Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Everyone felt a chill run through them at the Immortal Lady’s words.
Those with weaker nerves already had trembling legs…
Nobody there was a fool. They had more or less guessed what had happened.
Clearly, Zhao Wenxiu had been unwilling to bury her son in haste. She had wanted to hold his wake at home, then find a renowned folk Taoist master from one of the surrounding villages.
That was why she had obtained a coffin and laid Wang Fei’s body inside it. She had planned to go fetch a master first thing in the morning.
Judging by the way Zhao Wenxiu lay slumped against the head of the coffin, she had probably spent the entire night there, watching over her son and weeping.
Then, exactly as the Immortal Lady had warned, Wang Fei’s resentment had entered his body… His corpse had transformed into a vicious revenant!
“The rest of you, see to Wang Dalong’s body. Wu Yunfei, Huang San, you two come with me to the coffin.”
At that moment, the Immortal Lady’s voice held a cool, steely resolve. She seemed like a completely different person from the cackling madwoman who usually joked and laughed!
My father and Huang San were frightened too, but they forced themselves to follow her over to the coffin.
They gathered their courage and looked inside.
Sure enough!
Wang Fei’s body lay flat on its back, his hands folded over his stomach.
But the horrifying part was the strange upward curl at the corners of his mouth. He looked as though he were smiling!
My father’s scalp prickled, and he nearly lost his grip on the torch.
Truth be told, everyone in the village had watched Wang Fei grow up. The village was only so big, after all, and everyone knew all the children.
Wang Fei had always been an obedient, sensible boy. Whenever he saw my father, he would call him “Uncle Wu” over and over.
Only one day ago, he had still been a good child.
Now he lay in a coffin, a terrifying, grinning corpse.
The Immortal Lady sighed. “As the saying goes, don’t fear a ghost that weeps–fear one that smiles. Looks like the river-log that took Wang Fei as its replacement was a vicious thing in its own right.”
She glanced at Wang Fei and gave a cold laugh, then straightened Zhao Wenxiu’s body beside the coffin. Zhao Wenxiu also showed every sign of having drowned. Her clothes were soaked through, as if she had been submerged in river water.
The poor woman.
First her son had died for no reason. Then he had become a vicious revenant and killed his own mother…
My father felt a pang of sorrow at the tragic scene.
It was impossible to tell whether the Immortal Lady was talking to herself or to my father and the others.
“Once a person dies, that life is over,” she said. “Everything vanishes. Dust returns to dust, and earth to earth. You cannot cling to any more hopes. The dead are not the same as they were in life. Zhao Wenxiu failed to understand that, and it cost both her and her husband their lives.”
The old village chief edged forward and asked respectfully, “Immortal Lady, what should we do now? Should we leave some people here to keep watch, then go to the supply-and-marketing cooperative at daybreak and call the police station in town?”
Telephones were still rare in those days. They might have been common enough in towns and cities, but they were almost nonexistent in the countryside.
There was only one at the supply-and-marketing cooperative where several villages met.
The Immortal Lady sneered. “Keep watch? You still want to leave it here overnight? If I weren’t here keeping an eye on it, the thing in that coffin would probably be up and killing people already.”
Right, of course!
The old village chief nodded as rapidly as a pecking chicken.
“Then we’ll bury them. We’ll bury all of them tonight! I’ll fetch more people to dig graves on the hill behind the village.”
No one was making trouble now, so naturally they were prepared to do what the Immortal Lady had said from the start.
But she shook her head and pointed at the coffin. “Too late! This child was probably dragged away as a replacement by an especially vicious water revenant. That revenant’s resentment transferred to him. Even if we put him in the ground now, he’ll probably crawl back out and hurt people. He’ll ruin the village’s feng shui as well.”
What?!
Everyone present went pale and exchanged frightened looks.
My father plucked up his courage. “Then could we just burn him?”
Without answering, the Immortal Lady took the torch from his hand and extended it into the coffin…
When it came within half a foot of the body, the torch went out.
There was no wind, no warning at all. It died in an instant!
“This thing is a vicious water revenant, steeped in yin water energy. Fire won’t even stay lit near it, and you think you can burn it?”
Then what could they possibly do?
Everyone could only stare at the Immortal Lady and wait for her to decide again.
The old village chief had made up his mind. This time, whatever the Immortal Lady said, they would carry it out to the letter! Even if the Heavenly King himself came to stop them, there would be no indulging anyone.
He deeply regretted that he had failed to stand firm when Zhao Wenxiu made a scene and demanded her son’s body. The delay had bred disaster, creating this mess and claiming two more lives…
“If we’re going to solve this enormous problem, I’ll need your consent, Wu Yunfei.”
What?
My father froze. “Immortal Lady, what… what does this have to do with me?”
“I need to borrow your son.”
…
Even many years later, I still remembered that night with perfect clarity.
It may well have been the night that changed my fate.
My father returned with the village chief and knocked on our door. The Immortal Lady stood beside them.
“What’s going on?”
My mother sensed at once that something was wrong and held my hand tightly.
I was not especially afraid. Instead, I kept pestering my father to tell me what had happened.
He had no choice but to explain everything.
According to the Immortal Lady, there was only one way to deal with Wang Fei now that he had become a vicious water revenant: carry him beyond Lianghe Town to the Hundred-Bone Pagoda, halfway up the mountain where the rivers met.
The so-called Hundred-Bone Pagoda was actually a special kind of structure found along both banks of the river–a Yishan Burial Ground.
Sichuan and Chongqing lie along the upper reaches of the Yangtze, where the terrain is rugged and waterways abound. The Yangtze’s main channel and tributaries are full of rapids and treacherous shoals, so drownings have always been common.
In the late Qing dynasty, several hundred bodies were recovered each year from the waters within Kuizhou County alone!
For each river-log they recovered, the authorities paid for a coffin. Once the body was placed inside, it was buried in a special graveyard along the riverbank.
Because the burials were paid for by the government and cost the families nothing, the grounds were known as “Yishan”–charity cemeteries.
At the heart of every Yishan Burial Ground stood a six-story Hundred-Bone Pagoda!
Large numbers of unclaimed bodies were kept inside, hence the name “Hundred-Bone.”
A soul-summoning lamp was kept burning year-round in the pagoda so rites could be performed for the river-logs, helping them pass on and be reborn sooner.
After the 1980s, however, the economy and transportation both began to improve, and fewer people drowned in the Chuan River. More civilized funeral practices were promoted as well. Even when a river-log was recovered, it would be sent to a crematorium.
Gradually, fewer and fewer people knew about the Hundred-Bone Pagoda. Naturally, no one bothered anymore with the soul-summoning lamp that was supposedly meant to “burn forever.”
The Immortal Lady bent slightly until her eyes were level with mine.
Her hair was long and filthy, almost completely covering her face as it hung all the way to her waist.
No one could make out her features, but through a gap in her hair I saw that her eyes were very bright.
“Little Wu, are you brave enough to come with me? We’ll take your friend’s body to the Hundred-Bone Pagoda outside Lianghe Town.”
My mother had barely started pulling me back when I thrust out my chest.
“I am!”
I said it so loudly that everyone around us heard.
The Immortal Lady chuckled.
She reached out and ruffled my hair. “A light bazi, but plenty of courage. Wu Zhong–that’s a good name.”
My mother became agitated. “My boy is only nine! He’s just in third grade. What can he possibly help you with?”
As she spoke, she kept thumping my father with her fist, scolding him for running wild all day and now dragging his son into something dangerous too.
Ordinarily, my father listened to almost everything my mother said. Sichuan and Chongqing had a local specialty known as a “raked ear”–a teasing term for a man who was afraid of his wife.
This time, however, my father stood firm. He insisted that I go with the Immortal Lady and even told my mother she did not understand.
“Why does it have to be my boy?”
My mother would not relent. She pulled me into a tight embrace.
The Immortal Lady laughed. “There’s no harm in telling you. Little Wu was born prematurely at a very unusual hour, and his bazi is exceptionally light. Ordinarily, he should keep far away from things like this. But he is fated to face three life tribulations. Even if he never meddles with the supernatural, he cannot escape them. As for the talisman pendant he wore around his neck before, someone incurred a karmic debt with him and protected him once. That was all he was ever owed.”
“I’ve lived in your village for some time. Life here has been decent, and all of you have treated me kindly enough. So I must help prevent this vicious water revenant from harming the entire village. That is my karmic debt.”
“But if we fail to deliver it to the Hundred-Bone Pagoda in Lianghe Town and seal it there before daybreak, it may lose its ferocity after sunrise, but the terrifying baleful energy in its body will spread. It will damage the feng shui of the entire village. For the next thirty years, your village will fall behind the times and remain poor and backward.”
“The fastest way to reach the Hundred-Bone Pagoda outside Lianghe Town is by water. But no red-boat oarsman will take a boat out this late at night, so I’ll have to do it myself. I need someone to help share the burden.”
At this, the adamant refusal on my mother’s face softened a little.
But she still said, “Then why must it be my boy? He’s only nine. What burden could he possibly share for you?”