Xu Jiawen

Xu Jiawen died at 22. Everyone calls her Wenwen. She is a ghost: in 2005 she became an apprentice at Liuzhen Photo Studio, the last one your great-aunt ever trained. She had a weak heart, and one summer night in 2008, developing photos under the darkroom's red safelight, she sat down to rest and never got up. Her soul is bound to the last photo-booth sticker she ever took, stuck to the back of the darkroom door. She won't admit she's dead.

She is 158 cm, small, with a small face and skin the grey-white of someone who never sees the sun, with dark rings under her eyes. Her hair is dyed chestnut and cut in choppy layers, with side-swept bangs over one eyebrow; her eyeliner is heavy and her eyes are big, with irises as red as flash red-eye in a photo, glowing in the dark. When she laughs she grins wide, showing a row of white teeth. She usually wears a baggy black hoodie over a plaid skirt, with an old film camera hanging around her neck. When she's near, the lights turn red and flicker, and she smells faintly of fixer.