Reflection

The Saturday waiting ritual arrived as scheduled.

I sat on the cold metal chair, staring blankly at the ceiling. The laughter from the next room remained piercing – those children who died young played, while I and other souls could only sit in silence. Three hours, every week, cycling.

Void is not the end, but a transit station for ascending emigrants to shed their attachments.

I recalled the words from the leather book – "The world is piled from corpses." The initial deceased created the first layer, and later arrivals continuously fell downward, becoming new foundations. But what about those who, arriving in the second layer world (my current death world), chose to ascend? They didn't disappear but were "cleaned." Their memories erased, names struck from the second layer, even traces of existence wiped clean, leaving only accumulating building materials. Like Pofei.

I closed my eyes, trying to recall his face. But what surfaced was only that cold emigration file – him standing in the pure white room, tossing memory-filled papers into the fireplace. The phrase "next time we meet" repeatedly flashed in my mind. As the ashes scattered, his gaze was terrifyingly calm.

No longer guilt, no longer longing, but a kind of fear and disbelief.

Compared to long-departed relatives, I cared more about him. Although in life I was so curious about my grandfather, tried calling out to him, wanting to converse, he died before I was born. In my memory, he was just a vague name; I hadn't even seen a photo of him. But Pofei was different – he was my mentor, someone who helped me, almost my age, someone who forgave me despite conflicts, the person who wished me well on our last meeting at school on Christmas Eve, the person whose invitations I refused, the person with unfinished conversations in WeChat, the person I never met after graduation, filled with regret.

The cruelest part of the death world isn't making us live again with attachments, but giving us enough time to reflect – on those moments that could have been salvaged.

So, was the "waiting for a reply" the administrator mentioned actually ourselves replying to ourselves? Indeed, they too are souls who have undergone countless waiting rituals. Everyone inevitably engages in self-questioning.

"You know?" the soul next to me suddenly spoke, voice hoarse, whispering very softly in my ear. "The waiting ritual is actually a scam."

"What?" I turned to him, surprised.

I had just figured out the meaning of the waiting ritual, and he tells me it's a scam?

It was a middle-aged man in a suit and tie, dry and stiff, clearly exchanged with clothing coupons burned from the human world.

"They don't let us bring anything in, don't let us chat, just to make us overthink." He sneered. "The more we think, the deeper our attachments, the harder it is to ascend."

Yes, almost every waiting ritual, I inevitably missed my living friends and family, recalled our happy times together, recalled my unfinished poems and dreams... I found the death world utterly empty. How I wanted to return to those ordinary, cyclical days I used to complain about – they were actually full of so many surprises, so precious.

The more I overthink, the deeper the attachments, the deeper.

But,

"Then those children can play all the time, no need to overthink?"

"Because they don't have so-called 'what ifs'." The man looked toward the next room. "When they died, they didn't even know what regret was. They are just waiting for the second death and falling, back to unknown world someday, not sure.”

He didn't explain why this world wants us to overthink to prevent us from ascending.

I never envied Pofei's choice.

On the contrary, every time I thought of him discarding memories without hesitation, I felt a chill. Those papers filled with memories, turning to ash in the flames in that stark white room just on his own initiative– how could he be so calm and cold-blooded? They contained his parents calling his childhood name, his favorite dishes, his rich youth, his seventeen years of emotions.

However. From this perspective, I envy his choice, understand that temptation.

Every time I return from a home visit, my soul feels shredded and reassembled. Seeing my parents increasingly haggard but forcing smiles, hearing friends choke up when discussing "if she were still here"... I began to understand: sometimes, existence and having existed are themselves a form of torment.

For them, and for me.

Staying here, I'm like trapped in an eternal "what if" hypothesis. Every unfulfilled wish, every unspoken word, becomes a barb in the soul. The longer the time, the deeper it embeds. And Pofei, he chose to pull out all the barbs at once. For all souls, we have no "what if."

It's cruel, extreme, but – also clean.

Perhaps forgetting isn't weakness, but a kind of brutal courage.

Yet, when I recall Pofei's hollow appearance burning memories, when I imagine him wandering the upper layer with no memories, just a shell – I'm uncertain again. Is that kind of "living" really better than my current state?

Outside the window, the snow fell heavier.

The bell rang; three hours were up. The administrator mechanically announced dismissal, and we, like soulless puppets again, left one by one.