Chapter 1: A Fragile Fate Summons the Soul

In the countryside, the elders always believed that people possessed souls, and that when the soul was startled or struck, it could leave the body. They called this phenomenon "losing one's soul."

They also said that if someone lost their soul, they would feel weak all over, restless in sleep, and that neither medicine nor injections would be effective. To recover, one had to call the soul back—a process known as soul-calling.

The first time I lost my soul was when I was ten years old.

It was near dusk when, for reasons I couldn't explain, I felt weak throughout my body, had no appetite, and was overwhelmed by a vague discomfort. Around nine o'clock, I started vomiting and had diarrhea. My mother took me to the village clinic for injections, but after returning home, I drifted in and out of uneasy sleep, as if a heavy stone was pressing on me, shivering with cold and misery.

The next morning, my mother took me to the city hospital for tests. Although I was clearly weak and trembling, the doctor said he didn't know what was wrong with me and that further observation and tests were needed.

By the afternoon, seeing that the injections and medicine had no effect, my mother hastily picked me up and rushed home, then went to the old house to fetch my grandmother.

My grandmother was a spirit-matriarch—what people called a village medium. She dealt with divination and fortune-telling, and preferred solitude, living alone in the old house.

When my grandmother entered and saw me, she immediately said, "Child, you must have lost your soul."

It was the first time I heard about losing one's soul, so I asked her what it meant. She replied, "People have souls. When the soul leaves the body, that's called losing your soul."

Then I overheard her tell my mother, "I need to stand the kitchen knife for the child."

My mother fetched the old kitchen knife from the kitchen. My grandmother told me to breathe three times onto the blade, then she circled the knife three times above my head. With a flick of her wrist, she casually tossed the old knife away.

With a ringing clang, the knife landed on the cement floor but did not topple over. Instead, it stood upright, point-down, as if held by an invisible hand.

Our kitchen knife was the old, half-fan shape, worn down over the years, its tip forming a fan-shaped point. I thought that even holding it with one's hand, it would be difficult to balance it upright, yet there it stood, just as my grandmother had thrown it. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.

Seeing the knife standing so steadily, my mother exclaimed, "If the knife stands so firmly, then it's really losing one's soul—no wonder medicine and injections haven't worked."

My grandmother suddenly turned to me and asked, "Ziwu, did something scare you yesterday?"

When she said this, I remembered the cause: yesterday, I was almost bitten by a big black dog. Ever since, I had felt drained and unwell, though I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was wrong.

Knowing I had indeed been frightened, my grandmother told my mother to prepare incense and yellow paper for a soul-calling ritual.

During this, I asked my grandmother why the kitchen knife could stand upright. She said standing the knife was a technique passed down from the ancestors, and with the proper incantation, one could determine whether someone had lost their soul or was being haunted by something.

My mother fetched incense and yellow paper. My grandmother took me to the courtyard gate, lit the incense, circled it three times above my head, muttered a few words, and then called out, "Ziwu, come back! Grandma and your mother miss you!"

The air around us was chilly, with gusts of cold wind blowing from time to time.

My grandmother's voice was drawn out, as if she were singing instead of speaking, though she was clearly calling syllable by syllable. After calling nine times, she told my mother to prepare a fresh country egg, a brazier, and some ceremonial paper—she wanted to roll an egg over me.

I asked what the egg rolling was for, and my grandmother said it was to see whether my lost soul had returned.

When the country egg was brought, she had me breathe three times on each end of it, pricked my middle finger for some blood to smear on the shell, then rolled the egg three times over my head. After that, she placed the egg into the brazier to burn.

Throughout, my grandmother would occasionally recite incantations. When the fire died down, she took the now blackened egg out, peeled it, and had me breathe three times onto it before breaking it open.

The moment I cracked open the egg, I was so terrified I dropped it to the ground. In the yolk was a black hole, about the size of my pinky finger, filled with dark, foul-smelling liquid.

The egg white was perfectly intact, but the yolk oozed with thick black pus. I was about to ask what this meant when my mother said, "That egg was laid just this morning. How could it have gone bad?"

My grandmother replied solemnly that it wasn't a bad egg, but that my soul had gone too far and hadn't yet been called back.

I was still very young then, and when I heard my soul had run off, I burst into tears. My grandmother hugged me and assured me it was nothing serious, then whispered something to my mother.

After that, my mother brought out some flour, and my grandmother began to knead dough. When I asked what she was doing, she said she would call my soul back with offerings of dough figurines and splashed rice.

Quickly, my grandmother shaped a mouse, a small snake, and a chicken out of the dough, placed them on a plate for me to hold, then handed me a bowl of rice mixed with water and ceremonial paper money, and we set out.

This time, my mother did not accompany us. My grandmother took me to the stone bridge at the village entrance, told me to set the plate down, and kneel facing the other side of the bridge. She burned paper beside me, muttering as she splashed the rice-water on the ground.

The moon was out, so the night was not completely dark. A chilly wind blew gently. When the rice was all splashed, my grandmother lit three sticks of incense, had me hold them up and bow three times in each of the four directions, chanting incantations throughout.

When the bows were done, she had me kneel facing the far end of the bridge, stick the incense into the dough animals, and breathe three times onto the incense.

As soon as I finished, I noticed the cold wind around us suddenly stopped, and everything became eerily quiet. Just as I was about to ask what was next, I saw the tip of the incense flare up, dim, then bright again.

I thought perhaps I had blown on it, so I held my breath, but the incense still flickered. I guessed it must be the wind, but on closer feeling, the bridge was now deathly still—there was not a trace of wind.

Frightened, I whispered for my grandmother to look, but she said to ignore it, then took out more ceremonial money and circled it over my head, chanting. With a toss, the money fluttered out, landing all over the bridge.

At first, I didn't notice, but as the last bills settled, I realized they had not scattered randomly but formed a rough line straight toward the other end of the bridge.

"Ziwu, come back, Grandma misses you, hurry back, it's cold out here, come and let Grandma cook you something nice," my grandmother called out with a sobbing voice, almost singing. I was so scared I nearly cried.

Suddenly, a cold wind swept from the far side of the bridge, and the paper money was swept, one piece after another, toward where I knelt. It felt as if something invisible was walking toward me, stepping on the paper.

As the paper reached my feet, I expected to feel a breeze, but sensed nothing.

My grandmother stopped her calls and squatted to burn more yellow paper. After a while, my eyes grew inexplicably sore and my mind drowsy, as though I hadn't slept in ages and yearned for rest.

In a daze, I glimpsed a figure in red appear at the far end of the bridge. I tried to see more clearly, but my eyes would not open.

The next thing I knew, it was morning. After eating two bowls of rice with soy sauce, I felt completely recovered.

Remembering how neither medicine nor injections had helped, but that I was cured after my grandmother's ritual, I asked my mother why. She said that when the soul is lost, whether child or adult, medicine is useless; only calling the soul back can restore you.

Thinking of the red shadow I saw at the end of the bridge, I couldn't help asking if it was a ghost. My mother frowned and said, "Nonsense, children shouldn't talk about ghosts."

I wanted to argue that I really had seen a red figure, but my mother hurried out, heading toward the old house, presumably to see my grandmother.

At noon, my grandmother came to me and gave me a small cloth pouch. She explained that I had been born prematurely, with a weak life force. If not for this incident, I wouldn't have been so easily frightened, but now, having lost my soul once, it would happen more easily in the future. Inside the pouch was a talisman she had prepared to protect me.

Before leaving, she warned me never to take off the pouch, or I would lose my soul.

In the countryside, the elders always said that people with weak life forces were more susceptible. Perhaps my grandmother was right—once it started, I was prone to losing my soul.

Later, when I went swimming in the river, I was afraid of getting the pouch wet and took it off. That night, I felt weak all over, couldn't sleep, and when I did, it was as if something weighed on me. I lost my appetite, vomited, and had diarrhea; medicine did nothing.

My mother learned I had removed the pouch and took me to my grandmother.

Just like before, it started with standing the kitchen knife. The knife landed upright, point-down. During the egg-rolling, the yolk was entirely black. In the end, my grandmother took me to the village bridge to call my soul.

As the ritual was ending, I again saw a faint red shadow at the far end of the bridge. This time, I stared intently and saw it was a woman in red. I told my grandmother, but she said, "You're seeing things. There's nothing there. Let's go home."

On the way back, I felt as if someone was following me. Just as I was about to look back, my grandmother yanked me forward and scolded, "Haven't I told you not to look back when walking at night? Where did you leave your wits?"

Frightened by her words, I didn't dare look back until we reached home, after which the uneasy feeling faded.

Once the soul was called back, I felt well again. The next morning over breakfast, I told my mother about seeing the woman in red. She calmly said I was imagining things, which made me wonder if I really was.

But if it was just my imagination, why did the woman in red appear both times during the soul-calling?

I thought all would be well once my soul was called back, but trouble returned that very night.

Whenever I closed my eyes, I felt someone standing in the room, staring at me. When I turned on the light, nothing was there. The same feeling haunted me the next night and the one after. I cried to my mother, saying something was in the room, always watching me when I closed my eyes.

I expected her to dismiss my fears, but instead, she hurriedly fetched my grandmother.

As soon as my grandmother entered, she stared at the empty back window, as if someone were standing outside. Even I, standing beside her, felt a chill, as if there really was someone there.

Then, as if annoyed with some unseen presence, my grandmother snorted, burned incense and yellow paper by the window, and pasted talismans above the bed and window, finally giving me a new cloth pouch.

Strangely enough, after all this, I no longer felt watched at night.

My grandmother restored me to health both times I lost my soul, and I never doubted her abilities, always wearing the pouch she gave me.

I thought with the pouch I would always be safe, but at eighteen, I lost my soul once more.

This time, the loss was even more mysterious, for I had never taken off the pouch my grandmother made for me.