"Brother Tian!" Yu Xiaoxue trembled violently. I could feel how cold her whole body was.
But the girl's body heat and the swelling emotions before her chest made me awkwardly prepare to offer a few words of comfort. Then the door suddenly swung open again, as if someone had pushed it from outside!
Sister-in-law clutched my clothes urgently. I sprang to my feet in alarm, even pulling Yu Xiaoxue back two steps with me.
A crowd had gathered outside the door at some point. Every one of them looked sallow and their faces were iron-gray. Had they gone two days without eating? I wondered inwardly.
But I knew these people. They were all uncles and aunts from the village, and quite a few were children.
Most of the young people had gone out to work, leaving mainly the middle-aged, elderly, and children.
Had they all come to burn incense?
Soon, the little warmth remaining on my face slowly froze, because none of these people showed any intention of taking another step forward.
"Uncle Li, Auntie Li, have you come to burn incense?" I suppressed the fear in my heart and called out from far away to the middle-aged couple standing in the center of the crowd.
What made a chill rise sharply in my heart was that Uncle Li and Auntie Li acted as though they hadn't heard me at all, staring blankly at the incense burning in the basin.
Several children sucked on their fingers, giggling like they had just eaten candy. To me, their smiles were ghastly and terrifying.
Could it be...
My heart began pounding wildly. A chill surged toward me from every direction like a flood breaking loose. I realized my calves were trembling uncontrollably, because things I had never believed in were now assaulting my nerves right before my eyes.
"Br... Brother Tian... they... they won't come in to burn incense. When it was my turn to burn incense, they only stood at the door and watched me. As soon as the incense went out, they left. They wouldn't answer even when I called them..." Yu Xiaoxue stammered, her face already white as paper with fright.
After hearing that, my mind exploded with a thunderous roar. Yu Xiaoxue, Yu Xiaoxue, should I call you innocent and naïve, or should I say your nerves are so thick that you have no brains? The incense burned out so fast—didn't you notice anything wrong? That crowd of "things" in front of you is eating it!
I was caught between a rock and a hard place. The incense couldn't be allowed to go out, but burning incense would draw that crowd of "filthy things" here. I had never seen a ghost before, yet now I was suddenly facing a whole group!
"You can see them?"
Yu Xiaoxue nodded like a pecking chick. "Mm!"
"You don't know what they are?" I stared at Yu Xiaoxue in disbelief, speechless. How could this girl have nerves that big?
Yu Xiaoxue first shook her head, then seemed to understand. She covered her mouth with her hand, unable to utter another word.
Still, it wasn't just Yu Xiaoxue. Even I was seeing this kind of ghostly thing for the first time.
Sister-in-law tugged at my clothes. This time, she showed no sign of letting go. I couldn't take even one step forward. Of course, I didn't dare approach them either, and could only watch helplessly as they enjoyed the incense here.
Grandma had told me that anyone who came into contact with wandering souls would suffer a serious illness at best and lose their soul at worst. I had often fallen seriously ill before because I had come into contact with too many wandering souls.
As the three sticks of incense burned down, the fastest-burning one went out. Several of them slowly turned their heads toward Yu Xiaoxue and me, as though they wanted to come in. Yet it seemed that something was blocking them at the doorway.
"Brother Tian, my dad's soul is outside too. But no matter how I've called him these past two days, he won't answer me. Whenever I get close, he leaves... It's the same at home. I clearly saw him standing at the door, but when I ran home, he hid from me..." Yu Xiaoxue said helplessly, her eyes reddening.
Yu Gen's wandering soul was indeed standing outside. It had blended into the crowd, relatively far away.
Seeing that Yu Xiaoxue was showing signs of a mental collapse, I was startled. It seemed she wasn't simply innocent and naïve. Rather, she must have encountered something unbearable before, causing an important stretch of memory to go askew and distorting her perception.
I thought of Zhang Yidan and changed the subject. "What about your Brother Yidan? Have you seen him?"
Only then did Yu Xiaoxue come back to herself. "The day Grandma died, Brother Dan took Sister-in-law out of the village and never came back."
I sighed in relief when I heard that, but then I fell into a daze again. Yidan took his wife with him? Then why had I seen him alone halfway into the village? That was two days after he left the village!
Could it be...
Zhang Yidan was dead?
I felt a little sad. My companion was dead, and Yu Xiaoxue and I now resembled clowns on a stage, being watched by that crowd of "things" outside. Maybe we'd be finished off here in a moment.
I almost went to close the door, but I couldn't leave my spot at all. Sister-in-law held me tightly and wouldn't let me go over. She had directly restricted my movements.
I was thinking of another way when the two doors suddenly began creaking and rattling wildly. I abruptly looked outside. Uncle Li, Auntie Li, and the villagers all wore smiles that were almost smiles, their blue-gray faces filled with indescribable eeriness.
"Burn incense!" Seeing the last stick in the ash basin burn out, I hurriedly told Yu Xiaoxue to keep the incense burning, at least until daybreak tomorrow.
After I arrived, Yu Xiaoxue seemed to have regained some clarity as well. She noticed that something was wrong. Her small body trembled as she shakily took several sticks of incense and lit them.
This batch of incense was just like the one I had burned: strangely uneven in length. It was still "Misfortune Incense." It seemed that neither of us would be getting through tonight peacefully.
Once the incense began burning, the sinister wind around us eased. The wandering souls outside stopped stirring, and most importantly, Sister-in-law let go, allowing me to breathe a temporary sigh of relief.
But then I suddenly remembered that Yu Xiaoxue was probably the only living person left in the village. Why was she also safe and sound in Little Yi Village?
"Xiaoxue, think carefully. What was Grandma doing before she died? What were the... people in the village doing? When did this group of... wandering souls appear?" I asked her without revealing the turmoil in my heart.
When she heard me say the words "wandering souls," all color vanished from Yu Xiaoxue's little face. She hugged her knees and sat down beside me.
"Two days before Grandma passed away, she told everyone in Little Yi Village to pack their things and leave. I didn't know what was happening then. The adults fell into chaos. The families with elderly people at home gradually left, but some of the elderly refused to leave because they were attached to the place."
Yu Xiaoxue recalled the events with lingering fear and glanced at Uncle Li and Auntie Li by the doorway.
Uncle Li was called Li Changkun. He was the village head and the person in charge of the village. It was only natural that he wouldn't leave, and his refusal to leave greatly influenced most of the others.
As for the families with elderly people, they were the ones who had settled in Little Yi Village when Grandma first arrived. They all knew what Grandma was capable of. The younger people, however, might never have encountered anything sinister, so they had no trust in her.
"Grandma tried to persuade them for a long time, but it was useless. Then she told me to persuade Dad and have him discuss it with Uncle Li. But when I went to him, Dad wouldn't listen to me either. After Grandma died, a heavy fog rose over Little Yi Village. Everyone began catching colds and running fevers, and then they started coughing blood."
Yu Xiaoxue's chest began heaving visibly. Then she glanced fearfully at Yu Gen, who was staring into the room from the doorway, and said doubtfully, "I remember catching a cold and running a fever too. But afterward, I slept for two days and two nights, and when I woke up, I was better. Dad seemed to have gotten better too, but he kept hiding from me..."
According to Yu Xiaoxue, Grandma's death had caused a dense fog to fill the roads of Little Yi Village, and it had also been the trigger for everyone's deaths. But in this day and age, people could die from a cold and fever? That was simply too absurd.
I didn't know why everyone in Little Yi Village had died while Yu Xiaoxue hadn't, but I soon blamed it on Grandma. Perhaps she had given Yu Xiaoxue some powerful item to ward off evil.
Like the Ghost-Passing Talisman on me. Thinking of the paper talisman, I immediately took it out and held it in my hand. I tried waving it a few times. The next moment, Yu Xiaoxue and I both saw the bodies of the wandering souls outside become unstable. It seemed that this talisman was the main reason they didn't dare approach us.
The Ghost-Passing Talisman had been drawn with pure-yang essence blood. It could connect with ghosts and gods and ward off demons and evil spirits.
However, I could clearly feel that the talisman's color had faded considerably compared to before. It seemed that although this thing was powerful, it wasn't very durable. When it stopped working, it would probably be the day Yu Xiaoxue and I died.
"Have you ever seen this thing?" Yu Xiaoxue had remained safe for the past few days. The only explanation was that she also had a talisman like this.
"It's Grandma's Ghost-Passing Talisman!" Yu Xiaoxue answered. Her eyes widened as she covered her mouth.
She had probably also seen the wandering souls at the doorway become unstable. If she still thought they were human, she really would have gone mad.
"So you do know what this is." I nodded.
"A few days ago, Grandma burned it into talisman water... and made me drink it. It tasted awful." Yu Xiaoxue's face was frighteningly pale as she struggled to digest the fact that the things outside really were wandering souls.
I slapped my forehead. Right! How could I have forgotten that? The Ghost-Passing Talisman could be burned and dissolved in water to drink, which would double its duration! Holding it in my hand and putting on a show might look imposing, but its effectiveness had been greatly reduced.
I picked up a disposable cup and was just about to set the Ghost-Passing Talisman alight when Sister-in-law reached out and grabbed me.
I abruptly looked outside. Uncle Li and Auntie Li now had their eyes bulging and their faces twisted into ferocious smiles. It seemed they planned to pounce during the gap while I burned the talisman. At that point, no matter how powerful the Door Gods Grandma had drawn were, a group of wandering souls willing to throw away their lives could still kill me through sheer evil energy.
I quickly put the Ghost-Passing Talisman back into my wallet and thought, That was close. I almost got greedy and did something stupid.
Yu Xiaoxue didn't understand and asked why I didn't do the same as her. I could only claim that I wasn't used to eating this sort of thing.
"The incense is about to burn out again." I had Yu Xiaoxue continue burning incense while I began planning what to do next.
Judging from how long the talisman characters took to disappear, I could last two or three days at most. As for how long Yu Xiaoxue could last, I didn't know. But judging from her complexion, it definitely wouldn't be much longer. After all, she had spent several days alone in Little Yi Village, which was filled with filthy things. Even if she didn't die, she couldn't possibly be in good shape.
Once the yin energy overwhelmed her yang energy, death would come immediately. This time, she wouldn't merely catch a cold. She would cough blood, and then her life would be over.
I couldn't think of a solution, because I had never encountered anything like this before. After weighing everything, I decided to look around Grandma's bedroom. If I could find more Ghost-Passing Talismans, that would be ideal. At worst, perhaps I could find some clues Grandma had left behind about what had happened.
So, to save Yu Xiaoxue, I ignored Sister-in-law's objections and stood up to walk toward Grandma's bedroom. But in the blink of an eye, she had grabbed me by the hem of my clothes.
I angrily tried to pry Sister-in-law's hand away. Then I felt something solid and porcelain-like, and half my heart turned cold. Sister-in-law, really? You had to join in on this too?