Chapter 10: 9. Raising the Soul

9. Qiling

"Zhou Chang!"

In the barren darkness, a voice of indeterminate gender, strange in tone, suddenly cried out.

Following that cry, a cacophony of noises rolled around Zhou Chang’s ears, eventually coalescing into the mournful weeping of an old man.

「Yangyang… Shuangyang…」

Zhou Chang’s childhood name was Shuangyang; hearing the old man’s sobs, a dull ache began to stir in his heart.

「Don’t go, Yangyang…」

「How will I live without you, Grandpa!」

「Achang! Yangyang!」

The clamor of gongs, suona horns, human voices, and firecrackers surged again, drowning out the old man’s heartbroken cries. The deep Tan -like darkness seemed struck by several heavy stones, rippling in chaotic waves; within those Cengceng ripples, Zhou Chang saw many blurred images.

Countless figures clad in colorful robes, their faces masked with grotesque Nuo masks, danced and leapt around the grave-hill draped in red threads—Yinsheng Laomu—beating gongs and drums.

Their movements were stiff, joints seemingly unable to bend, as if invisible threads hung behind them, controlling every motion.

These masked, colorful figures gathered around a black lacquered coffin before Yinsheng Laomu’s grave.

Several men held up the four corners of a black cloth sheet with bamboo poles, draping it over the open coffin to shield the corpse from direct contact with the sky;

Six shadowy figures in black lifted wooden poles and raised the coffin from the long bench.

Only those closest and most trusted by the deceased were permitted to carry the coffin and escort the soul.

Yet Zhou Chang did not recognize any of the six slender, pitch-black figures, tall as poplar trees.

They faced away from Zhou Chang, bearing the coffin.

Amid the throng, an old man bellowed at the top of his lungs: 「Seal the coffin—」

As the cry ended, men approached with wooden mallets and coffin nails, while others lifted the lid and slowly lowered it onto the coffin.

The masked figures shoved a frantic old man toward the coffin, urging and shouting: 「Master Zhou, take one last look at Achang…」

「Just one last look…」

「The dead must journey on—don’t weep, don’t make him linger…」

「Go now, Achang, rest in peace…」

The old man, shoved and swaying near the coffin’s edge, looked like a solitary boat adrift in a vast ocean, ready to capsize at any moment.

Zhou Chang stared at the old man’s back, and a sudden, piercing pain tore through him.

He was a man of shallow emotions; in over twenty years, he had never had a single true friend, so he felt no familiarity with the six men carrying his coffin—these pallbearers were hastily assembled; how could he know them? He had never had a close friend to begin with.

Even toward his parents and closest kin, Zhou Chang felt little emotion.

He often drifted outside all things, living like an outsider.

Yet now, seeing the once-tall old man’s spine bent, his hair trembling like wild grass in the wind, he felt a real, tangible pain!

「Grandpa…」

He whispered it inside his mind.

The danger of Li Xiamei’s pursuit had not struck him as deeply as this sight of his grandfather’s hunched back.

He wanted to go home.

He had a homeland.

A homeland is a place already gone, never to return.

Because it cannot be reclaimed, it is desperately mourned.

The old man chased after the black coffin; others grabbed at him, blocked his path.

The crowd grew chaotic.

As the coffin lid neared closure, the pushing and shoving forced it open again.

Some rushed to push the lid shut, others steadied the coffin’s sides.

The black coffin became a solitary boat in the tide of people.

「Achang!」

「Don’t leave Grandpa!」

「Yangyang, Yangyang!」

Zhou Chang paid no mind to the crowd’s chaos; he stared at his grandfather’s hunched back, listened to his heartbroken cries, and repeated inside his mind: 「Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa—」

No one heard his words.

Amid the frantic hands, the lifted coffin lid finally slipped completely away.

Some scrambled to retrieve the fallen lid, others steadied the trembling coffin.

The six pallbearers, like six pillars rooted in the crowd, now exposed the coffin’s interior without its lid—its contents lay fully visible to Zhou Chang.

Inside the coffin, darkness was thick as asphalt.

Beyond that pure darkness, there seemed to be nothing else.

No corpse of Zhou Chang, no other dead body.

The moment Zhou Chang saw the coffin’s utter blackness, the chaotic crowd fell silent.

The colorful-robed, masked figures all turned in unison, staring toward Zhou Chang’s direction!

The six pitch-black figures, who had always faced away, now twisted their heads one hundred and eighty degrees—six blank faces ‘gazed’ at Zhou Chang!

Zzzz!

A ‘wall’ separating Zhou Chang from the funeral attendees shattered at that moment.

The gazes of all those ‘people’ pierced through the broken ‘wall’, locking onto Zhou Chang!

On the six pitch-black faces, devoid of features, Zhou Chang’s own visage slowly emerged!

Zhou Chang felt his scalp about to explode!

He stared at the only person at the funeral who had not turned to look at him—his grandfather—now surrounded by these grotesque figures, unaware, still chasing the coffin, wailing: 「Yangyang, Yangyang…」

Ice-cold terror and furious rage flooded Zhou Chang’s mind simultaneously!

「Let me go back!」 he roared in fury.

「Let me return!」 he pleaded desperately.

「Let me go back!」

…

As he shouted, all those watching him from every direction grinned.

Amid the oceanic roar of laughter, a strange voice shrieked: 「Rise—the soul—」

All that Zhou Chang saw faded into darkness with that strange cry.

The six shadowy figures around the coffin, the colorful-robed, masked people—all stood like pillars nailed into iron-darkness, becoming trees, or tombstones before Yinsheng Laomu’s grave.

In this heavy darkness, only Yinsheng Laomu’s grave-hill stood alone.

Around the grave-hill, countless coffins of gold and wood, of varying materials, appeared in hazy rows.

Each coffin’s tombstone emitted a call—calling out to Zhou Chang, or perhaps to someone whose name merely resembled his: 「Zhou Chang!」

「Zhou Chang!」

「Zhou Chang!」

「Zhou Chang!」

「Zhou Dangyang!」

「Zhou Shuangyang!」

Countless names resembling Zhou Chang’s were shouted aloud by the tombstones before the coffins.

All the calls merged into a strange tone, rolling back and forth in Zhou Chang’s ears—until, at last, he could no longer see the scene before Yinsheng Laomu’s grave; the voices in his ears sharpened suddenly: 「Achang!」

「Achang!」

Zhou Sanji’s voice exploded in Zhou Chang’s ear.

He suddenly opened his eyes—

A faint moonlight pierced the papered window, spilling onto his pillow.

The room’s furnishings, bathed in the yellow-white glow, appeared hazy, real yet illusory.

Zhou Chang lay rigid on a single bamboo bed, his hands tightly clasped around his own neck, his face pale with a strange smile.

This body, originally belonging to Zhou Chang, was clearly strangling only ‘Zhou Chang’—yet Zhou Chang felt a crushing suffocation, as if his consciousness itself were being throttled, his mind growing dim!

A kerosene lamp stood above his face.

In the flickering flame, Zhou Sanji called out while straining to pry loose the hands gripping Zhou Chang’s neck.

The dancing light revealed Zhou Sanji’s panicked, helpless face.

Zhou Chang watched that face, flickering between light and shadow—two faint, translucent threads drifted from his brow, winding Yiquan again and Yiquan around the wrists clutching his neck—

He summoned strength within, a needle-like pain stabbing his brain; the two threads emerging from his brow tightened straight, pulling the arms slowly away from his neck.

「Let me go back! Let me return!」

At that moment, his pale face twisted in rage as he screamed aloud!

His violent screams shook dust from the rafters!

Hearing that sound, Zhou Chang’s spirit trembled.

These were not his words—they were the body’s own cry.

Did this body wish to return to the graveyard, to become the ‘ghost treasure’ guarded by the Lao Feng family?

「Where are you going?」

Little grandson, this is our home—this is your home!

Where do you think you’re going?! Zhou Sanji stared at the little grandson’s face, full of fury and resentment, his eyes shocked, his hand gripping Zhou Chang’s wrist tightly as he pleaded helplessly.

Thin, transparent threads continuously streamed from Zhou Chang’s third eye, winding again and again around Zhou Chang’s arms.

The corpse’s struggles grew weaker and weaker, until it fell completely still.

Zhou Chang opened his eyes and met Zhou Sanji’s bewildered gaze: “Those words just now weren’t mine. They came from this body itself.”

He spoke those few sentences with unnatural stiffness; no ordinary person could understand them.

Zhou Sanji froze for a moment, then let out a startled “Ah!” His gaze at Zhou Chang grew complicated, tinged with unfamiliarity and distance: “This corpse… this body of Ah Chang… it’s already starting to develop ‘thoughts’ so quickly.”

It isn’t Ah Chang…

If it were Ah Chang, this would be his home—he’d never want to go anywhere else…”

After the old man spoke, both men fell silent, bathed in the flickering light within the room.