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“Just come with us. It’s rare that we get to go back to our old home. The elders at home also miss us a lot.” Wu Yiqiong looked at Wu Sanxing pleadingly. “Let bygones be bygones.”

“Big Brother, stop talking. If they don’t give us the land we should’ve owned, I won’t bother visiting them.” Wu Sanxing took a sip of tea.

Wu Yiqiong looked at Wu Erbai helplessly, and the latter snorted, “Third Brother, how about we make a deal?”

“Do tell.” Wu Sanxing secretly smiled. Just as I expected, Second Brother fell right into my trap as well.

Wu Erbai lit an incense stick and put it in the incense holder. “You know that room in our ancestor’s mansion, the one that was sealed by bricks? Haven’t you always wanted to know what’s in it?”

Wu Sanxing smiled after hearing this. “If I go with you, will you tell me how to enter the room?”

“Deal.”

“I’ll be angry if you’re lying to me.”

“What the hell is going on? What room? Why didn’t I understand a word you two said?” Wu Yiqiong asked Wu Erbai when they walked out of the house.

Wu Erbai grabbed a handful of rice and fed the chickens in his yard. “Unlike me and Sanxing who were always running around, you were too honest when you were a kid. The original owner of our old mansion was very strange. There are some places in that mansion that are invisible to ordinary people.”

*****

Changsha Mountains.

“You just fell asleep.” Wu Yiqiong was clutching the car’s door handle with all his might.

“I did not,” Wu Sanxing said.

“Where’s the right-side mirror then?”

“It’s where it’s supposed to be.”

“Bullshit! It was hit by a pickup truck just now and fell off!”

“It’s fine. I don’t usually back up anyways.

“You’re always so careless. When are you going to grow up?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

*****

“Was our sister-in-law fine with you not bringing her along?” Wu Erbai started making tea. “She didn’t look happy to me.”

“She doesn’t like the countryside anyway. It’s just that Little Xie has gone to college, so she’s not used to it. She’ll get better.” Wu Yiqiong said. He looked at Wu Sanxing, who was trying to hitchhike. His old Audi had hit an old locust tree and was still smoking.

“What’s that?” Wu Yiqiong pointed to the old locust tree.

Wu Erbai stood up and walked over to the tree. The bark had cracked, and something strange had been exposed. “This….” He leaned over and pulled out something, “Iron sand.”

“Eh, why is there iron sand in the bark?”

“The old tree is blooming. It was planted by Chang Tieshu (1).”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s the one who sold the house to our old man.”

“We’ve known since we were five that the trees in our house have iron sand in them. In the past, Chang Tieshu planted a lot of trees. He got his nickname because he used to stuff iron sand in the bark.”

“Why did he do that? What’s the point?”

“The idiom ‘the iron tree blossoms’ can mean that things are difficult to achieve. The old man said that he suspected Chang Tieshu was trying to do something really difficult, but failed in the end.”

The three brothers walked along the mountain road for fourteen kilometers. By the time they finally reached the village entrance, the sky was pitch black. After they entered, dogs started barking everywhere.

“I’ve said before that the people in this village have no conscience. The dogs here are the only ones that do.” Wu Sanxing said.

Wu Erbai said, “I hope they don’t remember the days when you tied firecrackers to their grandfather’s tail for fun.”

“You’re right. The dogs here are basically our ‘Young Master’s’ grandchildren.”

The three men walked toward a tree near the village entrance. There was a mound under the tree where Young Master had been buried. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Sanxing said, “Hey, Number Four. Numbers One, Two, and Three have come to see you. Try not to have sex with too many female dogs in the underworld. Don’t embarrass the Wu family.”

The three men started laughing as if they had returned to their childhood when there were three kids and a dog.

“Let’s go.” Yiqiang patted them. “We have to clean up the house.”

*****

Wu Sanxing slept like a log, Wu Erbai was sitting on the edge of the bed with his eyes closed, and Wu Yiqiang was mopping the floor. They were in the only guest room the old mansion had. There were a lot of rooms, but this one happened to be by the roadside. As a result, a lot of people passed by.

The room didn’t have any electricity, so Wu Yiqiang had nothing else to do at night. By the time he was finished mopping, the sun was just starting to rise. When he looked around, what he saw sent a shiver down his spine.

“Are you sure you saw two people lying in bed?”

“Yes. You were sitting on the edge of the bed and Third Brother was sleeping in the bed, covered with a quilt. His hands were exposed, but there was another hand sticking out of the quilt. It looked like a woman’s hand.”

Wu Sanxing said, “Yeah, right. You must have been hallucinating because you were tired.”

“I don’t think so,” Wu Erbai said. “Let’s take the quilt apart.”

“Where did this quilt come from? What is this?” Wu Sanxing’s face was pale.

Wu Erbai pinched the cotton quilt. “This is human oil. This quilt was used to cover oily corpses.”

“Oily corpses?”

“A kind of ancient corpse. The fat in the body overflowed when it rotted, so the body was covered with a quilt in order to stop the decay.”

“Where did you get the quilt?”

Wu Sanxing pointed to the corner where an old cabinet was sitting. It was full of quilts, some of which had been gnawed on by rats.

“There’s nothing wrong with them. These quilts aren’t ours. They should belong to Chang Tieshu.” Wu Sanxing looked at Erbai, “Second Brother, is this also related to that matter?”

“It should be. Didn’t we pass?”

“Wait a minute, what exactly do you know?” Wu Yiqiong asked.

Wu Erbai said, “A test from the old man.”

“Dad didn’t want to teach you anything, so you don’t know anything about it. He gave the both of us a test to see whether we could join the family business.”

“What test?”

“There’s a hidden room in this mansion. The mansion was constructed in a special way, which enabled this room to remain hidden. We had to find it at night.”

“Eh, there’s such a room in this mansion?”

Wu Erbai nodded. “It took Third Brother three days to complete the task, while it only took me ten minutes.”

“Hey, stop showing off. That’s not what happened,” Wu Sanxing immediately said.

“He’s right. It wasn’t because I was clever, it was just that I had already known this room existed before the test, so I knew where to look when Dad mentioned it. In the end, he didn’t let me join the family business. He said that I was too inclined to do dangerous things since I was too observant.”

“But Dad didn’t know that I knew how to enter the room hours after I had found it; I just wasn’t brave enough to go in.” Wu Erbai said. “After the test, I asked him what exactly was in the room, but he wouldn’t tell me. That was when I decided to look into it and found someone who was bold enough to come with me.”

Wu Sanxing raised his hand. “That was me.”

“I entered the room, but I couldn’t understand what Chang Tieshu wanted to do.” Wu Sanxing lit a cigarette. “Stop thinking about it. You’ll lose your mind if you see what’s in that room.”

*****

Wu Yiqiong cooked three dishes, but he had added too much salt to them. The elders kept frowning while they were eating, but it didn’t matter whether the food was salty or not after they had drank a lot of alcohol.

As Wu Sanxing drank with the elders, Wu Erbai held a one-year-old baby from an unknown relative, and let the child watch him feed the chickens. Wu Yiqiong took off his apron and grabbed the glass Wu Sanxing had offered him, but his mind was completely elsewhere.

Some of their relatives helped Wu Erbai drag his two brothers home with a lot of difficulty. As Wu Erbai put them to bed, the whole room started to smell like alcohol. He said goodbye to the relatives, closed the door, and then turned to find that Wu Sanxing had already sat up and lit a cigarette. “Well, we’re done drinking. Time to fulfill your promise.”

Wu Eriba looked at his elder brother. “He drank too much. You know he doesn’t drink often.”

*****

Wu Erbai held a flashlight in front, while Wu Sanxing was behind him with a quilt. The two went out and closed the door gently, and then walked into the depths of the old mansion. Seconds after hearing the door close, Wu Yiqiong opened his eyes and sat up. He sat on the bed and waited for the alcohol to settle a little before secretly following them.

Wu Yiqiong had lived in this old mansion for a long time when he was a kid, but he had never realized how terrifying it was at midnight.

The pale moonlight was shining across the rotted paper on the latticed windows and penetrating the corridor, making it look as if a layer of frost had formed.

Second Brother was walking fast, and the flashlight in the distance was becoming dimmer and dimmer, making Wu Yiqiong feel panicked.

*****

Wu Erbai and Wu Sanxing stood in front of an inconspicuous brick wall. The moonlight shining in from the attic on the opposite side cast two shadowed figures on the wall.

“Tell me, how did you open the wall back then? What are the three things inside the room?” Wu Sanxing asked.

Wu Erbai touched the wall. “Don’t you want to try and guess one last time?”

“I’ve guessed for more than ten years. I don’t have the strength to think about it anymore.”

Wu Erbai smiled, “Then watch carefully.”

******

It was a very simple room that was only about a dozen square meters. It was pitch black, the muddy ground exuded a dampness, and there was nothing in the room save for three very large old water jars that were taller than people.

“Where are they?” Wu Yiqiong flicked his lighter open. He had watched Wu Erbai’s flashlight enter the room, so how did they disappear all of a sudden? Did they climb into the water jars?

He climbed up one, braced himself on the edge of the jar with his armpits, and pressed his feet against the outside of the jar while putting the lighter inside. He saw a layer of gray-white ointment that was wrapped around something similar to cotton wool. It seemed to be a plant. The ointment didn’t give off any smell, and it was as hard as a rock when he touched it with his hand.

Wu Yiqiong didn’t realize that the door of the room had slowly closed behind him. He jumped off the water jar, puzzled. Even with his lighter illuminating the surrounding walls, he still didn’t notice that the entrance had disappeared.

Wu Yiqiong climbed up to the second water jar and pointed the lighter inside. It was still the same, but a big hole had been dug out of the ointment. The edge of the hole had also hardened, indicating that it had been that way for a long time.

He climbed into the jar and stomped on the ointment. Feeling that it was rather stable, he stepped on it with confidence, but the surface immediately cracked. As he dropped into the ointment, he immediately grabbed the sides of the jar.

He tried to climb up, but at that moment, he felt as if countless hands had grabbed hold of his legs and a huge force was dragging him down into the ointment. He dropped the lighter and was instantly plunged into darkness. He was extremely frightened as he clung to the jar’s walls. “Help!” he finally shouted.

*****

In the bathhouse, Er Bai was rubbing Wu Yiqiong’s back. “Is it really human oil?”

Erbai nodded, “Yes, it’s full of fat from young female corpses.”

“How many corpses would they need for a jar?”

“Around two thousand people. People were poor at that time, so their bodies couldn’t produce that much oil.”

“What’s wrapped in the oil?”

Erbai smiled, “I have a general idea, but I’m not sure. I’ll tell you after you finish your bath.”

*****

“The oil is wrapped around a kind of grass. According to “The Classic of Mountains and Seas”, this grass is said to fall from the sky and can only survive on the ground for one season. Chang Tieshu had been studying the method to make it bloom and produce seeds, but the seeds are too precious, so the experiment is very difficult. He had only found these three trees in his lifetime, and his family went bankrupt because of the experiment. After his death, his family had to sell his house to repay the debt.”

“The grass was about to die, so he immersed it in human oil. He thought that he could take it out and replant it whenever he found a way to reproduce it, but unfortunately, he didn’t find a way before he died.”

“Why would he want to grow this grass? Just to make money?”

Wu Erbai shook his head. “People called it horse-fly grass. I don’t know what it does, but it’s often mentioned in ancient alchemy.”

*****

The three large water jars were lifted out and put in the square. The human oil and straw were set ablaze as the monks chanted scriptures, and the three brothers watched silently. The fierce flames were like countless red-clothed girls dancing and reveling.

“There must be a lot of things we don’t know about,” Wu Yiqiong thought. “My son isn’t going to believe this when I tell him about it.”

<The Wu Family Extras: Chess Game><Table of Contents><The First Meeting 1>

******

TN Notes:

(1) Chang Tieshu is a nickname, and the Chinese characters mean “Chang Iron Tree.”

*******

Translated by: Tiffany X

Edited by: merebear226

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