Chapter 45

Yindi laughed. "Aiya, chatting away with you and we're back at the village. There's not much to eat at home — how about boiled rice tonight?"

Boiled rice was leftover dishes and rice cooked up together; Liu Zhiyi loved it.

"Yes!"

The village had no street lamps; there was only the candlelight leaking from a few windows to see by.

And that was very dim — only some windows flickering in and out of the dark, now bright, now not.

The windows had no glass, only paper pasted over them, shadows flitting across it.

The village was lively.

But remembering she was in a dungeon, what Liu Zhiyi thought of, with all these people, was that maybe a lot of them had been pulled into it.

Would the other old people who'd come in be turned young again too?

Liu Zhiyi planned to walk a round of the village after daybreak, scouting it and getting a read on the dungeon at the same time.

She stopped looking at the windows and turned the flashlight ahead to light Yindi's way.

The roads in the village were a bit better than outside — not the narrow dirt tracks worn by feet, but laid with some stone.

Only the stones were laid uneven, with steps too, and her feet scraped over them with a creak, creak.

Hard to imagine Yindi walking a road like this in the dark without tripping.

Yindi: "No need to light it — I've walked this road near twenty years, I could do it with my eyes shut. You're not used to it yet, so mind yourself at night…"

The words weren't out before a creak, creak came darting past from behind.

Yindi spun around at once, the flashlight beam sweeping a circle in the air; a black shape darted into the beam, then darted out again, quick as anything.

Liu Zhiyi jumped in fright and made to climb down off Yindi's back, but her arm pinned her firmly in place.

Yindi called out, "Mao-ya!"

From the pitch black came a child's voice.

"Eh, Second Auntie."

No knowing how the village reckoned its generations; coming back as a child, Liu Zhiyi had been made to call the grown-ups by kin titles, and though they were no mothers of hers, she'd followed along calling the older women Big Auntie, Third Auntie.

Yindi: "What are you up to, out this late?"

A little net, dripping water, poked into the flashlight beam, a few small fish wrapped inside.

The child's voice said —

"Second Auntie, I'm netting fish."

Yindi: "Off netting fish in the pitch dark — aren't you afraid of falling in the pond?"

The child's voice didn't care in the least. "I've netted plenty of times, it's fine."

Liu Zhiyi felt the neck she was holding give a hard jolt, the pitch climbing a notch.

"Liu Yang just drowned not long ago — you don't believe in bad luck, do you? Besides, it's nearly Ghost Festival — mind Auntie Yuedi doesn't snatch you away."

The child's voice, so careless a moment ago, weakened.

"I know."

As the words fell, the creak, creak started up and receded fast.

Yindi sighed.

"Children these days fear nothing in heaven or earth…"

Though Liu Zhiyi was curious about this Auntie Yuedi that Yindi mentioned, she didn't dare ask in a place like this, afraid of bumping into a ghost again.

Luckily Yindi didn't go on stubbornly telling ghost stories the way she had in the bamboo grove, but turned and walked on.

After they passed a few more windows, the edge of the flashlight's glow caught a small patch of water.

That would be the pond in front of her grandmother's house.

This pond had no railing.

Liu Zhiyi tilted the flashlight back toward the road, a little afraid of lighting something she shouldn't.

—Splash.

A sound of water came from the pond, as if someone had brushed the surface.

Yindi's steps didn't stop.

A wooden door appeared in the flashlight's beam.

Yindi took out a key and fit it into the lock hung on the door.

"I'm telling you, no running around at night. There's the pond right at my door — fall in and it's no small thing…"

—Splash, splash.

The sound of water grew louder.

Yindi: "And that Auntie Yuedi, you know — the woman who died in childbirth, the fiercest kind of ghost there is, loves to snatch children like you, with the gongs and drums…"

—Clang.

The crash of a beaten brass gong burst out.

Liu Zhiyi was near tears.

"…Please stop."

"All right. But you're not to run off while I'm cooking."

Yindi didn't push on with the ghost story the way she had before.

Liu Zhiyi: "I absolutely won't run off. I'll help you with the fire."

"Can you do a wood fire?" Yindi asked, doubtful.

"A little."

In grade school, going back to the old home with her mother, it was her mother at the stove doing the cooking and her below tending the fire.

And it was best to chat while keeping a cooking fire.

Liu Zhiyi felt this dungeon must have arisen from her grandmother's obsession, and wanted to gather more clues through talk, and get to know her grandmother properly.

Some elders habitually hide things from the young, tucking all their pain away, reporting only the good and never the bad.

So Liu Zhiyi didn't know her grandmother's illness, and didn't know her grandmother's past.

They were the closest family in the world to each other, yet Liu Zhiyi found she didn't understand her grandmother at all.

Yindi: "Come with me."

Inside was darker still than outdoors; at least outdoors there was a moon overhead, and other houses' lit windows, but inside it was pitch black, without a single thing to light it.

Liu Zhiyi held up the watch and shone it into the room, wanting to see clearly first.

But Yindi walked a few steps ahead, without even looking, reached a hand into the dark, and pulled out a candle, which she stuck in the mouth of a glass bottle.

—Ssss.

A ball of yellow flame flared.

Yindi struck a match and lit the candle.

The dim yellow candlelight wavered, lighting the table and chairs, but also drawing long, twisted shadows out behind the furniture.

Yindi turned side-on holding the candle, and lined up just so with the dinner table.

Liu Zhiyi's gaze fell to the floor.

She saw the shadow of a stooped figure pressed together with a long shadow.

The long shadow was a rectangle, its shape rather peculiar, and the figure was bent at the waist, looking like… like…

Like someone lying over a coffin.

Liu Zhiyi startled at her own imagining.

"Why've you stopped?" Yindi asked.

She shut her eyes and opened them again; the figure on the floor stood straight now, and the table's shadow had become a diamond.

Had she seen wrong?

Liu Zhiyi wondered.

Yindi: "Aren't you coming in?"

Liu Zhiyi saw Yindi staring straight at her — or rather, at the space behind her.

Yindi: "At night… some water ghosts can come up onto land."

—Splash.

The sound of water rose, and then —

—Slap.

That was the sound of wet feet stepping on the floor.

Liu Zhiyi rushed into the house and turned and shoved the wooden door shut.

"Pff."

At the laugh, Liu Zhiyi turned her head, and saw Yindi looking at her, laughing.

"I was teasing you…"

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

Yindi handed her the candle bottle and led her across the hall toward the kitchen off to one side.

One corner of the kitchen was heaped with firewood — not blocks of timber, but piles of dry thin twigs and some nameless thorny plants.

Yindi pulled another piece of paper out of the dark — it looked torn from a calendar — lit it off the candle, and tossed it into the hole under the stove.

Liu Zhiyi at once started stuffing the twigs into the hole.

Yindi: "Slow, slow — don't smother my fire out for me."

Liu Zhiyi found tending a wood fire was nothing like she'd pictured. Cooking with her mother before, her mother had already gotten the fire going, and she'd only had to add wood.

Now the flame had just caught; you couldn't add too much wood at once.

Once the flame finally steadied, Yindi handed her a pair of fire tongs.

"Remember to turn it over."

Smoke kept billowing out of the hole under the stove; though most of it was drawn off by the chimney, Liu Zhiyi was still stung half-blind by the smoke and firelight, and could only poke the tongs in by feel.

"Oh my goodness."

Yindi cried out.

"Don't go poking a hole in my pot."

The words were barely out when, with a hiss, water came down from above and put the fire in the hole out on the spot.

—Clatter.

Yindi dropped the spatula into the pot.

Realizing she'd only made things worse, Liu Zhiyi pulled her neck in.

Yindi stood a moment, then came to Liu Zhiyi's side.

Liu Zhiyi didn't dare look up at her.

Even when the hand landed on her head, she flinched without meaning to.

Yindi: "Gave you a fright, did it."

Liu Zhiyi turned her head.

The candle's flame was a warm yellow-orange, wrapping people and things in a layer of warm light.

And Yindi, with the warm light behind her — her expression was gentle, her tone mild.

"It's all right."

Liu Zhiyi stood dumbstruck, unable to name what she felt just then.

Something came back to her.

She'd once seen her mother and grandmother quarrel — just the once.

It began when her mother, pouring hot water into a thermos, lost control of it and shattered the thermos.

Her grandmother came straight out with: "Clumsy thing."

And then a fierce quarrel broke out.

Her mother asked, crying, "You don't even ask whether I got scalded, you just come down on me…"

Elders of that generation seemed to find it very hard to lay their apologies out plainly.

After hearing her mother say that, her grandmother said nothing, and led her mother to the kitchen to run water over the scalded spot.

They didn't speak the whole afternoon.

Until evening, when her grandmother made a table full of dishes — among them soy-braised bream and red-braised crucian carp… a whole table of her mother's favorites.

And said to her mother: "Eat."

That was perhaps the greatest apology her grandmother could make.

"Did you get scalded?"

Yindi broke into her thoughts, taking her palm and looking it over.

Liu Zhiyi shook her head, her feelings tangled.

"No. Aren't you going to scold me?"

Yindi was taken aback; she lowered her head and looked at her own swollen belly.

"A child — when doesn't a child make mistakes? You didn't do it on purpose…"

As she spoke, Yindi stroked her own belly, and murmured.

"I want to be a gentle mother."

Liu Zhiyi suddenly realized that after her mother's death, the one who couldn't get past it —

wasn't only her.

Those apologies, those careless, hurtful words spoken without meaning to.

After her mother died, in the deep quiet of the night, Liu Zhiyi would always go back over them, guessing and turning them over — had this line hurt her mother, why had she said it, why had she done it that way.

And then regret, again and again; pain, again and again.

"No boiled rice tonight, then." Yindi smiled and rubbed her head. "Little troublemaker — will you have puffed rice softened in water?"

Liu Zhiyi: "Yes!"

The puffed rice turned to a paste in the water.

Liu Zhiyi cupped the bowl, sitting face to face with Yindi.

Liu Zhiyi took a big mouthful, thinking she'd start from Yindi's name — she hadn't known her grandmother's name before, and had only learned it hearing people call her after entering the dungeon.

Liu Zhiyi: "Why are you called Yindi?"

By its sound the name pointed strongly one way — easy to hear as yindi, "bring a little brother."

Yindi looked up from her bowl. "Just Yindi."

Liu Zhiyi: "…Bring a little brother?"

"No." Yindi set down her chopsticks. "I was adopted."

At this explanation, Liu Zhiyi understood.

Yindi: "It's village dialect — yindi, yindi, to lead someone over from somewhere else."

At this her face carried a smile.

"My mom and dad — my adoptive parents, that is — had only me. I was an only child, even."

Liu Zhiyi: "Your adoptive parents were good to you?"

Yindi straightened her back and said, proud, "Of course. I even went to high school."