Chapter 53

The old woman: "In a bit, stay behind me. Whatever you hear or see, pay it no mind. When I tell you to cut, you cut."

The words were barely out when the old woman gripped her hand and took a step forward.

Liu Zhiyi saw the candlelight in the village dim.

The starlight overhead dimmed along with it, until it vanished.

—Clang.

She heard a gong strike, and with it an infant's wail coming from far off.

With the starlight and candlelight gone, the dark all around was startling.

Liu Zhiyi turned on the flashlight.

The beam scattered the moment it shone out; she could see the light, but it lit nothing.

The old woman: "No use. Night isn't the same as day. And some things… we can barely hold them down anymore."

Liu Zhiyi: "What things?"

The old woman: "Not all ghosts are good ghosts."

"…Zhizhi."

An airy voice suddenly sounded in the dark.

Liu Zhiyi went still.

The old woman: "That's Teacher Yang."

Liu Zhiyi startled; she hadn't thought she'd meet an "acquaintance" again in this dungeon.

The old woman: "That Teacher Yang is a poor soul too — came down with that illness, wanting to trouble her children yet afraid to trouble them, so now she's dead… She can't bear the sight of anyone else's child most of all."

Teacher Yang: "Zhizhi… Zhizhi…"

Liu Zhiyi heard the voice change, until in the end it became her grandmother's.

The old woman: "Be careful — she'll turn into whoever you want her to be."

So the last dungeon had left a scar on her grandmother's mind after all.

Liu Zhiyi heard her grandmother's voice weeping.

"Zhizhi, what am I to do — it's bad enough this body drags me down, but it drags you down too…"

The moment she heard the voice, she couldn't help wanting to turn and answer it.

The old woman: "Don't move. Don't fall for the trick again."

Liu Zhiyi felt uneasy inside.

"Even if it's a trap… those are still her true words, aren't they?"

Even a bad ghost was part of her grandmother's obsession.

The old woman was silent a moment. "Never mind that. Come with me and find Auntie Yuedi."

But Liu Zhiyi heard her grandmother's weeping grow louder and louder.

—Clang.

With the strike of a brass gong came the suona horn.

The sounds wove together into a rhythmic tune.

Liu Zhiyi listened closely and found it was "Only Mama Is Best in All the World."

The moment the tune started, the wailing all around suddenly rose.

Then a white light came on overhead.

Liu Zhiyi found she'd entered a courtyard at some point.

A row of funeral wreaths was set along the courtyard wall.

Several people stood in the yard, some with brass gongs in hand, some blowing suona horns, one working an electronic keyboard.

Neither quite Chinese nor Western.

Beside this band two more people held hands, heads up and hips swaying, as if about to break into a lively dance.

It looked like the scene of a white happy event — the kind Liu Zhiyi had seen when some very old person died.

And the host of this white happy event: a color portrait stood on the memorial altar.

Liu Zhiyi fixed her eyes on it; the old person in the frame wore a smile.

"…Grandma?"

The old woman covered her mouth, signaling her to be quiet.

Liu Zhiyi closed her mouth.

Though a family member's death is a white affair, when an old person dies naturally, without pain or illness, it counts as a happy thing too.

Liu Zhiyi hadn't thought so before, seeing some families put on a whole racket with a band for a white happy event, even the wreaths in bright colors.

Family and friends gather in a crowd; a few of the cheerful ones will even join hands for a ballroom dance.

It's a sad thing, yet it looks like a joyful one.

At the time Liu Zhiyi had found it a little absurd and funny.

But only once a loved one had been through an illness did she truly feel that this painless, untroubled old age really was one of life's great blessings.

A gust of wind blew past.

Paper shivered with a pat-pat sound.

How could there be the sound of shivering paper here?

Liu Zhiyi looked closely ahead, and saw that the musicians, along with the dancers in the middle, were all made of paper.

The old woman led her on.

Passing the dancers, Liu Zhiyi saw a microphone.

So the band had someone to sing too.

Behind the microphone stood two paper figures, one large and one small.

After a long musical intro, Liu Zhiyi heard the two, large and small, sing "Only Mama Is Best in All the World" in time with the music.

Liu Zhiyi startled; the child's voice was still tender and couldn't quite hold the beat, but the other, a woman's voice, was unmistakably her mother's.

Listening more closely, the child's voice was her own, from when she was little.

Liu Zhiyi felt a rush of longing, and yet a strangeness too.

She would still recall her childhood memories, still feel her mood rise and fall with them, but she no longer sank deep into them.

Liu Zhiyi found she was slowly pulling free of that grieving state.

It was a feeling hard to describe…

It was… it was…

She would still think of her mother, still feel grief for it, but more of her was thinking about how to get through the days ahead.

She found she could now think about how to break the dungeon, even one bound up with her mother and grandmother.

In the first two dungeons, the moment her mother came up she'd lost all reason, and been tricked, led around in circles.

But now, Liu Zhiyi found her wits beginning to come back.

It made her feel guilty; she felt she shouldn't be this way.

The old woman: "In a bit, once you've cut the umbilical cord, walk straight ahead. You'll see a small stone bridge. Cross it, and don't look back."

Liu Zhiyi: "Is it the Naihe Bridge?"

The old woman was taken aback, then smiled.

"Yindi told you even this?"

"There's only the one deep river in the village, so naturally a lot drowned jumping into it." The old woman stroked her head. "That's why the village calls it the Naihe Bridge — but most people don't actually know what the Naihe Bridge really means."