I asked Markus if the bald woman had mentioned which nunnery she was from, or provided any address.
Markus frowned in thought before answering, "There might have been... the bald woman muttered something about Nianci Nunnery earlier."
Nianci Nunnery! That was it! I quickly looked it up - it was located on the hill east of Vervecity.
We had our location - east of Tsz Wan Shan, Nianci Nunnery stood on that hill.
The mountain was quite high but rarely visited due to its remote location. The nunnery there wasn't famous - I'd never even heard of it before.
"Come on, Little Boss, let's go. This isn't a good place to stay. We should hurry and find Antonio," Stein urged.
I shook my head. I couldn't leave yet - Markus still didn't realize he was a ghost, and I needed to help him move on. He hadn't seemed like a bad person in life, and didn't appear to be a malicious ghost in death. His passing had just been an accident.
"Markus, how do you pay your rent?" I asked.
After all, Markus was dead. Didn't his landlord know? If they knew, why hadn't someone new moved in? Yet Markus continued living here undisturbed.
If new tenants came, wouldn't Markus realize he was dead? At minimum, they'd open windows, leaving Markus no place to hide. Ghosts fear light, after all.
Markus seemed surprised by my sudden question but answered honestly: "Through WeChat. I just transferred money to him last month." He opened his phone to show recent chat logs and rent transfers with his landlord.
Incredible. The landlord genuinely didn't know Markus was dead because the rent kept getting paid normally, making him think Markus was still alive and living here.
Going to work, living normally, paying rent - how could Markus possibly know he was dead? If no one told him, who knows how long he might have remained wandering the earth.
Enough beating around the bush. I stood up abruptly and said firmly, "Markus, I won't hide the truth from you - you're actually dead. Do you understand?"
Markus looked at me, then burst out laughing. He turned to Stein, "Is he off his meds? Me, dead? I'm right here - a living, breathing man! Is he blind?"
Stein froze, uncertain how to respond. He just stared at me nervously. I knew what he feared - that Markus might get angry and we'd both suffer the consequences.
Without another word, I rushed to pull open the curtains. Markus panicked and desperately tried to stop me.
"No! Don't open the curtains!" Markus desperately tried to stop me.
I fixed him with a stern gaze. "You're afraid? Why are you afraid? Why are you scared of the light?"
"I... I have a condition. I'm photophobic. It's a mental illness. I've seen doctors, I have a diagnosis... I'll show you, I'll show you..." Markus trembled nervously, growing increasingly frightened - scared that what I said might be true, that he was indeed dead.
He rushed to the cabinet and frantically searched, but found no medical diagnosis.
"That's impossible! I clearly went to the hospital and came back with a diagnosis! Where is it? My photophobia is a real condition, it's a disease..." Markus refused to accept reality, overturning the entire cabinet onto the floor. Still finding nothing, he tore through the entire house but came up empty-handed.
At that moment, I picked up his comb and walked toward him, deliberately combing my hair stroke by stroke.
"No! Don't use that comb! That's a dead man's comb - it'll comb away your yang energy!" Markus desperately lunged to snatch the comb from my hands.
But I countered, "No, you're wrong. This is a living person's comb. Brzenska didn't give it to you - it's your own comb. You're the dead one. If a ghost uses a living person's comb, they'll lose their hair."
"No! That can't be!" Markus covered his ears, refusing to listen.
"You can see ghosts because you are one!"
"You became a ghost but thought you were still alive, so your memories and consciousness became confused. Brzenska wasn't trying to kill you - he was trying to tell you that you were dead!"
"The bald woman asked you about the comb because you're dead. When she wanted a dead person's comb, naturally she asked you. That's why so many people at the supermarket chose you."
"If I'm not mistaken, the bald woman wasn't saying you would die - she was saying you were already dead!"
"Remember that day? The day it poured rain when you carpooled home with Brzenska? When you had that accident and your car was wrecked..."
"Stop! Don't say anymore! I don't remember! I don't remember anything about that day... that day... ahhh!" Markus suddenly collapsed, letting out a tormented scream as he covered his ears, refusing to hear another word.
"You have to remember! You must..." I pressed on desperately, despite the danger.
But it was useless. Markus kept his hands clamped over his ears, shutting out my words.
Growing impatient, I did what the barber had done - I slapped Markus across the face.
The sharp crack echoed through the room. Markus looked dazed as his hands fell limp. Horrible bruises appeared on his face, his skin seeming to crack and peel.
Oh no. That slap seemed to have revealed his true ghostly appearance.
The so-called ghostly appearance refers to how someone looked at their moment of death - sometimes so horrifying it could literally scare people to death.
"That day... I think I remember..." Markus muttered. The slap seemed to have worked.
"Because it was pouring rain and we were on the way back, I carpooled with Brzenska... then I fell asleep in the car..." Markus's expression darkened as his ghostly appearance slowly faded away.
"When I woke up, there were people all around. Because of the heavy rain, I didn't stop to look. I just ran back home. My mind was completely blank, and I was running incredibly fast, almost like flying. No matter how far I ran, I never got tired..." Markus spoke as tears slowly dripped down - black tears, like ink.
This was my first time seeing a ghost cry. I hadn't realized their tears were so different from humans', being black like this.
"So I really was dead! I remember now - when I woke up and saw my own dead body, I was so terrified my mind went blank. I just ran away. I didn't process what happened, just assumed I'd looked away at the wrong moment." Having said this, Markus suddenly collapsed to his knees.
No wonder Markus hadn't realized he was dead. He'd been asleep in the car when the accident happened. The crash occurred instantly, destroying the car in a split second. Markus must have died in his sleep without even knowing it.
Now aware of his true state, Markus curled into a ball before dissolving into a wisp of black smoke and vanishing. Then another cloud of black smoke rose from the room's corner, startling Stein.
"Motherfucker!" Stein cursed. "There's still another ghost here!"
I told him not to be afraid - that must be Brzenska. The two had probably gone to the afterlife together.
Sure enough, the black smoke in the corner rose up and disappeared as well.