Chapter Twenty: Two Old Men Die at Midnight

  The old man jumped into the water and never showed his head again. The dark water surface only had ripples echoing to know that someone had just jumped in. At this critical moment, there was no room for calmness to think of a solution. An ordinary person could drown in the water in a few minutes, let alone an old man who was seriously ill and possessed by a ghost.

  I pulled out the wooden man where Tóng Tóng was hiding from my bag and threw it into the water without asking her if she was okay. A minute later, Tóng Tóng appeared on the surface of the water, she could finally show up, it had been more than half a month since we last met in the cave.

  Tongtong said that the old man couldn't be saved, he had already been sucked into the whirlpool and his body had rushed into the underground river, which led directly to the bottom of the mountain. Moreover, the person was already dead, she had no way to attach herself to bring him back, only living people could she possess.

  I didn't expect things to turn out like this. From the moment those vengeful spirits possessed him, I knew the old man might not make it through the night. When I saw him jump into the water, I also knew he was likely to die in there, but hearing Tongtong tell me herself still made my heart sink from head to toe, and I sat down on the ground before I even realized it. I didn't want to believe it, but it really happened, and all I felt was a sense of panic and unease in my heart. How would I explain this to Ah Po? Would I be taken away for reeducation through labor? A series of questions flooded my mind. All I could feel was a blankness in my head, followed by utter chaos, with no idea what to do next. I regretted pretending to be some kind of great master, after all, I had never learned any real skills, and now I had caused someone's death and gotten into trouble.

  Look at this desolate mountain and wilderness, Grandma is alone and has no one to rely on. If I just leave like this, she will definitely not find me again. But Grandma is a kind person and also a pitiful person, it's really hard for me to just leave her behind, but how can I tell her the result?

  When my mind was in a state of panic, I seemed to remember something and asked if Grandpa Tóng had died, what about those vengeful spirits that possessed animals? Tóng walked back to the shore, blinked her big eyes, stretched out one small hand, and on her palm was an olive-sized green stone.

  "Those hateful ghosts are all inside!" Tongtong said with a smug face, pointing to the green stone in her palm.

  I asked her what this thing was and where she picked it up. Tóng Tóng said that she had followed the old man into a whirlpool, chasing him all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Suddenly, those vengeful spirits emerged from the old man's forehead, being sucked in one direction by something. Tóng Tóng chased after them and discovered that there was a stone duck at the bottom of the water, and all the vengeful spirits were sucked into its eyes.

  Tongtong was frightened and feared that he would also be sucked in, just as he was about to escape. However, the stone duck's eyeballs suddenly fell to the ground, and Tongtong picked them up.

  Tongtong finished speaking and tossed the green stone in his hand, saying that this was the pebble that was the duck's eyeball.

  I took it from Tongtong's hand and only felt that the pearl was as cold as ice. When I shone my flashlight on it, there was nothing inside the pearl, no different from a glass bead.

  Tongtong continued to say that she picked up the eyeball and put it into the stone duck's eye socket, and another eyeball immediately grew out of the other eye socket. As soon as she removed the eyeball from the other eye socket, it disappeared. In other words, although this stone duck has two eyes, there is only one eyeball, but after putting it into the eye socket, another eyeball will appear in the other eye socket, which is too magical.

  "Ah! It's Stone Duck again. What's the story behind this Stone Duck anyway?" I couldn't help but ask Tongtong in surprise.

  The last time I saw the stone duck was on Longing Island, where we buried Tongtong's remains on its back. Later, I dreamed that it was carved by some small dwarves, but that was just a dream. However, the stone duck on Longing Island didn't have green eyeballs. The eyeball of this stone duck at the bottom of the pool can suck in ghosts, so why didn't it suck in Tongtong? Is it related to her remains being buried on its back? Why did this eyeball fall out when it saw Tongtong? Did the duck give its own eyeball as a gift to Tongtong?

  These problems are really messy, I'm smart but now completely don't have the mind to analyze, Uncle Gong's body has rushed into the underground river at the foot of the mountain, from this water pool it's estimated to be nearly a thousand meters deep. Can you imagine a well that is one kilometer deep, dark and cold below, never having seen sunlight for millions of years, just thinking about it makes me get goosebumps.

  Can't even get the body back? This ending is too miserable! It can be said that there is no place to bury, people die and cannot be reborn, but bringing the body back to rest in peace is also a comfort!

  Tongtong said that after picking up the pearl, she found Grandpa's body and buried it in the mud, temporarily avoiding being eaten by fish. She did this because she couldn't carry the body upstream back to the water pool.

  I let out a deep sigh, thinking that maybe I would just drown like this, but I had never heard of any water burial customs in Guiping, and certainly not in Guigang either! Still, I had to think of a way to find an opportunity to retrieve the body, for it was most important to have a proper burial.

  Tongtong and I sat by the pond, discussing how to go back and tell Grandma about it. We didn't know what would happen if we told her this bad news.

  We discussed for half a day but couldn't come up with any good solution, didn't dare to go back to Grandma's house, and didn't dare to just leave like that, so we sat by the water pool until dawn till the sun came out.

  In the morning, Tongtong returned to Muhouren. I took out that stone duck eye bead again and held it up against the sun, but still couldn't see anything special about it. Of course, I knew this bead was definitely a treasure, but now wasn't in the mood to study it carefully, so I threw it back into my bag.

  I finally decided to go back and tell Grandma after all. She can't even know the life or death of her own family's old man, she has already lost her child in middle age, it's pitiful enough.

  On the way back, I walked very slowly, feeling heavy footsteps, and several times thought of running away! But couldn't bear it, walked for a long time before returning to Grandma's house. The door was tightly closed, I stood at the door several times thinking of shouting for Grandma to open the door, but the words were swallowed back down my throat.

  Finally, I knocked on the door and found that it wasn't closed, just ajar. With one push, it opened. As soon as I pushed the door open, Tiantian shouted loudly, "The old granny is dead!"

  I stood frozen at the door, my right foot still raised and not yet touching the ground, when I heard Tongtong's shout and saw Grandma lying on the floor inside, her body stiff and straight, with a trail of white foam flowing from her mouth down her neck.

  My head buzzed with a loud noise, as if someone had knocked on it. Then I grabbed the sickle by the door and rushed into the house. After searching under the bed, in the cupboard, and other places, nothing was found. It's unclear whether it was a person, ghost or some kind of beast that killed Grandma.

  I couldn't find anything unusual, so I threw down the sickle and immediately went over to help Grandma up. I wanted to see if she still had a breath left in her. But when I saw that Grandma's pupils were scattered like gray glass balls, her body was stiff and her chest wasn't moving, I knew she had been dead for some time, probably since last night.

  The old woman's body had no bloodstains, and the things in the house were not messy, but her expression was very terrified, as if she had seen something frightening before she died. So how did she die?

  Tongtong reminded me that Grandma had a wound between her eyebrows, and when I took a closer look, there really was a small wound, like a needle prick. Tongtong said that each of Grandma's fingers also had wounds, every single one of them had tiny wounds like they had been pricked by a needle. Her eyesight isn't good, even with a magnifying glass, you can't see these wounds clearly, what's going on with these wounds?

  Tongtong said that Ah Po's soul was sucked away by something, which is the cause of her death. I was shocked and rushed into the old man's room, only to see that the urn on the ground was still there, but the black baby corpse inside had disappeared.

  Could it be that the old ghost came and took away the little ghost, and also killed Grandma? It's really ruthless and cruel! To verify this guess, I carefully searched around the house, inside and out, front and back, but didn't find any human footprints, of course, except for my uncle's and grandma's.

  If it was the ghostly old man who came, he should also have a weight of one hundred and twenty or thirty kilograms. The front and back of the house are all muddy soil, and in February's rainy and humid weather, the soft mud will definitely leave footprints. I didn't find any strange footprints, so what could have killed Grandma if it wasn't the ghostly old man? It's hard...

  The road is very slippery.

  I got a headache again, and asked Tiantian if she knew where the little ghost had gone. Tiantian said she would have a way to find out at night, but she said the little ghost must be running around at night, it can't get out of the house when it's daylight.

  I remember I had clearly tied its feet with a red string, and without something helping it, it was impossible for it to escape. Could it be that Ah Po went and untied the red string? Thinking about it, it's also not very possible, I've already told Ah Po that this thing is a little ghost, it can't be Ah Po who untied it, so who could have untied it then?

  However, this little ghost couldn't run far with the small corpse in tow, otherwise it wouldn't have hidden behind the waterfall's rocky crevice just a few hundred meters away the night before. If nothing helped it, I reckon it must have run to some place to hide and then informed the old ghost about its whereabouts.

  I don't know if it was the little ghost who killed Grandma, but I must find out what happened to her. Even if it wasn't its fault, I want Tongtong to ask the killer what kind of thing it is.

  I ran up the mountain and indirectly caused the death of two old people. The old man's body was difficult to retrieve, and if the killer who killed the old woman is not found, I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. Moreover, the development of things has reached a point where I can no longer handle it, so after going down the mountain, I will go to the public security bureau to report the case. After all, such things should be left to the country to deal with, and it's best to catch the old man who raised the ghost.

  I wiped the white foam from Grandma's mouth with a towel, then put her body on the bed, covered it with a quilt and washed the towel to cover her face. I lit several incense sticks, knelt down and kowtowed many times, then went out of the house and closed the door, took a hoe and an axe from the doorway, ready to go find the little ghost.