Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Lies! You crazy woman! If I bury my son in a rush, do you want him to wander as a lonely ghost? I’ll… I’ll kill you!”

Zhao Wenxiu appeared half deranged by her son’s death. When she heard the Immortal Lady’s warning, she tried to throw herself at her. The others naturally held her back.

The Immortal Lady sneered. “I have already done everything I could to help you. I will ask one last time. Will you bury him immediately or not?”

“Bury your shameless ass!”

Zhao Wenxiu had gone berserk. Not only did she curse the Immortal Lady, she clawed the arms and faces of several villagers who tried to help Wang Dalong take Wang Fei’s body from her.

The Immortal Lady turned and left, heading back to her ruined shack at the far end of the village.

“Come on, Zhong. It’s time for us to go home too.”

My father lifted me onto his shoulders and carried me home.

When I twisted around for one last look, I saw Zhao Wenxiu carrying Wang Fei’s body back toward her house.

The villagers who had gathered around them sighed and slowly dispersed…

“Dad, why didn’t they listen to Crazy Auntie?”

“Don’t call her that anymore. From now on, you call her the Immortal Lady.”

“Oh. All right. Then why didn’t they listen to the Immortal Lady?”

“They wanted to. But you saw Wang Fei’s mother. She wouldn’t allow it, and she was hitting and biting people. The poor boy’s closest kin had spoken. What were the rest of us supposed to do–fight her and take him by force? Never mind whether that would be right; outsiders like us have no call to do such a thing. Ah…”

My father heaved a deep sigh.

He seemed deeply worried.

My father probably believed in such mysterious matters more than most villagers did.

After all, he said my safe birth had been a miracle. And the wooden tablet the wandering Taoist gave me had unquestionably saved my life that very day.

When we got home, my mother gave him a fierce scolding.

“He’s only a child! How could you let him watch something so frightening? What kind of father are you?”

My father argued his case. “Every able-bodied man in the village was there, and I stayed right beside him. Zhong said himself that he wasn’t scared.”

“Mm-hmm! That’s right!”

I nodded enthusiastically.

Smack!

My mother lightly cuffed the back of my head. “Right, my foot. Eat your dinner.”

With that, she brought over two large, steaming bowls of noodles.

“Oh! Termite-mushroom noodles with silken pork! My favorite. Mom, did you find termite mushrooms again today?”

“Umbrella mushrooms” was the name for them in the Sichuan dialect. Their proper name was termite mushrooms, and they were common around Yunnan, Sichuan, and Chongqing. They were also delicious.

They usually sprang up rapidly on rainy nights. One day you might walk past a field and see nothing at all. Then rain would fall that night, and when farmers returned at dawn, they would find great clusters of “umbrella mushrooms” all along the field banks.

My mother’s noodles with termite mushrooms and silken pork were truly in a class of their own.

The broth was crystal clear. Pieces of mushroom and evenly sliced pork rested beneath its surface. Each piece of meat had been dusted with a thin coating of bean starch, leaving it wonderfully fragrant, tender, and smooth–hence the name “silken pork.”

Finely chopped scallions floated on top, along with minced ginger and cloves of garlic for flavor. The aroma was irresistible.

I was still admiring my bowl when my father lowered his head and began slurping his noodles.

He even tried to take advantage of my distraction and steal a piece of pork from my bowl.

My mother quickly covered it with her hand and glared at him. “Stealing meat from your own child? Hmph! I’ll stick that hand in a mousetrap.”

She was only teasing him, of course. I laughed too, and some of the fear and strain left by watching a child my age drown finally began to ease.

My parents loved each other dearly, and they loved me. That was why, despite being frail and sickly from birth, I had a happy life and grew into a cheerful child.

There was little entertainment in the countryside back then. We did not even own a television. After dinner and a short rest, everyone went to bed.

Perhaps I was exhausted from the day’s events. I fell asleep almost immediately.

I did not dream at all.

But in the middle of the night, a horrific scream jolted me awake.

Our village was small, only a few dozen households scattered along a mountain ravine.

Nights in the mountains were silent. A scream that loud woke nearly the entire village.

I heard my parents rustling next door as they climbed out of bed and put on their shoes. A moment later, they hurried into my room.

“Did that scare you?” my mother asked worriedly.

I shook my head and told her I was fine. We were in our own home, and she and my father were both there. What did I have to fear?

I may have been frail and frequently ill, but I had always been brave.

“It sounded like it came from the east,” my father said, his expression strange. “Wang Dalong’s house is over that way.”

A flicker of fear crossed my mother’s face.

Not long afterward…

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone pounded on the outer door, making our hearts tighten.

“Who is it?” my father shouted. I saw that his hands were clenched into fists.

“It’s me, Wang Dehai. Xiao Wu, did you hear that scream? We’re going over to Wang Dalong’s house to have a look.”

My father visibly relaxed. “Oh, it’s the old village chief. All right. I’ll be right there.”
He dressed, picked up a shoulder pole, and went into the main room. Before opening the door, he peered outside through the crack between its panels.

It was indeed the old village chief. Several other young and able-bodied villagers had come with him. They carried shoulder poles and woodcutting knives, and all of them held torches except for two men with flashlights.

There was no chance my father would let me come along this time. After giving my mother and me a few instructions, he followed the group toward Wang Fei’s house at the eastern end of the village.

Everything that happened afterward was what my father told my mother and me when he returned. The account sent chills down our spines…

After leaving our house at a jog, they soon reached Wang Fei’s home.

The house had a courtyard that was usually quite pretty, with flowers growing among the vegetables.

But that night, my father, the village chief, and the others sensed something sinister in the air.

“Chief, should we go in?”

The village chief drew on his long-stemmed pipe and hesitated. Finally, he nodded. “Let’s go. There are enough of us. We have nothing to fear.”

They raised their torches and entered.

The courtyard was utterly silent. Not a single insect chirped or frog croaked.

The front door was shut, of course. My father summoned his courage, pounded on it, and called out.

“Dalong, are you awake? We all heard a sound from your house and came to check on you.”

No one answered.

My father looked at the old village chief. The older man spoke in a low voice. “Xiao Wu, you and Huang San’er are strong. Break down the door.”

“All right.”

My father nodded and motioned for everyone else to step back. He and Huang San’er raised their feet and kicked together with all their strength.

Bang!

The door flew open.

An icy wind spiraled out of the house.

The moment it washed over my father, gooseflesh rose across his body and he shuddered.

The same thing happened to Huang San’er. The two exchanged a glance. Both knew something was wrong, and fear began beating inside their chests.

The house was pitch-black, like the open jaws of a monster waiting to devour them.

Even with their torches raised, a hazy veil seemed to hang before their eyes, as though the room were filled with mist.

My father gritted his teeth. “Damn it! There are so many of us. What the hell are we afraid of? We haven’t even seen anything. One scream was enough to scare us senseless. Come on. Let’s go in.”

He was about to step through the doorway when a voice sounded from outside the courtyard.

“You have courage, I’ll give you that. Let me go first.”

My father and the others turned. The Immortal Lady was walking slowly into the courtyard.

In the dead of night, with her ragged clothes and long black hair hiding almost her entire face, she was a frightening sight herself.

The village chief seemed to breathe easier. A broad smile spread across his face. “Immortal Lady, you’re here! Good, good. Now that you’ve come, we can set our minds at ease.”

She did not answer. She walked straight to my father and took the torch from his hand.

Then she entered the dark house first, with everyone else close behind her.

The sight in the main room made every scalp prickle and sent cold rushing up from the soles of their feet.

An open black coffin stood at the center of the room. Wang Fei, who had drowned that afternoon, should have been lying inside it.

To the right, Zhao Wenxiu lay draped over the coffin. She was completely still and plainly no longer breathing, yet a strange smile had stiffened on her face.

Near the door in front of the coffin, Wang Dalong lay facedown. From his position, he appeared to have been trying to flee the house…

The terrible scream that woke the whole village must have come from him.

My father and the others did not dare move. They looked to the Immortal Lady.

“A man carries three spirit flames,” she said. “Hold your torch in one hand and press the other to your forehead. Imagine as hard as you can that a flame is bursting from the top of your head.”

My father and the villagers hastened to obey, concentrating with all their might.

Strangely enough, the sinister chill in the house did seem to recede, and a trace of warmth returned.

The Immortal Lady walked forward and rolled Wang Dalong’s body onto its back. His eyes were stretched wide, his features frozen in terror, as though he had died with a grievance still unresolved.

“Wu Yunfei, come over here and give me more light.”

“Oh. All right.”

My father hurried forward and held the torch close.

By its light, the Immortal Lady used two fingers to pry open Wang Dalong’s tightly clenched mouth.

Everyone could see a large amount of pale red and white foam in his mouth and nostrils.

She lifted one of the corpse’s hands. It was visibly white, the skin deeply wrinkled.

My father blurted out, “He looks like he was soaked in water–and for quite a while too. But didn’t Dalong only scream a moment ago?”

How could anyone drown on dry land, inside his own home?

“Hah!” The Immortal Lady gave a cold laugh. “If a river-log killed him, of course he’d look waterlogged.”

Her brow furrowed. “It seems I misjudged the situation. I never imagined such a young child could harbor so much resentment. He has already killed both his parents without any regard for right or wrong. But then, once he becomes a baleful revenant, he is no longer the person he was.”

As she spoke, she stared fixedly at the open coffin in the center of the room.