Chapter 9: Trouble for Uncle Wangcai

"By the way, there is something else I need to tell you. When your father and grandfather had their falling out all those years ago, it seems it wasn't just about failing to snatch up those antiques. Our families lived close by, and I heard your father say something quite strange when he and your grandfather were arguing."

Uncle Wangcai continued.

It wasn't that simple?

I had always believed that my father and the others were motivated by greed for the money from the antiques, which led to the argument with my grandfather and their eventual estrangement, never speaking to each other again for the rest of their lives. But Uncle Wangcai's words today completely overturned my previous assumptions.

"What did he say?" I pressed.

"I’ve forgotten. It’s been so many years, how could I remember clearly?" Uncle Wangcai shook his head. "But it definitely wasn't as simple as just an argument over antiques. Someone in the village mentioned it back then, and I remember arguing against them. But you know I rarely returned to the village afterward, and the story kept getting more exaggerated until, in the end, I just ended up repeating what everyone else said."

...

That night passed uneventfully.

Li Yiran had said that something major would happen that night and told me to just try to survive until morning. Originally, she had me feeling quite anxious, but the only strange occurrences were a ghostly manifestation and Uncle Dazhuang's corpse reanimating—oh, and that "escape" character. I still haven't figured out how that word ended up in my hand or who gave it to me.

At dawn, everyone was exhausted and began looking for a place to get some sleep. Just then, someone found Liu Qingya not far from the door. The weather had turned cold, and some were worried she might catch a chill, but we watched as she woke up gracefully. She declined the kind offers to take her to the hospital, turned around, and went back to burning paper in front of Uncle Dazhuang's coffin.

Seeing that she was fine, I lost the urge to go to 145 Nanshan Road to ask questions. Even if the sky were falling, I had to go back and get some sleep first.

I got into Jiang Yuanshan's car, and it took over an hour to get home.

Inside the house, a woman was tidying up. She had shoulder-length hair, wore no makeup, and just by looking at her, one could tell she was gentle—the type of woman who was good at managing a household.

This was my stepmother.

But I still felt awkward about calling her that suddenly.

"This is your aunt," Jiang Yuanshan introduced her to me first. Then, he turned to my stepmother and asked, "Where’s that little brat, Jiang Hao?"

"Sleeping. He hasn't been back long. I assume he was either at a club or staying up all night playing games," my stepmother explained.

"When he wakes up, see how I deal with him." Jiang Yuanshan grumbled, then turned to me and said, "Xiaochen, you go get some sleep, too. You'll have to stand vigil again tonight, and then the funeral can be held tomorrow."

"Eat something first. I've already made breakfast for you both."

My stepmother brought two plates of egg pancakes and two glasses of milk out from the kitchen.

"I won't eat. Xiaochen, you have a little bit. I'm going to sleep now."

Jiang Yuanshan was getting on in years and was already exhausted. Once my father left, I felt quite uneasy eating here alone. Even though this was my home, it felt far too unfamiliar.

I quickly finished the food on the table and went to my room to sleep. Perhaps because I was so tired, I fell asleep within minutes of hitting the bed.

...

I don't know how much time had passed when I was awakened by a flurry of urgent knocking at the door. I quickly put on my clothes; standing outside was Jiang Yuanshan.

"Something's happened. Come on, come with me to Uncle Wangcai's place," Jiang Yuanshan said urgently.

What? Something happened to Uncle Wangcai, too?

Uncle Wangcai and I had been talking just last night. Although there was a black haze on his forehead, even so, he shouldn't have been in danger so soon!

"Hurry up and get ready, I'll wait for you downstairs."

Jiang Yuanshan hurried out to the basement garage to get the car. I didn't have much to pack, so I just splashed some water on my face and checked the time on my phone; it was around six in the evening.

By the time I reached the lobby, Jiang Yuanshan's car was already waiting. Once inside, my father handed me a piece of bread and a bottle of mineral water. "Make do with this, eat something on the way."

After saying this, my father stepped on the gas, and the car shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.

Uncle Wangcai's home was some distance from mine. Along the way, my father told me what had happened before Uncle Wangcai died. It wasn't anything strange—Uncle Wangcai had simply gone home and laid down on his bed to sleep. When lunch was ready at noon, his family went in to urge him to eat, but he didn't move at all. At the time, his family didn't think much of it, assuming he was just very tired. By five o'clock in the afternoon, when dinner was almost ready, they went to check on him again, but there was still no response.

That was when they panicked. Someone pushed him, only to discover that his body was ice-cold; there was no warmth left at all.

There were no signs, no struggle—Uncle Wangcai was just gone.

By the time we arrived, most of the people from his generation in the village had already gathered. Most wore heavy expressions, and the atmosphere was incredibly oppressive. Seeing my father and me arrive, no one came forward to greet us.

In less than a week, two childhood friends they were close with had died bizarrely. For these middle-aged men, this was a heavy blow.

"I'll go in and take a look at Uncle Wangcai," I said.

Jiang Yuanshan followed behind me as we entered the room where the body was laid out. Uncle Wangcai wasn't as wealthy as Uncle Dazhuang; he lived in a large flat he had bought quite some time ago. They had cleared out a room to place Uncle Dazhuang's body in.

His family wanted to take Uncle Wangcai back to his hometown for burial and planned to send him back tonight, so his body was currently laid out in the house.

After I entered, the room was filled with constant sobbing. Unlike Uncle Dazhuang, whose family line was sparse, Uncle Wangcai had two daughters and a son. His eldest daughter was already married, and his youngest was about the same age as my half-brother—fourteen or fifteen.

After getting permission from the family, I managed to squeeze to the front of the crowd and gently lifted the white sheet covering Uncle Wangcai.

You cannot imagine it—the man who was quite robust and chatting with me just over ten hours ago had turned into a skin-and-bones corpse.

It was as if all the blood in his body had been sucked dry!

The state of his death was similar to Uncle Dazhuang's, yet slightly different.

For a corpse like this, I would have advised cremation to avoid any strange occurrences. But for some of Uncle Wangcai's more feudal-minded relatives, they believed that those who were cremated would go to hell, so they stubbornly insisted on a burial.

"How about we send Uncle Wangcai and Uncle Dazhuang back to the hometown for burial together?"

I don't know why, but an idea popped into my head, and I blurted it out.

I needed to go back to my hometown to see exactly what was going on, or my head was going to explode from all this thinking.