Chapter 2

I couldn't help but think that Ted was probably possessed.

My mother had once told me a story about a ghost taking over someone's body.

In the countryside a few decades ago, there was a man named Shane Thorsen. He was lazy, greedy, and loved beating his wife.

In those days, everyone's sole desire was to work hard so their families had enough to eat. But Shane was the exception.

When he was assigned to take care of the sheep, he stole some young lambs and secretly roasted them with his good-for-nothing buddies. When the village council asked him to weed the fields, he yanked both the weeds and the seedlings. And when questioned afterward, he refused to admit anything.

Over time, no one wanted to assign him any work, so he ended up living off his wife, Stacey Wilson.

Every day, he wandered aimlessly around the village, occasionally drinking some cheap homemade liquor he got from somewhere. And when he got drunk, he'd go home and beat his wife.

Stacey worked herself to the bone to support him, taking on hard and exhausting labor. She'd work late into the night, only to return home and get beaten. She cried every day until one day, something happened.

When Shane and his good-for-nothing buddies secretly went into the mountains to hunt rabbits, he somehow stepped on an old grave mound. The grave was so old that the coffin inside had completely rotted, so Shane fell straight into it and lost consciousness.

His buddies had no choice but to carry him back to the village. But when he woke up, it was like he was a completely different person. Not only did he start working hard, but he also obeyed everything Stacey said. Later, after economic reforms, he even became the first person in the village to become rich.

Everyone said Shane's fall had knocked some sense into him. But Stacey insisted that the soul that woke up that day hadn't been Shane's.

Not long after she said that, Stacey suddenly fell ill and died. Shane, however, lived until he was 70 years old. The villagers all said that the ghost inside him had drained Stacey's life force.

Wasn't that story exactly like what was going on with me? Maybe Ted really had been possessed by a ghost.

I decided to use some old folk methods to test him.

I grabbed some rice from the cabinet, wrapped it in red paper, and placed it in spots where he usually walked. To be safe, I also went to my neighbor's house and asked for some incense ash. I mixed it evenly with salt and sprinkled it on the floor. I'd heard that a possessed person could only walk on their tiptoes, so he'd leave toe prints in the ash.

Trembling, I clutched a bag of incense ash and hid in the bedroom, leaving a small crack in the door to watch what was happening outside.

Ted came out of the bathroom and, completely unsuspecting, stepped right onto the ash. He showed no reaction at all, nor did it seem like he sensed there was anything on the floor. He just calmly walked across it like usual.

He then leaned down and poured water from the kettle. I had also placed a packet of rice inside the jar of coffee beans on the counter.

Under my nervous gaze, he reached for the jar… then suddenly pulled his hand back.

My heart skipped a beat. I thought he'd noticed the packet of rice, but as it turned out, he was just hesitating between drinking plain water or coffee.

After hesitating for a moment, he reached for the coffee beans again.

Nothing happened.

I felt a little confused.

If Ted wasn't possessed, then where did this drastic change come from?

After drinking a few sips of his coffee, he headed out.

While sweeping up the incense ash on the floor, I absent-mindedly looked toward the door, feeling like I'd forgotten something important.

Meat. Right! Where had the pork come from?

I clenched my fists as I walked to the refrigerator. The old fridge door squeaked loudly as it opened, and a wave of rotting stench hit me.

The small fridge was stuffed with decaying meat. The chunks were crammed tightly together, emitting a foul smell akin to dead rats. Every now and then, sticky globs of blood dripped to the floor, and white maggots crawled along the veins of the flesh.

I gagged. Suddenly, I remembered the tortellini I had eaten that morning, and I rushed to the bathroom and threw up violently.

No wonder Ted had been so kind as to make them for me. He was feeding me rotten meat!

But where had all that meat come from?

Ted had always been frugal, so we barely ate any meat in the house at all. That much meat must've cost several hundred dollars. Would he really have been willing to spend that much?

The more I thought about it, the stranger it felt.

Suddenly, I noticed something.

There was only one set of footprints in the incense ash by the door—mine. There were no signs of Ted's footprints at all.

Ted was much taller and bigger than me. When he used to beat me, he would often lift me like I weighed nothing. So technically, his footprints should have been larger and deeper than mine.

But now, only my footprints could be found in the ashes.

Ted… really was possessed.