I never thought the day would come when I'd yell "Get out of there" at some strange kid in a bounce castle—a kid who wasn't even in this world.
Taking Duoduo to the bounce castle on the third floor of Century Lianhua Mall was my wife's standing order before she left the house. She said our daughter had been cooped up all week. If I didn't take her out to burn off some energy, she'd tear the roof off. I tried to weasel out of it—suggested just running a few laps at the little square downstairs. Got the glare. Drove to the mall like a good husband.
Honestly, I wasn't in great shape that day. I'd been reworking a proposal until three in the morning. My whole body felt weightless, brain like a soggy wad of cotton. But Duoduo doesn't care about any of that. She's three and a half, has enough energy to dismantle an entire building, and the second we got in the car she started kicking the back of my seat. Kicked it all the way to the mall parking lot.
The bounce castle on the third floor had been there for two years. I'd brought Duoduo three or four times before. Fifty yuan per kid, no time limit. Parents could sit on the plastic stools outside and wait. The area was maybe half a basketball court—an inflatable slide-castle combo in cheap bright yellow and gaudy red. From a distance it looked like a blown-up cake. Up close you caught the smell of plastic, mixed with kid sweat and snack crumbs. Not unbearable, but definitely not pleasant. A waist-high mesh fence wrapped around the whole thing. Parents shoved their kids inside, then sat out there scrolling through their phones, glancing up once in a while.
We got there around three in the afternoon. I didn't check my watch, but later when I went through my call log I saw that at 3:04 I'd sent my wife a WeChat message saying "Made it." The sunlight was perfect, pouring down through the third-floor glass dome. The whole kids' zone was awash in brightness.
Duoduo kicked her shoes off like a pro and ducked into the entrance. I sat down on a plastic stool outside the fence. Next to me was a young mom scrolling through short videos with the sound on—one of those "Watch closely, this man's name is Xiaoshuai" narrations. It annoyed me, so I shifted one seat over.
Inside the bounce castle there were about a dozen kids, ranging from two or three to seven or eight years old. Bouncing, yelling. A line formed at the slide, one after another sliding down. The inflation pump hummed—a steady, low-frequency noise. After a while you stopped noticing it, but once you did, something about it felt wrong.
Out of habit, I started counting heads. I don't know when I picked up the habit. Probably from the first time I brought Duoduo to a place like this, when I was terrified someone might snatch her. I kept my eyes glued. Eventually I realized I couldn't keep up, so I switched to counting—just count the kids inside, make sure Duoduo was one of them. Good enough.
One, two, three, four, five—Duoduo was at the top of the slide, two little pigtails, pink T-shirt, easy to spot—six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.
Eleven kids.
I confirmed it. Duoduo was third in line, waiting to go down. I glanced at my phone: 3:08. Someone had @'d me in the group chat, said a data point in the proposal needed changing. I replied "Got it," looked back up.
Twelve.
I froze for a second, then pulled my eyes back to the phone screen. Typed a few characters. Something felt off. I looked up and counted again.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven—counting Duoduo, eleven. There was a boy I didn't recognize, wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, sitting in the corner at the bottom of the slide. He looked about five or six. His hair was a bit long, bangs covering his eyebrows. Sitting there perfectly still, completely out of place among all the bouncing kids around him.
My head was still half on the proposal. My first thought was that some parent must have just dropped him off and I hadn't noticed. But that felt wrong—if he'd just come in, I should've seen him. I was sitting right next to the entrance. There was only one entrance, a zippered opening. Nobody could come or go without me seeing.
And the kid was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt. Thin fabric, like summer pajamas. It was March. The mall had AC, but it wasn't warm. The other kids were all in long-sleeved hoodies or light jackets. That splash of blue stood out against the garish colors of the bounce castle. Like a blue tropical fish that had somehow ended up in a pond full of koi.
I stood up, walked over to the fence, and called out, "Duoduo, come here."
Duoduo was mid-bounce, ignored me. I called again. She dragged herself off the slide reluctantly, her feet thudding against the inflatable floor.
"Daddy, what?"
I crouched down and asked through the mesh, "Duoduo, do you know that boy in the blue shirt?"
Duoduo glanced back, her little face scrunching up. She turned to me and said, "No."
"When did he come in?"
"Don't know."
Duoduo clearly didn't want to answer my questions. She just wanted to get back to bouncing. I was about to ask more when the short-video mom next to me suddenly stood up and yelled, "Haohao, don't run over there!"
Her son was heading straight for the corner at the bottom of the slide. I saw the boy in blue was still sitting there. And the spot Haohao's foot was about to land on—right where the boy in blue's leg should be.
Haohao didn't go around him. Didn't step over him.
His foot came straight down.
And then I heard Haohao let out a howl.
The cry was sharp and sudden—not the kind you get from a fall or a hit. This was fear. That raw instinctive reaction kids have when something scares them. Haohao collapsed onto the inflatable floor, clutching his left foot with both hands, sobbing so hard he could barely breathe.
Haohao's mom unzipped the fence entrance and charged in. I followed, I don't even know why. The inflatable floor felt weird underfoot—soft and spongy, like walking on balloons. By the time I reached Haohao, I could see his left foot clearly—he'd pulled his sock off. There was a distinct mark on the top of his foot, purplish-red, like something had stomped down hard.
But that spot. The spot where the boy in blue had been sitting. Empty now.
Haohao's mom scooped him up, soothing him as she carried him out, murmuring "It's okay, it's okay, stop crying now." I crouched in that corner and looked around. Nothing. The inflatable floor there was still slightly indented, like someone really had been sitting there, but it had bounced back fast.
I looked back at the other kids in the castle. A few had been drawn by Haohao's crying and stopped to watch. Most were still playing. But a little girl with a ponytail at the top of the slide—maybe four or five—was pointing at the corner, saying something to the boy next to her.
I couldn't hear. But I could read her lips. Five syllables.
"He stepped on my foot."
Later, thinking back, those words were like a severed electrical wire, sparking and crackling in my brain. But in the moment, I didn't take it seriously. Or rather, I didn't dare take it seriously. I found Duoduo, grabbed her hand, and said we were leaving. She threw a fit. I said I'd buy her popcorn. She stopped crying instantly, put her shoes on like a pro.
We'd walked about twenty meters, reached the escalator, when I turned back to look at the bounce castle.
The boy in blue was there again. Same corner. Same spot. Same posture.
Just sitting there, head down, the quietest shadow in the entire bounce castle.
My first thought was I was seeing things. The mall was plenty bright in the afternoon. Couldn't be a mistake. But I was twenty meters away, with the busy hallway in between. Maybe—maybe it was a different kid in blue. Maybe there'd been two kids in blue all along, and I just hadn't noticed.
My brain started doing the work for me—I was tired. My eyes were playing tricks. When something like this happens, your first instinct is always to drag the explanation toward something you can live with.
Duoduo was yanking my hand toward the popcorn stand, so I didn't look back again.
The popcorn stand was on the second floor. As we took the escalator down, I caught sight of another parent rushing into the bounce castle area. A woman was hurrying forward, half running, calling a name. Her voice was sharp and frantic. I stopped without meaning to. Duoduo tugged my arm impatiently.
"Daddy, come on!"
"Hold on, Duoduo."
I stood at the escalator and watched. The woman tore her shoes off at the entrance and charged inside, pulling out a boy who looked about four. He was crying too, one hand pointing into the castle, the other death-gripping his mother's collar. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but the way the boy was crying—identical to Haohao just minutes before.
The woman carried her child out and passed right by me. Her face wasn't right. Pale in a way that wasn't normal, her lips pressed into a tight line, trembling. The little boy in her arms buried his face in her shoulder and choked out a sentence.
This time I heard it clearly.
"Mommy, why did that big brother step on me."
My grip on Duoduo's hand tightened without me realizing it. Duoduo yelped and pulled free.
The mother hurried off with her boy, heading toward the mall restroom—probably to check his foot. I stood there hesitating for a few seconds. The sensible thing would've been to go after her and ask what happened. But ask what? Did a kid who doesn't exist step on your son? I'd sound like a lunatic.
And Duoduo was still making a fuss. A three-and-a-half-year-old doesn't care about paranormal events. She cares about popcorn.
So I took Duoduo to get her popcorn. Caramel flavor. A giant bucket. She held it with both hands, munching away, getting it all over her face. I sat in the rest area by the second-floor railing. From here I could see a corner of the third-floor bounce castle—the bright yellow inflatable arch at the top of the slide, just barely visible.
I sat there thinking about what had happened. The more I thought, the more something felt wrong, but I couldn't pin down what. The way the boy appeared? The way the other kids reacted? Or that unshakeable sense of wrongness—a child appearing, disappearing, then appearing again inside the bounce castle, and through all of it, not a single adult had noticed him.
Including me.
The third time I noticed him was around 3:45. Duoduo had finished half her popcorn and announced she was thirsty. I dug her water bottle out of my bag, unscrewed the cap, handed it to her. That's when a sudden commotion broke out on the third floor.
I looked up. A crowd had gathered around the bounce castle. Parents were standing outside the fence, craning their necks to look inside. A staff member in a red vest was speed-walking toward it.
The staffer was a young woman, early twenties, hair up in a high ponytail. Her name tag read "Kids' Zone Attendant: Wang Xiao." She reached the edge of the bounce castle, peered inside, then said something into her walkie-talkie. She looked confused.
The crowd was growing. I scooped up Duoduo and headed back to the third floor.
When I pushed through close enough, I saw what was happening.
Three kids were still playing inside the bounce castle. But outside, at least seven or eight parents had gathered, each clutching their own child close. Their faces were all off. There was a strange quiet hanging in the air—the wrong kind of quiet—broken only by the hum of the inflation pump and the occasional child's whimper.
The first person to speak to me was a bald guy in his forties, gold chain around his neck, but his tone didn't match his tough-guy look at all. He lowered his voice and said, "Bro, was your kid in there just now? Anyone step on her?"
I said no, my daughter had come out a while ago.
He nodded, wiped the sweat off his forehead, said good.
I asked him what happened. He said his son had been pushed on the slide, nearly went over the side. He'd seen it with his own eyes—a kid in a blue shirt had shoved him. But there'd been no other kid near his son.
"My son's four. He doesn't lie. He told me that big brother pushed him. I looked up—there was nobody there."
A middle-aged guy in a plaid shirt chimed in. "My daughter said it too. Said there's a big brother in a blue shirt who always sits right there." He pointed at the corner. "I asked her to show me. She pointed at nothing. I told her, don't scare Daddy. She said, really, he's sitting right there."
I asked a stupid question: "A little boy in a blue short-sleeved shirt?"
Both the bald guy and the plaid-shirt guy turned to look at me at the same time.
The bald guy's expression shifted. "You saw him too?"
"I..." I hesitated. "Maybe I was mistaken."
That's when Wang Xiao started clearing the area. She zipped open the bounce castle entrance and called inside, "Kids, let's come out for a moment, okay? Just a quick equipment check. We'll be done fast. Come on out."
The three kids shuffled out reluctantly, pulled away by their respective parents. Wang Xiao zipped the entrance shut and walked around to the back of the bounce castle, probably to check the inflation pumps.
The castle was completely empty.
It was 3:50. I stood outside the fence, about five meters from the castle. Duoduo was getting impatient, clinging to my leg and whining. But my feet wouldn't move.
Sunlight poured down from the dome, glaring bright. The bounce castle looked impossibly vivid under that light—the slide, the arch, the little castle turrets, all in those hyper-saturated colors, like a giant playground model. But something was off about the light once it entered the castle. The shadows inside seemed heavier than they should be, like an invisible mist was drawing inward.
And then I saw.
Inside the empty bounce castle. That corner at the bottom of the slide. A small blue figure, curled up, sitting there, head down, bangs covering his eyes.
His hands rested on his knees, one over the other. His fingernails were white—I realized later they were ash-gray, not white. His lips were moving, like he was saying something, but from this distance I couldn't hear a thing.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I felt it clearly. Not a hallucination, not a trick of the light—that child was right there, sitting in that corner. The bounce castle was empty. The entrance was zipped shut. There wasn't a single living person inside.
Wang Xiao came back around. She saw me staring into the castle and followed my gaze. She looked inside.
She looked again.
And then her face went white.
"Inside..." Her voice caught. "When did this kid get in? Didn't I just clear everyone out?"
So she saw him too.
That meant I wasn't losing my mind. Though somehow, that was worse than losing my mind.
Wang Xiao unzipped the entrance and called inside, "Little boy, what class are you in—who brought you here? Come out."
The boy in blue didn't move.
Wang Xiao hesitated about three or four seconds. Then she took off her shoes and climbed into the bounce castle. The girl had guts, or maybe she still hadn't grasped how serious this was. Probably thought it was just some stubborn kid hiding inside.
I watched her stumble across the inflatable floor, one unsteady step after another. She reached the corner at the bottom of the slide, bent down, reached out, and went to take the boy's arm.
Her body snapped back like she'd been yanked.
I'll never forget that image for as long as I live. Not because anything spectacular happened—but because nothing did. Wang Xiao's hand passed straight through the child's body. No blood. No scream. Nothing. Her hand just went through, like passing through a pocket of air. The boy in blue's form rippled faintly, like a reflection on water stirred by something, then settled back.
Wang Xiao fell backward onto the inflatable floor, mouth open, frozen in place like a robot with its power cord yanked out. Three, four seconds passed. Then she processed it. A short, strangled scream tore out of her throat. She scrambled and clawed her way out of that castle.
She collapsed just outside, gasping for air, her ponytail half undone, her face white as fresh wall paint. The parents who hadn't left yet crowded around, a barrage of voices asking what happened, what happened. Her lips were trembling. Her mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out.
Finally, she managed one sentence: "There's no one in there."
She said it staring right at me. Her meaning was clear—you testify. You saw it too. There's nothing in there, but that thing is still inside.
I looked back at the bounce castle.
The boy in blue was still in the corner. But this time, he moved.
His head lifted slightly. An eye emerged from beneath his bangs—just one. The other was hidden in shadow. That eye was fixed in my direction.
And then, he smiled.
The corner of his mouth curved up. Just a little. But unmistakably a smile. Not the smug look of a kid who'd just pulled a prank. Not the kind of smile kids use to get attention. This smile meant one thing—confirmation. You see me. Confirmed.
I grabbed Duoduo and turned and walked.
I walked fast. Nearly a jog. Straight through the entire third-floor kids' zone. I took the escalator three steps at a time. Duoduo got jostled and let out a yelp. I didn't stop until I hit the parking lot. Stuffed Duoduo into her car seat. Got in. Started the engine. That's when I noticed my hands were shaking.
Not a little tremor. My whole forearm was shivering, like after hauling something heavy and your muscles just give out. I gripped the steering wheel, took a few deep breaths. Was about to reverse out. My phone rang.
Unknown number on the caller ID. Local area code. I thought it was a delivery, picked up with a "Hello."
There was sound on the other end. But not a voice.
Static. Crackling, like a radio between stations. Then a voice drifted through—soft, distant, like someone talking from the far end of a long tunnel. But I heard it clear as day.
A child's voice. Smiling.
"You saw me."
The call ended.
I stared at the unknown number on the screen for about five seconds. The call log said six seconds. I called back with my shaking hands. It rang four times. Someone picked up.
"Hello, Century Lianhua Third Floor Kids' Zone Management Office. How can I help you?"
Wang Xiao's voice. She sounded a bit better than before, but still strained.
I said, "Did you just call me?"
A beat of silence on the other end. "No. I've been reporting to the front desk the whole time. I didn't call you."
I said "Never mind" and hung up.
The phone screen was still on. The unknown number was still there in my call log. I tapped into it. The number displayed was—gibberish. Not a normal sequence of digits. It looked like some kind of system error output. Started with a symbol, followed by a string of meaningless numbers and letters.
I shut off my phone, reversed out, and left Century Lianhua.
The whole drive home, Duoduo was singing in the back. Some nursery rhyme from kindergarten, something about two tigers running fast. She had no idea what had just happened. She was perfectly, blissfully happy. I tried to focus on driving, but every time a flash of blue caught the rearview mirror, my back tensed up.
Once home, I handed Duoduo off to my wife, went into the study, shut the door, and sat there for a long time. My wife knocked and asked what was wrong. I said nothing, just tired. She didn't push. She knew I got like this after too much overtime.
It wasn't fatigue. I was trying to give myself an out—to convince myself there was a reasonable explanation for what I'd seen.
I tried to force it into something rational. Mass hallucination—no, unlikely. Light refraction? The afternoon light in the mall was diffuse anyway. A projection, or some high-tech prank I'd never heard of? Now I was reaching. And then there was the last option—something was wrong with my own head. Long-term sleep deprivation can make you see things that aren't there.
I opened my laptop, typed "Century Lianhua bounce castle accident" into the search bar, and hit enter.
The first few pages of results were all mall promotions, bounce castle ads, parenting forum posts where parents shared play tips. Nothing about any incident, accident, or paranormal event.
I switched keywords: "Century Lianhua blue clothes child."
This time a forum post popped up.
It was on a local lifestyle forum, posted last April—almost exactly a year ago. The title: "Does Anyone Know What Happened to That Kid at the Century Lianhua Third Floor Bounce Castle Last Year?" I clicked in. The poster said he'd brought his kid to play and overheard another parent talking about an accident the year before. A child had gotten into trouble in that bounce castle. Didn't make it.
No useful information in the replies. Someone said he fell off the slide. Someone else said it was congenital heart failure. Another said the castle collapsed and he got crushed. Everyone had a different version. The original poster never got a straight answer.
One reply caught my attention. Just one line. Time-stamped last April. The reply said: "The kid in the blue shirt."
At the time I figured it was the original poster's alt account, or someone trying to be creepy for kicks. I didn't think much of it. But now, looking back—that reply was from last April. If it was about the same thing, that meant the boy in blue had been in that place for at least a year.
Just then I noticed a "More" button next to the forum search bar—something about reporting illegal websites, whatever. I wasn't interested. I kept scrolling, looking for more threads like that.
On the third page, a title stopped me cold.
"Do Not Bring Your Child to the Bounce Castle on Century Lianhua's Third Floor."
I clicked it. The poster had written it last May, less than a month after the previous thread. The post wasn't long, but every line sent chills down the back of my skull.
"Took my kid to the bounce castle on Century Lianhua's third floor last week. Less than ten minutes in, my kid started crying. Said he didn't want to play anymore. I asked him what was wrong. He said a boy in a blue shirt kept staring at him. I looked around the castle. No kid in a blue shirt. Thought he was imagining things. Didn't think anything of it.
"That night at home, my kid talked in his sleep the whole time. Kept saying the same thing over and over: 'He's sitting there watching me.'"
At the end, the poster said their family had never gone back to that bounce castle, and they hoped other parents would be careful.
I scrolled through the replies.
Seven or eight parents had replied with similar stories. Some said their kid had started crying for no reason inside. Some said their kid was pushed on the slide when no one was around. Some said their kid had nightmares afterward. One person even posted a photo—a quick phone snap of the bounce castle, low quality, blurry. In the corner of the picture, right where the boy in blue always sat, there was a fuzzy blue shape. The poster said they'd noticed it by accident when looking back at photos they'd taken of their kid.
But not every parent took it seriously. One reply said, "Kids have vivid imaginations, don't make a big deal out of it." Another said, "Probably some parent bought a new blue jacket and the kid got confused."
I closed the webpage and leaned back in my chair, rubbing my eyes.
The study was dead quiet. My wife was in the living room watching cartoons with Duoduo. The sound filtered through the door, muffled and vague. I stared at the screen for a long time, then typed another line: Century Lianhua bounce castle accident death.
Enter.
This time the results made me freeze.
The first few pages were still the same ads and parenting guides. On the fourth page, there was a news link. I clicked it. Local news site. The headline: "Boy Dies Suddenly in Mall Bounce Castle; Preliminary Investigation Points to Congenital Heart Defect." Date: March, two years ago.
Two years.
The article was short, maybe two hundred characters. It said a six-year-old boy had collapsed suddenly while playing in the bounce castle. Parents and staff rushed him to the hospital, but he couldn't be saved. The hospital attributed it to sudden cardiac arrest from a heart condition. The time of the incident, the article noted: 3:04 PM.
I stared at that time for a long, long time.
3:04 PM. The exact time I'd arrived at the bounce castle yesterday. The exact time I'd first noticed the headcount was wrong.
The article included a photo. An exterior shot of the incident scene. The bounce castle was cordoned off with tape. Standing in the corner was a little boy, back to the camera. Wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt.
I enlarged the image. The pixels were too grainy to make out a face. But that blue short-sleeved shirt—it was identical to the one I'd seen on the boy in the bounce castle. Thin fabric. Collar loose and stretched. The color was that faded gray-blue you get after too many washes.
I saved the picture. Shut down the computer. Sat in the study until midnight.
By the third time my wife knocked, her voice was getting sharp. I didn't tell her anything. I just asked one question: "Is Duoduo asleep?"
"She's been asleep forever."
I went into Duoduo's room and stood by her bed, watching her. She was clutching her comfort cloth, cheeks pink, breathing steady. I reached out and gently brushed the stray hairs off her forehead. She didn't wake.
Her feet. I lifted the corner of her blanket and looked at her left foot. Then her right. Clean. Nothing there.
I went back to my own bed, but I couldn't sleep.
My mind wouldn't stop spinning. He'd been there for two years. Showed up every day at 3:04 PM. He'd stomped on Haohao's foot. Pushed the bald guy's son. Talked to a little girl. Made himself visible to one kid after another—but he'd never touched Duoduo.
Not once.
I rolled over. My wife stirred and muttered, "Still not asleep?" I said almost.
Sometime after two I finally dozed off. But it was shallow—every turn woke me. In the haze, I dreamed. The bounce castle. Empty. The boy in blue sitting in the corner. I walked over, crouched down, tried to see his face. He looked up, opened his mouth, said something. I couldn't hear. The inflation pump was too loud. I asked him to repeat it. He said it again.
Then I woke up.
The sky outside was just starting to lighten.
I sat up. My back was soaked in sweat. My wife stirred from my movement and muttered, "What's wrong?" I said nothing, just going to the bathroom.
On my way back from the bathroom, I passed through the living room. The shoe rack in the entryway had tipped over. Duoduo's shoes were scattered on the floor—left shoe upside down, right shoe crooked.
I crouched down to turn them right-side up.
Halfway through, my hand stopped.
The left shoe. Its sole. The pink rubber had a thin layer of gray dust, like someone had stepped on it. The grooves of the tread were packed with gray—a small footprint shape, bigger than Duoduo's foot. About the size of a five or six-year-old's.
I set Duoduo's shoes back on the rack, returned to the bedroom, picked up my phone.
The call log showed a call that had just ended. The number was still that string of gibberish.
I rushed into Duoduo's room. She was fast asleep, comfort cloth in her mouth, little face sunk into the pillow, breathing steady.
I felt her feet. Left. Right. No marks. Warm and soft. Everything normal.
I let out a breath, nearly collapsed beside her bed. Then I looked down at the floor under the bed.
Under the bed, Duoduo's shoes were arranged perfectly. Left facing out. Right facing out.
That wasn't right. Duoduo's shoe habit had always been to kick them off in random directions. She had never once set them neatly. Not once. In her entire life.
I crouched down and picked up the left shoe. Turned it over.
Sole up. On the pink rubber sole, there was a gray footprint—like another foot had pressed down and left an imprint. Gray. Coated in a thin layer of dust. Dust that looked like it hadn't been disturbed in a very, very long time.
Slowly, I turned the shoe back right-side up. Set it back down. Backed out of Duoduo's room. Shut the door.
The next day was Saturday. I didn't go to work. At ten in the morning, I drove to Century Lianhua. This time, I didn't bring Duoduo.
I parked in the same spot as yesterday. Took the escalator to the third floor. The bounce castle in the kids' zone was operating like normal. Five or six parents with their kids lined up at the entrance. Wang Xiao stood by the entrance collecting money, a professional smile plastered on her face. But beneath her eyes hung two heavy dark circles.
When she saw me, the smile froze for a split second.
I didn't ask to go in. I just stood outside the fence and watched the bounce castle. It was Saturday. More kids than yesterday—about twenty of them. Packed tight. The sunlight was just as good, pouring through the dome, hitting those bright yellow and gaudy red inflatables. Painfully vivid.
I counted the kids inside. Counted twice. Both times: twenty-one.
Then I counted again.
Twenty-two.
That corner. The bend at the bottom of the slide. The boy in blue was back. Same posture, head down, still as a photograph.
But today he wasn't just sitting there.
He was talking to a little girl in a pink T-shirt.
The girl was about four. Two little pigtails. Not Duoduo—I checked. Not Duoduo. She was crouched in front of the boy in blue, head tilted, listening to whatever he was saying.
Then the girl stood up. Walked toward the slide.
The boy smiled.
The girl climbed the slide, waited in line. When her turn came, she sat down—but she didn't slide. She sat at the top, turned back, and said something to the boy behind her.
That boy hesitated. Then he crouched down too. Said something to the empty corner.
One after another. Like a contagion.
My hands clenched the mesh fence. Palms slick with sweat.
Wang Xiao saw it too. Her smile vanished completely. Her ponytail twitched. I watched her hands start to shake.
She pulled out her walkie-talkie and said something, voice pressed low. I couldn't hear it. But I could read her lips. Four words.
"He's here again."