Who did you say it was?" Dad asked in surprise.
"Old Man Zhao!" I said.
He said, "Your eyes are going bad, right?"
"Absolutely not," I said. "I talked to him for a while, and gave him a cigarette, and there's this pipe, too."
I handed the pipe to him, but he hesitated, unwilling to take it.
Mom said: "Old Man Zhao died the day before yesterday, in the morning!"
So, I saw a ghost without realizing it. I didn't know it when I saw it because he wasn't scary like in the stories. He was friendly. He didn't want to die leaving an unpaid debt. Ghosts really don't hurt people, it's people who really hurt people. People are a lot scarier than ghosts!