Chapter One: The Wooden Puppet of the Broken Temple

  There are many things in the world that cannot be explained by science, such as ghosts and legendary creatures like goblins and monsters. The scientific community collectively refers to these unknown entities as things that transcend biological capabilities.

  My family lives in a small county town in central Jiangxi. I've been away from home for several years, and whenever I talk to classmates or colleagues about paranormal events that have occurred in various places, they all think that Jiangxi has many mountains, heavy humidity, and is a place where "things" are more prone to happen. However, I scoff at this notion because I am from Jiangxi, and my great-grandmother (my grandfather's wife) was said to be a "shaman", but in our local dialect, we don't call people who engage in spreading feudal superstitions "shamans", but rather "flower ladies". The specific reason for this is unclear to me. Even if my great-grandmother was a flower lady, I didn't see any ghosts or monsters with my own eyes during the 24 years of growing up. The only thing I saw was when someone came to ask my great-grandmother to divine their fortune or check their astrological signs, she would shake her legs a few times, mutter a few words, and then accept gifts and send them off.

  I'm an atheist, but this atheism collapses with a crash when I see something dead come to life before my eyes, forcing me to view the world in a different light.

  It's worth mentioning that before I believed there was something else in this world, I was a Chinese restaurant manager at a five-star hotel. I was good at socializing and had a strong desire to move up the career ladder, with a relatively bright future ahead of me. However, fate had other plans. I was fired due to an incident, and it all started on a sunny morning when my family called to remind me that my wedding was approaching and urged me to take time off to go home and get married. That same evening, I unintentionally witnessed a young girl attempting suicide in the hotel restroom. What followed were multiple trips to the police station for questioning, after which the hotel fired me citing damage to their reputation. Well, at least I didn't have to ask for time off to get married anymore. But I didn't lose heart. As they say, when one door closes, another window opens. This time, I decided not to leave my hometown and instead joined my father's woodcarving business.

  My family opened a store in the county town that sells wooden carvings, mainly selling figurines and other things. Occasionally, we also make wooden puppets, which are used for burial rituals in rural areas where families with a bit of money would come to customize them. This type of puppet has been around for over a thousand years and is very characteristic of the local culture. Apart from wanting to start a business and earn money, I also want to promote this traditional craft, who knows, maybe it'll even be included in the list of intangible cultural heritage, and then I'll be famous too! My dad is a carpenter, and I've been following him since I was young, learning how to carve, so even if I didn't study formally, I still have some skills.

  This time back, the wedding preparations were mostly handled by the groom's family and my parents, so I was relatively free. I started taking over my dad's craft shop, and during my spare time, I would also go to the countryside to find folk artisans who carved wooden puppets, and bring them back home to study. After all, the really good things are mostly in the countryside. But what I never expected was that going to the countryside got me into trouble with something I shouldn't have messed with.

  It was yesterday afternoon, I drove to a village called Maliangpo in the jurisdiction of my county. The village is relatively remote, with less than twenty households in total. It's all old earth-brick tile houses, and young people who work outside haven't returned yet. Now, you can only see a few elderly people sunbathing under the black tiles and white walls, as well as two or three children playing sparsely. In the cold winter, the tall trees in the village are bare branches, and the cold wind blows through the entire village, making it particularly desolate.

  It was an old friend of my father's, surnamed Wang, who introduced me here. He is also a carpenter who makes a living by making coffins in the countryside and has aged, so I call him Master Wang.

  Master Wang said his hometown is in Malingshan, and there's an old temple in their village with a wooden puppet inside. Since he was young, the puppet has been left in the temple, which has been abandoned for a long time. Nobody wants it, so I might as well take it to study and research its value. If I can make something out of it, it will bring honor to their village. He's already talked to the villagers about this, and they're fine with me taking it.

  With the introduction of Master Wang, it was not a difficult task to take away the wooden puppet. The people in Malingshan are now mostly elderly and children who have stayed behind, with no cunning or deceitful thoughts. Moreover, since Master Wang introduced me, they were relatively enthusiastic when they saw me coming, and took me to that broken temple to find the wooden puppet.

  It was because of this puppet that the idea in my heart that I didn't believe in ghosts and gods was completely overturned.

  When I first saw the wooden puppet, it was placed on the altar of a broken temple, covered in a thick layer of black dust. Only its outline could be seen, and it was made according to the proportions of an ordinary person, quite tall with good body proportions. Upon closer inspection, one eye on the left side of the puppet's face could still be faintly seen, with a gentle and compassionate expression. The craftsmanship was very fine, with long eyelashes slightly raised, blocking some of the dust. It wasn't hard to imagine that when the puppet was new, it must have looked very good.

  This wooden puppet is said to be a god, but the incense sticks in the censer at his feet have been covered with a thick layer of ash and cobwebs. The entire temple is dilapidated, it's just a few segments of half-collapsed earth walls, even the beams were taken away by villagers to use as firewood. Several villagers told me that this temple has been here for a long time, in the past, some women would bring their children here to burn incense when they got scared, but it never showed any divine presence, and later no one came to take care of it, so it was abandoned.

  Since it was an abandoned temple, no one wanted to stay there. The dilapidated temple was located next to the home of a frail old man who had always wanted to demolish it and turn it into a small vegetable garden. However, he didn't dare to do so because the villagers believed that anything that had been offered incense would have spiritual energy. They never touched the wooden statue. I didn't believe in such superstitions and wasn't afraid of moving the statue away, which fulfilled the old man's wish to open up the land for farming. However, before lifting the statue down, I followed the villagers' advice and lit incense sticks and bowed my head. Just as I lifted my head, I saw the statue's hand slightly stretch out towards my face!

  In an instant, my heart was racing violently, and I broke out in a cold sweat. However, when I looked at the wooden puppet again, I found that its hands hadn't moved at all, not even the dust on the tips of its fingers had fallen off. The villagers around me were also smiling and watching me, without noticing anything unusual!

  Am I wrong?!