With a sweep of his hand, Ji Yi smoothed away the last wrinkle in the bedsheet, leaving it lying flat and neat across the wooden bed. He looked around the room, satisfied, clapped his hands, and headed out to carry the three delivery boxes to the front gate.
The sky hadn’t gone dark yet. The glow of the setting sun still lit up half the heavens.
The dull thud of the cardboard boxes hitting the ground didn’t quite drown out the faint rustling in the grass not far off. Ji Yi didn’t turn his head, only glanced sideways. In the grass he could just make out a fuzzy, tan-colored little head.
He took a step in that direction, and the little head instantly ducked back into the grass. Then it went hopping off, pausing to look back every few steps, as if it wanted another look at Ji Yi but was afraid of him too.
Ji Yi watched the plump wild rabbit and couldn’t help but smile. There was a reason people said this place had a good natural setting, you could spot a wild rabbit right outside your own door.
Of course, the rabbit wasn’t the only proof of how good the environment was. Out of the corner of his eye, Ji Yi caught sight of the offerings that had been laid at the foot of the old tree nearby. If the surroundings weren’t good, how could something have cultivated its way into a spirit here?
All his life, school, work, socializing, Ji Yi couldn’t say he’d taken to it all like a fish to water, but things had generally gone smoothly. Apart from this stretch of unemployment dragging on a bit long, he’d never really run into any setbacks. His family was comfortably well-off, his parents had a happy marriage, and they’d always doted on him plenty.
Ji Yi had to admit his life was already better than a lot of people’s. Yet standing here now in front of the old house, far from the world of steel and concrete, he felt at peace and at ease for the first time.
It was as if, once he’d arrived here, all the worries and material cravings that used to tie him in knots had vanished without a trace, leaving nothing but a relaxed calm.
Ji Yi didn’t quite understand why. Maybe deep down he was just a born slacker [1]a lazy, unambitious “salted fish” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931957_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931957_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
Ji Yi hauled over a big bucket and poured it into the pot. He meant to heat some water for a bath before bed.
He’d hardly ever used a wood-fired stove. The one time he had was years back, when he’d gone to some rural farmstay with his family, but even then the staff there had done the fire-lighting for him.
It took him a few minutes to get a fire going, and even then it burned only so-so. He crouched and watched it for a moment, figured the flames weren’t about to go out, tossed in a couple more sticks of firewood, and stood up to go shut the front gate first.
When he reached the main hall, a phone call happened to come in. Ji Yi picked up without thinking and had to deal with it for a dozen or so seconds. Only after hanging up did he head for the gate.
By now the sky had gone completely dark. The old house still had no electricity, and half the building was wrapped in blackness. Using his phone as a flashlight, Ji Yi shut the gate and came back. Just as he reached the kitchen serving as his makeshift bathroom, he saw, lit by the stove’s fire, an ashen-blue ghost crouched there.
Ji Yi froze, then asked, baffled, “What are you doing here?”
The ghost crouched inside was none other than old Li. He was even working the stove with a poker, and the fire, which had been half-burning, half-guttering, was clearly blazing much stronger after a few pokes.
Old Li stood up awkwardly. “I’m helping you with the fire. I’m good at this.”
The truth was he’d quietly followed Ji Yi back and had been lurking in a corner of the house, waiting for a chance to do some work. Now he’d finally caught his opening.
Ji Yi walked over and peered into the firebox. He had to hand it to him, old Li really was a lot better at tending a fire than he was.
Still, Ji Yi said, “All right, fine. But you should head off in a bit. I really don’t need your help.”
Old Li said yes, yes, but Ji Yi had the feeling he hadn’t really taken it to heart.
Once the hot water was ready, old Li left too. Ji Yi mixed in a bit of cold water, then simply carried the bucket over beside the courtyard well, grabbed a ladle, and started washing up.
He’d been about to strip down completely, but when he tipped his head back he saw three round little birds perched on the tiled eaves of the courtyard. They looked a bit bigger than sparrows.
Birds on the roof tiles were perfectly normal, really, but Ji Yi still quietly lowered the hand that had been about to pull off his underwear too. He couldn’t shake the feeling that those three birds had their heads bowed, watching him.
It had been a tiring day all around, and once Ji Yi finished up, he was asleep almost the instant his head hit the pillow.
He had no idea what time it was when he was woken by a burst of noisy arguing. At first he kept his eyes shut, trying to drift back to sleep, but the racket outside showed no sign of stopping. His eyes snapped open. He couldn’t tell the time through the crack in the window, so he had to fish out his phone for a look. It was close to five in the morning.
In the little while he’d spent checking the time, the commotion outside seemed to be getting even louder.
“You out-of-town ghosts are up to no good, teaming up to swindle us local ghosts!”
“Who’s swindling you? You’re the ones who are ignorant and dim!”
“I even saw them setting up all sorts of gaudy contraptions over on Beishan today. Look at what he’s got strapped to his back, what is that?”
“Hey, hey, quit yanking at me.”
Unable to sleep through the noise, Ji Yi shuffled into his slippers, threw the front gate open, and stood in the doorway. Frowning at the crowd of ghosts gathered not far outside his door, he said, “Would you all kindly go argue somewhere farther away.”
The pack of ghosts had been tugging and squabbling nonstop when a living man’s full-throated voice suddenly cut in. Every one of them started. In that moment of distraction, a camera strapped to one ghost’s back got yanked loose and slammed to the ground, knocking against a rock and cracking open a big hole on the spot.
That interruption pulled everyone’s attention off Ji Yi again.
Seeing this, the ghost lunged forward and scooped up his camera, cradling it in dismay. “This is the latest model from the Heaven-and-Earth brand, there’s plenty of my footage stored inside! Who’s going to pay for it?! Who’s going to pay?!”
His already gray, sunken face turned an even more frightening shade of blue with agitation.
Ji Yi had no idea what they were up to, but in the crowd he spotted old Li. Old Li didn’t have a penny to his name, and he’d been pulling hard in the scuffle just now too. Now that there was damage to answer for, and afraid of getting dragged in as the sucker who footed the bill [2]the fall guy stuck paying for others jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2931957_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2931957_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, he quietly edged backward.
They’d been going on about local ghosts and out-of-town ghosts. Now that Ji Yi took a look, the two groups were actually easy enough to tell apart. The local ghosts were dressed pretty much like old Li, some in tattered rags, others in neat but old-fashioned clothes. The out-of-town ghosts, especially the one with the camera on his back, wore clothes that looked crisp and refined, the sort suggesting a well-funded grave.
One other out-of-town ghost’s clothes were a bit unusual. To Ji Yi’s eye they didn’t look like the kind ordinary people burn as offerings for the dead. They looked more like some kind of uniform, though not the kind worn by the underworld’s ghost-catchers.
They were so caught up in their quarrel that none of them spared Ji Yi any attention for the moment.
The ghost in the uniform wore a pained expression. “Come on, stop fighting, all of you, stop fighting…”
By now old Li had slipped through the chaos to Ji Yi’s side. Finding that the others hadn’t noticed him, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
“What are you all arguing about?” By this point Ji Yi was wide awake.
“It’s that ghost,” old Li said, pointing at the young ghost in the uniform. “Says he wants to install some thing called the Netherweb.” Old Li grew mysterious and secretive, all the stubbornness of an old ghost showing on his face. “That’s no good thing, I hear it snatches away souls and steals spirits. Once it’s set up, all the ghosts for miles around start dwindling. And he calls it some newfangled gadget, I say he’s up to something.”
As he went on, his emotions got the better of him and his voice rose a little, carrying right into the uniformed worker’s ears.
That ghost, not caring whether Ji Yi was a living man, still answered dutifully to clear things up. “Nothing of the sort. Once you’re connected to the network, you here can keep in touch with the ghost world outside a lot more, hear all kinds of the latest news, it’s a wonderful thing.”
The crowd of local ghosts spat at him in unison.
For Ji Yi, though, this was the first he’d ever heard of a thing called the Netherweb. He hadn’t had much contact with ghosts before, and even when he chatted with them, this sort of topic never came up. Now he found it rather interesting, and he even spoke up to ask, “Hey, is it the kind where you can get online and surf the web together with ghosts in other places?”
At last, someone asking a sensible question. Bent on winning the crowd over, the uniformed ghost didn’t care whether Ji Yi was alive or not and explained, “That’s right. Most cities in the country are already covered, and the number of users keeps shooting up.”
The local ghosts spat again.
Ji Yi found it all quite interesting, but then he looked up at the sky. “Looks like day’s about to break.”
It was early summer, when dawn already came early. After five o’clock the sky changed by the minute, and over the course of their quarrel the once pitch-black sky had gradually turned an inky blue.
Ji Yi hadn’t spoken loudly, but his words landed with weight, and they gave all the ghosts a jolt.
Once it was full daylight they couldn’t linger outside. It wouldn’t be a disaster, exactly, but it was uncomfortable all the same, they needed to find somewhere dark and shady. Besides, ghosts kept the opposite hours from humans, day for night, and most of them had to rest around this time.
The local ghosts scattered in a rush, each hurrying back to his own grave.
But the two out-of-town ghosts still there looked troubled.
The uniformed ghost’s face was clouded with worry. “To think we’ve been held up this long and still haven’t got the equipment installed. I’m sure to catch an earful from the higher-ups.”
The one with the camera, meanwhile, hugged it and said with some relief, “Good thing this is the machine I brought today, it’s all just clips of that pretty-boy, barely a few minutes of usable footage. Never mind, never mind, just my rotten luck…”
The camera ghost turned and left too.
But Ji Yi called out to the uniformed ghost. “You’ve got nowhere to stay, right? Traveling back in the daytime must be a hassle. I’ve got plenty of empty rooms here, want me to spare you one to rest in for now?”
The uniformed ghost didn’t expect this. The man had clearly just been chatting with the local ghosts, so he’d assumed they were all on the same side, he never imagined he’d be so kindhearted. Only then did a smile appear on his face. “Yes, yes.”
Traveling by day really was hard on him, and he’d had no rest all night, he was worn out now too.
Where would Ji Yi find any real kindheartedness, he just wanted to ask the uniformed ghost about the Netherweb. Old Li said the thing would make the ghosts for miles around dwindle once it was installed. Ji Yi knew this was overblown worry, the same as fretting that cell-tower radiation harms the human body, but judging by the stubborn, closed-off attitude of the local ghosts, it did seem to actually work.
So the moment they were inside, Ji Yi asked the ghost, “Is that thing of yours a hassle to set up?”
The uniformed ghost had a bellyful of grievances pent up, and now that Ji Yi asked, he poured them all out. “Setting it up isn’t the hassle, it’s that there’s nowhere to set it up. They won’t let me install it anywhere. Sigh. It’s really just this little bit in total.” He pulled a brick-sized object out of his work bag.
“Can it go here at my place?” Ji Yi asked.
The uniformed ghost was stunned at first, then overjoyed. “Really? Really?”
Installing it on someone’s grave or in someone’s house, there was of course no essential difference. This month’s performance review had the uniformed ghost hanging by a thread, since he’d been counting on this line of business all along. He’d already braced himself to go back and take a scolding, and never expected the tide to turn: the very thing the local ghosts resisted, a local living man was now volunteering to install.
Still, one look at Ji Yi and it all made sense to him. Local ghosts had mostly been dead a long time, or had been old to begin with when they died, so they had no interest in these new things. Ji Yi looked young and was clearly used to seeing ghosts. Volunteering was rare, sure, but the uniformed ghost had stopped caring about any of that, the job had nearly driven him mad.
Heaven and earth may be vast, but the performance review is the biggest thing of all.
References[+]