Savior

But this isn't fair. Mom, dad... do you know your son has been suffering for the past year? Why haven't you come looking for him? Are you Shui gui too? Why was I born to you, in that town? I hate you... for giving birth to me in such a ruined town.

It's their fault.

Or is this my karma? DId I really do something so bad in the past, that I have to die for the second time?

Oh god. This isn't fair. Please, I need help.

I'm just a stupid kid too... I don't want to die... I don't want to meet Jun Ling when I haven't even accomplished half of my dreams yet...

This kind of death... I don't want it. I'm not dying as a hero but as a cry baby. On the inside I'm still a big cry baby. Always whining, always complaining. But I deserve to complain, don't I? I didn't deserve to have my body taken away from me by a monster.

That's why I'm asking. One more day... One more day as a human. That's all I'm asking... I have so much I want to do.

The only thing I can do is cry for help.

"Amelia! Amelia! Please help me! Someone! I don't want to die here!"

This is futile but I swim further down the stream. If only for a little bit longer, a second, a minute, an hour. I wish to live.

By a miracle, or perhaps something ordained by fate, just after I passed under the bridge, I saw a person walking along the river bank. She was looking at me, she saw me, she could see me. The sun shining brightly behind her, cast a shadow on her face. But I don't care what she looks like as long as she saves me.

No matter if you're an angel or the devil.

Right now, as long as you can save me, that's fine by me. I already owe debts which I can't repay even with an infinite lifespan, what's one more debt?

Desperately I stretch my hand out.

"Please help me!"

She took my hand, pulling on me.

The water seemed to tug on me too as if refusing to let me escape.

However the girl didn't give up. She leaned back and put her weight into the pull.

"Get out of the water, come onto land!"

The instant she finished her sentence, the water released me. And for the first time, in a year, I was out of the river.

I guess you could say she fished me out of the river. Hahaha...

The only thing the Shui gui could do now was glare at me unrelentlessly. Their anger seemed to increase tenfold as if they had gotten even angrier at the fact that I, a relatively new Shui gui, had escaped the water before them. As if I had skipped a queue.

"Are you okay? You're a shui gui right? How can you still talk? Shui gui are supposed to lose their sanity, memories and become incapable of speech."

I turned to look at the face of my savior. I froze.

"Hey, say something. I know you're a shui gui but it's alright. You can talk to me, Zhang Shun."

Her face, voice and appearance was all too familiar to me. A bob hair cut with really long bangs. Petite and short.

"Please, don't be scared, Zhang Shun. It's me Jun Ling. And I know all about shui gui too. You could say I'm like an expert!"

I wasn't scared about that. It was her face that was causing this horrible gut wrenching feeling in my stomach. That face belongs to someone I had spent so long with. Or would 'belonged' be a more fitting tense in this scenario?

Also she knows me? This fake? No. She's pretending to know me. Pretending to be Jun Ling.

"Jun Ling."

Shit. I let her name slip.

"Ah. You remember me! That's great! So you wanna explain how you became a water ghost?"

"Not really."

I would've explained it to anyone. But not to this fake. I understood the instant I saw this girl. She is not my Li Jun Ling. She's a shui gui who stole her body. But how? Jun Ling was drowned I thought? They even had an ambulance sent, her body was in the bag... I saw it. Are shui gui capable of possessing dead bodies?

That's the only rational explanation left.

This monster stole her corpse. Somehow, someway.

I'll keep silent for now and follow along. This time I'll get the answers to all my questions. And once I'm done I'll end this charade. My town full of nothing but fakes pretending to be human, I'll end all of it.

"Aww... but I understand. It must have been painful right? Let's go to my house, there we can get comfortable for a long talk."

It was painful. Getting my spirit ripped out, seeing a monster with my appearance and being trapped here for so long. But I don't need a monster like you to console me. You fake. Don't touch me. I'm gonna hurl.

Following the river down stream, we reach a stilted wooden house.

"Okay, home sweet home. Come on in, Zhang Shun!"

Is this poor looking wooden house actually Jun Ling's home?

She goes to sit down on the couch but I remain standing.

"Well let's start. I know you might have a lot of questions but I'll do my best to answer all of them."

...Where do I start?

I'll have to play dumb. Ask questions I already know the answer to. That way I can test how truthful this monster is as well. But what if she's putting on a show for me? What if she's working with the town council? What if I'm dancing to her tune?

No, that couldn't be true. Why save me in the first place then? That seems like a roundabout way to do things. The town council have no reason to try and save me when my mission goes against their whole farce.

"What is a shui gui?"

Answered truthfully in excruciating detail. I felt like tuning it out but I had to listen to it to look for any lies.

"Why couldn't I leave the river?"

"Shui gui, like most supernatural beings cannot enter places they're not allowed without expressed verbal permission. In their case, it happens to be water they're tied to so anywhere on land is considered a restricted area."

I can't know whether that's true. But she did say something akin to an invitation, when she pulled me out.

"Why did you help me? I'm a dangerous shui gui, aren't I?"

It's a bit risky but I phrased my questions to ask several things at once. She might slip up and give more valuable information this way.

'Why did you help me', can be interpreted in many different ways. But combined with the second question, 'I'm a shui gui, aren't I', it creates two different interpretations of me. One, I am a naive person who genuinely doesn't understand why one would risk herself to save me. Two, I am suspicious of her ulterior motives and might be catching on to her.

The chances that she catches onto the fact that I'm probing for information is low.

Either way, no matter how she responds, it will give me insight and information.

"True, you might have been a shui gui pretending to be in trouble to drown me. But you looked like you were still coherent and the fact that you were capable of speaking at all, it spoke volumes about your sanity. Most shui gui lose their memories of being human and just go on their base urge to drown humans. So I tossed the dice and decided to save you and I was right. You weren't a bad shui gui."

It's true. She couldn't have known that I wouldn't try to drown her. Why would a shui gui who already has a body, risk it by exposing themselves to another shui gui encounter? If she knew the town council, why put herself in this dangerous situation to begin with? There are no possible logical reasons I can come up with to explain this. Other than... she genuinely wanted to help me.

But no... this could all still be an act for some other irrational reason that I can't come up with. She is still pretending to be Jun Ling, after all.

Wait a second. I've been going about this the wrong way.

She is pretending to be Jun Ling, from my class, who died. That wouldn't make sense. The town council would know that we were in the same class and realize that I will be able to draw the conclusion that this is a fake Jun Ling.

So... either this fake isn't connected to the council or... Ahhhh. None of this is making any sense to me. I'm thinking too fast. Let's return to reality and try to probe for more information.

Let's skip the tiny details and go with the most important question.

"Can you help me get my body back?"

"Yes! Of course I'm going to. Once I pulled you out of the river, it was my obligation to continue and finish helping you."

Just what in the heck is this monster planning? I can't think of any possible reason. Nothing she's said links up with the knowledge in my head.

As far as I know, the shui gui in my town are all cooperating with each other to possess innocent townsfolk. So just what is this ghost thinking exactly? She can't possibly want to kill me or she would've let the river shui gui kill me.

"Would you really help me get my body back?"

"Yup! It's a Li's promise, swear on my ancestors. Any more questions?"

Yeah. Just two more.

"What happens after a shui gui possesses someone?"

"Huh? What do you mean? The victim becomes a water ghost and the water ghost takes over their body. I thought I'd already-"

"No, what I mean is, what do the shui gui do after getting their bodies?"

"Well, I don't really get what you mean but the shui gui just become human again. That's it, pretty much."

"No! What do they do after becoming human again? That's the question I'm asking!"

She backed off. She was scared of my outburst... She should be.

"W-well some decide to come to our town for safety from the exorcists, some go off to live in far away places while others continue the life of their victims. And some lucky ones might even return to find their old families from before they became shui gui."

"Wait, continue the lives of their victims?"

"Umm yeah, they'll continue their lives. With their memories."

"Shui gui can obtain the memories of their victims?"

"Yes. I thought that didn't need to be explained. Same body, same brain after all. Their feelings are the same as well."

"Okay, last question. Can shui gui possess dead bodies?"

"No, for shui gui, they have to target living people. It's so strange right? Unlike other ghosts, shui gui are one of the few with this exception."

She's finally slipped up. What she just said contradicts what I know. Shui gui can possess dead bodies otherwise you, the fake couldn't be standing here right now.

"Then how are you in Jun Ling's body?"

"W-what? What are you talking about?"

She's finally sounding nervous. I've hit a jackpot. I'll make her spill everything now.

"The fact that you are referring to yourself as Jun Ling. The fact that Jun Ling is supposed to be dead. It's obvious isn't it? You're a fake with her memories."

"No, I am Li Jun Ling. I'm not lying..."

"Jun Ling, is no longer in this world! I saw her body in the ambulance!"

"Ambulance?"

"Yeah! When she died in February! I saw it!"

"There was never an ambulance called..."

"Don't lie to me! I know what I saw!"

"There was no ambulance and there was no body! How could I have died in February if I graduated with you?"

...what?

"That's impossible... Jun Ling died seven months before graduation. I know that."

"I know you're scared, Shun but don't worry. You're just confused after becoming a ghost... I'm not an enemy. I'll prove it to you."

She gets up from the couch to a bookshelf. She pulls out a book, it's our school year book, the one specially made for seniors in their last year of high school.

"Look, I'm in our graduation ceremony photo. And there's me in our class photo and another one of me in the girls group photo. And here's the 9 photos taken of us each month. Our class thought it would be cool to take pictures of us every month and compare them with our last graduation photo. I'm in every single photo!"

"No! None of that matters! The ambulance was called and I confirmed it with my eyes, your drowned body! You're a shui gui, pretending to be Jun Ling and you killed her!"

"T-think rationally, Zhang Shun... If an ambulance was called and I was confirmed dead, how would I appear in every photo after February? And wouldn't our classmates have known about it too?"

... I couldn't deny what she had just said. But if shui gui could possess dead bodies, everything she just said, would be made irrelevant. And I'd know the truth.

"You're lying about shui gui not being able to possess dead bodies. And I'll prove it to you."

I grab her by the arm.

"Zhang Shun? Please... you're hurting me. Where are you taking me?"

The sight of Jun Ling crying made my heart jerk in pain but I reminded myself that this was a mere monster. I cast aside my doubt and doubled down on my conviction. This was a fake and I was going to prove it no matter what.

"The morgue."

"No, please... Zhang Shun, please don't."

My heart is tearing apart at the seams, hearing her voice sound so hurt but my mind is made up. I can't turn back. If I turn back now, I won't know what to think.