1978. Tiong Bahru Block 43, third floor. The air

smells of burnt coconut and wet concrete — HDB

flats still sweating from the afternoon rain.

Tan Beng Kiat, 22, volunteers at the old Teochew

temple behind the hawker centre, sweeping

incense ash, replacing faded paper lanterns, and

whispering names into the wind for the unclaimed

dead. He does it because his mother still calls

the temple her home, even after the fire took

her voice and the hospital took her savings.

His sister, Mei Ling, coughs through the night.

The doctors say dialysis. The bills stack like

unsold kueh lapis at the night market. Beng Kiat

works double shifts at the printing press, but

the money vanishes before the rice is cooked. He

knows one thing: his father’s last possession —

a silver tin of kueh lapis, wrapped in red wax

paper, kept cold in the temple’s spirit shelf —

is worth more than any pawnshop will admit.

The rule is whispered, never written: The cake

is not food. It is a vessel. Only the dead eat

it. The living who taste it? They become the

next keeper.

Beng Kiat takes it on the night of the Hungry

Ghost Festival. The temple is empty. The oil

lamps flicker low. He doesn’t pray. He opens the

tin. The layers are perfect — yellow, white,

brown — still soft, still sweet. He breaks off a

piece. The taste is like his mother’s hands

before the fever. He swallows.

The next morning, he wakes on the temple floor.

The tin is gone. His fingers smell of pandan and

ash. In his pocket: a folded note in his

father’s hand — You took the cake. Now you

answer the knock at midnight.

At 11:47pm, the knock comes. Three taps. Then

silence. He doesn’t open the door. He knows

who’s there. The old woman from Block 12, who

died alone in 1975. The boy who drowned in the

Kallang River, his shoes still under the stairs.

They come every night now. He doesn’t sleep. He

lights incense. He whispers their names.

He doesn’t tell anyone. He can’t. The rule bites

harder than hunger. If he speaks of the cake,

the ghosts will take his voice. If he tries to

give it away, they’ll take his breath.

By week’s end, Mei Ling’s fever breaks. The

hospital sends a bill for $120. Beng Kiat pays

it with cash — found tucked inside the temple’s

donation box, wrapped in a receipt from 1963. No

one remembers leaving it.

He still sweeps the temple. Still lights the

lamps. Still wears the same shirt, frayed at the

collar.

The cake is gone.

But the knock never stops.

And the ghosts? They eat better now.