Chapter 59
Chapter 59
Nighttime in Lianghe Town was quiet and peaceful, cooled by a gentle breeze. Barbecue and late-night food stalls remained open in its busier quarters, their smoke carrying the comfortable leisure of a small-town evening.
That feeling vanished the moment we crossed the little bridge and turned onto Liangfeng Street.
There were no streetlights, only a faint glow from distant roads. The darkness felt sinister, and an inexplicable unease tightened my chest.
Though Liangfeng Street connected eastern and western town and occupied a decent location, this stretch was desolate.
It had once held several state-owned factories. Economic restructuring began a few years earlier, and the factories closed one after another, leaving their buildings abandoned.
Nothing decays faster than an unused building. In a few short years, the formerly bustling workshops became crumbling ruins choked with weeds, playgrounds for rats and small animals.
The town lacked both the money and need to redevelop the area. For three or four hundred yards, the street had no lamps and few nighttime pedestrians.
Old Cao, Big Bull, and the others walked there with me. Abandoned buildings loomed on either side in strange shapes beneath the hazy starlight.
At the end stood the legendary huangjue fig, at least three hundred years old.
It was immense. Several grown men could not have encircled its trunk, and it rose nearly a hundred feet. Countless branches, some straight, some bent, some bizarrely twisted, spread in every direction. Its lush canopy covered almost the entire intersection.
River Street began here and had many residents, so streetlights reappeared. Even in their glow, I could not see the whole tree when I looked up.
Facing it in darkness was like confronting an unknown behemoth radiating ancient, mysterious pressure.
Despite attending school in Lianghe Town for several weeks, I had never visited River Street or seen this giant within the town. It was astonishing.
I considered its feng shui. A crossroads allowed energy to rush and collide from four directions, making baleful influence common. Yet a huangjue fig was a kind of large-leaved fig whose energy stood between yin and yang. Such a tree should block baleforce and improve the intersection’s feng shui.
Why, then, had more people died here?
It made no sense, unless some unknown secret hid beneath the surface like an iceberg below the sea.
Miss Duan’s coffin had likewise displayed one impossibility after another at Duan Family Manor. Only the final revelation explained them.
The contradictions surrounding the Killer Demon Tree must conceal a secret too.
I told the others that, from a feng shui perspective, the repeated hangings were abnormal. I circled the old fig several times but found no other contradiction.
Old Cao took one last deep pull on his pipe, tucked it into his belt, and smacked his lips. “The tree is strange, certainly, but there’s no explanation.”
Impatient Flat-Top kicked the trunk. “However strange it is, it’s only a tree. It can’t move. Why doesn’t the town just cut it down?”
Old Cao snorted. “Who would organize that? Several grown men can’t encircle it. Ordinary axes are useless; you’d need heavy machinery. Who pays? Not the town, and no businessman will undertake such a thankless job.”
He was right. Felling and transporting such a giant was nothing like a farmer chopping down a sapling. Though legends called it the Killer Demon Tree, locals were accustomed to it, and cutting it down would also provoke public controversy.
Merely contemplating those complications felt harder than cultivation.
Master sometimes said cultivation was difficult, but understanding hearts and directing crowds was harder.
Old Cao turned away. “Enough about the tree. Let’s carry the cobbler’s son’s coffin. I have an uneasy feeling. I hope this doesn’t become another Duan Family Manor.”
Big Bull and the others nodded, muttering that surely we could not be so unlucky. The country was peaceful and prosperous; uncanny incidents could not happen everywhere.
Beside the tree, stone steps climbed a lane running perpendicular to Liangfeng Street. River Street lay above.
Though narrow, it was the most convenient link between the main street and the back streets. Shops and homes lined both sides, and it bustled by day. At night, only our six sets of footsteps disturbed the flagstones.
We soon saw a home hung with white lanterns, its air gloomy and cold: the cobbler’s house.
Big Bull knocked. A thin old man opened the door. Gray-haired and stooped from a lifetime bending over shoes, his gaunt face looked even more miserable after losing his son in old age.
“Coffin Worker Niu, Coffin-Bearer Cao, you’ve come. Please enter. Thank you.”
He led us inside. The small, filthy room was strewn with leather, plastic, hemp thread, and other shoe-repair materials. The family was plainly poor.
A cheap coffin stood among the clutter. Inside lay a man around thirty, his face swollen and a ligature mark circling his neck.
From the signs and aura Master had taught me to observe, he truly had hanged himself.
On the road, well-informed Ergou told me the cobbler had fathered the boy late and spoiled him. His wife died when their son was six. The uneducated widower raised him alone with great hardship but knew only indulgence, and the child went astray.
He fought and joined gangs from middle school onward, smoked, drank, and was once arrested for theft. Later, he became addicted to gambling. Crushed by debts and pursued by creditors, he finally hanged himself.
His life was both pitiable and hateful.
Old Cao asked the cobbler, “Anything else to say to your son? If not, we’ll seal the coffin and take him up the mountain.”
The numb old man shook his head.
Big Bull’s group sighed, lifted the lid, and sealed the coffin.
The cobbler could not afford a feng shui master to select a grave. I had learned a little feng shui but lacked the experience to choose a burial site casually, even for free. The karmic debt would be too heavy.
Xiao Family Bend had been different: someone else selected the home site, and I merely diagnosed its problem. Moreover, homes were less complicated than graves, and taking payment made the exchange fair.
Big Bull and the others took the corners while Old Cao led. At his command, they raised the coffin and carried it out, heading steadily toward a grave hill outside town with available ground.
The journey, burial, and filling of the grave all proceeded smoothly. I relaxed.
Afterward, the cobbler offered us a red envelope, but Old Cao refused.
“Keep it. If carrying a coffin free didn’t violate our trade’s rules and invite disaster, I wouldn’t even charge wages. Live well.”
Old Cao had a kind heart. He took only five yuan–one each for himself and Big Bull’s four men–solely because coffin bearers could never carry a coffin for free.
I had merely accompanied them and would never take money from this pitiable man.
Back in Lianghe Town, we said farewell to Big Bull’s group and returned to the coffin shop. It was only shortly after midnight.
Despite the easy job, unease lingered in me. Something felt wrong. Perhaps I was simply oversensitive.
Monday and Tuesday passed peacefully. I attended school by day and studied coffin bearing and spirit-paper arts at night.
When I returned after class Tuesday evening, all four of Big Bull’s men sat around Old Cao in the shop, grave-faced.
My heart lurched.
Had something happened to the cobbler’s son’s corpse after all?