4 The Blue Boy

The flicker in Xiajun's expression did not go unnoticed my Changming.

"What?" Changming said as he turned around in his seat. There was nothing there except the normal cafe surroundings. Changming turned back to face Xiajun and was surprised how composed his expression was...as if nothing had happened.

"So, I heard you solved the Haizhu bridge case...." Changming continued to talk.

In fact, Xiajun had seen something. It was a ghost by the café door. A ghost of a little boy. Xiajun hadn't seen it when he had entered in, but now that his line of sight was towards the door, he could see the translucent blue silhouette of a little boy very easily.

The boy was staring straight at Xiajun but he didn't come towards him. Xiajun wondered what had happened to the little boy in this very café because usually, the ghosts tended to stay near the places they died in. So it was highly likely that this boy died in the cafe; a very unusual place of death, indeed.

But Xiajun was used to ghosts. He averted eyes from the little blue figure and launched into a long story about the Haizhu bridge case. Soon, the barista brought him is order of a strong black coffee and the two men sipped on their drinks while they reminisced about their past memories. The whole time Xiajun was painfully aware of the little boy's accusing glare on him.

"Okay then, big guy," Changming said as he stood up. "Thanks for meeting up. I've got to be somewhere by 3 pm, so I'll get going now. It was nice to get to talk, haha."

Xiajun shook his hand and his eyes followed Changming as he walked past the little ghost and out the cafe door. He gulped as he saw the little blue boy totter over to him. Xiajun inched towards the wall as the boy leaned in close to him and whispered something.

Xiajun didn't catch what the kid said but he chose to ignore his existence nonetheless. It was better if you gave off the impression that you can't see the ghosts at all, because if you let them notice that you can see them, the ghosts will all clamor around you and ask all sorts of stuff. Xiajun didn't want to get caught in that kind of thing again, so he slid out of his booth, going straight through the little boy's figure and went to the counter to pay for his coffee.

A shiver ran down his spine as he felt the cold air of the ghost envelope him. Deathly freezing air.

From the sides of his eye, Xiajun noticed that the boy was following him. He sighed and strode out the door, leaving the poor soul behind.

Back in his car as he headed towards his house, he noticed a lot of ghosts sitting comfortably in the middle of the roads, conversing with each other. Victims of car crashes, probably. Xiajun always wondered that if he crashed his car somewhere and died, would all the other ghosts keep him company?

On the way back, Xiajun stopped outside a grocery store and picked out a couple things he might need for dinner. He was too tired to make something for himself and much too selfish to splurge of takeouts.

Instant mushroom soup and a loaf of bread would do.