Chapter 51

Liu Zhiyi: "…Come out to where?"

Yu Xiao smiled and sang a line — local dialect, which she couldn't understand.

Then, from the other end, came a few shouts.

Liu Zhiyi saw people come chasing out.

Yu Xiao laughed a few "ha-ha"s and, pointing at one of the old men, cursed a line.

"You old undying thing."

Liu Zhiyi was lost in the fog; she watched Yu Xiao run off, then get caught by the group, her hands and feet pinned as they carried her back.

Yu Xiao was still cursing, and Liu Zhiyi heard one of the men in the group call out.

"…Sister."

So they were a family.

Watching Yu Xiao's family go off, Liu Zhiyi kicked at a stone on the ground.

Not understanding the dungeon, not understanding her grandmother's thoughts and inner world —

Liu Zhiyi felt vexed.

She looked through the watch, wanting to see if the task had any hint.

[Possessed]

The same situation as in that Ankang Hospital dungeon: because she didn't understand the dungeon, the task description was naturally unclear.

But Liu Zhiyi noticed that from Chunhua's film-watching to that great commotion at night, no related task had ever popped up on the task screen.

In Liu Zhiyi's experience, everything in a dungeon reflected something.

What was Yindi trying to show through the Chunhua business? What was her grandmother thinking?

Liu Zhiyi let out a long sigh. "Let's go take a look."

Yindi: "All right."

Liu Zhiyi looked at Yindi a few more times.

Was her grandmother's temperament this good when she was young? Yielding to her every wish, to the point of complete compliance.

This kind of temperament looked less like making up for past regrets than like the negative feelings having been carved away entirely.

"When Yu Xiao first went mad, I didn't notice either."

Yindi began to tell a story again.

Liu Zhiyi listened quietly.

Yindi: "She kept asking me whether I'd seen an old man."

They stepped onto the stairs; a big tree grew at the center of the cluster of brick houses.

Yindi: "The village didn't used to have so many people — it grew to its present size after more moved in… but I heard from the old folk that there were no houses here before."

Yindi raised her right hand and pointed to the right of the tree.

"People were even buried there. Yu Xiao's the one who told me there was someone in the tree…"

—Rustle.

A gust of wind came from behind.

The branches swayed, and with them the tree's shadow on the ground.

In the dappled tree-shadow Liu Zhiyi saw two long shapes, like two legs dangling from a person sitting in the tree.

Yindi: "Yu Xiao said someone was sitting in the tree."

Liu Zhiyi didn't look up.

Yindi pointed under the tree. "This here is Yu Xiao's house."

Liu Zhiyi followed her finger down, and could see the tree-shadow stretching all the way down.

—Rustle.

The wind came again.

The two black shapes dangling among the tree-shadows crossed, then opened, looking like a pair of scissors opening and closing.

And the scissors' points were aimed right at Yu Xiao's house.

Yindi: "Not long after Yu Xiao told me all this, she went mad — pointing at her own father's nose and cursing. The favoring of sons over daughters is pretty severe in the countryside…"

"You old undying thing!"

Yu Xiao's furious roar burst out.

Liu Zhiyi's body jolted; that was just the body's reaction — however many frightening images and sounds you'd heard, a sudden shock like this would still startle you.

Yindi: "After Yu Xiao got possessed, her family shut her up."

Liu Zhiyi glanced at the tree-shadow on the ground.

The scissor-like black shape was gone.

Liu Zhiyi: "I'll go look."

She listened, head tilted, a while, meaning to follow the sound.

Yindi got a few steps ahead of her, walked in front, and waved to her.

"It's here."

Yindi pointed at the brick house under the tree-shadow.

This brick house was different from Yindi's — a bit like a courtyard house, the kitchen and toilet built outside.

And the little room in the middle, facing the tree-shadow, kept giving off Yu Xiao's cries.

Yindi strode briskly, quickly reaching the little room, and leaned in at the door to look inside.

Liu Zhiyi jogged to catch up, and heard Yindi cry out.

"Huh?"

Liu Zhiyi ran to Yindi's leg; the doors of country brick houses were all wooden, leaving a crack even when shut.

She looked in through the crack.

Empty. No one.

Liu Zhiyi looked down and saw a lock hung on the wooden door.

Where was she?

Where could she have hidden?

You could take in this little brick room at a glance; the already small space was heaped with firewood, with almost nowhere to hide.

Liu Zhiyi shifted her angle to look, braced herself, and turned her eyes behind the door.

Behind the wooden door was empty too — no one hiding, no sudden jump-scare of a face.

Liu Zhiyi let out a breath, but didn't dare drop her guard entirely.

The bosses of the first two dungeons often struck east while feinting west — first drawing your attention one way, then rushing out from another to frighten you.

She turned a circle where she stood, looking over up, down, left, right.

Besides Yindi, there was no one else.

That was strange.

Had the person vanished into thin air?

Yindi: "I'll go find someone."

With that she turned and ran toward a brick house on the other side.

Liu Zhiyi was a step slow; her toe caught on an uneven stone, and she stumbled forward a few steps — and in that delay Yindi ran into the house and out of her sight.

The wind stopped.

Everything around went quiet.

Liu Zhiyi stopped. From the moment she'd entered this dungeon, she'd stuck close to Yindi, never once apart.

Not a single sound was left.

Outdoors, even in the dead of night there were some sounds — the wind, or leaves shivering, or small animals stirring.

There was always some noise.

But now, the only sound left in the quiet was her own breathing.

Liu Zhiyi turned and looked up at that tree.

It had stopped moving.

The leaves were an emerald so green it seemed to drip, thick and lush.

But the branches were like an exquisite painting pasted in the air, not moving at all.

"Why aren't you coming in yet?"

Yindi poked her head out of the brick house.

—Rustle.

The wind brushed her face.

The tree-shadow swayed.

Liu Zhiyi: "…Coming."

When Yindi left, did the dungeon fall into a stopped state?

Liu Zhiyi walked into the brick house.

A few people were already standing in the room.

They stood in a ring around an old woman in the middle.

There was nothing special about the old woman's dress; she just held a chopstick and an egg in her hands.

She muttered some dialect Liu Zhiyi couldn't follow, the chopstick in her hand turning this way and that, as if pointing at people.

It was Liu Zhiyi's first time seeing this kind of folk rite, and for a moment she watched with keen interest.

But the chopstick turned a circle through the crowd and pointed at her.

Liu Zhiyi saw the egg in the old woman's hand suddenly stand upright.

At once, the expressions of everyone in the room changed.

Yindi: "This…"

The old woman waved a hand, signaling her not to speak, and beckoned to Liu Zhiyi.

"Come, help Granny with something."

Liu Zhiyi hesitated, and glanced at Yindi.

Yindi: "Master, you…"

The old woman: "Don't speak. I'm having the child come help — I won't harm her."

Liu Zhiyi touched the watch and felt it seem to buzz.

So she walked forward, over to the old woman's side.

The old woman stroked her head.

"Good girl. In a moment, go out the door, follow the road out front uphill, find a tree, then dig at its root and dig out what's inside."

Liu Zhiyi: "Which root do I dig?"

The old woman: "You'll know when you get there."

Another of those vague answers, Liu Zhiyi thought.

Only, the moment she went out the door, that state of the surroundings stopping might come on — though she still couldn't quite work out the principle behind it.

Liu Zhiyi guessed this stopping had some condition to it, and probably didn't strictly require being with Yindi.

Otherwise, the time she'd been tricked into the water by the water ghost, it should have stopped then.

The old woman turned her head and said to Yindi.

"Step back a little, and don't look at her in a moment. If you look at her, there are some things she won't be able to find."

Had this old woman seen something?

Liu Zhiyi was a little surprised.

The old woman: "Don't look at me. Out the door — run."

Liu Zhiyi turned and ran out the door.

The instant she went out, she heard Yu Xiao's voice.

"Old undying… old undying…"

The voice surged in from every direction, and the wind with it.

Liu Zhiyi was blown into a stagger.

The sky darkened.

She looked up and found a black cloud had blocked out the sun.

Yu Xiao: "I saw a man in the tree."

With the whoosh of the wind, Yu Xiao laughed "ha-ha."

Liu Zhiyi looked down and saw the scissor-like long shapes in the tree-shadow again.

Yu Xiao: "When I first saw the man I was scared to death, but he told me not to be afraid — ghosts and people are no different, they just live in different places."

Liu Zhiyi quickened her pace, running uphill against the wind.

Yu Xiao: "He took me to see it. There's no endless farm work there, and big houses, and everyone… every ghost has one, and there are no little brothers there, and no old undying things…"

Yu Xiao: "He asked if I wanted to stay."

The wind blew down from overhead.

Liu Zhiyi's steps faltered; she raised her head.

Yu Xiao sat on a branch.

"I want to stay. What about you?"

Liu Zhiyi ignored her and kept walking forward.

But after a few steps, the voice on the wind suddenly changed key — into a voice she knew, one she could never forget.

"Everything's here. As long as you want it, you can see anything."

Liu Zhiyi froze.

The tree-shadow swayed, and a woman with a frizzy perm sat in the tree.

Mama: "Do you want to go back to that reality?"

Liu Zhiyi stood rooted in place.

She wouldn't blink, staring hard at the person in the tree.

Even while her mother was still in the coffin, she'd looked at this face countless times, yet seeing it still set her heart surging, her eyes warming on their own; one blink and the tears would fall.

But Liu Zhiyi clearly knew, too, that the mother in the tree was false.

People really are marvelous creatures — at first, when a loved one dies, what you feel at once is numbness, a failure to adjust.

Then one day you suddenly feel the grief, and, heartbroken, you want to follow them into death.

The first two dungeons really had been agony, Liu Zhiyi thought.

Recalling, over and over in the dungeon, the moments she'd spent with her mother, and then the regret and pain.

Yet even such painful days had a day when she came through them, when she slowly grew used to it.

Liu Zhiyi found she'd actually grown used to that bitterness.

Since entering this dungeon, the frequency with which she thought of her mother had dropped, and the things she thought of no longer only stirred up pain or regret.

She had slowly adapted to life without her mother.

Liu Zhiyi: "Running away won't solve anything."

A change came over the face of the mother in the tree.

Wrinkles climbed onto her face — first the neck, then the corners of the eyes.

Her mother and grandmother looked somewhat alike, and with more wrinkles they looked more alike still.

Mama: "Do you want to forget me?"

"No." Liu Zhiyi wiped her eyes. "I've never forgotten you. At home I still call for you sometimes; at night I close my eyes and think of you, and the tears just won't stop…"