The Old Woman Boiling Medicine (Part Two)

Gu Qing disappeared at the entrance to the school boiler room, and Wang Qin followed her inside. The boiler was old but still working, emitting intermittent hissing sounds. Wang Qin sensed that the answer she was looking for was somewhere in this room. White steam from the boiler blocked her view; she had no choice but to press forward through it. The path grew narrower on all sides — pipes everywhere, encrusted with vivid red rust. Finally she reached the far end and saw a large iron water tank, three meters tall. A person was standing on a ladder against one side of it.

An extremely old woman, her face deeply grooved as if carved with a knife, wearing a blue hospital gown.

She was standing on the ladder, stirring something inside the tank with a steel rod. When she saw Wang Qin, she said in a hoarse, casual voice: "Come up."

Wang Qin climbed the ladder. The old woman kept stirring steadily. White steam rose from the tank, obscuring whatever was inside.

"Old woman, what are you doing here?"

"Boiling medicine."

"What is it for?"

"For my daughter to drink."

"Who is your daughter?"

"Fang Chuchu."

The name made Wang Qin shudder. In that moment she felt genuine terror for the first time. She regretted coming here; she wanted to leave at once. But she couldn't move — a bony hand had locked around her arm like iron pincers. "No rush to go. The medicine I'm brewing still needs one more ingredient. Help me."

"What ingredient?"

"You."

The pincers flung Wang Qin into the tank.

She plummeted. The tank was filled with scalding broth. In the instant she hit the surface, she saw three faces floating on the liquid: Xiao Jin's face, Ma Dahua's face, and Huang Lu's face — minus one eye.

"No—!"

Wang Qin jolted awake in the nightmare's grip. She was lying in the dim hospital room. The midnight ward was quiet; all the other patients were asleep.

"What's wrong?" Wang Ping's voice came from the other bed, low so as not to disturb anyone.

Wang Qin was breathing hard. "Nothing — just a terrible dream." She told Wang Ping everything.

"Do you know why you had that dream?" Wang Ping's voice stayed low.

"Why?"

"What you see in the day becomes what you dream at night. The scenes in your dream are reflections of what you experienced in the day."

"What reflections?"

"The hissing of the boiler pipes is the sound the acid made burning your skin. The white steam of the boiler is the white vapor the acid produced in your mouth. And the red rust creeping over every pipe is your face after the acid burned it."

Wang Qin couldn't see Wang Ping's face in the dark. But she could feel that Wang Ping was smiling.

When Wang Ping finished speaking, she very slowly rose from her bed and walked toward Wang Qin's. Wang Ping's face emerged from the darkness: it was indeed smiling — but it was not Wang Ping's face. This face was deeply furrowed with wrinkles. It was wearing a blue hospital gown. It was the old woman from Wang Qin's dream — the one who had been boiling medicine.

Wang Qin felt as though her skull might explode. "Are you — human or ghost?"

"I am neither human nor ghost. I am a dead person."

"How — how did you die?"

"I was killed."

"By whom?"

"By you."

The old woman had reached Wang Qin's bedside. Wang Qin suddenly noticed that the old woman's gown was a slightly darker shade of blue than her own. And then she noticed something else — the brand label sewn onto the chest of the old woman's gown did not read "Kangping Hospital." It read "Kangping Psychiatric Hospital."