Chapter Twenty-Four: It Will Harm You (Part 4)

"Erpang, Erpang… wake up!"

I reached out and patted Erpang’s chubby face, but he didn’t respond at all. Left with no choice, I pinched the philtrum beneath his nose. He jerked violently, flailing around in a daze before finally opening his eyes.

But the moment he opened them, his face twisted in terror and he scrambled backwards.

"Erpang, what's wrong? It’s me!"

Only when he saw clearly that it was me crouching beside him did Erpang begin to calm down.

I asked what had happened. He said that just now, someone had come to ask for a drink of water. Because he was upset about his mother’s situation, Erpang refused and told the man to get lost. But the man tried to force his way in, insisting there was water in the yard and that, regardless of permission, he was going to drink. Erpang really dug in his heels and flatly refused.

Then, something strange happened. A cold wind rose in the courtyard, and Erpang’s mind grew hazy. He saw a bluish face grin at him with a cruel smile—after that, he remembered nothing.

So, when Erpang first woke up and saw me, he thought I was the man who came for water.

After hearing his story, I realized right away who had come to my uncle’s house. It was none other than that peddler. I just hadn’t expected him to come here instead of my house—that the trouble meant for my grandfather had arrived at my uncle’s door.

What was he here for?

He said he had important business—could it be he came to claim my uncle’s soul?

Looking into the house, I saw my uncle’s spirit-bed overturned on the ground. Erpang and I hurried inside to set the bed right. But strangely, after searching everywhere, we couldn’t find my uncle’s corpse.

Had the peddler taken my uncle’s body away as well?

After death, the soul typically finds its way home from the place of passing, awaiting the arrival of underworld envoys to collect the soul and guide it into the afterlife for the next chance at rebirth. The envoys would take only the spirit, not the body. So why did the peddler take the corpse too? I couldn’t make sense of it.

Instinctively, I glanced at the spirit shelf. The red cloth still covered it, and nothing seemed out of place there.

With my uncle’s body vanished, we could only prepare a coffin with his clothes for burial tomorrow. I gathered some of his clothes in advance and placed them in the casket.

So much had happened by dusk that I hadn’t even thought of eating.

Fortunately, Erpang’s mother had brought dinner, and Erpang saved it for me. Rural steamed buns are filling—two are plenty—so she usually sent four hot buns, enough for both of us. If we didn’t eat right away, she’d leave them in the kitchen. When I went to my uncle’s kitchen, I saw the food still untouched on the table, four buns, and two servings of dishes. Erpang hadn’t eaten a bite.

I asked him about it, and he told me he had no appetite.

I figured it was because of his mother, so I tried to comfort him a bit, but he still couldn’t eat. In the end, neither of us ate much. Too many things had happened lately—more than I could bear. I forced down a couple of mouthfuls, then put down my bowl and chopsticks.

I didn’t want to talk about the merit soup over dinner, but once the dishes were cleared away, I told Erpang that I’d gotten to the bottom of it.

Erpang asked, “What exactly is it made of?”

I didn’t hide anything from him and told him directly.

As soon as he heard, his face turned deathly pale.

Without a word, he rushed outside, gripping the wall as he doubled over, retching violently. He probably hadn’t eaten, so it was mostly dry heaves, but the sound was awful, as if his guts might come up.

His reaction made me suspicious.

Had Erpang also drunk the merit soup? Otherwise, how could he have such a strong reaction? But then I dismissed the thought. Of everyone in Old Jieling Village, he and I knew best what those priests really were. He knew very well not to touch anything of theirs.

After a while, he came back, looking even paler from the effort.

Worried, I asked if he was alright. He waved me off and said it was nothing.

“Those bastards—they’re truly heartless, going after even the children,” he spat, gritting his teeth in hatred.

“They’re animals, Erpang. I saw it with my own eyes—they turned into rats the size of kittens. Our suspicions were right all along.” I paused, then continued, “But we don’t know a thing. Even knowing they’re rat spirits, what can we do?”

“If nothing else, we’ll get rat poison and kill them,” Erpang said. In the countryside, other than keeping cats, rat poison is the only way to deal with rodents. But these aren’t ordinary rats—they’re cunning rat spirits. How could they possibly fall for rat poison?

“Don’t worry about it, Erpang. When I went to see Granny Wang, she said she’d find a way to help us. But there must still be surviving children locked away somewhere in the village by those rat spirits. We have to find them and save them first. Otherwise, if we wait any longer, someone’s child will die,” I said.

Erpang nodded.

We locked up my uncle’s house and headed down a small path toward the brigade courtyard. Now, the brigade courtyard had become the rat spirits’ lair. I reckoned the kidnapped children were most likely hidden somewhere there.

The front of the courtyard faced a main road, the village’s main thoroughfare. But behind it was a small grove of trees and farmland.

Erpang and I slipped into the trees, climbed onto the wall, and peered into the courtyard. Our village is poor, and the brigade courtyard is still the old style—about a dozen clay-tiled houses, a large cypress tree, and an old earthen opera stage. Under the stage, a massive black pot steamed. Even though dinner time had passed, many villagers were still lining up for soup. Among them, I even spotted Erpang’s mother.

Erpang got agitated at the sight, and I grabbed his arm.

He clenched his fists tightly, but in the end, he held back.

There wasn’t anywhere else to hide people in the courtyard, so the children must be in one of the old tile-roofed houses. The roofs weren’t sturdy, and Erpang was heavy, so as we crept along the roof to search each room, we had to be careful.

The first few rooms housed those gray-robed priests, so we didn’t dare alert them—no children would be hidden there anyway. Erpang and I quickly searched the rooms at the back. Strangely, there was no sign of children in any of them.

The tiles on the old roof were already loose, and with Erpang’s weight, he accidentally broke several as he turned.

At the same time, the roof gave way with a crash, caving in a huge hole.

If I hadn’t grabbed him in time, and he hadn’t clung to a beam and pulled himself back up, he would have fallen into the room below. But the commotion was too loud and immediately drew the attention of the villagers in the courtyard. All eyes turned toward us, and Ma Weiguo shouted, “There are thieves on the roof!”

“Damn!” I cursed under my breath, signaled to Erpang, and together we scrambled onto the tree and vaulted over the wall.

Behind us was a stand of trees. We jumped down and ran for our lives. If those rat spirits caught us, I didn’t even have a single talisman on me—we’d be doomed.

Gritting our teeth, we ran as hard as we could.

After about ten minutes, we emerged from the woods onto the village road. Erpang, exhausted, was gasping for breath, bent over with his hands on his knees. “Boss… you go on ahead, leave me behind!”

“What are you saying? We leave together, or not at all!” I said, pulling him up.

It struck me as strange—though he was fat, Erpang had always been fit. We’d spent our days running wild in the mountains, and he never got winded. His stamina shouldn’t be this bad.

Just then, shapes flitted through the trees behind us, and Ma Weiguo’s voice rang out, “Catch the thieves! See, they’re on the road over there! You go that way, you circle around—don’t let them get away!”

Erpang glanced back at the woods, his face grim.

“Boss, the villagers have already changed. You might not know this, but my own mother doesn’t even recognize me anymore. All she remembers is bringing us food—every day, she just waits for that merit soup. When I tried to stop her, she said she didn’t know me and told me to mind my own business. Damn those priests—they’ve got the whole village under their control…”

Things had gotten that bad. No wonder, when Ma Weiguo called out, the villagers had all come after us without hesitation, every one of them looking vicious—nothing like the aunts and uncles we used to know.

“Boss, if you don’t go, neither of us will make it!” Erpang said, as if wanting to say more but holding back.

I fell silent, supporting him as we moved. Since the villagers had been taken over by the rat spirits, they were all dangerous to us. There was no way I’d leave him behind.

But Erpang forced a smile, saying, “Boss, don’t waste your strength. I really can’t go on. And if I do go with you… I’ll only bring you harm!”

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