Chapter 8: Midnight Ghost Shadow

  Lao Lu then said to the village chief: "Village Chief Lin, is there an old man with the surname Wang in your village who has a son studying at university in Shenyang?"

  The village chief thought for a moment and said, "There are several people with the surname Wang, but I've never heard of anyone from that family attending university. It's possible to work in Shenyang, but such a big thing as going to college, I wouldn't know about it. Are you mistaken?"

  The old man looked back at us a few times, probably also couldn't figure it out. Then he described the appearance of that old man to the village chief in detail again. The village chief still shook his head and said: "It's impossible, you must be mistaken. The person you're talking about looks like someone from the mountains, but our village is so small, there's definitely no such person."

  I heard this and got up to ask: "Uncle Village Chief, is there a village called Houwazi or Qianwazi around here?"

  "Our village is far from the town, and for so many years, we have been living such a quiet life. In this area of ten miles around, there's only our village called Cui Zhai." The village head replied without hesitation.

  I thought to myself, this is really strange. We've come all the way here and can't find anyone? But looking at the village chief's absolutely certain tone, it wasn't good to continue asking questions. So several of us chatted idly for a while, then the woman yelled out and brought up dinner.

  Everything was stir-fried pork with wild vegetables, and everyone ate very fragrantly. During this time, Liangzi tentatively asked the village chief if there had been any big floods in the village recently?

  The village chief laughed after hearing him ask, took a sip of wine and said: "Our village has been dry for years, the crops have been severely damaged, let alone floods, even if it rains, it's like a holiday, young man who told you that?"

  Liang Zi spoke vaguely, saying he was just casually asking, but the few people present were actually very strange in their hearts. The old man who sold the 'ashtray' spoke clearly, but after arriving at Hou Baozi Village, it was completely different from what he said.

  I thought for a moment and then asked the village chief if there were any strange legends in this area?

  The village head might have seen the guests coming today and was very happy, so he took advantage of his intoxication to say to me: "You young man seem to love listening to stories! Alright, today I'll tell you an old strange story that has been circulating here for many years. It's something that happened over 30 years ago."

  The story goes that Houwazi Village was originally established by a group of mountain porters, who were known as "mountain droppers". These people would venture into the deep forest to dig up wild ginseng, which is no ordinary profession. Each and every one of these mountain porters possessed exceptional skills and had extensive survival experience in the depths of the old forest.

  Near Houbaizi Village, about 20 miles away, there is a mountain called "Zhēng má lǐng". The origin of this name is due to a special plant on the mountain called "zhēng má zi cǎo" (bee grass). This grass looks no different from ordinary wild grass, but if you walk on the mountain and your skin comes into contact with it, you will feel an unbearable itch. If you use your hands to scratch, you will feel a piercing pain. The leaves of this grass have a layer of invisible toxic thorns that can cause great harm to the human body. Therefore, very few people go to "Zhēng má lǐng".

  It wasn't until later, when the people who had been released from the mountains settled down in what is now Houwanzi Village, that after an unknown number of years, someone in the village heard that there were more game on Jizhuma Ridge, and so they went hunting together in the mountains. There were five people in total that time.

  But a week later, two of the five people who went hunting returned. One had gone mad and the clothes of both were torn to shreds, their faces covered in horrific welts that looked like they had been attacked by hornets.

  The villagers asked the person who was still somewhat sober what had happened, but he also spoke vaguely.

  This man is called Wang De, and his description roughly means that they saw some beautiful women not wearing clothes, so everyone was attracted to enter a cave. Inside the cave was a magnificent and luxurious large space, everywhere was filled with gold, silver, and jewels, which made these people extremely happy.

  But soon they saw a black-clad man, twice the size of an ordinary person, sitting on a stone chair, holding a snow-white little fox in his arms.

  Everyone was completely enchanted by the treasure and thought that the man in black should be the master of this place, so they went forward to ask for a good start and began to frantically pick up those jewels and put them in their pockets. Wang De was the oldest among these people, vaguely feeling that something was not quite right, but facing so many treasures, he couldn't control his emotions. Just as he was about to pick up an object in front of him, he turned around and saw that one of them had actually walked up to the man in black and knelt down.

  Wang De yelled at the man, asking what he was doing, but no matter how many times he shouted, there was no response. The next terrifying scene made Wang De almost pee his pants. He saw that the kneeling person had continuously kowtowed to the black-clad man several times, and then pulled out a cleaver from his body and started cutting off pieces of flesh from his own body. Each time he cut off a piece, he would present it to the white fox with both hands.

  All that can be seen is the white fox's mouth slightly raised, as if smiling, and it takes the meat over with a few bites, eating it clean. The person kneeling down doesn't feel any pain at all, cutting their own flesh piece by piece to feed the white fox.

  Wang De was so frightened that he almost became stupid, having never seen such a terrifying thing in his life. Just as he came to his senses and wanted to run outside, he heard the sound of heart-wrenching screams all around him. Following the sound, he saw that those beautiful women who were originally naked had turned into foxes of various colors, tearing at the remaining three treasure hunters. These people were immediately torn apart, their bodies mangled beyond recognition, with blood and flesh scattered all over the ground. The scene was so brutal that Wang De didn't dare to look.

  Wang De guessed that this must be the work of a fox demon, so he ran over to help up the kneeling person and prepare to run quickly. Unintentionally, he raised his head and took a glance at the black-clothed man sitting there, and suddenly felt dizzy as if the sky was spinning around him. Vaguely, he felt himself reaching for the knife on his body.

  He was indeed a man of strong will, so he closed his eyes and used all his strength to put the knife in his hand into his mouth, cutting off his own tongue. Then, with a mouthful of blood, he spat it out at the black-clad man. After that, he felt a sudden darkness in front of him, and everything turned pitch black. The dazed feeling also disappeared immediately.

  Wait until he lights up the torch, and then see what gold, silver, and jewels are inside. The cave is full of dead people's bones everywhere. A fellow in front of me is kneeling under a huge black stone coffin, constantly kowtowing. The other three have already scattered all over the place, not even a complete corpse can be collected.

  The village chief stopped talking here and burst into loud laughter, continuing to clink glasses and drink with Old Lu. I couldn't help but ask him what happened next? What about Wang De later on?

  The village head drank the wine, looked at us and smiled: "After Wang De came back, he went mad soon after. He was an old bachelor with no children, and the village just supported him like that. Until now, Wang De is still alive, but nobody recognizes him anymore. Later on, it all ended in nothingness. Actually, this is just a legend, and nobody knows what really happened. I think they must have encountered a wild beast attack and got scared out of their wits."

  Actually, I only treated this kind of folklore as a thrilling story to listen to. Generally, such stories are used to scare children, but after the village chief finished telling us this story, we all broke out in cold sweats one after another. Because the black-clad man and the snow-white fox in the story were too similar to what we encountered before in 'Chicken Crowing Village'. The painting that can shed tears is still with me now.

  After dinner, the village chief took us to a room and said that this was where his son used to live, but now his son had gone out to work and it had been empty ever since.

  In Northeast China's countryside, people sleep on kang (heated brick beds), this room looks like it hasn't been slept in for a long time either, fortunately it's summer and won't feel cold even without burning fire.

  After politely sending off the village chief, we lay down and fell asleep, although this story made each of us very afraid in our hearts. These two days, none of us had closed our eyes, really tired to death. Everyone chatted a few more sentences casually and then fell asleep drowsily.

  I had a bunch of messy dreams, foxes, dead people and masks, I don't know what kind of stimulation it was that woke me up. Looking around the room wasn't particularly dark, there was some moonlight shining in through the window, and I didn't know what time it was, guessing it should be midnight.

  I heard Liangzi snoring loudly, and Lao Lu grinding his teeth and farting on the other side, making me feel annoyed. I closed my eyes and counted sheep for a long time but still couldn't fall asleep. Fortunately, I gave up sleeping and crawled to the edge of the kang, fumbled out a cigarette, lit it, and thought about what had happened in the past few days while smoking.

  As I was throwing away the cigarette butt, I faintly heard a "creak" sound. Although it was very light, in such a quiet space, I still heard it clearly. So I looked up and saw that the door had opened a crack and was slowly opening wider, then a dark shadow slipped into the room.

  I was completely awake at that time, thinking it couldn't be! Could it be that the villagers heard we were from the city and invited thieves, who wanted to sneak in and steal things while we were asleep?

  I lay on the kang and didn't dare make a sound, just staring at the ghostly figure to see what he wanted to do. After the ghostly figure came in, it glanced at where we were sleeping, then walked towards a wooden trunk beside us. The trunk was used by rural people to store clothes. I thought our money was all on us, and since no one had taken off their clothes, everyone felt much more at ease.

  Suddenly my mind had another flash, I leaned on it, and at this time my 'Xianshan Fox Picture' was placed on the wooden box, could this thief be after this painting? How did he know that we had such a treasure in our hands?

  Right after that, I saw the black shadow approach the box, reach out and take the painting in hand, and untie the strings bound to it. Then, as he slowly opened the painting halfway, I felt him suddenly shudder all over, and then quickly put the painting away, hugging it tightly to his chest, without looking back, he walked out.

  I was so anxious that I couldn't stay still, thinking that this thing must not be stolen, it's what Liangzi risked his life to protect. So I went to push the person next to me, Liangzi, and after pushing him a few times, his snoring became softer, but he showed no signs of waking up. I jumped down from the bed and stood by the bedside, pushing Liu Bao's head, Liu Bao woke up after being pushed a few times, just as he was about to speak, I immediately covered his mouth and made a gesture for him to be quiet, then beckoned him to follow me.