Children's Rhyme

"Yi Dan, what are you doing here? You're going to scare me to death!" I couldn't help but feel annoyed. Looking at his back, I didn't plan to go closer, because I sensed something ahead that my instincts told me not to approach.

Sister Wife's hand seemed to be pulling me from behind, but I knew that even if I suddenly turned around, I wouldn't see her.

"Is that Tian Ge... Tian Ge... Please don't go back."

Zhang Yi Dan spoke to me with a trembling voice. He didn't turn around. In his silhouette, he wore dirty clothes, as if he had been soaked in mud, and his shoes were made of paper.

I heard that his voice wasn't quite right, and my face turned a little grim: "You brat, were you planning to play ghost and scare me?"

Seeing his figure, I really wanted to kick him so he wouldn't scare people like this at night again. But just as I was about to get closer, a gust of chilling wind blew right in front of me, and the fog instantly blocked my vision.

I immediately stopped in my tracks, and when the fog cleared, Zhang Yi Dan's shadow was nowhere to be seen.

I lowered my head and pondered, could I have been hallucinating? Or was Zhang Yi Dan, who had been squatting nearby catching field mice every day recently, just playing a prank on me?

It felt like there was still more than half the way to Xiao Yi Village. Although I felt that what just happened was a bit supernatural, I didn't plan to return to Kang Long Village, because when I turned around, I sensed something pulling at my clothes again, and it was even stronger than the pull towards Xiao Yi Hamlet.

Even if I could know the existence of danger, sometimes I had to choose the lesser of two evils.

So, I could only brace myself and head back to Xiao Yi Hamlet.

Standing where Zhang Yi Dan had stood, there was a patch of wet, yellow water. I didn't know where the water came from on the otherwise dry road. The fishy smell was quite pungent. It seemed Zhang Yi Dan might have fallen into a sewer and was in a bad mood, so he decided to mess with me.

Sister Wife's warning and Zhang Yi Dan's strange disappearance gave me a bad omen for this night journey. As I walked, I started paying attention to my surroundings.

However, after walking for another half an hour, I didn't find anything strange anymore, and my heart relaxed a little.

Ahead, the thick fog gradually revealed the appearance of a stone bridge about two meters wide. The heavy stone in my heart finally fell.

It was an ancient bridge called "Si Bridge." I heard from the village elders that it had already existed when Xiao Yi Hamlet was built. They all said it was before the founding of the country. I thought it must have been when Xiao Yi Hamlet was still Yi Zhuang.

But regardless of its age, the other end of the bridge was the village, and I could vaguely see the dim lights of the village.

I touched the ancient bridge, remembering that when I was a child, Zhang Yi Dan and other friends and I used to swim in the river under the bridge. The stream water was clear back then, and you could see the pebbles at the bottom.

Under the moonlight, I looked down at the river nostalgically, and as I looked, my hair stood on end!

Under the bridge, a group of people dressed as monks were using bamboo poles to scoop bodies onto the shore, while several children walked in a line, hopping and chanting a nursery rhyme by the river.

"A thousand flowers, ten thousand flowers, float, float, sprinkle, sprinkle, pile, pile, build a snowman, not afraid of the cold, not afraid of the freeze..."

These bodies included children, women, and the elderly. They were somewhat pale from soaking in the water, and some even had maggots crawling on their faces. Their contorted postures of death were terrifying. After being scooped up, the monks piled them into small mountains, and another group of monks performed rituals, sprinkled holy water, and then buried them.

Sister Wife suddenly tugged at my clothes from behind. I, who had been about to walk closer, immediately stopped. I was so shocked that I couldn't move.

A gust of icy water mist blew past. I looked down at the bridge again, but found nothing there!

The water still flowed under the small bridge, and the monks and children seemed to have never existed. I was full of doubt. Could it be that I was too tired and hallucinating? Or did the thick fog conjure a mirroge?

But what about the nursery rhyme? Could a mirage transmit sound from a thousand miles away?

"Tian Ge! Why are you still standing there? Hurry back to the village."

As I was pondering the strange phenomenon under the bridge, a girl's voice called me from the other end of the bridge.

I was startled by the shout and turned around abruptly. I breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out to be Yu Xiao Xue, my childhood follower.

She was a snotty-nosed little girl back then, but now she had the appearance of a beautiful young lady. If I remembered correctly, she should be sixteen or seventeen this year. She had even written to me before, saying she wanted to go to Guangdong to work, but I stopped her by saying she was too young and didn't have an ID card. After all, I couldn't let the only "fruit" left in the hamlet be harmed by bad people.

As I was looking at her, I noticed her father standing by her door. It was Uncle Yu Gen. Uncle Gen looked at me blankly, without speaking.

Xiao Yi Hamlet was still a wasteland when Grandma arrived. It took decades for people to gradually settle here, so there were many outsiders from all over.

"Why are you here?" I greeted her and walked towards their house, intending to say hello to Uncle Gen.

Xiao Xue ran over and said to me sadly, "Tian Ge, why did you come back so late? Grandma has been gone for two days. Let's go to Grandma's place."

Hearing this, my heart sank instantly. It seemed what was inevitable had happened. Grandma was truly gone.

My eyes couldn't help but well up with tears, but I quickly pinched my brow to hide it, thinking that I should cry in the mourning hall.

Uncle Gen didn't walk with us. He just stood silently in the distance, watching me. I didn't know why Uncle Gen, who used to be so caring and attentive to me, had become so taciturn.

The sky had completely darkened. As I passed by, I noticed that the lights in every house were already on, but the doors were still tightly shut. This wasn't surprising, as there were no streetlights in the village, and people basically didn't want to move around after dark.

However, besides Uncle Gen, I also noticed other neighbors standing far away at their doorways watching me enter the village. I was still some distance away from them, so I didn't greet them. I thought to myself, at least you guys knew I was back.

I hurried to my Grandma's house. White mourning decorations were already hung at the door, and the mourning hall was set up. There was a paper horse at the door, as well as paper figures of a man and a woman.

Besides these, there was no one nearby. According to the usual custom, there should have been three to five tables set up, with relatives and neighbors gathering to chat and drink tea.

However, I thought that since Grandma was a Spirit Medium respected by the neighbors, her passing might be different.

The two doors were each pasted with two "door gods" drawn by Grandma. They were crooked, but the brushstrokes were very vigorous. On the doorpost, there was also a white paper with Grandma's surname, name, birth and death dates. I only glanced at it and realized that Grandma had written it herself, with extremely messy handwriting.

It seemed that her premonition of her impending death was true.

In the main hall, a coffin covered in red paper lay quietly. This was the treatment only afforded to those who died a natural death.

There was no one keeping vigil inside, and the incense in front of the coffin had burned out. My heart skipped a beat before I could even feel sad. The vigil incense should never go out. Had no one come to light the incense?

I glanced at Yu Xiao Xue. She shook her head, her face a little pale. "Tian Ge, just now... no, just a few minutes ago I lit it. I saw you at the village entrance and went to pick you up. How did it go out again?"

Grandma's house was located in a higher part of the village, with no neighbors immediately adjacent, so she could see the village entrance. It was normal for Yu Xiao Xue to spot me returning home.

It seemed that these merchants nowadays were really bad, making money even from the dead. The incense burned too quickly.

I quickly stepped into the house, but the moment I crossed the threshold, I couldn't help but shiver all over, feeling a cold wind blowing from all directions. Sister Wife also seemed to pull me.

I had no choice. Grandma had passed away, and lighting incense for her was essential. I knelt before the coffin without hesitation and lit four sticks of incense.

After blowing them out, I placed three in the ash basin in front and one in the ash basin behind.

There were no abnormalities.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed Sister Wife wasn't entirely right; nothing bad happened to me, did it?

After standing up, I chose a straw mat to the left of the coffin and sat down. Yu Xiao Xue glanced around, saw me sit down, then, shrinking her neck, she also walked in and sat to the right of the coffin.

Although we weren't directly wearing mourning clothes, it wasn't inappropriate for Yu Xiao Xue to keep vigil with me. When neighbors' elders passed away in the past, we friends would occasionally sit by the coffin and chat with the bereaved.

Besides, her family had a good relationship with ours. When I wasn't around, Yu Xiao Xue often pestered Grandma, calling her "Grandma." Since Grandma's house always had plenty of candy and cookies, Yu Xiao Xue, being a little glutton, often stole offerings Grandma had prepared for the spirits.

Grandma's death left both of us feeling hollow. We had suddenly lost our backbone. Although we hadn't seen each other for a long time, there was nothing to talk about.

It was eerily quiet inside and out. I could feel the Yin energy gathering little by little, so I prepared to say something to break the silence.

But suddenly, I saw the smoke from the three incense sticks in front become chaotic. I frowned.

The three incense sticks burned unevenly, the left one long, the right one short, and the middle one burned the fastest. Seeing it was the shortest, the words "ominous incense" immediately surfaced in my mind, and I felt something bad was about to happen.

"Grandma... I'm back late. Please don't be angry. The incense is burning fast, please bear with me." I felt that deceased elders would get angry if the incense fire went out during the vigil, so I stroked the cold coffin to comfort her. However, I discovered something that shocked me:

The coffin had not been nailed shut.

A cold, chilling sensation came from within, making my heart pound wildly. Why weren't there any nails? Did the funeral director forget?

"Tian Ge... I'm a little scared... I want to sit next to you..." Yu Xiao Xue said fearfully, looking at me.

"Okay, come over then." I forced myself to stay calm. Let alone Yu Xiao Xue, my heart was pounding like a drum, and the surrounding Yin energy felt excessively dense.

The coffin hadn't been nailed shut for two days, and there wasn't a soul around the house, as if everyone had forgotten Grandma had passed away.

In previous years, when other elders died, it would never have been this desolate. Someone should have been handling the funeral arrangements.

I also noticed no signs of anyone cooking communal meals nearby. Had no one visited since Grandma passed away?

This was definitely not a good omen.

I watched Yu Xiao Xue walk towards me, and my heart tightened. After all, I had warned Sister Wife to the point of being overly cautious.

But fortunately, Sister Wife didn't pull my sleeve this time. Yu Xiao Xue didn't seem to pose any danger to me.

"Xue, where is everyone else?" I looked around. White paper had been pasted everywhere, making the hall look bleak and sorrowful.

BANG!

Before Yu Xiao Xue could answer me, the two old doors suddenly slammed shut in the wind. Not only was I startled, but Yu Xiao Xue jumped up and let out a cry, clutching my arm.