Cai Mo deliberately asked, “I didn’t send you any money, did I?” Huiniang pointed at the burning fire and replied, “That’s the money! In the underworld, paper is used as currency.” Upon hearing this, Cai Mo immediately fetched two large bundles of paper and burned them, claiming he wanted his parents in the afterlife to suffer less. The neighbors, witnessing this, realized the usefulness of paper money and began spending money to buy the paper made by Cai Mo. The news spread quickly, and within a few days, all of Cai Mo’s paper was sold out. Since this was the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month when Huiniang returned to life, people have since burned incense and paper for their ancestors on this day every year, a tradition that continues to this day.
At this moment, inside the temple, apart from Liu Dashao and the village chief Tian, there wasn’t a single soul. The atmosphere inside and outside the temple could truly be described as two different worlds—one of ice, one of fire. Coming before the statue of Wuxian Lingguan, Liu Dashao placed the paper money and other offerings into the fire basin specially designated for worship inside the temple, and knelt himself on the straw mat in front of the statue. Village Chief Tian simply stood there watching, not offering any help, occasionally distracted by the odd facial expressions of the statues, touching one here and looking at another there, clearly quite bored.
Liu Dashao struck a match, lit the incense and paper, and then scattered them layer by layer into the basin, watching them curl into black debris. Mumbling, he said, “Oh great Five Lingguan Lords, I’m really sorry about the other night—we truly failed to recognize your noble presence and rudely disturbed your peace. We hope you venerable elders can forgive us, show us some mercy, and spare us this once! This humble servant, Liu Dashao, is here to swear an oath and kowtow to you. Just let Guoqiang, Goudan, and Xiaomazi recover from their illnesses, and I promise to burn a whole cartload of yellow paper ingots for you, and clean up this temple so you can dwell comfortably.”
After saying this, he indeed started kowtowing repeatedly toward the statues, his head hitting the ground with loud thuds, his forehead turning blue and purple, clearly not pretending.
When he bowed for the third time and lifted his head, Liu Dashao’s eyes suddenly caught movement—he noticed the central statue directly facing him had, just like last time, started grinning at him with bared teeth, its smile hideous and terrifying, as if it wanted to devour him alive. Liu Dashao had already felt uneasy about the whole matter, and this sudden fright was too much—he immediately rolled onto the ground, nearly fainting. When he stood up, his face was pale with fear. At this moment, Village Chief Tian also noticed something amiss and quickly stepped forward to hold onto Liu Dashao, repeatedly asking what had happened. Liu Dashao hastily shut his eyes, hiding behind Tian’s back, pointing in the direction of the statue with a trembling finger, stuttering, “Uncle Tian, let’s just go! That statue smiled—it smiled again!”
“Impossible?” Chief Tian of the village looked up, his gaze fixed upon the clay statue adorned in a dragon robe and red official’s attire. The Lingguan had a large, yellow face, with two long, thin whiskers trailing down from its cheeks, and eyes shaped like the Chinese character “八” (ba), appearing quite fierce.
“I… I don’t see it smiling either,” murmured Tian, watching for several minutes without seeing any movement. He then relaxed his aching eyes and shrugged indifferently, “Nephew, don’t be scared, it’s just your imagination.” But Liu Dashao remained unconvinced, still burying his head in Tian’s chest, too afraid to look directly at that eerie, unsettling statue again.
With no choice, Village Chief Tian had to grab a fire poker and stir the flames, tossing in the remaining paper money and flipping it over, letting it all burn away.
“Alright,” Tian clapped his hands, ready to leave, but Liu Dashao grabbed his arm and said, “Uncle Tian, wait! We also need to burn this talisman, and we can’t leave until it’s completely burned—it was strongly emphasized by Grandma Fan.”
“Alright, alright, this old woman sure is fussy, always making a big deal out of nothing,” grumbled Tian impatiently as he took the talisman from Liu Dashao without even glancing at it, tossing it directly into the fire basin. After seeing it catch fire, he stopped thinking about it and started pulling Liu Dashao back out.
“Uncle Tian, was the talisman burned?”
“Burned, burned,” Tian replied offhandedly, never fond of Grandma Fan’s things, just giving a casual response.
“Was it burned completely?” Liu Dashao tugged at his hand again, asking.
“It’s already charcoal now—what more do you want? Let’s go! Otherwise, once it gets dark, the mountain path will be treacherous—we didn’t bring an oil lamp,” said Tian.
“Alright!” Since Tian had said it was already turned to charcoal, it must have been completely burned. Liu Dashao immediately felt reassured. He also knew that this place was somewhat bearable during the day, but at night it would be even worse. Thinking again about that statue that had grinned at him for no apparent reason, his face paled again—he dared not look back and quickly caught up with Tian, who had already started walking ahead.
Just as Liu Dashao and Village Chief Tian reached the archway of the temple, Liu clearly felt Tian’s body suddenly shudder violently. Immediately afterward, Tian turned his head and looked back into the temple.
“Who called me?” Tian shouted toward the temple. Liu looked at him in shock and asked, “Chief, who are you talking to?”
“A moment ago, I heard someone calling my name from behind. Nephew, did you hear anything?” Tian suddenly asked Liu Dashao. Liu shook his head vigorously, saying he hadn’t heard anything, and tried to comfort him by saying, “Maybe you just misheard, Chief.” Tian didn’t respond. Liu Dashao clearly saw his face suddenly darken, and his pace quickened noticeably. So he guessed: this time, the village chief was truly scared. It seemed that this Lingguan Temple could no longer be visited—whether by day or night, it exuded an eerie, sinister vibe.
The two walked quickly, and soon reached the stone path they had taken up the mountain. Chatting as they walked and stepping through the rustling wild grass, they felt quite relaxed. However, just a few dozen meters further down the path, when they reached the hillside, Liu Dashao suddenly froze in shock.
It turned out that at the bend ahead, there was now only a deep pit nearly two meters long. Below the pit was a steep cliffside, giving anyone who looked down a sudden sense of vertigo and panic.
“What… what happened to the path?” Liu Dashao exclaimed in disbelief.
Without a word, Village Chief Tian bent down to examine the area. Fortunately, the sun was still above the horizon, and night had not yet fully fallen, so the surroundings were still clearly visible. After a brief inspection, Tian shook his head and sighed, “Ah! It’s my fault. This stone path hasn’t been repaired by the villagers in over a decade. Today, we were just unlucky—the foundation must have been unstable, and while we were in the temple, two of the steps collapsed and rolled down the hill.”
“So what do we do now? Are we going to spend the night in the temple?”
“Let me think,” Tian rubbed his temples, and finally his eyes lit up, “No, let’s go back the way we came! I remember there are two paths down from Lingguan Temple—one is this one, and the other branches off through the Graveyard Hill, passing through Xiushancun before heading back to our village.”
“The Graveyard Hill?” Liu Dashao felt uneasy just hearing the name.
“What’s wrong with that? It’s not like it’s haunted,” Tian gave him a sidelong glance, “You scared?”
“Who’s scared!” Liu pouted, his pride flaring, instantly pushing aside all his previous fears.
“Then let’s go!” Tian turned back and started climbing the slope again.
“Fine! Whoever gets scared is a cowardly turtle!” Liu muttered behind him, reaching into his robe and pulling out the three paper cranes Grandma Fan had insisted he bring, holding them in his palm.
Under the setting sun, the eyes of the three paper cranes, marked with cinnabar, gleamed blood-red like three pairs of brilliant gemstones. Unfortunately, they remained motionless, not flying as Grandma Fan had claimed they might.
“I knew you wouldn’t fly!” Liu muttered to the paper cranes, “How could a piece of folded paper fly? Don’t think you’re Lu Ban!”
“Nephew, what are you doing? Hurry up!” Just then, Tian’s voice came from the temple gate.
“Alright, alright, what’s the rush!” Liu shoved the cranes back into his robe, “Don’t know if you really carry Guoqiang’s and the others’ souls or not, but don’t worry—I’ll bring you all back safely!” With that, he quickly caught up.
Thus, the two made their way step by step into the Graveyard Hill. All around was eerily silent, and the stone tablets standing upright on the graves resembled corpses standing upright, watching the two with terrifying faces, adding an even more mysterious and eerie atmosphere to the already spooky graveyard. As they walked, Village Chief Tian, who had been leading the way, started to feel a bit frightened and slowed his pace, walking side by side with Liu Dashao, thinking that being close together would provide some comfort.
“Ahh!” Suddenly, a piercing scream echoed from somewhere unknown.
The two were so frightened that they nearly lost their souls, their jaws almost dropping from shock. They screamed in unison, “Ghost!”
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