Sprinkling a few more handfuls of flour, they could finally see Li Duo clearly.
Her eyebrows were very thick, her cheeks chubby, and as she blinked her eyes, the flour drifted down in a flurry.
It was hard to make out her true color; otherwise, Li Daonian figured, her face must be rosy and plump.
"When she died, it must have been winter," he said to Xu Shuangning.
"Look, she's dressed quite thickly, and she's even wearing little sleeve-guards. I can't see her shoes clearly—go ahead and sprinkle another handful toward her feet. Ah, yes, look, they're probably padded cotton shoes, too."
"I want to find my mommy! I want my mommy!" Duoduo slammed herself hard against the outside of the red thread circle, but as if blocked by an invisible barrier, she could never get out, and could only end up tilting her head back and wailing.
"There, there, Duoduo, Big Brother is here to take you to find your mommy," Li Daonian coaxed her again.
"Uh-ah," she wiped her face with her hands, sobbing, "Really?"
Her eyes disappeared again, and Xu Shuangning tossed another handful of flour.
"Really. Tell me why you're crying," he gently took Duoduo's little hand and said.
Because their hands kept rubbing against each other, the flour kept getting brushed away. As he held her hand, a moment later her pinky would vanish, and then her thumb would disappear, so Xu Shuangning kept tossing flour at their hands from the side.
This was the task Li Daonian had assigned her.
"Wuwuwu," Duoduo wiped away her tears and said, "Because Mommy lied to me. She lied to me."
Li Daonian used a very animated tone: "Oh~?"
"Then tell me, how did Mommy lie to you? Tell Big Brother, and Big Brother will scold her for you."
"Wuwu, you're not allowed to scold my mommy!" Duoduo suddenly pouted and said sternly.
Li Daonian wiped his sweat mentally: "Haha, alright, then Big Brother won't scold her, won't scold her. Can you tell Big Brother how Mommy lied to you, then?"
"She, she said she would stay with me for the rest of my life, wuwuwu..."
"Then where has Mommy gone now?"
"I don't know, wuwu, I don't know." At this, Duoduo lost control again, and her tears gushed out in a torrent.
"Wah!" Li Daonian covered his ears. "Her noise is giving me a headache."
Xu Shuangning tossed flour while saying, "Ask her some more."
"Duoduo, don't cry. If you don't cry, Big Brother will take you to find your mommy."
"Really?"
"Really!"
Li Daonian and Duoduo sat facing each other, and he said softly, "Do you remember the last time you saw Mommy?"
"Mmm... It was right on this bed. I was lying on top, covered by a quilt, and Mommy was sitting beside me."
Hearing that this big brother could take her to find her mommy made her much more obedient.
"Were you sick?" Li Daonian keenly captured the detail.
"Yeah, I seemed to be sick. My body felt all soft and weak, and Mommy fed me with a spoon."
"Do you remember what kind of illness you had?"
Duoduo shook her head, shaking her ears right out of existence: "I don't remember. Mommy kept crying. Before that, we were still at the hospital, and then we came home."
Li Daonian and Xu Shuangning exchanged a glance, roughly guessing the reason.
The little girl had probably died of illness.
He sighed. If she were still alive, he could at least comfort the little girl.
But now, facing a ghost, he could only sigh at the cruelty of fate. Just as he was about to continue asking, Xu Shuangning squatted down, bent her knees, and patted Duoduo's head:
"Don't be afraid, Big Sister will help you think, alright? Did you and your mommy originally live in this house?"
Looking at Xu Shuangning, Duoduo's tone softened even more. She lowered her head and said in a sweet, muffled voice: "Yeah, Mommy and I lived here."
She glanced at Li Daonian, and seeing him nod in tacit consent, she continued asking questions.
Li Daonian felt both amused and exasperated inside. The little girl was still somewhat nervous around him, yet she became so much calmer the moment she saw Xu Shuangning.
No wonder these past few days, she had clung to her every time she slept—could it be that clinging to her had bred a sense of familiarity?
"Do you know where your daddy is?"
"Mmm... I don't have a daddy," Duoduo said. "Ever since I was born, Mommy has always been the one taking care of me. Later, when I got sick, it seemed like Daddy came by. He kept arguing with Mommy, and Mommy cried. He wasn't nice to Mommy. He's not my daddy."
Hearing this, Xu Shuangning held Duoduo's hand, lowered her head, and felt a myriad of mixed emotions in her heart.
"Duoduo," Li Daonian asked, "now that we're taking you to find your mommy, do you know where she might be?"
"Mommy," Duoduo murmured, "she isn't far from me. I can feel it."
Damn it!
Li Daonian had a bad premonition. Could her mommy be dead too, floating around nearby as a ghost? Even worse, what if her mommy's corpse was hidden in some corner?
Just thinking about it made his hair stand on end.
He swallowed hard, hoping his guess wouldn't come true, and asked carefully, "Is she in this house?"
"No. I looked all over this house for a long, long time and never got out. Mommy is probably outside."
Before, as a lingering obsession devoid of consciousness, Duoduo had only wandered inside the house and couldn't get out. Now that she had materialized and regained her sanity, she could step past the boundaries of the house.
"Then shall we go out and take a look? See where Mommy is, and I'll take you to find her?"
"Mm-hmm." Duoduo nodded rapidly twice, and then looked innocently at Xu Shuangning: "Big Sister?"
"Don't worry, Big Sister will go with you. Shall I hold your hand?"
"Okay," Duoduo replied in a sweet, soft voice.
Li Daonian had originally prepared to keep her confined with the red thread, with him and Xu Shuangning holding the thread to prevent the ghost from wandering around. But seeing that Duoduo's emotions were stable and she was even holding Xu Shuangning's hand so obediently, he decided to forget it.
Just let the two of them hold hands and go downstairs together.
He gave her a look, and she nodded, signaling: Don't worry.
Li Daonian hurriedly picked up the bag of flour, stuffed it into his backpack, opened the door, and invited the two of them to walk out first.
Looking at the big and small figures from behind in the hallway, he actually found it a bit heartwarming.
This Xu Shuangning was really something else. No wonder she usually seemed so cold and aloof; she was genuinely tough. When seeing a ghost for the first time, she could hold its hand and walk along, without losing her wits in sheer terror.
It was now four-twenty in the morning.
He called his roommate Qiuyang, and unexpectedly, the other person answered in two seconds.
"Hello, hello, hello!" The tone sounded full of energy.
"Damn you, you're still not asleep?" Li Daonian was impressed.
"Aren't you not sleeping either?" Qiuyang bantered back.
"I'm doing serious business here. You must be choking the chicken."
"Get lost, get lost! What's up?"
"I'll send you an address. I need your help to call Xiaobang over. We might have to send off a ghost later," he said concisely.
"So late? Xiaobang is sleeping like a log." Qiuyang pulled back his bed curtain on the other end of the phone.
"When Song Lian learned things, he even had to bend over and lean his ear close to ask. What's a little early rising for you guys? I'm sending you the address, hurry up!"
With that, Li Daonian hung up the phone.
Qiuyang and Xiaobang had both seen him catch ghosts before, and at the time they had been scared out of their wits, showing none of the composure Xu Shuangning was displaying right now.
Actually, you couldn't really blame them. The ghost back then had died in a car crash, its head completely flattened, with one eye bigger than the other and its tongue hanging out—truly terrifying.
Ever since that time, they had started learning about the work he did in detail, and upon finding out the pay was pretty good, they had birthed the idea of learning the craft.
Li Daonian's ghost-catching techniques weren't some secret arts forbidden from being passed on to outsiders anyway. Bringing them along meant an extra pair of hands to help, and since they were dorm mates with a good relationship, there was no such saying as "teaching the apprentice starves the master."
Besides, he had only mastered a few superficial tricks himself.
Calling them over in the dead of night would provide some backup, too. Who knew what might happen in a bit?
"Ah!"
He suddenly heard a "thud" from ahead, followed by a scream from Xu Shuangning.
He hurried down in pursuit, only to see that the girl Li Duo had lost her footing and "smack!" fallen down the stairs.
A crooked, human-shaped flour print was left on the stairs. Xu Shuangning hurriedly pulled her up, but Duoduo's hand was knocked away into nothingness, so pulling her was no use either.
"Don't panic, Duoduo! Big Brother is coming to save you!"
Li Daonian flipped over and tossed a handful of flour.