Chapter 36: The Mysterious Household
It's the fourth household! Just as I was wondering if it was a coincidence, Wang Jue pointed to the Bagua mirror hanging on the door, which is exactly the same as the one we saw at Wu Zhuang Miao's house. In two places thousands of miles apart, the appearance of the same thing is not a high-probability event. So, we are 70% sure that this is Miao's old courtyard.
I quickened my pace and walked up to knock on the door. Logically speaking, when Miao's daughter returned for the funeral, the courtyard should have been draped with white silk, mourning flags, and crowded with people. But standing outside the door, we couldn't feel any of that atmosphere; this courtyard seemed no different from an ordinary household.
After knocking for half a day, someone finally came to answer. The door was opened by an old hunchbacked woman, who was only about thirteen or fourteen years old in height, wearing deep blue clothes and shoes, with a deep blue apron on her head, surrounded by white cross-shaped embroidery, with wrinkles all over her face, sunken eye sockets, and the two hands that opened the door were bony and resembled chicken claws.
Just as I was hesitating and didn't know what to say, Wang Jue took the initiative to greet her. He bowed his head and squatted down to lower his height, politely saying to the old woman: "Hello, auntie! We came from Wu Village, the village branch secretary asked us to come find Hua Jinlan on his behalf."
"What?" The old woman turned her head sideways, covering her ear with her hand and shouting loudly.
It seems this old man's ears aren't very useful.
"The village branch secretary is calling us to find Hua Jinlan!" Wang Jue shouted in a loud voice.
"What are you looking for her?" The speaker was a man, and his voice came from behind the old woman.
We hastily straightened up and looked over in the direction of the voice. All we saw was a man wearing a white cloth shirt, with blue cloth shoes on his feet, holding a hoe in his hand, and with a diagonal scar above his left cheek, walking out of the main room. This appearance wasn't very friendly at all.
Wang Jue bowed slightly and said, "A friend of mine is ill and needs the help of Hua Dajie."
"Oh," Scarface looked us up and down, a distrustful gaze flashing from his two pupils, "where are you from?"
"Wu Zhuang, before we came, the village branch secretary had already called."
"She's gone to the mountains, you can come in and wait." Scarface coldly threw down these words and turned into the main room.
The old woman let us in, and we followed Scarface into the main room. All along the way, the old woman kept her head raised, staring at us with those deep-set eyes like a hawk, making people feel extremely uncomfortable.
This is an ordinary Miao family, with stone slab floor, stone slab walls and a stone slab roof. Even the steps leading to the village just now were built with slabs of stone. The main room is very dimly lit, except for the sunlight coming in from the door and a single light bulb hanging under the beam, there are no other sources of light. Considering the size of the room, the light emitted by this bulb should be pitifully weak.
The scar-faced man led us to the main room, but didn't invite us to sit down. Instead, he turned around and entered the inner chamber. Wang Ju and I were made somewhat awkward by this unreasonable behavior, and we stood uncomfortably in the main room, neither sitting nor leaving. Following him inside made us feel even more uneasy. The old woman just kept staring at us from the courtyard, not coming over to greet her guests.
I elbowed Wang Jue and he looked around, saying: "Wait a moment, he might have gone in to look for Hua Jinlan."
This wait lasted for more than two hours, until the sun was high in the sky, and still there was no sign of Scarface. The old woman had also disappeared from the courtyard at some point. I couldn't bear it any longer, so I pushed open the door to the inner room to see what Scarface was up to. This one glance scared me out of my wits.
