Chapter Forty-One: Night Market

As I stumbled back several meters, the carriage crashed straight into the peddler’s pole. The two horse’s legs snapped clean through as if cleaved by an axe, and the carriage, unable to halt, flipped into the air. The paper effigies aboard were flung out, and in midair the carriage exploded into a spray of green phosphorescent flames.

My vision was dazzled green by the ghostly fire; when my sight cleared and I looked for the two paper figures again, they had already vanished without a trace.

Those two paper figures were certainly not dead, but I had no idea where they had hidden themselves.

Clutching my bayonet, I cautiously took a few steps forward, only to feel a heaviness settle over me, as if something was clinging to my back—something I could neither shake off nor put down.

Damn it!

The paper figure had landed on me.

No sooner had this thought flashed through my mind than I felt hands sliding down along both sides of my neck.

When a ghost rides a person, it hooks its feet around your body and goes for your throat. If, in that moment, you try to shake the ghost off, you are as good as dead. No matter how quick you are, you can’t throw off a spirit that’s gripping you; even if you roll on the ground, you won’t so much as crush it. Most people, once haunted like this, have little hope of surviving.

I grabbed the tiger tooth amulet on my chest and swung it hard backward. The tiger tooth whipped a half-circle around my neck and struck behind me. I heard a shrill scream from behind, and suddenly the weight left my body, but my legs were seized tight.

Looking down, I saw the paper boy figure clinging to my legs, his face upturned to stare at me. Yet, his eyes brimmed not with malice, but with terror.

He must have plotted with the paper girl—she would strangle me from behind, while he grabbed my legs from the front. What he hadn't expected was that I could dispatch the female ghost so quickly with the tiger tooth.

By the time he realized this, I had already seized him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. “Where is the Wan Family Gate?” I demanded.

“At the end of this road, you’ll find the Wan Family Gate,” the paper figure said, pointing behind me.

I pressed on, my voice sharp: “What’s inside the Wan Family Gate?”

“I can’t say… I can’t say…” The paper figure repeated itself several times, then suddenly burst into wailing sobs. Fearing he would draw other evil spirits, I plunged my blade into his belly. Before my eyes, the paper figure dissolved into a shower of ghostly fire.

Gathering my things, I hoisted my pole and followed the dirt path into the mountains for two or three miles, until, in the distance, I saw the gate of an old residence standing alone. But that was all that remained—the gate alone.

The walls on either side of the gate had crumbled almost completely, and beyond, not a single building could be seen. The place looked for all the world like a grand estate that had been gutted by fire; apart from that lone gate, everything else had been reduced to flat, scorched earth.

Only when I reached the gate did I see the horizontal plaque overhead: “Wan Family.” It seemed I had come to the right place.

Cautiously, I stepped through the gateway, only to find row upon row of earthen mounds. Had these been natural hills, they would have varied in height, but these mounds were all level—clearly, these were unmarked graves.

Only those buried in haste have mere mounds, not graves with doors.

For those with descendants who come to pay respects, even in dire poverty, families will build a proper grave entrance, for it is the only way for the soul within to emerge and receive offerings. But the graves in a mass burial ground are different. The one who buries the dead figures it’s enough that the corpse is in the ground; who cares whether it can come out again?

Just this wall and these graves were enough to leave me baffled by the Wan Family Gate.

True, people in the past have secluded themselves in the mountains, but those were either recluses seeking spiritual cultivation or fugitives. A humble dwelling was enough; no wealthy family would build such a grand estate deep in the wilderness.

In folk tales, if you find a mansion in the deep mountains, its inhabitants are always ghosts or spirits. Only such creatures could build and enjoy a lavish home so far from civilization.

Yet, the Wan Family Gate before me had clearly been wiped out by force. If someone wanted to exterminate an entire household, why bother with the corpses? In these wild mountains, beasts would devour them in less than three days. Who would trouble themselves to build graves?

I waited by the wall for a long while, but nothing stirred, and the longer I waited, the sleepier I grew. Finally, I set my pole down in a corner, pulled two pieces of felt from my chest, laid one on the ground, draped the other over the pole, pressed the ends down with my chest as weights, and made a simple tent.

When a peddler is forced to spend the night outside, with nowhere to shelter from wind or rain, this is how he rigs a tent. How big it is depends entirely on the pole’s length.

If it’s a pole made at home, it’s usually ten or twenty centimeters shorter than the person’s height, making it easier to grip and balance. The tent it forms is cramped—you can’t stretch your legs inside—but if you curl up a bit, it’s good enough for a night. Better than lying out under the mountain wind.

Hu Sanqi had prepared this pole to match my height, so I fit inside just fine.

I hadn’t slept long before I felt someone knocking on my chest outside. Gripping my bayonet, I lifted the felt and peered out. The world outside had transformed into a brightly lit night market. Stalls of all sizes formed a ring, each enclosed on three sides by wooden boards, and each hung with a half curtain of a different color in front.

Hu Sanqi’s little notebook had told me: the color of the curtain reveals what kind of goods are traded inside. Before lifting the curtain to enter, you must check for a cord tied to it. If there is a cord, it means business is being negotiated within—you must circle around and return later.

Deals in a ghost market are not to be watched by outsiders. Not only is it forbidden to look in, you can’t even stand outside waiting, lest you’re suspected of eavesdropping. To do so is a grave taboo.

As I took in the scene of the ghost market, an old man with a thin, sallow face sidled up to me, his voice soft and sinister: “Are you here to buy, or to sell?”

“To do a little business,” I replied, all the while sizing him up. Could this be the old steward of the Wan Family Gate that Gao Gou’er had mentioned?

If so, then this must be the Wan Family Gate.

But why was it so different from Gao Gou’er’s account? He had entered a grand old mansion, yet here I found only a place filled with market stalls.

As my mind raced, the old man said, “If you want to sell, find yourself a stall and wait. If you want to buy, take a stroll around. You know the rules of this place, don’t you?”