Chapter 29

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 29 - Recent Updates

When they returned to the city to find a hospital, it was already dark. A-Yan’s injuries weren’t serious. The 10-centimetre-long knife wound on his arm was stitched closed. After he gave him a tetanus shot, the doctor kept staring at the strange group of boys. While he gave him the shot, he criticized the young boys for doing nothing but fight all day. Lin Yan and Yin Zhou were covered in mud from rolling around on the mountainside. They weren’t sure how to explain it, so they just obediently promised to stop.

When the results of the blood test came back, the doctor said that A-Yan’s prolonged exertion had led to severe anemia and low blood sugar. He needed to stay in the hospital to recover and shouldn’t do anything physically demanding. Lin Yan went through all the admin stuff for the little Daoist priest and went to the room after he paid the hospital fees. A-Yan shrank into the bed sheepishly, pulling the covers up until only his eyes were exposed. When Lin Yan came in, he blushed and apologized.

“I was anxious b-back there. Master said that once the ritual starts, it can’t be interrupted, otherwise, it’d be easy for an evil ghost to overwhelm you. There weren’t many people on the mountain. I was worried that something would go wrong and I wouldn’t be able to finish…” A-Yan smiled nervously. “I didn’t expect you to have such a strange reaction. L-Lin Yan, if you decided to start studying this, you would definitely be more talented than me.”

“I’ve never seen you talk so much before. When you got angry, A-Zhou and I were shocked.” Lin Yan carefully moved his injured arm under the blanket. He pointed at Xiao Yu and told A-Yan: “Focus on getting better. I’ll leave and get him cleaned up for you.”

The little Daoist’s face flushed red again. Lin Yan clasped his fingers. He thought back to the bone-chilling cold he felt on the mountain and couldn’t help but shiver. Seeing that there was no one in the hospital beds on either side of him, he figured they all went to grab some dinner, so he asked him in a low voice: “What the hell happened today?”

“I don’t know. Spiritual invocation is one of the simplest Daoist practices. With the corpse bones and a picture, and your pure Yin destiny, it should’ve been easy. I didn’t expect to find Second Immortal Gu’s ghost but I couldn’t bring her forward. It seemed like it was being held back by something. When I’m started to rush, I just… just…”

Lin Yan frowned: “Held back? Is it hard to find the path to reincarnation?”

The little Daoist’s expression grew serious: “N-No, the fact that I found it means that it hasn’t reincarnated yet. The reason people rarely escape their body when they are alive is that their soul uses it as a vessel. After death, that vessel fails. A simple ritual could have brought it here, but what happened today seems to indicate that it found another vessel. It may be attached to someone else like Zhou Jintian, or it may be imprisoned somewhere and can’t come.”

“I,-I think the latter possibility is more likely. I wanted to try and accumulate the yin energy in the graveyard onto you to draw out the ghost of Immortal Gu. To ordinary people, that kind of yin energy doesn’t do anything, but your yang energy was too strong. I couldn’t suppress it… I almost…” The little Daoist bowed his head and murmured an apology, and then laughed to himself: “I don’t blame that thing for being angry. I was too reckless.”

Lin Yan shook his head and said that it was fine. He sat on the bedside and peeled an orange for him. The ward smelled vaguely of disinfectant. Outside the window, the streetlights had turned on. The pavement glowed like a long orange strip because of the passing traffic and the streetlights. Lin Yan’s heart felt like a heavy rock. Everyone who had been around him recently had been put in danger. First Second Immortal Gu, then Yin Zhou, and now A-Yan. The most annoying thing was that he didn’t even realize it until now. It was like he was walking at night blindfolded; he knew that danger was looming but he didn’t what to watch out for.

No matter what moves he made, it wasn’t good enough.

“The hospital fees have been paid. Try to rest and call me if you need anything.” Lin Yan said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Behind him, a pair of hands wrapped around his neck comfortingly. The tip of his nose rubbed gently against the nape of his neck. Lin Yan unfurled Xiao Yu’s burnt palms, placing a heartfelt kiss on his lips. Looking at the little Daoist again, he involuntarily put some distance in between them.

“A-Yan, don’t call him an evil beast.” Lin Yan said. “He has a name. His name is Xiao Yu.”

A-Yan looked at the emptiness behind Lin Yan, frozen, and nodded gently.

———

Lin Yan threw the blood-stained clothes into the washing machine. He picked an outfit from the pile of ready-to-wear clothes he bought at the antique market yesterday and placed it on a small stool in the bathroom. He leaned on the sink and went through the first aid kit, picking some things out. What kind of medicine was he supposed to use to treat an injury from Daoist magic? He wasn’t Harry Potter.

The bathroom was filled with steam. Lin Yan had just finished taking a shower. He pulled on his slippers and picked out some Yunnan Baiyao* from the medicine box. The black and white plastic curtain next to him was torn open with a sneer. The ghost propped himself up on the edge of the bathtub, staring at Lin Yan. He was getting impatient watching him fiddle with the medicine bottle for a while. He tapped his knuckles against the ceramic bathtub and softly called out to Lin Yan.

*(T/N: 云南白药 - literally Yunnan White Drug. A type of traditional Chinese medicine that’s supposed to prevent bleeding/act as a painkiller)

The ghost looked surprisingly beautiful in the steam-filled room. His collarbones were deep and his well-defined features looked straight out of a painting. His chin was resting on his arm, and the hand hanging outside the bathtub showed scorched black scabs around his fingertips. Lin Yan squeezed out some ointment and held Xiao Yu’s palm out flat, examining it carefully. It was strange - the burn marks were much lighter than they were earlier in the day. The blisters had disappeared, and the not-as-serious burns at the base of his palm even looked normal again.

“There’s no point.” Xiao Yu glanced at the ointment in Lin Yan’s hand and shook his head. “It’ll heal on its own.”

Lin Yan bristled and tossed the burn ointment to the side.

“You broke the rules. I told you you couldn’t touch my friends. If A-Yan hadn’t dodged, you would have killed him.” Lin Yan let go of Xiao Yu’s hand. He held the showerhead up to rinse his hair: “I’ll forgive you this one time because you got hurt pretty badly. You won’t get a second chance, though.”

“Does it hurt? Hold your hand up. Don’t touch the water.” Lin Yan carefully turned the water down. “I’ve never even taken care of a hamster before. Now I have to deal with a ghost. I don’t know what to do if you get hurt. Behave next time. Don’t fight with the weird thing in A-Yan’s bag.”

Lin Yan felt like he was nagging, but the person next to him didn’t see to mind, squinting his eyes with a look of enjoyment.

“He almost killed you.” Xiao Yu said slowly. “Stay away from him.”

Lin Yan burst out laughing and ruffled Xiao Yu’s hair: “Spoken as if you want me to live as long as possible.”

Compared with his initial hoarseness and slowness, the ghost’s speech was gradually becoming smoother, like a human outcast who had lived alone in the mountains for many years and was slowly reintegrating himself back into society. Maybe one day they could really eat fruit together, nestled on the sofa watching TV, Lin Yan thought, if he stopped his mission to take his life.

“It’s true that I was a bit cold today.” Lin Yan smiled bitterly: “A-Yan didn’t do it on purpose. That little Daoist was brainwashed by his master before he went off on his own. I’m the one who keeps finding ghosts lately.”

Lin Yan forced himself not to look at Xiao Yu. His gaze slid over his chest to stare at the tiles behind him. He sighed: “Seriously, too many things have been going on recently. People I know have died and gotten hurt, but I don’t even know who’s messing with me. I can’t stand it.”

The bathroom was hot and stuffy, and Lin Yan was a little dizzy. After rinsing Xiao Yu’s hair, he sat on the sofa alone to get some air. He wasn’t sure why he was always so tired nowadays. He wasn’t really doing anything, but he was getting tired earlier and waking up later and later. Lin Yan casually picked a book from a stack of ancient books on the table and skimmed through it. He bought it from an online second-hand bookstore to learn more about curses. The traditional vertical Chinese characters were difficult to read. The more he read, the more tired he got. His eyes grew hazy and his brain was slowly turning off.

The book was obscure and difficult to understand. He had never heard of many of these terms, but he skimmed to read some places that still caught his attention. Lin Yan flipped through page after page and found a section about manipulating spirits. It’s said that when ghosts have the same grievances as living people, the living could find several outlets to let out their grievances, but ghosts could only find peace through transcendence or through murder. They couldn’t be reincarnated. If they couldn’t reincarnate for a long period of time, new grievances would form. Over time, they would become a major problem, turning into what’s known as a “climate”*. Lin Yan put a pillow behind his back and lay on the sofa, letting out a huge yawn.

*(T/N: 成气候 - To become a climate means turning into someone that has a goal/something they want to achieve or accomplish. So that means a ghost that becomes a climate is a ghost with a mission)

Many types of black magic conveniently use these ghosts as weapons. In order to stimulate the resentment of those spirits, they used extreme insidious methods, such as digging up the newly-deceased from their graves, putting it in a box, and sealing it, roasting it, covering it with poisonous insects, then placing it in an area dense with yin energy to stimulate its killing intent. The ghost was then controlled by the dark magic and wouldn’t stop until it had achieved its goal. Among these rituals, the body of a child was also discovered…

Exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave. His eyelids were fighting to stay open as though they were made of lead.

Sure enough, when you get old, you can’t move around like a 17 or 18-year old anymore. In order to avoid the morning rush hour, they set off to the countryside at around five o’clock. The two of them took turns carrying the young Daoist priest to the hospital before it got dark. His mind was buzzing, his hearing fading to static. The book in Lin Yan’s hand fell to the floor with a muffled thud…

He could take a quick nap. Xiao Yu would wake him up when he was done… His eyes drooped, his vision wavering slightly with the flutter of his eyelashes. The world started to fade away around him.

Rustle, rustle.

There was a steady rustling noise somewhere in the apartment but it wasn’t the sound of water coming from the bathroom. Lin Yan forced himself to open his eyes, confused. Where was Xiao Yu? How long does it take him to have a bath?

Rustle, rustle.

It sounds like someone scribbled roughly on a piece of paper. Who was it? Lin Yan sat up on the sofa and followed the sound. The whole room was dark and dreary. The dim ceiling light only illuminating the small area underneath it. Dust danced in the air, looking like an old movie from the 1960s. Amid the scattered clutter, a girl in a red coat was lying on the floor with her back to him, scribbling hard.

Why was a child here? Was it his neighbour’s kid?

Lin Yan rubbed his temples and drowsily walked over, only to see that the girl was wearing a dirty old cotton jacket with her pale waist exposed in the back. She was holding a crayon, scribbling. The rustling sound he had heard was the crayon tip scratching across the paper. On the white paper, a “man” was drawn in a twisted position, with his limbs folded at a weird angle. the face is painted as a black ball, The face was drawn as a black ball, but the two eyes were left blank, and the corners of the mouth were grinning stiffly as if pulled into a big smile. Two rows of wide teeth were coloured bright red. The whole head drooped down drastically to the right like there was nothing other than a shoulder to support it.

The girl was focused on her drawing, completely unaware of the movement behind her.

“What are you drawing?” Lin Yan asked softly.

The little girl turned her head and smiled at Lin Yan, her dull eyes like two black holes: “Hehe, it’s me.”

“Brother, brother.” The little girl sucked her thumb in her mouth, pointed at Lin Yan and laughed: “Brother.”