Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The road Master was set to perform the Chongsha ritual on this time was far from us, nestled among the mountains to the south.

It connected a series of extremely isolated villages and impoverished areas. Because the roads were inaccessible, it was difficult for local specialties to be sold outside. This lack of communication with the external world also meant that all sorts of eerie rumors surrounded that particular stretch of road.

We set out two days early, stopping several times along the way.

Kong Liang had been sickly since childhood and was forced to spend a period of time as a ‘left-behind child.’ Because of this, Master and Master’s Wife had always felt they owed him, spoiling him until he was full of bad habits.

The ritual for Calling Back the Spirit had to be performed on the night of the Third Seventh, so we had to reach the section of the road where Master’s accident occurred by then.

During the day, we finally managed to reach a small county town near our starting point. Kong Liang started clamoring to eat at a restaurant again.

This small county was exceptionally poor and had very few eateries. We finally found one that was practically semi-open-air, with a dry latrine built in the vegetable garden out back.

After finishing the meal, Kong Liang ran off to the toilet while I waited for him outside.

When ten minutes passed and he still hadn’t come out, I worried he might have slipped away, so I went to the garden to find him.

Although the region was poor, the vegetation was lush. Many trellises had been built in the vegetable garden, covered in a dense crawl of climbing plants.

As I approached the toilet, a thick camphor tree blocked out most of the light, making the surroundings very dark.

I knocked on the wooden toilet door. “Kong Liang? Are you still not done?”

There was no sound from inside. I gave the door a push, but it was latched from the interior.

The door was crude, with large gaps between the planks.

I peeked through a gap, but it was pitch black inside and I couldn’t see anyone.

“Kong Liang! Are you still in there? Say something!”

I raised my voice. Strangely enough, even though it was the middle of the day, there was no one in the restaurant and the surroundings were eerily quiet.

When there was still no response from inside, I pulled out my phone and called Kong Liang.

The ringtone sounded immediately-from inside the toilet.

I didn’t stop to think. I took two steps back and kicked the toilet door open.

At almost the exact same moment, a pale, blurry shadow lunged out from the stall.

I dodged to the side, and with a sharp cry, Kong Liang tumbled onto the ground.

“There’s a ghost! A ghost!”

Kong Liang hadn’t even pulled his pants up properly. He scrambled on the ground for a long time before he could stand up.

I grabbed him and hauled him up, then turned to walk to the toilet door.

The dry latrine wasn’t large; it consisted of a single pit with its own small partitioned stall. Outside the partition sat a bucket and a basin, apparently meant for washing hands. The light was dim, and the tiny window at the very top let in almost no sunlight.

“Just now… someone was standing right here.”

Kong Liang pointed fearfully at the spot in front of the bucket, which directly faced the small door of the pit stall.

“I thought it was someone else who needed to use the toilet, so I told them to wait outside. But they didn’t move, so I cursed at them. Then… then I couldn’t open the door from the inside!”

“Where is this person? Stop scaring yourself.”

I didn’t tell Kong Liang that the outer door had been latched from the inside until I kicked it open. Aside from him, no one else had come out.

Seeing that I wasn’t buying it, Kong Liang aggressively declared he was going to find the restaurant owner to settle the score.

But when we emerged from the vegetable garden, there wasn’t a soul outside.

Drinks were still lined up behind the counter and there was cash in the drawer. It was the middle of the day, yet the restaurant was filled with a faint, floating dust, silent without a single human voice to be heard.

Kong Liang started out shouting loudly, but eventually, his curses were swallowed back down into his throat.