Chapter 9: Grandmother's Sudden Passing

Before I burst through the door, I was still wondering why the village chief was shouting.

But the moment I rushed inside, a deafening roar went off in my head, as if something exploded.

At the entrance to the main hall, my grandmother was lying motionless on the ground.

When he saw me, the village chief hurried to explain that when he came in, she was already like this.

Coming back to my senses, I rushed to my grandmother's side and pushed her body. I found that she was already stiff, and in an instant my mind went blank and everything went dark.

When I came to, I was lying on my grandmother’s bed, and there was a commotion outside.

The police were already investigating the scene, and outside the old house, many people who had been startled awake had gathered. When they saw me come out, their expressions changed—some were afraid, and others, like the village chief earlier, looked at me with pity.

Instinctively, I reached up to touch my face, only then remembering that when I left earlier, because only the village chief was there, I hadn’t covered the birthmark with gauze.

My mother sat paralyzed to one side. When she saw I was awake, she clung to me and wept.

Afterward, a police officer questioned me, and I recounted everything that happened before I entered. When I asked what had happened, the officer said it was a heart attack.

I shook my head at this, saying it was impossible—I couldn’t accept that explanation.

In my mind, my grandmother had always been healthy; she’d even been able to leap around the ritual array when calling my soul back. How could she have fallen ill so suddenly? With Aunt Wang, they also said she died of illness, but that hadn’t been the truth.

No matter how I tried to explain, the police didn’t believe me. Once they were gone, the villagers came to comfort my mother and me, while the village chief called over a few people to set up a mourning hall in the main room.

Staring at my grandmother’s body laid on the wooden plank, I couldn’t accept that she was gone—she hadn’t even managed to say a single word to us before she left.

At that moment, the villagers had somehow already heard about Aunt Wang’s corpse reanimating. They came to ask if I’d been frightened to death by Jiang Yan, and said maybe my grandmother, like Aunt Wang, had also been killed by Jiang Yan. After all, my grandmother had once harmed Jiang Yan, and now that Jiang Yan was back, it seemed she had come for revenge.

The thought that my grandmother might really have been killed by Jiang Yan filled me with rage—I wanted nothing more than to find Jiang Yan and fight her to the death.

I sat dazed in the main hall until the second morning, when the village chief came to ask if I knew my grandmother’s craft—if not, he’d have to find someone from another village to oversee the funeral.

In the past, all the village funerals were presided over by my grandmother. I never thought it would be her turn. I shook my head, and the village chief said he knew a master who could come help with both the funeral and Aunt Wang’s matter.

There was no other choice. After the village chief left, I went into my grandmother’s spirit hall.

The old house had three rooms: one where my grandmother usually rested, one for incense and odds and ends, and the third was the spirit hall, where she would read fortunes and invite spirits for people.

When I was young, I used to come to the spirit hall often, but after I left for school in town, I rarely came. The room was very dim. As I walked in small steps, I wondered if my grandmother had truly died of illness, or if Jiang Yan had intervened.

Seeing the prayer mats on the floor in disarray, I bent down to tidy them up. When I lifted one, I discovered a piece of paper underneath, covered in writing.

Looking closer, I saw my childhood nickname, Ziwu, at the top. I quickly took it outside to read.

As I read the letter, I immediately felt that Jiang Yan was involved. My grandmother clearly knew she was about to die and left instructions for handling her funeral.

She wrote that after her death, I was not to bury her in the ground. Instead, I was to bring the white coffin she had bought for my soul-calling ritual into the old house, place her inside, and set the soul-calming lamp in front of the coffin. I was to retrieve the black lamp oil from under the spirit hall altar and light the lamp at midnight, letting it burn until it extinguished the next morning, repeating this for seven nights, never letting the flame go out. She didn’t say why. Only my mother and I were to know of this.

Moreover, my grandmother seemed to know whom the village chief would invite. She told me to say a certain phrase to the person once he arrived, and he would handle Aunt Wang and Jiang Yan.

After reading the letter several times, I still didn’t understand, so I found my mother, who was busy with arrangements. After reading it, she said, “Just do as your grandmother said.”

The letter filled me with a vague unease, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

When I went to the new house to fetch the white coffin, I first checked the substitute body inside. As before, it was still split into several pieces, which meant my soul had not yet been returned.

Given everything that had happened, I couldn’t worry about that now.

After placing my grandmother in the white coffin, my mother told the villagers who had come to pay respects that, for certain unspeakable reasons, we would not be holding a traditional funeral for her.

Not holding a funeral for the dead is highly unusual in the countryside. But because of my grandmother’s reputation as a spirit medium, the villagers assumed there was some taboo and didn’t ask questions.

By evening, the village chief returned with the master—a short, mustachioed old man, barely reaching my shoulder, who looked like he was still drunk or half asleep, feigning a lifeless air. His surname was Xu. Instinctively, I gave him a nickname: Xu the Undying.

Upon entering, even though incense was available, Xu the Undying didn’t use it. Instead, he pulled three black incense sticks from his cloth pouch, didn’t light them, bowed in the four directions, and placed them before the coffin.

I’d never seen black incense used for offerings without being lit. Unsure what he was doing, I quietly asked if he knew my grandmother.

Xu the Undying didn’t answer my question; instead, he stared at me and said, “Your grandmother was good to you.”

I didn’t know why he said that. My grandmother had always been good to me, but something in his words and gaze suggested a hidden meaning I couldn’t grasp.

“Eighteen bends and nine turns; do not perish halfway.”

This was exactly the phrase my grandmother wrote in the letter for me to say to the visitor. I didn’t know what it meant, but as soon as I said it, the corners of Xu the Undying’s mouth twitched, and he turned to look at the white coffin, muttering something under his breath.

I wanted to ask what “eighteen bends and nine turns; do not perish halfway” meant, but stopped myself.

When he snapped out of his daze, he suddenly seemed fully awake, his demeanor more alert. He spoke seriously, telling me the next seven nights would be restless, and he needed three large roosters and a big black dog.

Once the roosters and black dog were found, Xu the Undying had the village chief slaughter them and collect their blood.

The rooster blood and black dog blood were mixed together. Xu the Undying then went into the spirit hall, took some incense ash, and sprinkled it into the blood. He asked me to take him to the graveyard on the back hill, where we gathered soil from every grave.

Watching all this, I couldn’t help but ask, “Master Xu, what is all this for?”

Xu the Undying clicked his tongue and retorted, “Didn’t your grandmother teach you any of this?”

When I shook my head, he smiled and said, “You’ll find out soon enough. For now, just brace yourself. The next seven nights will be far from peaceful.”

If he hadn’t said that, I might not have been so nervous—but now my anxiety grew.

On the way back, I asked about Aunt Wang, who had disappeared. Xu the Undying said not to worry; she would show up that night. Seeing how unconcerned he was, my nerves relaxed a little—I felt confident he could handle her.

Back at the old house with the grave soil, Xu the Undying poured it into the bloody mixture and stirred until it became a thick, muddy paste. He then smeared this blood-mud all around the base of the coffin.

Once he finished, it was clearly a ritual array.

Then, Xu the Undying picked up a hatchet and headed out. I was about to follow when he turned and gave me a cold look. “You’ve lost three souls already. You’d best get some rest. Tonight, you won’t be sleeping.”

Lost three souls?

His words froze me in place, sending a chill through my whole body. I had never expected to have lost another soul, nor could I recall when the third was lost.

Before, it was only two souls. Now, three.

I wondered if Jiang Yan really meant to take one of my souls each day.

When my grandmother was here, I didn’t feel afraid. Now, staring at the coffin beside me, I couldn’t stop trembling.

I wanted so much to find Jiang Yan and ask why she was doing this to me.

Waiting is always the most terrifying thing.

Faced with this, I would almost rather everything came quickly.