Paper figures pasted onto coffins were offensive enough, let alone one with my name written on it.
Without a second thought, I yanked down my paper figure and tore it to shreds.
The fat woman standing outside the courtyard started yelling again.
"You thief, aren't you coming out? Are you going to steal a coffin right in front of me?"
I was thoroughly fed up. I quickly stood up and snapped:
"Fat lady, why don't you get on with picking your mushrooms? Why do you keep watching me?"
The fat woman bristled at that. Pointing at me with an arm as thick as a pig's hock, she shouted:
"Who are you calling fat? Come on, get out here!"
The coffin shop owner had only just left this time. I had hoped to open the black coffin and find out what was inside, but this fat woman had ruined things again.
My temper flared too. I climbed over the wall and out of the courtyard, but before I could approach her, I heard the rumble of a motorcycle in the distance.
The owner was back again!
After all, I had been in the wrong for sneaking onto his property, and this meddlesome fat woman happened to be here too. At that thought, I lost all desire to argue with her, turned, and ran down the village road.
All the way back, I kept puzzling over it. Logically, if the shop owner rode a motorcycle when he went out, he must have been going some distance. So why did he always manage to return just after I sneaked in?
Thinking again about the two coffins in the courtyard left me shaken.
Only two of the five coffins in the courtyard remained, and they even had my name and Old Liu's pasted on them. Was this a curse?
The moment I thought of Old Liu, I froze.
"Shit, I'm screwed! I was so caught up in arguing with that fat woman that I forgot to tear down the paper figure with Old Liu's name on it!"
I had torn mine up but left his. What would Old Liu think of me when I went back and told him?
But what was done was done. It was too late to go back, so I could only brace myself and report it.
When I reached the weeping willow at the village entrance, I saw five or six children running in a circle around it, laughing and chasing one another. It was a lively scene.
But a little girl sat quietly a short distance away by the roadside, hugging her knees and watching silently, looking pitiful.
She looked a little familiar. She seemed to be the little girl Li Gang had brought along on the morning of Auntie Li's funeral procession, the one who had kept turning back to stare at me.
I walked over and greeted her:
"Little girl, why aren't you playing with them?"
The little girl looked up at me and said:
"There are too many people!"
I glanced toward the big willow and said:
"Not that many. There's so much space, and only five or six kids!"
At that, the little girl looked up and stared at me for a long time before saying:
"There are fifteen or sixteen kids!"
The little girl had delicate, pretty features and big, clear eyes. She didn't look like a mischievous child who told lies.
Her claim that there were fifteen or sixteen children startled me. I turned and carefully counted the children beneath the tree again.
Six!
Had this child never been to school?
Before I could speak, the little girl raised her hand and pointed to the other side of the group of children.
"There. That group of kids is standing over there!"
I looked in the direction she was pointing.
Cold sweat, which I hadn't felt in a long time, suddenly streamed down from the back of my head.
Empty ground!
Wasn't that just empty ground? There wasn't a single person there. Why did this little girl say a group of children was standing there?
I couldn't carry on this conversation, and I didn't want to argue with her anymore. I stood up to head back.
The little girl caught the hem of my shirt.
She stared at me with her big eyes and said:
"Big brother, why do you always stand with a burned old grandpa?"
I could have dismissed what she had said before as mischievous lies, but now she had actually said this!
A burned old grandpa-who could she mean but Liu Qingzhu?
I could dismiss the white-haired old man I had met beneath this big tree a couple of days earlier as mentally ill and ignore him.
But this little girl was innocent and kind, and had no quarrel with me. Those words truly shook me!
The white-haired old man had said Old Liu was the ghost of someone burned to death, and this little girl said Old Liu was a burned old grandpa.
A coincidence?
Why did both have to do with fire? The person who had burned to death in the fire on No. 2386 ten years ago should have been Liu Yunbo!
I walked numbly along the village road, speculation surging endlessly through my mind. Ever since Tiger Waist Mountain, my trust in Old Liu had sunk deep into my bones.
But I had indeed heard that children were pure and could often see unclean things adults couldn't!
I took a deep breath. Whatever the case, I had spent so much time with Old Liu. Apart from being a little cold toward people and matters, he had never harmed me!
At that thought, I still chose to follow my instincts and believe Old Liu wasn't a ghost.
When I returned to our lodgings, the village chief's house was still empty.
Over the past few days, villagers had frequently found burial-companion paper coffins in their homes, so Old Liu and the village chief had started running all over the village to deal with them.
Old Liu had said someone had buried these coffins ten years ago. Now the old woman was digging them up, and someone else was specifically responsible for delivering them!
That meant that apart from the old woman in the west of the village, at least two more people among these seemingly simple, kind villagers were connected to the paper coffins!
I lit a cigarette and sat in the courtyard, thinking how ironic life was. Everyone said they wanted to live more simply, and then you believed them and lived simply, only to discover, once they had played you to death, that they had merely been saying it!
Getting along with people was too hard!
When night fell, the village chief and Old Liu returned together. I told Old Liu everything that had happened at the coffin shop owner's house that day, including, of course, forgetting to tear up the paper figure with his name on it.
Old Liu wasn't angry after hearing it. He gave a cold laugh and said:
"It doesn't matter. That coffin shop owner doesn't have much ability. He can't curse me to death!"
Actually, the encounter with the little girl beneath the weeping willow was on the tip of my tongue. I hesitated for a long time, but still didn't tell him.
Old Liu had been run off his feet these past few days. He lay down after barely exchanging a few words.
I asked Old Liu:
"Old Liu, is that old woman in the west of the village going to keep digging up graves and taking out paper coffins? We need to deal with this at its root!"
With his eyes closed, Old Liu said softly:
"You only just thought of that? I had the village chief assign people to watch the old woman long ago. But she didn't dig up all these burial-companion paper coffins in a short time. There must be quite a few of them. We still need to find whoever's delivering them!"
Right. We had found the person digging up the paper coffins, but we still had no leads at all on who had buried them or who was delivering them.
"Whatever the case, there's definitely something wrong with that coffin shop owner. My guess is he's either delivering them or buried them!"
Old Liu rolled over and said quietly:
"There's no basis for forcing a guess like that. Whoever delivers the paper coffins only comes out at night after the villagers are asleep. Instead of sitting here making wild guesses on instinct, you'd be better off walking around the village after midnight."
"Walk around? So many people have died in this village. It's creepy enough already. Maybe if you came with me to bolster my courage!"
I was still waiting for Old Liu's reply when his snores reached me.
Paper coffins had been appearing in villagers' homes like mad these past few days. Old Liu couldn't be everywhere at once, and he was utterly exhausted.
I lay on the kang, turning everything over in my mind, unable to sleep. My most pressing task now was to hurry back and confront Old Wu, and get him to teach me how to escape the curse of the last Route 13 bus.
But several people had died in succession in Tangwazi Village, and everyone was terrified. Until things here were resolved, not only would Old Liu never leave, but I couldn't bear to either.
Someone had to resolve this. At that thought, I gritted my teeth and decided that after midnight tonight, I would walk around the village and look for clues to the coffin deliverer!
I lay on the kang in a daze and dozed for a while. When midnight finally came, I summoned my courage and got up.
At midnight in a rural village, everything was silent and the darkness endless. That stillness and terror were hard to imagine!
I wandered aimlessly around the village entrance and noticed that some villagers, afraid someone would deliver a paper coffin to their homes while they slept soundly at night, had left their outdoor lights on all night.
By that little bit of light, I kept encouraging myself:
"Li Yao, you're a virgin. You're not afraid of ghosts!"
After passing the weeping willow at the village fork without seeing anything unusual, my taut nerves finally relaxed a little.
I stopped and checked the time. It was already past one in the morning.
Were they not delivering paper coffins tonight?
Just as I was checking the time, a gate to a nearby house swung open with a creak.
I hurried into hiding and peeked out. Someone emerged from behind the gate carrying a bulging sack on their back.
I was certain of it. The coffin deliverer had finally appeared!
Carrying the load, the person looked left and right, then turned onto another village road only after seeing no sign of activity.
I had wanted to get closer and see exactly which house it was, but the person was walking so quickly that I feared losing them, so I hurried around by another route.
The coffin deliverer carrying the sack was very cautious along the way, stopping from time to time to look around.
I kept as much distance as I could to avoid being spotted. After about ten minutes of walking, the person suddenly stopped beneath the wall of a house.
They looked as though they were waiting for someone. My heart jolted. Was there more than one coffin deliverer?
Before long, sure enough, another figure approached from a different road.
The two exchanged a few quiet words, then continued on their way, one behind the other.
As they passed a courtyard with its outdoor light on, I was astonished to get a clear look at the sack carrier's figure from behind.
The person was fat and walked clumsily. It was that fat woman from the Guan family's house with the glazed roof tiles!
Understanding dawned on me.
No wonder the coffin shop owner had managed to return in time whenever I sneaked into his house. This fat woman had been tipping him off!
Needless to say, the figure ahead of her had to be the coffin shop owner!
Knowing who the coffin deliverers were was enough!
At that thought, I stopped following them, quickly turned, and took a roundabout route to the coffin shop!
Even Old Liu was interested in that moving black coffin. I had always wanted to know what exactly was hidden inside!
Now that the two of them had gone out together, it was the perfect opportunity to investigate!
When I arrived at the coffin shop for the fourth time, the gate was locked as usual.
Knowing the way by now, I climbed the wall and broke in through the window. By the light of my phone, I once again entered that gloomy room piled with things for the dead.
There were many more funeral wreaths and pieces of joss paper in the showroom than during the day. I skirted them and came to the black coffin standing upright in the corner.
I took a deep breath, braced myself for every possible fright, and slowly pushed open the black coffin's lid.
The contents of the coffin were starkly revealed before me.
I never, ever would have expected it!
In the end, I still screamed in terror and landed on my backside on the floor.