Chapter 4: Born in a Graveyard

I knew for certain that Old Woman Wang truly was looking at me.

To be more precise, she was struggling to look at me.

I use the word “struggling” because I wasn’t standing at the same level as her head, but rather at a slant above it. Even in death, with her body losing all elasticity, her head might slump sideways, but it couldn’t possibly twist upward at such an angle to look at me from where I stood.

It was as if she hadn’t quite died, yet desperately wanted to see me—forcing her head to twist toward my position, her whole body seeming to follow that movement, however slightly.

Her bulging eyes seemed even wider than before, and her mouth was agape, as if she wanted to say something to me.

My mother hurried to my side, while the uncles and other men around us kept stepping back. At that moment, my grandmother snorted and said, “What’s there to be afraid of? Nerves twitching, that’s all. Nothing to fear.”

The room fell instantly silent.

I watched as my grandmother bent over, tracing something—almost like symbols or spells—upon the face of Old Woman Wang. Then, with a sweep of her palm, she closed those bulging eyes.

Strangely enough, once her eyes were shut, the twisted head slowly returned to its normal position, once again facing the main beam overhead.

An oppressive silence filled the room. Outside, I could hear whispered voices: “She’s really back. Old Woman Wang was scared to death by her.” I couldn’t help but think of the woman in red. What grudge did she and Old Woman Wang share?

“All right, if you don’t have any business here, disperse. Wait for the police to handle this,” the village chief said.

People began to drift away. Knowing I was frightened, my mother tried to take me home, but as we reached the doorway, my grandmother called out, “Ziwu, you stay.”

I didn’t know why she wanted me to remain, so I lingered in the courtyard. My mother stayed with me. I asked her how Old Woman Wang had died, but she couldn’t say. Aunt Li from next door had come to see Old Woman Wang on an errand, called out a few times with no answer, then entered to find her lying dead as we’d just seen.

Remembering the unfinished story about the woman in red, I asked why, if she was from the village, I’d never seen her before.

“We’ll talk about that later,” my mother replied, wanting to speak but holding back.

When the police arrived, they concluded that Old Woman Wang had died of a heart attack. It was the nature of her death that made her expression seem as if she’d been scared to death.

The villagers, who had been speculating wildly, finally fell silent at this explanation, not daring to speak further of anyone returning for vengeance.

Wherever you are, people believe the dead must be laid to rest. Old Woman Wang had been alone for years, so the village chief decided the burial would be arranged by the village—no elaborate rituals, just a coffin and a few men to carry her to the back hill.

In the countryside, it’s customary to keep vigil and allow for mourning after a death. But after inspecting the body, my grandmother declared that for some reason, there wasn’t time today. Old Woman Wang must be buried before tomorrow afternoon.

Her urgency left everyone present with suspicion written on their faces.

The burial would be tomorrow, but the vigil had to be kept tonight. The village chief said he’d organize the people, but my grandmother glanced at me and said she would take charge of the vigil arrangements.

“By the way, the pallbearers this time must be men under thirty,” my grandmother insisted. “No one born in the year of the Rooster or the Tiger.”

The village chief looked troubled, explaining that all the young men under thirty were out working in the cities and it would be hard to find enough, suggesting they revert to the usual custom of going house to house.

In our village, for convenience, a custom had developed: when someone died, it wasn’t the family who sought out pallbearers, but the village chief who went door to door, household by household, asking for help. This way, the burden was shared, and only those without able-bodied family members were exempt. Families with men working away from home had to pay someone else to take their place.

It was practical and fair, and the villagers accepted it—after all, everyone would face a funeral sooner or later.

“No,” my grandmother said. “They must be under thirty. See how many you can find.”

Given her standing, the chief didn’t argue and agreed to do as she said.

Once the mourning hall was set up, my grandmother came to me. Remembering Old Woman Wang’s gaze, I asked, “Why did she twist her head to look at me?”

“Who said she was looking at you?” Grandmother replied. “Her nerves hadn’t completely died, that’s all. You just happened to be in her line of sight.”

Her answer unsettled me, but it sounded plausible enough that I didn’t press further.

My mother asked why I was being made to stay. My grandmother gave me a complex look that made me nervous.

She said, “Ziwu, tonight you’ll have to endure some hardship and help keep vigil for Old Woman Wang.”

At that, I immediately asked why. My grandmother led me to the window of Old Woman Wang’s bedroom and gestured for me to look at the glass.

The moment I did, a chill ran down my spine, as if icy water was pouring over my head. My mother, too, was nearly frightened into a scream.

On the glass were a pair of black handprints, faint now, but strikingly similar to the ones that had appeared on my own window sill.

Thinking of the villagers who claimed “she” had returned, and the flash of red outside my room, I asked what was really going on.

“You haven’t told Ziwu yet?” Grandmother asked my mother.

My mother shook her head. Grandmother took me out to where the sun shone in the courtyard and said, “You’ve always asked about that woman. She was from our village, her name was Jiang Yan. But she didn’t leave the village—she died eighteen years ago.”

Dead?

If she’s dead, how could I have seen her?

My grandmother’s words took a long time to sink in. I asked, “Then who did I see that night?”

“It was her.”

Grandmother continued, “I’ve told you before—each person has three souls and seven spirits. When someone dies, one soul returns to heaven, another to the earth, and the last one dissipates. But if someone dies with resentment—murdered, or bearing a grudge—the three souls don’t vanish. They become a wandering spirit, sometimes visible, sometimes not.”

Her explanation upended my understanding of the world. I blurted, “Isn’t that what they call a ghost on TV?”

“More or less,” she conceded. “When Jiang Yan died, she bore a heavy grudge, and it caused trouble.”

Here, I noticed the complexity in her gaze.

My mother picked up the story: Jiang Yan had been born unlucky. Because of a birthmark on her face, she was abandoned at the village entrance as a baby. An elderly couple who’d lost their only son took her in.

As she grew up, the birthmark marred her looks and she never married. But she was kind and loved children—always giving them sweets, and the village kids loved to visit her home.

One day, a child disappeared. Some said Jiang Yan had sold the child. Then they claimed she was a loose woman, seducing various men in the village.

Old Woman Wang started these rumors. She seemed to have it out for Jiang Yan, telling anyone who’d listen that she saw Jiang Yan sneaking into the cornfields with men and the missing child.

The family of the missing child made a scene and even beat Jiang Yan. The wives of the men named in the rumors showed up to heap insults on her.

Afterward, Jiang Yan was found hanging from the beam in her house, dressed in red.

Grandmother said that when she arrived, she immediately saw that Jiang Yan’s suicide was full of resentment. Old Woman Wang was so frightened she confessed that she’d made everything up out of spite after an argument.

A woman who dies in red, bearing a grudge, will not rest easy.

After Jiang Yan was buried, strange things began to happen. Old Woman Wang fell ill with vomiting and diarrhea. The women who’d beaten Jiang Yan all claimed to see her in their rooms at night. And two more village children disappeared in succession.

Panic gripped the village. People whispered that Jiang Yan had taken the children.

As the village’s spiritual medium, my grandmother was asked to intervene. She did, but in the end, she wasn’t certain if Jiang Yan had truly been subdued.

I couldn’t help but ask, “But what does this have to do with me? I wasn’t even born when she died. Why is she bothering me now?”

My mother sighed helplessly. “It’s true you weren’t born when she died. But the night your grandmother sealed her spirit was Jiang Yan’s seventh day—the night of her funeral ritual. And that same night, you were born—right beside her grave.”

I was born in a graveyard?