Chapter 0047 Majiawa Village
I asked, "When will we reach the next stop, Wu... Wujiagou?"
The driver smiled. "Wujiagou has already passed."
I was surprised. "I didn't see any houses by the road. How did we pass it?"
The driver said, "The next stop is Majiawa." I dared not ask any more questions and just waited for him to drive to this place called Majiawa.
After driving for about ten minutes, the driver slowly stopped the car. "Majiawa has arrived." I saw a cluster of houses on the right side of the road, with only a few lights on. I had no other choice but to get out, intending to stay overnight in one of the villagers' homes until daybreak, then figure out how to get home.
I opened the car door and asked the driver, "How much is the fare?"
The driver leaned to the right, reached over, closed my door, and drove straight away. A chill ran down my spine. Watching the taxi drive further and further away until it vanished into the night, I had no choice but to walk toward Majiawa. The village road was uneven. On the left side of the road was a pond, and a young man stood beside it, staring at the water. He was completely soaked, and water was constantly dripping from his clothes. I walked over and asked, "Excuse me, is this Majiawa?"
The young man turned his head and looked at me with a particularly surprised expression. I wondered if my Mandarin wasn't standard enough, so I asked again. The young man nodded. I walked down the village road toward the houses, and the young man watched me. After walking a few dozen meters, I couldn't resist looking back and saw that he was still staring at me.
Entering the village, I went to the gate of a house with lights on and knocked on the wooden plank door. After knocking more than ten times, I heard the sound of a door opening and footsteps inside the yard. The main gate opened, and a middle-aged woman stood inside, sizing me up with a puzzled look on her face. I asked, "Aunty, I live in the city and got lost. Can I stay here for a night? If there's really no place to sleep, I can sleep on the ground in the yard, just give me a blanket to cover myself."
It took the middle-aged woman a moment to regain her composure. She nodded and let me into the yard. The yard was clean, but there was no well, only a square stone table and four stone stools. She asked, "How old are you?"
I figured she asked my age to borrow money, so I told her I was twenty-nine. The middle-aged woman sighed. "What a pity." Before I could ask further, she added, "My parents and my sister live inside the house. It's not convenient for you to come in, so you'll have to make do in the yard. I can't let you use my bedding; it wouldn't be good for you. Since it's summer, just manage for now."
I could only agree. The middle-aged woman brought out a rolled-up straw mat, spread it on the ground in the yard, and went back inside. Thankfully, it was midsummer; otherwise, the night would have been truly miserable. Lying on the mat, I recalled the events of the evening, feeling that the taxi driver was very strange. Just then, a sound of footsteps came from outside the yard, stopping at the gate. Someone knocked sharply. The middle-aged woman came out of the house and asked who it was.
A man's voice rang out from outside the gate. "Delivery."
The middle-aged woman quickly opened the gate. Someone threw a bundle inside and turned to leave. The middle-aged woman closed the gate, picked up the bundle, and happily ran to the stone table in the center of the yard, placing the items on the table. Three more people came out of the house: an old couple and another middle-aged woman who looked older. They eagerly asked, "It's really delivered?"
The middle-aged woman nodded with a smile. The four people sat on the stone stools and unwrapped the bundle. Inside were pastries, bananas, rice, and apples—all food items. The four people searched through the items and ate, looking as if they hadn't eaten all day. The old man was ravenously eating a piece of cake. When he looked to the side and saw me, he was startled, almost choking, and pointed at me. "H-how did he get in?"
"He said he got lost," the middle-aged woman said while eating.
The old woman looked at me. "I truly envy him."
The old man said, "Don't let him leave. This opportunity is truly rare."
The middle-aged woman shook her head. "Wouldn't that be wrong?"
The older middle-aged woman said, "What's wrong with it? Who wants to be sealed here forever?"
The middle-aged woman glared at her. "Sister, just eat! You only get to eat four times a year. Don't talk so much!" The older middle-aged woman stopped talking, and the four continued to eat.
I didn't dare to sleep anymore. I kept my eyes fixed on the four people. The older middle-aged woman held up an apple and smiled at me. "You must be hungry too? Have this."
The middle-aged woman quickly intervened. "Stop it! He can't eat that! If he eats it, he really will have to stay here!" The four people burst into laughter.
After they finished eating, the four people went back into the house, satisfied, and didn't come out again. I lay on the mat, reflecting on the words of the four people, when suddenly a head popped up over the wall near the gate—it was the young man I met at the village entrance. Water was still dripping from his body onto the ground. He struggled to climb onto the top of the wall, staring intently at me, as if he was coming for me. Just then, a window opened inside the house, and the middle-aged woman shouted, "Get lost!"
The young man was startled and lost his grip, falling off the wall with a dull thud. It sounded like he took a hard fall. I didn't dare lie down anymore, sitting on the mat trembling all over. I was desperately sleepy, yet the fear kept me awake. This feeling was simply unbearable.
I don't know how much time passed, but I dimly opened my eyes and felt an intense headache. Dawn had broken. An old man carrying a wicker basket was standing in front of me, looking at me in astonishment. I looked around and realized I was leaning against a grave, surrounded by grave mounds. I sprang up in terror, startling the old man, who raised the sickle in his hand, both hands shaking.
I quickly said, "What are you going to do?"
The old man retorted, "What's wrong with you? Why are you sleeping in the graveyard?"
I touched my throbbing head and asked the old man where this place was, and if it was Majiawa. The old man said yes, but the village was further ahead; this was the shared graveyard for the nearby villages. The old man seemed experienced and asked if I had been walking late at night. I had to tell him that I took a wrong turn and, seeing the lights on in the village, came over.
The old man asked nervously, "You didn't eat anything they gave you, did you?"
I said no, I didn't dare to eat. The old man nodded. "Fortunately, you didn't eat it. A few years ago, a reckless kid from this village tried to save a few yuan on cab fare and insisted on walking home from the Yuhong District government office. He met a ghost late at night and ate their food. Didn't that mess up his mind? He's been an idiot ever since."
A chill ran down my spine. I thought, it was a good thing I hadn't eaten anything last night. Following the old man, I arrived at the real Majiawa. Many villagers were preparing to drive agricultural tricycles to the city to buy vegetables, including the old man's son. I hitched a ride and finally returned to the city. When I got home, my parents asked where I had been the previous night without a word. I claimed that some classmates called me to play mahjong late into the night.
Lying in bed, my head still throbbed, and the muscles in my back felt tight, as uncomfortable as if I were carrying three large mountains. After eating breakfast, I managed to sleep for a little while. Just as I was about to wake up, I found I couldn't move at all. The door opened. From the corner of my eye, I could see my parents walking back and forth in the living room. Then, an old man walked into my bedroom. I wondered who this was—did we have a guest?
The old man walked very slowly, stopped by my bedside, and stared at me, then reached out his hands to touch my body. I was very angry, but I couldn't move an inch. The old man touched me for a while, then slowly floated onto the bed. I say floated because it seemed like his body was full of air. I was terrified. I wanted to kick him off, but no matter how hard I tried to exert force with my feet, I couldn't move. I was so desperate I wanted to scream, but only my mouth moved, and no sound came out. The old man smiled, floating in the air, his body straight, slowly pressing down on me. I frantically tried to push him away, breathing heavily. The old man's body pressed down on mine, feeling incredibly heavy. I felt like I was suffocating, and my consciousness began to blur. A voice reached my ears: "The others can't see, but you can... you saw everything, didn't you? You saw everything..."
I yelled and sat up from the bed. My father, who was just bringing in a plate of grapes for me, dropped the plate in shock from my scream, shattering it. My mother quickly ran over to ask what was wrong. I was drenched in sweat, breathing hard. It took me a while to recover, and I claimed I had a terrible nightmare. About half an hour later, the symptoms of panic slowly disappeared, but my mind felt like a jumble of paste—an indescribable discomfort.