Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Ordinarily, a red bridal sedan chair would evoke celebration.
But it was five in the morning!
Dawn had only begun to gray the sky. Thin white mist drifted across the fields, and the moon still hung overhead.
Its light was cold and deathly still.
Out in the wilderness, with no village or inn nearby, a brilliant red sedan chair stood utterly alone. The sight raised goose bumps across my body and sent a chill into my bones.
My head buzzed as though struck by a hammer.
Perhaps you know the feeling: a sudden terror that makes stars flash before your eyes and sends pain through the back of your skull.
I took several deep breaths and forced myself to calm down.
“It’s fine. It’s probably an abandoned sedan chair that someone left here. What is there to fear? I’ve delivered a drowned revenant to the Hundred-Bone Pagoda and even killed a weasel spirit.”
Reassuring myself, I broke into a jog, hoping to cross the mountain hollow quickly.
With several old ducks on my back and eggs in one hand, I could not run fast.
But as I approached the red sedan chair, I gritted my teeth and accelerated!
I wanted to pass it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I feared the curtain might rise at the exact moment I went by, revealing something inside that would terrify me even more…
In later internet slang, my thinking amounted to this: if I ran fast enough, no evil entity could catch me!
Wind roared past my ears as I brushed by the sedan chair.
I nearly twisted my ankle. The dirt road was narrow, while the large chair occupied its center, leaving very little space on either side.
Though I kept telling myself not to look, I still glimpsed it from close range out of the corner of my eye.
The chair was new. The red paint almost seemed wet!
No one could have casually discarded it.
After running for a while, I emerged from the mountain hollow. Exhausted and unable to continue, I slowed to a stop and gasped for breath, my heart pounding.
I looked back.
The red sedan chair remained visible through the thin white mist.
“Good. It’s fine. Now that I’ve passed it, everything will be all right.”
I patted my chest and felt less afraid.
The moon had begun sinking toward the horizon. In another half hour, dawn would break, and then I would have nothing to fear.
“I’m one vicious young master. What can one lousy sedan chair possibly–”
My words caught in my throat, replaced by even greater horror!
Because when I turned to look a second time…
The red sedan chair was gone!
There was no mistaking it.
Distance and fog had not hidden the chair.
It was summer. Even though the mountains of southwestern China were often misty, the fog was not thick. I could still see the entrance to the mountain hollow clearly. Only the red sedan chair that had stood there had vanished.
At this deserted hour, even the faintest sound would carry a long way.
The chair was enormous. At least four strong men would have been needed to lift it. If someone carried it away, I would certainly have heard them.
Besides, where would sedan bearers have come from on this road?
Something was definitely wrong…
My heart, which had only just settled, leaped back into my throat!
Honestly, if I had only just left home, I would have turned and run back immediately. Once I reached the village and my house, there would be nothing to fear.
But I had already covered more than half the journey!
The remaining road to town was shorter than the distance home.
I might as well walk faster and reach town as quickly as possible. It would probably be safer there.
Running continuously with ducks on my back and eggs in my hand was impossible. I could only quicken my pace and hope to see the mountain pass above town soon…
I had traveled this road with my parents countless times since childhood.
Even without an adult, I had walked it with several classmates the year before.
I knew it intimately!
But with no one else around at such an hour, my nerves grew increasingly sensitive.
Corn and sorghum filled the fields on either side. I could not see far between the stalks, and whenever wind blew through, the cornfields produced all manner of strange sounds.
Leaves rustled as though people were hiding inside, whispering and laughing!
Even the wind at my back seemed to carry faint footsteps, as though something were following me.
As long as I had not been afraid, everything was fine. Once fear took hold, however, it burst through me like floodwater through a broken dam!
The terror grew. Strange thoughts appeared in my mind and refused to leave.
I breathed deeply and desperately recalled Aunt Qin’s advice. Even if I truly encountered something evil, no grave harm would come to me as long as I remained brave and kept my three spirit flames burning.
But it did no good at all!
I was still afraid. Sweat gathered on my forehead and palms.
The farther I walked, the more I sweated.
For some reason, although daybreak should have been only half an hour away, the sky seemed darker than before. Even the moon looked ready to vanish behind black clouds…
When my fear reached its limit, it transformed into anger.
I suddenly shouted, “Damn it! What the hell am I afraid of? I refuse to believe this!”
Then I began singing at the top of my lungs as I walked.
Surprisingly, it worked. Some of my courage returned, and I was no longer quite as frightened.
My voice echoed in every direction, driving away both my paranoid thoughts and the sounds from the cornfields.
Unfortunately, the relief did not last.
At a fork in the road ahead, I saw another red sedan chair standing in the middle of the path!
It was identical to the one at the mountain hollow.
Perhaps it was the very same chair!
Was the cursed thing faster than me? Had it vanished earlier only because it ran ahead?
The courage I had regained through curses and loud singing disappeared without a trace the instant I saw the eerie red sedan chair.
One thought remained in my mind: run!
Run back.
By then, there was almost certainly something supernatural at work.
The red bridal chair blocked the fork ahead. I no longer dared approach or pass it. I could only turn around.
Wind roared in my ears as I ran, gasping for breath.
After covering what felt like a long distance, I could run no farther. I stopped, bent over, and braced both hands on my knees while I panted.
Looking back, I could no longer see the sedan chair through the mist.
The fog was thin, but distance still obscured my view.
I no longer cared about selling ducks and eggs. I only wanted to reach home, find Aunt Qin, tell her what had happened, and ask whether I was in serious trouble.
But before I had taken more than a few steps, I saw the sinister red sedan chair for a third time through the thin fog!
My scalp prickled, and my legs began to weaken.
I was truly afraid!
The terror of not knowing what I was about to face felt like a hand squeezing my heart, leaving my chest tight.
At that moment, I suddenly remembered a terrifying rural legend my maternal grandfather had told me before he died…
The ghost feast!