| Fan Fiction |
by jingylovessoup
In 2007... Leila just rejected Bosco two chapters ago, and for some reason Bosco went to date Tavia after that. And Leila's starting to like Bosco, but she doesn't really realise it though its so pretty obvious hahah. She's also missing the person who's been sending her all the emails since he seem to have disappeared. (he will be back soon, probably in the next chapter)
In 1947... Ling killed her husband (Mr. Cheung), and the police just found the body of her husband. Sin-Lei (Mr. Cheung's niece) also suspects its Ling who killed him.
Okay, now this chapter would probably be more of an explanation chapter, explaining about the existence of Fung's ghost, and why the other time Myolie couldn't subdue him back at the house (in Chapter 2-3).
Fung's death would also be revealed in a few chapters more (which would be nearing the end of the story...)
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Chapter 9 Being oversensitive
[1947] Ling
He introduced himself as Joel Chan, and told me to address him as Joel outside his work place. It was odd for a Chinese like him to have an English name, I noted, and he told me he studied in the States for a few years before he came back to Hong Kong and took up his current job as a policeman.
He was the policeman. The friendly policeman whom everybody loved. He had such a pleasant disposition that I warmed up to him instantly when I got to know him. Yet I knew I had to hold back what I had to say to him because, after all, he was the policeman. He came to find me to investigate the murder. His main intention was to catch the real culprit behind old Mr. Cheung’s death. The real culprit – her name was Tong Ling, and she’s – so hard to accept, so hard to digest – me.
I had to return his genial personality with a nice attitude, of course. Nice people don’t commit murder – that’s a widely accepted understanding. I had to cover up my crime. I had to. The jail was the last place I wanted to spend the rest of my life in.
I was being too panicky the past few weeks; I almost gave myself away. Fung reminded me to be calm at all costs. I will. His words are like the Holy Scriptures of my life.
“Ling,” Joel called me casually by my name. We were in the little interrogation room, and his colleague, a tall and lean male with neat hair, was standing beside him across the table. The room smelt slightly of old rotten wood, and there were traces of dust on the table and the furniture. The security here must have been so good that the police station had been out of business for a long time.
“When did Mr. Cheung Dak say he will leave the country? And for what reasons?”
I heaved in some air when he asked those questions but I tried not to make it so obvious. I sat firmly on that little wooden chair. I wasn’t very nervous, strangely. “The day after our wedding, 25th of June, my husband, Mr. Cheung, told me he’s leaving for Shanghai for a business trip. He was pulling his luggage and was about to leave the house when the phone rang. He picked it up, talked for a while, and he got very agitated. He swore some words, and said something like going to teach Lai Wai, owner of his rival restaurant, a lesson. Then he left.”
There, I had said it. I had just indirectly pointed the finger at Lai Wai, a man whom I am not acquainted with in any way. I had just been blinded by my desire to get off the hook that I had made some innocent person the scapegoat. I had sunk deeper into the quicksand with my lies. And what scared me the most was - I had not even batted a single eyelid when those words came out of my mouth.
* * *
[2007] Leila
With a start I woke up from my dream, taking a minute or so to adjust to my present surroundings. I looked around, realizing that the soft light of dawn had just seeped through my window pane. I had just woken up in time before school.
It was appalling; the dream I just had moments ago. Ling had just morphed into an evil, conceited person who would sacrifice anything, or anybody else just to bury her secret. For goodness’ sake, she had just tried to wrong an innocent person for her own good! I prayed hard that I wasn’t her in my previous life (fat hope, of course). It is really a very sad thing to learn that you used to be such a wicked person in your previous incarnation!
I got off the side of my bed, ready to put on my fluffy slippers when a thought struck me on my head. If I used to be Ling in my previous life, would I suffer retribution for her misdeeds?! Oh no! I felt myself breaking out in cold sweat. I simply wasn’t ready to be punished for something I didn’t even do! Then again, who would be ready for that too….
What would be my, or rather, Ling’s punishment? I do not dare to think what kind of evil deeds Ling had done which I haven’t yet known about. What if the punishment turned out to be a heavy one?
The mere thought of it scared me very much.
Deciding not to think so much into it, I got off the bed, and headed for the bathroom. When I reached, somebody else was in there. It was Tavia, and she was standing in front of the wash basin. I thought she was brushing her teeth, but it didn’t seem so since she wasn’t really moving at all. I peered into the bathroom to see what she was doing, and I realised, she actually wasn’t really doing anything. She was just staring at the tube of Colgate the entire time.
I approached her, wondering what was so interesting about a tube of Colgate. She was concentrating on it so hard that she didn’t even seem to notice my presence when I walked towards her. Seeing that she was in such a daze, I decided to ‘surprise’ her.
“HEY!” I shouted while at the same time giving her a light push.
She jumped with fright, letting out a yelp of shock. But when she realised it was my doing, she scowled at me. “Did you know that could have cost me a fatal heart attack?!” she snapped.
Playfully, I draped my arm around her shoulders, ignoring the fiery glare she fixed on me. “Nah, I won’t let you die so fast. I’d have no one to bully if you go off just like that,” I joked, smiling at her even fiercer glare now. “So, what were you doing staring at that tube of Colgate? Practicing telekinesis early in the morning?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Just…thinking of some stuff,” she said.
“Thinking of what? Bosco Wong?” I probed. Tavia and Bosco had been dating for more than a week now. Till date, they seemed to be getting along well so far.
She sighed. I looked at her. So I had just hit the nail on the head. “What did he do? Is he being unfaithful? Did he bully you? Tell me and I’ll help you take out on him,” I said to her, feeling anger rising in me. Bosco Wong had better not do something that would hurt my sister!
“No…I don’t know…Maybe I’m being oversensitive…but I can’t help but feel he’s being cold to me sometimes,” Tavia said, frowning at the attractive-looking tube of Colgate.
“Oh…” I said in an all-knowing tone, smiling widely like I’m a love expert (when in actual fact, I was far from it). “Guys…just show them your prowess and they’ll come crawling back to you in no time.” I gestured heavily and added a few peals of evil laughter at the end of my sentence.
“Quit joking, sis. What I mean is… I think he likes somebody else…”
I froze. Could she be referring to me? Nah, it wouldn’t be; I’ve already told Bosco right in his face that we cannot be together. But the weird thing is, he actually moved on to Tavia so fast, only two days after I rejected him? Was he really such a player or had he really found something in Tavia that attracted him in such a short period of time? Bosco Wong, I have really no idea what you are thinking….
I let out a weak laugh. “You’re being oversensitive, Tavia,” I said in a softer, insecure voice. “Come on, brush your teeth now if not we’re both going to be late for school.”
* * *
“My students, today, I shall start my lesson with a quote,” Mr. Zack Lam, my Biology teacher announced in an overly enthusiastic tone when he entered the class today. “And this quote is, ‘A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge’. Can you guess who did this quote come from? Yes, it is none other than the famous Thomas Carlyle!”
“And who the hell is Thomas Carlyle…” I whispered to myself, rolling my eyes at Mr. Zack’s pathetic attempt at keeping the class awake. Apparently, I had underestimated the volume of my voice when I heard a couple of giggles from the rest of my classmates, including Myolie, who was sitting beside me. Fortunately though, Mr. Zack seemed to have not heard my comment.
“So, in order to do well in Biology this term, you must learn to love the subject with your heart; love it with a passion…” he continued with exaggerated gestures. Seriously, why must I get all the weird teachers? I yawned while he continued, and seeing that listening to him was of no use anyway, I turned my attention to something else instead.
Myolie wasn’t listening to him either. Her forehead was practically touching the table, and her bangs covered her face like Sadako; it was so obvious that she was falling asleep as well. I noticed Mr. Zack casting glances at her every so often even when he was droning on. To help her avoid trouble, I gently shook Myolie awake.
“Huh?” she said groggily and turned to look at me after I just woke her up from her dreams.
“Haven’t got a good night’s sleep last night?” I asked casually.
She reached to the side of her head and rubbed her temples, then shook her head. “I was busy last night finding out how to subdue the ghost of that haunted house opposite yours,” she said, yawning.
“What?!” I blurted out aloud, causing heads to turn and Mr. Zack to glare at me. I smiled apologetically at him and kept quiet for the next few moments. When he was back to his long boring speech, I turned back to face Myolie and whispered, “Myolie, are you free after class? I’ve got something to ask you.”
She looked at me curiously but nodded anyway.
After a long, eternity-like 30 minutes, the class finally ended, and I quickly pulled Myolie to a quieter spot in the school garden. “What is it, Leila?” Myolie asked.
“Myolie,” I started, “can you drop the idea of subduing that ghost?”
“Huh? Why?” She looked surprised at my suggestion.
I realised I didn’t really know how to answer her question. Why didn’t I want her to subdue him? I had no idea too. “Because…because, I don’t think he’s an evil ghost,” I tried to come up with a valid reason.
She looked at me skeptically. “You know, Leila, ghosts aren’t supposed to exist in the human world. They only cause more trouble. Like for example, since the house opposite yours had been inhabited by a ghost for so many years, nobody dares to live there. They’ve caused trouble to the estate by making everyone paranoid, haven’t they?”
“Yeah…but…okay, I guess I need to tell you this…” I relented, and everything about my dreams and flashbacks of me in the 40s poured out to her.
* * *
Myolie was looking at me with an astonished expression after hearing me. “Okay…” was all she could say after she snapped back to her senses. “Interesting…”
“So…what do you think?” I asked. “Do you think I’m really Ling in my previous life?”
“That’s most definitely. Sometimes human actually dream of the events that happened in their previous incarnation, but I guess yours is a special case. My guess is, the encounter with the ghost of Fung in the house you had just triggered your ‘previous incarnation memory’, a part of the memory which everybody has but usually stays hidden for their entire life,” Myolie explained.
“Wow. Um, so, will that affect my health?” I asked, before realizing it was a pretty silly and off-topic question. “Okay, never mind. What about the ghost of Fung? Why isn’t he reincarnated? What’s he doing in the human world?”
“For that, well…usually souls exist in the human world after their physical body stops working because they’ve either grievances not redressed, which is the more common reason, or, they’ve suffered huge grief the moment they died. Usually ghosts that fall under the first category cause a lot of trouble in the human world, and that’s where me and other ghost busters come in - to eliminate them.”
It took me a moment to digest what Myolie had just told me. “So which category do you think Fung falls under?” I questioned.
“Certainly not the first one,” she answered immediately. “The other time I tried to subdue him, it didn’t work when I used the method to get rid of ghosts who have grievances not redressed. He must have suffered huge grief the moment he died then, and as for how to exterminate this kind of ghosts…I haven’t got any idea yet.”
I bit my lip nervously. I had a feeling his death had got something to do with me, I mean, Ling. What, or who, exactly killed him?
* * *
[1947] Ling
Two days had passed since the day at the interrogation room.
After a walk down town, I came back home, to find Sin-Lei in living room, talking on the phone. I eyed her suspiciously. I had been very wary of what she had been saying about me in front of others. I couldn’t risk her telling others that I was the culprit behind her uncle’s death.
“Okay. I’ll tell her that,” she spoke into the phone, then she hung up.
I looked at her, puzzled. Who had she been talking to? What did she have to tell me?
She stood up, and saw me. Without showing any expression, she said, “Oh, you’re back. Mr. Joel Chan, the police officer, just called. He told me to transfer the message to you that Lai Wai, owner of my uncle’s rival restaurant and suspect for his murder, had turned to be a witness instead. He said Mr. Lai Wai claimed that he had seen this man, Lam Fung, suspiciously hanging about in the woods on the night when my uncle was killed.”
I was speechless when she stared at me suspiciously. They had found out about Fung. It wouldn’t be too long before they find out that Fung was the one who buried Mr. Cheung’s body in the woods… It wouldn’t be too long before they find out my affair with Fung… And it wouldn’t be too long before they find out I’m the murderer…
If Fung couldn’t help himself, who’s gonna help me?
But there is a way out. If Fung takes the rap, I would be free….
“How is Lam Fung related to you?” Sin-Lei asked in a slightly demanding tone.
“Lam Fung? I have no idea who is he.”
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Okay, so Ling's turning evil... Tavia's starting to feel Bosco doesn't really like her. Myolie just explained to Leila about why the ghost of Fung exist. Pretty short chapter and quite boring, but I hope the story's going to pick up soon to the end....
Sorry 've been lazy to reply comments....LOL I promise I will do it tmr! Thanks for reading!