Chapter 52
Later in the conversation, the topic started to deviate. Grandma Lu started asking about my marriage. When I said I was not married yet, she asked me how old I was. I said I was almost 30 years old. She advised me earnestly to get married quickly, otherwise I would not have good milk to give birth to children in the future.
I awkwardly changed the subject.
Grandma Lu seemed to be intentionally talking about a story about the grape trellis. That is, every year on the Chinese Valentine's Day, you can hear the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl talking by standing under the grape trellis. She also said that when she was a child, she often stood under the grape trellis and listened carefully, but she never heard anything.
These legends may be people's yearning for something beautiful.
When the moon rose, the hills behind the village entrance were bright. The village was blocked by three walnut trees, so the moonlight could not penetrate. It was pitch black. At this time, every household lit a lamp. Grandma Lu went into the house to watch TV. I told her to go for a walk in the village and be back soon.
Sanhetao Village was extremely quiet at night. The chirping of crickets and locusts echoed in the weeds by the roadside. Villagers sat chatting together on the street, and when they saw me, a stranger, approaching, they all stared at me. Feeling a little uneasy, I quickly walked around and returned to Grandma Lu's house.
Lying in bed, I thought everything would be fine tonight, so I turned over and went to sleep.
But I didn't expect to be awakened in the middle of the night by a sudden, sinister presence. I looked behind the curtains and saw a pair of extremely sinister eyes staring back at me through the window. I immediately jumped out of bed, but by the time I reached the courtyard, those eyes had vanished.
I looked around and smelled a lingering yin energy. I drew two fire bell talismans on the door and window of Grandma Lu's house, then climbed over the wall and ran, following the yin energy towards the river. When I reached the river, I saw a dark figure washing something on the shore.
It exuded the same yin energy as the eyes I had just seen. I secretly held the fire bell in my palm and walked towards it step by step. When I got closer, I realized that the neck of this thing was empty. It turned and looked at me. I saw clearly that what it held in its hand was a head.
It washes its head in the water.
The head looked at me with a smile.
I burned it with the bell fire, but it offered no resistance at all, and a round bead the size of a billiard ball fell into the river.
I reached out to pick up the bead and found that it was a half-opened walnut. Now, this walnut looked almost the same as a human brain to me.
I looked at the three walnut trees at the entrance of the village. Although they didn't move, in my eyes, they were dancing enchantingly.
The cry of a night owl came from the distant back mountain, and the chill rose from the soles of my feet. I haven't had goose bumps for a long time, and now I just felt cold all over.
With a heavy heart, I walked quickly back to Grandma Lu's house. As I got closer, I saw Grandma Lu waving at me from the doorway. I was startled. Why had she come out? Although I'd only known her for a brief afternoon, her simple kindness was truly touching. I didn't want anything to happen to her; it would have left me feeling deeply uneasy.
I ran to Grandma Lu and she said, "Don't run around so late. It's not peaceful by the river."
When I heard Grandma Lu talking about the river, I couldn't help but ask, "Did anything happen there?"
Grandma Lu used her dry hands to pull me into the house. The old lady had a light sleep and she was already awake when I jumped out of the courtyard wall. But it was too dark at night and she couldn't see the road clearly, so she waited for me at the door.
I was deeply moved.
Grandma Lu later recounted the story of the river, saying that many people in the village had seen foul things there. When she was little, she loved playing and went fishing with the villagers. She saw a headless body at the bottom of the river, which frightened her so much that she choked on the water. If no one was around, she would have drowned.
Later, the villagers went down to the river to look for the body Grandma Lu had mentioned, but found nothing. So they all said Grandma Lu had seen it wrong. But then someone in the village committed suicide in a bizarre way: they sawed off their own head with a saw. Normally, a person shouldn't saw off their own head, because if they sawed halfway through, they'd already be dead. But the man held the saw in one hand and his own head in the other, looking as if he were looking at his own head.
This scene left a deep psychological scar on Grandma Lu, because after the head fell off, Grandma Lu found that it was very similar to the headless body she had seen underwater. Grandma Lu was so frightened that she did not dare to leave the house for more than a month. Later, when the incident gradually faded, she dared to go out to play.
It’s the headless ghost again, I muttered secretly in my heart. I must go and observe the walnut tree carefully again during the day tomorrow. My intuition is not wrong. There must be something wrong with those three walnut trees.
After waking, the old lady couldn't fall asleep again, especially after recounting the terrifying events of her childhood. We chatted until after two o'clock before she finally fell asleep. I returned to my room, lay down on my bed, and fell asleep as well. This time, the evil presence didn't appear, and I slept through the night.
In fact, I was awakened by the smell of food.
When I walked out of the house, I saw that Grandma Lu had already prepared breakfast, which was white rice porridge and some pickles.
It turns out that the smell just now was the aroma of rice.
After breakfast, I walked alone to the village entrance and looked up at the three walnut trees. If, as Grandma Lu said, these three trees had existed for hundreds of years, they would have become spirits long ago. Why did I only sense a strong yin energy and no demonic energy?
A walnut fell to the ground. I picked it up and took a look at it. It looked like a normal walnut, so I threw it on the ground.
Everything I experienced last night proved that there was indeed something evil at work in Sanwalnut Ridge. I attached the ghost spirit to my eyes and looked at the walnut tree again. This time I saw something terrible.
There were headless corpses hanging on the walnut tree, and their heads were the walnuts on the tree.
Looking again at the walnut I had just thrown on the ground, it had turned into a human head.
I couldn't help but step back, looking at the three walnut trees and countless corpses in shock.
"Girl, what are you looking at?" an old man patted my shoulder from behind and said.
I turned around and looked at him. He had a pointed face and a haggard appearance, but he was full of energy and spirit.
I immediately felt something was wrong, and shot the golden-feathered arrow at it without thinking.
He had no time to dodge and was hit by a golden arrow and fell to the ground.
I looked again and saw that it was not an old man at all, but a wild raccoon lying on the ground.
How could I treat this as just another paranormal event when it happened in broad daylight? Since last night, I've encountered three strange things in a row. While they've all been relatively manageable, the inability to find the culprit is making me a bit impatient. I'm being manipulated by a sinister force, and this is truly terrible.
I decided to come here and explore again at night. During the day, there were villagers passing by and it was inconvenient for me to take action. At night, I just happened to burn all the headless corpses and walnuts.
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