Night fell.
Yuan Ying and I spread out a faded blue cloth under the tree, and placed three incense sticks, a bowl of white rice, and the bag of Ten Thousand Soul Coins with dark red water patterns on it.
Yuan Ying didn't chant incantations as usual. Instead, she stared blankly at the incense sticks, her fingers repeatedly rubbing the cracks on the Bagua mirror—like a dead earthworm crawling on the mirror surface.
When she lit the paper money, the flames shot up about a foot high with a "whoosh," redder than ordinary flames, but without any warmth.
The ashes of the paper were swept up to the branches by the wind, and in the moonlight they gathered into a blurry human figure. Under the wide hem of the clothes, you could vaguely see an even smaller shadow curled up, like an infant being held in someone's arms.
I rubbed my eyes, and when I looked again, the outline had blurred, leaving only a few pieces of paper ash hanging on the locust tree leaves, shaped exactly like a woman's long hair.
"Go, don't linger."
Yuan Ying whispered to the firelight, "In my next life, I hope to be reborn into a good family."
As she spoke, fine cracks suddenly appeared on the surface of the bowl of white rice, as if it had been scratched by countless tiny claws. The center of the rice slowly caved in, forming a pit the size of a baby's fist.
I stared at the sunken rice, my neck stiffening.
I recalled seeing those distorted faces on one of the paper money bills when I was sorting through the paper money during the day—
As the fist, the size of an infant's fist, disappeared, I was about to ask a question when the mountain wind suddenly changed direction, carrying the acrid smell of burning paper money into my nostrils.
Yuan Ying suddenly reached out and pressed down on my shoulder with surprising force.
I then realized that the ashes that should have been drifting forward were now flowing upstream, heading deeper into the old locust tree.
Three feet off the ground, they gathered into a blurry path, each piece of ashes gleaming faintly, as if illuminating the way ahead for something.
“Yingniang, this is…” My throat tightened, and I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Yuan Ying did not answer, her gaze fixed on the end of the paper-ash path.
There was a dead old locust tree there, with a hole in its trunk the size of a water bucket, into which ashes from paper were constantly seeping.
Even more bizarrely, a few strands of hair hung from the edge of the tree hole, gleaming with the same bluish-white light as the Ten Thousand Soul Coins under the moonlight.
She suddenly pulled a handful of glutinous rice from her pocket and scattered it on the path of paper ash.
The moment the glutinous rice hit the ground, a few clusters of blue flames rose with a sizzling sound, and the path of paper ash scattered in response.
Yuan Ying breathed a sigh of relief and said in a deep voice, "The road to the underworld is not for the living to look at. Bow your head!"
I dared not look again and quickly lowered my head.
When Yuan Ying told me to look up, I gazed at the old locust tree, now calm again, and realized that the bowl of white rice was empty.
There was a piece of paper ash about the size of a fingernail stuck to the bottom of the bowl, with the words "Chen Yan" vaguely printed on it.
Yuan Ying quickly covered the rim of the bowl, drew a complex symbol on the edge with her fingertip, and when she looked up, a trace of pain flashed in her eyes: "Let's go back."
On the way down the mountain, Yuan Ying suddenly staggered and leaned against a tree to catch her breath.
I noticed a red mark on the back of her neck that had appeared out of nowhere, its shape resembling the outline of a hole in an old locust tree.
She noticed my gaze and hurriedly pulled up her collar, but as she looked down, I saw countless bloody words written on her palm.
"Ten lifetimes of reincarnation, one life for another."
What does that mean?
"Yingniang, what's in your hand..."
Yuan Ying smiled, but the curve of her lips was more unsightly than crying.
"Don't ask anymore, the accounts with the underworld have been settled."
As he spoke, he pulled out half a tortoise shell from his pocket. The divination pattern on the shell had a new crack that appeared at some point: "After we get back, we'll soak this tortoise shell in rootless water. We'll wait for the tortoise shell pattern to open up on its own tomorrow, and then we'll know if you're alright."
As she spoke, she raised her hand and patted my shoulder, as if to comfort me, or perhaps to reassure herself.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes; the dew that had clung to her brows from her journey into the mountains still clung to them, like a thin layer of frost.
"Was tonight... all right?"
I remembered that bowl of rice that automatically dented, "Remembering Yunfei's soul..."
"She's gone."
Yuan Ying interrupted me, turned around and walked down the mountain, her voice muffled in her collar: "I took the child with me."
Is he really gone?
Earlier, when I heard her say goodbye to the firelight, everything seemed to have been settled. But now, judging from her appearance, things seem to be far more complicated than they appear.
I came along tonight with two plans in mind.
Firstly, he wanted to learn some skills from Yingniang and gain a better understanding of the mystical arts, so that he could help the shop in the future.
Secondly, he was worried about my and Xiuxiu's safety.
I've always had a heavy weight on my mind about what that evil magic of Bald Old Third caused, always fearing that Xiuxiu and I would be implicated and suffer a bad end.
But in the current situation, he has not learned any skills, nor has he been able to get any answers to his doubts, and his anxiety is growing stronger.
He could only follow behind Yuan Ying, walking step by step down the mountain. The two remained silent the entire way.
Upon returning to the shop, Yuan Ying went straight to the shrine and immersed the tortoise shell in the copper basin.
Her reflection was mirrored in the water, and a few strands of silver had appeared at her temples, making her look ten years older than before she went into the mountains.
I wanted to ask her if Xiuxiu and I would still be implicated by Bald Laosan's karmic debts, but the words that came out were: "Yingniang, how are you feeling? You seem a little tired."
She suddenly laughed: "I'm getting old, I'm no longer useful, I get tired after climbing a mountain for a while."
Before I could even speak, Yuan Ying said again, "I won't be going back to the hospital tonight, Xiao Chen. You'll have to make do and sleep by the counter using two stools pushed together. I'll sleep on your cot tonight!"
After saying that, she yawned, lifted the curtain, and went into the warehouse.
At that moment, I didn't dare ask any more questions and quickly went in to help her make the bed and tidy up her things.
Yuan Ying looked really tired; she had barely slept when she started snoring softly.
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