The next day at work, I went to retrieve Granny Lin's file.
I thought it was a reasonable decision. When you encounter something you can't explain, the first step is always to gather information. Understand your opponent, or understand your—I couldn't find the right word for her. "Opponent" was wrong. "Ghost" I didn't quite believe in. "Deceased" she clearly exceeded that definition. Just understand her, understand Granny Lin.
The archives were on the second floor of the administration building, a small room crammed with filing cabinets. The funeral home kept records for twenty years, and retrieving files required filling out an application form, but Old Li, the records manager, never bothered with that. He'd say, "Xiao Song, look for whatever you want, just don't mess things up." He was the most laid-back person in the funeral home, in his sixties, whose greatest hobby was growing pothos in the archives. He said pothos were easy to keep—just add water and they lived, unlike people who could be gone in an instant.
I found Granny Lin's file folder. Her name was written on the cover: Lin Xiuying. Born 1943, passed away this March. The cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest, same as I'd seen before.
But the content below started to feel wrong.
Lin Xiuying wasn't new to the funeral home. Tucked inside the file was an old form—a registration slip from eight years ago when she came to claim her husband's ashes. That wasn't unusual; elderly people seeing off their spouses was common. What caught my attention was two small characters written in pencil on the bottom corner of that registration slip, barely noticeable.
"Candlelight."
I didn't understand what those two words meant. Did a staff member write them? Or had Lin Xiuying herself written them when she came to handle the procedures?
I kept flipping through. There was also a photo in the file folder—her intake photo taken when she entered the funeral home. The standard front-facing, no-hat, white-background photo. The old lady in the picture didn't quite match the one I'd seen that day. In the file photo, her expression was tight, lips pressed thin, with something in her eyes I couldn't describe. Not fear, not anger—more like a stubbornness. That look made you think this person had never bowed her head in her life.
Her lips in the photo were very thin, almost a straight line—completely different from the slightly upturned mouth I'd seen when doing her makeup.
I stared at that photo for a long time, a chill slowly creeping up my spine. Not because the photo itself was terrifying, but because I remembered something—when I did her makeup, I'd mixed the foundation to match her facial condition. If her lips had been thin in life, why had I instinctively thought to give her a fuller lip shape? Where had that judgment come from? Was it my own aesthetic choice, or had something whispered in my ear when I bent over?
I couldn't remember at all.
I put the file back and sat on the small stool in the archives for a while, lost in thought. Old Li's pothos hung down from the top of the filing cabinet, the leaves brushing my shoulder, tickling, like someone patting me.
"Find what you were looking for?" Old Li poked his head in through the door.
"Yeah."
"What's with that expression? Looks like you've seen a ghost." Old Li chuckled. He had no idea how accurate his words were.
After leaving the archives, I decided to find someone—Lin Xiuying's family. The file had her son's phone number and address, in an old neighborhood on the east side of town. I told Sister Wang I needed half a day off in the afternoon. She looked at me, probably seeing something in my face, and only said, "Don't do anything stupid."
That neighborhood on the east side was even older than I'd imagined. Six-story brick buildings, chunks of cement peeling off the exterior walls, exposing rusted rebar underneath. The stairwells were cluttered with junk—bicycles, cardboard boxes, pickle jars. Every floor smelled like different families cooking. Lin Xiuying's son lived on the fifth floor. I knocked on the door, and a man in his fifties opened it—gray hair, wearing a faded polo shirt, glasses perched on his nose, like he'd been reading the newspaper.
"Hello, my surname is Song. I'm the mortician at Chuncheng Funeral Home," I tried to keep my voice normal. "I did the makeup for your mother, Lin Xiuying."
His expression didn't change much; he just nodded. "Come in."
The apartment was small, two bedrooms and a living room, kept clean. On the coffee table sat a photo frame with Lin Xiuying's portrait—the same one from the file. Opposite the sofa, an old round mirror hung on the TV wall, with a redwood frame, looking quite aged. My gaze lingered on that mirror for a moment before I forced myself to look away.
"Mr. Song, what brings you here?" Lin Xiuying's son poured me a glass of water and sat down across from me. "Is there something wrong with my mother's ashes?"
"No, no," I hurried to say. "Everything's fine with the ashes. I just—I'm doing a follow-up visit." That excuse had popped into my head on the stairs, stupid as hell. Since when did morticians do follow-ups? But he didn't seem to find it strange; he just waited for me to continue.
I took a sip of water, trying to figure out how to phrase this. "Your mother passed away peacefully."
As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted it. I wanted to slap myself. Why did I say that word again?
Lin Xiuying's son didn't react much, just gave a soft "Hmm." "Yeah, she didn't suffer. Said she was tired in the morning, wanted to lie down for a bit, and never got up. When I came back at noon to call her for lunch, she was already gone."
"She had heart problems for a long time?"
"Old issue, been taking medicine for over twenty years." He paused, then added, "But she never complained."
"What was your mother like when she was alive?" I asked. "I mean, her personality."
He glanced at me, probably thinking this mortician asked too many questions. But he still answered. "Strong-willed. Very strong-willed. My dad died early, she raised me alone. Never asked for help, never admitted defeat. Once she broke her arm, but she rode her bike to the hospital by herself. Only called me when she got to the ER, saying, 'Don't worry, I'm already here.'"
I listened, and the image of that old lady with tightly pressed lips from the file photo popped into my head.
"Did she like wearing makeup?" I asked.
That question made him pause. He thought for a moment and said, "She probably did when she was younger. I've seen photos of her from back then—two long braids, lips painted bright red. As she got older, she didn't wear much anymore, just put on some lipstick during festivals. She had a favorite lipstick she used for years. When it ran out, she couldn't bear to throw it away; she just kept it on her dresser to look at every day."
"What color?"
"Dark red," he said. "The kind that looks old-fashioned."
My stomach clenched.
"Was that lipstick still on her dresser the day she passed?" My voice was dry.
Lin Xiuying's son stood up and went into the bedroom. After a moment, he came out holding something.
A lipstick. Not new—the casing was worn and chipped, clearly an old model. He twisted the cap—empty. The lipstick had been used down to the tube, only a ring of dark red residue left inside.
Exactly like the missing lipstick from my toolbox.
Wait.
Actually, my lipstick was exactly like this one.
"That's all she had left of her past," he put the lipstick back on the dresser. "She loved beauty when she was young, but later she didn't have time for it, so she kept it as a memento. After she passed, I thought about burning it with her, but my wife said to keep it, said it was a memory. So I kept it."
I stared at that empty lipstick, my brain racing.
Wait—he'd just said "put it back on the dresser." He'd gone into the bedroom, taken it out, then put it back. Which meant this lipstick was at his house now.
Then whose was the dark red lipstick in my toolbox?
And whose was the one I'd frozen in the fridge?
"Mr. Song?" Lin Xiuying's son called me, noticing I was spaced out.
"Nothing," I snapped back to my senses, stood up to leave. "Thank you for telling me all this. Sorry to bother you."
"No problem. Thank you for doing my mother's makeup," he said. "My mother valued dignity her whole life. She must be happy to leave looking so dignified."
Must be happy.
I walked out of the building and stood in the March wind, the sweat on my back turning cold from the breeze. An old lady was walking a dog downstairs—a white Teddy—that barked at me twice. The old lady pulled on the leash and scolded the dog, her voice just like every other old lady in every neighborhood—warm and ordinary.
The world was too normal, so normal it felt unreal. People walking dogs, cooking, reading newspapers—everyone living normal lives. Only I knew something was wrong somewhere, a chain reaction set off by something I shouldn't have said, unfolding slowly and steadily.
I drove back to the funeral home just before closing. Sister Wang was waiting at the gate. When she saw my car, she walked over and knocked on the window.
"Where have you been?"
"To Lin Xiuying's house."
Sister Wang's expression changed. She walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, got in, closed it, and said something that made my scalp prickle.
"You don't need to look for her. She's not there."
"What?"
"Lin Xiuying's body," Sister Wang stared out the windshield, her voice low. "When the family came to claim the ashes this morning, I checked the signature slip. The cremation date isn't today."
"Not today?"
"According to the records, Lin Xiuying's body is still in the cold storage, scheduled for cremation next Wednesday."
My hands on the steering wheel started shaking.
"But I clearly—"
"You clearly did her makeup, right?" Sister Wang turned to look at me. "Your name's on the assignment sheet for Lin Xiuying, and the ID numbers match. I checked the cold storage unit numbers today. That unit has a male inside, surnamed Zhou, seventy-two years old."
The air in the car felt like it had been sucked out. I don't remember how I rolled down the window, but the cold March air rushed in, and I finally took a breath.
"This can't be," I said. "I did her makeup for forty minutes. I touched her face, I did her eyebrows, I applied—" I stopped. The lipstick. That dark red lipstick. "That lipstick wasn't hers. Her son just showed me her lipstick from when she was alive—it's empty, kept at his house."
Sister Wang was silent for a long time. So long I thought she wouldn't answer.
"Tomorrow," she finally said. "Tomorrow when the cold storage opens, you can see for yourself."
"I want to go now."
"Can't. The cold storage is locked, and Lao Zhou has the keys. Lao Zhou leaves at five." Sister Wang pushed the door open. Before getting out, she looked back at me. "Xiao Song, listen to me. Don't go home tonight. Find a hotel."
"Why?"
"Because the funeral home's rules aren't something you can just break and walk away from. Broken rules need to be fixed. How to fix them, I don't know. But I know until they're fixed, that crack stays open." She closed the door and left.
That night, I didn't stay in a hotel. That's just how people are—you know it's wise to listen, but sometimes you just do the opposite. I told myself it was because hotels were too expensive, but the real reason was probably that deep down I didn't believe in ghosts. Or more accurately, I wanted to believe, but I hadn't gathered enough evidence yet.
I went home. First, I turned on all the lights. Then I took that lipstick out of the freezer and put it on the coffee table. I sat on the sofa and stared at it for about an hour.
It showed no signs of anything strange. Just a lipstick—dark red, plain black matte casing, no brand logo. Compared to the one I'd seen at Lin Xiuying's son's house, this one was newer, the tube full, like it had just been opened.
The problem was, I didn't remember buying this lipstick.
I remembered where every item in my toolbox came from. The foundation was bought online, the blush was from the wholesale market, the brushes were old ones I'd brought from art school. Only this dark red lipstick—I had no idea when it appeared in my box. It was like it had always been there, waiting for me to take it out and use it.
I picked up my phone and sent Zhou Yang a message: "You asleep?"
He replied instantly: "What?"
"Ask you something. If someone encounters something completely unexplainable, what should they do?"
"See a doctor."
"Not physical—like, you know, supernatural stuff."
The "typing" indicator flashed for a long time, and finally he replied with three words: "You're crazy."
Right, talking about the supernatural with an ad man was my mistake.
I put down my phone and stared at that lipstick again for a while. Then I did something incredibly stupid—I swiped it across the back of my hand to test the color.
Dark red. Under the light, it had a cool undertone, made skin look fair, and the texture was smooth. The feel on my hand was normal—just a decent quality lipstick. The only odd thing was that the color looked familiar, like I'd seen it before.
It was the color on Lin Xiuying's lips. Much redder than the rose-beige I'd mixed, but not gaudy—a classic, dignified red. Like the red brides wore in 1980s wedding photos.
I quickly grabbed a tissue and wiped the color off my hand. I crumpled the tissue and threw it in the trash, then fished it out again, lit it with a lighter. Watching the tissue curl, blacken, and turn to ash in the ashtray, I finally felt a little calmer.
Then I washed my hands three times.
That night, I slept with the bedroom light on. I drifted off around midnight, only to be woken by a sound.
Someone was crying.
The sound was soft, intermittent, like an old woman sobbing. It came from the living room, penetrating the closed bedroom door and drilling into my ears. I lay still in bed, every hair on my body standing on end. I checked my phone—3:17 a.m.
The crying didn't stop. It maintained the same volume and rhythm, like a looped recording. I forced myself out of bed, bare feet on the cold wooden floor, step by step to the bedroom door, hand on the doorknob. The cold metal made me shiver.
Deep breath. One, two, three.
I yanked the door open.
The living room light was on—the one I'd left on before bed. On the coffee table, the ashtray still held the ash from the tissue I'd burned. The sofa was empty, the TV was off, the curtains drawn—everything normal.
The crying stopped.
The second the door opened, it stopped. Silent, like an audio track cut mid-note. The only sound left in the room was my own breathing—ragged and heavy.
I stood there, staring at the empty living room, when suddenly something felt wrong.
On the coffee table.
The lipstick was gone.
I clearly remembered putting it right in the middle of the coffee table before bed, next to the remote control. Now the remote was still there, but the lipstick was gone. I rummaged through the coffee table, got on my knees to check under the sofa, searched my coat pockets, even dug through the kitchen trash—nothing.
It had just vanished.
I stood in the living room, listening to the fridge compressor humming, feeling a fear I'd never known before. Not the jump-scare kind, but a slow, creeping dread, like cold water rising from my feet. You know something is moving in your space, but you can't see it, you don't know its intentions, you don't know what it wants.
All it took was a lipstick.
But that scared me more than anything else it could have done.
I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. I sat on the living room sofa, turned on the TV, flipped to a shopping channel that ran all night, letting the host's hyper sales pitch fill the room. I told myself it was to stay brave, but deep down I knew—I just needed some sounds from the normal world, to prove the world was still turning normally.
The shopping channel was selling a mop. The host said, "This mop can clean any floor," then demonstrated on tile, wood, and marble. I stared at the screen, my mind working on one question: What did Lin Xiuying want?
She'd sat up to look in the mirror because I'd said she looked peaceful, like she was sleeping. She wanted to confirm if she was really just asleep. She'd reapplied her lipstick and asked if it looked good because deep down I knew she'd loved beauty in life, her lips should be redder. She'd left the candle and photo to show me she was still there. She'd taken the lipstick—but wait, the lipstick wasn't hers. Her son's had been empty at home. So what had she taken? That lipstick? Or had that lipstick been hers all along?
All the questions had no answers. Like Sister Wang said, broken rules needed fixing, but she didn't know how.
When dawn broke, the shopping channel switched to morning news. I splashed cold water on my face, looked in the mirror at my dark circles and pale face, and thought if I lay on the mortuary table now, Sister Wang could probably start my makeup right away.
I arrived at the funeral home half an hour earlier than usual. Sister Wang was already there. When she saw me, she said nothing, just went to get the keys to the cold storage. The cold storage was at the very back of the funeral home, a separate room kept at a constant temperature. The door was a heavy metal one that made a dull thud when pushed open.
Inside were walls of stainless steel cold storage units, row after row, each with a numbered plate. Sister Wang found the corresponding number from the list and looked at me before pulling it open.
"You sure you want to see?"
I nodded.
She pulled it open.
Cold air rushed out, and as the mist cleared, I saw a person lying inside. An old lady with silver hair, peaceful expression, wearing the mortuary clothes. Exactly like the Lin Xiuying I'd seen that day—and yet somehow different.
Her lips were painted with lipstick. Dark red.
When I'd done her makeup, I'd used rose-beige. I remembered the color I'd mixed—subtle, natural, suitable for an elderly person. But now her lips were a different color, one I'd seen three times already: first in that mysteriously appearing lipstick tube in my toolbox, second when she sat up and reapplied it in the mirror, third on the back of my own hand.
She'd done it herself.
"You see?" Sister Wang's voice came from beside me, calm as ever.
I opened my mouth, but my throat felt blocked. I could only nod.
"That's how she was when we pulled her out," Sister Wang pushed the cold storage unit back and closed the metal door, locking it. "We didn't touch up her makeup. According to the duty log, no one's touched this unit since you finished."
She jiggled the keychain in her hand and added, "Except when I unlocked it five minutes ago."
I leaned against the wall opposite the cold storage, the metal's chill seeping through my clothes, clearing my head a little. The pieces started to fit together—Lin Xiuying had loved beauty in life, had a dark red lipstick she'd used for years, couldn't bear to throw it away when it ran out. She'd been strong-willed her whole life, maintaining her dignity to the end. She'd left without taking anything, not even that empty lipstick tube at home. Then she lay on the mortuary table, heard someone say she looked peaceful, like she was sleeping, and been given a lip color she didn't like.
So she'd sat up.
So she'd reapplied her lipstick.
So she'd asked "Does it look good?"—because that was the color she'd wanted, the color that had been with her all her life.
"I know what to do," I said.
"Know what?" Sister Wang looked at me.
"I know how to fix it."
That morning, Sister Wang and I went to Lin Xiuying's son's house. I didn't explain much, just said I wanted to borrow that empty lipstick. Lin Xiuying's son was surprised but didn't ask questions, handing it over. I took that old lipstick with its worn casing and used-up tube back to the funeral home.
In the makeup room, I opened Lin Xiuying's cold storage unit again. Sister Wang stood by the door, saying nothing, not leaving. I opened my toolbox, took out that dark red lipstick, and placed it on the cart. Then I twisted open Lin Xiuying's old empty lipstick and placed it next to the other one, the two side by side.
One empty, her past. One full, from I know not where, but I knew where it belonged.
"Granny Lin," I said to the peaceful face in the cold storage, "I brought your lipstick."
The makeup room was quiet. The fluorescent lights didn't flicker, the mirror on the wall hung quietly, reflecting the two of us, the cart, and the open cold storage unit.
Nothing strange happened.
I waited a moment, then pushed the cold storage unit back and closed it. Sister Wang came over to help me lock it.
"Fixed?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "But I think I've done what needed to be done."
"That's enough," Sister Wang patted my shoulder. "Leave the rest to time."
After that day, I developed a new habit—before doing makeup for any deceased person, I'd first look at their file photo to see what they'd looked like in life. Not the cause of death, not their age, but the curve of their mouth, the angle of their eyebrows, the direction of every wrinkle on their face. I wanted to know what expression they'd worn when alive, so the face I painted would be a person, not a mask.
I also stopped talking carelessly. Not because I was superstitious, but because I started to understand the reasoning behind Sister Wang's rules—they weren't about guarding against supernatural forces, but about maintaining a boundary. That boundary was thin, like a strand of hair; you couldn't see it normally, but once you crossed it, it took a lot of effort to come back.
As for Lin Xiuying's cold storage unit, no one opened it again until the cremation day next Wednesday. I was there for the cremation, standing outside the incinerator room, watching the faint smoke rise from the chimney. The March sky was blue, and the smoke dispersed quickly, leaving no trace.
I touched my pocket. There were two things inside. One was Lin Xiuying's old empty lipstick—I planned to return it to her family. The other was that dark red lipstick. I didn't know why I'd kept it. Maybe I should throw it away, maybe bury it.
That night after work, I washed my hands three times, then opened the fridge.
The lipstick wasn't in the freezer. It wasn't anywhere.
It had vanished again.
But this time was different. This time, I wasn't scared. I just stood there in front of the open fridge, cold air blowing on my face. I suddenly laughed.
"Alright," I said to the air, "next time you want to touch up your makeup, say something first. Don't sit up and scare people."
The fridge hummed.
No one answered.
But I had a feeling—if she had heard, she might have smiled. Lips painted that dark red, thin lips pressed together, like a stubborn old lady, smiling.