Chapter 65: Chang Gui (5)
The cemetery where Old Man Sun was buried wasn’t far, less than a half-hour drive. Jiang Si simply tossed the car keys to Lin Nan and gave him a slight nod. “Take Mr. Sun for a trip and see if thereās a problem with the grave site.”
“Alright,” Lin Nan agreed, hurriedly leading Mr. Sun away.
The moment the two left, the joss paper shop fell into silence.
The middle-aged woman had deduced some of the reasons from Jiang Siās words and found it difficult to continue being unreasonable. Holding her water, she waited quietly for news from the other side.
The young woman, who hadn’t spoken until now, finally opened her mouth. “Is what the old man said in the dream true? Can deceased people really send dreams?”
She had only come along with her husband and mother-in-law because her mother-in-law had been grumbling incessantly at home; she had only agreed to come because she couldn’t take it anymore.
Originally, she thought they could just settle it quickly by having the boss compensate them with some money.
She hadn’t expected that, based on their conversation, the matter of sending dreams was actually real.
Jiang Si was stunned for a moment. It seemed she had never experienced such a dream.
He subconsciously fiddled with the red sandalwood prayer beads on his wrist, his mind wandering slightly.
Previously, Jiang Laotou had said that the rules of the underworld forbade sending dreams at will.
It was evident that for a deceased person to send a dream, they must have gone through a great deal of trouble.
However, whether it was effective depended on the family’s own interpretation. Some took it seriously, while others treated it as just a dream and ignored it entirely.
But regardless of the type, a dream sent from beyond represented the strongest emotional bond in this world.
It was also the only way for the dead and the living to cross paths.
Seeing the young woman’s uneasy expression, Jiang Si comforted her: “Itās fine. Itās just the old man sending a dream; it won’t cause you any harm.”
“To be able to see him one last time after he’s gone is a kind of happiness too.”
Even he himself, despite having been born with Yin-Yang Eyes, had not seen his parents again after their deaths, and it had taken five or six years before he saw Jiang Laotou for the first time.
No one ever knows which meeting will be their last, so a dream from beyond is especially preciousāit is the last chance for the living to make up for their regrets.
The young woman nodded, half-understanding.
Quiet time flew by. When Lin Nan made a video call, Jiang Si snapped out of his thoughts and hurriedly answered.
Lin Nan shouted into the phone, “Brother Jiang, everything looks fine over here. Nothing’s wrong.”
He held the phone and walked in a circle around the sealed grave.
The old man’s grave happened to be the last one in the row. Right next to it was a decorative, jagged boulder, surrounded by various flowers and plants of different colors.
Mr. Sun also chimed in: “I don’t see anything wrong. Everything here looks very normal.”
Lin Nan’s heart was thumping, silently praying that Jiang Si wouldn’t fail; otherwise, things would definitely get even uglier.
Jiang Si narrowed his eyes slightly and asked Lin Nan to take two steps back so he could see more clearly.
“Hold the phone straight, don’t tilt it,” Jiang Si reminded him.
“Itās not tilted!” Lin Nan adjusted it several times but was still criticized by Jiang Si. He was baffled. “Iām not even moving my hand now. I can absolutely guarantee the phone is level.”
“Is the ground in front of you not flat?”
“I don’t think so?” Lin Nan looked at Mr. Sun, who added: “To our west is the mountain. The terrain of this cemetery has a bit of a slope.”
A Yang Zhai (house for the living) sits North and faces South, while a Yin Zhai (house for the dead) is the exact opposite: sitting South and facing North.
The “west” he mentioned was precisely to the left of the tombstone, which was… where that boulder was.
“Lin Nan, go to the boulder and see what itās like over there.”
“Alright,” Lin Nan agreed readily. He strode over and, as soon as he squatted down, saw that the surrounding area was filled with dry earth and stones, except for the area directly beneath the boulder, which was damp.
He pinched a bit of soil and rubbed it between his fingers. Lin Nan said in surprise: “Brother, there seems to be water under here. This soil is so moist.”
“What? Let me see.” Mr. Sun also walked over, pushed aside the surface layer of mud, and looked down. It turned out that the deeper he went, the more moisture there was. The mud had clumped together, sticking to his hand.
“Mhm.” This was close to what Jiang Si had suspected. He continued to ask Mr. Sun: “When you bought this plot, was it the cheapest one?”
Mr. Sun didn’t even need to answer; one could tell from his shocked expression that Jiang Si had hit the mark again.
“Didn’t I tell you to buy the one with the best lighting? Why did you choose this one?” The middle-aged woman rushed over and accused her son of failing to do as she said.
Mr. Sun defended himself: “I just thought it didn’t matter where it was. The agent said they were all the same, no difference. I saw I could save several tens of thousands; Iād be crazy not to choose this one.”
“Everything here looks the same. What could be the problem?”
Jiang Si answered him: “The problem is huge. Do you know that this plot shouldn’t have been in the plans? It was likely someone privately adding an extra space during the cemetery’s construction.”
“Its orientation itself is problematic. Not only does it not receive light, but itās also situated right on top of an underground water vein. After a short while, a large amount of moisture will gather in the soil. If you were digging a well here, youād hit water without much effort, yet you went and built a grave. Whatās the difference between this and pouring water directly into the tomb?”
“This… this…” Mr. Sun was at a loss for words. “Are you that certain?”
Jiang Si said helplessly: “In ancient times, when someone wanted to dig a well, they would stick a feather into the chosen ground a day in advance. Based on the moisture of the feather the next day, they would judge whether it was suitable for a well. Asking you to look at the soil just now follows the same logic. The wetter the soil, the shallower the water source.”
“Alright, don’t question me yet. When you have time, contact someone quickly to open the tomb and check the situation inside. If itās very troublesome, you’ll have to perform a secondary relocation of the grave.”
Having said that, Jiang Si turned to the middle-aged woman. “Auntie, I’ve found the cause. Why don’t you go back with your son and check the situation first? If you still think itās my problem, we can discuss it then. How about it?”
The woman’s face turned white and blue with anger and embarrassment. Without a word, she strode out.
From the look of it, she was probably going back to scold her son.
Jiang Si quietly breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Lin Nan on the screen with a raised eyebrow. “Itās all settled. Come back.”
Lin Nan hesitated for a moment and asked in a low voice: “Can I stay here for a bit longer?”
Jiang Si: “You want to watch the drama?”
“Iām just curious.”
“…Fine, watch if you want.” Jiang Si thought about it; that old man had long since passed on, so it shouldn’t have much effect on Lin Nan. After warning him twice not to go near the items inside the tomb, he hung up the phone.
The wind chimes hanging on the doorframe tinkled at that moment. He turned his head and broke into a laugh. “You actually came.”
The newcomer was precisely the urban exploration streamer, Old Wang, whom he had met in the early hours of the morning. The current lighting was perfect, allowing the man’s complexion to be fully exposed.
Ignoring his build, an unknowing passerby would likely think he was terminally ill. Not only was his face sallow and unsightly, but his gait was also light and weak, as if he might faint at any moment after taking a few steps.
“Uh… huh?” Old Wang only reacted after a beat. In his state of extreme exhaustion, even his surprise was just a faint parting of his lips. “How is it you? No, why are you here?”
As he spoke, he lowered his head and looked around. The room was filled with all sorts of joss paper offerings; he definitely hadn’t come to the wrong place.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My surname is Jiang. My main job is running this joss paper shop; my side job is filming.” Jiang Si walked closer to examine him closely. “Didn’t I tell you to go home and rest for a while? How did you end up like this?”
Clearly, when they parted in the early morning, this person looked like he had just been a bit spooked but was otherwise fine. Looking at him now, his brow was entirely clouded with a dark, Yin hue.
“Sigh, I didn’t want this either.” Old Wang couldn’t afford to be surprised and poured out his encounter all at once.
“I went home to sleep, but that old man actually followed me into my dreams. Damn it, he was determined to drag me along to finish the Shouyi photo shoot, saying heād double the reward if I went back tonight. Iām not stupid, so I struggled desperately to wake up, only to end up with Gui Ya Chuang (Ghost Pressing on Bed).”
That wasn’t even the scariest part. When Old Wang was lying in bed, his consciousness had actually returned, but his entire body was unable to move. He thought about using Jiang Siās method to scold the ghost, but the more anxious he got, the more his mind went blank, and he couldn’t say a word.
Vaguely, he felt a weight of a thousand jin pressing down on his chest, as if someone were straddling him. Two ice-cold hands were tightly clutching his neck, and Uncle Liās raspy voice kept repeating in his ear: “Are you coming? Are you coming?”
Just as he was on the brink of death, the blue cat he kept suddenly started screaming, jumping all over the bedroom as if hunting something.
The blue cat jumped onto the bed and stepped right on Old Wangās face, finally jolting him out of the Gui Ya Chuang state.
Although it hurt to be stepped on by the cat, Old Wang broke tradition and rewarded it with a can of food. Once it finished eating, Old Wang ran non-stop to the address Jiang Si had given him.
“He could actually chase you into your dreams.” Jiang Si was stunned for a moment and asked him: “Did you leave something in his hands? Normally, that shouldn’t happen. Most ghosts that people become after death are Dibuling (earth-bound spirits), making it difficult to leave the place of death. As long as you don’t go back to that residential block, you shouldn’t encounter him again.”
Dibuling are the most common type of ghost. After a person dies, if their soul remains in the place of death for a long time, they become an earth-bound spirit. The way to remove them is also simple: performing a ritual to transcend them is enough to send them off.
Therefore, Jiang Si hadn’t taken the ghost Old Wang encountered seriously at first, but hearing him speak now, he became a bit interested.
Old Wang recalled seriously for a moment: “I ran off too hurriedly and left many things behind. At the time, I only remembered to grab my phone. I didn’t have time to take any of my usual exploration equipment. Those are old items Iāve used for years. I thought since they were so old, it wouldn’t be a pity to lose them.”
Jiang Si: “That explains it. Leaving personal items behind is equivalent to building a bridge between you and him. Itās all too easy for him to find you.”
“Then what should I do? Can I still go back and get them?” Old Wangās face fell, and he wanted to cry but had no tears.
“Iāll be continuing the filming tonight. You can come with me if you have time. Weāll just perform a simple ritual to send him off.” Jiang Si spoke nonchalantly. “What do you want to burn for him? You can also choose not to go; I can handle it for you.”
“Is… is that okay?”
“Guess.” Jiang Si smiled.
Old Wang tried to open his eyes wide and forced himself to look at Jiang Si. After a few seconds, he covered his face and sighed: “Iād better go with you. Otherwise, Iāll be even more scared being at home alone.”
“Fine, itās up to you.” Jiang Si found a chair for him and let him sit for a while to recover.
The afternoon sun shone warmly on the lush shadows of the plane trees outside. Clusters of light merged into sheets and spread into the room. It would have been a cozy and peaceful scene if it weren’t for several joss paper figures staring intently.
In his triggered state, Old Wang didn’t even dare to glance at the paper figures, preferring to crane his neck and look outside.
It wasn’t until dusk was nearly falling that Lin Nan finally returned. He happened to run into Jiang Si heading out with his equipment and couldn’t help but be puzzled: “Brother Jiang, where are you going?”
“Youāre back just in time; I need the car.” Jiang Si took the keys from his hand. “Watch the time and close the shop when itās time.”
“Oh.”
Jiang Si took a few steps, remembered he hadn’t asked about Mr. Sunās situation, and turned back to ask: “What did you see at the cemetery?”
“Oh, right! I was just about to tell you.” Mentioning this, Lin Nan became energized. Regardless of the stranger present, he said directly: “You should have seen it! Mr. Sun and the cemetery agent got into a fight, pulling each other’s hair until they finally had to call the police to mediate.”
“If you ask me, that agent is a real piece of work. He knew there was a problem with that plot and still sold it to Mr. Sun. This wasn’t the first time either; some unlucky guy bought that spot before, but after a few days, his family kept dreaming about not being able to live there, so they had to hurriedly relocate the grave. A year later, it was Mr. Sunās turn.”
“I saw it with my own eyesāthe tomb was pried open, and there was so much water inside. And it wasn’t just water; there were carcasses of various snakes and insects. You wouldn’t believe it; it was so disgusting that even the police on the scene almost threw up. Who could live peacefully like that? Itās no wonder the old man kept complaining that his house was leaking.”
“That place was never suitable for a Yin Zhai.” Jiang Si continued to ask: “What does the family plan to do?”
“Relocate it, of course! Theyāre also going to seek compensation from the cemetery developer. To do something like that… they really aren’t afraid of zhesou (shortening their lifespan).” Lin Nan, a modern young man with a higher education, spoke of shortening lifespans with incredible fluency, making Old Wang feel as if he had wandered into some multi-level marketing scheme under the banner of traditional Chinese studies.
Was this still the world he knew?
Didn’t they say everyone was a materialist warrior?
Jiang Si was finally at ease and left with Old Wang.
Only the two of them were in the car. Old Wang thought for a while but still couldn’t help but ask curiously: “Didn’t you say you were filming? Itās just the two of us; where are the others?”
“Itās not time yet. Weāll finish your business first before we start filming.”
Only then did Old Wang feel relieved.
Translator’s Note: In Feng Shui, a Yin Zhai (Grave) being “wet” or “water-clogged” is a huge tabooāit basically means the ancestor is drowning. No wonder Grandpa was complaining!
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