Chapter Twenty-Five That Song
Huasang did not learn about Teacher Huang’s d*ath until three days later.
One afternoon, the cicadas were singing nonstop, and her grandmother was not home, having gone somewhere, telling her to stay at home and rest.
Lying on the bed, half-awake and half-asleep, she was suddenly disturbed by the sound of playful laughter.
Hearing the noise, Huasang got out of bed, put on her shoes, moved a chair over, climbed onto the window ledge, and leaned out a bit to look outside. She saw several children playing in the bamboo grove behind the small building, among them were two familiar figures, both classmates from her class.
Seeing this, she frowned, put her hands on her hips, pouted, and shouted angrily, “Qiangwa, Ximei, did you two skip class to come out and play? Be careful, Teacher Huang will find out and punish you!”
Upon hearing Huasang’s shout, the two children froze slightly.
Then, the boy named Qiangwa, a slender and dark little fellow, walked a few steps over and replied unhappily, “We’re not skipping class! School is on break, that’s why we came out to play.”
School is on break? What are we taking a break for? Huasang tilted her little head, confusion filling her eyes.
Before she could voice her doubts, the girl named Ximei, a fair-skinned girl, shot her a glare and mumbled, “That’s exactly it! And what about Teacher Huang, she’s dead!”
“You’re talking nonsense! Teacher Huang was just here to see me a few days ago!” Huasang blurted out, “I’ll go report you for skipping class to play!”
“Ximei isn’t talking nonsense…”
Perhaps worried that Huasang would really go and report them, a slightly older boy stepped forward, saying, “Teacher Huang died three days ago. My dad said he was bitten to d*ath by a water ghost, and it looked especially scary. When the principal found him at his house, he fainted from the shock.”
“That’s right, that’s right!” a chubby little boy agreed, “My grandpa also said that there have been water ghosts in the village recently. Yesterday, Aunt Li from the chicken farm was also bitten to d*ath by a water ghost.”
Teacher Huang, Aunt Li… Listening to their words, Huasang felt her eyes welling up, her little face flushed, and she shouted, “I don’t believe it, you’re all just talking nonsense!”
Teacher Huang had come to see her a few days ago, bringing her textbooks, and Aunt Li had also visited yesterday, giving her a big bowl of tea eggs that smelled so good.
Upon hearing the news of their deaths and realizing she would never see them again, Huasang felt as though something had stabbed her chest, a dull pain starting deep within.
Just then, a gust of wind blew by, making the bamboo leaves rustle. At that moment, one of the children suddenly shouted, “The water ghost is coming!”
And with that, the children scattered in a panic.
While other children of the same age might not fully understand the concepts of life and d*ath, still able to laugh and eat at the table, young Huasang had already begun to grasp the meaning of d*ath.
When someone dies, it means that person is gone from the world forever, never to be seen again.
She didn’t know if it was fortunate or unfortunate.
Listening to the gradually receding noise outside the window, Huasang leaned against the wall, hugging her knees, pouting her little mouth in grievance. Tears kept welling up in her eyes, but she held back as she faintly let out a sob, the sound not loud but piercing, echoing in the empty small building.
After a long while.
When her emotions settled somewhat, Huasang quietly went downstairs, disregarding her grandmother’s instruction, and left the house, heading towards Teacher Huang’s home.
From childhood to now, this was the first time she disobeyed her grandmother, but she didn’t believe or was unwilling to believe what Qiangwa and Ximei had said. She had to go see for herself.
Walking along the winding and peaceful path in the village, her heart was beating rapidly, as if it would jump out of her little body.
————
On the dilapidated rooftop, heavy rain started to fall again.
Luxianbei held a broken umbrella, shielding herself and Qing Ji’s head, and upon hearing this, her expression changed. She slapped her thigh and exclaimed, “It’s ruined! That little brat is messing around! This is going to be bad!”
While she was speaking, she heard a girl’s voice from Qing Ji, “Heh, I didn’t expect that the first time I didn’t listen, something like this would happen…”
“Afterwards, I kept thinking, if I had just obediently listened to my grandmother that day, would nothing have happened?”
Luxianbei, “…”
This was a question she couldn’t answer.
————
After passing through most of the village, Huasang arrived at Teacher Huang’s small courtyard at the foot of the mountain by the creek. From afar, she saw the mourning hall set up in front of the small courtyard and heard the mournful music drifting from inside.
The white soul-calling banners were hanging listlessly, exposed to the scorching sun, and the adults in the village gathered in the open space outside the mourning hall, intentionally or unintentionally keeping their distance from it, each wearing a serious expression and whispering to one another.
“What do you all think happened to Teacher Huang? Dying like this is just too eerie.”
“You ask me? How would I know? The police came and didn’t find anything.”
“Could it really be the water ghost?”
“…”
Huasang knew that village rules forbade children from approaching mourning halls. Therefore, she hid her figure behind the dense wild grass by the creek and stealthily slipped to the back of the mourning hall.
She crouched on top of the mourning hall’s canopy, timidly peeking through a gap, and then she saw Teacher Huang lying in the ice coffin.
Upon seeing the decayed corpse, a buzzing noise suddenly filled Huasang’s head, and she fell into a blank state.
She couldn’t move, her body felt frozen in place, her hands and feet cold, until a sudden wailing brought her back to her senses.
“Oh my heavens, someone hurry up and call for the husband, Qiangwa isn’t going to make it!”
A robust woman was crying in the open space; she was Qiangwa’s mother.
Before long, the little chubby boy’s grandfather also arrived, looking furious and tragic as he shouted, “My Pengwa has also fallen ill, lying at home, and is about to d*e!”
“I already told you, someone in our village angered the water ghost, and something big was going to happen!”
Teacher Huang, Aunt Li, Qiangwa, the chubby boy…
In just three or four days, two out of four had died, and two others were seriously ill. For this small mountain village of just over a hundred households, it was like the sky had fallen.
The open space in front of the mourning hall turned chaotic instantly, and no one noticed Huasang, hiding behind the mourning hall, running back home like a startled little beast.
The events in the village were too strange and bizarre, far beyond what Huasang could comprehend. And the vague awareness that these terrifying occurrences might be related to her made her young heart unbearably heavy.
Returning home, she burrowed into her room, curling up in the gap between the small window and the wall, using a pillow to shield herself and hide away.
Suddenly, without warning, the stifling air turned cool, the wind blew down from the mountain, and the sky darkened, as if day had instantly turned into night.
“Boom——!”
A deafening thunderclap sounded, and the downpour began.
Huasang peeked out from behind her pillow, looking up at the window.
The leaden clouds hung like mountains, blocking out the sunlight, making it hard to breathe. The vast mountains were dim and misty, as if lost in another world, blurred and unfamiliar.
The torrential rain echoed on every roof in the village, as if it were the dying cries of the world.
Huasang’s awareness began to blur, and she developed a high fever.
In the haze, she felt her body as if it had lost weight, floating up, drifting over the village.
The village was eerily silent, without a single soul. In the torrential rain, that massive beast walked through the deserted village, its enormous and oppressive shadow enveloping everything.
Lost in a bizarre and evil dream, she inexplicably thought…
She was that beast.
————
Her grandmother didn’t return until the sky was completely dark.
Upon entering the house and seeing that the lights were still off and everything was pitch black, she was startled. Before she could turn on the lights, she called out anxiously.
“Sangsang? Sangsang! …”
She had barely called two or three times when she heard a faint noise coming from upstairs, and her voice halted abruptly.
Hurrying up the stairs, she turned on the light and saw Huasang curled up in the corner of the bed.
Hearing the noise, Huasang stirred awake, struggled to open her eyes, and upon seeing her grandmother, her eyes instantly filled with tears, quietly sobbing.
“Grandma, are you… are you going to abandon Sangsang…?”
Upon hearing this, her grandmother walked over, gently stroking Huasang’s forehead. Her face changed drastically as if she had discovered something horrifying, her murky pupils trembling.
She calmed herself, suppressing her fear, lovingly caressing Huasang’s head, softly saying, “Alright, alright, Sangsang, good girl. During this time, Grandma won’t go out, she will stay home to accompany you…”
While her grandmother gently comforted Huasang, she fetched cool water, helping her sponge down to reduce her temperature, lifted her onto the bed, and then sat by the side, softly humming a lullaby.
“The moon is bright, the wind is quiet, the shadows of the trees cast over the window. The crickets sing, their sounds like the strings of a zither, soft and melodious, swaying gently…”
That song was a lullaby that Huasang had heard since childhood, sung by her grandmother every time she cried.
Accompanied by the soft lullaby and the gentle sound of rain, she fell into a peaceful sleep, a faint smile adorning her little face…
————
In front of the Lipstick Tavern.
Qing Ji, as if coming back to his senses after waking from a drunken stupor, stared blankly at Huasang. After a long silence, he poured her a glass of wine and said lightly, “I guess, that night, something big happened in the village, right?”
He had originally wanted to ask, “Did everyone in the village d*e?”, but considering Huasang’s feelings, he used this more tactful way of asking.
In fact, when Huasang mentioned Teacher Huang’s unexpected d*ath, he had already suspected that the cause of Teacher Huang’s d*ath was related to the Night Erosion that had escaped because of Huasang’s uncontrolled spirit patterns.
And when Huasang mentioned that she had disregarded her grandmother’s warnings and had sneaked across half the village to the mourning hall, Qing Ji knew something major was about to happen.
Given Qing Ji’s understanding of Huasang’s physical condition, such actions could leave a certain level of Night Erosion in the places she passed, sufficient to cause illness or even d*ath in those whose bodies were weaker.
“Yeah.” Huasang nodded, her brows lowered, “That night, seventeen people died.”
“In the next day or two, we could hear the sounds of mourning at any time. The air was filled with a mix of scents from incense and the stench of decay. Sitting in the courtyard, we often saw yellow paper floating above, and the whole village was engulfed in an ominous atmosphere.”
“People from the epidemic prevention station came over a dozen times to take samples to investigate the cause of the villagers’ deaths, but suddenly one day, they stopped coming, and everyone panicked, thinking they had been abandoned, and then…”
“The villagers somehow guessed that the problem lay with me. In the dead of night, braving the rain, they surrounded my house with hoes and sickles, demanding an explanation from my grandmother. Even the village chief couldn’t stop them.”
“What did they do to you?” Qing Ji cautiously inquired.
Ordinarily friendly village residents suddenly turned into wild beasts. A little girl facing that situation must have been terrified.
In a fervor driven by emotion, people could do anything, Qing Ji thought.
“They…” Huasang took the wine cup Qing Ji handed her, her pupils dimming, her eyes losing focus. After a long, long moment, she said slowly, “They didn’t do anything…”
Qing Ji frowned, a hint of confusion appearing in his eyes, and then it seemed he understood something, his pupils slightly constricting.
If the villagers didn’t do anything, then it must have been her who did something…
————
By morning, the rain that had fallen all night finally stopped.
In the bamboo grove behind the small building, water droplets glistened on the bamboo leaves, silently sliding down the edges of the leaves, falling to the ground, and because of the wind, drawing beautiful arcs in the air.
The damp and cold chill, combined with an unbearable stench in the wind, awoke Huasang from her dreams.
She opened her eyes, lying in bed motionless, feeling somewhat heavy, as if something was pressing on her.
Outside the window was complete silence, with only the faint sound of water droplets falling from a bamboo leaf onto another leaf.
At this time of day, the villagers would usually be up, but today it was eerily quiet.
The morning crowing of roosters, barking of dogs, crying children reluctant to go to school, chattering aunties heading to the tea hills… all the familiar sounds had vanished.
With the morning breeze, there was also a faint, unbearable stench.
Struggling to crawl to the edge of her bed, Huasang called down a few times, “Grandma!” but received no response.
She vaguely sensed something was wrong, so she crawled out of bed and made her way downstairs.
However, only after getting out of bed did she realize her body felt so heavy, as if every inch of her bones was filled with lead, and each step seemed to drain all her strength.
The walk from her room on the second floor to the yard took Huasang about half an hour, stopping along the way. By the time she reached the yard, she was soaked in cold sweat, her face pale.
When she peered through the half-open door and saw the scene on the sun-drying ground, her face instantly drained of color, her lips trembling, pupils shrinking to a point. Her little hands gripped the doorframe tightly, until her joints turned white from the strain.
On that flat ground, men and women of all ages, dozens of villagers, lay on the ground, their bodies rigid, skin exposed beneath their clothes covered in blisters and sores, flesh highly decayed, flies buzzing all around, the stench overwhelming.
Seeing that scene, she wanted to flee, but her body felt heavier, as if something weighed her down, and her joints and bones made a series of painful cracking sounds.
Finally, her emotions erupted like a flood bursting through a dam, and she covered her eyes, unable to restrain her terrified sobbing.
“Waaahhh——!”
Her wails echoed in the dead village, traveling far and wide, filled with despair.
At that moment, a broken, intermittent humming entered Huasang’s ears, abruptly halting her cries.
“The moon… the moon is bright, the wind is quiet… the shadows of the trees… cover the window…”
Her grandmother’s soft singing resonated through the misty village, and Huasang’s face was wet with tears. She looked around in confusion, shouting, “Grandma, where are you?!”
Her called went unanswered.
Then, she didn’t know where she found the strength, pushing against the invisible weight pressing down on her, she rushed out of the courtyard and ran towards the heaps of corpses, searching through them one by one…
————
On the table in front of the Lipstick Tavern, Huasang’s wine cup had been empty for a long time.
Qing Ji quietly watched her, not asking whether she later found her grandmother, remaining silent for a long time before changing the subject, “So how did you end up in the Dachunyang Palace?”
“Because of a man.”
“A man?” Qing Ji frowned, “Is he a disciple of Dachunyang Palace?”
Huasang shook her head.
————
In one night, all the villagers had died, a total of two hundred eighty-three people, each d*ath more tragic than the last. Even the livestock raised by the villagers did not escape, leaving no trace behind.
Those who succumbed to the Night Erosion and suffered from acute Nightfall Syndrome had corpses that were beyond recognition.
Huasang, being young, weak, and additionally subjected to that invisible pressure, suddenly unleashed that hidden strength but couldn’t maintain it for long and quickly exhausted herself.
She collapsed onto the ground, surrounded by thick, stinking, muddy water, the heaps of corpses lying beside her.
Fear, cold, and exhaustion gradually scattered Huasang’s consciousness.
In a daze, she saw dark wisps spiraling out from those corpses, transforming into clawing shadows that gathered together, forming an enormous figure that slowly approached her.
Bringing with it a dark, wild aura that was suffocating.
It seemed to be coming closer, preparing to crush her body.
At that moment, a tall man in white clothes walked over from afar, crouching beside her, gently touching her forehead, “Little one, I finally found you. Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t… don’t touch me, you’ll…”
“It’s alright, I won’t be harmed.” The man said softly, “Little one, your name is Huasang, right? Do you wish to come with me?”
“…” Huasang fell silent, shaking her head.
She only wanted to be with her grandmother.
She felt Grandma was still in the village, maybe just beside that completely decayed corpse.
“That puts me in a bit of a bind!” The man sighed, rolling his eyes, “I want to take you to a wonderful place to cure your illness and help you grow up healthy, but it’s something your grandmother entrusted me to do!”
“Where is my grandmother?” Huasang asked urgently.
“She… she has gone to a very, very far place. Once you grow up, she will…”
“d*e?” Huasang said flatly.
“Tsk!” The man spat, rolling his eyes, “The most annoying children are those who mature too quickly… So, will you come with me?”
Huasang hesitated for a moment and nodded.
Thus, she followed the man and ascended Zhenwu Mountain, entering the Dachunyang Palace.
