Chapter 4: The Desolate Temple
Under the intense distortion and shock, Hu Ma obediently followed the little girl in the red dress home for dinner.
My mind, heavily dazed from the intense shock, finally cleared up, but the sights before me utterly shattered all my rational thought, leaving me powerless to question…
It was already dark, and a lamp was lit inside the small house, where the grandmother was waiting for me by the square table.
Surprisingly, the meal in this simple house was quite sumptuous.
I had just run till I was out of breath, and the fright from those ghostly things left me somewhat dazed. I wasn’t even sure how long I had been running. But looking at the square table, it was already set with a plate of pickles, two bowls of porridge, and a plate of squarely cut meat.
So, I obediently took my place at the left of the square table, with the grandmother sitting at the head.
Little Hong Tang was now squatting on the beam overhead, peeking down.
The flickering light cast elongated shadows, and it seemed like something was always watching from the shadows outside the house.
The grandmother didn’t speak, silently eating her meal, focusing only on the pickles on her plate.
Little Hong Tang on the beam also stayed quiet, just blinking as she watched Hu Ma, now seated at the square table.
The atmosphere was eerie and oppressive until Hu Ma could no longer bear it and cautiously broke the silence:
“What… what exactly are those things?”
The grandmother and Little Hong Tang on the beam both turned to look at him, making the air in the room feel even more suffocating.
“Evil spirits.”
In the silence, the grandmother slowly spoke, “As soon as it gets dark, those things come out.”
“You were injured too severely and forgot the rule about not going out at night.”
“…”
“I…”
Without that answer, my heart would have been somewhat at ease, but now, just whispering a word left me feeling more uneasy, not knowing what else to ask.
“There’s no need to be so scared.”
The grandmother glanced at me and slowly continued, “You’ve just recovered, your body is weak, it’s normal to encounter evil spirits.”
“Just listen to grandma, eat more meat, and you will gradually recover.”
“…”
“Eat meat?”
I could only look again at the meat in the plate.
The piece that Little Hong Tang had finished was now replaced by what seemed to be a freshly cooked one.
But even freshly cooked, it carried a chilling aura, its greasiness already congealed under the lamp’s light, casting an eerie white hue, coldly lying on the plate.
I had been forced to eat it many times before but still couldn’t distinguish what kind of meat it was.
For sure, it wasn’t pork, beef, and certainly not human, nothing like what I had eaten before.
Moreover, the shape of this meat always reminded me of ritual offerings for the dead from my past life.
The resistance in my heart made it difficult to pick up the chopsticks, but the grandmother stopped eating and looked at me solemnly:
“Don’t you trust grandma?”
Facing her gaze, I felt a slight shock in my heart.
“I do!”
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the plate towards me and started to gnaw on the meat.
Based on past experiences, after being fed the meat came the indescribable torture of an ordeal. There was no escape; better to face it with something in my stomach to endure.
The slippery meat was chewed and swallowed, and my hungry body gradually felt satiated.
Maybe it was an illusion, but upon entering my stomach, the meat seemed to come alive.
It wriggled through my body, seeping into my organs and blood, repairing me from within.
This bizarre sensation revitalized me, and even the wounds on my shoulders felt somewhat lighter.
Seeing me clean the plate, the grandmother’s expression softened slightly and she slowly said, “Good child, after eating, go rest early in your room.”
“Should you need to use the restroom at night, do it by the wall corner, but never go outside or look outside. Those things are still out there!”
“Tomorrow, grandma will take you to the old fire pond shrine, to pay respects to our ancestors. That will make things better.”
“…”
“Those things?”
I actually had many questions to ask.
I vaguely remembered that every night brought unbearable torture, akin to a descent into hell. But tonight, was I really just allowed to sleep?
I wanted to ask for clarity, but facing the grandmother’s shadow-hidden face by the lamp, I involuntarily recoiled.
I only stole a glance outside the door, seeing the pitch-black darkness, devoid of any moonlight, incomprehensibly dark.
As if even the lamplight within the room was suppressed, the dense night seemed to harbor countless eerie things, staring with sinister eyes, leaving my back drenched with sweat.
I promptly cleaned up my bowl and chopsticks and squeezed into the side room.
The room was cramped with only a wooden bed and a newly made cotton quilt, thick yet cold and stiff.
I didn’t dare to sleep, hiding in the dark, narrow side room, all my attention on the main room outside.
Outside, the grandmother’s murmuring chant carried on, enigmatic and elusive.
“Creak, creak…”
Mixed with the chanting was a strange sound. Peering through the door crack, I saw Little Hong Tang gnawing on a bone.
This heightened my unease to an extreme, hugging the quilt tightly, tapping my head silently.
The scare made my mind significantly clearer than before, the dizziness seemingly fading away.
But beyond the horror, my mind was filled with endless questions and doubts.
“So, did I reincarnate into this young man also named Hu Ma?”
“The grandson of that grim grandmother, who was harmed by enemies. She wanted to call back his soul, but accidentally summoned me instead?”
“Was the previous torture… truly a form of treatment?”
“But the key point is… she thinks I’m just her amnesiac grandson, not realizing I’m not her grandson at all…”
“…”
Too absurd and bizarre, hard to fully believe at once, but having witnessed the wonders of this world, it seemed anything could make sense.
I was eager to understand all these, but now, lacked even the courage to look out the window.
As if trapped in the darkness, confined to this tiny wooden bed.
In such a world, I dared not sleep. Yet, whether it was the day’s exhaustion or perhaps the hypnotic effect of the grandmother’s chanting and Little Hong Tang’s gnawing, I soon dozed off unaware.
In a daze, I found myself in a gloomy, vast place, surrounded by dark red mist.
My body quietly parted the fog as I moved forward, stopping abruptly when a dilapidated platform appeared ahead, with an old incense burner, backed by vast darkness.
I could vaguely discern the silhouette of a deity in the darkness, indistinct.
Drawn unconsciously towards the platform, I realized it seemed to be an altar in a temple, and the entire space resembled a abandoned temple, decrepit and long devoid of worshippers. The altar, meant for offerings, was empty.
Inside the incense burner was only half-filled with ash, cold and silent, untouched by incense for who knows how long.
Oddly, beside the burner lay a half-stick of red incense, looking freshly made, with a familiar scent.
I stood in front of the incense burner, motionless for a long while, then, driven by an inexplicable urge, I picked up the half-stick of red incense, gently placed it into the burner, and slowly withdrew my hand.
“Sss…”
As soon as the incense stick was placed inside, it inexplicably ignited.
The faint dark-red glow seemed to breathe life into the desolate and decaying space.
The smoke drifted like a thin, ethereal snake, lazily extending into the empty surroundings.
I sensed something was about to happen, watching the smoke disperse in silent anticipation.
However, the incense simply burned quietly, seemingly faster than usual.
Just when I was about to relax, thinking my nervousness was unfounded, the scattered incense suddenly straightened, stretching into the depths of the dark red mist in defiance of all logic.
This impossible phenomenon stopped my breath at that moment.
Then a voice sounded: “Code name Erguotou in Old Yin Mountain calling the transmigrated soul, can anyone hear me?”
“…”
“This…”
An unexpected phrase jolted me, making me stagger back, trembling.
I stared towards the source of the voice, forgetting to respond.
At that moment, a cold touch on my ankle startled me.
A strange sensation spread throughout my body, waking me to find myself lying on the narrow wooden bed. The little girl in red clothes was holding my ankle with her ice-cold hand, her unnaturally bright eyes staring at me intently.
I jerked my ankle back reflexively:
“What are you doing?”
“…”
“Scaredy-cat.”
Little Hong Tang glanced at me, grinning: “Brother Hu Ma is awake. Grandma is taking us to the old fire pond shrine!”
“The old fire pond shrine?”
I turned, confused, to see daylight streaming through the small window.
It was already morning.
