The fifteenth day of the seventh month was the Ghost Festival, also known as the Festival of Hungry Ghosts.
Early that morning, the streets of Huqi Town in Guangling Commandery had already filled with stalls selling incense, candles, paper offerings, and sacrificial goods. Beneath the gray sky, the place truly carried a hint of eerie gloom.
Behind an incense and paper-offering stall at the entrance to Yanghua Street, a hemp-clad boy had just stretched his legs, numb from squatting, when he saw an old brothel attendant in a green padded jacket open the doors of the Spring Splendor House, cursing all the while.
A thin boy in plain cloth clothes darted out through the doors, looked around, then hurried toward him.
The hemp-clad boy curled his lip and looked at the frail youngster before him, a small, skinny boy of twelve or thirteen with a pair of bright eyes. "Well, well, if it isn't Master Lü! When are you getting yourself a green outfit and a promotion to brothel attendant? Then maybe I can bask in a little of your glory and make a few coins too?"
The thin boy rolled his eyes, but pulled a yellow steamed bun from his sleeve and tossed it to him...
"I told you ages ago you wouldn't sell paper offerings here, but you wouldn't listen! Serves you right, wearing yourself out for nothing. You'd have been better off trying the City God Temple first thing this morning."
"Those plague-ridden whoremongers... Anyway, what are you doing out so early? You've got no parents or ancestors to pay respects to. Out emptying chamber pots?"
The thin boy shook his head. "The madam's going to the City God Temple in a bit. She told me to buy some spirit money and paper offerings ahead of time so she can burn them for her dead father!"
The pockmarked old fruit seller beside them brightened. "Ha! Now that's a madam with money and a dutiful heart. She'll want a basket of fruit for the offerings too, won't she?"
The thin boy shook his head. "No need for that. She packed a box with the fruit the customers left over last night. Said she'd use that for the offerings at the City God Temple..."
"Well, damn me! That plague-ridden madam actually dares offer gods and ghosts fruit left over by whoremongers? Isn't she afraid lightning will strike her dead? That plague-ridden..." The old fruit seller cursed furiously.
The thin boy grinned and pointed at the stall in front of the hemp-clad boy. "Twenty copper coins altogether. She wants two paper figures, a few stacks of spirit money, green incense and white candles, and three sets of paper clothes..."
Liuzi rolled his eyes. "Just twenty copper coins for all that! What else does she want? Should I build her father a golden imperial palace and paste together three palaces and six courts of consorts too? Shameless old thing... Such a miser!"
The thin boy curled his lip. "Twenty coins, that's all. If you don't want the business, forget it!"
"Fine, fine! I'll take it. I haven't made that many paper offerings anyway. Help me carry them. I'll bring the rest to the City God Temple too and see if I can sell them there."
"Sure!"
The Great Jin Dynasty lay in the southern part of the Central Divine Continent. Spanning twenty-four prefectures and more than four hundred commanderies and counties, its territory was vast indeed.
Huqi Town lay in Guangling Commandery on Great Jin's southern frontier, a rather remote place more than two hundred li from the commandery capital. It was over three thousand li from the famous Great Jin's Four Guardian Cities... As for the imperial capital, that was probably seven or eight thousand li away.
The people of Jin prized comfort and placed great importance on sacrificial rites. Remote though Huqi Town was, its people willingly worked and lived by the seasons, honoring their ancestors and paying respects to ghosts and gods according to custom.
During the Ghost Festival, people burned spirit money and sent winter clothes to their ancestors. Those at home visited their family graves, while those away from home burned paper clothes and spirit money outside the nearest City God Temple.
But these days, more and more able-bodied young people were being driven into the mountains by government taxes and labor levies to gather spiritual herbs and mine all manner of mineral deposits.
After the court and local authorities kept a smaller portion for themselves, the greater share of the wealth, spiritual herbs, and ores flowed ceaselessly into the Four Guardian Cities or the Four Great Immortal Sects. Supposedly, all this wealth went toward offerings to the immortals of the upper realm...
Only under the immortals' protection could the mortal world escape droughts, floods, plagues, and man-made calamities, allowing its people to enjoy peace.
And then there was the towering Two-World Mountain in the wilderness along Great Jin's southern frontier... They said countless man-eating demon beasts, resentful ghosts, and vicious spirits lurked beyond it!
Only the intimidating might of the immortals above kept the demons and monsters south of Two-World Mountain from entering the central lands and wreaking havoc upon the mortal world...
Yet the common people still felt that life seemed to be growing harder and harder.
With a brothel servant in tow, the madam first entered the City God Temple, kowtowed, offered incense, and set out three plates of fruit.
But standing before the altar and looking at the fruit those whoremongers had left behind... In the end, her guilty conscience prompted her to drop five copper coins into the donation box.
Lü Bufan had worked odd jobs and run errands at this brothel for nearly three years. Once a little beggar with no parents, no name, and no surname, he had wandered and begged with a band of half-grown beggars for as long as he could remember, seeing all too much of the mortal world's partings, deaths, and countless ugly faces.
Eventually, the boy met a shrewd old beggar, who took him as a disciple and taught him the skills and judgment a beggar needed to struggle for survival in this bitter world.
Since infancy, Lü Bufan had worn a filthy little copper tag around his neck. Its crooked markings looked something like the character Lü.
The old beggar knew a few characters and said the little brat's surname was probably Lü, but could not be bothered to give him a name.
Even after the old beggar fell ill in a ruined temple, eight- or nine-year-old Lü Bufan still liked to stay beside him all day, asking all sorts of questions...
The old beggar cursed weakly, "All day long, you're buzzing around me asking this and that. Don't you get fucking tired of it?"
"Not tired..." the thin boy answered, his eyes shining.
And so the boy received a name: Lü Bufan.
Later, the old beggar died. A passing madam, Liu Jinyue, took a liking to Lü Bufan, thinking there was no harm in picking up a little servant she would not have to pay.
From then on, Lü Bufan was taken into the brothel's rear courtyard to do odd jobs and run errands. They gave him two bowls of thin porridge a day and a couple of ragged outfits even a pawnshop would not take... And that was how the boy survived.
The madam inspected the spirit money and paper offerings Liuzi had prepared, curled her lip, and cursed about how lifeless the paper figures looked and how unevenly the yellow hemp paper used for the spirit money had been cut. Then she casually slapped Lü Bufan on the neck and waddled off on her barrel waist to arrange the offerings.
Liuzi secretly spat in the madam's direction, then helped Lü Bufan carry the paper offerings and spirit money over.
They took four divine travel passes symbolizing the spirit roads of the four directions from a hemp sack and weighted them down at the four sides of a circle.
Lü Bufan helped the madam arrange three plates of fruit offerings, then placed three stacks of spirit money in the center of the circle. Picking up a dispatch slip to be burned for the City God, he said to the madam, "Madam Liu, you'll have to burn this slip yourself, won't you?"
Before long... Before the spirit money and paper offerings had even finished burning, the madam headed back to Yanghua Street with her brothel servant, her face cold and her mouth full of curses.
Lü Bufan shook his head, but still placed the remaining paper offerings and figures into the fire, carefully prodding them with a wooden stick.
Liuzi counted the copper coins he had received, bared his teeth, and said to Lü Bufan, "That madam's not even human. Too lazy to burn offerings for her own father! I heard she works for County Commandant Liu in the county seat. She's made mountains of silver over the years! What do you think they spend all that money on?"
Lü Bufan gave a crooked smile. "How would I know? I'm just an errand boy. But decent people really are a rare sight in that brothel."
Liuzi reached into a plate and picked up a piece of fruit. First, he bowed toward the City God Temple and the burning paper, begging pardon, then wiped the fruit on his clothes and took a fierce bite.
"Rare, my ass!" Liuzi said through a mouthful. "How could there be any decent people in there? Bufan, back when the lot of us begged our way to Huqi Town, I got lucky and my foster parents took me in. But that old beggar held you back. Don't tell me you actually want to earn yourself a green outfit someday and spend your whole life as a lowborn brothel attendant? Get out while you can and come make a living with me..."
Lü Bufan smiled and shook his head. "Let's wait a little longer! Last year, your parents' illnesses and funerals not only used up all your money, you even had to sell off that half-share in the little shop. You can barely feed yourself now. With me, how would you keep two mouths fed? Surely you don't mean to sell those two little shack rooms too? I'll stick it out another couple of years, save some money, and find work that can support me. Then we'll see!"
Liuzi squatted on the ground, staring blankly at the fire. Quietly, he said, "If you hadn't secretly given me that string of a thousand coins you'd saved last year, I probably couldn't even have afforded those two flimsy coffins..."
"Bufan, just wait! When I'm a little older, I'll find work in the commandery capital. Once I've saved enough, we'll buy back that half-share of the shop, and you'll never have to swallow humiliation in that brothel again!"
"Or... We could sell the house, find an immortal mountain, and kneel outside its gates. We could beg the immortals up on the mountain, or the sect at its foot, to take us in as menial workers! What if-what if some old immortal passing by took a liking to us?"
Lü Bufan, who had remained silent, smiled and kept prodding the burning pile with his stick...
"Stop dreaming. How could ordinary mortals like us get into those immortal mountain sects? I heard in the brothel that some wealthy families spent over ten thousand taels of silver on their children and still couldn't even get a meeting with an immortal recruiting disciples! Even their menial workers are chosen for aptitude and looks... Some-some of those immortal mountains supposedly make their menial workers take medicine and turn them all mute!"
Liuzi froze, then stammered, "What would immortals want mutes for? I don't want to be mute... If all else fails, we could save up and find a master to teach us martial arts. The martial sects down here are mighty impressive too! Some of their people even become generals for the emperor..."
"Training in martial arts burns through money! A lot of the tonics and pills used to nourish the body and temper the muscles and bones have to be bought from those immortal mountains. And the prices..."
"I heard Constable Ma, one of the brothel's regulars, say that even the most ordinary minor spirit pill for first- or second-realm martial artists costs a thousand taels of silver! And even then you need luck to get one. They say no amount of money can buy the best pills... You have to take some treasure of heaven and earth to the immortals and beg for them!"
The two paper figures and a heap of paper clothes burned fiercely. A warm breeze swept scattered paper ashes into the gloomy sky, where they drifted and fluttered.
A dozen or so fires burned quietly in the open ground before the City God Temple as people far from home silently paid respects to their ancestors.
Making use of everything they had, Lü Bufan and Liuzi took the plates, fruit, and remaining spirit money and paper offerings to the most secluded burial ground outside town.
The site had poor feng shui and had always been where the town's poor and beggars laid their bones to rest.
Years ago, Lü Bufan had wrapped the old beggar in a straw mat and buried him there.
Liuzi's foster parents were buried there too, though unlike the old beggar, the elderly couple had each received one of the cheapest thin-board coffins, the sort ordinary people called "dog-bashers."
It was said that starving wild dogs could smash those coffins open with their heads and tear into the dead flesh inside.
But Liuzi had never given the wild dogs a chance. Together with Lü Bufan, he had dug the graves overnight and buried the two old people, who had breathed their last on the same day.
While Liuzi paid respects to his foster parents, Lü Bufan took some spirit money to burn for the dead old beggar. Neither of the two lonely graves had a headstone, and two piles of paper burned silently before them.
Suddenly, Lü Bufan noticed a figure sitting quietly on a rock not far away, with his back to the two boys. There was no grave in front of him, and Lü Bufan had no idea what he was doing.
After burning the spirit money, Lü Bufan looked up at the figure in thin clothes with loose, disheveled hair. He thought for a moment... Then picked up two pieces of fruit and walked over.
Looking at the tangled snow-white hair and lonely back, Lü Bufan asked softly, "Old... Old sir, are you hungry? Have something to eat!"
The white-haired man did not turn around. Only after a while did he speak in a hoarse voice. "Thank you. No need."
Lü Bufan smiled. "Offerings for the dead, food for the living. It's nothing to worry about."
The white-haired man's shoulders trembled. "Offerings for the dead, food for the living? There's sense in that... Boy, has an old fellow come to town who spends all day lost in drunken oblivion?"
Lü Bufan paused, then asked, "Do you mean Master Ming from the capital? Fifty-something, rides a horse, throws money around? Do you know him? He's rich... How about I go speak to him for you and ask him to..."
Still refusing to turn around, the white-haired man waved his hand. "No need. He knows I'm here already. There's a dog following him. Tell him I'll deal with that dog for him!"
"Then pass on one more message for me. Tell him... Fuck you! I'll break your Heart-Piercing Curse for you. You old bastard, either go back to the village and sit there in my place, or get as far away as you can!"
"Child... You... If I'd met you sooner, perhaps I could still... Never mind. That old bastard Master Ming might be able to see a little of it too... Such is fate!"
Lü Bufan stood dumbstruck. Just as he was about to step closer and question the white-haired man, several shrill crow cries rang out overhead, and a cold gust whipped up a cloud of yellow dust.
When he looked again, the white-haired man who had been sitting before him with his back turned had vanished without a trace.
"A ghost?" Lü Bufan jumped in fright, and the fruit fell from his hands.