Chapter Twenty-Two: The Eye of the Undead

Zhao Hong had only spoken half his sentence when the black dog found what it had been digging for.

Under the bleak moonlight, the fierce dog, all muscle and stubbornness, suddenly halted its excavation. It turned to its master and barked, excitement mingled with fear in its voice.

Curiously, the black dog no longer touched the thing it had uncovered, not even a little. It seemed as if it had encountered some urgent problem that only its master could resolve.

Watching the dog, Zhao Hong’s face darkened again. He lightly patted my leg and said, “If the two of them are dead…”

It was clear that Zhao Hong was trying to prepare me for the worst, but I wanted no part of such dismal speculation. I cut him off at once, “Let’s see first. Don’t jump to conclusions so quickly!”

Zhao Hong nodded and lit another cigarette. Watching his movements, I knew we were all under immense strain.

Shrouded in his cigarette smoke, the three of us rose as one and headed toward the hole the black dog had dug.

I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t help myself. Gazing at the “Mount Tai Stone” in the moonlit night, I had no idea what would happen next.

…In the stories told by Zhao Hong’s grandmother, every thirty-three years, a landslide was a sign that the fox spirit would escape, bringing ghostly soldiers in pursuit. These spectral troops would seal the fox spirit back within the seventy-two peaks of Yimeng Mountain. And the battlefield between the ghostly soldiers and the fox spirit could well be near where we now stood… Could it really be as Zhao Hong suggested, that even stones could kill?

The thought was too bizarre, too strange. I dared not dwell on it, yet I couldn’t stop myself…

…When I finally pulled myself out of my tangled thoughts, I found myself standing before the hole in the earth. I saw the black dog had dug a shallow pit, about half a foot deep, beneath the great stone. At the bottom of the pit, a corner of a black-gray garment poked out.

In the cold moonlight, that scrap of cloth gave off a strong scent of blood. The black dog had clearly been drawn by the smell, but for reasons unknown, once it reached the garment, it dared not go any further. It did not choose to dig on, but instead called for its master.

I crouched down, ready to finish what the black dog could not.

Zhao Hong patted my shoulder and said suddenly, “Be careful. Something’s fishy in there!”

I nodded, then reached in to clear away the dirt, trying to identify the garment.

By the moon’s light, as I brushed the loose earth from it, I immediately recognized the clothing. Though most of it was still buried, with only the zipper visible, I knew at once what it was. It looked like… Wang Hou’s windbreaker?

Wang Hou’s black-gray windbreaker was now buried in the dirt the dog had turned up.

“Wang Hou’s windbreaker!” I exclaimed at once.

“What?” Zhao Hong’s face went pale in a flash. Little A-Si, terrified, clung tightly to my arm.

In his panic, A-Si mumbled, “Wang Hou’s dead? How could someone as big as him be buried alive?!”

In the moonlight, each of us was shaken, even horrified, by the sudden appearance of that windbreaker.

From Wang Hou’s disappearance to finding his clothes, it had been barely ten minutes. To kill a man and bury him in such a short span—what kind of strength and skill would that take? Especially for someone like Wang Hou… None of us could imagine it, nor make sense of it.

Yet faced with this bloodstained garment, what else could we think?

After a long silence, I suddenly pushed away A-Si’s grip on my shoulder and continued digging amid the black dog’s frantic barking.

I couldn’t believe it, so I didn’t cry. I thought to myself, even if Wang Hou is dead, I won’t shed a tear until I see the body.

So I yanked the bloody garment up, wanting to see what lay beneath it—Was it Wang Hou’s mangled corpse, some other unspeakable thing, or just a cruel joke?

But when I pulled, I used too much force and dragged the whole garment out of the dirt. It was so light, as if nothing at all was inside.

Because I’d pulled so hard, the garment flew up and landed over my upper body as I fell back, landing hard on the ground.

The next moment, the jacket, thanks to my momentum, covered my head and torso. In the pitch blackness, my head was shrouded by the bloodstained windbreaker. I could see nothing, only smell the pungent blood that invaded my senses.

The smell was overpowering. I tried to take the jacket off at once, but because Wang Hou was a big man, the windbreaker was huge. In my panic, I couldn’t pull it off my head, struggling frantically but unable to free myself.

Just then, outside, I heard Zhao Hong’s relieved voice, “There’s nothing under the clothes—probably just a prank. My god, that scared me…”

Then Zhao Hong came over and patted the windbreaker covering my head, half-joking, “Hold still! The drawstrings are tangled. Let me untie you. Bu Er, you looked absolutely ridiculous just now…”

Inside the windbreaker, hearing that there was nothing in the dirt, I felt a wave of relief. I cursed, “Damn you, Wang Hou! Why did you take your clothes off in the middle of the night? And bury them? Trying to scare us to death?”

But as the words left my lips, enveloped in the dark, blood-reeking windbreaker, I felt something was wrong.

Why would Wang Hou take off his clothes in the middle of the night? Who would undress and bury their clothes?

Most perplexing of all, why did the jacket reek so strongly of blood? Why did my chest feel furry and soft, and… why, in the darkness of the windbreaker, did I suddenly see a pair of eyes staring at me?

Eyes? Why were there suddenly a pair of eyes?

Still shrouded in darkness, I felt a soft, furry pressure on my chest. I looked up—and there, to my shock, was a pair of luminous blue eyes “lying” right on my chest.

Their owner did not move, but was unmistakably staring at me.

The eyes were so close that with a slight raise of my neck, I could see the whites and bloodshot veins within them.

And these were not human eyes—they looked more like a dog’s… or a fox’s.

“God!” I screamed, not even thinking, and shot up from the ground like a rocket. What happened next astonished even me—

I actually tore Wang Hou’s windbreaker in half with my bare hands, grabbed whatever owned those eyes from my chest, flung it to the ground, and then delivered a flying kick, sending the gray-black, gleaming-eyed “thing” sailing away!

The whole process happened in a split second, my reflexes pushed to the limit.

A-Si and Zhao Hong, seeing what I’d thrown from the jacket, were equally shocked. They shouted in unison, “God! What the hell is in that jacket?!”

Exhausted, I collapsed back onto the ground, gasping for air, heart pounding, my mind in a daze.

Because of this, I didn’t hear everything they said. Only when my heartbeat finally calmed a little did I look up at them.

A-Si and Zhao Hong stood some ten paces away, both staring intently at some fleshy object. The black dog in Zhao Hong’s grip barked uneasily at it as well.

I knew that whatever had fallen from Wang Hou’s windbreaker was the source of the black dog’s agitation and fear.

Bracing myself, I tried to walk over, but as soon as I stood, I felt a sharp, familiar pain in my leg.

In a flash, I realized my old wound had reopened! That earlier outburst had torn open the injury I’d suffered in the “Yin Shop” a few days before. Though the tear wasn’t large, every step sent a needle-like pain through me.

“What is it?” I asked through gritted teeth.

Zhao Hong fought to restrain his dog, preventing it from charging ahead. As I spoke, he nodded toward the thing and said, “See for yourself. It’s bizarre.”

From Zhao Hong’s expression, I knew it was nothing good. My anxiety mounting, I ignored the pain and walked quickly over to inspect what had tumbled from Wang Hou’s jacket.

The sight stunned even me.

“It’s… a dead cat?” I exclaimed in surprise.

A dead cat might be disgusting, but not shocking for most people. What startled me was the size of this cat—it was enormous, and its death was gruesome. And why was it wrapped in Wang Hou’s jacket? Who had buried it under this stone figure?

In the moonlight, I saw that the dead cat’s body was as long as an adult’s forearm—huge for a cat. Its fur was gray with white streaks, matted here and there with blood and bits of flesh.

Most astonishing of all, though the cat was dead, its eyes remained wide open, full of life. From my angle, those glowing eyes seemed to stare straight through me. The more I looked, the colder my back felt.

Its death was especially horrific. Without exaggeration, the big gray cat’s fate was pitiable. Judging by the corpse, it had clearly fought something to the death—its body was torn and shredded, the entire head twisted nearly off, hanging by a few scraps of flesh at the neck.

Its belly had been ripped open as well. Pinching my nose, I bent to look inside… It was empty. The internal organs had been devoured by something.

We stared at one another, unable to believe that this was all that was hidden in Wang Hou’s windbreaker—a dead cat?

After seeing this, Zhao Hong nearly went mad. Tugging at his hair, he shouted, “This… this must be the work of ghostly soldiers! How else could a dead cat end up in Wang Hou’s jacket? Unless…”

He hadn’t finished before I clamped a hand over his mouth.

I’d had enough of his wild speculations and couldn’t let him lose control any further. Forcing myself to stay calm, I told him, “Zhao, get a grip! It’s just a dead cat. Are you trying to say Wang Hou was turned into a cat by ghostly soldiers?”

Zhao Hong nodded, nearly in tears.

“Nonsense!” I pointed at the cat and said, “You saw those three ‘ghost banquets’ earlier. Do you think ghostly soldiers eat with bowls? Use red paper to cover tables? Bury the dead in the earth? If this cat was Wang Hou transformed, where are his pants? His underwear? His flashlight? His valuables? Did the ghostly soldiers confiscate those too?”

My words finally brought Zhao Hong back to his senses.

He hesitated, then said, “You mean someone…”

“I don’t know what it is!” I gestured at the woods around us. “But there’s something in the darkness, using sorcery to entrap us. We’re caught in its web!”

No sooner had I spoken than the black dog in Zhao Hong’s grip stopped barking at the gray cat.

Suddenly, the dog turned its head, baring its teeth toward a certain spot in the thicket.

Tense as wire, we all instinctively turned to look where the dog was focused—and saw, slipping through the dense undergrowth, a wavering white shadow, bounding and darting among the trees.