As time passes, people's memories tend to blur. This is the result of many factors working together.
Yet whenever you recall certain childhood memories, you always find yourself questioning whether things really happened that way.
I am no exception.
After returning home from tending the graves, the heavy burden of my studies quickly eclipsed those unpleasant memories. I even began to doubt whether I had remembered things correctly.
Did I really just place the candy in front of the grave, or had I finished eating it and carelessly tossed the wrapper away, only for the wind to blow it right up to the gravesite?
I can't remember, and I don't want to think about it anymore.
My home was a two-story house—the kind made by converting a traditional three-room rural brick house into a two-story building, though it didn't have a courtyard.
The first floor held the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a small utility room.
On the second floor were three rooms. One was left empty for guests, while my parents' room and mine both faced south and had balconies.
In front of our door ran a red-brick path two or three meters wide. Across from us was a small vegetable garden enclosed by bricks, roughly equal in size to the footprint of our house.
In the northwest corner of the garden stood a pine tree. At one point, our family had wanted to use this plot to build an extension.
On the one hand, the neighbors wouldn't agree to closing off the path, and on the other hand, the local policies prohibited cutting down trees. The plan was shelved, and the plot eventually became my grandmother's vegetable garden.
About a week after that incident, on a Friday night, a torrential downpour broke out.
My dad had gone to Suzhou on business, and my mom was working the night shift, so she wasn't home. My grandmother lived about five hundred meters away from us.
I was left all alone in the house.
And oh, how happy I was! Nobody was breathing down my neck.
Back then, not every household had a computer, so the Subor learning console was our go-to entertainment.
That night, I was deep into a video game when my mom suddenly called. She told me to check whether the balcony windows were properly latched, and threw in a bunch of nagging reminders to study hard and not waste time playing games.
I gave her a perfunctory mumble, hung up the phone, and plunged right back into the gaming world.
It wasn't until I grew somewhat tired that I finally remembered my mom's words and hurried out to the balcony to check the windows.
After securing my parents' room, I went over to my own room's balcony.
Just as I shut the glass window and prepared for bed, I suddenly caught sight of a figure standing in the pitch-black vegetable garden across the way!
I froze for a moment, then hurriedly rubbed my eyes and looked again.
A flash of lightning split the dark night sky wide open. Immediately afterward, a deafening crack of thunder exploded right beside my ears—and inside my brain as well.
That figure was real!
By that time, my awe of ghosts and spirits had worn pretty thin, thanks to my long exposure to my grandfather's journals, though I had never had the chance to put any of it into practice.
Besides, living in a modern, civilized society, notions of ghosts and spirits existed only in traditional thought and religious beliefs.
I didn't for a second think it was a ghost.
I was simply curious: what was someone doing standing in our vegetable garden in weather like this?
Stealing vegetables?
That made no sense. My grandmother was a kind person; if you came by during the day and asked for some scallions, ginger, or leafy greens, she would gladly give them to you.
If it wasn't stealing vegetables, could it be that someone had figured out our house was empty tonight and planned to break in?
They meant no good!
At that thought, I snatched up the broom from the balcony and peered down again.
The figure below, who had been standing in the middle of the garden earlier, was now right at the edge, separated from our house by nothing more than that narrow path.
You little thief, I thought to myself. I've spotted you, so how dare you creep closer to my place? If I don't beat you black and blue today and hand you over to the police station, you'll never learn who you're dealing with!
With that, I dropped the broom, grabbed a wooden stool, crept stealthily over to lock my parents' bedroom door from the outside, and then tiptoed down the stairs.
I knew all our valuables were in their room, and I couldn't let the thief slip in and snatch them while I wasn't paying attention.
Once down in the living room, I crept silently toward the light switch, planning to flip it on and roar at the same time, catching the burglar completely off guard.
Sure enough, a moment later, I heard the faint sound of the front door's latch turning. Then, accompanied by a soft, creaking sound, the door cracked open.
I immediately flipped on the switch, let out a fierce roar, and lunged toward the door.
Then I was dumbfounded. Once the lights came on, the living room was spotless—not a single person was in sight.
Had he been so startled by me that he slammed the door shut and ran off?
Thinking this, I grabbed the stool, flung the door open, and rushed out to yell at the top of my lungs, "You damn death-seeking thief, have a death wish or something?!"
There wasn't a soul outside—only the sound of the heavy rain pouring down.
I shouted for a while. Seeing that there genuinely was no movement outside, I figured the thief wouldn't dare come back, so I went inside, shut the door, and prepared to head upstairs to bed.
As soon as I stepped back in, I was struck dumb.
A streak of wet footprints stretched all the way from the living room toward the stairs.
Damn it, I thought, is this thief really that bold? He actually slipped inside while I was standing outside yelling my head off.
Without even pausing to turn off the lights, I grabbed the stool and followed the wet trail upward.
As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, I instantly froze in my tracks.
A soaked figure was standing in the corner, facing the wall.
Judging by the build, it had to be a woman!
Her long hair hung down in wet clumps, her face turned away toward the wall so I couldn't see it, and the style of her clothes was unlike anything I had ever seen. Water was still dripping rhythmically from her hem.
Got you!
Spewing curses, I charged forward, lifting the stool to deliver a crushing blow straight to her head.
Damn you, standing in our vegetable garden in the middle of the night! Damn you, breaking into my house in the middle of the night!
I was going to beat the living daylights out of you before dragging you off to the police station to rot in a cell!
Just as I reached her and raised the stool to strike, she suddenly extended a hand.
It was a delicate, tiny hand, looking just like a porcelain doll's, gleaming with an unblemished whiteness under the light.
I paused, the movement of my hands coming to a halt.
She slowly opened her palm, revealing a few crumpled objects, and held them out toward me.
Hesitating for a second, I lowered the stool, pinched one of the crumpled things between two fingers, and smoothed it out.
The instant I flattened it, I froze. It was a crumpled wrapper from a White Rabbit creamy candy.
The memories from a week ago came flooding wildly back into my mind.
In an instant, my legs went completely limp. I collapsed to the floor, scrabbling backward in terror while babbling incoherent nonsense, my limbs flailing wildly and uncontrollably.
Before long, I backed up against the base of the wall. Feeling the chill of the concrete behind me, my mind cleared just enough for me to feel a surge of hot liquid soak down the front of my pants.