Chapter Sixteen: The Ghost Wails, Emptiness is All

  I was holding a wooden stick, trembling as I tried to part the yellow grass. Just then, a night cat's mournful and eerie laugh made me sit down on the ground with a start. The silly egg and thin monkey were scared away to one side. I sat on the ground, my soul still shaken. At this moment, the night cat in the persimmon tree above my head let out another strange laugh. This time I knew that it was just a damned night cat. I'm afraid of ghosts, but not night cats. So I picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at the tree, saying "Go to your grandma's!"

  I don't know if I hit it or not, anyway that night cat flew away with a thud. I got up from the ground and said to Dumb Egg and Skinny Monkey: "You two are so ungrateful!"

  Two people rushed over to help me up, I shook my shoulder and said: "No need for your help, I can manage myself."

  As I spoke, I continued to sulk and suddenly lifted the yellow grass. I thought I would see a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, but there was nothing inside the yellow grass. At that moment, I felt dizzy and wondered if the child's spirit had just been teasing us. People say that children are small but ghosts are big, this is not impossible. I felt my scalp crackling with fear.

  "Silly egg said: "Grandma's, how come it's gone? Just now I saw it clearly, that little kid was in the yellow grass, how come it's gone?"

  The thin monkey said: "Let's search around, it must have climbed away by itself. Let's go and take a look everywhere."

  "I said: 'Let's not look for it anymore, let's hurry and go.'"

  As I spoke, I turned and walked away. At this moment, I suddenly felt that something was stuck to my back. I could clearly feel that there was something stuck to my back. The thing was very light, but I could feel it tightly grasping my clothes and sticking close to me. I felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of my neck, making all my hairs stand up. I didn't dare turn my head because I was afraid of seeing that terrifying face.

  Although I didn't look back, I was thinking of ways to get rid of it in my heart. Suddenly, I remembered the mantra that my master taught me, hoping that my master's mantra would work. The secret incantation I used is what my master called the "Mystic Spell". This Mystic Spell cannot be used lightly and can only be used when breaking through Feng Shui, or when being haunted by evil spirits in a life-or-death situation. Normally, it cannot be used. At that time, I was scared out of my wits, so I didn't care about anything else and loudly chanted: "Five Thunder Messengers, mighty and powerful, descending upon the spirits, thundering and lightning, arrayed like clouds, quickly capture the evil demons, drive away the wicked ghosts, I obey the orders of the Great Emperor of the North Pole."

  After finishing, I took a deep breath and held the air in my stomach, using the tip of my tongue to block it. At this time, the thing on my body was blowing air towards my neck. I suddenly turned my head and vaguely saw an outline, which seemed to be a person, but it was vague and unclear. At this moment, I suddenly blew the air towards that blurry outline. A faint cry that was almost inaudible sounded by my ear, and then the vague outline on my body disappeared without a trace.

  "Hey, Big Brother, what are you doing here reciting Master's incantation?"

  I said: "It's not going to work if I don't carry it on my back. Just now, there was a flea on me that I blew away with one breath."

  The thin monkey immediately leaned towards me and said: "Let's go back? This place is too scary, we won't learn anymore."

  As soon as I heard Skinny Monkey say he wasn't going to learn anymore, I said: "That's not possible, we've all become apprentices, so we have to study hard. You two follow me, I know Master's spells, and I'm not afraid of him."

  I'm actually scared to death inside, but I couldn't show it now. As the senior brother, I have to take the lead and set an example. Now is not the time to be timid, we have to push forward even if we don't want to. After saying that, I led the way forward with my head held high, followed by Ah-Dan and Thin Monkey. At this moment, we heard faint crying sounds coming from all directions - in front of us, behind us, to our left and right. Those cries seemed both far away and yet very close, heart-wrenching wails filled with deep resentment that made one's heart clench up after hearing them.

  The thin monkey and the foolish egg stopped in front of me, at this time, in the persimmon forest, a few lights were lit up, but upon closer inspection, they were not lights, but rather jumping fireballs, these fireballs emitted a faint glow of death, without any warmth. Although it was midsummer, we felt a chill run down our spines.

  Silly egg and thin monkey, both asked me what to do? Ah, at this time should do what? I thought of reciting incantations, but was afraid that those spells had all gone to grandma's house to drink porridge. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration, remembered the urine of a young boy, wasn't it used when encountering that female ghost before? So I loudly shouted: "Take off your pants."

  Sha Dan heard me say take off pants, very strange, said to me: "Shixiong, what's the point of taking off pants?"

  "I said: 'Pee, pee quickly.'"

  The thin monkey said: "Why is Big Brother urinating?"

  I said: "Children's urine can ward off evil spirits, hurry up and pee."

  The thin monkey said pitifully: "Brother, I'm afraid I won't be able to pee."

  I said: "What's there to be afraid of? Your little birds can't bite."

  After finishing, I and Sha Dan started urinating. Unexpectedly, the urine of Tongzi had a strange effect. After this one urination, the crying sounds in front of us disappeared, and the ghost fire slowly drifted towards the depths of the persimmon forest. We put on our pants and found that Shou Hou was standing over there holding back his urine. I said: "Okay, don't hold it anymore, let's hurry up and touch the wooden sign."

  After finishing speaking, we left, and the thin monkey was behind us, pulling up its pants while shouting at us. We were amused by the thin monkey's appearance and burst out laughing. This laughter diluted a lot of our previous fear. Taking advantage of those ghostly fires moving away from us, we quickened our pace, heading towards the chaotic tomb hill from the persimmon forest. When we arrived at the chaotic tomb hill, the situation here was different from that in the persimmon forest. Here were tall cypress and pine trees, with many surrounding the tombs. These were ancient trees planted on the ancestors' tombs years ago. As time passed, there were more and more tombs, but they were not led by the elderly of the family; it was already impossible to find the ancestral tomb.

  The shadows of the trees shrouded some graves, making them indistinct and hard to see. Since this was a cemetery for the dead, we didn't often come here. During the day, it would take some effort to find Daei's grave, let alone at night. We had to keep searching, fortunately, there was moonlight. The old graves were different from the new ones; this old grave was covered with jujube trees and weeds, visible from a distance. In contrast, the relatively new graves only had grass growing on them. I remembered that Daei's grave was bare and had no grass.

  We walked among the graves, always feeling that something was approaching us. After searching for a while, we still couldn't find Daidi's (Second Grandfather) grave, so we started blaming Daidi, thinking he should know his own grandfather's grave better than us. Finally, Daidi remembered that at the bend of the road leading to his grandfather's grave, there was a recumbent stone cow. As soon as Daidi thought of this landmark, it became much easier for us to find the way.

  We were beside a reclining cow stone, and finally found a winding path. Actually, apart from the main road of the cemetery, they are all this kind of winding path, because such roads are between graves, and were trampled out by people visiting the graves. We followed the winding path inwards, and finally saw that new grave. In front of the new grave, we started looking for the wooden sign buried by our master. I remembered that our master had buried it behind the grave, so we didn't circle around, but directly went to the back of the grave, carefully searching for the traces left by our master's burial of the wooden sign. The new and old earth could still be distinguished under the moonlight, and we finally found the place where our master had buried the wooden sign. When it came to digging up the wooden sign, none of us three wanted to take action.

  In the end, I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands and remove the wooden sign myself. As I was removing it, my heart was racing with fear that a hand would suddenly reach out from the grave and grab mine. Fortunately, I managed to remove the oil paper package smoothly and quickly retrieved a wooden sign. When I finally held the sign in my hands, I was drenched in sweat from head to toe. The beads of sweat on my forehead dripped down continuously as I wiped them away. After re-burying the sign and restoring it to its original state, I could finally consider the task complete.

  After we finished, we took the wooden sign down the mountain. This time, we didn't encounter anything unusual. When we returned to that dry riverbed, we found that our master was nowhere to be seen, so we searched everywhere for him.