The Haunted Chapter 101

Chapter 100◀︎Table Of Contents►Chapter 102

Chapter 101 Faking God and Devil

Translated by Nessie

Chi Yan thought for a while, but still followed after gritting his teeth.

 

The old lady looked as if she was stumbling as she walked, but she was actually moving very fast. Chi Yan had to run to catch up with her.

 

Eventually the old lady walked into a dark and dilapidated house. She stood inside the house facing the door, beckoning Chi Yan to go in.

 

Usually, one shouldn’t respond to a ghost’s invitation to enter their house.

 

Chi Yan grabbed the ghost-expelling talismans left in his pocket, thought for a moment, and followed inside reluctantly.

 

The old lady mumbled as she walked forward, “Grandma is the only one who died due to old age, Grandma will not harm people.”

 

Chi Yan followed the old woman into the house. The house was very dark and the windows were covered with black plastic sheets such that no light could enter.  Her face was pale in the darkness.

 

Chi Yan clenched his fists and lowered his head. Then he saw a figure slumped on the low bed against the wall. It was Song Jin.

 

He looked at the old woman in surprise and gratitude, “You…”

 

“That little girl hid this person in the attic, Grandma saw it and moved him here.” The old lady looked at the young man in front of her, “Grandma will not harm people, and Grandma is unable to save people.”

 

She looked at the sky outside, “The Nuo Hunt is about to begin, and you will be found out here. Those two young people were found out here.”

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

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“It’s probably too late to leave now.”

 

Chi Yan listened to the old woman’s words and checked the time, it was already five o’clock in the evening.

 

It was one o’clock in the afternoon when he left He Jia Village with that little ghost and he didn’t even feel that such a long time had passed.

 

The old woman pointed to the direction of the Nuo Shen Temple, “You guys go and hide in the temple. The Nuo god will save you.”

 

The old woman’s voice was hoarse and the expression on her face was still stiff and flat, but there was sadness in her cloudy eyes.

 

Chi Yan nodded, thanked the old woman and prepared to leave.

 

Before he left, he asked the old lady, “Grandma, who were those two young people who were caught?”

 

“They were two officers who came here to look for someone.”

 

That should be the two police officers.

 

Chi Yan dragged Song Jin out of the door, looked back at the old woman and asked, “Aren’t you leaving too, Grandma?”

 

He believed that the old woman could understand what he meant.

 

The old woman pointed to the sky, “I can’t leave, Grandma died a step late and can’t leave. No one can leave.”

 

The dark grey sky was dark and dull, like a huge cover shrouding the entire village in it.

 

In fact, Chi Yan had already felt that something was wrong. When he dealt with the two little ghosts, after the little ghosts were burnt, they both seemed to be sucked in by the sky. He specially used his blood and painted a reincarnation talisman for the girl doll（for the deceased to be reincarnated to the next life), but it was useless.

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

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After dragging Song Jin out of the house, Chi Yan did not go to the Nuo Shen Temple to hide as the old woman had advised. He went to the entrance of the village to get his motorcycle instead. He didn’t believe that the Nuo Shen Temple could save them. If it could, why didn’t the old woman let the two police officers hide in the temple the last time? If there was indeed a god in the temple, then how could the god sit back and watch the village under its protection turn into a living hell ?

 

The old woman advised them probably with her last bit of pious belief in the Nuo god and hoped to pray for a miracle.

 

She knew they had run out of time and couldn’t run away.

 

But Chi Yan still wanted to try, and admitting to fate easily was the sure way to die.

 

The road from the old woman’s house back to the entrance of the village seemed to be lengthened infinitely. To put it in another way, the road was still that long, but after the noon hour, daylight hours were shortened a little by a little. Obviously it was not a long way, but when he helped Song Jin walk to the entrance of the village, the sky was already completely dark.

 

The time displayed on his phone was eight o’clock at night.

 

The rope was no longer there. Chi Yan labored to fasten Song Jin to the motorcycle, and started to ride out of the village with maximum horsepower on the motorcycle.

 

After riding for about ten minutes, the road ahead became flat and wide – they returned to He Jia Village again.

 

The guide could only be used once. This time, the guide was no longer effective.

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

www.theredoaktree.com

Chi Yan cursed secretly and rode out again. This time he didn’t look at the road at all. He rode in the “life” direction of the Eight Trigrams. However, half an hour later he saw the familiar sign of the small shop at the village entrance.

 

Two hours later, Chi Yan had tried all the methods that could be tried but he still ended up at the entrance of He Jia Village. The motorcycle had run out of gas.

 

A continuous stream of fire lights appeared in the field of vision, as well as the clear and audible sound of gongs and drums. A group of people wearing Nuo face masks were leading the ritual. They were holding candlelight paper lanterns, beating gongs and drums, dancing with the props and swords and walking spiritedly towards the entrance of the village. Their masks were of different colors and styles – some with angry expressions, some with smiling expressions, and some faces looked shocked. Under the flickering fire lights, these mask faces looked as if they were moving.

 

Behind them was a large group of villagers who surrounded and watched the excitement. They included the small shop owner and his wife, the family of three from the guest house, and many people who had talked to Chi Yan and Song Jin in the morning when they met and inquired about the news.

 

As it was already night time, the road leading to the outside of the village seemed to be completely sealed. Chi Yan went in circles no matter where he walked. Those people didn’t seem to be walking fast along the way, but in fact they quickly reached the entrance of the village. Chi Yan was afraid of being discovered by them, so he dragged Song Jin into the warehouse behind the small shop at the entrance of the village.

 

There were doors in the front and rear of the warehouse. The front door was convenient for people to go in and move the goods to the front counter to sell, and the back door led directly to the backyard, which was convenient for the goods unloaded from the car to be moved directly into the warehouse.

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

www.theredoaktree.com

Chi Yan locked the door in front of the storeroom and tried to open the back door. He didn’t know how long it hadn’t been used as it had completely rusted and could not be opened at all. .

 

Chi Yan realised that he was putting himself and Song Jin into a desperate situation. When he was about to open the front door to escape and hide in other places, he heard noises outside. The group of “people” had blocked the entrance of the small shop. He saw from the crack in the door that they were chanting something outside the door, and then one of them wearing a red Nuo mask and holding a paper lantern led two others wearing Nuo masks into the shop. They started chanting something and started searching.

 

This was what the old lady had mentioned, the “Nuo Hunt”. The small shop owner had once said that this ritual was to hunt for evil spirits and epidemics.

 

The three of them quickly came to the warehouse. The one wearing the red Nuo mask patted the door and shouted, “Why is this door locked?”

 

Chi Yan became more nervous. He pushed the rusty back door of the warehouse harder after listening to the commotion outside.

 

Outside the door, a voice with a strong native accent sounded “Uncle, there is a sound behind the door, there seems to be something inside.”

 

Chi Yan stopped in fright.

 

The “people” outside the door were silent for a second, and then there was the sound of banging of the metal, and the sound of the key unlocking the door.

 

Chi Yan didn’t care much anymore. He lifted his legs and kicked the door with all his might.

 

“Bang!” Both the front and rear doors opened at the same time.

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

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Chi Yan didn’t even dare to look back. He carried Song Jin on his back and ran out immediately.

 

He vaguely heard the voice with a strong native accent from behind saying softly, “Uncle, there are two people there, are they thieves?”

 

“Not thieves, but… ghosts. They have no shadows.”

 

Chi Yan paused for a while and looked down – Song Jin and him had no shadows under those flickering candle lights.

 

His heart jumped, but he didn’t care about thinking too much. He continued to run forward as fast as he could with Song Jin on his back. He couldn’t get out of the village, so he had to run to the other side of the village. He remembered there was a small mountain there, maybe he could hide in the mountain.

 

It was abnormal for Song Jin to stay so long in a coma like this. If he didn’t run out quickly, even if he was not caught by those things, Song Jin might not be able to make it.

 

The fire light behind him was getting closer and closer. Chi Yan looked back and saw the leader with the red nuo mask was only a meter or two away from him. With such a long entourage, no one was left behind, including the villagers who watched the excitement behind.

 

Humans could never outrun nor escape from ghosts.

 

Chi Yan turned his head and looked forward. Before he knew it, he was already outside the Nuo Shen Temple.

 

At this time, he had no other choice. If he ran ahead again, he would definitely be overtaken by these things. He dragged Song Jin and smashed open the temple door, ran in and then closed the door tightly and painted charms on both doors with his blood to seal the doors.

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

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Many of those things, or most of them, still retained the consciousness of being human. They didn’t even realize that they were dead, so they didn’t dare to rush into the temple immediately. It would take them some time to break through the charms and enter the temple.

 

This was the time Chi Yan could buy for himself to survive.

 

There was a faint fire light inside the Nuo Shen Temple. The joss stick on the altar table in front of the statue was lit. Those “people” should have visited the Nuo god in the temple before the Nuo hunt ceremony.

 

Chi Yan leaned Song Jin against the wall. He looked at the surrounding environment and thought of ways to get out of this desperate situation in the faint fire light.

 

This time he noticed the five Nuo masks on the left wall closest to the door. They looked new, brightly colored and there was not much dust on the masks.

 

They were also smiling and beaming, but their smiling expressions seemed to reveal fear and sadness.

 

The upper three masks were ordinary white faces, which seemed to be a man, a woman, and a child; the lower two masks were red with wide-open eyes, which seemed to be extremely unwilling. Chi Yan didn’t understand the color representations of these masks in the Nuo opera, but in Peking opera, red symbolizes loyalty, righteousness and bravery.

 

“Really, it can. It was during Chinese New Year this year that we found evil ghosts.”

 

“There is the Nuo mask. The evil spirits were made into the Nuo masks, so that they would be sealed and couldn’t get out.”

 

“Uncle, please stay here, otherwise you will be made into a Nuo mask when they catch you.”

 

“…”

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

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The words of the small shop owner and the little girl Ying Ying appeared in his mind. Chi Yan felt a chill in his heart. He was speechless looking at the five masks.

 

The day Zhu Hui’s family went out was the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The village must be holding the Nuo dance and Nuo hunt ceremonies just like today. The flames reflected in the sky and the gongs and drums were noisy. The family which stood at the fork on the road should have found the existence of the village. They walked into the village to ask for help, but were arrested as evil spirits by the villagers instead.

 

The two police officers who came here to search for the whereabouts of Zhu Hui’s family were hidden by Grandma in her home, but they were still caught in the house-to-house search.

 

Those ghosts thought that they were still human and alive. They arrested living humans and executed them as ghosts.

 

He closed his eyes, then turned his gaze back to the idol in the center.

 

He didn’t know if it was an illusion. Under the dancing candle flames, this statue was not burly. It still wore a black and gold mask and was dressed in a splendid red theater gown, but it seemed to be a lot taller than the statue he saw in the morning. The Crown Prince Nuo god statue was no longer a child dressed in adult’s clothes, but an adult-sized idol.

 

He looked at the idol and frowned.

 

What kind of god would be worshipped by a group of ghosts; what kind of god would it be if the yin and yang were reversed in this living hell. Or was there no god at all.

 

At this moment, Chi Yan heard a low and dark voice, “Do you want me to save you and your friend?”

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

www.theredoaktree.com

“I didn’t…” Chi Yan said subconsciously, reacting halfway through his words. He looked around the four walls in horror, and then looked back up at the statue on the altar—just now, was the statue talking to him?

 

As if to verify his guess, the voice sounded again, “Do you want me to save you and your friend?”

 

This time he was certain that the voice was indeed from the idol.

 

Chi Yan swallowed dryly and withdrew all those disrespectful thoughts in his mind just now. He still had doubts about the sudden “appearance” of the idol. Was there really a god in this world? Or was the other party just another type of ghost, a ghost with cognitive bias? Or even a ghost which was deliberately tricking him?

 

He knew that there was no free lunch in this world. Even the gods must be worshipped. Whether the other party was a god or a ghost, as long as he could really help him and Song Jin out of trouble, he could consider making a deal with the other party. After all, there were ghosts who were willing to help them just like Grandma.

 

Chi Yan nodded, his situation was obvious and he didn’t need to hide it.

 

“Yes, I want to ask you to save us. But I don’t know what conditions we need to pay if we want you to save us?”

 

It was better to state the conditions clearly beforehand. Even if it was really a god, there were evil gods. To put it bluntly, to humans, gods and ghosts were just one thing.

 

After hearing this, that thing smiled and replied, “You asked me what I want?”

 

“My condition is very simple, you come over and kiss me, that’s enough.”

 

Translated by The Red Oak Tree

www.theredoaktree.com

Chapter 100◀︎Table Of Contents►Chapter 102