The Strange Old Woman

His head throbbed as if it were splitting apart, his mouth was parched, and his body felt so heavy it seemed not to belong to him.

Just opening his eyes took Hu Ma a long time, and dizziness kept washing over him in waves.

He was half leaning in what looked like a main room. A dust-caked Eight Immortals table stood in the middle, surrounded by several low stools. Against the wall was a cooking hearth built from blackened stones.

A few paper figures leaned against the wall, their faces smeared with paint into eerie grins. Yellow and red talismans, covered in crooked runes, were pasted all over the room.

"Clatter."

He instinctively tried to move, but both shoulders were heavy and aching.

An iron chain descended from the rafters. Its end split in two, each side attached to an iron hook.

Now the two hooks had pierced Hu Ma's shoulder blades, their bloody points jutting out from his chest.

He had been locked here for six or seven days.

And even now, he still had no idea why he was being held here.

He had just graduated from college and found a promising job as a security guard at an advanced laboratory said to be at the cutting edge of the world. Then an explosion had come out of nowhere, and he had floated away.

He drifted in a daze, weightless and aimless. He had no idea how long it lasted. Then a strange voice drew him toward it, and suddenly he felt himself plummeting downward at incredible speed.

When he opened his eyes again, he was here, locked up.

For the past six or seven days, an old woman had come every night to sit in front of him. She silently recited scriptures and incantations, waving strange talismans. Sometimes she even tortured him, inflicting pain like being skinned over a boiling oil pot. Afterward, she would feed him strange meat and medicinal broth.

But no matter what he asked or did, she neither heard nor saw him.

With those two iron hooks piercing him, and dizziness knocking him unconscious from time to time, there was no way he could resist whatever she did.

"Why is she keeping me locked up?"

"What strange things is she chanting at me every day?"

"..."

Hu Ma had no answers.

During this time, he kept getting dizzy, feeling as if he were drifting back and forth. All the torments had left him even weaker and more exhausted.

Whenever he woke up, his mouth was parched and his body felt as if it had been completely hollowed out.

A water vat stood three meters away, by the earthen wall.

The chain from the rafters looped over a beam and could slide along it, so in theory Hu Ma could move around the room.

But moving would undoubtedly cost him dearly in pain.

It took him a full few dozen seconds to steel himself against the pain in both shoulder blades and slowly get to his feet.

Then, trembling, he braced himself against the wall and inched toward the water vat.

The bones in his shoulders scraped against the iron hooks, making a strange, cold sound.

A little blood slowly seeped from his wounds as he moved.

But not much. Perhaps he had already bled nearly dry.

At last he reached the vat and saw the clear water inside, with half a gourd floating on top.

Hu Ma scooped up a small amount of water. His arm could barely support it, so he brought it to his lips and gulped it down.

The heat in his body and the pain in his head seemed to ease a little.

But once one gourd was pressed down, another bobbed up: his thirst was gone, but now he was hungry.

Hu Ma instinctively looked at the coarse porcelain bowl covering something on the Eight Immortals table.

After a long hesitation, he forced himself over.

He lifted the bowl and saw a square piece of reddish boiled meat on the plate beneath it.

To a starving man, it was a powerful temptation, but he still resisted.

Every day, the strange old woman did more than chant scriptures and incantations at him. From time to time, she fed him all sorts of bizarre things: herbs, talisman water she had boiled, and, most importantly, this unidentified meat.

Whether Hu Ma had an appetite or not, she forced it into his mouth, making him chew and swallow. Every time he ate it, the experience was agonizing.

That was why, no matter how hungry he was, he didn't want to touch this piece of meat.

"While she's gone, I have to escape. I have to get out of here..."

Hu Ma silently warned himself, recognizing that this was the most urgent matter.

After making sure no one was around, he endured the dull ache and raised his right hand to grip the iron hook that pierced his left shoulder.

Little by little, he strained to push the hook out of his flesh.

A violent wave of pain crashed through his brain. Even his very brain throbbed with every pulse. The hook had grown into his flesh.

But Hu Ma gritted his teeth and kept trying, bit by bit.

"Creak..."

Just as the pain kept worsening, a gust of wind blew the door open, dimming the light in the room.

"Is that strange old woman back?"

Hu Ma's heart lurched. He turned to look, but the person who entered was a short, skinny, middle-aged man.

The sunlight pouring in behind him blurred his face.

"Someone from outside?"

Hu Ma was overjoyed at the sight of the newcomer.

In all these days, he had seen only the strange old woman and a little girl in red with a red ribbon in her hair. This was the first time he had seen anyone else, and his desire to call for help surged at once.

But before he could speak, he suddenly held back.

If this man was the old woman's accomplice, wouldn't calling for help earn him even worse torment?

Besides, even if he didn't cry for help, the man should have noticed the iron hooks in his shoulders.

If he were an outsider, wouldn't he find them strange?

As Hu Ma stared at the man, trying to judge from his reaction whether he was worth asking for help, he saw that the man didn't react to his appearance at all. He merely turned stiffly, as if looking around, then asked woodenly:

"Where's the old woman?"

"..."

"Damn, judging by the looks of it, he knows that old woman..."

Hu Ma thought, his hope of getting help fading. But perhaps he could try to get some information out of him?

"She went out."

He tried to look calm. "What do you need her for?"

The man's voice was wooden. "I'm here to settle a score with her."

"Settle a score?"

Hope rose in Hu Ma's heart again. "Is this man that strange old woman's enemy?"

"She went out. She often goes out during the day. Going by the time, she'll probably be back soon."

Suppressing his excitement, he spoke slowly. "You..."

"She'll be back soon, so I'd better hurry."

The wooden man suddenly turned to look at Hu Ma. He was no longer standing with his back to the sunlight, but his face was still impossible to make out.

His voice was shrill and broken, as if he lacked the strength to speak. "I was doing just fine in the Woods, but the old woman sent someone to chop me down. Then she had me cut into four pieces and made into a coffin. Tell me..."

"...Wasn't that a blood feud?"

"..."

"?"

Hu Ma should have gone along with whatever he said, but the man's words suddenly struck him as wrong, and he froze in confusion.

"I was only a year or two away from gaining spiritual power."

The man continued, his voice carrying a thin, wavering wail. "But the old woman had to ruin my future. I lay in the earth wrapped around Old Master Cui's corpse, smelling him rot and stink a little more each day. I felt maggots crawling through his body, felt the foul water seeping off him and soaking into me. Tell me, don't I have a blood feud with the old woman?"

As Hu Ma listened, the hair on his scalp suddenly prickled. He stumbled backward several steps.

Only then did he realize the man's gait had been strange from the start.

His knees didn't seem to bend at all. He moved stiffly, like a plank sliding across the ground.

And as the man grew more agitated and edged closer, Hu Ma's vision blurred. At last, he saw the face that had remained hidden beneath the black robe and black hat... What lay under that hat wasn't a face at all.

It was a board, filthy and black.

Even now, he could smell the stench rising from it.

A coffin lid.

Yet this coffin lid was cursing him in a shrill, furious voice. "I came to settle the score with her."

"She ruined my spiritual cultivation, so I'll take away her grandson..."

"..."

Hu Ma instinctively tried to run, but his body was too weak, and his legs gave way.

His head spun. He could only watch as the coffin lid moved in to press against his face.

The stench of decay and its shrill voice poured into his head through his ears and nostrils, nearly making him pass out.

"Cough!"

But just then, he heard a light cough from the doorway, followed by an elderly voice:

"You gained a little spiritual power, then got lost in the Woods and harmed people. You even spared no pregnant women. I thought your cultivation hadn't come easily, so I planned to let you guard Old Master Cui's corpse for twenty years and then set you free. Not only were you ungrateful, you came to harm my grandson..."

"Then this time, I might as well burn you!"

"..."

Right after that, he heard a terrified shriek. Yin wind swept through the room, and he felt a gale slash across his face.

When he could see again, a smooth coffin lid lay on the ground.

A girl with two little horn-shaped buns crouched on the board like some kind of beast, smiling at him.

And the sinister old woman stood silently by the door, her back hunched.