Chapter Ten: Doubts

I quickly lowered my head and looked in front of me. Just a step away, there appeared a pair of small child’s footprints. I couldn’t see the figure, yet I could sense a child standing before me, waving as if beckoning.

A little ghost was blocking my path, asking for something in return!

In that moment, I was so regretful I nearly slapped my own thigh—why hadn’t I thought to bring along a few pieces of candy when I came home? If I’d had sweets with me, I could have scattered them on the ground, and while the little ghosts scrambled for the treats, I might have slipped closer to the Child Tower.

My bag was full of things, but not a single item to placate a child! Not even a scrap of yellow paper or incense—if I’d had those, I could have managed for a while. But now, I had nothing at all. What could I use to fool them?

I had no idea how many foul spirits were hidden within the tower. If a fight broke out, I might not even make it inside before the ghost-faced growths caught up with me. I had to get into the Child Tower at once—there was no time to be delayed by these children.

After thinking for a while, I simply took out the plastic bag of cinnabar, crouched down, and pressed it to the ground, half-squatting as I waited for someone to approach.

Back then, artificial cinnabar wasn’t common, and natural cinnabar was hard to find. My grandfather had pulled a lot of strings just to obtain that small handful, just enough to fill a person’s palm.

With my hand covering the cinnabar, no one could see what I was holding. The moment I pressed the bag to the ground, I felt as though a crowd of children had gathered around me. Some of them grabbed my clothes, climbing up my back toward my head. The more impatient ones began prying at my fingers, desperate to see what treasure I was hiding beneath my palm.

I slowly tightened my grip, gouging a few holes in the plastic bag with my fingertips.

The more tightly I clenched my fist, the more curious the children became about what I held. In no time, they had all crowded around my arm, the ones prying at my fingers growing even more ruthless. I watched as patches of skin were scraped from my fingers, fresh blood welling up and trickling down.

In a gentle, coaxing voice I said, "Don’t crowd, don’t crowd… If you’re pressing on my hand, how can I take out the goodies? Loosen your grip, and I’ll give you what you want."

Children are endlessly curious. Knowing I held something precious, they might loosen their hold for a moment, but wouldn’t stray far—they’d all be jostling at my side, peering to see what I had.

The moment I felt my hand lighten, I slowly turned my palm upward. "Look..."

I flicked open my hand, scattering the cinnabar upward like a cloud of red smoke.

Sparks burst through the air as the cinnabar collided with the yin energy, a violent explosion of light that revealed more than a dozen shadowy forms, each flickering and vanishing in the blaze. A cacophony of shrill, ghostly wails erupted all around, merging into a chorus of a hundred cries. The sheer volume sent pain lancing through my eardrums and chilled me to the bone.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

My heart sank. I’d thought that, even if I couldn’t wipe out all the spirits, I would at least destroy the majority. Yet I’d only managed to deal with a small fraction.

The remaining ghosts were infuriated.

Gritting my teeth, I hugged the gasoline canister to my chest and charged madly toward the Child Tower. These spirits bore a grudge—if I failed to get close to the tower now, it would be even harder next time.

All I could do was run for my life toward the Child Tower.

I couldn’t count how many times I collided with blocking spirits along the way. I could feel the chill wind swirling around my legs, brushing against me as I ran. Several times, it felt as though hands were clutching at my pant legs, but I tore myself free each time.

Just as I was about to reach the tower, I suddenly felt hands wrap around my ankles from behind. I fell forward, sprawling face-first onto the ground, the gasoline canister flying from my grasp and sliding straight through the open tower door.

In desperation, I pulled a string of large coins from my backpack and whipped them behind me like a lash.

These large coins were a common talisman against evil. In the countryside, people often placed such coins under beams and doorframes to ward off malevolent spirits. As the saying goes, "Coins passed through ten thousand hands hold the purest yang energy." Even Taoist swords are often crafted from these coins and copper wire.

Hu Sanqi had told me that a coin sword was a proper talisman, but for someone like me—untrained in the mystical arts—it was less useful than a bayonet. Still, he’d strung together a whip for me from large coins and cow sinew, advising me to use it for self-defense if necessary.

As I swept the coin whip behind me, a series of agonized shrieks exploded at my back. Flattened to the ground, I lifted my head to peer into the tower. The plastic canister had slid to the center of the Child Tower. There was no retrieving it unless I went inside.

But going in would mean plunging headlong into a den of ghosts.

I couldn’t possibly burn myself along with them, could I?

As I hesitated, I heard my father’s voice shouting from afar, "Xie Yun, come home with me!"

It was over.

My parents, my grandmother—they had all come after me.

The spirits I’d just wounded would not let me go, nor would the ghost-faced growths. There was no time to run elsewhere. Gritting my teeth, I hunched down and slipped inside the tower.

Once inside, I immediately stood up and drew my bayonet, eyes fixed on the entrance.

All four doors of the Child Tower were now blocked, more than a dozen pairs of hands clawing at the frame of each. I slowly retreated a few steps, reaching back for the gasoline canister, when suddenly a sharp crack sounded beneath my feet—the wood gave way.

The next moment, both I and the canister plunged into a pit three or four meters deep. Struggling to my feet, a flood of thoughts burst into my mind, my head buzzing as if struck.

I had never imagined the tower was this vast inside.

The story of my grandmother coming to the Child Tower to collect grave earth was clearly not as simple as I’d thought.

Hu Sanqi had said that my grandmother took the grave earth from the tower's central position, bringing out more than ten human souls in one go.

And now, I stood in that very spot—the heart of the Child Tower.

However brave my grandmother had been, she would never have dared crawl inside and dig earth from this very place. If she hadn’t entered the tower, that meant someone must have handed her the soil, or perhaps she’d scooped it directly from another’s palm.

Hu Sanqi also said that all the dead in the Child Tower fought for this central position. What exactly was hidden here?

Most folk secrets are handed down through stories, often muddled and unclear. My grandmother might have known about using grave earth to pray for a child, but perhaps not every step of the process.

Who was it, all those years ago, who taught my grandmother to use grave earth for conception?

I now suspected that the very person who taught her the secret was the one who had handed her the earth from within the tower—someone who had deliberately guided her to that spot. What was their true purpose?

As I realized all this, an even more perplexing question surfaced in my mind.