Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Soul Summoning had to be performed at night, so we set out at dusk.

Lai Zhi was reluctant a thousand times over, ten thousand times over, but in the end, all he could do was stick close behind me.

Uncle Ye had wanted to come with us too, but I stopped him and sent him back.

I had a rough memory of where the mountain hollow was. Following that memory, we switched on our flashlights and headed into the woods.

At first, there was still a little light in the sky. Later, everything around us went pitch-black.

Lai Zhi followed behind me, his teeth already beginning to chatter.

“Why did Tang Dong go looking for you?” I asked.

“How would I know?”

Lai Zhi clearly did not want to answer questions like that right now, but talking to me seemed to help distract him a little.

“I’m his brother-in-law, for crying out loud. He really doesn’t care who’s family and who isn’t. It’s not like I hurt him on purpose.”

“Not even more than twenty years ago?”

By now, Lai Zhi also knew that Tang Dong had most likely lost his soul after that trip into the mountain hollow.

He fell silent for a while. “We were young back then. We never thought something would really happen.”

That was true. They had been young.

For the village children, the mountain hollow deep in the forest was forbidden territory according to the adults, and also the place they yearned to see most.

They all wanted to know what was inside, but none of them dared go in alone.

That day, I had not been in the village. Tang Dong had been brought along by Ye Xiaowu and ended up playing with Xu Jinyuan and the others.

The whole group made a noisy racket as they climbed the mountain and walked deep into the woods.

The entrance to the mountain hollow was like some treasure cave glowing with golden light, beckoning to them.

In the end, at Xu Jinyuan’s command, Lai Zhi and Ma San’er joined in the jeering. With threats and tricks, they drove Tang Dong into the mountain hollow.

After Tang Dong was forced inside, he ran back out twice, but both times Xu Jinyuan scared him back in. Ma San’er even threw stones at him several times.

They forced him to keep walking deeper in, to go see what was really inside.

Once he had seen clearly, he could come back out and tell them.

Jiang Kai had actually wanted to help Tang Dong that day, but he was afraid of Xu Jinyuan, so he never said a word.

Besides, with the scene at the time-a whole group of little friends waiting noisily outside the mountain hollow-no one thought anything would really go wrong.

Later, as they watched the hour grow later and later, Tang Dong still did not come out, and the woods gradually darkened.

None of them could stay there anymore. One by one, they found excuses and ran home.

I only pieced all this together later after asking many people.

After I brought Tang Dong back, he ran a high fever for several days. When he recovered, his memory of entering the mountain hollow was already unclear.

But it seemed that after that, I noticed some changes in Tang Dong’s personality.

He was still timid, but he was no longer quite so simple. He no longer believed everything people told him.

He started learning to tell on others. He started holding grudges.

Gradually, no one in the village dared bully him anymore.

“My sister’s been married to Tang Dong for so many years, and he never once told me about what happened back then.”

Lai Zhi still sounded somewhat aggrieved. “If I’d known he cared that much, I would’ve just apologized to him. I’d even kowtow to him a couple of times if I had to. Did he really have to keep coming at me like this until one of us died?”

Some unknown animal darted through the woods, and Lai Zhi nearly jumped out of his skin.

I glanced at him. “So you do know what fear feels like.”