Chapter 50

Yindi turned her head, her gaze coming to rest on her.

Liu Zhiyi felt oddly watched.

"What is it? Did I say something wrong?"

Yindi shook her head.

"You see life and death quite clearly."

That was because this death had happened to someone else — that was the only reason she could see it so clearly.

Liu Zhiyi didn't say her real thoughts; she hoped Yindi wouldn't grieve too much over Chunhua's death.

She worked to keep it light. "Mm — you have to face it sooner or later."

But after she said it, Yindi suddenly smiled.

"Then I can rest easy."

Liu Zhiyi went still.

"What do you mean?"

A dungeon arose from an obsession; Liu Zhiyi had always kept that concept in mind.

Liu Zhiyi: "What do you mean, you can rest easy?"

Yindi: "Because you're on your own, with no grown-up beside you — seeing you so mature for your age, I can rest easy."

The words sounded a little strange.

Liu Zhiyi: "Why do you care about me so much?"

If her grandmother's body and memory had rolled back to the Yindi period, she shouldn't remember knowing her.

Yindi: "I can't say why either. The first time I saw you, you looked familiar, and I liked you very much."

Liu Zhiyi: "Do you really not know me?"

She didn't want to press Yindi so hard.

But because of what Yindi had said, she felt deeply uneasy, so Liu Zhiyi wanted an answer.

Yindi paused. "…I don't."

Seeing her reaction didn't seem false, Liu Zhiyi said, hesitant —

"…Grandma?"

"You child." Yindi seemed tickled by her. "Calling me Grandma again."

Liu Zhiyi roughly understood that her grandmother appearing in a pregnant form was to make up for some regret, but she didn't understand why her grandmother had rolled the dungeon's time back to the sixties, when she was still young.

Only now did Liu Zhiyi slowly begin to realize.

Since entering this dungeon, though there'd been frightening places, most of the scenes had been gentle, even rather pleasant.

And for many old people, a falling leaf returns to its roots.

This feeling for one's homeland was hard for many young people to understand.

Even her mother, dead, had wanted to go back to the old home to be buried.

She understood.

Liu Zhiyi: "…You want to stay."

Hearing her words, Yindi still wore a face full of confusion.

"Stay how? I've always been in the village."

It was like a punch landing on cotton.

Yindi's present state was one of remembering nothing, knowing nothing.

Liu Zhiyi could only change the subject.

"Does the village bump into ghosts this often?"

"Not really that often." Yindi said. "Places where people are buried, like the bamboo grove, stir more; and there's a bit of it when someone dies, like this."

Liu Zhiyi: "Aren't you afraid?"

She wanted to open the subject up, and coax Yindi toward the idea of leaving the village.

But Yindi laughed.

"Afraid of what? They're all village folk, most wouldn't go out of their way to harm you — take Chunhua yesterday. If you don't provoke them, they won't harm you unprovoked."

"What about the water ghosts?" Liu Zhiyi asked back.

Yindi: "Those are the exception — to be reborn they have to find a substitute."

"Besides." Yindi's tone shifted. "Are there no ghosts in the city? In the village everyone knows one another, knows each family's business, so we've a fair idea who's a ghost. In the city it's all strangers — bump into a ghost and you might not even know it."

There was some sense in that.

Liu Zhiyi thought, turning over how to persuade Yindi to give up the idea of staying.

Yindi stroked her own belly. "My darling here isn't even born yet. Stay in the village, and there are more hands to help."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi felt a little angry.

Her grandmother had become like this to make up for the regret between her and the mother — and had forgotten her alone…

Liu Zhiyi wanted to ask what her grandmother was really thinking, but facing a Yindi who knew nothing, her chest felt stopped up with a held breath.

She wanted to tell Yindi everything, but was afraid that once Yindi knew about the dungeon she'd form other ideas, and the dungeon would change.

"I understand what you mean, but this is where I grew up."

Yindi smiled and pinched her cheek.

"Of course I want to stay."

Liu Zhiyi: "But…"

But this was only a dungeon, only a place built out of memory.

Yindi shook her head, and suddenly asked, "Shall we go see Yu Xiao?"

The turn was rather abrupt, but Liu Zhiyi couldn't think how to talk her round, so she agreed, downcast.

In the old countryside, medicine was backward, and mental illness of any kind was called being possessed.

Yindi: "It's very strange — first the woman in the house above Yu Xiao's went mad."

She talked as she climbed.

The houses in the village were built against the hill, the ones behind higher than the ones in front.

Yindi: "Then Yu Xiao's mother, and now Yu Xiao…"

Before she could finish, Liu Zhiyi saw a white shape rush over from not far off.

The figure wore only a white dress, hair loose and wild, laughing "ha-ha" and singing besides.

The singing was very clear and bright, forming an echo in the hills.

Rather lovely, even…

Yindi: "…That's her."

Liu Zhiyi stared, dazed.

In the time it took them to speak, Yu Xiao had run right up to them.

Liu Zhiyi turned side-on.

"…Zhizhi."

At the voice Liu Zhiyi spun around.

Yu Xiao looked at her, grinning.

"Zhizhi… Zhizhi…"

Liu Zhiyi fixed her eyes hard on her.

Yu Xiao waved a hand upward. "…Come out."