Chapter Three: Annihilation of the Family

I was startled and exclaimed how could that be possible. The neighbor replied that the truth was right before my eyes, so what could possibly be impossible? If I didn’t believe it, I should just go and see for myself.

My heart leapt into my throat. Only now did I realize that I had had Wang Feiyang help me make seven red paper coffins, and tonight, seven people in his family had died. I couldn’t help but link the two events together.

With trepidation, I hurried toward Wang Feiyang’s paper effigy shop. When I arrived, more than half the street had already gathered there. In the center of the shop, on the main beam, I was confronted by a horrifying scene.

There, hanging rigidly from the beam, were seven corpses, lined up from left to right in order of age: Wang Feiyang’s grandmother, his parents, his second uncle, his second aunt, and his twin younger siblings. The entire tableau was bizarre to the extreme. Each face was twisted into a grotesque, terrified expression, as though they had seen something utterly horrifying at the moment of death. From their faces, it didn’t look like suicide by hanging—it was more as if they’d been scared to death.

A cold wind blew through, and the seven bodies swayed on the beam, making the already eerie scene even more terrifying.

I felt as if I’d been struck by lightning. Just last night, Wang Feiyang’s twin siblings were still lively in front of me—how could they now have become cold corpses so quickly?

My mind was in chaos. When I finally regained some composure, I suddenly realized that of the eight members of the Wang family, all but Wang Feiyang were dead. Where was he? Under normal circumstances, with such a tragedy in his family, Wang Feiyang would have hurried to the scene immediately. But all signs indicated that ever since the massacre, Wang Feiyang had not appeared. What on earth was he up to?

Had he also died, just somewhere else?

By now, the police, who had just arrived, cordoned off the area around the paper shop. Two officers were setting up a ladder against the shop’s beam, apparently preparing to take down the seven bodies. But as soon as one officer reached toward the grandmother’s corpse, a voice called out from below—it was Zuo Daoyin: “Don’t touch them. The bodies can’t be moved yet.”

Although Zuo Daoyin had rarely appeared in public in recent years and was shrouded in bad luck, his reputation on White Street was still formidable. Even the police regarded him with some respect.

“Master Zuo, why can’t we move the bodies?” the lead officer inquired.

Zuo Daoyin didn’t offer much explanation, only saying that the Wang family had died unjustly.

The officer continued, insisting that it was clear the Wang family had offended someone, which was why the seven had been wiped out tonight. This was a major case, and the police would do everything in their power to pursue the perpetrator. Their immediate priorities were to perform autopsies and to find the missing son, Wang Feiyang.

Zuo Daoyin snorted, “No need for autopsies. These seven people were frightened to death, alive, and after death, their corpses climbed up and hanged themselves on the beam. If you don’t want more people to come to harm, take them down at noon tomorrow and let me perform a ritual to call down the celestial fire and burn them.”

His words caused an uproar. Many people on White Street believed in spirits and the supernatural, and now their faces were drawn with anxiety. I, too, felt a chill. How could corpses climb up to the beam and hang themselves?

The officer wanted to ask more, but Zuo Daoyin ignored him and instead walked over to me, asking a question that left me bewildered—had I brought seven red paper coffins to the Wang family last night, as someone had reported seeing?

I was stunned for a moment, and then a surge of anger flared within me. I demanded to know what was going on—why had seven people in Wang Feiyang’s family died? Wasn’t it he who told me to bring the seven paper coffins? Why had this led to their extermination?

But Zuo Daoyin looked genuinely puzzled, asking what I was talking about and insisting he had never told me to bring coffins to the Wang family.

I had always respected Zuo Daoyin to some degree, but upon hearing this, my anger boiled over. I accused him of refusing to take responsibility—last night, I had gone to his house for help, and he had told me to go to the Wang family with the paper coffins. Now that disaster had struck, he tried to disclaim responsibility and even denied that I had sought him out.

He looked even more bewildered, and his expression seemed genuine. He hurriedly asked me to recount exactly what had happened the previous night.

I knew he was pretending, so I raised my voice and told the whole story in front of the crowd, wanting everyone to see Zuo Daoyin’s deceitful face. But just as I was halfway through, Zuo Daoyin suddenly interrupted me.

He glanced at me, and I felt as if there was something secretive in the depths of his pale eyes. He then took out his battered bowl and three copper coins to divine a hexagram. When he finished, I could see a trace of panic in his eyes.

“Did that woman come to collect the coffins?” he suddenly asked, his scar-riddled face looking even more frightening.

“No,” I replied instinctively.

“Did you experience anything strange last night?”

My heart skipped a beat. I told him about the bizarre dream I’d had. As soon as he heard it, he trembled and shouted, “This is bad!”

He then urged me to hurry home and, before midnight, take the seven paper coffins to the back mountain and burn them.

Although I still felt some resentment toward Zuo Daoyin, his grave expression convinced me he wasn’t joking. Given all that had happened, it was clear the coffins were involved. I wasted no time and rushed back to my coffin shop.

Once home, I started up the small truck we used for transporting real coffins and began loading the paper ones, hauling them to the back mountain one by one. It took nearly two hours, and by ten o’clock I’d finally moved all seven coffins to the mountain.

Sweat poured off me. Oddly, the paper coffins should have been light, but they felt unusually heavy, as if each contained a person—not as heavy as real coffins, but still unnervingly weighty.

After a cigarette and a short rest, I gathered a pile of dry firewood. The winter wood was damp, so it took great effort to get it burning. At last, flames rose, and I placed the seven paper coffins on the fire.

As the flames reached the coffins, they quickly caught and began to burn. It was then that a shrill, agonized scream suddenly came from within the fire.

Startled, I turned to look.

In the flames, the piercing scream grew ever clearer, and I saw a figure rolling back and forth within the blaze.

I was dumbfounded. How could there suddenly be a living person in the fire? There was no time to think about why or who it was. The only thing that mattered was to put out the fire and pull the person out.

I rushed over, tore off my coat, and beat at the flames engulfing the figure. Fortunately, I had acted quickly and the fire wasn’t too fierce, so it didn’t take long to put out the flames.

Once the fire was out, the person’s entire body was covered in soot, black as coal, almost unrecognizable, but thankfully, he was largely unharmed.

He was lying face down, gasping for breath. I hurriedly asked who he was and why he’d been in the paper coffins.

After several bouts of coughing, he slowly turned his head. When I saw his face, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets—it was Wang Feiyang.