Fifty-four: Two Grandmothers?

Black handprint.

Who exactly was involved remains to be proven.

Returning to the house, facing my mother lying on the floor, a sense of desolation swept over me. I could hardly imagine, if anything happened to her, I would be left alone, with no idea how to carry on in the future.

Perhaps noticing my gloom, Cao Guangshan handed me a cigarette.

Before this, many people had offered me cigarettes, but I always refused, never understanding what was so good about smoking. This time, however, I accepted it almost unconsciously and lit it.

I coughed a couple of times, but gradually got used to smoking amidst Cao Guangshan’s teasing.

When the cigarette was finished, I finally understood why men smoke.

I asked Cao Guangshan for another, lit it, and smoked quietly, sorting through everything that had happened and what should be done next.

My anxious and confused mood gradually settled with the help of those two cigarettes.

I realized that what was done could not be undone; anxiety was useless, and only remedy and resolution were practical.

At the same time, thinking about the hidden chamber in the old house, a sudden intuition struck me—there must be a secret room, but my method of searching was wrong.

Grandmother, knowing that Old Qin would certainly search the old house after her death, would never make it as easy as in Old Qin’s room, where Xu Buhuo found it with a single stick of incense.

If it was a hidden chamber, it must be truly secret. Recalling how I had knocked everywhere without success, I suddenly realized my method was flawed.

Knocking is what normal people do; the assumption is that a secret room must have an entrance, which, however concealed, would be on the floor or wall.

Grandmother was not an ordinary person—her hiding methods would not be ordinary either. Thinking of this, I rushed into the room, unable to contain my excitement, convinced that if I was right, I would soon find the secret chamber.

Normal logic says seeing is believing.

But in the mysteries of metaphysics, seeing does not always mean believing—this refers to the art of Qimen Dunjia.

The collection included explanations of Qimen Dunjia, but previously I had only glanced at them, finding them abstruse and difficult to comprehend, so I set them aside.

Though I hadn’t studied Qimen Dunjia in depth, my occasional exposure told me it was the most inexplicable phenomenon in science.

A simple arrangement could hide things that outsiders could never hope to discover.

Grandmother must have arranged Qimen Dunjia in the old house—only that could explain everything.

As for whether Old Qin discovered the secret room, considering the house was burned, I guessed he hadn’t found it.

I found the book about Qimen Dunjia, and as soon as I opened it, a sheet of paper fell out, bearing a diagram. Just as I was about to set it aside, I noticed the pattern looked familiar.

Looking closely, I confirmed that, unless I was mistaken, the diagram was the floor plan of the old house.

Recalling the layout, I was certain the diagram matched the old house, and beside it was a sentence: "Start from the heart, three steps left, five steps right, two steps forward, four steps back..."

Staring at these enigmatic words, I became absolutely certain—Grandmother had arranged Qimen Dunjia in the old house.

"Start from the heart" likely meant to begin at the center of the hall, then walk three steps left, five steps right, and so on, until you found the secret room.

At last, my heart settled.

Suppressing my excitement, I went outside, about to tell Cao Guangshan I was heading to the old house, when he emerged from the woodshed and asked, "Did you throw away that Soul-Eater Puppet?"

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I shook my head. "No, it's still inside."

"It's gone. I was about to study it, but when I opened the door, nothing was there."

The Soul-Eater Puppet was missing.

I rushed into the woodshed and found it truly gone, with only the black paper Xu Buhuo had peeled off earlier left on the floor.

Earlier, Xu Buhuo had peeled the black paper from the puppet’s face, revealing Liu Laizi’s human skin, then stopped his research and left. I had locked the door after him.

Xu Buhuo had warned us the puppet was dangerous and not to touch it. All four uncles were terrified and wouldn’t dare; my mother and Cao Guangshan knew how sinister it was and would never touch it.

No one in the house had moved it, yet the puppet vanished. I had no idea when it disappeared.

"You haven’t had any hallucinations since yesterday. Could it be that thing was broken?" Cao Guangshan suddenly voiced his observation.

His words reminded me—the last hallucination was the night before yesterday, when my father, as a corpse fiend, arrived, and I wandered into the courtyard.

At dawn, I opened my father's coffin, then discovered Old Qin’s identity, followed by my mother and others getting into trouble. During this time, I had no hallucinations.

I realized the lack of hallucinations was related to the disappearance of the Soul-Eater Puppet.

Logically, with its disappearance and the end of my hallucinations, I should have felt relieved. Instead, a surge of tension swept over me—the puppet’s disappearance was not a good sign.

That tension only intensified, making me feel the hallucinations brought by the puppet would not end so easily. Xu Buhuo had said the puppet was very difficult to make.

A thing so hard to make could not be discarded after causing just two hallucinations.

I knew, barring any unexpected development, Old Qin had stolen the puppet. He wanted to use it in even more vicious ways—as he said last night, if I didn’t find the bronze key in three days, he would show me what true despair meant.

The unknown tension made me feel weak all over, and it took a while for me to recover.

During this, I remembered Grandmother’s words: "What is meant to come will come."

No amount of worry can prevent the inevitable.

I shook my head fiercely, pushed aside thoughts of the puppet, told Cao Guangshan to guard this place, and headed straight for the old house.

Closing the courtyard gate, I followed the diagram to the center of the hall, then walked as instructed.

Repeating the steps, at first nothing changed, but I kept calm and continued. When the last step was done, something finally changed.

Before moving, I was sure the floor was spotless—nothing there. Now, two joined wooden boards appeared before me, likely marking the entrance.

When I found the diagram and hurried over, my initial thought was just to try it out—never expecting to truly find the entrance Grandmother left.

I had no idea what was inside, but now that I’d found it, I couldn’t abandon it. Taking a deep breath, flexing my nervously numb limbs, I pried open the boards.

A stone staircase led downward, darkness below, chilly air mixed with a faint moldy scent wafted up, making my skin crawl.

Thinking this was Grandmother’s hidden chamber, there shouldn’t be any danger, so I stepped down.

The chamber was dimly lit; I couldn’t see clearly. At the entrance, I found an oil lamp, lit it, and as I raised my head, what I saw nearly made me fall backward.

A large crimson coffin stood quietly before me.

Around it were several small ritual arrays, each with an oil lamp and yellow talisman. Judging by the color of the arrays and the dried oil in the lamps, the coffin had been here for a long time.

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There were other things in the chamber, mostly miscellaneous items, but my attention was drawn to the crimson coffin—I was intensely curious about what was inside.

Knowing Grandmother, she wouldn’t put such a coffin here without reason. If she did, it must have a purpose.

Open it, or not?

Standing beside the coffin, I hesitated, unsure whether to lift the lid and see what was hidden inside.

Curiosity, sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse.

In the end, I pushed the lid open a crack, brought the oil lamp close, and peered inside—unable to stop myself from shouting as I stumbled backward several steps.

Staring at the crimson coffin, I instinctively shook my head, wondering if what I had just seen was real or another hallucination.

All around, there was a silence so profound that I could hear my own heart pounding.

If what I saw was not an illusion, then Grandmother, whom I sent up the mountain myself, was now lying in this crimson coffin.

After a few breaths, convinced it wasn’t an hallucination, I steadied myself and moved forward to confirm—was it truly Grandmother in the coffin?

If I hadn’t previously opened Grandmother’s coffin to verify her death, seeing her here now wouldn’t have made me so nervous.

But having just opened her coffin and seen her inside, now encountering her corpse here again, I couldn’t comprehend it.

Could it be that after we opened and resealed her coffin, Grandmother somehow got out?

That thought was quickly dismissed, given the circumstances. The moldy scent when I lifted the boards suggested the chamber hadn’t been opened since Grandmother’s death, implying she had been inside the crimson coffin for a long time.

This made me wonder—if Grandmother had always been here, then who was in the mountain grave’s coffin?

Could there truly be two Grandmothers?

Regaining my composure, I realized I was being overly anxious—perhaps I had only glanced, maybe it was a trick of the eye, or perhaps everything happening was an illusion.

Suppressing my nerves, I leaned over the coffin again, pushed the lid open further, and examined it with the oil lamp.

At first glance, I knew I wasn’t mistaken—Grandmother lay inside, looking peaceful as if asleep.

Curiosity compelled me to reach in and pinch her body—it was real.

Could there be two Grandmothers?

At that moment, I wished I could rush up the mountain and reopen her coffin.

The scene before me was hard to accept; I lingered by the coffin, gazing at Grandmother lying inside.

After a while, I decided, before nightfall, to go up the mountain and open the coffin to see if Grandmother was still inside.

I set the oil lamp down, preparing to close the coffin lid,

When suddenly, a hand grabbed mine.