. But let me make this clear first: you've already agreed, so you can't back out now!”
Li Yafei's heart skipped a beat.
They were still thinking about shooting the photos.
“I'm not doing it.”
Afraid that her grandma might hear, she spoke with a cold face: “I'll pay you back. Just give me a few days.”
“A few days?” A'kai sneered, taking a step forward:
“Where would your family get any money, fishball girl? If you don't have money, we play by the rules. Taking a few photos won't kill you. You're so pretty; after we shoot them, maybe tons of losers will prop you up as their otaku goddess!”
“Exactly,” A'le chimed in, leaning closer. “Ximei, be good. We'll give you the money after the shoot. With fifty thousand dollars, won't you be able to bury your grandma?”
One on the left and one on the right, the two of them blocked Li Yafei in the corner.
...
The corridor was extremely narrow, leaving no room to retreat.
Only now did Li Yafei feel a delayed sense of fear.
She must have been possessed back then to borrow money from them.
“I said I'm not doing it,” she gritted her teeth. “I'll pay you back. If you force me again, I'll call the cops!”
“Call the cops?” A'kai said, completely unfazed:
“Go ahead if you have the guts. Let's see if the police believe you or me. When the whole school finds out that Li Yafei, the fishball girl, took out a loan shark debt to shoot nude photos, we'll see if you still have the face to go to school.”
With that, he reached out to grab her arm: “Let's go! Don't be ungrateful!”
The man's palm was clammy, and his grip was strong, making Li Yafei's arm ache.
“Let go of me!”
Li Yafei struggled but couldn't break free. The frustration she had been holding back for the past few days suddenly surged up her throat, and she wanted nothing more than to vent it all:
“I told you to let go!”
She suddenly raised her knee and rammed it upward with all her might.
“Ow—!”
A'kai's face turned pale as he cried out in pain, clutching his groin and bending over: “You fucking bitch! You dare kick me!”
Li Yafei took the opportunity to push past them, turned around, and ran downstairs.
Her plastic slippers slapped against the concrete floor, dragging a long echo through the narrow corridor.
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