Chapter 4

Gran shouted again with all her remaining strength.

I glanced at the old man, who was beginning to recover.

I couldn't hesitate any longer.

Stumbling, I ran toward the east of the village.

The area was deserted.

The ancestral hall had been abandoned long ago. I walked for more than an hour without seeing a soul.

Why was Grandpa hiding here alone?

Hm?

What was that?

I bent to pick up a piece of white paper that had drifted down from above.

The farther I went, the more paper there was.

I picked up one sheet after another.

They looked familiar.

Weren't these the white paper offerings scattered along the route of a funeral?

Was there a procession out here in the wilderness?

But I heard no suona horns.

I looked around.

Not even a ghost in sight.

It was growing darker.

Tonight was the full moon.

Although night had fallen, the moon shone unusually bright, bathing the road ahead in silver-white light.

A wind rose. Leaves rustled.

In the pale yellow moonlight, their shadows looked like claws swallowing the white paper.

“Grandpa!” I couldn't help calling.

Only the wind answered.

I walked alone beneath the moon as sheets of white paper kept drifting toward me.

As if the funeral...

Were mine.

Each footstep made a rustle.

I didn't dare make too much noise.

I kept feeling that even the insects beside the road were watching me.

The breeze brushed past, carrying something.

Listening closely, I thought I heard opera singing.

Now present, now gone.

Clear for a moment, then lost again.

The tune was old.

Familiar.

Just like the one Gran used to hum softly in the yard when I was little.

Only her voice had been much gentler. Much sweeter.

I couldn't bear this strange singing.

Its shrill notes made my head feel ready to split.

Covering my ears, I ran desperately onward.

I had to find Grandpa.

Whenever he visited me as a child, he brought all kinds of brightly wrapped sweets.

One for Gran.

One for me.

I carefully folded and kept every wrapper.

They were my proudest possessions.

A faint red glow appeared ahead.

The ancestral hall.

The singing grew clearer, echoing emptily around me.

White paper kept falling.

I stopped.

Beneath the moon, that patch of red looked like a giant open mouth, waiting for me to walk in so it could swallow me.

I looked back.

My shadow stretched endlessly behind me, its far end merging with the darkness.

I could no longer make out the road.

Somehow, there was no way back.

Mum and Gran were waiting for me!

I brushed the paper off my shoulders, gritted my teeth, and rushed on.

The ancestral hall.

Long abandoned, almost reduced to a graveyard.

Dark red lanterns hung beneath the eaves, glaring crimson in the deserted night.

No wonder I'd seen a blood-red glow from so far away.

White streamers were everywhere.

The wind lifted them into twisting dances.

White.

Red.

Twining together.

No sooner did the paper fall than the wind sent it flying again, like snowflakes filling the sky, suspended in that piercing song.

I walked through it all and entered the hall.

“Grandpa?”

I called softly this time.

Instinctively, I was afraid of disturbing something.

The singing suddenly stopped.

But I'd already worked out where it came from.

The middle of the hall.

A rectangular opening in the center of the roof let the moonlight through.

From a distance, it looked like a giant pillar of light descending from the sky.

“Grandpa!”

I called more boldly.

I kept feeling he must be standing in that light.

Once I saw him, I'd feel safe.

As I approached, I noticed a huge black-and-white photograph on the far wall.

Grandpa's photograph.

Above it hung a black flower the size of a head.

Two white candles stood on either side.

Their flames were redder than blood.

It was his memorial portrait.

My heart pounded.

The entire ancestral hall was his mourning chamber.

Only then did I realize someone else was here.

They knew I'd entered.

That was why they'd stopped singing.

I kept moving forward.

There seemed to be something black beneath the light.

The candles under the portrait gradually revealed it.

A coffin.

Straight-sided and rectangular, lying entirely within the column of moonlight from the roof.

The singing began again.

Very softly.

Happier now.

Like a madman's shrill laughter.

Someone lay facedown beside the coffin, both hands gripping its edge.

Their whole head was inside.

Thick black hair hid the face.

Part of a blood-red opera costume dangled into the coffin too.

The light was weak, and the figure was motionless.

Only as I drew closer could I see more clearly.

She was still singing.

Her head and all her hair hung inside the coffin.

An enormous sleeve covered one side.

I stopped about two meters away.

I didn't dare approach.

I didn't dare retreat.

I hardly dared move.

Just as I became so frightened I nearly wet myself, she stopped singing.

“Xiwa... you've come?”

She didn't move.

Her voice rose and fell as though she were singing opera.

I couldn't recognize her at all.

But she knew my name.

Slowly, she turned her head.

Her hair slipped aside, exposing half her face.

My legs weakened. I nearly toppled backward.

Two enormous red circles were painted on her cheeks.

Her eyebrows stretched all the way to her temples.

“Xiwa.”

She smiled, blood-red lips parting to reveal startlingly white teeth.

My honorary grandmother!

Only then did I recognize her.

Since Grandpa died, she'd disappeared too.

So she'd been here with him all along.

“Xiwa. You've come? Don't be frightened. I'm singing your grandpa's favorite song.”

They'd always loved each other dearly and gone everywhere together.

She was as close to me as family.

She cared for me even more than Gran did.

My whole body relaxed.

Her makeup was eerie, but she was my honorary grandmother.

Grandpa's death must have devastated her.

That was why she stayed with his body, grief driving her to do things other people couldn't understand.

“Grandma!”

I threw myself into her arms.

She held me.

“My poor child... What happened?”

“Please save Mum and Gran!”

“My poor child. What's happened?”

Thinking of them, not knowing whether they were alive or dead, I cried and begged, briefly recounting everything.

She patted my back and pointed sadly at the coffin.

“The only person who could save them is your grandpa... but he's dead.”

Only then did I notice someone lying inside.

Grandpa's eyes were shut, his face wax-yellow.

As a child, I'd loved playing with his long white beard. Now it had turned gray-green and drooped beside his mouth, looking brittle enough to crumble at a touch.

Unwilling to accept it, I reached out to check his breathing.

He really was dead.

It seemed Grandma had to witness his death all over again.

When I confirmed he wasn't breathing, she suddenly laughed like a madwoman.

Her opera sleeves flew wildly, and the old song rang through the hall once more.

Of course!

Hadn't Gran said my blood could save him?

Fear had made my mind sluggish.

I immediately bit open my fingertip and let drops of blood fall onto his lips.

They seeped in at the corner of his mouth.

His throat moved slightly.

Perhaps I imagined it, but his face seemed a little healthier too.

Overjoyed, I bit deeper into the wound and squeezed.

A thin stream of blood flowed into his mouth.

This time, I saw clearly.

He was swallowing.

Color visibly returned to his face. Even the white beard at its sides seemed to regain life.

As I watched in delight, something red moved at the edge of my vision.

I turned.

Grandma's blood-red tongue was slowly extending from her mouth.

Her eyes were wide, fixed on the blood at my fingertip.

“Wonderful! My husband's come back!”

Unable to contain her excitement, she flung her arms around Grandpa.

Her grief-stricken face filled with joy in an instant.

“Xiwa?”

He opened his eyes, saw me, and pulled me tightly into his arms, his eyes shining.

Together, Grandma and I helped him out of the coffin.

12

“Ha! Here you are, just as I thought.”

Before Grandpa could stand steadily, the blind man appeared in front of us.