Chapter 43

That would be the cook the chief had helped arrange.

Liu Zhiyi turned and walked around behind the house.

There was a flight of stone steps beside it.

The village seemed built against the hillside, the houses rising row by row like a staircase.

Liu Zhiyi climbed the steps.

The stone path underfoot was overgrown with moss; the houses that met her eye had their doors flung wide, some with a big hole broken in the windows.

Nearly all the houses in this row were like that, and one even had a wall caved in.

Hearing the chief say it was one thing, but seeing it now with her own eyes, Liu Zhiyi realized there really was no one left in this village.

She sighed and went no deeper.

Not knowing when the dungeon would come, she'd kept her nerves drawn tight the whole time.

But right up until after dinner, when paper money was burned in the hall, nothing around her changed, and no dungeon came.

That hanging feeling, the drop that wouldn't fall, left Liu Zhiyi thoroughly on edge.

Her grandmother, for her part, was very calm about it.

"I'm old now. I take life and death lightly."

Liu Zhiyi couldn't stand to hear her talk that way, and tucked the quilt tight around her.

"Stop thinking about life and death. Rest early — we go up the mountain tomorrow morning."

The family grave on her grandmother's side was halfway up the hill.

Once her grandmother was asleep, Liu Zhiyi made up a floor bed in the hall.

Nights in the country were much colder than in the city, and the front door was still the old one — two wooden leaves pulled shut and braced with a crossbar of wood.

Not very safe, but with barely a soul left in the village, the only thing to fear was the wild animals in the hills.

Liu Zhiyi thought she'd been on the dungeon all day and would surely sleep badly that night.

But she'd barely shut her eyes, and when she opened them again the hall had gone fully dark.

Night in the country was nothing like the city.

Once it went dark there wasn't a scrap of light.

On reflex Liu Zhiyi lit the watch and tapped the game center again.

Only once the page loaded did she let out a breath.

Then, coming to herself, she felt it was both funny and rueful.

She hadn't thought the dungeon would affect her this much — she'd even developed a body reflex.

—Creak.

Liu Zhiyi flipped upright and quickly searched for the source of the sound.

A faint whooshing started up, a bit like the wind of breathing.

Liu Zhiyi froze, gooseflesh rising on her arms.

She could still feel fear — but then she remembered that besides her, the only thing in the hall was the coffin holding her mother's body.

In that instant the fear ebbed away like a receding tide.

She turned on the watch's flashlight and ran to the coffin, half in hope, half in something like joy, and shone the light inside.

Liu Zhiyi: "Mama."

But nothing happened.

Still she wouldn't give up; she lifted the red quilt laid over it and reached out to feel beneath her mother's nose.

Nothing. No breath.

Liu Zhiyi felt a little lost.

But then she heard the breathing again — behind her.

She turned, arm raised, the beam lighting up the hall and the wooden door at the entrance.

The door must be old and untended; the wooden bar braced across it had slid down a stretch on one side.

The door that had been held shut had come open a crack, and wind kept whooshing in through it.

Liu Zhiyi gave a small laugh.

"…If only reality had ghosts in it too."

---

Early the next morning, in the first gray light, the chief hurried over, the Four Guardians with her.

These Four Guardians were all up in years too, half their hair gone white — no younger than her mother, by the look of them.

Inside, people busied themselves roping up the coffin; outside, the cooks bustled about.

Before long, steaming buns and white congee were set on the tables.

After so long in the dungeons, seeing this everyday life, Liu Zhiyi had the sense of being a world away.

She ate a hurried breakfast, and then her grandmother brought out all of her mother's clothes, bundled up.

These were to be burned after the burial.

Liu Zhiyi didn't understand the ins and outs; she followed the chief's guidance, wound white cloth around her head, and cradled her mother's portrait.

Then came a clash of gongs and drums, with Liu Zhiyi walking at the very front.

Now and then white paper money was tossed down over her head.

Liu Zhiyi fell back into that numb state; it was as if she suddenly didn't know what she was doing, only followed the chief's directions and walked, step by step, out of the village.

First along the cement lane out of the village, then up the asphalt road beside it, and finally onto the muddy mountain path.

Liu Zhiyi didn't look back; the priest had told her not to.

Until she saw a patch of level ground appear on the hillside, with a big pit in it.

The pit was deep, one long trench, just wide enough to hold a coffin.

Somehow —

she broke free of that numb state again, and tears ran from her eyes.

Never to see her again, never to see her again.

That was the only thought left in Liu Zhiyi's head.

She suddenly wanted to turn around, to look at the coffin.

—Rustle.

Another long spill of paper money came down from the sky.

"Rong…"

Liu Zhiyi heard her grandmother's cry, and could no longer hold herself back from turning around.

—Rustle.

Wind blew through a field of golden rice, giving off a rustling sound.

Liu Zhiyi looked down; a golden ear of grain had landed in her palm.

"Hey — whose child are you?"

A figure suddenly straightened up out of the rice field.

A task box popped up on the watch.

[We sat by the tall grain heaps, listening to Grandma tell ghost stories…]

Liu Zhiyi stood rooted in place.

The sun was setting, orange-yellow light washing across the whole sky, the color fading from top to bottom; the rice swayed wave on wave in the wind, like a tide of grain rolling in from the horizon.

The scene was bright — beautiful, even.

Yet it had appeared inside a dungeon.

Neither dark nor frightening.

The sun on her body was warm.

And she'd shrunk a good deal too; the rice stood as tall as she did.

"Why don't you say something?"

The figure across from her spoke again.

Liu Zhiyi fixed her eyes ahead.

The figure was a woman, two black braids over her shoulders, two spots of red on her cheeks as if from the sun.

Liu Zhiyi's gaze fell on the woman's belly and found it swollen — she seemed to be pregnant.

Liu Zhiyi: "I…"

She thought this dungeon was tied to her grandmother, but she'd only heard the chief say her grandmother's name once, and it had sounded like —

Liu Zhiyi: "I'm from Yindi's family."

The woman paused, puzzled.

"I'm Yindi."

Had her grandmother come in?

From the dungeon's setting and the task prompt, she could guess her grandmother had most likely entered it too.

But could a dungeon turn the old young again?

Liu Zhiyi was about to ask the cat, then remembered the cat hadn't come in this time.

"Child, don't you even know your own family's names?" Yindi reached out and caught her by the arm.

Liu Zhiyi's body trembled; on reflex she shook her arm.

But catching sight of Yindi's swollen belly out of the corner of her eye, she slowed the motion.

Yindi smiled, and suddenly stuffed something into her hand.

Liu Zhiyi looked down: a little red plastic bag, filled with round white grains of rice.

The woman: "Puffed rice. Have some."

Liu Zhiyi hadn't seen puffed rice in a long time; she only remembered that as a child, an old man would set up by the roadside with an oval black canister, roasting it over a fire, then take it down, fit one end into a sack, and step on the other end.

Then came a "bang," and the children gathered round would cover their ears and run off shrieking.

After that the white grains would burst out, and the whole road would fill with the sweet smell of glutinous rice.

You'd buy a bag to take home, grab a big handful of puffed rice and stuff it in your mouth — sweet and crisp.

And her grandmother loved puffed rice most of all.

Yindi asked, puzzled.

"What is it — don't you like it?"

Liu Zhiyi came to, opened the plastic bag, and shook her head.

"No… does the village have puffed rice for sale?"

Yindi laughed.

"Who'd be selling puffed rice out here in the back of beyond? I made it myself."

Liu Zhiyi grabbed a handful and put it in her mouth.

It had been so long that as she chewed and drew breath, the grains stuck in her throat.

Liu Zhiyi broke into a fit of coughing.

"Aiya, child, don't rush, don't rush."

Yindi pulled out a thermos in a woven bamboo shell, a white enamel cup with a red rim hanging from its handle.

Another familiar old thing.

Liu Zhiyi had used this enamel cup as a child; her grandmother liked hot water, so she'd boil it and pour it into the thermos, and Liu Zhiyi, who couldn't take hot water, would pour hers into the enamel cup and wait for it to cool.

Only, these old things looked new now, not yet yellowed or chipped of paint.

Yindi poured water into the cup.

Liu Zhiyi reached out.

The cup was still steaming hot.

Yindi lifted it up out of reach. "Hot."

It was as if Liu Zhiyi were back in childhood, parched, watching wide-eyed and waiting for her grandmother to let the water cool.

Yindi glanced at her and suddenly burst out laughing.

Liu Zhiyi: "?"

With her free hand Yindi gently brushed at the hair on Liu Zhiyi's head, picking out a few grains of rice.

"A whole head of it. Where are your grown-ups?"

Liu Zhiyi said nothing, staring straight at Yindi.

"…Gone."

Yindi paused a few seconds and sighed.

"Are your mom and dad still around, then?"

Liu Zhiyi shook her head, walked a few steps forward, went of her own accord to Yindi's side, and took her hand.

Yindi still smiled, saying over and over —

"You child…"

But she didn't let go of her hand.

A moment ago she couldn't be sure, but now, with their hands joined, Liu Zhiyi confirmed Yindi's identity at once.

It was her grandmother.

It was a feeling hard to describe — no need to work at telling; just a touch of the body, a breath of the other's scent, and she could be sure.

Yindi stroked her head and drew an arm around her shoulders.

"Once I've got the grain in, you'll come home with me, all right?"

See — even if her grandmother's body might be failing now and she didn't remember her, she couldn't bear to leave her alone.

Liu Zhiyi swung Yindi's hand.

"All right."

Liu Zhiyi did want to help with the harvest, but the moment she took up the sickle, her hands were too small to put any strength into it, and she nearly cut her own fingers besides.

There really was a knack to farm work; you couldn't just go at it any old way.

Yindi could only carry her up onto the dirt path beside the field and tell her not to run off.

The dirt path was a little higher than the field, and with nothing in front of her head now, Liu Zhiyi could at last see a bit farther.

And looking, she found the hills not far off were completely unlike the ones in her memory.

She remembered the hills of the countryside as a child being thick and green with trees; if you went in, you had to hack away branches and brush that grew across the path with a woodknife.

But now, though there were still trees on the hills, the space between them was bare — not even the shorter brush was there.

Liu Zhiyi: "Why are there only trees on the hills?"

Yindi set the cut rice aside. "The trees belong to the brigade. You can't cut them."

Liu Zhiyi thought it over; when her grandmother cooked at the old home she'd cut firewood, and what she cut was mostly those short, thorny plants — not tree trunks or branches, indeed.

But her own childhood was in the two-thousands; most of the village's young people had gone off to work, few stayed, and naturally not many went up to cut wood, so the hills had looked lush with growth.