Chen Lexin died when her daughter, Yiyi, was just four months old.
At 3:16 p.m., she collapsed at her desk, still clutching a photo of her daughter. When she woke again, she was floating in midair. She watched her husband, Zhang Liang, rush into the emergency room with one shoe missing; her best friend, Li Ting, pick at her nails until they bled; her older brother, Chen Lei, stand outside the door smoking half a pack without daring to go in; her mother serve food into an empty bowl; and her father drive his bus all over the city.
She couldn't go anywhere. All she could do was watch.
Later, she discovered she could enter their dreams. In the dreams, she could speak, hug them, and smile as she asked Yiyi whether she'd been good that day. Soon, everyone began looking forward to sleep. Only when they were asleep could they see her. But every time they woke, they had to face her death all over again.
Zhang Liang's hair turned white overnight, and his hands trembled as he held his daughter and fed her. The day Yiyi first called him “Mom,” he cried for half the night in his dream. Li Ting left an empty seat at her wedding and placed a bouquet of lisianthus on it. Chen Lei became a deputy station chief, and every time he solved a case, he spoke to the air: “Sis, wasn't your brother amazing?” Her mother talked to her photo every day. On the day her father retired, he made a special detour to stop for a while beneath the building where she had worked.
They saw her in their dreams, then woke and carried on living.
And she just floated there, watching Yiyi grow up, go to school, get married, and have a child; watching her parents grow old and pass away; watching everyone who loved her slowly live out their lives. There was nothing she could do. All she could do was watch.
Until at last, she took her daughter's hand and walked toward the light.
I died, but I never left. I only found another way to stay by your
