“Long, you’re not the kind of stubborn person who insists on drawing a line between right and wrong. The so-called trolley problem is just a fig leaf for people. When it comes down to it, everyone knows what to choose. Surely you don’t want to back yourself into a dead end, do you?”
I didn’t understand the trolley problem, and I didn’t believe right and wrong were so clear-cut, either. I took a cigarette from my pocket and put it between my lips.
“But I believe in the cycle of Heaven’s will. Life and death are fated. You said that technique defies Heaven. Even if the child is born, it’ll spend its whole life burdened by blood debts and a curse, never knowing peace. When that time comes, not just the child—even its parents will regret it for the rest of their lives.”
Liễu Ngũ looked at me in disbelief, about to argue.
I continued, “Besides, I know all too well what kind of people you at Khuy Thiên Đài are. You don’t lift a finger unless there’s something in it for you. You wouldn’t go to all this trouble and take such risks just to do a good deed, would you? I’m afraid you want to get your hands on that cursed boy and turn Mr. Trần, the ‘great philanthropist,’ into a puppet who pumps blood for Khuy Thiên Đài.”
The hypocritical mask on Liễu Ngũ’s face finally cracked.
He looked at me coldly. “You’re right, Long. We’re not good people. So what? Don’t you want revenge? You care about what happened twenty-six years ago. Don’t you want to know who harmed your sister? So far, only we at Khuy Thiên Đài can give you the answer you want.”
I met Liễu Ngũ’s eyes in the rearview mirror, feeling smug. He probably hadn’t expected the mother of the ringleader from twenty-six years ago to have left me all the information.
“Phùng San is dead,” I said coldly.
Liễu Ngũ froze.
“The deputy director who took money to do the job at No. 3 Maternal and Child Health Hospital jumped off a building, too. Now the whole hospital has fallen apart. My job is to stop you from recreating the tragedy from twenty-six years ago!”
A junction came up ahead, and I flicked on my turn signal.
Panicking, Liễu Ngũ grabbed my hand on the steering wheel. “Even if Phùng San is dead, her daughter is still alive! That girl took your sister’s soul to stay alive!”
“That wasn’t her choice, either…”
I shoved Liễu Ngũ away and turned decisively at the junction. But he hadn’t been careless. The moment I left the main road, several black SUVs began tailing us.
“Stop the truck! Do you want to die?” Liễu Ngũ roared.
I gave a cold laugh. The road to Nguyệt Sơn Cemetery wasn’t wide. The SUVs tried to overtake me and cut me off, but they couldn’t.
A bend came up ahead, blocking the trailing vehicles’ view.
Sure enough, I heard engines closing in. As I reached the turn, I wrenched the steering wheel. The heavy truck tilted like a blade, blocking the road!
Liễu Ngũ, in the passenger seat, couldn’t grab the handrail in time and nearly got thrown out. Several booms rang out behind us!
When he turned around, all he saw was a cloud of smoke and dust and the overturned vehicles.
“Your cars are insured, right?” I glanced at the speechless Liễu Ngũ, adjusted the steering wheel, and kept driving.
The closer we got to Nguyệt Sơn, the fewer willows there were along the road. The wooden piece on Liễu Ngũ’s chest flashed a few sparks, then went dark.
Liễu Ngũ ground his teeth. “Soul-taking is practically like coming back from the dead. Do you know how many evil spirits it’ll attract? Even with only a little power left, we’ll be like Tang Sanzang’s flesh on a chopping block!”
I didn’t want to deal with Liễu Ngũ. I just focused on driving.
He turned to me. “Long Trường Đống, do you think you can still rely on sheer force of presence to get through this? Don’t forget, Tả Hạo snuffed out the yang fire on your left shoulder!”
“Worry about yourself first,” I replied coldly.
Just then, several twisted figures approached beyond the roadside guardrail.
Liễu Ngũ instinctively clutched the door handle, his voice low and strained. “I have my own way to stay alive. I hope you don’t regret this!”
At that moment, a black shadow darted onto the road. I didn’t brake. I drove straight at it.
The front of the truck struck something with a crash. I couldn’t see anything in the rearview mirror, but we’d clearly hit something. I didn’t feel a thing, but Liễu Ngũ suddenly started convulsing, his arms and legs twisting. The cab grew much colder.
I exhaled a cold breath. The thing on Liễu Ngũ became clearly visible: a grotesque humanoid figure with a huge growth on its neck. More horrifying still, the growth opened a gaping mouth and sucked hard at Liễu Ngũ’s face.
I drew the soul-striking whip and cracked it once. The thing let out a piercing scream and turned toward me, giving Liễu Ngũ a moment to breathe.
He muttered something, and flames burst from his chest. The thing was lit up by the fire as if it were being burned, then vanished at once. Liễu Ngũ coughed violently, and the wooden object on his chest burned to ash.
I had no time to pay attention to him, because something else appeared on the road. It looked human, but had no arms, and its face was hidden by tangled hair.
At first, it stood beyond the guardrail, and I drove past it. But it quickly appeared again, this time on the other side of the guardrail. I passed it again, but it appeared once more in the headlights.
Each time it appeared, it was closer to the truck. At last, it came up beside the window, as if it were about to drift past. But just as I was about to pass it, its head flew up…
The head, wrapped in tangled hair, pierced the truck window. I heard screams of every kind—men and women, old and young.
As it lunged at me, I saw countless faces packed together behind the tangled hair.
I had no time to swing the whip. I kept my left hand on the steering wheel and threw a hard punch with my right.
The thing slammed into the windshield with a bang.
I grabbed the soul-striking whip and used its tail like a knife, stabbing hard. The piercing scream nearly burst my eardrums. The thing seemed to have run out of strength and could no longer fly. I rolled down the window, grabbed it, and threw it outside!
Liễu Ngũ looked at me as if I were a monster. But we had no chance to catch our breath, because the hillsides on both sides were crawling with those things.
“I told you you’d regret it…” Liễu Ngũ murmured.
But the next second, a strange force spread across the road, and the black shadows about to lunge instinctively backed away.
A few minutes later, there was nothing in sight. The truck was entering the mountains, and even the wind had stopped. I didn’t dare let my guard down. I knew something stronger had probably appeared. I sped up, nearly flooring the gas.
An icy hand settled on my shoulder. A woman had appeared in the back row at some point. She wore a lavish old-fashioned ceremonial robe, her hair in a round bun decorated with jade.
I didn’t dare look at her face. She was probably beautiful, but no one would dare look.
I heard Liễu Ngũ breathing heavily. The woman slowly leaned closer, her cold breath drawing nearer. At the same time, I heard the seven cradles in the truck bed shaking violently, as if they were about to burst open.
But I couldn’t move. The hand on my shoulder grew heavier, the sensation like needles piercing my bones and spreading toward my heart.
Liễu Ngũ was the same, but unlike me, he held a willow puppet in his hand.
“Long Trường Đống, you brought this on yourself. Don’t blame me!”
The puppet seemed to come to life and lunged at me. The moment it touched me, the woman released Liễu Ngũ and wrapped both arms around me.
It felt as if hundreds of needles were stabbing into my flesh.
A murderous rage surged inside me. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I couldn’t die at the hands of this thing. I bit my tongue and spat blood all over her face. It looked as if her face were burning, and red smoke rose from it, but she only recoiled a little. Her sharp-nailed hand aimed for my heart.
I gripped the soul-striking whip so tightly that the wood pierced my palm and blood ran out. She raked her claws across my chest, and my heart seemed to stop. But I didn’t stop. Still clutching the whip, I lashed it through the air, leaving a streak of blood.
In that moment, my face was as fierce as an Asura’s. The whip struck her face, splitting her snow-white features in two.
A heart-rending scream rang out. She turned into white smoke and vanished.
Liễu Ngũ pressed himself against the car door and held his breath the whole time. When she vanished, he trembled as he spoke: “Don’t think you’ve won. That was the Ghost Mother. Now that she’s gone, the ghost babies will come!”
Just then, a series of “pat, pat” sounds came from outside the car, like countless little children’s hands crawling over the hood.
I looked at Liễu Ngũ’s ashen face. “You used a willow branch to make me your scapegoat just now, didn’t you?”
Liễu Ngũ pressed his lips together and stammered, “You brought this on yourself! If you’d listened to me and gone to Thụy Hòa, you wouldn’t have run into the Ghost Mother!”
“Fine.” I nodded.
By now, the car could barely move.
I took a plastic bottle from under the seat. It sounds disgusting, but it was filled with urine. My master had taught me to use urine that had been left sitting for a while.
I grabbed Liễu Ngũ, opened the bottle, and poured it over his head. He struggled, but I drenched his face and head. Before he could react, I opened the door on his side and kicked him out. He liked using people as scapegoats? This time, I’d let him have his fill.
As soon as Liễu Ngũ was kicked out, the car felt much lighter.
I hit the gas and sped toward Nguyệt Sơn Cemetery, taking advantage of the ghost babies making Liễu Ngũ their target!
But despite all my careful planning, I was still one step too late… The car ran out of gas.
I’d clearly filled the tank before setting out. With no time to think, I spotted a gas station up ahead and drove in, but no one came out.
I got out of the car to look for someone.
The person inside the station seemed to be asleep, probably not expecting anyone to come for gas in the middle of the night on Ghost Festival.
I pounded on the door for a long time before a young man finally woke up. When he heard how urgent I was, he hurried over and pumped gas for me.
“Where are you headed so late?”
The night air was a little chilly. He rubbed his goose-bumped arm and made conversation.
“Nguyệt Sơn Cemetery.” I answered while keeping an eye on my surroundings.
He looked as if he regretted asking. When he finished pumping the gas, he handed me the receipt.
Suddenly, his voice trembling, he said, “Sir, why is your windshield covered in children’s handprints?”
I shook my head without answering, took the receipt, and turned to leave.
But just as I turned back toward the car, he said, “Don’t go. You won’t be able to leave.”
My foot was stepping onto the running board when it stopped in midair. I couldn’t move.
More precisely, the left half of my body wouldn’t move. A night wind swept past, and everything around me turned desolate. This wasn’t a gas station at all. It was just an empty lot.
I’d told you, I’d filled the car up. How could it have run out of gas?
The full moon drifted behind me, and my shadow stretched out in front. I clearly saw something stir on my left shoulder, then slowly reach out and take shape as a head. I heard the young man breathing right beside my ear. Then my left hand slowly rose and clamped around my own throat!
Memories that weren’t mine flooded into my head. I saw a person covered in tubes standing before a mirror, screaming inside, “I don’t want to die!”
The obsession clung to my bones like a leech, distorting the reflection in the mirror.
I was gradually suffocating, the muscles in my left arm bulging. The head in my shadow was trying to force its way into my body.
I felt sick. His frenzied thoughts were taking over my mind, urging me to give up.
I couldn’t let this go on!
I braced myself against the car door with my right hand and turned my left shoulder toward the frame. When the moon disappeared behind the clouds, I slammed my shoulder into the frame!
With a dull thud, the hand around my throat loosened. I twisted my arm the other way and dislocated my left shoulder.
The moment I could breathe again, I regained control. I pulled out my soul-striking whip and drove it hard into the head on my left shoulder. The young man was knocked away, and I turned and lashed him again.
The red line on the horizon was fading now, revealing a purplish light. I felt rain in the air. The moon was hidden by clouds, and lightning flashed with the thunder.
I lashed out three times in a row, destroying the ghost baby in the car. I climbed in, hit the gas, and sped off.
This time, I made it to Nguyệt Sơn Cemetery.
I thought the cemetery would be harder to reach on Ghost Festival, but I didn’t encounter anything else on the way to Phùng San’s grave.
It seemed Phùng San’s mother hadn’t lied to me. She’d already made the arrangements.
I took the seven name cards from the head of the bed, one from each of the seven cradles. Before lighting them, I traced my younger sister’s name one last time.
Flames flickered up, and I looked at the photo on Phùng San’s headstone. The person in it seemed to be looking at me.
“You’d better hope I never meet you in the underworld!” I ground out each word through clenched teeth.
I scattered the last of the ashes in front of Phùng San’s grave. I believed everything would eventually be repaid. Even if Phùng San was reborn in another life, she would still owe the seven children a life.
After Ghost Festival passed, I went to Thụy Hòa again.
Tiểu Hàng’s father came to visit, and the boy was delighted.
I heard that Mr. Trần’s wife had gone into the operating room last night, but they couldn’t save the baby.
Mr. Trần was disappointed, but his wife wasn’t too upset. Not long after leaving the operating room, she was already making arrangements for the children’s treatment.
Bành Hữu didn’t know whether the job had been completed, but no one asked him to pay a penalty.
I asked Bành Hữu how Liễu Ngũ had found him.
From what Liễu Ngũ had said, he hadn’t expected to run into me this time. Could it really have been a coincidence?
But Bành Hữu said the person who’d contacted him wasn’t Liễu Ngũ. It was someone surnamed Thường, who gave him Liễu Ngũ’s business card and said there was a high-paying job, though the date was inauspicious: Ghost Festival.
Bành Hữu hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He figured that with me there, Ghost Festival wasn’t anything to fear, so he called Liễu Ngũ. Liễu Ngũ had sounded a little surprised and said word traveled fast.
I asked Bành Hữu to look for the person surnamed Thường. It didn’t seem to be one of Liễu Ngũ’s people; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
Bành Hữu said he’d kept the business card, but after searching the whole company, he couldn’t find it.
In the end, I had to let it go.
I didn’t know what had happened to Liễu Ngũ after that, but I guessed he hadn’t died. Sure enough, a few days later, I received a message from Liễu Ngũ: Phùng San’s daughter, Phùng Doanh Quân.
Address: Wutong Apartment Complex, Building Seven, Four-Block Half Blind People’s Therapy Clinic.
—THE END—