Nine Li Pavilion

There was an old folk song passed down for generations in Panshi Ridge:

Early Qingming: sweep the graves and pay respects without a care,

Mid Qingming: descendants, young and old, pay respects to the ancestors on the mountain,

End of Qingming: Wandering Ghosts have no home to return to.

Early, Mid, and End of Qingming were determined according to the lunar calendar.

The Qingming Festival fell on April 4 or 5 on the Gregorian calendar, but its date on the lunar calendar changed every year.

If it fell on the first or second day of a lunar month, it was considered Early Qingming. If it fell on the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, or thirtieth, it was definitely End of Qingming.

As for Mid Qingming, any of the days around the middle of a lunar month could count.

During Early Qingming, people usually swept the graves and made their offerings as usual, without any particular requirements. For Mid Qingming, as many male family members as possible were expected to attend. The ancestors on the mountain were simply the forebears buried there. If a family had many men and was thriving, there was no great problem with going to sweep the graves in a lively group.

End of Qingming, though, was a different matter. According to the Panshi Ridge folk song, on those days, all kinds of Wandering Ghosts who had no one to sweep their graves roamed everywhere.

When sweeping the graves on such a day, people had to burn a stack of yellow paper at every crossroads between leaving home and reaching the graves on the mountain.

The idea was to buy a safe journey and keep Unclean Things from clinging to them.

The folk song had been passed down orally among the ancestors of Panshi Ridge for generations. Even by the time of Jiang Yue's father, everyone still followed those rules. Whenever they returned to their hometown to sweep the graves, they never skipped the rituals. They were especially particular when End of Qingming fell that year, and never took the slightest shortcut.

San Gou might have been young, but he had taken the old generation's traditions to heart.

Seeing Jiang Yue standing there in a daze, San Gou couldn't help reminding him, "Second Brother? Today's the twenty-ninth day of the second lunar month. It's End of Qingming. Could those Unclean Things have made their way into the house?"

His words sent a chill through the two brothers standing outside the courtyard.

Fortunately, a phone call brought them back to the real world.

It was their aunt, her voice anxious on the other end.

Their aunt had apparently only just realized San Gou was missing. When she learned that the little rascal had made it back to Panshi Ridge safe and sound, she let out a sigh of relief. Then she made a point of reminding him of all the ancestral rules for End of Qingming, repeating them over and over. After that, she scolded San Gou for a while before finally hanging up.

"Not bad, San Gou! What time did you get up? You got home after walking dozens of miles of mountain road? Are you Tu Xingsun or Lei Zhenzi?"

"Heh-heh, I barely slept last night. Second Brother, how about we burn some paper?"

San Gou lived up to his name. He'd barely slept all night, yet he was still full of energy, like a dog.

Jiang Yue had no intention of going against the ancestral rules. At his age, he was supposed to be rebellious and independent, but the fact that he'd come all the way from the city to Panshi Ridge to pay respects already showed how much he valued these traditions.

As he watched the yellow paper burn to ash by the roadside, the questions in Jiang Yue's mind only grew.

Though the drizzle continued without a break, there was no skimping on the trip up the mountain to sweep the ancestral graves.

Jiang Yue carried a hoe over his shoulder and a bamboo basket of offerings, now a rare sight in the city, slung behind him. San Gou wore a woodcutter's knife at his waist and carried a snakeskin sack filled with yellow paper, paper ingots, paper silver dollars, and the like.

The brothers burned a stack of yellow paper at every crossroads. After walking for about an hour, they reached a hollow in the hills. Far in the distance, at the end of the road, a pavilion stood at the foot of the mountain. From afar, it looked like a Vermilion Bird spreading its wings, its design striking and unique.

"Second Brother, should we rest at Nine Li Pavilion?"

"Only the dead rest at Nine Li Pavilion. You want to?"

"No."

Whenever an old person in Panshi Ridge passed away, the family would choose a burial site somewhere around Mount Dajin.

Nine Li Pavilion stood at the foot of Mount Dajin.

Funerals usually came with taboos, one of which was that the coffin could not be set down along the route.

But Panshi Ridge had its own particular custom. No matter how strong the pallbearers were, once they reached Nine Li Pavilion, they had to stop and rest.

If they tried to show off and head straight up the mountain, something was likely to go wrong along the way. Either one of the pallbearers would stumble and fall, or the coffin lid would flip open.

The usual explanation was that Nine Li Pavilion lay nearly ten li from Panshi Ridge, most of the way along narrow mountain paths that were difficult to walk. By the time the pallbearers reached it, they would be at the limit of their strength. Without a breather, they wouldn't have the stamina to make it up the mountain.

A stranger explanation held that Nine Li Pavilion was where yin and yang met. The yin energy on Mount Dajin was too strong, and going up without first restoring some yang energy at the pavilion could lead to trouble.

The most sinister version claimed that after a person died, their soul did not immediately depart. If people didn't wait at Nine Li Pavilion, the body would be buried while the soul had nowhere to go, making it easy for evil spirits to form and wreak havoc. They had to wait until both body and soul had returned to the earth and the agitation of the living world had faded before the dead could truly rest in peace.

Locals had no shortage of tales about Nine Li Pavilion.

Legend had it that several hundred years ago, a Yin-Yang Master came to seek dragon veins and select an auspicious burial site. He took a liking to the auspicious land on Mount Dajin and declared that it had the shape of a Crouching Dragon. Judging by its terrain and layout, it was undoubtedly a living dragon.

The surrounding terrain was excellent, with all five elements of the art—dragon, cave, sand, water, and orientation—perfectly aligned.

The only flaw was the lack of a mountain peak guarding the southern side, preventing the grand sight of Five Stars Gathering.

Later, a Yin-Yang Master worked out a way to make up for it. He had a pavilion built south of Mount Dajin in the shape of a Vermilion Bird.

As the saying went, a thousand feet made the terrain, and a hundred feet made the form.

Using a pavilion in place of a mountain meant using a small form to complete a grand layout, leaving something to be desired. But at least it created the appearance of Five Stars Gathering and fulfilled the auspicious omen of peace throughout the land.

Jiang Yue and San Gou had clearly heard all kinds of these tales before.

The brothers burned another stack of paper at Nine Li Pavilion, then found the path up the mountain.

They only made the climb a few times a year, so the path was rarely used and easily overgrown. Without a woodcutter's knife to clear the way, getting up the mountain would have been difficult.

On top of that, the rain had been falling through the Qingming season for days, loosening the soil and rocks and making the path treacherous.

It took the brothers a full forty minutes to reach the Old Jiang Family's ancestral graves. Generations of ancestors, all the way down to their grandfather, had rested in this area.

Jiang Yue was strong, so he handled the weeding and cleanup, repaired the graves, and finally packed fresh earth over them.

San Gou arranged the offerings, lit incense, and burned paper.

They went through the entire ritual at seven or eight graves. Though the brothers were exhausted, everything had gone smoothly.

"Bro, isn't it strange? In past years, when it rained, we could barely get the paper to burn. But today, it's like the rain's made of oil. The yellow paper catches fire without any trouble."

San Gou couldn't sit still. Whenever he had nothing to do, he started imagining things.

After San Gou pointed it out, Jiang Yue realized the paper really had been burning unusually easily today.

Maybe the paper was made differently this year, with some kind of accelerant added?

There were plenty of strange things in the world. One more wouldn't make much difference.

Only after the Spirit Money had turned to ash and there was no chance of it catching fire again did the brothers pack up their things and prepare to head down the mountain.

Anyone used to walking mountain paths knew that going down was harder than going up.

From a metaphysical point of view, going uphill meant surging upward, full of energy and vigor, making it hard for evil spirits to attack. On the way down, the body was tired and the momentum was downward, making people more vulnerable to evil.

As they walked, San Gou suddenly spoke from behind him.

"Second Brother, did you hear that?"

Jiang Yue listened. Apart from the soft patter of the rain, he heard nothing else, so he shook his head.

"No, Second Brother, listen closely. There's a child crying."

Deep in the mountains, in a gloomy graveyard, during the Qingming season—and San Gou claimed he could hear a child crying!

Even Jiang Yue, who was usually pretty bold, broke out in a cold sweat at the words.