Chapter 25: Nearly Losing Three Souls

“Ziwu, come back quickly...”

My mother’s voice continued to call out, wavering between a song and a sob, echoing intermittently outside the courtyard, sending a chill through me.

I shook Xu Buhuo several times with all my strength, but he still didn’t respond. I hurriedly checked his breathing—normal, but he was unconscious, lost to the world.

I didn’t know why Xu Buhuo suddenly became like this, but I knew that nothing about this situation was normal. My mother wouldn’t run outside in the middle of the night, calling for my soul as if summoning a spirit—she knew I was in the mourning hall.

I also noticed that the village was eerily silent—no dogs barking, not even insects. Thinking of all the strange happenings lately, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Mom, what are you calling me for?”

I wanted to be sure it was really my mother outside. My grandmother’s books said that wandering spirits and ghosts could take on the appearance of familiar people, making it nearly impossible for the uninitiated to recognize them.

“Ziwu, come out quickly, I’m calling your soul back,” my mother replied. Her voice sounded strange, making me feel it was her, yet at the same time, I feared it wasn’t.

I called Xu Buhuo’s name a few more times, but he still didn’t stir. Instinctively, I looked at his cloth bag, thinking there must be a talisman to ward off evil spirits inside. I suspected my mother was being influenced by a ghost.

I opened the bag and rummaged through it. Suddenly, a small pouch fell out. It looked familiar. Looking closer, I realized it was identical to the one Old Man Qin had given me.

I had hesitated about putting my pouch into Xu Buhuo’s bag, but in the end, I hadn’t. Yet here it was, an exact duplicate. I instinctively reached for my pocket.

To my shock, the pouch that had been in my pocket was gone.

“Damn it.”

I didn’t understand how the pouch, which had been in my pocket, could have ended up in Xu Buhuo’s bag. I put the pouch into my coat pocket and pulled out two yellow talismans.

The symbols on the talismans were different. I didn’t know if they were effective against ghosts, but I took them anyway as I stepped outside.

“Ziwu, come out quickly,” my mother’s voice called, agitating me. It was still echoing a second before I opened the door, but the moment I stepped outside, everything fell silent.

Left hand gripping a flashlight, right hand clutching the talismans, I stood outside scanning the area. My mother was nowhere to be seen.

Where was she?

Anxious, I was about to call out when the birthmark on my face suddenly felt as if scalded by boiling water, the pain forcing me to crouch down, clutching my cheek.

A cold wind suddenly swept from behind. Instinct told me someone was there. I forced myself to turn, despite the burning pain, but before I could fully turn my head, everything went black and I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, it was already morning, and I was lying in the courtyard under the sun. Seeing me awake, my mother hurriedly shouted toward the kitchen, “Mr. Xu, he’s awake!”

Xu Buhuo approached with a bowl in hand. “Eat this,” he said.

Inside the bowl was a mass of bloody, raw something with a foul stench, and a chicken heart, looking freshly ripped from the bird, blood still wet.

“What is this? Why do I have to eat it? What happened?” My mind was filled with questions as the memories of the previous night came rushing back.

“Your last two souls were drawn away last night. If you don’t want to remain unconscious in bed, you’d better eat this,” Xu Buhuo replied.

I recognized what was in the bowl: the comb and heart of a rooster, raw and crushed.

Both the rooster’s comb and heart are said to possess strong yang energy. With only three souls left, my body’s yang was dangerously low. Without enough yang, a person falls into a coma. Disgusted but unwilling to lose consciousness again, I forced the chicken heart into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Then I ate the comb.

Never in my life had eating been so difficult. My throat spasmed, my stomach churned, and I wanted to vomit, but I forced everything down.

No sooner had I finished than Xu Buhuo brought out a yellow talisman, lifted my shirt, and pressed it to my chest. Only then did I realize a spell formation had appeared there.

Remembering the events of last night, I couldn’t help but ask my mother, “Mom, why were you calling me outside last night?”

She looked at me in bewilderment. “I wasn’t. I stayed in the house all night. If Mr. Xu hadn’t sent Brother Li to get me, I wouldn’t have known anything happened.”

“You were possessed last night,” Xu Buhuo interjected.

Possessed?

“You’d already lost five souls before. The enemy used your lost souls to lure your spirit, so everything you heard last night was a hallucination. When I found you, you were out cold, with two black handprints on your back—the same as those on Liu the Leper before. If you’d turned your head to look at whatever was calling you, your three souls would probably have been taken too. But you didn’t turn your head completely; you only responded, so only two souls left your body.”

Black handprints again?

I twisted my neck to look at my shoulder and found a faint mark. A chill ran over me.

Those black handprints were like death warrants. I remembered that I had indeed tried to turn around, but the pain in my face knocked me out before I could.

Was it the pain on my face that saved me?

I instinctively touched the unsightly birthmark, recalling what Jiang Yan had said when she sought me out—that she was protecting me.

Thinking of what could have happened if I’d turned my head, I wondered if she truly was protecting me. The birthmark she left on my face wasn’t a curse, but a shield?

But then, if the birthmark could protect me, why had I still lost my souls one after another? And the first soul was lost right after I met Jiang Yan.

I kept my guesses to myself and asked Xu Buhuo what had happened to him last night, why he was impossible to wake.

“Someone cast a spell on me.”

Xu Buhuo’s face was grim. “Their methods are sophisticated—I didn’t even sense it coming. I was instantly immobilized. I don’t know where I went wrong.”

I instinctively checked my pocket, where Old Man Qin’s pouch still sat.

It occurred to me that Xu Buhuo being cursed might have something to do with Old Man Qin’s pouch. Otherwise, why would my pouch end up in Xu Buhuo’s bag right when he was cursed?

I had no idea how the pouch, which should have been on my person, migrated to Xu Buhuo’s bag.

Could it have been the little ghost my grandmother raised upstairs? But that seemed impossible—her ghost would never help someone harm me.

After resting a while until the nausea passed, I entered the hall. On the floor was a lit oil lamp, with a yellow talisman pressed beneath it bearing my eight characters, surrounded by a formation.

Xu Buhuo said that normally, losing seven souls would leave a person permanently unconscious. He had combined several secret methods to boost my yang, so I could remain awake—there were still things to be done.

One thing at a time, he said. After we buried my grandmother at midnight, he would focus on my situation and uncover who was behind all this.

From his tone, I sensed that Xu Buhuo was angry at the one responsible for the curse. Previously, he’d only wanted to handle my grandmother’s affairs, barely reacting even when he noticed Old Man Qin was suspicious.

His new interest in our enemy was good for me, so I said nothing more.

At noon, I took Xu Buhuo to the ancestral graveyard in the hills to pick out a suitable spot, since time would be tight that night. According to his plan, the burial must begin at midnight and the grave must be sealed by one.

There was only an hour between leaving the house and sealing the grave.

We’d only moved here with my grandfather, so there were only two graves so far. Xu Buhuo, on arrival, pointed at a weed-choked grave and asked whose it was. I told him it was my grandfather’s. He frowned, as if he saw something.

“I thought your grandmother was extraordinary, but your grandfather—he’s something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” I looked at Xu Buhuo, then at my grandfather’s grave, but saw nothing unusual.

“I think I finally understand why someone is trying to steal your souls.”

“What exactly do you know?” I stared at Xu Buhuo, desperate for the truth.

“Don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough. Telling you now wouldn’t help. Just remember, you have a remarkable grandfather and a worthy father.”

His cryptic words made me want to kneel and beg him to explain, but I held back, knowing he wouldn’t speak before the time was right.

Southeast of the grave, there was a locust tree as thick as a man’s waist. Xu Buhuo went over, checked the sun’s position, and marked out a rough area.

We headed back down the mountain. I pressed him again about what he’d said, but he just stayed silent.

We prepared everything—hoe, shovel, ropes. Because the burial would be at night and the village chief was indisposed, my mother had no choice but to ask a few uncles who had been close to my father for help. They agreed to transport the coffin by cart to the graveyard.

With those matters settled, all that remained was to wait.

Xu Buhuo sat on the doorstep, eyes half closed, gazing at my grandmother’s mourning hall as if deep in thought. When I asked what was wrong, he replied, “Tonight will not be peaceful.”

The last night—of course it wouldn’t be peaceful. Though I was anxious, there was nothing more I could do.

After a moment’s thought, Xu Buhuo instructed me to fetch three large roosters and a black dog. He killed them, mixed their blood, and burned eight different yellow talismans over the mixture, stirring the ashes in.

A bundle of chains and a coil of hemp rope were then soaked in the blood. Seeing this, I instinctively glanced at my grandmother’s coffin, wondering if this was to prevent her from rising as a corpse.

As night fell, my heart grew increasingly uneasy, a sense of impending crisis mounting with the darkness.

“I have a task for you,” Xu Buhuo suddenly said, coming to stand before me.

“Go find Old Man Qin and chat with him. Talk about anything you like, but keep him engaged until 11:50. Then rush back here in the last ten minutes.”

Chat with Old Man Qin?

I was bewildered, unable to guess what game Xu Buhuo was playing.