Chapter Sixty-Nine: Astonishment

Zhang Qinglin gazed at him, realizing that he had already grasped everything.

Suddenly, Uncle Jiang’s cries rang out from the west room, waking Cheng Che as well. Cheng Che hurried out and saw the two men standing by the table.

Wu Cheng'an and Zhang Qinglin immediately rushed into the west room, turned on the light, and found Uncle Jiang curled up in a corner by the kang, his arms covering his face as he shouted into the emptiness. When he realized someone had entered, he lowered his arms, revealing cheeks flushed red, making him look quite spirited despite his trembling legs that could barely hold him up. He gradually rose, raising a shaking finger to point out the window, “There's a ghost… a ghost…”

“Uncle Jiang, Uncle Jiang, you must have seen wrong. There’s nothing out there,” Zhang Qinglin quickly stepped forward to steady Uncle Jiang, whose legs had gone weak, glancing over at the window as he spoke.

“Stop making a fuss. Let’s get him outside,” Wu Cheng'an grabbed Uncle Jiang’s other arm, and together they helped him to a seat by the table outside.

Cheng Che, standing sleepily at the doorway scratching his head, watched the scene. He hadn't slept well the night before; the moment he entered the room he’d collapsed on the kang and fallen asleep. The sudden cry had jolted him upright, and upon seeing Uncle Jiang’s sweaty forehead, he guessed he'd been woken from a nightmare. Cheng Che came closer, saying, “Uncle Jiang, you must have had a nightmare. You’ve been sleeping for a whole day and night—if you didn’t wake up soon you’d have slept yourself silly.”

“You brat, what are you saying…” Uncle Jiang accepted the cup of water Zhang Qinglin handed him, took a sip, and after setting the cup down, replied to Cheng Che.

“Listen…” Uncle Jiang paused. The three of them stared at him, waiting. He pressed a hand to his rumbling stomach and continued, “I’m hungry. Go on, get me something to eat.”

Only after eating did Uncle Jiang recover. He’d drunk too much the previous night and had babbled on incoherently, saying things he shouldn’t have, yet no one took it to heart.

Now fully awake, Uncle Jiang explained that just moments ago, he’d felt a cold breath blowing at his ear, which startled him awake. He saw a dark shadow with braided hair sitting by the kang—a woman’s ghost, he thought—reaching out as if to strangle him. When he shouted, the woman dashed out the window. As he spoke, he gestured animatedly.

Cheng Che teased with a laugh, “Even Uncle Jiang is telling ghost stories now.”

Since they were headed to Fang County the next day, everyone returned to their rooms to rest.

That night, the air outside was chilly and damp. A light autumn wind blew, signaling the end of the season as the weather grew unpredictable. Zhang Qinglin lay with his eyes closed, listening to the wind howl against the window, its voice echoing through the night.

He shifted slightly. As he lay on his back, he felt as if drops of water were splattering across his right cheek. He reached up to touch it; it wasn’t quite water—there was a sticky sensation.

“Drip, drip, drip…” The sound of water dripping came from above his head. He wondered, why is there water? Could the roof be leaking?

With this thought, he opened his eyes, suddenly chilled to the bone and wanting to sit up, but his body refused to move. Before him hovered something dark and indistinct. Looking closely, he could see strands—wet and dripping with something.

What was that? Why was it right in front of him? He wanted to turn to see Cheng Che but couldn't move.

His entire body felt paralyzed except for his eyes, which he forced to glance to the right. There, he saw what looked like a person sitting with their back to him, bent over and doing something. The thing above his head resumed dripping.

This time, he saw clearly—it was hair! A mass of dripping black hair hung from the beam above, so close to his face that it made his skin prickle. The hair swayed ever so slightly before his eyes, sending a chill through his bones.

There was no one else in the courtyard. The combined hair of the four men staying here couldn’t match the length of a woman’s ponytail.

At that moment, Zhang Qinglin realized his right hand could move. Guiding his eyes down, he groped about and grabbed a piece of clothing—likely Cheng Che’s jacket—which he tried to lift.

He intended to swing the jacket at whatever was above him, but unexpectedly, the person beside him seized the garment with a fierce grip and didn’t let go. That person slowly turned, and thinking it was Cheng Che, Zhang Qinglin wanted to scold him, but found he couldn’t speak.

He looked again—this person was soaked through, their entire face swollen beyond recognition, long black hair plastered to both cheeks, yet it was clear she was a woman.

Her clothes were of a style from over twenty years ago—a plaid pattern that had been popular then. Zhang Qinglin noticed her head was tilted upward, staring at something above. He wondered, was she looking at the hair?

Suddenly, he felt the droplets falling from above multiply and quicken. His eyes stung as if water had gotten in, forcing him to squint. In the blink of an eye, what dripped from the hair was no longer water but bright red blood, pouring toward his face like a fountain. Eyes wide with terror, he watched the blood rush at him.

“Aaah! What the hell is that? Old Zhang, wake up! Wake up!” Cheng Che’s panicked shout snapped Zhang Qinglin out of his paralysis just as the blood seemed about to touch him.

He opened his eyes again. The room was still pitch dark, and he heard Cheng Che fumbling for the light switch on the kang.

In the middle of the night, who knew what Cheng Che was up to. Suddenly, the light flicked on. Zhang Qinglin, exhausted, propped himself up and saw Cheng Che’s frightened face, eyes darting about. Cheng Che gingerly picked up something from beside his quilt and held it up to his face.

Zhang Qinglin looked over and saw Cheng Che holding a dead rat.

This rat was more than twice the size of an ordinary one, its head drooping, beady eyes dilated. There was nothing particularly notable about a dead rat, but the truly horrifying part was the red thread attached to its body. Cheng Che hadn’t even touched it when the thread twitched and the rat’s intestines spilled out.

Cheng Che’s face twisted in disgust. He threw it to the floor, swearing, “Damn it, where’d this dead rat come from? It stinks!”

He retched by the edge of the kang, then called, “Old Zhang, come look at this.”

Zhang Qinglin moved to his side and peered over the edge of the kang. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

On the floor by the kang lay a pair of embroidered cloth shoes, soaked through with water stains spreading around them.

The two men stared in shock at the embroidered shoes. Plum blossoms were stitched on their surface, identical to those in the old woman’s basket from earlier that day—still damp, surely the very pair the man had thrown into the water pit.

“Aren’t those the shoes from the old woman’s basket this morning?!” Zhang Qinglin looked around the room; both the door and windows were closed—no one had come in. The dead rat Cheng Che had thrown away was now by the leg of the chair across from the kang, the red thread stretching from the rat all the way to the embroidered shoes under the bed.

Cheng Che seemed deeply unsettled. His gaze shifted from the cloth shoes to the dead rat, then, startled, he jumped up and backed away, staring at the chair. “Th-th-that… Old Zhang, there’s a ghost…”

“Can you stop scaring yourself?” Zhang Qinglin turned his head, glancing at the chair. In that instant, he saw a woman sitting barefoot on what had been an empty old wooden chair. Slender and delicate, her hair was braided into two thick plaits draped over her shoulders. She hung her head, hands trembling as they gripped her thighs, her entire body soaked, water dripping steadily from her hair.

A dead rat, a pair of embroidered shoes, and a barefoot woman—where had all these come from?

“Who… who are you? Are you human or a ghost?” Zhang Qinglin steadied himself and addressed the woman on the chair.

“I am neither human nor ghost. Who am I? I don’t know. I only remember—they called me Plum Blossom.” The woman on the chair slowly raised her head as she spoke, then lowered it again.

“Old Zhang, she spoke! She can talk! Weren’t ghosts supposed to be mute? Isn’t Plum Blossom the one the old woman was looking for? But wasn’t she dead?” Cheng Che exclaimed in shock.

Zhang Qinglin looked at her and asked, “You say your name is Plum Blossom. Then tell me, how did you end up here?”

Plum Blossom kept her head lowered, staring at the dead rat by her feet. She bent over, grabbed it, and stuffed the protruding intestines back inside.

She spoke slowly, “I don’t know why I’m here. Every time I wake, I find myself in someone else’s courtyard. It’s so cold outside, and I’m always wet, shivering with cold. I can only look for warmth. Luckily, there’s this—it lets me into the house. Every family’s home is so warm.

“But this time, it was killed—died horribly—but it still mustered its last breath to bring me inside. Who killed it?”

Cheng Che retorted, “Don’t worry about the rat. Those cloth shoes are yours, aren’t they? Take them and go home to your mother.”

“What are you talking about? What shoes? You’re too strange. If you don’t want me here, just say so…” Plum Blossom snapped, clearly upset.