Before the morning mist had dissipated, Liu Sandao and I walked down the mountain, our feet wet with dew.
His Taoist robe was so tattered it looked like a fishing net, and he had to support his back with every step he took.
I kicked away the pebbles at my feet and thought of the gold chains on the wrists of the skeletons in the ancestral hall.
"Brother Liu, do you think Chen Dashan... really did it to resurrect his wife?"
Liu Sandao paused, bent down and picked a sprig of mugwort from the roadside, putting it in his mouth: "Obsession can turn a living person into a ghost."
He spat out a blade of grass, his fingertips tracing the crescent-shaped scar on his cuff: "Twenty years ago, my master also thought that using the Yin-Suppressing Pole could eliminate future troubles, but..."
He didn't say anything more, but quickened his pace.
...
The long-distance bus drove into the city as dusk fell.
"Brother Dao, would you like to come in and sit for a while?"
Liu Sandao looked tired, with heavy dark circles under his eyes.
He's not tired, he's just overthinking things.
He didn't say a word the whole way in the car, just staring out the window in a daze.
I called him several times before he reacted.
"What's wrong?"
I asked if you would like to come in and sit for a while.
"No, thank you."
After Liu Sandao finished speaking, he walked forward with a dejected expression before I could even reply.
I called his name loudly several times, but he didn't respond at all.
I suspect he was thinking about his master.
Looking back now, there are many things he didn't tell me.
Rather, we hear about them by chance while we are experiencing them.
Both the last time he came to save me and this time are related to what happened to him.
I sighed heavily and closed the door.
...
Nothing has happened these past few days; all has been peaceful.
There was very little dirt, including from the people who came to buy things.
Although there weren't many before, there were still five or six a day, and sometimes two or three.
However, the total number of cases over those four days was less than three.
Every day I just sit behind the counter playing games and reading novels.
When I'm bored, I think about things and people I've experienced in the past.
Just when I was dazed and thought my life was about to return to normal, a bronze furnace entered my life.
This bronze furnace didn't appear out of thin air; it was brought by a middle-aged man.
As usual, I was bored and playing games behind the counter.
The copper bell suddenly rang wildly without warning.
Looking up, I saw a man covered in mud pressed against the door.
A few withered foxtail grasses still clung to the dark gray cloth shirt.
He clutched a faded blue cloth bundle tightly to his chest, his knuckles so white they looked like they were about to be embedded in the fabric.
Those cloudy eyes kept scanning both ends of the street, not daring to blink even once, like a frightened bird that had accidentally fallen into a trap.
When he noticed me staring at him, he jerked back, his head slamming against the weathered doorframe with a thud.
"You are...?"
I had barely opened my mouth when he suddenly jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, almost dropping his bundle to the ground.
He opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing several times before he managed to squeeze out a hoarse voice: "Does this place... accept things?"
That question caught me off guard.
In the past, the shop was either filled with sorrowful people buying paper money for the deceased, or "special guests" surrounded by eerie energy.
I've never seen anyone so strange.
I straightened up and noticed that his trouser legs were covered in fresh red clay.
This person looks like he just came out of the ground.
"receive."
I wiped my hands and put my phone down.
They said, "Old objects, consecrated ritual implements, things that carry yin energy..."
Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly took a step forward, and a strong smell of decaying leaves wafted over you.
"Could you treat me to a meal first?"
I wondered if I had misheard, so I looked up and sized him up.
The man had dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were cracked and bleeding.
The sunken cheeks clearly showed the outline of the cheekbones, making him look like he hadn't eaten for several days.
But he held onto the bundle in his arms tightly.
Even when speaking, his arms were held tightly together like two wooden stakes.
"What did you say?" I asked again to confirm.
He seemed enraged, veins bulging on his neck: "Fine, if you don't want to, then go somewhere else!"
After saying that, he turned and left, his steps unsteady, and he almost tripped over the threshold.
"etc!"
I grabbed my phone and chased after them: "What do you want to eat? There's a mutton noodle shop up ahead, let's..."
"Anything works!"
He practically interrupted, saying, "As long as it fills our stomachs, that's fine!"
When the bamboo curtain of the mutton noodle shop was lifted, the rising steam instantly blurred his face.
I specifically requested the innermost private room.
When the proprietress served three large bowls of braised noodles, his Adam's apple bobbed violently again.
Even though he had already picked up the chopsticks with both hands, he still placed the bundle under his buttocks, pressing it down tightly as if protecting his manhood.
The steam from the noodle soup cast flickering light and shadows on his face.
He wolfed down the noodles, slurping them down with loud noises and the crunching of his teeth on the lamb bones, looking just like a wolf that hadn't eaten for three days and three nights.
When he finished the third bowl of noodles, he finally let out a satisfied burp.
His greasy lips were smeared with scallions, yet he still managed to pull the bundle back into his arms.
"In your bundle..."
As soon as I opened my mouth, he immediately tightened his grip on the bundle.
A corner of a bronze-colored object peeks out from the folds of the cloth bag.
Do you buy antiques?
He suddenly lowered his voice, a hint of wariness flashing in his cloudy eyes: "If you accept it, I'll open it again; if not, I'll turn around and leave."
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