With the shaman’s fleeing figure just behind her, Su Yuqing stood in a small copse not far away, counting the time.
When she reckoned the timing was about right, she casually picked up a few dried branches and tucked them in her arms. Putting on the weary air of someone who had just returned from gathering firewood, she ambled home.
“Huh? What happened here?” As soon as she reached the gate, Su Yuqing saw the villagers packed so tightly around the courtyard that not even a drop of water could get through. She widened her eyes in feigned confusion and pushed into the crowd, looking astonished. “Why are all you uncles and aunties standing around my house in broad daylight? What happened?”
Auntie Li, who had been among those chattering moments earlier, turned and saw her. She grabbed Su Yuqing by the arm as if she’d seen a ghost, then hauled her inside.
“You poor girl! You’re still out picking firewood? Hurry and look—your whole house has been cleaned out!”
“What?”
Su Yuqing followed Auntie Li’s pointing finger and looked inside. The dry branches fell from her hands with a clatter.
They nearly hit one of the aunties who’d been watching the show.
“Oh my God!” She turned twice in place in the empty house, disbelief written all over her face. Her big eyes instantly filled with tears, and she covered her mouth with a gasp.
“How could this happen? Where’s all our stuff? The pot, the bed? Thieves… It must’ve been thieves from the village! Dad, we have to report this to the police and have them catch the culprits!”
“Good heavens, child, keep your voice down!” Auntie Li hurriedly grabbed her and lowered her voice, her expression grave and mysterious. “Take it from me… there’s no point calling the police about this.”
“Why not?” Su Yuqing was laughing inside, but she put on the air of an innocent little rabbit who knew nothing of the world, her eyes full of confusion. “So many big things have gone missing from our house. Who else can we turn to if not the police?”
Auntie Li frowned at her as if she were an idiot, pointing at the empty air with an exasperated look.
“Think about it! It’s broad daylight. Sure, some people in the village are out working the fields, but we’re not all blind! Your house had so many big wardrobes, that huge iron pot, and even a sewing machine. A thief would’ve needed several big carts to haul it all away. How could not one person have seen anything?”
“Besides, look at your floor. Apart from the old dust, there isn’t even a single messy footprint. Could an ordinary thief really steal everything this cleanly? They’d scrape the hide off even a mouse hole!”
“Then… if it wasn’t a thief, what was it?” Su Yuqing asked timidly, though a glint of mischief flashed in her eyes.
“Do I really have to spell it out? Of course it wasn’t done by a ‘person’!” As she spoke, Auntie Li lifted her chin and stared pointedly at Zhu Chunjuan, who was slumped on the ground.
At those words, it seemed the air around them dropped by more than ten degrees.
Zhu Chunjuan shuddered where she lay. Her face had already been deathly pale, but now it was whiter than paper pasted over a window.
She’d spent the last two days terrified, and she’d nearly cried herself dry.
Hearing Auntie Li’s words, all she could think of was the sight of Zhu Xiuxiu thrashing desperately in the river all those years ago.
If Zhu Xiuxiu had come back to claim her life…
She’d already tormented her precious son until he was barely human. Was that still not enough to satisfy her?
Was she going to take away every last way for her and her husband to survive, too?
But this was the kind of sin that could get her executed and sent to the Hell of the Tongue-Pulling—she wouldn’t dare breathe a word of it to an outsider, even if she had to bite her teeth to pieces and swallow them.
Terror and desperation twisted together inside Zhu Chunjuan. Her throat felt as if someone had stuffed it with burning-hot charcoal. The pain made her suck in a sharp breath, and several blisters sprang up inside her mouth.
She gaped like a fish on the verge of death, panting heavily, but not a sound came out.
Auntie Li had a loud voice, and every villager nearby had heard her clearly. They all hunched their shoulders and nodded in agreement.
“Dawei,” said one kindhearted older woman, unable to bear watching any longer. She stepped forward and earnestly tried to reason with Su Dawei, who was still dazed. “There’s something sinister about this. Whatever’s latched onto your family is vicious! From the looks of it, this is only the beginning. No one can say how much worse it’ll get.”
“Why don’t you hurry and find someone with real ability to send it away properly?”
Su Dawei was already furious over his house being emptied, his eyes practically spitting fire. At her words, his brows drew together in a hard knot.
He knew the older woman meant well, but in all his life, he’d believed in nothing but money!
“Someone with real ability? Didn’t I just bring a shaman home?” Su Dawei looked around in a rage. “Hey, where is she…? That master in red who was standing by the door?”
“Don’t bother looking,” the older woman sighed, lowering her voice to warn him. “I saw her trying to make a run for it, so I stopped her and asked what was going on.”
“The master was trembling when she told me that whatever’s in your house… is far too vicious! No ordinary practitioner could subdue it. She didn’t even dare take your money—she ran off like a rabbit!”
Her words hit Su Dawei like a resounding slap across the face, and his complexion turned liver-red.
He’d never believed in ghosts or gods in the first place!
If he hadn’t been unable to stand Zhu Chunjuan whispering in his ear night after night, and if his big, fat son hadn’t really gone so strangely mad, he’d never have wasted all that good liquor and tobacco on hiring a fraud.
And what had come of it?
The shaman ran away, all that stuff had gone to waste, and now even the family’s entire livelihood had been cleaned out!
The more Su Dawei thought about it, the more aggrieved he became. His anger shot straight to his head.
“Bullshit! What a load of stinking crap!” He glared at the older woman and swore through clenched teeth. “Quit standing here spouting nonsense about ghosts and gods. I say someone took advantage of the chaos and robbed us!”
As he spoke, he glared around at all the villagers like an enraged wild boar, his bloodshot eyes so vicious they looked ready to devour someone.
He strongly suspected that this bunch of dirt-poor peasants, who’d always been jealous of how well his family lived, had joined forces to haul everything away while he and his wife were out.
“I’m telling you!” Su Dawei shouted, hopping up and down and pointing in the villagers’ faces.
“I’m going to the town right now to report this to the police. Once the officers get here, it’ll only take a little investigating to find out which household has sticky fingers and made off with my things! And when we do, don’t blame me, Su Dawei, for turning on you and sending every last one of you to jail!”
His words enraged the villagers.
They’d felt sorry for his family and pitied them a little. Now, after hearing that, not one of them had a kind word left for him.
“Hey! How can you be so ungrateful? We’re trying to help you, and you turn around and accuse us?” one hot-tempered older man snapped, rolling his eyes. “So you think one of your own neighbors stole it?”
“Fine, fine. You’ve got money, and you think you’re better than everyone else! Let’s go. No point sticking around to be insulted!”
“Exactly! You mistake kindness for malice. You deserve whatever’s coming to you!”
The villagers spat and cursed as they turned to leave, not even sparing him a backward glance.
Su Dawei lowered his head, his nostrils flaring with anger. He shoved through the crowd, then charged down the dirt road toward the police station in town, swinging his arms as he ran.
The courtyard fell quiet in an instant.
Su Yuqing looked coldly at Zhu Chunjuan, who sat beside Su Hongqing with a vacant stare, as if all the life had been drained out of her. She gave a silent sneer.
She couldn’t be bothered with the vile mother and son.
She stepped over the threshold and went straight back to her own equally empty little room. Closing the door, she sat down on the floor and shut her eyes to rest.
…
Fortunately, Sanshi Village wasn’t too far from town.
It was nearly dark by the time two police officers from the station pedaled into the village, following Su Dawei, who was drenched in sweat from running.
As soon as he entered the courtyard, Su Dawei saw that Zhu Chunjuan was still sitting beside her son like a wooden post, staring blankly and not moving.
Her mind had been in turmoil. Several times, she’d thought about simply running back to her mother’s house to ask her what to do.
After all, her mother was older and more experienced. She’d know how to deal with a wronged ghost who’d died a violent death.
She’d been thinking that, back then, Zhu Xiuxiu’s death had been ruled an accidental drowning. She hadn’t even been given a proper coffin; they’d simply dug a hole near the mass graveyard and buried her in a small mound of earth.
All these years, Zhu Chunjuan had been so afraid and guilt-ridden that she hadn’t even burned a single sheet of spirit money for her.
What if…
What if she bought plenty of spirit money tonight and burned it at the grave?
Maybe she could kowtow a few times and say a few kind words, and the dead sister might leave her alone.
She was lost in these wild thoughts when Su Dawei came over and kicked her in the shin, his tone impatient. “What are you just sitting there for? The police are here to investigate.”
Immersed in her terror of being hunted down by the dead, Zhu Chunjuan nearly had her soul scared right out of her by the kick.
“Ah!” She jerked her head up and suddenly saw two uniformed police officers standing in front of her. With a shriek, she cried, “It wasn’t me… I didn’t mean to!”
Su Dawei: “?”
His face turned green. He rushed over, clamped a hand over her mouth, and scolded through clenched teeth, “Have you lost your mind? Why are you screaming? The police are here to investigate the theft. Move aside!”
“Oh, right…” Zhu Chunjuan came back to herself as if waking from a dream. She scrambled to her feet, forcing an awkward smile as she backed away to stand beside Su Hongqing.
She’d nearly been scared to death just then.
Her first thought had been that the police had discovered she’d pushed her own sister into the river and drowned her all those years ago, and had come to haul her off to be shot!
When she heard they were there to investigate the theft, she finally let out a long breath and patted her chest in relief.
That had happened more than twenty years ago. No one had suspected her then—how could anyone possibly know now?
She’d really scared herself witless…
The two officers took their flashlights and carefully examined the house, inside and out, for a long time.
But the longer they looked, the more puzzled they became.
This case was just too damn bizarre!
They’d been police officers for years. What kind of thief hadn’t they seen?
But they’d never encountered a case where even the spiderwebs along the walls were untouched, yet all the furniture in the house—including the bed boards—had vanished! It simply made no sense…
The two officers stood in the empty main room, staring at each other and exchanging an extremely complicated look.
Su Dawei trailed behind them like a headless fly, circling them several times.
“Um…” Seeing them only frown and say nothing, he lost what little confidence he had left and wrung his hands anxiously. “Officers, you have to help me. Our family’s… What are we supposed to do now?”
One of the older officers had noticed Su Hongqing lying on the ground, tied up like a dumpling with hemp rope, rolling his eyes and foaming at the mouth.
The sight was unsettling, but as police officers, they couldn’t just say it was a haunting.
“Well… we’ve got a general understanding of the situation,” the older officer said, clearing his throat and giving a perfunctory nod as he closed his notebook.
“This case is rather… unusual. We’ll have to go back to the station and open an investigation. Wait at home for word. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything.”
“Of course, of course. Just please hurry,” Su Dawei urged anxiously.
The two officers gave him a perfunctory reply.
Without even getting a sip of water, they had no desire to spend another second in that gloomy, empty house. They got on their bicycles and rode away as fast as they could.
Watching the officers disappear into the distance, Su Dawei collapsed onto the bare concrete floor.
He was so frustrated that, without thinking, he reached into his pocket for a cigarette. But his fingers found nothing—his pocket was even emptier than his face.
A cold draft swept through the house.
Zhu Chunjuan shivered.
More than anyone, she wanted this to have been the work of an ordinary thief.
But she knew better than anyone that no thief could do this.
In the pale moonlight, she looked at her beloved son, still unconscious and convulsing, then at the house, which didn’t even have a worn-out quilt left. Despair surged from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head.
“Dawei… We don’t even have a board to sleep on. What are we supposed to do tonight, the three of us?” She sighed heavily, her voice thick with tears and despair.