The wooden ladder at the attic creaked three times before Shen Zhao stopped. Dust floated in the slanting light, like a swarm of disturbed insects. Mother's old things were piled in the corner, including three faded cheongsams, a "Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing Manual", and an iron biscuit box - the lid was rusty and black, and the lock had long been deformed, as if someone had broken it off with brute force and then welded it back indiscriminately.
She didn't bring any tools. She only dug her nails into the gaps, and blood seeped out from between her nails, but she didn't care. The iron box finally came loose with a click. It was lined with oil paper and wrapped with a piece of paper.
Blood type card.
Type O negative. Number: F-13-07. There is a steel seal in the lower right corner, which is as blurry as if it had been soaked in water and dried in the sun. Her fingertips trembled and she turned over.
There are words on the back.
It's not ink, it's scraped by fingernails. Shallow, intermittent, as if carved in extreme fear. She leaned closer and held her breath.
"Page 13, written by a living person."
She didn't move. The scar on my left hand suddenly became hot, as if someone had pressed a red-hot iron nail under the skin. She looked down and saw that the scar stretched from the wrist bone to the elbow. It was gray and twisted, left by the fire five years ago. Now it's beating, one after the other, in sync with the heartbeat.
There was a muffled sound from downstairs. Like the door being blown shut by the wind.
She didn't look back. He only stuffed the blood type card into the inner pocket of his coat. When he turned around, his soles rubbed against a piece of loose floor wood. The sawdust stuck to his socks, making them gray and yellow with a musty smell.
She went downstairs, walking lightly, without turning on the light. All the lights in the whole building were turned off, and only the light from the street lamp outside the window leaked through the cracks in the curtains and shone on the shoe cabinet in the entrance - the pair of mother's old leather shoes were still there, with the toes facing outward, as if they were waiting for someone to come back.
She walked to the window and opened the curtains.
