The back of his hand got smacked, and the cookie he’d just picked up fell back down.
Li Sanjiang stood up. “Eat my ass. Leave some for the offering.”
Li Weihan froze for a second before it clicked—he’d once helped Li Sanjiang as an assistant, after all.
When he opened the inner room’s door, he saw Cui Guiying standing there sideways, cradling the child.
As the door opened, Cui Guiying quickly smoothed the hair by her earlobe and asked, “You two done talking?”
Li Weihan said, “Guiying, come out and help set up the offering table. Little Yuanhou can sleep first.”
Li Sanjiang’s voice came from the back: “Let Little Yuanhou stay here for now.”
Li Weihan turned to look at Li Sanjiang, frowning. After hesitating a moment, like he’d made some kind of decision, he gestured for his wife to bring the child out.
Li Zhuiyuan had been sleeping since the afternoon, so he wasn’t sleepy anymore. He just sat obediently on a little stool, watching the adults scurry about.
“You’ve lost your mind!” Li Sanjiang barked at the offering table Li Weihan had just moved outside the back door. “You want the whole neighborhood to see? Bring it back in! Set it up here!”This was flat rural land—no mountains, no ravines, no high-rises—nothing to block the view. The sightlines were wide open. If you lit candles and burned paper offerings outside at night, anyone out for a midnight piss could spot it from afar. And once that happened, word would spread fast.
After all, what kind of normal family holds a sacrificial rite in the middle of the night?
Li Weihan promptly hauled the table back inside and placed it against the wall near the back door.
Cui Guiying began arranging the offerings: four plates—cookies, sponge cake, peanuts—and one empty.
“We’re out of meat,” she said to Li Sanjiang. “No more cured or salted meat either.”
With over ten kids staying in the house, leftovers were a fantasy. Even the pickled vegetable jar was running low. But an offering with no meat? Unacceptable.
Li Sanjiang pointed to the locked snack cabinet. “Got any pork floss?”
“Yes,” Cui Guiying nodded quickly. “Will that do?”
“Meat’s meat. It'll do.”
“Alright.”
Soon enough, a plate of pork floss completed the offering set.
Li Weihan carried a crude tin bucket in from the courtyard. This time, without needing a reminder, he placed it in the kitchen corner.
Spirit money was still a bit rare back then—you had to buy it from a spirit shop in town. Village folk didn’t usually splurge on it for small rituals. But yellow paper and sycee-shaped ingots—those, every household had.
The gold and silver ingots were typically folded by the women. As for yellow paper, well, sometimes it ended up by the toilet as wipe stock.
Li Sanjiang lit two candles on the offering table first, then used one to ignite a few sheets of yellow paper. As he waved the burning paper before the altar, muttering under his breath, he dashed back to the corner to toss the half-burned paper into the bucket as kindling. Cui Guiying quickly added more yellow paper and ingots to the flame.
Li Weihan stirred the paper with a thin wooden stick to ensure it burned thoroughly, then carried the bucket outside to dump the ashes.
When he returned, he saw Li Sanjiang pulling a small bell from his pocket, prying out the cotton plug inside with his gray-black fingernails.
Ding ding ding…
He gave it a gentle shake—the sound rang sharp and clear.
Li Sanjiang untied the bell’s string and walked over to Li Zhuiyuan. “Come, Little Yuanhou. Raise your right hand.”
Li Zhuiyuan obediently did as told, watching as Li Sanjiang tied the bell to his wrist.
Then, Sanjiang picked up the incense burner from the offering table. After thinking a moment, he snapped all three incense sticks short, leaving only the stub ends, and stuck them back into the burner.
“Little Yuanhou, hold this.”
Li Zhuiyuan stood and took the burner carefully in both hands.
Only then did Cui Guiying seem to realize what was going on. Instinctively, she stepped forward—but Li Weihan grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
“How can you let Little Yuanhou—”
Li Weihan stared her down fiercely.
Li Sanjiang reached out to cover Li Zhuiyuan’s ears. Looking at the couple, he asked casually, “One last time—are you doing this or not?”
“Yes!” Li Weihan answered immediately.
“If something happens to Little Yuanhou…” Cui Guiying struggled against her husband’s grip.
“If there’s nothing out there, then nothing happens,” Li Weihan said darkly. “But if there is—and we don’t do this—then Little Yuanhou’s in danger anyway! That thing’s already latched onto him!”
After hearing that, Cui Guiying stopped resisting. Her arms dropped.
Li Sanjiang smiled faintly. “Hanhou, think this through. If this gets out, life in this village won’t be easy anymore.”
Even if no one had died and the whole thing turned out to be some wild goose chase, the mere act of performing such rites at home for someone else’s sake would be seen as a grave offense.
“Heh.” Li Weihan snorted. “Uncle, I’m not scared of that big-bearded family. I’ve got four sons of my own.”
In the countryside, the more adult sons a family had, the more backbone they had.
Sure, none of Li Weihan’s sons were models of filial piety, and there was plenty of infighting among their wives. But if trouble came knocking, those four would close ranks.
“Alright then. Let’s do this.” Li Sanjiang removed his hands from the boy’s ears, knelt beside him, and whispered, “Little Yuanhou, I’ll walk ahead. You follow behind, nice and slow. Don’t drop the incense burner, alright?”
“Okay, I got it.”
“Good boy.”
Li Sanjiang led Li Zhuiyuan out the back door. He turned to Li Weihan and Cui Guiying, who had followed them out.
“You two stay here. Don’t follow. Too many people and someone might spot us—or scare her.”
“Okay, Uncle. We’ll leave it to you.”
“Close all the doors.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
Li Weihan pulled his wife back inside and shut all the windows and doors.
Outside, down by the river under the night sky, only Li Sanjiang and Li Zhuiyuan remained.
“Wait for me here, Little Yuanhou.”
Li Sanjiang gave a quick word, then went down the stone steps alone to the riverbank. He crouched down and began skimming the water’s surface with his hand while murmuring something softly.
He was a bit too far away for Li Zhuiyuan to hear clearly, and the old man was deliberately keeping his voice low.
As he chanted, his body leaned backward several times, like he was bracing to run—ready to bolt if something came lunging out of the water.
At last, Li Sanjiang finished. He rushed back up the steps, breath heavy.
“Alright, Little Yuanhou. I’ll go first. You follow me. Remember—no matter what happens next, no matter what you hear, hold tight to that incense burner and do not look back. Understand?”
“Got it.”
“Good boy.”
Li Sanjiang walked ahead, putting a good twenty meters between them before he turned and beckoned for the child to follow.
But Li Zhuiyuan stayed where he was.
“Come on, follow me, Little Yuanhou.”
“But…” He started to turn his head, then stopped—remembering Sanjiang’s warning. Holding the now-extinguished burner in one hand, he pointed toward the river. “Aren’t we waiting for her?”
“Her? Who?”
“Her. Little Oriole.”
“Little Oriole? What about her?”
“She didn’t come up.”
Li Sanjiang paused, walked back, and peered closely at the child.
“Little Yuanhou, do you know what we’re doing?”
Li Zhuiyuan shook his head. Then nodded.
Sanjiang looked at him in astonishment. “You really take after your mom. Smart kid.”
Then something seemed to occur to him. He locked eyes with Li Zhuiyuan.
“You can feel her?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Where is she now?”
Li Zhuiyuan opened his mouth but didn’t speak right away. He seemed to be thinking—or waiting.
Then he said:
“She’s here.”
“Where?”
“She was in the water just now…”
“Phew…” Sanjiang exhaled.
“Now she’s right behind me.”
Li Sanjiang: “…”
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