Mountain and Grandma
The early spring light, still carrying a hint of chill, cast a pale glow down the corridor, while the rusty iron gate separated the world inside from the world outside.
The deposit was transferred to Wen Dai online. When the transfer was made, Chen Sizhe even stood next to Zhang Xia and watched him add the note "traditional culture service fee".
Zhang Xia, with his fists clenched and eyes downcast, seemed to be deep in thought. He stood at the door for a while, his neck bent, before taking out his key to open the door. The lock clicked as it was turned.
With his back to them, he said, "I trust you all very much, so please don't lie to me. I have elderly parents and young children to support, and eight thousand yuan is a lot of money for me. If you cheat me, you will be punished, and I won't let you off easily."
His words were so offensive that even the creaking of the door being pushed open was less jarring than his speech.
Wen Dai took two steps forward and used her fingers to push the door open. "Don't you think you're contradicting yourself? You said you trusted us, but which of your later statements sounds like something someone who trusts us should say?"
The closer distance allowed Wen Dai to clearly see his eye bags and the nasolabial folds on his face. Zhang Xia's horizontal eyes drooped slightly at the corners, making his already small eyes appear even smaller, and his gaze conveyed a sense of coldness.
Noticing that his mouth was about to open, Wen Dai quickly looked away, feigning that she didn't want to look at him.
She walked into the house first, turned her back to him, raised her forearm, and said bluntly, "Don't explain. I'm not here to hear your explanation. We'll definitely do a good job after we take the money. We won't be perfunctory or commit fraud. Don't judge a gentleman by your own standards."
The interior was completely different from when Wen Dai first saw it. The sofa had been replaced with a new one, and even the coffee table was a contemporary minimalist wooden model. The walls were probably just covered with wallpaper. The decorating style had changed from the old-fashioned, nostalgic style she had first seen to a modern minimalist style. It seemed that this family was determined to rent out the house.
The original blue stained glass windows have been replaced with transparent ones, and it seems that no trace of the past can be detected.
Can't you smell it?
Wen Dai turned back into the living room from the balcony. She stood on the side of the sofa that was placed against the wall, squeezed into the space where the curtains were hung, raised her hand and placed it on the back of the sofa. Under Zhang Xia's wide-eyed and horrified gaze, she pushed the sofa away forcefully.
"Don't move!—"
Unfortunately, Zhang Xia spoke too late, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had spoken earlier.
Wen Dai, who had squeezed behind the sofa, ignored Zhang Xia and beckoned to Chen Sizhe, ordering him around as if it were the most natural thing in the world: "Come on, help me move the coffee table forward. I need to push the sofa. There's something underneath."
Seeing this, Zhang Xia quickly moved a few steps closer to Chen Sizhe's location. He frowned and stretched out his arm with his five fingers forming a claw, but Chen Sizhe nimbly dodged the hand that was trying to grab him.
Seeing that neither of the two people he had paid to hire listened to him, Zhang Xia stomped his feet in anger. He bent down, grabbed a tissue box from the coffee table, and slammed it heavily on the surface, trying to get their attention. "I paid you to hire you! How dare you disobey me and touch my things without my permission! Where's the contract? Doesn't it say in the contract that you must act according to my instructions?! I'm the one who paid for this!"
Chen Sizhe, who had forced both the coffee table and Zhang Xia to retreat repeatedly, raised his head. He slowly straightened up and, seeing that Zhang Xia intended to push the coffee table back to its original position, he raised his foot and stepped on the coffee table leg to brace it. Forced to stop moving the coffee table, Zhang Xia angrily raised his head.
Before Zhang Xia could express his dissatisfaction again, Chen Sizhe kissed him and said, “Mr. Zhang, I think you need to be clear about why you invited us here. We are here to provide you with traditional cultural ritual services, which you yourself have agreed to. If we are to follow your instructions... what, do you know more than us? According to you, you can handle it all by yourself? The contract states that if Party A interferes with the ritual, Party B has the right to terminate the service and not refund the deposit. If you continue to be so unreasonable, I think we can also terminate the service.”
Leaning over with his hands resting on the edge of the coffee table, Zhang Xia moved his lips, his fingers on the table surface tightened slightly, and then he released the table and stood up. He couldn't bear to let that four thousand yuan go to waste.
She pushed the sofa away forcefully, and Wen Dai, who was behind it, disappeared. She squatted down, stretched out her arm, and pulled out the dark black wooden box stuck at the bottom of the sofa. She blew off the dust stuck to the wooden box.
After shaking it tentatively a couple of times, the weight inside shifted its position, allowing Wen Dai to guess the name of the substance.
She stood up with the wooden box in her hand, walked around the sofa, and came to Zhang Xia, who was looking away and pursing his lips. She said with a half-smile, "Do you want to explain?" The wooden box in her hand was raised.
Zhang Xia perfectly embodied the stubbornness of a mule. He twisted his head, refusing to face Wen Dai, his eyebrows furrowed so tightly they almost knotted together, his eyelids drooping as if about to close, yet his voice was almost a shout: "Explain what?! Do I need to explain to you? Who do you think you are! You moved my things and touched my things for no reason, why should I explain to you? I don't know anything about it!"
The rough voice gave the impression of a hoarse, heavy sound as if thick phlegm in the throat had been torn open.
Wen Dai raised her hand and rubbed her ears. Before she could criticize Zhang Xia's attitude, Chen Sizhe stepped forward first.
The 1.9-meter-tall man looked at people with a contemptuous and oppressive air as he raised his chin. "Didn't your parents teach you what manners are? Do you think you're giving a lot of money? Living in Lizhou, who do you know who would be short of four figures? Four thousand, ha, that's not even a fraction of the price of my coat. You'd better learn what respect is, or you'd better find someone else."
Knowing the prices charged by her colleagues in Lizhou, Wen Dai glanced at Zhang Xia, who was pursing his lips and remaining silent. She smiled and said leisurely, "Eight thousand yuan is your target price, right? I guess you can't find a better one elsewhere. I'm guessing... you've considered all the possibilities your child might provide, so you must have already found someone you consider reliable. Do you know as much as I do about the prices charged by my colleagues? You're looking for a minimum of fifteen thousand yuan for a ritual, right? You're unwilling to spend thirty or fifty thousand yuan, so you came to me hoping to try your luck."
She lowered her eyes and looked at the wooden box in her hand with a blank expression, then let out a chuckle, "Putting an urn of ashes under the sofa in a house you're renting out, I can't believe you did that."
Unable to withstand the blow, Zhang Xia abruptly turned and glared fiercely at Wen Dai. His sallow face flushed a deep red, like a chili pepper. "Do you think I wanted this?! Besides, if someone hadn't died here and I hadn't placed an urn here, how could the rent have been only eight thousand?!"
Wen Dai raised her chin, deliberately feigning a look of sudden realization, "Oh—according to you, those tenants are incredibly lucky to be able to rent your room for eight thousand yuan a month?"
"You're really shameless."
Zhang Xia jumped up again, his bulging eyes revealing their entire pupils, the cloudy, bloodshot whites of his eyes inspiring disgust in anyone who saw them. He pointed a finger at Wen Dai, the tip almost poking her face, "What makes you think I'm immoral? Did I want to do this? My whole family has been tormented by her for days, what can we do? Don't we need to live?!"
"You need to make a living, but don't the tenants need to make a living?" A hand landed on Zhang Xia's shoulder, and Chen Sizhe, having run out of patience, yanked his shoulder back. The man, who had lost control of his emotions, staggered a few steps and fell against the TV cabinet behind him.
Chen Sizhe glanced at him and sneered, "You don't even have the most basic humanity. You're selfish and think the whole world has to revolve around you? I bet your children are pitiful, having such a stupid father. You can't understand respect no matter how many times I tell you. What, are you selectively deaf?"
Being questioned but unable to speak, Zhang Xia slightly tightened his grip on the television screen behind him, straightening his body as he fell backward. He raised both hands, grabbing his hair, his face contorted in pain, and said:
“I don’t want this either, I really don’t want this to happen—I dream about her every night, asking me to go down and be with her, and sometimes I even see her shadow in real life. Every day I feel like there’s a mountain pressing down on my back, my shoulders and back ache, and I can never get enough sleep. How can I possibly live like this? What’s more, it’s not just me, my whole family is being tormented by her! Honestly, even in death she wouldn’t let me rest in peace!”
The resentment in her tone was so blatant that Wen Dai couldn't help but furrow her brows and raise her voice, saying, "She is your grandmother."
Scratching his hair, Zhang Xia slowly raised his head, his drooping eyelids, worn from age, were pushed up, his protruding eyes like those of a dead fish. His fists were clenched so tightly that his body trembled slightly. "Yes, she was my grandmother, she was my mother-in-law. Why couldn't she think about the days when I called her 'mother-in-law' and lived with her when I was a child? Even in death, she still comes to torment us!"
Over the years, she has seen all sorts of strange and monstrous things, but Wen Dai still can't control her temper.
She sneered in anger, looking disdainfully at the man before her who showed no remorse. "She was just lonely. Don't forget how she died. An old woman who died alone left her body at home to develop lividity, and you have the nerve to blame her now! Did she say she wanted you to go down and keep her company? Think back and tell me honestly, what exactly did she say?"
Zhang Xia, having turned off the engine, lowered his head and loosened his clenched fists. He seemed to have thought it through carefully. When he raised his head again, the confidence in his voice had diminished: "She did say that she wanted me to go and keep her company. She said she was lonely and wanted me and my family to go and keep her company. Doesn't that mean we should go down and keep her company?"
Wen Dai placed the urn on the coffee table, dusted off her hands, and then straightened up to look at Zhang Xia. "That's the problem. She didn't want you to go down and keep her company. Living people can keep her company just the same. You can come here with your family for a meal, or you can have a meal at your own place. Just put her memorial tablet nearby and light three incense sticks in the incense burner. Is that so troublesome?"
"You rarely spent time with her when she was alive, didn't you? Now that she's gone, you all despise her. Can't you have any conscience at all?"
"I don't understand what kind of 'accompanying' she means. I thought she wanted us all to die and accompany her. If you're talking about that kind of 'accompanying,' then that's certainly possible, but how can I believe what you're saying is true? After all, since you came here, you haven't done anything except find my mother-in-law's urn." Calming himself down, Zhang Xia stared directly into Wen Dai's eyes, his tone carrying a hint of aggressiveness.
Wen Dai didn't waste any words with him and immediately activated his third eye, bringing the old lady who had been standing in front of the coffee table into Zhang Xia's field of vision.
Upon suddenly seeing the deceased, Zhang Xia's first reaction was to back away, looking as if he had seen a ghost, though he truly had.
With nowhere to retreat behind him, his calf slammed into the cabinet in front of the TV, and his hand, which he instinctively braced behind him, hit the corner of the TV. He sat down on the cabinet with a thud, his hand, which had been hit, seemingly losing all feeling of pain.
The eyes that had been filled with hostility when they glared at Wen Dai were now filled with fear. Zhang Xia's heels kept pushing against the ground, his buttocks dragging him backward until the back of his head hit the television screen. He had nowhere left to retreat.
The old woman who suddenly came into view was not the same as when she died. Her short, gray hair was tucked behind her ears, and her withered skin was covered with lines. She was still wearing the same clothes she wore when she left this world.
Perhaps to avoid frightening Zhang Xia, all traces of death were erased; the skin was not discolored, nor did it have the dark, tree-like markings or lividity. This gave it a warm feel—a trait perhaps shared by some people's grandmothers.
She floated forward a short distance, then stopped when she saw Zhang Xia, who was trembling and trying to dodge in fright.
"The little mountain has become a big mountain, and you're still so timid?" The old woman's eyes were red with a hint of probing in her voice. She leaned forward slightly, her outstretched hand twitching as if she wanted to touch Zhang Xia.
But she had even stopped approaching him because he was afraid.
Moreover, even if they got close, they would no longer be able to touch each other.
Gazing at the familiar yet unfamiliar face before him, Zhang Xia's tense shoulders suddenly relaxed. Her voice was so clear, yet his pupils gradually blurred, his thoughts drawn by the voice into his memories.
"Xiaoshan, are you scared to sleep alone? It's okay, it's okay, Grandma will sleep with you. Grandma will protect you."
"Oh! Are you afraid of being scolded by your dad for not getting good grades? It's okay, it's okay, Grandma will protect Xiaoshan. Xiaoshan, grades are never the most important thing. What's important is that our Xiaoshan is happy and healthy."
"Little Mountain has grown taller, and now it will become a big mountain. When it becomes a big mountain, it must protect Grandma, right? Okay, Grandma will wait until that time."
"Xiaoshan, don't work too hard on yourself. We don't necessarily have to be successful. Grandma just wants you to live a good life. As long as my Xiaoshan is safe and healthy, Grandma will be happy. As long as Xiaoshan is safe, healthy, and happy, Grandma will feel like she is living a good life."
When did this change begin?
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