Part 3
Her tone had softened a few degrees unconsciously.
Jiang Si gave Lin Nan a look, gesturing for him to bring a glass of water, and personally handed it to the woman. “Calm down. Have some water to settle yourself first.”
The womanâs throat was indeed dry from talking, so she didn’t refuse and drank it down.
“I am the boss,” Jiang Si said at this moment. “If thereâs anything, just tell me. Don’t make things difficult for a part-time student.”
“Cough, cough, coughâ” The woman almost choked, patting her chest as she expressed her doubt: “You’re the boss? You… you… how is that possible?”
She sought confirmation from the family members who came with her. The man who had seen Jiang Si nodded. “Mom, he is the boss.”
“…” The woman withdrew her good attitude and gave a cold huff. “Don’t think that just because you’re young, I won’t continue to hold you responsible! I’m telling you, man proposes, God disposes. Do you know how atrocious what you did was? Selling fakes among the offerings!”
Jiang Si remained unfazed, his tone gentle. “You say I sell fakes. Do you have any evidence?”
“Evidence?” the woman said. “My old man has been coming into my dreams for several days, saying the house we burned for him is completely unlivable because it keeps leaking! If that’s not a fake, what is?”
“Oh, a dream,” Jiang Si nodded. Lin Nan couldn’t help but interject: “Auntie, you don’t have any evidence for what you’re saying. How do we know if it’s true or false?”
It would have been better if he hadn’t spoken; once he did, the woman exploded.
“What do you mean? Are you saying I’m here to cheat you? Check your own sales records and see if my sonâs name is there! The paper mansion he bought was ordered from here! It cost over five thousand yuanâthat’s not cheap, is it? Yet it turned out to be a broken house that can’t be lived in. If it were you, wouldn’t you be angry?”
“Yes, yes, you have a point.” Jiang Si soothed her. “If it’s my problem, I will definitely take responsibility. Don’t be angry.” As he spoke, he looked toward the womanâs son.
He found that he actually did have some impression of him. This gentlemanâs surname seemed to be Sun. About half a month ago, he had ordered a set of joss paper items here, including a mansion, a car, paper figures, horses, sheep, and so on. What he remembered most was that Mr. Sun said the old man liked to keep cats and asked if Jiang Si could make a few small cats to burn along with them.
Jiang Si had agreed to do so.
“I remember that happened,” Jiang Si pondered. “How about thisâcan you tell me the whole story? I’ll see where the problem lies. What exactly did the old man say in the dream?”
Old Man Sun passed away in his sleep just a few days after his eighty-fifth birthday. Since he didn’t suffer much before his death and was of advanced age, the family treated the funeral as a “Joyous Funeral” and weren’t overly distressed.
As the only grandson, Mr. Sun handled the funeral arrangements. His family wasn’t short on money, and they wanted the old man to live well “down there,” so they thought of commissioning a spacious paper mansion. The requirement was a two-story Chinese-style courtyard, one meter high and half a meter wide.
After Jiang Si finished it, Mr. Sun was quite satisfied, feeling the money hadn’t been wasted. He happily took it home and waited until the day of the burial to burn it.
However, after it was burned for a couple of days, the old man started appearing in the familyâs dreams, saying the house leaked and was completely unlivable.
At first, no one in the family cared, thinking they were just missing the old man. But for the next few days, they all dreamed of the old man curled up, soaking wet, complaining that he didn’t even have a place to stay.
An old man in his eighties being made so pitifulâwho wouldn’t be angry seeing that?
The womanâs heart ached for her father. Wiping her tears, she said: “My father spent his life doing good deeds and accumulating virtue. He never spoke harshly to anyone, and anyone who mentions him has only good things to say. Yet after he died, I couldn’t even burn a good house for him. Iâm too unfilial.”
“What should we do?” Lin Nan said awkwardly. “Brother, this doesn’t sound like a lie. Could it really be you…”
Jiang Si handed over a tissue, still unhurried, and continued to ask: “You said the old man in the dream was soaking wet?”
“Yes.”
“Lin Nan, check the weather for this past week,” Jiang Si said. “If I recall correctly, autumn isn’t the rainy season in Rongcheng. Recently, not even a drop of rain has fallen. How could the old man get so wet?”
“How should I know?” the woman said. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Auntie, I’ve seen a lot in this line of work. I don’t doubt your dream at all. But this matter is quite fishy. Even if there was damage to the paper mansion I made, if it hasn’t rained, this water couldn’t have just appeared out of nowhere from inside the paper mansion, right?”
Jiang Si said: “Besides, our goals are the sameâto let the deceased continue to live a good life. Otherwise, why would I come to this line of work at such a young age? We have to get to the bottom of this, right?”
“Where did you bury the old man? What was the date? Are there any rivers or lakes nearby?”
Mr. Sun answered each question: “He was buried on the 13th of this month in the suburban cemetery. There are only mountains there, no rivers.”
“Where there are mountains, there are rivers,” Jiang Si corrected him. “Some are just undercurrents that can’t be seen from the ground.”
“After the funeral, did you go back to check?”
“No, we didn’t.”
Jiang Si thought for a moment. “I think I know what’s going on. One of you should go to the grave first. Don’t just stand there and look; go around to the back and see if the soil underneath is wetâthe kind that contains a lot of moisture.”
Translator’s Note: Welcome to a lesson in “Joyous Funerals” (Xi Sang – ĺ丧). In Chinese culture, if a person lived a long life (usually over 80) and died peacefully, their funeral is celebrated rather than mourned. But even then, you don’t want Grandpa complaining in your dreams! Jiang Si’s deduction about the “leaking house” is a classic bit of burial logicâoften, if someone dreams of a “wet” ancestor, itâs not the paper house that’s the problem, but the actual grave site (water seepage). Also, Old Wang being a “Poverty Ghost” (Qiong Gui) is a hilarious bit of wordplay on how much people fear losing their jobs more than actual ghosts! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! See you in the next one!
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