Chapter Forty-Nine: Returning to the Wildmen Village

From the fifth floor to the first, I remember running, afraid to waste a moment. Clutching the vegetable basket, I rushed up in one breath, only to meet the doctor who had been guiding us at the fourth-floor corner. I distinctly recall him greeting me, cautioning, “Slow down, young man, don’t trip.”

Then, when I opened my eyes again, I was already in the hospital ward. The entire sequence in between was a blank; fragments were pieced together for me by others. The sprint up to the fifth floor and back took no more than five minutes at most. Wenbin had already settled Xiaobai in the inner room and prepared the necessary platform, waiting for fifteen minutes with no sign of me.

Wenbin came out to look for me, found no trace of me on the fifth floor, assumed I’d left, but uneasy about leaving Xiaobai alone, returned to wait another ten minutes—still no sign. Half an hour later, Wenbin went back to the corridor to wait once more, spotting Fatty wandering on the first floor through a window. After calling out, Fatty replied that I’d gone upstairs with the supplies long ago.

Another five minutes passed; the whole hospital began searching for me. At least two people had seen me enter the hospital staircase: Fatty and the doctor I met on the fourth floor. I vanished right under their noses.

To this day, one mystery remains unsolved: the key to the morgue belonged only to the doctor on duty that day. According to hospital regulations, the room must always be locked. There had been no recent deaths; the morgue hadn’t been opened for a week. Every two hours, the hospital conducted patrols, and all staff confirmed the door was closed—a heavy iron door weighing hundreds of pounds, secured with two locks and further reinforced with a solid steel pipe as thick as a water main.

In the end, it was a bit of spilled vegetable soup from the basket that saved me. Someone noticed oil stains at the morgue entrance.

It was said to be a shot in the dark, since no one believed I could be inside. Both the padlock and door lock were fastened. Wenbin suggested, “Let’s try anyway, just in case.”

I don’t remember what happened to me. Later, Fatty said he was nearly scared out of his wits.

They opened the door—a chill rushed out. I had opened one of the refrigerated coffins meant for storing bodies. Inside lay a woman, dressed in a red cheongsam. I had taken her corpse from the cold cabinet, cradled her in my arms, leaning against the grid-like coolers, with her head resting on my shoulder.

In my hand was a bowl of rice, and I was stuffing chopful after chopful into the dead woman’s mouth...

Fatty, without a word, delivered a fierce kick to my shoulder. The corpse, which had lain in that hospital for untold years, nearly had its neck broken from the blow, and I was knocked unconscious.

Later, hospital staff told me the woman’s corpse had been there since the founding of the nation. The hospital, built by the French, was later taken over by the government, which catalogued everything, including this nameless woman. She was originally meant to be cremated, but somehow was returned and kept. The old doctors told strange stories: the worker tasked with moving her had his house catch fire and lost an eye; others tried to deal with her but met with mishaps themselves.

Ten years ago, a medical college in Shanghai needed anatomical specimens. The hospital wanted to take the opportunity to transfer her. That night, a male student snuck into the morgue, embraced the corpse, and jumped from a height. He died instantly, but the woman’s body was barely scratched and sent back the next day.

After such turmoil, she returned. Her presence was an open secret in the hospital; no one knew her name, but she was called Nine, since her cold cabinet was number 009.

Many claimed to have seen a woman in red wandering the hospital, always gazing intently at single men passing by, making seductive gestures. As long as she was there, these incidents were only fleeting episodes; nothing serious ever happened.

After I regained consciousness, all was well, but listening to Fatty recount what happened made me sick to my stomach—who in their right mind would feed a woman’s corpse, old enough to be my grandmother, a meal? Wenbin said it was a calamity: once overcome, it would pass. He remarked that this woman called Nine was pitiable, and the items I carried were offerings that attracted spirits; it was only natural she claimed them. Once Xiaobai’s case was resolved, he’d ask the hospital for permission to deal with Nine as well.

Yuan Xiaobai recovered. Dr. Tang excitedly telegraphed his mentor, the expert named Karen, who clamored to come to China and invited Wenbin to lecture at Yale, calling him the reincarnation of God.

But Wenbin insisted Xiaobai was not truly well. Her so-called recovery was limited to recognizing people, communicating, and walking. Her gaze remained vacant, her demeanor dull, her steps listless. Most distressing was the rapid loss of her hair, coming out in handfuls.

During this period, we noticed some clues.

Three years prior, Xiaobai had arrived in Shanghai by train and parted ways with me. Her home was this mansion, built by a trusted aide of Du Yuesheng, the overlord of old Shanghai. The builder was an elder of the Green Gang, ranked as a major general.

On the eve of liberation, Du Yuesheng fled to Hong Kong with his family, while the mansion’s owner went to Taiwan. Before leaving, his primary concubine hanged herself in a second-floor guest room. With a death in the house and the family in a hurry to leave, the Yuan family, then rising in Shanghai with a business in gauze and flour, acquired the mansion at a bargain price.

Yuan Xiaobai’s father was Yuan Zongming. The Yuan family had donated supplies to the Communist forces during the war, and after liberation, actively converted their business to a state enterprise, making them red capitalists with clout in Shanghai’s commercial circles. Yet, all they truly owned was the mansion and a bit of inherited wealth.

During the Cultural Revolution, the Yuans were targeted. The mansion, in a prime location, was seized and turned into the local revolutionary committee’s office. It was during the Red Guards’ raid that Xiaobai’s mother, in the same guest room on the second floor, committed suicide in the same manner.

When Xiaobai returned, the Cultural Revolution had not yet ended, so she hid with distant relatives. A month later, the movement ended, Yuan Zongming was released, and Xiaobai returned home. She moved into her mother’s former room, and from then on, her behavior changed—irritable, reclusive, perpetually tense, windows and doors sealed, meals left outside her door. By this year, her condition had worsened; Yuan Zongming, having lost his wife, could not bear to lose his daughter as well.

A week later, Xiaobai was discharged. Wenbin told her father he needed to retrieve something for her.

That day, Yuan Zongming used his connections to arrange tickets for the three of us to fly to Changchun in the northeast. It was my first time on a plane.

The same platform, two lonely iron tracks, the ditch where we once hid—three years had passed, but nothing had changed. I wondered how everyone was doing.

Wildman Village—I once swore I’d never return, but Wenbin said we must, for Xiaobai’s soul was still there.

It all began with my painting...

Three years ago, in Wildman Village, beneath one of eighteen ponds, we found a scroll. Upon opening it, the woman depicted was lifelike; if Xiaobai donned the clothes from the painting, she would look exactly the same.

She had a cat, named Ami, from Wildman Village. That cat had fled northeast with us back then, and three years later, it was fully grown, jet black, resembling its mother. Wenbin brought it back with him.

Some roots remain where they were, forgotten because they weren’t taken away...

Wildman Village was unchanged. Its residents had never heard of digital watches; they still lived by sunrise and sunset. The commune was gone, replaced by household contract farming. Miao Lan had married, still living in the village; Old Miao, now with graying hair, could still drink with Fatty.

The old party secretary had eventually jumped into the well—not only him, but his entire family. Old Miao, slightly tipsy, recounted, “Tragic, really. Apparently, they were to be investigated for mistakes during the Cultural Revolution. He was dismissed, and there were plans for arrest. The youngest grandson was only three months old; only the daughter-in-law escaped, supposedly to Outer Mongolia.”

“What about the bodies? Were they recovered?” I asked.

“They were. Six bodies floating stiffly on the surface, all missing their eyes. They said the fish ate them, but do you believe fish specifically eat people’s eyes? I don’t.”

He said:

Good night, today I can only write with a stiff neck.