Chapter 2
Chapter 2
This was a transaction of pawned items that everyone had silently agreed upon.
The item being pawned was me!
The Jiang Family feared and dreaded me, wishing for nothing more than to toss me out like a bucket of filthy water.
In the six years since I was born, not a single child had been born in Tafeng Village.
Because of this, all the villagers of Tafeng Village despised me as well.
Small as I was, I was led away by the old woman, looking back every few steps as I walked out of Tafeng Village.
She took me from the mountains to a place called Wufu Town, located south of the county seat.
Wufu Town was built along a river. At the end of the street stood a simple, ancient mansion with three courtyards.
A Broken Mailbox stood on the east side of the house, while a Hexagonal Palace Lantern hung under the eaves on the west side.
The gate faced south, and a plaque hung above it, covered with a piece of black cloth.
The Rear-facing Room was filled with incense, joss paper, and paper effigies.
The Southern Study next to the Rear-facing Room was locked, and a small side door leading outward was also locked.
The old woman knelt down to look me in the eye. Taking my small hand, she said, “My surname is Yu. You can call me Granny Yu. From now on, the two of us will depend on each other.”
I replied obediently, “Hello, Granny.”
I had been abandoned too many times and had received countless cold glares. At six years old, I already understood that when living under someone else’s roof, one had to be well-behaved and submissive.
Granny Yu looked at me with pity in her eyes. “You are the Ninth Female Shopkeeper of our Pawnshop. From now on, Granny will call you Xiao Jiu, alright?”
“Okay,” I asked curiously, “then is Granny the eighth Female Shopkeeper?”
Granny Yu shook her head. “I don’t have the qualifications to be the Female Shopkeeper of this Pawnshop. I am merely the Shopkeeper’s Guardian.”
She stood up and pointed to the incense and joss paper filling the Rear-facing Room. “I know a bit of Yin-Yang and Feng Shui Arts. I usually make a living by selling funeral supplies, and I also go out to help people handle spiritual matters.”
I nodded, only half-understanding.
Granny Yu led me toward the back, stepping over a high threshold to enter the front courtyard.
The front courtyard wasn’t large. An old locust tree grew inside, and beneath it was a Bagua Well.
A large stone was pressed over the Bagua Well, carved with runes that I couldn’t understand.
Passing through a moon gate, we reached the main courtyard.
The main courtyard was very large, with over a dozen rooms in the east and west wings.
When she pushed open the doors to the main house, a massive Black Coffin sitting in the middle of the Main Hall was the first thing I saw. It scared me so much that I immediately hid behind Granny.
Granny patted my hand and said, “Don’t be afraid, Xiao Jiu. Come, offer some incense.”
She lit three sticks of Yellow Incense and placed them in my hand, nudging me forward to bow toward the Black Coffin.
After inserting the Yellow Incense into a bowl of raw rice in front of the Black Coffin, I turned and hugged Granny’s leg, cautiously peeking at the layout of the main house.
Aside from the Black Coffin in the Main Hall, a large red sedan chair stood in the western corner, with a Five-Colored Flag stuck into its roof.
The doors to both the east and west rooms were locked. The entire main house felt chilly and eerie.
Once the incense was offered, Granny Yu took out the Pawn Ticket with my blood fingerprint from her robe and tucked it under the Black Coffin. She then peeled a Yellow Talisman off the coffin before leading me out.
She also took me to the western side room to catch a glimpse of the backyard.
The backyard was empty and had fallen into disrepair; some of the buildings were already crumbling.
We returned to the Rear-facing Room, where Granny lit the Yellow Talisman and dissolved the ashes into water for me to drink.
After drinking the talisman water, I began to feel drowsy and fell into a deep, heavy sleep.
When I woke up, it was already the next morning. I felt completely refreshed and was surprised to find that the white hair on my head had disappeared.
Granny was very good to me. She sent me to school.
After school, she would teach me how to punch holes in joss paper, fold gold ingots, make paper effigies, and draw runes…
Even though it was clearly a Pawnshop, Granny had somehow managed to run it as a Funeral Supplies Shop.
Whenever Granny went out to handle spiritual matters for people, she took me along. She was meticulous, teaching me everything she could.
After every job, she would bring something back from the client’s home.
Raw rice, soil from a grave, a coffin nail…
No matter what it was, without exception, it was offered before the Black Coffin in the Main Hall.
What surprised me even more was that these items would vanish after being offered for a while.
It felt… it felt as if they had been swallowed whole by that Black Coffin.
I was terrified of it. I always felt that one day the lid would fly open and a monster would crawl out to devour me. I avoided the main courtyard whenever possible.
That lasted until I was nine years old.
That year, Granny took on a funeral job and brought me back to Tafeng Village.
Someone had died in the Village Chief’s family. During the funeral procession, the coffin couldn’t be lifted. They had sought out several spiritual consultants, but none could solve the problem. Eventually, they found their way to Granny Yu.
I helped out as her assistant while she worked. Once we were finished, Granny grabbed a handful of candy and gave it to me as a reward.
Just as I was peeling a piece, a sweet voice suddenly rang out: “Sister Tongtong.”
Tongtong…
It had been three years. This was the first time anyone had called me by that nickname since I left Tafeng Village.
Granny and the residents of Wufu Town all called me Xiao Jiu.
I turned around to see a little girl about two years old with twin pigtails, her large eyes fixed on me.
“Sister Tongtong, I want candy too.”
The little girl stumbled toward me, tilting her chubby little face up with a smile.
Not far behind her, I saw my mother hiding behind a door, clutching a swaddled infant and watching me secretly.
It turned out that after I left Tafeng Village, the village’s bloodline really had been restored.
I now had a younger brother and a younger sister.
I gave the little girl a small smile, placed two candies in her hand, and turned to find Granny.
If everyone could live better without me, then so be it.
I had Granny, and that was enough.
The matter at the Village Chief’s house was resolved smoothly. Granny had packed up some raw rice and was preparing to take me back when an old woman rushed forward. She grabbed me by the back of my collar and lashed a whip across my legs.
“You Jinx! Why did you come back?”
“Don’t you know that if you return, someone in the Jiang Family will die?”
“Get out! Get out of here!”
“No, you should die! Just go and die!”
A willow whip the thickness of a pinky finger lashed against my body over and over. My grandmother roared with gritted teeth, looking as though she truly wanted to beat me to death.
I cried as the pain flared, trying to dodge her blows.
In the chaos, I saw my mother holding my brother in one arm while shielding my sister with the other. The last trace of maternal love and guilt in her eyes had vanished.
Both children’s faces were flushed unnaturally; they were clearly suffering from high fevers.
My grandmother threw a piece of candy hard against my face.
I stared at the candy, my body trembling from the pain.
So, was it because I gave my sister two pieces of candy that they had fallen ill with fevers?
Because I gave her candy, I deserved to die? Is that it?!
In the moment before I lost consciousness, the willow whip was still tirelessly striking my body.
That night, I developed a high fever. I was taken to the hospital, tried folk remedies, and drank talisman water, but nothing worked.
Seeing that I was burning up and starting to talk in my delirium, Granny had no choice. Steeling herself, she carried me to the Main Hall and knelt before the Black Coffin.
“Seventh Master, I beg you to save Xiao Jiu.”
“Xiao Jiu is different from the others. She… she belongs to you.”
“The Pawn Ticket is pressed right under your coffin. This old woman isn’t lying to you.”
“I beg of you!”