The heart attack happened at 2:47 PM on a Tuesday.
I know the exact time because I was looking at the clock. The jury was looking at me. The judge was looking at his watch. And my client was looking at the floor, because she already knew she was going to prison.
I was in the middle of my closing argument.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution has failed to present a single witness who places my client at the scene of the crime. Not a fingerprint. Not a shred of physical evidence that—"
Then my chest exploded.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Something inside me tore open. I felt it—hot, sharp, wrong. Like a wire snapping deep inside my body.
I kept talking.
"A single witness who—"
The pain hit again.
My hand went to my chest. My notes slipped from my fingers. Paper scattered across the courtroom floor.
The jury's expressions shifted. Confusion. Concern.
The man in the front row—the one who had been nodding along to everything I said—leaned forward. His mouth opened. No words came out.
The woman beside him reached for her purse.
The judge looked up from his watch.
His face was annoyed.
Then something changed. His eyes widened. His hand moved toward the bench. He was calling for help.
Too late.
My knees hit the floor.
I didn't feel it.
I was still trying to speak. My mouth was moving. My lungs were empty. Nothing came out.
My client screamed.
I had heard that sound before. The sound of someone who already knew they were lost.
She was looking at me. Her face was white. Her hands were reaching for me, but she wasn't getting up. She was frozen. She knew.
The bailiff was running. The court reporter was shouting. The jury was standing.
I couldn't see them anymore.
The last thing I saw was the ceiling of Courtroom 7B. The fluorescent lights. The water stain in the corner that had been there for years. No one ever fixed it.
No one ever would.
Then nothing.
---
I woke up in my office.
Same desk. Same chair. Same stack of case files I'd been meaning to organize since 2019. Same framed law degree on the wall—the one my mother cried over when I showed it to her.
"See? All that work. All those years. Worth it."
She was still alive. Somewhere.
Waiting for a call I'd never make.
I stood up. Walked to the window. Looked down at the street.
People moved like nothing had changed.
A woman carrying coffee.
A man checking his watch.
A kid weaving through traffic on a bike.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Alive.
I turned back to my desk. Picked up a case file.
My hand went through it.
I tried again.
Same result.
I looked at my hands.
They looked normal. Same fingers. Same faint scar from a letter opener in 2017. Same ring I wore out of habit, even though there had never been anyone to marry.
I reached for the desk.
My hand passed through it.
"Oh," I said.
No one heard me.
---
I tried the door.
My hand went through it.
I tried again. Pushed harder. Focused.
Nothing.
I walked through it.
The hallway was empty. The lights were on. The firm was still working. People walked past me. Through me. Around me.
No one stopped.
I stood in the middle of the hallway and screamed.
Nothing.
I screamed again.
Nothing.
I kept screaming until my throat was empty. No one turned. No one looked. No one heard.
I stopped.
The hallway was quiet.
I looked at the ceiling. The lights. The same fluorescent lights that were in Courtroom 7B.
"Ox-Head," I said.
Nothing.
"Horse-Face."
Nothing.
I didn't know what I expected. The old stories. The ones my grandmother told me when I was young. The judges of the dead. The ones who came for you when your time was up.
Maybe they only came for people who believed.
I didn't believe.
I was a lawyer. I believed in evidence. In arguments. In things you could prove.
There was no evidence for Ox-Head. No proof for Horse-Face.
Just me. Standing in an empty hallway. Screaming at a ceiling no one else could see.
I went back to my office.
---
The first day passed.
I watched my firm move on without me.
My partner, Zhang Wei, walked into my office. He stood there for a long time, looking at the chair. The files. The photo of my mother on the shelf.
He didn't say anything.
Then he left.
The next day, a paralegal packed my things.
She was crying.
I reached out to touch her shoulder. My hand went through her.
"Sorry," I said.
She didn't hear me.
---
The first week passed.
I learned the rules.
No one could see me. No one could hear me. I could walk through walls, but doors were easier. Gravity still worked. I couldn't fly.
I got hungry, but food didn't help. I could smell it. I could see it. My hand went through it.
I got tired, but sleep never came. I lay on my office floor. Closed my eyes. Nothing.
I tried to leave the building. Walked through the front door. Stood on the street.
People walked past. Through me.
I tried to cross the street. A car went through me.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I went back inside.
---
I visited my mother.
She lived in an apartment on the other side of the city. It took me hours to find it. I didn't know how to navigate anymore. Streets didn't work the way they used to. Buildings blurred together. Time passed strangely.
I found her at three in the morning.
She was sitting in her chair. The TV was on. She wasn't watching.
My photo was on the shelf beside her. The one from law school. The one where I was smiling. Where I still believed.
She was crying.
I sat across from her.
"Mom," I said.
She didn't hear me.
"I'm here."
She kept crying.
I wanted to tell her I was sorry. For the calls I never made. For the years I spent chasing cases instead of coming home. For dying before I could say goodbye.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
I sat there until dawn. She fell asleep in her chair. The TV flickered. The photo stayed on the shelf.
I left.
---
The first month passed.
I learned more.
If I focused, I could move small things. Paper. Pens. Anything light enough to pretend I still mattered.
I could make sounds. A tap. A whisper. Nothing clear. Nothing useful.
I could watch. Listen. Learn.
The firm hired a new associate to take my cases. He was young. Eager. He didn't know what he was doing.
I watched him prepare for my old cases. I wanted to correct him. To tell him he was missing the key evidence. To show him the argument he should be making.
He couldn't hear me.
He lost my first case.
They retried my client without me. The one I was defending when I died.
She didn't stand a chance.
Guilty. Twenty years.
She cried when they read the verdict.
I stood in the gallery. No one saw me.
---
The first year passed.
Then another.
I stopped counting.
I stopped trying to talk to people. Stopped trying to touch things. Stopped leaving my office. Because every time I did, I ended up somewhere I didn't want to be.
The courtroom where I died.
The prison where my client was serving a sentence I failed to stop.
My mother's apartment, where she kept waiting for someone who would never come home.
So I stayed.
I read case files. Reviewed evidence. Built arguments no one would ever hear. Appeals no one would ever file. Justice that would never arrive.
I read the file of a woman who said her husband abused her. The judge didn't believe her.
I read the transcript of her testimony. The prosecutor asked her: "If you were so afraid, why did you stay?"
She didn't have an answer.
I didn't either.
I stayed in my office for three years. Maybe I understood her better than I wanted to.
I was very good at my job.
I was very dead.
---
Then she appeared.
Three years after I died.
Tuesday.
2:47 PM.
I was sitting in my chair—the chair I couldn't touch, the chair I sat in anyway—when the air in my office changed.
Cold.
Sharp.
Precise.
A woman stood in the corner.
Mid-twenties. Dark hair. Pale skin. Wearing a white dress that might have been white once.
She looked normal. Almost.
But she was cold. I could feel it from across the room.
She looked at me.
"You're a lawyer," she said.
Her voice was flat. Careful. Like something unused for a long time.
"I was," I said.
"You're still here."
"So are you."
She nodded. Her eyes moved across the room—files, shelves, framed degree, the photo of my mother still waiting for a call that would never come.
"I need a lawyer," she said.
I studied her.
"You're dead."
"I know."
"So am I."
She met my eyes.
"You're still practicing."
I didn't answer.
Because she was right.
I was still here. Still reading files. Still building arguments. Still refusing to let go.
Because I didn't know how to be anything else.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Lin Yue."
"What happened to you?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
Then—
"I was murdered," she said. "And I was convicted for it."
I didn't move.
"I served three years," she continued. "They said I killed my husband."
She stepped closer.
"I didn't."
The room felt colder.
"The real killer is still alive," she said.
She stopped in front of my desk.
"In my home."
Silence stretched between us.
"I need a lawyer," she said again. "I've been waiting three years. No one else can see me. No one else can hear me."
She held my gaze.
"No one else can help me."
I looked at her. Then at the files. Then at my mother's photo.
Three years.
We'd both been waiting.
Maybe this was why.
I leaned back in my chair—the chair I couldn't touch.
"When did you die?" I asked.
"Three years ago."
Of course.
Everything important seemed to happen three years ago.
I nodded once.
"Tell me everything."
She sat across from me.
Like a client.
Like nothing had changed.
And I listened.
Because dead or not—
I was still a lawyer.
And she needed one.