Chapter Eighty-Eight: Treasure Hunting

“Now, that is a little hard to follow,” Old Qian said with a strained smile, carefully avoiding any mention of the jade cicada he had found.

As soon as Old Liao heard that, he grabbed me and got to his feet, heading straight for the door without looking back. “I gave you a chance, and you didn’t treasure it. When you run into something filthy later, don’t blame us.”

With that, we made as if to leave.

“Hey, hey, brothers, don’t go! I’ll tell you everything, I’ll tell you everything, all right?” Old Qian lunged after us, dragging his bulky body along before flinging himself at us and wrapping around our legs like an octopus.

Old Liao turned back and looked down at him with contempt. “So you’re willing to talk now?”

Old Qian, the fat man, nodded furiously, then froze for a moment and slapped himself several times. “It’s all my fault, all my fault!”

After we had taught Little Li a lesson, he had seen for himself how terrifying that jade cicada could be. Remembering Old Liao’s words, he decided to dig a pit in the southeast corner of the crematorium and bury it back where it had come from.

So that very night, he came to the crematorium.

Though a crematorium was hardly an elegant place, it was still a public institution, and the pay and benefits were fairly decent.

After Old Liu died, quite a few people came to apply for the night-watch post, and none of them were afraid of being alone in the crematorium at night. The threshold of the personnel office was nearly worn down by all the feet crossing it.

In the end, this sleazy fat man, Old Qian, relied on his cousin, who happened to be a department head, and easily landed the part-time security night-watch job.

Though Old Qian was lewd and vulgar, he was exceptionally skilled at flattering people and buttering them up. Especially when dealing with coworkers or being around superiors, he was polished and attentive in every direction.

Little Li had come a few times after Old Liu’s death to handle the handover, so of course he knew Old Qian. After a round of pleasantries, Little Li sat in the guardroom and chatted idly with Old Qian, though nothing he said really got to the point.

“There’s no work to do today, and to be honest we’re not even that familiar with each other. Why is Little Li insisting on lingering here with me?” Old Qian thought then, and the more he thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. This slick bastard was sharp as a knife, and with some crooked thought already in mind, he found an excuse to say he was going to the bathroom, leaving Little Li alone in the office.

Of course, Old Qian never went to the toilet. He hid behind a tree on the west side of the yard, wanting to see what kind of scheme Little Li was up to.

At last the troublesome fat man was gone. Little Li looked up at the duty roster still hanging on the guardroom wall, with Old Liu’s face on it, clasped his hands together, and muttered, “Brother Liu, bless me. Brother Liu, bless me...” What else he said after that, Old Qian couldn’t make out from so far away.

He had been waiting behind the tree for a while and was growing impatient. Just as he was about to go back and ask Little Li carefully what was going on, Little Li took an iron shovel from beside the gate and slowly walked out. Old Qian immediately shrank back behind the tree again.

Little Li did not turn on a flashlight or use his phone for light. He simply felt his way through the darkness toward the southeast corner of the yard.

Then came the faint sound of panting and the scrape of the shovel turning over soil. Old Qian grew even more puzzled. In the middle of the night, after going to such lengths to send me away, what was Little Li doing out here digging in the yard?

Could it be that something valuable was buried there?

For all his viciousness, this man was still vicious. The moment he thought something might be buried underground, greed stirred in his heart, and evil gave him courage. Quietly, stealthily, he made his way close to Little Li.

Little Li was still sweating and digging with all his strength when, from behind him, there came a sobbing sound.

“Waaah... I died so miserably.”

Along with the rustle of leaves and treetops stirred by the autumn wind, that trembling male voice sounded especially horrifying.

Little Li’s back clearly stiffened. His head turned mechanically, but he saw nothing.

“Waaah... Little Li, I died so miserably. Why don’t you come down here and keep me company...”

With the cicadas chirring from the trees, the voice drifted eerily toward Little Li once more.

Little Li let out a shriek, fumbled something out of his pocket, and casually tossed it into the pit he had dug. He scraped a few handfuls of loose earth over it, got to his feet, and ran for the gate with all his might.

“Hahahahaha, what a spineless coward. I’m dying laughing. Scared of ghosts and still coming to the crematorium?” Old Qian stepped out from behind another tree, laughing uproariously as he watched Little Li flee in panic.

He lowered his head and looked at the pile of dirt on the ground. “Come on, let me see what treasure you’ve got hidden in there.”

Old Qian cracked his knuckles, spat on his palms, snatched up the shovel, and started digging.

Before long, he had a jade cicada in his hand.

“Well, well, I’ve struck gold, I’ve struck gold! This thing’s made of jade! It must have been taken off a corpse. So Little Li really knows how to hide good things, huh? Heh heh. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you won’t fear a ghost knocking at your door. From today on, this jade cicada is mine.”

Old Qian muttered to himself in excitement. No wonder the matter had not been resolved, and why Little Li and Tiger’s condition had only grown worse: the jade cicada had been dug up by this greedy old thug. What he did not know was that a terrible fate had already begun closing in on him.

“Ever since I put on this jade cicada, my luck really has improved. I even win the lottery every few days. Nothing huge, but enough to keep me going for a while. It’s just that...”

Old Qian pulled a jade cicada from inside the collar of his security uniform. He had actually hung that filthy thing right around his neck.

But the jade cicada had already turned blood-red.

“Just what? Say it!” Old Liao saw that he was still hiding something and, in exasperation, moved to snatch the jade cicada from him.

“Don’t grab it! It’s mine! You’re robbing me!” Old Qian shrieked at the top of his lungs, clutching the reddened jade cicada tightly in his hand, his voice full of resistance.

I sighed, sat back down in the chair, and waved at Old Qian. “Just what? Keep talking.”

Seeing that we no longer wanted his jade cicada, Old Qian sat down in sullen embarrassment and said, “It’s just that lately I’ve been getting sleepier and sleepier, and my arms keep itching more and more.”

As he spoke, he began scratching his forearm. I rolled up his shirt sleeve, and sure enough, mottled cicada shells had begun to grow on his forearm as well. The difference was that, unlike Tiger’s and Little Li’s, the cicada shells on Old Qian’s body were blood-red, making them even more sinister.

Old Liao stepped closer to him, but the fat man, like a guard dog protecting its food, once again clutched the jade cicada hanging from his neck and would not let Old Liao come near.

Old Liao flew into a rage and slapped him hard across the face. “You’re possessed! If you don’t take that evil thing off your neck soon, then you’ll end up just like Old Liu, drained dry of blood!”

Before Old Qian could answer, the fluorescent ceiling light suddenly began to flicker on and off. A sinister wind rose outside. Through the window it blew the lottery tickets and scraps of paper in the drawer into wild disarray, and the wooden token left by Uncle Zhang, along with the one on the table and the one in my pocket, began trembling violently as well.

We hurriedly shut the doors and windows. With a bang, the light went out, and the guardroom was plunged into darkness.

Outside, from beyond the door, there slowly came wave after wave of strange cicada cries, soft at first, then louder and louder, until they became deafening.

By the light from outside, I seemed to see a bizarre figure, no more than four and a half feet tall, slowly approaching our window...