Who Is He

When news of Ma Dahua's death reached Hui Nan and Huang Lu, the first thing both women thought of was the list — the death list with their names boxed in.

Once the school was unsealed, their first act was to run to the biology office. The office was empty of other staff. The crumpled list was still in the wastepaper bin. They smoothed it back out on the desk and confirmed what they had feared: Ma Dahua's name was now enclosed in a box. They studied the list closely. Ten names had been boxed:

Language Arts: Ma Dahua

Mathematics: Suo Xin, Hui Nan

English: Zhu Hua

Physics: Xiao Jin

Chemistry: Wang Qin

Biology: Huang Lu

History & Geography: Zhai Jia, Jia Shi

Discipline Office: Zhang Yao

"This list — is it predicting their deaths? Everyone whose name is boxed is going to die?" Huang Lu was the first to break, a cry escaping her.

"Huang Jie, try to stay calm. We should hand this over to the police."

"No!" Huang Lu grabbed it and clutched it. "Something like this, which we can't explain even to ourselves — if we give it to the police, we become suspects. My husband was working late last night, and I was home alone. You live alone too, and you weren't even at school yesterday. Neither of us has an alibi. A relative of mine who used to work at the station told me — they're under enormous pressure to clear every murder case. If they suspect us, they'll eventually beat out a confession and use us as scapegoats."

These few sentences sent a chill through Hui Nan. "So we have to investigate this list ourselves?"

Huang Lu looked again at the ten boxed names.

"Zhang Yao? Zhang Yao is the political education teacher for Class 4, Grade 4!" She had spotted it — each of the ten teachers was one of Class 4, Grade 4's ten subject teachers: language arts, algebra, geometry, English, physics, chemistry, biology, politics, geography, history. Ten subjects. Ten teachers. Ten deaths?

The thought made Huang Lu feel physically ill. She gave up on teaching her afternoon classes, asked Hui Nan to pass along her absence, and went straight home. Every second she spent in the school building felt like a second of terror. But arriving at the door of her own apartment, she felt a pang of regret. The school at least had people in it. At home she was alone. And she lived on the nineteenth floor — nowhere to run if something happened.

She unlocked the door anyway. She had no way of knowing that something terrifying had already been quietly moving toward her. When she pushed it open, she found someone else was already inside: her husband, Li Liang.

Li Liang worked as a team lead in the R&D department of a software company. He routinely came home past midnight. Today he was home early. Having a man in the house, Huang Lu felt a small measure of safety return.

"Why are you home so early?"

"The office lost power this afternoon."

Huang Lu suddenly shuddered. The word "power" conjured images of Gu Qing's portrait and the wreaths — and Ma Dahua hanging dead.

"I don't feel like cooking. Let's order takeout."

"Sure, I'll go down and get something."

"No — don't go out. Order it online."

"All right."

It was 4:30 in the afternoon. So far, everything seemed normal.

The two of them ate, and afterward Li Liang sat reading while Huang Lu scrolled through Weibo on her phone. At some point Li Liang lay down on the bed and fell asleep. Huang Lu still wasn't tired. She turned off the overhead light and lay down beside him in the dark, still on her phone.

It was 9:30 at night. So far, everything still seemed normal.

Huang Lu scrolled through post after post. Time passed quickly. The clock hand had reached twelve before she had any urge to sleep. Then a post caught her eye: "Is vision reliable? Are the things you see really real?" It was followed by nine images. Curious, she tried to open them. "Image failed to load." All nine — none would load.

Can what you see really be unreal? Huang Lu looked around her: the curtains hanging still at the window, the faint glow of the wall lamp, Li Liang lying with his back to her, motionless.

Then her phone vibrated. A text message had arrived.

"Go ahead and sleep. I'll be working late tonight." The sender: Li Liang.

Huang Lu felt as though her head were about to burst. Li Liang was still at work. So who was the person lying next to her?

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly to something terrible. Huang Lu felt herself enveloped in despair and helplessness. Trembling, she got out of the bed, eased the bedroom door open, and stepped into the living room.

"Where do you think you're going?" The person in the bedroom spoke.

Huang Lu didn't answer. She ran for the front door. Her apartment had a two-lock security door, and her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't turn the second lock. She was crying. Behind her, the figure from the bedroom had entered the living room.

Bang — the door gave. She didn't stop for shoes. She fled like a madwoman. She didn't wait for the elevator; she threw herself into the fire escape stairwell and ran down eight or nine flights, stumbling.

Then she stopped. Was the person following her? Where were they now? Would they take the elevator down and be waiting at the ground-floor exit? What should she do?

Huang Lu stood in the dark stairwell, panting, forcing herself to think: Was this person here to kill her? How had they got into her apartment? Why did they look so much like Li Liang? Were they even human? If not, did they need to run down nineteen flights to catch her?

"Heh heh." A cold laugh came from directly behind her. She couldn't see in the darkness, but she could feel a presence standing at her back.

The presence stepped closer and began to speak in a woman's voice — clear as stream water, full of childlike innocence: "First pockmark hangs herself, second pockmark watches. Third pockmark buys medicine, fourth pockmark brews it…"

"Ahh!" Huang Lu screamed and bolted downward, desperate to escape the voice, to escape this thing.

But she didn't get far. With a crash, she ran headlong into a pane of glass and hit the floor. Shards embedded themselves across her body, severing tendons. She lay in a pool of blood, convulsing. The thing walked slowly toward her, then crouched with eerie elegance. With her last strength Huang Lu raised her head.

She saw a face. And in that instant, she understood everything.

The thing kept murmuring: "First pockmark hangs herself, second pockmark watches."

Huang Lu began to join in, repeating the terrible nursery rhyme: "Third pockmark buys medicine, fourth pockmark brews it. Fifth pockmark—"

A long, sharp shard of glass drove into Huang Lu's eye.

Huang Lu had taught biology for years. She understood the structure of the eyeball. That knowledge did nothing to stop the glass from piercing through it and into her brain. She fell silent, and lay still in her own blood.