Reservoir 1

A new day.

An Ruxin stood at the door of the hotel room and knocked, unhurriedly and steadily.

Before coming here to face Bai Miaoqing, she had thought for a long, long time—and finally arrived at her own answer. Yet this answer startled even An Ruxin herself. At first glance, it seemed bizarre. But the more she forced herself to think through the shock, the more reasonable it became—so much so that it felt like everything had returned to its proper place, every cog fitting perfectly into its gear. By the end, even An Ruxin couldn’t help but think: So it was that simple… something so obvious, why didn’t I realize it until now?

So, without a doubt, as she knocked on the door now, there was a strange peace in An Ruxin’s heart.

Because everything had become clear—when you already knew what was going to happen, peace naturally followed.

Bai Miaoqing opened the door, looking like she had just woken up.

“Ruxin?”

An Ruxin nodded and said, “Let’s go to the reservoir.”

“What?” Bai Miaoqing looked confused.

An Ruxin patiently repeated, “Let’s go to the reservoir.”

“I heard you… I mean, why…”

“It doesn’t matter whether we believe in ghosts, or who the person I love is,” An Ruxin spoke calmly. “Many years ago, you and Chen Anran went to the reservoir. She died there—that place was the starting point of both dreams and nightmares. It was where she lost her life. Because of what happened that day at the reservoir, you and Chen Anran formed completely different understandings… and I lost my direction because of it.”

Bai Miaoqing’s eyes wavered. “I don’t understand, Ruxin…”

“The three of us—we each had our own version of the past that we believed to be real. No, I should say… until today, I hadn’t found my truth. But there is only one truth in this world. I believe I found it today—I found the answer. If we don’t go back to the reservoir, none of this will ever end.” An Ruxin spoke quickly, not pausing for breath. “I didn’t abandon you, did I? I didn’t leave you behind… What I’m asking now is to go back to the reservoir—to end it all there.”

She raised her eyes and looked directly into Bai Miaoqing’s: “…You’ve already told me everything you know. Now it’s time… Even if just once, you need to summon your courage.”

Perhaps it was those words that moved her. Bai Miaoqing’s gaze changed. She bit her lower lip hard, and on her pale, fragile face appeared an expression An Ruxin had never seen before—resolve.

“You know what you have to do now?” she asked.

“I do,” An Ruxin replied.

—

Liuxiang Middle School was still a functioning school to this day—it had never been abandoned. Luckily, it was a holiday, and the campus was completely empty. Skirting around the school, the back hill came into view. Thankfully, the city wasn’t large, and urban development hadn’t spread everywhere—the back hill remained as it had always been.

According to Bai Miaoqing, compared to when she was in junior high, the only noticeable difference was that the trees seemed taller.

It was called a hill, but it wasn’t particularly high. It only felt lush and untamed because of the thick vegetation. From the side of the hill closest to the school, a winding path led up, and the two of them followed it slowly toward the reservoir on the other side.

Neither of them spoke along the way. An Ruxin carried a bag on her back. Bai Miaoqing carried nothing, but had changed into a blue long dress.

Through a torn iron fence, the reservoir came into view.

An Ruxin had only seen the deep green surface of the water in dreams and hallucinations—she had never seen the real thing. But the moment it appeared before her, she felt it was exactly as she’d imagined: desolate, worn-down, mottled with rust and faded white paint. Undoubtedly, it was the perfect setting for a horror story.

Bai Miaoqing suddenly said, “…When Anran and I came here, it wasn’t this rundown.”

From her expression, there was little to be read. Now that things had come to this point, she seemed completely calm.

“This way—there’s a ladder,” she said.

One after the other, they climbed up the ladder to a small platform above the reservoir. From there, they could look down into the water below. Just like in An Ruxin’s dreams and visions, the water in the abandoned reservoir had never been drained—it had become dead water, deep green, completely still, covered in aquatic plants and dotted with plastic trash. At least it didn’t smell too terrible.

So far, Chen Anran had not appeared. They hadn’t heard any sounds, either.

An Ruxin turned her face toward Bai Miaoqing, who was already looking at her.

“You said you had a solution. What is it?” Bai Miaoqing asked.

It was about to begin.

The final moment—where everything would be brought to an end.

Though they looked at each other in silence for a few seconds and though Chen Anran had not appeared, An Ruxin had a vague feeling that a girl’s eyes were watching them from the depths of the water, waiting with them for the final answer.

And this ending began with a single sentence from An Ruxin:

“When Chen Anran died, there were no ghosts here. The story of the lovestruck ghost at the reservoir—it’s a lie.”

Bai Miaoqing frowned, as if wanting to argue, but An Ruxin cut her off, speaking sincerely: “Please don’t rush. Just hear me out, okay?”

Bai Miaoqing stayed silent. Her dark eyes seemed to say, Ghosts definitely exist. You can’t convince me otherwise.

“It all starts with this morning,” An Ruxin turned around, hands on the railing, staring at the water below. “Before I came to find you, I began thinking—is there any conclusive evidence that could prove there was no ghost that day? But just trying to imagine what that evidence might be—it’s incredibly difficult. So I changed my approach. I started thinking about how to logically and thoroughly prove my point. But obviously, whether ghosts exist is like proving the devil. Think about it—since we’ve all seen Chen Anran, we can say her ghost exists. But no one has seen the so-called lovestruck ghost at the reservoir. So, you can’t convince me, and I can’t convince you. That kind of debate goes nowhere. We have to set it aside and focus on the tangible, the real…”

“I want to prove this—for you, Bai Miaoqing, and for Chen Anran as well. I want to prove that the ghost of the reservoir never existed, that she was made up—so I can only prove what happened in real life, specifically, the wish you and Chen Anran made.”

“But here’s where it gets tricky. As long as you insist that your wish was granted by killing Chen Anran and being possessed by her spirit, and that after her death the boy she loved drowned too—if you stick to that theory, you’ll start calling me out again for having no evidence. Evidence, evidence… That’s what I kept thinking about. Of course, it’s also the weakest point in your whole ‘ghost theory’—whether Chen Anran’s wish came true. We don’t know who she secretly liked. We don’t even know what wish she made. So each of us says something different. But I quickly realized—if I want the truth, I have to start with Chen Anran.”

“There was nothing,” Bai Miaoqing said darkly. That darkness strangely made her look younger. “Chen Anran never told me anything. She never said a word.”

An Ruxin nodded gently. “Exactly. That’s what doesn’t make sense.”

“What?”

“I said—it doesn’t make sense,” An Ruxin’s thoughts began to return to those she had that morning—that confusion, frustration, the near-maddening uncertainty. “I thought about how Chen Anran had a secret crush, something that would’ve been a big deal for a fifteen-year-old. And yet you, her best friend, knew absolutely nothing about it. Not even her diary mentioned it. Think about that—she couldn’t have predicted she’d die and that her diary would be scrutinized. And her parents didn’t seem like the type to snoop on her diary either…”

“They’re not,” Bai Miaoqing confirmed.

“Mm… so, the diary was her private record, a place where she should’ve poured out her heart… but she didn’t mention her secret crush at all.”

Bai Miaoqing paused for a moment, then offered a guess. “Um… maybe she was really cautious and didn’t want anyone to know. Or maybe… someone tampered with the diary?”

“It’s not that complicated,” An Ruxin said lightly.

An Ruxin knew she tended to talk too much, but she simply couldn’t say the truth she had discovered outright. She couldn’t imagine how Bai Miaoqing would react, nor could she imagine Chen Anran’s reaction—An Ruxin couldn’t see her, but she knew she was there. She could feel Chen Anran’s presence—her white dress, the faint scent of water on her.

So she circled around the truth, speaking honestly about her line of reasoning, without looking at Bai Miaoqing’s expression.

“My thoughts went back to our conversation yesterday. If you remember, we talked about Chen Anran’s diary… and that note.”

“I remember,” Bai Miaoqing said with passion. “Every word you said to me—whatever it was—I remember it all.”

They both recalled that conversation*.

“Even now, I still believe I was right,” An Ruxin said after a moment of silence. “On the last page of the diary, she wrote, ‘I forgot to give her the note. I’ll just tell her when we meet tomorrow—it’s the same.’ That means when she met you at the reservoir the next day, she definitely intended to say something. And whatever it was, it was probably written in that note she never delivered…”

“It was the ghost—before she could say anything, it pushed her in,” Bai Miaoqing said at once. “And the note only had the meeting time and place written on it…”

“That’s impossible.”

“Huh…?”

“Even if, like you said, the ghost killed Chen Anran… ‘before she could say anything, the ghost pushed her in’—that’s still impossible.”

“W-why?”

“Before I explain, I have to ask you again, Miaoqing.” An Ruxin turned to face her, her tone serious. “What you told me about what happened that day at the reservoir—can you swear it’s all true? I mean every detail. Are you absolutely certain you didn’t remember anything wrong?”

“I’m sure.”

“You don’t need to think it over again? It’s been so many years…”

“No,” Bai Miaoqing replied slowly but firmly. “I’m sure. That terrifying day, and that horrible ghost—I’ve replayed it in my mind over and over, for years. I remember everything from that day… I swear, I didn’t lie. Every detail is vivid.”

“…Then we’re good.”

“What are you getting at, Ruxin? Why is it impossible for ‘the ghost to have killed Chen Anran before she could say it’?”

“It’s simple,” An Ruxin said. “Because you remembered that just as you—or the ghost—pushed Chen Anran, she said something, right? She said to you: ‘Miaoqing, let’s go back…’ Then she fell. She didn’t finish the sentence, but it’s obvious what she was trying to say, right?”

“Yeah… it must have been ‘Miaoqing, let’s go back.’ Ah, I know what you’re getting at…”

Bai Miaoqing seemed to catch on. An Ruxin nodded. “Exactly. At that moment, Chen Anran had already decided to end the adventure and go home with you. The reservoir exploration was over. So there’s no way she was interrupted before she could say it—because the adventure was done.”

But Bai Miaoqing still shook her head. “No. Maybe… Chen Anran didn’t plan to tell me during the adventure. Or maybe she forgot… after all, the diary was written the day before.”

Even after being led this far, she still resisted the conclusion.

Why?

Could it be… that Bai Miaoqing had already vaguely sensed what truth and what evidence An Ruxin was leading her toward?

She couldn’t let her keep avoiding it. Just like An Ruxin had said—she had to muster her courage eventually.

“That’s impossible too. Think about it…” An Ruxin’s gaze circled her. “Miaoqing, why did you specifically change into a different outfit before coming here?”

“…Huh?” Bai Miaoqing was caught off guard—maybe she hadn’t expected such a question. She looked down at the blue dress she was wearing. The question wasn’t hard, just confusing. “Because… I felt like coming to the reservoir, and what you said about knowing the truth—it was important. So I wanted to treat it seriously…”

“A sense of ritual?”

“Yeah, a sense of ritual.”

“According to your memory,” An Ruxin said, “the day you and Chen Anran came to the reservoir, she was wearing a white dress with pockets. It was probably beautiful, but not great for moving around… You even described thinking, ‘If it were me, I wouldn’t wear such a pretty dress to explore an abandoned reservoir.’”

“That’s because Chen Anran and I were completely different… that’s just how she was. And I…”

“No, Miaoqing, you’re not that different from her. You’re not from different species or anything. She was human, and so are you. You were both fifteen-year-old girls…” An Ruxin sighed. “She wore that white dress for the same reason you changed clothes today—ritual. And not a ritual for exploring, because a dress is clearly impractical for climbing around.”

“…”

“So, that day, to Chen Anran, it wasn’t just a casual exploration. She definitely planned to tell you something important during the reservoir trip. That’s what she meant in the diary by ‘I’ll tell her tomorrow instead.’ That’s why she didn’t wear clothes suitable for exploring—she dressed up, deliberately. With that mindset, I doubt she would have waited until after the trip to say it—she would’ve missed the special setting of the abandoned reservoir, and it would’ve contradicted her serious intent. Likewise, I don’t believe she would have forgotten it either. We’ve come this far in the conversation… there’s only one possibility left.” An Ruxin took a deep breath:

“That is… during the exploration, before Chen Anran died, she had already told you what she wanted to say. You just didn’t realize it.”

Author’s Note

*Details about the diary, the note, and the relevant dialogue can be found in the chapters “The Note” and “Interrogation.”

With this, the mystery-setup phase ends, and the solution phase begins… Following the tradition of Japanese games (and detective novels), I guess I’m supposed to say “All the clues have been laid out—please reason along with the protagonist.” But that’s way too dramatic, so never mind.