Chapter 12
Edward Quan ·
My expression was perfectly natural.
Everything I'd said was true.
Every New Year holiday, I spent a few days at Grandma's.
Wangwang was her dog.
“Wangwang...”
The ghost pretending to be Mom clearly knew nothing about him.
“Mom!”
“Have you forgotten?”
“We bought him for Grandma together!”
“You were worried she'd be lonely in the countryside, so we got her a dog for company.”
I deliberately sounded exaggerated.
“Oh... right!”
“Wangwang!”
“Honestly, my memory!”
“I remember now. Of course.”
“Mom” acted as though she'd suddenly recalled it.
She even tapped her forehead.
“Exactly, Mom.”
“I'll go after breakfast.”
“I'll be back tomorrow.”
This time, she didn't answer straightaway.
She lowered her head as if thinking.
I wasn't impatient.
I calmly kept eating while I waited.
Finally, she said, “I'll come with you.”
“I want to see Wangwang too.”
I paused.
But on reflection, as long as I could see Grandma, things would be easier.
So I nodded.
“Okay.”
“Grandma!”
“Grandma!”
I called loudly the moment we reached her gate.
I kept calling for a long time.
No answer.
“That's strange.”
“Is she out?”
“Mom, try calling her.”
I turned to “Mom.”
She took out her phone and dialed.
Immediately, a ringtone sounded inside.
“Good fortune comes~ Good fortune comes...”
Grandma had one of those phones designed for older people.
The ringtone was loud.
We could hear it clearly from outside the gate.
It rang for a long time.
Nobody picked up.
What had happened?
Eventually, the ringing stopped.
“Mom” put away her phone, went to a window, and bent to look inside.
Then she turned back.
“She doesn't seem to be home.”
Grandma lived in a single-story house.
The bedroom curtains were closed, but the kitchen and living-room curtains were open.
The window “Mom” had checked was in the kitchen.
I went around the other side and looked into the living room.
The light was still on.
On the wooden coffee table lay a half-eaten sweet potato.
My thoughts tangled.
It was like a hundred bees buzzing inside my head.
I'd always been an optimistic person.
Even growing up with a single mother, I'd been cheerful and outgoing.
Almost nothing could keep me upset for more than two days.
Whenever something bad happened, a night's sleep was usually enough for me to get past it.
Even lately, when I'd discovered my mother had been replaced, when one terrifying and desperate thing after another had happened, I'd held on to hope.
Hope that I could escape.
Hope that my family would rescue me.
I'd gathered the courage to face it.
To find the truth.
To save Mom.
But now, I truly didn't know what to do.
Anxiety burned inside me.
Despair began to rise.
Ignoring “Mom,” I turned and walked out of Grandma's yard.
Both Grandma and Mr. Zhang lived in remote villages.
His was the next village over, about four or five kilometers away.
“Mom” didn't ask where I was going.
She followed silently.
I walked along a country lane, then stopped at a fork.
I had absolutely no idea how to get from Grandma's house to Mr. Zhang's.
As I stood there uncertainly, “Mom” finally lost patience.
She came up beside me.
“Where are you going?”
I had no choice.
Drawing a deep breath, I tried to sound natural.
“Mom, can I borrow your phone?”
“My phone?”
“What for?”
She clearly wasn't going to hand it over easily.
She looked at me with a frown.
“Oh...”
“I want to check at Grandma's friend's house.”
“Maybe she's there.”
In truth, something had probably happened to Grandma.
She was old, but she'd refused to live with Uncle.
She only wanted to stay in the little house she'd built with Grandpa.
The whole family worried about her living alone in the countryside.
We'd told her again and again to keep her phone on her at all times so we could always reach her.
She would never leave it at home and go out.
Besides, I'd just seen the living room.
Someone as frugal as Grandma would never leave the light on at nearly ten in the morning.
And the half-eaten sweet potato...
Even if she couldn't finish it, she'd put it away.
She would never leave it on the table.
The only person I could turn to now was Mr. Zhang.
“Do you remember the phone number?”
“Mom” still hadn't given me her phone.
“No.”
“But I know the address.”
“I'll just use your phone to check the route.”
“Tell me the address.”
“I'll look it up.”
Of course.
She still didn't trust me.
If she wanted to pretend to be my mother, she could at least try to make it convincing.
With my back to her, I secretly rolled my eyes.
Then I gave her Mr. Zhang's address.
“Number 625, Yanghe Village.”
“That's so far. Are we supposed to walk?”
After checking the address, she looked at me unhappily.
We'd come by taxi, but finding another out here wouldn't be easy.
“Right, it is a bit far on foot. I'll ask Uncle Mo An up ahead to give us a ride on his motorbike.”
Uncle Mo An and his wife had been close friends of my grandparents for decades. The families were very close, and I knew him well.
“A motorbike?”
“Mom's” voice rose in disbelief.
“Yes. What's wrong?”
I understood now.
She didn't want to ride a motorbike. She even looked a little disgusted.
Thinking back to how carefully she'd put on makeup every day after I first came home, perhaps this was a ghost who loved beauty and cared a great deal about appearances.
“It'll be cold on a motorbike. Let's get a taxi. They're hard to find here, but if we add a little extra, someone should take the booking.”
She opened a ride-hailing app.
I had nothing to say.
Now that she was using my mother's body, she certainly didn't mind spending my mother's money.
It took an extra thirty yuan before a driver accepted.
Even then, he couldn't come all the way to us. We still had to walk out to the main road.
After all the delays, it was nearly noon when we reached the little lane to Mr. Zhang's house.
We got out and walked toward it.
I was hurrying, worried about Grandma and desperate to find him.
Just as I reached his gate and was about to enter, “Mom” called me.
“Yiyi, wait.”
I turned.
She was standing more than ten meters behind me.
“What is it?”
“Is this the house of that friend you mentioned?”
She studied the courtyard with an expression I couldn't quite name.
Maybe... fear?
“Yes. Mr. Zhang's a very good friend of Grandma's. Let's go in and ask if she's here.”
I turned back to open the gate.
“Yiyi, something very important has suddenly come up. Remember to come home tonight.”
She called me back once more.
But when I looked around, all I saw was her back as she hurried away.
Was she afraid of Mr. Zhang?
Or was there something in his courtyard she feared?
The gate wasn't locked.
I pushed gently and it opened.
What I saw left me torn between laughter and exasperation.
In the middle of the yard, Mr. Zhang stood motionless beside the water jar.
He stared at it with one fist held to his mouth, apparently deep in serious thought.
He didn't even react to the gate opening.
“Mr. Zhang.”
I went over and called to him.
“Good heavens, you startled me! When did you get here, kid?”
His face showed no sign of being startled.
He was as steady as a mountain.
His eyes hadn't even left the jar.
He didn't so much as glance at me.
“Mr. Zhang, my grandma—”
I hurried to explain.
“Wait. Let me think.”
He raised one hand, cutting me off.
“What's wrong?”
I didn't understand.
“That's settled, then. I'll have another cured pork hock today, and go without for the next three days.”
He drew a deep breath as though he'd made a momentous decision.
I was speechless.
“Mr. Zhang, now isn't the time to decide what to eat! Grandma... Grandma's missing!”
I stepped between him and the jar and anxiously told him.
“What? Little sister's missing?”
At last, his eyes left the jar.
He looked at me in surprise.
“Yes! Mom and I went to see her sometime after ten this morning. Her phone's at home, but she's gone.”
“Come on. We'll go and check right now.”
He hurried into his room and soon came out carrying a black cloth bag.
“But I don't have a key to her house.”
I stood there awkwardly.
“Who needs a key? We'll get someone to break the door open!”
“How will we get there? Taxis are probably even harder to find here. And I don't have a phone...”
I lowered my head and rubbed my hands together.
“On my motorbike.”
He was already at the gate.
“What? I don't know how to ride!”
“Who said you'd be riding it? I will! Come on!”
I looked up at him.
That thin body.
A face deeply lined by time.
“You... you can ride a motorbike?”
“Yes! Don't believe me? Erniu's not half the rider I am. I can even race!”
His voice rose, clearly offended by my doubt.
“Mr. Zhang... you've got some nerve!”
Despite his boasting, he rode steadily, perhaps mindful of me sitting behind him.
Near Grandma's house, we asked two neighbors to help break in.
While they worked on the door, Mr. Zhang pulled me aside.
“You said you came with your mother. Where is she now?”
“Mr. Zhang, that's not my mother. It's still the same ghost.”
I spoke seriously.
“Why do you say that?”
His brows drew together, his lips pressed tight.
His whole manner became sharp and stern.
“What she said when she woke in the hospital doesn't match what really happened. And I also found out—”
I was about to tell him what I'd discovered while following “Mom” the night before last when one of the neighbors came over.
“Yiyi, it's open. Come and have a look.”
I stopped.
Mr. Zhang and I exchanged a glance, then went toward the house.
At the entrance, he turned to me.
“Yiyi, I misjudged this. It's much worse than I thought. Prepare yourself.”
Before I could respond, he went inside.
I hurried after him.
16. Human Hands Behind It All
The first thing he did was open Grandma's bedroom door.
He took one look, immediately closed it again, and turned to me and the two neighbors following us.
“You two can go home. Her grandmother's sleeping in there.”
I'd been behind him, just about to enter, but he'd moved too quickly for me to see anything.
I tried to go around him and open the door.
He stopped me, gently pushed me aside, and turned to face the neighbors himself.
Supported by Mr. Zhang, I stood staring at Grandma for a long time before I recovered from the shock.
I tore my arm free, rushed to the bed, and dropped to my knees.
Leaning close to her, I cried, “Grandma! Grandma!”
I was about to shake her awake when Mr. Zhang hurried over and caught me.
“Don't touch her. You'll hurt her.”
“Mr. Zhang... what's wrong with her?”
Tears streamed down my face.
I clutched his arm with both hands.
He patted the back of my hand to calm me.
“Don't cry. She's alive. It's just... someone seems to have drawn her soul out.”
“What... what do we do? Please, Mr. Zhang, save her!”
He studied her condition carefully.
“From the look of it, someone's used some secret Eastern art. I don't know exactly which forbidden technique it is. But only a human would know how to work something like this. Your grandmother's such a kind woman. Who could be cruel enough to do this?”
He covered her with a quilt and gently stroked her eyes closed.
Once her eyes were shut, I tried to remove the thing stuffed in her mouth so she could close it.
He stopped me immediately.
“Leave that alone for now. Let me check my books for this forbidden art before we do anything.”
His words reminded me of what I'd found while following “Mom.”
“Mr. Zhang, there's something I need to tell you. The night before last, I followed her and discovered...”
I told him everything from beginning to end, leaving nothing out.
Afterward, I went through it again in my mind to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.
He thought for a while.
“The doll with the nail in its forehead... if I'm right, your father's soul is inside.”
“It seems the ghost possessing your mother is being controlled by that man too.”
“I knew it. An ordinary ghost couldn't do all that.”
I stared at him.
“Mr. Zhang... I don't quite understand.”
He explained patiently.
“At first, I thought your mother had been unlucky enough to encounter a greedy wandering spirit that wanted to steal her body and become human.”
“So once we rescued you from the dream, I thought it was over.”
“Normally, if a ghost is killed inside a dream it's created, its soul really does scatter.”
“But now you say it's still in your mother's body. That means someone is behind all of this.”
He paused, then continued.
“Most souls actually disappear after death.”
“Only those with attachments too strong to let go remain as wandering spirits.”
“Even then, very few retain awareness. At most, they can appear in dreams, create dreams, or cause illusions.”
“For example, you thought you couldn't open the door.”
“In fact, it could still open. The ghost just made you believe you couldn't.”
“As for possessing someone and coming and going freely like the ghost in your mother...”
“This is the first time I've seen it.”
Questions poured out of me again.
“Then why are there so many dolls?”
“Why did they choose Mom?”
“Why does she have to pretend to be my mother and stay close to me?”
“Why—”
He raised a hand.
“Stop!”
“There you go again.”
“I'm not an immortal. How would I know everything?”
“My family used to make a living from feng shui and fortune-telling.”
“I only picked up a little. Enough to fool people and keep myself fed.”
“I'm not even particularly good at the Eight Trigrams or reading fortunes.”
“Then... what do we do now?”
My disappointment was plain.
He shook his head helplessly.
“I don't know yet.”
“Let me go home and look through my books. See if there's a way.”
“Okay...”
I lowered my head, bitterly disappointed.