Can you imagine it? Every day, watching a cup of water no one has touched steam on its own—it's creepier than looking at a ghost. A ghost at least has a face. That cup... it only shows you a trembling column of white steam. Like a sneer.
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I've been a copywriter at this ad agency for three grueling years. My desk is by the window. To my left, the aisle. To my right, the spot where the new colleague sits.
His name is Lin Yu. The name sounds lukewarm, and so does he. HR brought him in a month ago. Tall and thin, white shirt tucked into dress pants, thin-framed glasses. He nodded to everyone with a professional smile on his lips. Old Sun, our department head, patted his shoulder: "Learn from the veterans from here on." Lin Yu turned to me and smiled: "Ye-ge, look after me."
I didn't think much of it. How many similar faces pass through this building every day? Stations are iron; the people who sit in them flow through like water. On his very first day, I noticed the thermos on his desk.
Nothing fancy—a black matte flask, lid screwed on tight, sitting to the left of his monitor. The strange part: the next day I came in early and saw a white mug beside the lid, filled to the brim with hot water, steaming.
The office water cooler sat at the end of the hall, a trek around half the floor. Who was diligent enough to come in this early and pour a scalding cup just to let it sit? I glanced at Lin Yu's desk. Computer off. Chair pushed under. He wasn't here.
At nine-thirty Lin Yu wandered in with a canvas bag over his shoulder, jacket over his arm, top button open, forehead slightly damp. "Morning, Ye-ge. Third Ring Road was a parking lot again." He set down his bag as he talked, glanced at the white cup, lifted it to his lips, blew on it, then set it down. "Too hot," he said, like he was talking to himself.
I didn't answer, just lowered my head and worked on my PPT. From the corner of my eye, that cup stayed there, still full when I left for the weekly meeting at ten-thirty. The meeting ran to noon. When I came back and passed Lin Yu's desk, the cup was empty, a faint ring of water at the bottom. Lin Yu was picking at rice from a takeout box. Seeing me pass, he looked up and smiled.
Days passed. From then on, almost every day, I saw that white cup already full of hot water before he arrived. Sometimes I came early—around eight-forty, only a few scattered people in the office—and the cup was already on Lin Yu's desk, steam rising steady.
Sometimes I worked late and left at nine. The cup would be washed clean and set upside down on its coaster. Nothing unusual.
I never once saw Lin Yu use the water cooler. He had his own thermos, and he'd unscrew it for a sip now and then. But the white cup appeared exactly once, every morning, full of scalding water. Then, sometime after he arrived, it would be empty—I never caught the moment it happened.
Wednesday. I'd pulled an all-nighter on a proposal and collapsed at my desk by seven in the morning, head foggy, eyelids heavy. The office lights were off; only the green glow of the emergency-exit sign washed across the ceiling. I laid my head down to catch a nap, face turned sideways—right toward Lin Yu's desk.
The white cup was right there. Half a meter away across the aisle, perfectly clear. Steam rose from the water in thin wisps, visible with unusual sharpness in the dark—fine white threads drawing away from the surface, dissolving into the air.
I watched the steam for a few seconds and suddenly felt that something was off. It was barely past seven. Lin Yu had never arrived before eight-thirty. And this hot water—it looked like it had just been poured.
No one could have come this early to pour water for him. The cleaning lady didn't clock in until seven-thirty. On this whole floor, besides me, there wasn't even a ghost.
I sat up straight, reached across the aisle, and touched the side of the cup.
My fingertip snapped back—burned.
That water had to be seventy or eighty degrees Celsius.
I sat frozen in my chair, wide awake. The office was silent except for the low hum of the central AC. I stared at the cup. The surface trembled slightly—probably from my touch. The steam kept rising. Not a bit thinner.
At nine-thirty Lin Yu pushed the door open. Today he wore a dark gray T-shirt and carried a convenience-store breakfast bag. "Bro, you're early?" He seemed surprised to see me at my computer. I grunted, my throat tight and dry. He set his things down and, as usual, picked up the white cup, blew on it, and took a sip. Then he frowned.
"It's gone cold," he said.
I watched him. He carried the cup to the bathroom and poured it out. He came back, set the empty cup on the coaster, and started eating his breakfast.
That day I made a decision. I took half a day off and went to property management to pull the hallway security footage.
The old guard in the security room, cigarette dangling from his mouth, grumpily pulled up the footage from the past week, six to nine each morning. I sat before the small screen and went through it frame by frame. The resolution was poor, but I could make out the desks in our section.
Monday, 6:45 a.m. The empty office. Lin Yu's desk clean, no cup. 7:02. The picture flickered. The white cup appeared on the desk, all at once, steaming.
I dragged the timeline back and forth, slowing that one second to eight times normal speed. The cup simply materialized. One frame, the desk empty. The next, the cup sat there, wreathed in vapor. Between them, no one passed. No hand reached in.
Tuesday, 7:05. Same thing. The cup appearing out of nowhere. Wednesday, 7:01. Thursday, 7:08. Every single day.
I dragged the timeline to Friday—today. 7:03. The cup appeared. In the frame, I was asleep, head down on the desk beside it. In the instant the cup materialized, the water's surface seemed to give a small ripple, like something had risen up out of the cup, then sunk back down.
I zoomed in. That blurred white shape—about the size of a thumbnail—shot upward out of the mist at the cup's mouth for an instant, then scattered.
The old guard stubbed out his cigarette: "Done? I'll lock up if there's nothing else."
I thanked him and stepped out into the hallway, my back soaked in cold sweat. I told myself not to overthink. There were plenty of unexplainable things in this world. Maybe the cup had some mechanism. Maybe the camera lagged. Maybe I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. Back at my desk, Lin Yu was typing at his computer. He turned his head as I sat down: "Ye-ge, did you look at that proposal for the afternoon?"
His expression was utterly normal. So normal it made your skin crawl.
That night I stayed very late. I was the last one in the office; most of the lights were off. I sat at my desk, staring at the washed white cup on Lin Yu's desk. It sat quietly, upside down on its coaster, like an empty shell waiting to be filled.
Without thinking, I reached out and turned the cup over.
Nothing on the bottom. The porcelain was smooth and clean.
But in the moment I turned it, my fingertips brushed the inside wall of the cup. It was warm. Lukewarm, like someone had just been holding it.
I snatched my hand back. The chair legs screeched across the floor.
The next day was Saturday. I didn't need to go in, but I woke at six anyway and lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my head full of that cup and the image of it appearing out of nowhere on the monitor. I poured myself a glass of water and drank. Cold. I turned on the tap, ran the water heater at full blast, filled a cup with boiling water, and set it on the kitchen counter to watch.
The steam rose—exactly like the cup on Lin Yu's desk.
But that cup of his stayed hot. From the moment it appeared until Lin Yu arrived—nearly two hours—it never lost its scalding temperature. That defied the laws of physics.
I decided to watch for another week.
Monday morning, 7:40. I reached the office. Only two early birds, each buried in their work with headphones on. On Lin Yu's desk, the white cup sat quietly, a thin film of white vapor over the water. I walked to my own desk, sat down, and pretended to turn on my computer, keeping that cup locked in my peripheral vision.
8:50. The receptionist came in carrying an armful of packages. Passing Lin Yu's desk, she paused, looked down at the cup. "Huh? Who poured water for Lin Yu? This early." Talking to herself, she moved on.
9:10. Xiao Chen from the next team came over to borrow my stapler. Passing Lin Yu's desk, he casually touched the cup. "Whoa, that's hot." He pulled his hand back and jerked his chin at me. "You pour that for him, bro? Real thoughtful."
I shook my head. He didn't press it. Took the stapler and left.
9:30. Lin Yu arrived. As usual, he picked up the cup, blew on it, took a sip.
"Temperature's just right today," he said.
I watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. He set the cup down and began tidying his desk. More than half the water remained, still steaming.
At three in the afternoon I came back from the bathroom and glanced at his desk as I passed. The white cup was empty, upside down on the coaster.
Another day gone.
Over the next three days I deliberately came in at different times—7:50, 8:20, 8:00. Every single time, the water was already there, steaming, waiting.
I asked the cleaning lady. She said she'd never poured water for anyone. I asked the receptionist. She'd never seen anyone bring hot water to our section early in the morning. I asked admin. The girl there rolled her eyes: "Are you too free these days? Who's got time to watch someone's cup?"
By Friday I couldn't hold it in anymore. After the team meeting, while Lin Yu was in the bathroom, I walked to his desk, lifted the white cup, and smelled it.
No smell at all. Just plain hot water. But on the inside rim, where my fingers gripped, there was a slight tackiness. Not the slickness of a water stain—more like... a fingerprint? I held the cup up to the window light. On the white glaze, a faint ring of shallow ridges pressed into the surface, like the sweat and oil left by a hand gripping the cup hard.
But the ridges were tiny. Not an adult's fingerprints.
More like a child's.
I set the cup down, heart hammering.
Lin Yu came back from the bathroom, drying his hands. "Ye-ge, were you looking for me?"
I turned around and tried to keep my voice normal: "Lin Yu, that cup of yours... who pours you water every morning?"
He blinked, looked down at the cup on his desk, then looked up, confused: "Isn't it you? I thought it was you, Ye-ge, pouring it for me."
I looked at him. He looked back. Behind those lenses, his eyes were clear black and white, spotless, without a flicker of evasion or guile.
"I always thought it was you." He said it again, with even a touch of embarrassment. "I've been meaning to thank you. Just couldn't bring myself to say it."
I stepped back and bumped into my own chair.
"It's not me," I said.
Lin Yu blinked and looked at the cup again. The steam still drifted, curling past his cheek before dispersing. "Then..." He hesitated, then laughed. "Then maybe I've got a fairy-tale housekeeper, the kind that slips in and does your chores while you're asleep. Do we have one of those at this company?"
He laughed so lightly, so normally—like an ordinary coworker cracking a harmless joke.
But that laugh sent a chill through me.
Monday. I got to the office early—6:40, the sky not fully light, the building quiet. I didn't turn on the lights. I sat down in the dark, propped my phone behind a stack of files, aimed the camera at Lin Yu's desk, and started recording.
Occasionally a muffled thud from the elevator doors down the hall. Far off, the crackle of a guard's walkie-talkie. I curled into my chair, wrapped in my jacket, staring at that desk in the dark. Lin Yu's desk was empty. Computer screen dark. A sticky note under the keyboard. Pens tilted in the pen cup. The coaster bare.
Time crept by. The recording timer on my phone clicked over to 7:03.
Nothing happened.
7:05. 7:08. The desk stayed empty.
I rubbed my aching eyes, thinking I'd gotten the date wrong. And in that moment, I heard a sound.
Extremely soft—like something wet settling onto the desk. *Plop.* The white cup. On the coaster. Appearing from nothing, without a shred of warning. I froze in my chair, not even breathing. The cup had water in it. Full. The surface trembled slightly, and then a wisp of white steam rose from its center.
The phone was still recording.
It took me a full three minutes before I dared reach for the phone. On the screen, the scene was unmistakable—at 7:08:42, a porcelain cup full of hot water appeared out of nowhere on the empty desk. At :43, the steam appeared. No transition at all.
I stopped the recording, my heart trying to leap out of my throat. I stared at the cup. It stood quietly in the dim light, steam curling upward.
Then I saw it.
At about a hand's height above the cup's mouth, the wisp of steam changed shape. It was no longer mist dispersing at random. It drew inward, gathering into a blurred outline. Very small—about the size of a fist. The shape was curled up, like it was squatting or sitting, with two thin lines reaching out from its sides like arms, wrapped around the wall of the cup.
Like a small child. A tiny child made of steam, curled over the cup's mouth, cupping the white porcelain with both hands, passing its own warmth into the water drop by drop.
Every hair on my body stood up. The shape held for only two or three seconds, then dissolved back into an ordinary wisp drifting into the air. But in those two or three seconds, I saw its posture clearly. It held that cup like it was holding something precious. It was heating the water for him.
I shot to my feet, my chair crashing over with a clatter. The vibration reached the cup—the surface rippled, the steam surged suddenly, then steadied again.
That day Lin Yu arrived especially early. He walked in just past eight and saw me standing by his desk, face deathly pale, chair on the floor. He froze. "Ye-ge? You... are you okay?"
I stared at him. Today he wore a black hoodie, hair a little messy, like he'd rushed out the door without tidying up. He came over, righted the chair, and naturally picked up the white cup, raising it to his lips.
"Don't drink it!" I shouted.
His hand stopped. The cup hovered at his lips. He looked at me, puzzled. "What's wrong?"
The steam drifted across his face, mild and unhurried. He blinked.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. What could I say? That there was a ghost child in his cup? That it came every morning to heat his water and wait for him to drink? That the water he'd been drinking for a month had all been warmed by it?
Lin Yu looked at me for a few seconds. Then he looked down at the water in his cup and suddenly smiled.
"Ye-ge," he said softly, "you... saw it, didn't you?"
I was nailed to the floor.
He held the cup—not drinking, not setting it down—standing there in the gray morning light, that smile at the corner of his mouth as faint as an unshaded sketch. "When I was little," he said, "I had a sister."
He paused, set the cup gently back on the desk. The steam curled around his fingers.
"She never grew up," he said.
I stepped back, my lower back hitting the edge of my own desk, pain drawing a sharp breath from me. Lin Yu looked up at me. Behind those thin-framed glasses, his eyes were still clean and clear—even carrying a trace of apology.
"The morning she left, she said she wanted hot water. I never got to pour it for her." He lowered his head, watching the swaying surface in the cup. "Later I started working. Every time I reached my desk, the water was already hot. I figured—maybe it was her. She found me. She heats me a cup every day, like when we were kids... she always fought me over a single cup of hot water."
His voice was calm. Too calm for someone telling a ghost story.
"Don't be scared," he smiled again. "She means no harm. She just... wants to pour me a cup of water."
My lips trembled for a long moment before I forced out: "You've known all along."
Lin Yu nodded.
"Why didn't you say something?"
He thought about it. "That kind of thing... how do you even put it into words?" He lifted the cup and took a long drink this time. "People would think I was crazy. And I couldn't be sure it wasn't all in my own head. Until you shouted just now."
He looked at me, and there was something in his eyes I couldn't name. Like relief. Or like... confirmation?
"You saw it, didn't you?" he asked.
I said nothing. My silence was answer enough. Lin Yu let out a long breath and drained the cup in one go, setting it down with a sharp *clink*.
"Then she's still here," he said.
I thought that was the end of it. A coworker's secret. A heartwarming ghost story—creepy, sure, but with a bottom that wasn't entirely bad. I even started convincing myself it was nothing. Just a child who died too young, unable to let go of her brother, staying with him in another form.
But I'd overlooked something.
That white cup had only appeared after Lin Yu started at this company. A cup of hot water every day, without fail. But today Lin Yu had told me the water had been hot at his desk ever since his sister died. He'd said "every time." He'd said "later I started working."
What did that mean? It meant this hadn't started at this company. He'd changed jobs. Changed desks. Maybe changed cities. But that cup of water was always hot before he arrived.
I sat at my desk and watched Lin Yu power up his computer and start working. His profile was calm. His fingers steady on the keyboard. Every so often he'd lift his thermos and take a sip of his own water. The white cup, once empty, had been washed and set upside down on the coaster, waiting for tomorrow morning.
And then I remembered what I'd seen on the monitor—the cup materializing out of thin air, the steam condensing into the shape of a child. The child holding the cup's wall, passing its warmth into the water. She came every day. Every day. For who knew how many years. Lin Yu had said "she found me." But he'd never said how she found him.
Nor had he said whether she would follow him forever. A year. Ten years. A lifetime.
Wherever he went in his life, that cup of hot water would follow.
I looked up at him. He happened to turn his head at the same moment and smiled at me. That smile was just like always—warm, polite, carrying just the right amount of human warmth.
But this time I didn't return his smile. Because the corner of my eye had fallen on my own desk.
At some point, a white porcelain cup had appeared on my desk. Different from the mug I usually used—pure white, no pattern at all. It was filled to the brim with water. Above the surface, a thin wisp of white steam was rising slowly.
Lin Yu followed my gaze. His face suddenly changed.
"Don't touch it." His voice dropped very low.
I froze. The cup sat on my desk, steam drifting off it. Clean. Quiet. Like it had been waiting for me for a long time.
The office door opened. Xiao Chen from the next team poked half his head in: "Ye-ge, that proposal this morning—huh, you've got hot water on your desk too? Who's so thoughtful?"
I didn't hear him. I only stared at the cup.
Above the surface, the steam slowly gathered, tightened, tracing out a small curled silhouette. It turned that faceless face of condensed mist toward me.
Then it reached out a thin arm of white vapor and waved at me.
Beside me, Lin Yu said softly, his voice drifting in from very far away:
"She's chosen you."