Chapter 129: A Solitary Investigation of the Temple

The door was shut. I had the key. Two enormous panels stood across my path, their peeling, cracked paint telling me that they had been standing here in silence for a very, very long time. What sort of person would open such a strange gate in the middle of the night? Who else but a fool like me?

At that moment, I looked like a thief, glancing nervously from side to side. I was terrified that someone might suddenly emerge and catch me at it. Behavior like this would surely earn me a lunatic’s label.

I inserted the key and gave it a gentle twist. With a click, the lock opened. Before I could push, the door let out a creak of its own, ringing through the night like a thunderclap. My hand jerked, and I stumbled backward, nearly tumbling down the steps.

When I looked again, the door had opened a crack. I gathered my courage and leaned toward it, peering inside. It was pitch-black; I could see nothing. So I pushed harder.

With another long groan, the door swung open. A wave of mildew struck me in the face, carrying with it an air of utter lifelessness. I had a mining lamp strapped to my head, so wherever I turned, light followed. Its beam spread into a vast white haze. It seemed that a layer of mist still lingered inside the great temple, too thick for the light to pierce.

I steeled myself and pushed the door once more. This time, I opened the entire thing. Half my body inside, I took a quick look around. It was just as it had been during the day.

The great temple was still overgrown with weeds and falling apart. The greatest difference was that at night it was even quieter. There was not so much as the chirp of an insect—only a deathly silence. Spiderwebs filled the rooms. Coffins stood one after another, their cracked lids resembling gaping mouths waiting to swallow anyone who came near. They sat there in silence, waiting for strangers to arrive.

“It’s only an old house,” I told myself. “It’s no different from my own home. I come when I please and leave when I please.”

Once I had that thought in my head, my courage returned. Sometimes, a little foolishness was a good thing.

But just as I lifted my foot and took one step inside, something flashed through the weeds opposite me.

“Something’s there!”

I raised my rifle and took aim. A black mass suddenly shot into view, moving so fast that I had no time to react. Instinctively, I ducked. Something sharp skimmed across my scalp with a rush of air. The pain was like slipping and falling onto ice in the dead of winter, leaving nothing in my throat but freezing breath.

Then something else charged from across the room, lunging straight toward my thigh.

It was Daidai, that dog.

He circled me once, then clamped his teeth onto my trouser leg and began pulling me toward the entrance. By then, I had mostly figured it out: the thing that had pounced on me just now had definitely been that damned owl.

“You mangy mutt, I’m not leaving!”

I slapped the dog on the head. He looked terribly aggrieved, whimpered twice, then jumped outside before jumping back in again. He continued circling me without pause.

The old people always said that dogs possessed a sixth sense. This dog clearly did not want me to enter the great temple. I crouched down and stroked him, only to discover that his whole body was trembling. He was shaking so hard that even the lice in his fur seemed ready to fall out.

I rubbed his back, trying to calm him.

“I know this place isn’t safe, but I have no choice. What are you trying to tell me? Is there something terrifying inside?”

The dog whimpered twice, licked my hand, then circled me again and looked up at me.

“If you really are my dog, then listen well,” I said. “Several generations of the Xia family practiced as Taoist priests. What kind of formidable things haven’t we seen? Your master survived battlefields filled with bullets. If you’re going to lose your nerve, go home by yourself. I’m going in for a look. Whether you come or not is up to you.”

After saying that, I finally began to move. I strode inside, making my way toward the center of the temple. Daidai followed, although he had hesitated for a long time at the entrance.

Dogs can see things that humans cannot, and their sensitivity to danger far exceeds ours. Cha Wenbin had told me that.

From a distance, I could still see the coffin. It rested on two old benches. After a coffin was unearthed, it was considered taboo to let it touch the ground, so it had to be suspended above it. The talisman pasted to the head of the coffin was still there.

The room was nearly empty. Aside from a pile of rotten straw, there was only a battered wooden chest. I circled the coffin once. Nothing unusual happened, and I let out a quiet breath of relief.

“Daidai, it’s all right now. Let’s go home.”

I called to the dog and turned toward the entrance. But at that moment, Daidai suddenly barked.

The sound was deafening. It seemed as though he had stretched his vocal cords to their absolute limit to produce such a powerful cry. I immediately took another step backward, and the dog shot out like an arrow.

No more than a blink later, he came charging back like a mad creature. He hid behind me, then began barking furiously at the outside. He barked as if someone had stolen his beloved mate, spraying saliva everywhere, his neck stretched longer than a duck’s.

There was no way to calm him down, so I took my rifle and walked outside. The moment I stepped out of the room, my headlamp fell upon something that made my heart leap into my throat.

There was someone standing at the wide-open entrance.

I was certain my eyes had not deceived me. Yet when I looked again, the person was gone.

In the blink of an eye, the door had somehow closed.

I was wide awake—more awake than I had ever been. I realized that I had run into something unnatural.

Just then, Daidai leaped out of the room. He skidded to a halt, spun around, and began barking wildly into the darkness inside. As he barked, he kept backing away, baring his teeth as though he meant to tear someone apart.

I had my back to the room. What was inside it?

The coffin.

A chill began to rise behind me, rushing upward in waves. I made a decision.

I pulled back the bolt. Spinning around on the spot, I had barely completed half a turn when I raised the rifle and fired into the room.

Straw flew everywhere.

I had no idea what I had hit, but I saw him—clearly. He stood beside the coffin, running his hand over it again and again.

He wore a dark-blue jacket decorated with concentric patterns. His trousers were made of the same material as his top. Even an idiot could recognize it.

It was a burial suit.

No one wore such a thing out for a stroll. A curse sprang from my mouth. I raised the rifle to fire again, but at that moment, the man finally turned his face toward me.

His eyes were not sunken, as one might expect from someone who had been dead for a week. Instead, they bulged from their sockets like a frog’s. My lamp shone directly onto his face, yet he did not blink. His eyes reflected no light at all.

Anyone who claimed not to be afraid would have to be a ghost themselves.

I knew this man.

Only a few days earlier, I had attended his funeral.

It was Gao Cheng—the father of my classmate.

What was I supposed to do upon encountering something filthy and unnatural? I was no Taoist priest. What else could I do?

Run.

I turned and fled, but something had already placed a hand on my back. Cha Wenbin had once told me that if something ever rested its hand on your shoulder, you must never look back. The moment you turned sideways, it could blow out the fire burning within you.

Every person possessed three flames: one above each shoulder, and one atop the head. When people spoke of someone’s “flame” being high or low, they meant the strength of those three fires.

When the flames burned brightly, unclean things dared not approach. But if the flames weakened—or went out altogether—disaster might follow.

I froze where I stood. I could feel five fingers clamped tightly around my shoulder. I was caught between advancing and retreating when Daidai suddenly leaped into the air and hurled himself behind me.

At that instant, the pressure on my shoulder loosened.

I seized the opportunity and ran for my life, all the way to the entrance. When I turned my head, I saw that half of Daidai’s body was still outside the room. He was struggling desperately to move forward, while his hind legs were being dragged backward.

He was being pulled inside.

I turned back and ran after him. But when I charged into the room, Daidai was gone.

The silence was as dead as before, just as it had been when I first entered. The only difference was the series of finger marks scratched across the coffin.

I shouted with all my strength.

“Daidai! Daidai!”

There was no answer.

When I stepped out of the great temple again, I saw that pair of eyes still watching me from the water fir not far away.

I walked along the narrow path like a man who had lost his soul, dragging my exhausted body forward in a stumbling gait. The moment I left the great temple, I felt countless pairs of eyes upon me. Their laughter followed me—mocking, contemptuous, playful.

I was a man defeated by fear.

I was not even as brave as a dog.

When I crossed the bridge near my home, I did not go back. Nor did I meet Cha Wenbin as we had agreed. I simply sat on the bridge alone, smoking.

It was bitterly cold that night. My fingers gradually went numb, and my mind became a blank void.

I had no idea what time it was. Dawn had not yet broken when I vaguely saw a light flickering in the distance. Then another appeared, and another. I began to hear a clamorous sound, as though a great many people were approaching.

I lowered my head and wondered if those things I had seen during the night had come again.

Had they come to take me away?

He said:

Thank you, everyone. I believe it will not be long before we return to the top of the rankings together, don’t you?

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