Chapter 78: Led by a Little Ghost

Compelled by some mysterious urge, I walked forward and used the tall stool beside me to reach up and probe around the base of Grandpa Ding’s memorial tablet. My fingertips sensed something unusual. I took the tablet down. It was rarely cleaned and covered in dust; looking at the underside, I saw a neat, square incision—there was indeed more to it than met the eye.

I dug at the cut and pulled it free, revealing a narrow compartment inside. To my surprise, there was nothing but a folded slip of paper within. If it had been any random object, I might have understood, but why only a single scrap of paper?

I took out the paper and examined it carefully, confirming that nothing else was hidden. I restored the tablet to its place and climbed down from the stool. Unfolding the slip, I saw three characters: “Hanging Coffin Gorge.”

What could this mean? Why hide just these three words so carefully? What sort of place was Hanging Coffin Gorge?

Before I could ponder further, the paper crumbled to dust in my hand, vanishing as though it had never existed. I stood bewildered, unable to make sense of any of it.

Old Ma and Gu Yangyu came out of the room. Old Ma glanced at me and asked, “What are you doing over there?”

“Nothing.” I brushed off the question and walked over.

In Old Ma’s hand was a little figure made of straw, about twenty centimeters tall, with a talisman stuck to its chest.

The small straw doll looked oddly familiar, quite like the ones that man in the long coat had fashioned from vines. The craftsmanship was almost identical.

According to Old Ding, you were supposed to tear off the talisman from the straw doll, releasing the little ghost sealed inside to lead the way.

“When do we set out?” I asked.

Old Ma shot me an annoyed look. “Set out when? You two agreed to this yourselves, and now you’re asking me? There are only a few days left. The little ghost can’t come out during the day, only at night. So, when do you think we’re leaving?”

With that, Old Ma strode out in a huff.

I smiled to myself. He hadn’t said it outright, but it was clear enough—we would leave tomorrow night.

Back at Duan Tianqi’s house, his parents had already returned. I handed him over to them, briefly explained what had happened, and suggested that they take him to see a psychologist as a precaution. The couple was heartbroken to learn what their child had been through and promised to take him for help the very next day.

The following evening, after packing our things, the three of us set out. As usual, Old Ma gave me two talismans—one for protection, one to ward off ghosts. I had serious doubts about their effectiveness, but Old Ma insisted that the little ghost had been purposefully crafted and was thus especially fierce. These talismans, he claimed, were more than enough for ordinary wandering spirits.

Once we reached the main road, we tore the talisman from the straw doll. The doll began to tremble, and before long, a little ghost appeared. Unlike the ragged ghost child from before, this one wore a blue garment—simple in style, with matching pants and shirt, and tiny black shoes. The effect was much like the ancestral paper effigies cut from five-colored paper for the Ghost Festival.

In Guangxi, the Zhuang people have a tradition of burning paper offerings for their ancestors on the night of the Ghost Festival, fashioning all sorts of things from colored paper—clothes, houses, cars, pigs, horses, cattle, sheep—and burning them as tribute.

Indeed, the more I looked, the more it resembled those figures. The clothes were neat and clean, but the ghost’s appearance was chilling—it had no face! Its face was just a formless patch of darkness, which was somehow even more unsettling than if it had simply been hidden behind a curtain of hair.

The faceless little ghost floated ahead on tiptoe, leading us in a certain direction. Our target was an old woman accompanied by a boy; they couldn’t have gone far, or else they wouldn’t have left a ghost to guide us.

The little ghost led us off the main road and along a narrow path beside the fields. The farther we went, the fewer houses there were. Eventually, we saw no one at all—we had entered the forest. As I expected, the old woman, burdened with a child, must have chosen a secluded spot to avoid people.

Yet the scene felt eerily familiar.

The deeper we went into the woods, the sparser the vegetation became, but the further we got from human habitation, the colder and more oppressive the air grew, with chilling gusts of wind.

A grave mound appeared ahead, its square tombstone facing us. The instant I saw it, I recognized that familiar feeling—I remembered its source!

When I was a child, the old blind woman had lived just like this, deep in the mountains!

“There’s a heavy aura here. Who knows what traps lie ahead? Stay alert, everyone,” Old Ma suddenly warned.

I frowned and fingered the talismans in my pocket. I hadn’t felt uneasy at first, but the memory of the old blind woman left me inexplicably unsettled.

The farther we ventured, the more grave mounds we saw, scattered haphazardly, overgrown with weeds. Sometimes, I only realized I was stepping over a grave after I saw the tombstone.

Everything was becoming more and more like it had been with the old blind woman, who had lived among the graves. Could this old woman be a ghost witch too? My impression of such witches had always been of ragged, hideous, mad women who harmed innocents without reason. This calculated, purposeful malice was not their usual style.

A crude wooden hut appeared in the distance. The faceless ghost drifted toward it. Suddenly, Old Ma muttered an incantation and made a gesture. The faceless ghost stopped immediately. Old Ma thrust the straw doll forward, and the ghost vanished. He quickly stuck a talisman back onto the doll.

“We’re here. Be careful—don’t fall into that old woman’s trap,” Old Ma said in a low voice.

We lightened our steps as we approached the hut. The closer we got, the stronger the chill, the air thick with eerie silence—only the rustle of leaves could be heard.

When we were but three meters from the hut, a sudden flare of green ghost fire lit up all around us—countless points of sickly green flame filled the darkness.

Startled, I looked around. What was happening? How had the ghost fire appeared so suddenly?

Old Ma and Gu Yangyu tensed, eyes fixed on the hut, but wary of our surroundings.

Creeeak. The sound of a door opening broke the silence. All eyes turned to the hut’s entrance, where, in the strange green glow, a hunched figure slowly emerged from the gloom. As she moved, a rank stench billowed out, thick and putrid.

I instinctively raised my hand to cover my nose—the stench of decaying corpses! Had this old woman dragged bodies from the graves into her hut?

“Ahem… Ma Lao, we meet again.” A hoarse, raspy voice spoke.

She knew Old Ma? I glanced at him and saw his expressionless face as he stared at the old woman. “So it’s you,” he said.

His tone was entirely unlike his usual self.