Volume 1 Chapter 20: An Eerie Atmosphere

The short, stout man asked why a tavern would be opened in such a place, but no one answered. He let out two dry, awkward laughs to ease the tension and continued rambling about the world outside.

The old hunter sat on a chair to the side, puffing away at his pipe. The arrival of the stout man had interrupted our conversation, and we certainly couldn’t discuss the haunting of the Soy Sauce Vat in front of him.

Just as the stout man was getting into the swing of his story, a series of heavy knocks echoed at the door. A young woman’s voice called out from outside: "Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Please, open the door."

"Dog-Skin Hat" grimaced and asked, "Who is it?"

"I was hiking in the mountains and got lost."

"Well, that’s damned strange. We haven't seen a soul in eight or ten years, and today they all show up at once."

When the door opened, there stood a woman in her thirties. She held a sleeping child in each arm—two children, roughly three or four years old, chubby and rather cute.

"What are you doing bringing kids into these mountains?" Dog-Skin Hat asked, sounding displeased.

"I brought the children for a trip and lost my way. I saw the light from this place." As she spoke, the woman’s eyes drifted involuntarily toward the stout man.

A jolt of alarm went through me. Her excuse was almost identical to the stout man’s, as if they had been coached by the same master.

The stout man stepped aside to clear a path. The woman thanked him with a nod, entered the room, and placed the children directly onto the heated brick bed.

Dog-Skin Hat asked, "So, where are you folks from? Which village?"

"Big brother," the woman replied, "I'm not from around here. I came for a visit, got separated from my partner, and stumbled upon this place by accident."

"You couldn't have just wandered here no matter how you traveled. Tell me, where did you enter the mountains?"

The woman hesitated, looking like she wanted to say something but held back. Unexpectedly, Master Ma spoke up then, his voice deep and steady: "Let them stay to seek shelter. Don't frighten them."

Dog-Skin Hat froze for a second, looking puzzled. "Heh, this is truly a case of 'trouble opening the door for trouble'—it's reached the peak of absurdity. Why are there so many people from Mata Mountain today?"

The woman gave Master Ma a grateful look, but he ignored her, sitting on his chair and smoking as before. He and the old hunter resembled two silent deities, just sitting there motionless.

"Sitting Cannon" seemed as though he had never seen a woman before, fawning over her with every gesture—first pouring water, then offering dates, and finally asking if she was hungry.

The woman kept waving him off, insisting she would only hide here for the night and would go look for her husband first thing in the morning. Seeing that the woman wasn't interested in him, Sitting Cannon turned his attention to the children, attempting to win her favor by doting on them.

With so many people in the tavern, the room remained strangely quiet. The stout man drank and ate by himself, the woman watched her children, and the others sat to the side, either zoning out or scratching their heads.

The two pipes belonging to the old hunter and Master Ma smoked like chimneys. Master Ma finished his cigarette and began puffing on a pipe of his own.

The atmosphere in the tavern was hard to describe. It wasn't exactly oppressive, but it lacked the relaxation one should feel at night, especially with such a group of uninvited guests.

In truth, Master Ma and I were also uninvited guests. Every outsider who arrived felt like a pebble thrown into the tavern's calm water, breaking the surface.

My own mind was in a whirl. I hadn't even figured out if the old hunter was a friend or foe, and now we were in this eerie deep-mountain tavern, listening to one strange legend after another.

Even stranger than the stories were the two new arrivals. The stout man claimed to be a ginseng hunter, but if you used your head for a moment, the excuse didn't hold up. A lone person might go up the mountain to forage for mushrooms near a village, but this was the deep, wild forest. Could a ginseng hunter really come here alone?

If he twisted his ankle, there would be no one to help him down. What if he encountered a large beast? The possibility of him being a ginseng hunter was slim to none.

Then there was the woman with the children. Taking two three- or four-year-olds into the mountains for a "trip"? That was pure nonsense. And she had said she would leave tomorrow morning. To a normal person, the first reaction to being separated from their partner would be to find them or seek out a crowd. Why would she want to leave? To wander the old forest alone?

Both of them were suspicious. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that I was with a Taoist, I wouldn't have chosen this place to hide from debt collectors even in my wildest dreams.

Suddenly, a strange thought struck me. To test it, I walked over to the woman and asked, "Big sister, are both of these children yours?"

The woman looked at me and smiled. "That's right."

"How old are they?"

"Almost four."

"Are they twins?"

"They're both boys."

I gasped. My suspicion was confirmed: the two children didn't look anything alike—they were as different as night and day. By any logical reasoning, they should have looked identical.

Could this woman not be human?

As these thoughts raced through my head, the stout man’s constant, stiff-looking smile seemed increasingly sinister. In some dark corner of my mind, I felt that both the stout man and the woman were hiding from something.

But wait—if a mere kid like me could figure this out, why couldn't the old hunter and Master Ma?

I could believe that the people in this tavern were simple-minded due to their long isolation from the world. But the old hunter and Master Ma? They were both seasoned, sharp-witted men. Had they not noticed the clues?

Why were they holding back? Even if they weren't reacting, they should have asked something. Instead, they remained like bystanders, wanting no part of it.

The questions pressing on my brain were suffocating. I walked over to Master Ma and whispered, "Master, I need to pee."

"There's a bucket in the room," Dog-Skin Hat interjected.

I was startled. I had kept my voice low, and Dog-Skin Hat was fifteen feet away—how had he heard me?

Master Ma said, "Just go in the room."

I put on an embarrassed act. "I can't. There's a woman here."

"Heh, you little brat, you haven't even grown up yet, what are you being shy about?"

Master Ma smiled and said, "Fine. I'll go outside with you."

Dog-Skin Hat immediately objected. "No, no, don't open the door. Who knows what else might get in?"

"We've opened the door plenty of times, and nothing's gotten in yet," I said, pretending to be annoyed.

The old hunter tapped his pipe against his heel and said in a raspy voice, "Let's go. I need to relieve myself, too."

Once outside, neither the old hunter nor I actually relieved ourselves. With the old hunter there, I couldn't bring myself to say anything to Master Ma.