Oil-Paper Bag

The cold moonlight shone through the window, illuminating the tranquil night sky.

Inside was a family of four, eerie yet peaceful.

Before the ancestral tablets in the old house, the candle and incense smoke drifted away like fleeting clouds.

The old mother brought out several steamed dishes from the kitchen, as if displaying the full extent of her lifelong cooking skills. She fussed with her sleeves, arranging the dishes on the table with great ceremony, like actors playing every role in an opera taking the stage one by one.

Jiang Xueming unscrewed the bottle of strong liquor beside him and poured a cup for his father. He showed no intention of pouring another.

He usually kept away from cigarettes and alcohol, and that was just as true when he came home.

Seeing Old Jiang raise his eyebrows, ready to cause trouble again,

"Son, have a drink with me."

Jiang Xueming said, "I don't drink."

Old Jiang said again, "Have a drink with me."

Jiang Xueming said, "I won't drink."

Old Jiang's eyes bulged, the bloodshot whites suddenly taking on a menacing look. He slammed the table.

"I told you to drink! You dare disobey me?!"

Xiao Qi said nothing from the side. She just watched.

Jiang Xueming immediately pulled a loudspeaker from his backpack, one he had prepared well in advance.

Facing his father, he shouted in an even louder voice, his tone calm: "I won't drink."

The roar of sound made Old Jiang turn pale. He seemed startled, and finally picked up his chopsticks without another word about drinking together.

"Your voice isn't as loud as his anymore, and you're not as strong as him either." His mother looked at her husband with sorrowful reproach and put food in his bowl. "You should know your place."

The mood eased.

Xiao Qi was about to start eating. She had just reached for her bowl and chopsticks when Jiang Xueming stopped her.

Then she saw Mr. Xue Ming put down the loudspeaker and take two lunch boxes from his backpack. They were filled with food he had prepared in advance.

Xiao Qi remembered that Mr. Xue Ming had made it himself. Understanding what he meant, she took the lunch boxes.

Brother Seven whispered, "You don't even dare eat the food at home?"

Xue Ming didn't answer. He silently opened the lunch boxes, took out two pairs of bamboo chopsticks, and handed one pair to Brother Seven.

That made his mother's face darken, though she lacked Old Jiang's thunderous voice and imposing manner.

The violent resentment in her eyes lasted only a brief moment before vanishing without a trace.

In the dim light of the electric lamp, she served her husband food, as if staking out territory at the dinner table. Her chopsticks naturally reached toward Jiang Xueming's bowl.

Xue Ming picked up his bowl and chopsticks and stood at once. "No need. I'll eat this."

His mother said anxiously, "You can't go on like this. You come home and won't even eat the food here? Do you know, we wanted to look for you through the TV station's reunion program? I even wanted to post online to find you, but—"

Xue Ming cut her off at once, lying without blushing or missing a beat. "My wife made this for me. I can't let it go to waste."

"You'd rather eat food made by some outsider than your mother's cooking?" His mother looked utterly dejected, like a victim whose child had been taken from her. "What kind of vixen is that woman? How dare she bewitch my precious boy?!"

At that moment, a damp, icy wind poured in from outside, and a cold gust swept through the room.

The candles on the ancestral tablets went out, too.

Only then did Xiao Qi realize something was wrong. Her Inspiration was sounding the alarm. The two old people's gazes were like the stingers on wasps, ready to blind her. Just meeting their eyes made the corners of hers feel dry and sore.

She turned her head and tugged at Xue Ming's sleeve, wanting to warn him.

But when she turned, she saw their shadows in the lamplight.

She looked farther through the gap beside the table. From the same angle, the two old people had no shadows.

Before she could say anything,

Xue Ming's voice turned cold as he began making up a story.

"Mom, stop calling her an outsider. Even the dog at home recognizes her, but you don't. These past few years, thanks to her, my mother-in-law hasn't made things difficult for Bailu and me. My father-in-law was even willing to pay for our wedding and mortgage his house at the bank to help us start a business. It's just that I was useless and ended up drowning in debt. I finally managed to get some money, so I thought I'd bring it back to support you in your old age."

At the mention of the wedding, Old Jiang immediately shouted, "You call that a wedding?! Who in the two hundred households in the towns and county doesn't know me? They don't recognize that woman. You think you could get married? You think she could enter my home?"

By the time Xiao Qi heard that, she was completely stunned.

Now she didn't care at all about the old couple's condition. Whether they were alive or spirits didn't matter much anymore.

She thought briefly about the Jiang family's standards for admission, and the slice of meat she had just brought to her mouth dropped back into her bowl in shock.

Jiang Xueming's mother glanced at the cash on the tea table. It was all real banknotes her son had brought home. At the mention of debt, her eyelid twitched, and she slowly spoke.

"My precious boy, we support whatever you do out there. As long as you bring money home, that's a good thing. As for how much you owe, and who you owe it to—you need to be very careful and settle all your accounts. Society is a bad place nowadays. Don't think too highly of certain people. Your father and I won't hurt you. We only want what's best for you."

At those words, anger flared in Xiao Qi's eyes. She felt there was no way she could keep eating this meal.

Jiang Xueming picked up the loudspeaker again and blasted them both, his perfunctory tone unmistakable. "Thanks for your concern, Mom and Dad!"

The loudspeaker's volume was turned up to the maximum. Its crackling static scattered the cold wind in the room and blew the incense smoke off the ancestral tablets. The candles relit themselves, an utterly eerie sight.

"There are a few other things." Jiang Xueming set down the loudspeaker and picked up the fake shoebox. "She and I are selling these. They're counterfeit."

Old Jiang's eyes drifted toward the cash. He swallowed greedily, then scolded him, "You're committing crimes! It'll end badly for you. No wonder you're in debt! You should've listened to me and gone back to work at the battery factory."

Jiang Xueming's mother gathered the cash and sat beside her husband. The two of them secretly counted it beneath the table. Their faces were sour, but the corners of their mouths kept lifting.

"Should I go turn myself in now?" Jiang Xueming asked. "You'd better think it over. The money you're holding is all dirty money."

Xiao Qi burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at? You're dressed in all kinds of ridiculous stuff. You're an embarrassment to me." Old Jiang muttered under his breath, no longer as fierce as before. "You got a little money and think you're so capable? If you dare tell anyone about this, I'll be the first to beat you to death."

Before Jiang Xueming could reply—

—his mother instead grabbed her husband by the hair and yanked hard. "Why are you so hard on him? You're only tough on your own family! You could never earn this much in your entire life! You can barely read, and when I asked you to go to the neighborhood committee and sign for the minimum-income assistance, you couldn't even manage that! Our son comes home once every few years, and all he gets is scolded. Then you start arguing! Is this any way to run a home?"

The scene was too chaotic for Xiao Qi to watch. Just hearing a little more made her mental strength plummet, like she'd grabbed a live wire—her whole body went numb.

Jiang Xueming said nothing. He waited for his mother to vent all her anger, until the shouting in the room gradually died down.

Old Jiang lowered his head in a wounded sulk and drank one glass of liquor after another.

"I'll be blunt." Jiang Xueming felt as if every second in this house were spent over a blazing fire. "Bailu was taken away while shipping goods at the warehouse. She's in the detention center now. I'm worried, and this can't wait."

Old Jiang suddenly grew anxious. "Can you get her out? She still has to get married!"

His mother was just as frantic. "That's right, there's the bride price too! We planned to save it for your wedding. Now that you're married, that money needs to come back to the family."

"You don't need to worry about it." Xue Ming spoke frankly, his words coming fast as he tried to leave at once. "I'll handle it. I'm leaving tonight. There's nowhere for the two of us to sleep here anyway."

His mother looked despondent. "You're not staying the night? Leaving in such a hurry?"

Old Jiang stopped drinking and abruptly stood up to face Xue Ming, but his eyes stared fixedly at Xiao Qi. "Is this wife of yours any good at raising kids? I don't trust her. There's a shared bed in the main room, big enough for four. Don't even think about leaving."

The implication behind those words nearly made Xiao Qi's jaw hit the floor.

Xiao Qi hurriedly asked, "One room? The four of us?"

Even Jiang Xueming, as laid-back as he was, should have turned into a wrathful deity by now.

He picked up the loudspeaker.

The old couple promptly covered their ears, looking pitiful and utterly alone.

He put the loudspeaker down.

The old couple went right back to their aggressive expressions.

Xue Ming couldn't understand it. He really couldn't. Did this loudspeaker have some kind of magical power? Thank goodness he'd come prepared. Otherwise, who in this family would actually listen to him?

Perhaps only that nameless dog would be willing to hear him call out a few times.

What to eat, what to wear, where to live.

Whom to love, whom to hate, what work to do.

The most basic needs of an ordinary person had all become luxuries in this family.

Xue Ming wanted so little. He simply hoped to settle the debts owed to his family, once and for all.

He didn't want to hurt these two familiar strangers who had raised him, but he had to protect himself too.

He was a very earnest person. He never let a grudge linger overnight, and no emotion could knock him down in an instant. No anger could stop him from carrying on with life alongside his younger sister.

But right now, he was shaking with rage. He had never been this angry, no matter how many awful things life had thrown at him.

The last time he'd been this angry was when he had taken Bailu and run far away.

Xue Ming seemed to be struggling with the hardest question in the world. "Why is it that the two of you can just open and close your mouths and say a few casual words, and decide someone else's whole life?"

The other three people in the room said nothing.

Xiao Qi didn't dare make a sound. In those few brief seconds, she'd felt as if Mr. Xue Ming had become someone else.

It was as if ice that had never melted in countless ages had turned into molten lava, scorching hot. Even a light touch would cause a third-degree burn.

Her Inspiration told her that this wasn't the time to speak.

For a moment, she even wanted to slip out the door and run back to the station to hide.

"He's going to rebel. He's going to rebel," Old Jiang muttered, tugging at his wife's sleeve. "I told you, you can't raise him right. He's like a wolf cub from the mountains. One day he'll run off and eat us."

Jiang Xueming's mother slumped and shakily sat back down. Her eyes were full of terror. She said nothing more.

"Did you buy Bailu and me?" Jiang Xueming took an oil-paper bag from his travel pack. It was a gift from Mr. Chen of the paper funeral-goods shop, who had asked him to bring it to his parents. He left the gift there and prepared to go.

He didn't intend to say much. He asked only to tear away the last shred of pretence.

Old Jiang didn't dare speak. The last trace of sound died in his throat.

Jiang Xueming's mother's eyes flickered. At his question, her expression changed dramatically, as if struck by lightning.

"You're not going to answer? I don't care. I'm leaving. Mr. Chen asked me to bring you this." Xue Ming tore open the bag, his expression turning puzzled.

Inside were two bundles of spirit money, bearing the account numbers of the Bank of Heaven and Earth and the seal of the Jade Emperor.

At that moment—

—when the two old people saw the spirit money, they froze as if struck by a restraining spell.

They seemed to finally understand that they had been dead for a very long time. They had simply left behind feelings of reluctance and incompleteness, along with an intense longing for something they could never have, in this old house.

The food on the table went rotten in an instant. The bowls and chopsticks weathered away like snow beneath the spring sun, rapidly crumbling into dust. The furniture in the old house did the same, creaking as it decayed.

Xiao Qi and Xue Ming immediately stepped back. In the space of a single breath, the electric light flickered, and the old house became dilapidated, as if no one had lived there for a very long time.

The spirit money from the Bank of Heaven and Earth scattered in the cold wind, and the bodies of the two members of the Jiang family crumbled into dust.

At that moment, Jiang Xueming could just make out his parents' still, vacant faces.

After a long while, the room grew so quiet that even a falling pin would have been heard.

Jiang Xueming finally believed that his parents had died long ago. What he had just seen had only been an illusion created by spirits.

Only the cold moonlight shone over the large black dog at the entrance, as if the watchdog had been guarding this strange and terrifying family all along.

Xiao Qi tugged at Xue Ming's sleeve and said cautiously, "That was a Spirit Calamity. It's your first time seeing one. I noticed the two of them didn't have shadows. They must have been spirits for a very long time. That Boss Chen from the paper funeral-goods shop must be a very capable man."

Jiang Xueming had even more questions now. Had Mr. Chen from the paper funeral-goods shop asked him to bring the oil-paper bag so he could see his parents one last time? Had he personally come to send them on their way?

Frowning deeply, he crouched down by the threshold again, wanting to pet the family dog.

But the black dog seemed to have fulfilled its duty. It ran out into the wilderness and wouldn't let Jiang Xueming pet it. After barking at the old house a few times, it dashed back toward the mountains.

The ordinary man didn't linger long in memories of the past. Without a word, he picked up the cash, gathered his belongings, and prepared to return to the hotel in Pingyang County for the night.

On the wooden rack in the dirt yard, the dried radishes had been riddled with bugs, reduced to brittle husks that crumbled at a touch.

Xiao Qi followed Xue Ming as they set off on the return journey.

The clear, bright stars in the sky were still winking at them.

"Xue Ming, were you and Bailu both bought by them?" Brother Seven asked softly, as if afraid of upsetting him.

"That's what I suspect, but I don't have proof." Jiang Xueming didn't avoid the question. He casually tore down a missing-person notice from a roadside telephone pole, then found the one the Jiang family had put up beneath layers of old posters and advertisements. "They tried all sorts of ways to find me: putting up flyers, calling on friends and relatives, trying to get on television. But they never called the police. That's when I figured it out."

Xiao Qi asked again, "Doesn't it make you sad?"

Xue Ming gave no sign of an answer.

Xiao Qi added angrily, "People who buy kids from traffickers are no good! Good riddance! Let's pop the champagne!"

Jiang Xueming still said nothing. He was simply going from one place to another.

Xiao Qi seemed to want to sympathize and empathize with him, to comfort him. "That's true. They did raise you, after all."

"Didn't I tell you before?" Jiang Xueming answered seriously. "I don't care."

Suddenly, in those brief ten or so seconds,

Xiao Qi's nose inexplicably began to sting. She scratched her head, then burst into tears.

Leaning against Jiang Xueming's shoulder, she had no idea where the sorrow and grief in her heart had come from. She was filled with maternal affection, and aside from that affection being a little warped, there was nothing wrong with her—

—she just felt that this man was really strange.

Jiang Xueming turned his head to look at Brother Seven, curious where all that sentimentality had come from.

"Crying won't help. If you could make things happen by crying, then all those female fans could camp outside Daniel Wu's house and bawl until they got him, right? That's not how it works. You know you don't have what it takes."

Brother Seven slapped Mr. Xue Ming on the shoulder, like she was smacking a disobedient kid, laughing and crying at the same time.

Jiang Xueming didn't pay it much mind. He opened his notebook and phone and added another item to the ledger, including the three hundred thousand he should have given away.

"Dump Truck Iaijutsu: With my current funds, I can use it thirty-one times."