“We should find out what he has to say,” Weng said. “Get back
in the car before he disappears.”

When they were on the highway again, Cherry undid her seat
belt, and turned around to face the husband

she had not seen for so many years.

“Are you alive?” she said.

The ghost closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side.

Weng asked how it happened.

“Knocked off my bicycle by a vegetable truck.”

“Even though I thought I didn’t love you anymore,” Cherry
told the ghost, “seeing you like this has brought some of the old
tenderness back.”

“None of what happened was your fault,” the ghost confessed.
“I lived drunk and I died drunk. But listen, now. I have come
back to tell you something important. Right now, Shirley is
making her way through the dark streets to Ningbo station,
where she plans to board an early train. You have to get there
before the 5:13 A.M. leaves for Beijing.”

“But that’s only five hours!” Cherry exclaimed,
“and we’re not even halfway—”

“I know,” the ghost said, drifting toward Fun Weng,

“Which is another reason I’m here—now you know why

they call it the Phantom.”