The instant I saw the corpse, my face went pale with terror. Grandma had told me that whenever I encountered a floating corpse, I must never go into the river, no matter what. And when I encountered a corpse that looked as if it were walking through the river in surrender, then besides getting away from the riverbank at once, I had to run for my life!
Following my line of sight, Zhang Yidan saw the bizarre corpse that had somehow appeared beside Huang Dong in the blink of an eye. He immediately began shouting, "Fuck, Huang Dong, are you an idiot? Get up here! Can't you see there's a dead body beside you?"
All my friends were scared witless. Huang Dong's face had gone pale too. His family lived near this river, and seeing floating corpses on it wasn't a first for him. Relying on the fact that he was the class ringleader, Huang Dong immediately stiffened his face and boldly said, "You chicken, Zhang Yidan. You said you were brave and fearless, so why are you so afraid of death? Haven't you even seen a dead body before? Doesn't one or two float down this river every month?"
The moment he finished speaking, he watched helplessly as the friend beside him was dragged beneath the water as if he had vanished. A string of bubbles immediately surfaced!
Huang Dong's face turned green with fright. He opened his mouth to call for help, but then felt something seize his foot. A tremendous force hauled him toward the water! He lived beside the river, so his swimming skills weren't bad. At first, he thought he had merely been caught by aquatic weeds, but when he tried to swim away, he was abruptly yanked beneath the surface.
"Huang Dong!" Zhang Yidan was extremely loyal. Seeing his friend dragged into the water, he instinctively forgot all about danger and immediately moved to jump in and save him.
From the riverbank, I watched helplessly as Huang Dong and his friend were dragged into the water by that bizarre corpse, but there was nothing I could do. And besides my helplessness, the cold sensation behind me had grown intense again. It was practically an alarm.
"Yidan, don't throw your life away! Run! Go find an adult!" I grabbed Zhang Yidan and ran. I had just seen those hollow black eye sockets of the bizarre corpse seemingly watching me. If I stayed there any longer, something completely beyond my expectations would definitely happen!
Zhang Yidan was dragged away by me, and none of the other friends dared go save them either. They ran with us, crying for their lives. In the end, we found some adults by the riverbank and reported it to the police.
I didn't dare follow them. I pointed toward the place where they had fallen in from a distance, and I also held Zhang Yidan back, not letting him go.
The next day, the principal informed us solemnly that Huang Dong and his friend had both drowned. Later, I heard the adults say that when the two were pulled from the water, their eyes were still wide open. One of the adults who went to retrieve them had also died. It wasn't until the police arrived that the matter was brought under control.
Zhang Yidan and the other friends all rejoiced at having escaped with their lives. After that, they obeyed my every word and didn't dare swim in the river again.
Back then, I wondered whether the reflection in the water that had tugged at my clothes might be the child bride Grandma had married for me.
Could she not be human, but a ghost?
To figure out who my invisible wife-sister was, I became curious about Grandma's magic at a young age. Over the years that followed, I studied all her old books and read about many strange new methods for exorcising ghosts, summoning ghosts, and even raising ghosts.
Although Grandma knew I was studying her things, for some reason, she never stopped me.
Unfortunately, even though I clearly knew these occult arts, I never had the chance to perform or verify them—not until I went to college and entered the workforce.
As for why, perhaps I simply had no opportunity. Or perhaps, in my former life, I had the all-powerful Grandma, and later the constant "warnings" from my invisible wife-sister, leaving my life as calm as an ancient well. Thus, I never had a chance to use those arts.
However, the spells I should have gradually forgotten with time became something I was forced to use after Grandma's death. I even caused a great calamity because of them, sliding onto the sinister path known as the "Ghost-Raising Way."
It was July 16 of that year, and I was in my twenties.
I received a letter Grandma had mailed me. It said that she wouldn't live past July 14, and instructed me not to attend her funeral, not to return to the village, and to forget the people and affairs there. I was never to come back, even in old age. Only then, she said, could I remain safe and enjoy a peaceful life.
My mother had forwarded the letter to me. Judging by the date written on it and the current date, if I believed what it said, Grandma had already been dead for two days.
Unless someone had fixed a person's date of death, or the person had committed suicide, an ordinary person couldn't determine when they would die. Grandma had seemed practically omnipotent to me. How could someone have fixed her date of death?
Grandma lived in a remote place without telephone service. My mother lived in the county town and often went to visit her, so she was the one who understood Grandma's recent situation best.
Thus, I didn't believe the letter. Instead, I used my phone to call my mother and told her what it said.
I asked about Grandma's condition—whether she had recently shown signs of developing senile dementia, whether the relatives and friends in the village were safe, whether she had quarreled with any neighbors, and so on.
My mother was surprised to receive my call, but she didn't take it seriously. She said she had just visited Grandma a while ago, and Grandma had been in excellent health. She told me not to worry. When my mother left, Grandma had even given her a basket of eggs and two bags of glutinous rice. Her relations with the neighbors were good too; when my mother departed, they had all seen her off with warmth and affection.
After listening, I frowned and suddenly remembered Grandma's visit in my dream two nights earlier. Unease welled up inside me.
In the latter half of the night on July 14, I dreamed that Grandma came to see me. Her face was pale, and a little girl in red with an equally deathly-white face sat on her shoulder. The girl smiled and waved at me continuously, without saying a word.
I wanted to walk over, but my wife-sister's hand kept pulling me back. I wanted to turn around and look at her expression, but I couldn't turn my head at all.
When I woke, my entire body was drenched in sweat, yet I felt inexplicably sad.
For over twenty years, whenever I encountered danger, it was my wife-sister who had repeatedly helped me turn disaster into fortune. But what did the dream ultimately represent? What had happened to Grandma?
I looked at the letter again and again. After considering it for a long time, I decided to return to Grandma's home. I hadn't been back for nearly a year, and even if it was dangerous, I couldn't worry about that anymore.
Besides, the handwriting in the letter was extremely messy, and it was Grandma's distinctive script. Hidden inside was an old yellow paper talisman covered in brownish-yellow writing.
I had seen this kind of paper talisman before. It had been written in human blood, which had changed color over time.
When I was young, I often played at drawing ghost symbols with Grandma's books of paper talismans, so I was very sensitive to and familiar with such things.
After studying it carefully, I even figured out what the talisman did. I had seen it in one of Grandma's books before. It was called a Ghost-Passing Talisman, and it warded off evil spirits while communicating with ghosts and deities.
More importantly, it had been written with the vital essence from a person's middle finger, shortening their lifespan. That was why it was classified as a rather domineering talisman. Unless absolutely necessary, no one would draw or toy with one.
Perhaps Grandma meant for me to avoid evil spirits and not throw myself into danger. Or perhaps she had only wanted to protect the letter. Regardless, this abnormal action filled me with worry.
On top of that, I was currently working at a gallery in a shopping mall. Business was poor, and my boss often threatened to fire me because I was taciturn.
This gave me an opportunity. I didn't explain anything, didn't even collect the wages I was owed, and after work, I packed my luggage at my rented room and boarded an express bus back to Grandma's home.
My mother's residence and Grandma's village lay in different directions, so I didn't tell her I was going back. In truth, I was afraid she would worry, because I had a bad feeling about this trip too.
A premonition could be attributed to the sixth sense. It was impossible to explain, yet somehow, it was often foresight from beyond the veil.
Grandma's village had only a little over twenty households. It was the Little Yi Village I mentioned, nestled deep in the mountains and old forests, where transportation had difficulty reaching.
To enter the village, one had to walk several kilometers along a muddy road from Dragon-Carrying Village. Thus, whenever it rained, even moving an inch became difficult.
When I transferred to a minibus and arrived at Dragon-Carrying Village, everything had gone smoothly. I hadn't run into rain, though the fog was rather thick, leaving visibility hazy and low.
I checked the electronic watch on my wrist. It was six in the afternoon. The sky wasn't particularly dark. In the south, night fell late, and it wouldn't become completely dark until after eight. Judging by the time, if I entered Grandma's little village, it would be just around nightfall.
If Grandma was fine, I could still have a hot meal.
Thinking this, I shouldered my simple bundle and headed toward the path leading back to Little Yi Village.
"Young man, you're going to Little Yi Village this late?"
Seeing me walk along the secluded path through the village, an old man who had gotten off the minibus kindly asked me.
"I'm visiting relatives."
"It's late. Why don't you stay in the village for the night? This road isn't easy to walk at night." The old man warned me, a trace of hesitation on his face.
I knew what he wanted to say. Little Yi Village was inconveniently located and the last settlement in the area. Outsiders never went in unless they were visiting relatives. Besides, Grandma was well known, and as time passed, people began saying that Little Yi Village was eerie and full of unclean things. So at night, no matter how pressed for time they were or how urgent the matter, no one dared take the night road into Little Yi Village.
But that was because they didn't know Little Yi Village's circumstances. After all, I had spent most of my life there, and there wasn't a single person inside I didn't know. When I had studied in town, I often didn't leave until five or six in the afternoon. Getting back to Little Yi Village after that, walking the night road was perfectly normal.
I had been young and had never seen a true mountain spirit or ghostly monster, so I had been exceptionally bold. The key was that Grandma never objected when I walked at night, so I had grown used to it.
Seeing that I insisted on going, and realizing I wasn't joking, the old man didn't dare say anything else. No one in this land liked meddling in other people's affairs, especially not when it came to someone heading to Little Yi Village.
What kind of place was Little Yi Village? According to legend, long before the founding of the country, there had been a small town farther in. A plague had carried away every living person there. Little Yi Village had not even been a village originally, merely a charity mortuary outside the town where corpses were stored. It had lain abandoned for who knew how many years, until Grandma arrived and Little Yi Village, with fewer than twenty households, came into being.
Of course, I had only heard this old tale from Old Zhang, a neighbor, and I hadn't taken it seriously.
The night was cool as water, and the narrow path was difficult to traverse.
The shrubs and trees were as dense as ever. When the night wind blew through them, they rustled loudly. Occasionally, night birds cried out, creating an indescribable eeriness.
The mountain road was shrouded in fog. After six or seven meters, nothing could be seen clearly. Even if someone familiar came walking toward me, I would only see a shadow unless I heard their footsteps.
Rustle, rustle, rustle.
I didn't know how long I had been walking when a sound that resembled footsteps, yet also sounded like an animal crossing through the bushes, began echoing beside me. I wasn't some pure and virtuous man, but I still stopped when I heard it, afraid that a mountain snake was borrowing the road beside me. I snapped off a branch and held it in my hand.
But when I stopped, the sound stopped too. This surprised me. Remembering how my friends had often played tricks on me when I returned in the past, a trace of amusement rose in my heart, and I continued forward.
Once I started moving, the sound began again. I wondered whether it might be that rascal Zhang Yidan. When he was young, he often went out at night to catch field mice. Whenever he encountered someone walking at night, he never forgot to play a trick on them. But I'd heard he had married a wife now. Could he have come out to catch mice today because he was giving his wife a private treat?
As I made my way through the fog, a black figure blocked the middle of the road. I saw his back from a distance, and my expression darkened. Wasn't that Zhang Yidan, whom I had played with quite a lot as a child?