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墨書 Inktalez
Living Funeral
Indeed, giving birth is a normal occurrence, but it’s not every day that four or five people give birth at the same time. In a big city hospital, it wouldn’t be strange, but in a remote village like this, it’s quite eerie for so many to be having babies on the same night!
Gao Ling said, “I didn’t expect it to actually be childbirth.”
Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. There couldn’t be more than fifty households in this village. For so many people to give birth at once? If it were just coincidence, I wouldn’t believe it; there had to be something hidden beneath the surface.
Zhang Xun asked, “Chen Fei, have you noticed anything?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t noticed anything specific, but I felt there was something wrong with this village.
“What could possibly be wrong? Isn’t it lucky for us to be here? We’ve stumbled upon such a big celebration with five people giving birth at the same time.”
We stood still in the village with our flashlights. After the firecrackers had exploded, the village returned to silence. Perhaps others were celebrating at home; we just couldn’t hear them.
I turned to Gao Ling and asked, “Do you know where that fortune teller lives?”
Gao Ling replied that she didn’t know. I asked if there was a phone number. Gao Ling rolled her eyes at me and said, “Do you think people here have cell phones? Besides, that fortune teller is probably in his seventies or eighties now; would he even know how to use one?”
We were standing on a road in the village when suddenly a few elderly women surrounded us. They all wore smiles on their faces and spoke in dialects that I could barely understand. It seemed they were inviting us to their homes for drinks.
Although we were all strangers here, these women were very warm and took our hands, leading us toward one of their houses.
It was quite bizarre; throughout the night, we ended up drinking at five different homes. Of course, it wasn’t just the four of us drinking; other villagers joined in as well. I guessed this must be some local custom.
In some places during the New Year, children are sent around to knock on doors for red envelopes from every household. While the amounts aren’t much, it’s part of local tradition. Celebrating births with drinks must also be a custom here.
After inexplicably drinking at five houses, we finally stepped back outside.
Gao Ling chuckled and said, “These villagers are really friendly!”
I think Gao Ling forgot about being extorted when she first entered the village. It's truly a case of giving a slap and then offering a sweet date. However, that's not the most important part; I feel like something is bound to happen, even if I don't know what it is. Right now, we have nowhere to stay.
I asked a few villagers, but they all refused to help. In the end, the four of us had no choice but to return to the car and sleep there, planning to find someone in the morning when it would be more convenient. Gao Ling also knew where the fortune teller was located, and in rural areas at night, it's usually pitch dark. So, it was wise to give up on finding someone for now. We made do and spent the night in the car, but we were awakened by noise early the next morning.
As I woke from my slumber, I saw through the car window that some villagers were angrily carrying farming tools and heading in one direction. I quickly opened the car door and got out. These people were walking along a path leading up the mountain.
I woke a few of my companions, saying it seemed like something was about to happen.
The men were all heading up the mountain, followed by women and elderly ladies. However, they no longer wore the smiles from last night; instead, their faces were filled with tears.
I was confused; wasn't this change in atmosphere too sudden? I even pinched myself to check if I was dreaming, and when I felt the pain, I realized this was all real. I grabbed an old woman nearby and asked her what had happened.
This old woman wasn’t crying; she was just an onlooker. But she spoke angrily, "All five babies born last night died."
It took me several times to fully understand—every single one of them had perished. The joyful occasion had turned into a tragedy. But where were they now? The old woman's dialect was difficult for me to grasp; she repeated herself several times. Just then, a child approached me and said, "All the adults have gone to smash the Guanyin Temple on the mountain."
Smash the Guanyin Temple?
The old woman continued her ranting while the child urged her to stop talking; he would explain instead.
The child said, "Yes! All these babies were prayed for at Guanyin Temple. Now that they’ve died, there must be something wrong with that temple; perhaps the Guanyin Goddess inside is fake or possessed by a ghost."
I was taken aback…
What kind of absurdity was this? The Guanyin Goddess was fake? And possessed by a ghost? This child really had some nerve! At that moment, Gao Ling came over and asked, "Are they really going there?"
The child replied, "Yes! I want to go see too."
I told him, "Wait for us; we’ll go with you."
The children were up, and Zhang Xun and Nian Chen had also risen. The four of us decided to head over together. There were only about a hundred people in the entire village, and we made our way there, taking nearly half an hour to arrive. However, when we got there, I was taken aback because the Guanyin Temple was truly magnificent. It was far better than any house in the village.
The village seemed quite poor, yet they somehow managed to spend money on building the Guanyin Temple!
Five children had died, and the villagers were venting their anger on the Guanyin Temple. They looked furious, each one shouting loudly.
Why would the death of five children provoke such immense anger among the villagers? This was due to the unique clan relationships in rural areas; almost everyone in a village is somehow related. There are connections through distant relatives, and if you trace back five generations, they are all direct relatives.
Since we arrived later than the villagers, by this time a fire had already been set at the temple entrance, with black smoke billowing up. I couldn’t help but look up, and upon doing so, I noticed a dark cloud hovering above, perfectly covering the Guanyin Temple.
I felt something was off; if I wasn’t mistaken, what should be enshrined here was the Childbearing Goddess.
The villagers hadn’t moved because an old man was blocking their way. He appeared to be in his fifties or sixties, but the villagers ignored him completely. The old man was pushed to the ground as he shouted at the crowd.
The crowd rushed into the temple and began to smash things violently.
At that moment, a child told me that this temple wasn’t built by anyone from our village; it was constructed by a strange person long ago—long before I was born.
The child seemed to enjoy watching the chaos unfold as they smashed the Guanyin Temple, looking somewhat pleased. No wonder; with how well-built this temple was, it seemed these villagers had no remorse while destroying it. It turned out they hadn’t contributed any money for its construction.
Nian Chen said, “This temple shouldn’t be destroyed.”
I replied, “It’s already being smashed; what can we do now?”
At that moment, the old man pounded his fists on the ground, his face filled with despair as he lamented his inability to stop them from destroying the Guanyin Temple.
Suddenly, someone ran out from inside and shouted, “Someone has died!”
This cry immediately alarmed the women gathered outside, prompting them to ask anxiously, “Who died?”
A person rushed out and exclaimed, "The Guanyin Statue fell down and killed Yang San Shu." As soon as the words left his mouth, a woman immediately began to wail uncontrollably, crying as she dashed toward the temple. However, just as she burst out, an even more terrifying scene unfolded—the entire temple suddenly collapsed.
Seeing this, an old man sitting on the ground began to pound the earth in despair and shouted, "The Guanyin Goddess has come to life! You have committed a grave mistake!" He then knelt down and repeatedly knocked his head against the ground, causing blood to appear on his forehead. The old man was truly hitting his head with great force!
Villagers who hadn’t been struck by the temple rushed forward to rescue people. A child beside me cried out for his father and ran ahead.
We were all stunned; the events unfolded too quickly. Yet I felt that there must be something hidden beneath this chaos. We didn’t hesitate and quickly moved to help, working tirelessly until nightfall. We managed to rescue everyone we could, but those we couldn’t save were all dead—about fifteen people in total.
It was truly a tragedy! We were utterly exhausted.
Gao Ling said, "What the hell is going on here? Could it really be that the Guanyin Goddess has come back to life?"
None of us answered Gao Ling.
After a moment of silence, Zhang Xun remarked, "Things aren’t that simple." Since we had helped rescue Father of the Child, he invited us into his home for rest and water, and we accepted without refusal.
By nightfall, we were assigned places to stay. There wasn’t enough room in the child’s home for all of us, so we were split up.
Gao Ling and I stayed at one household while Zhang Xun and Nian Chen stayed at the child’s home. After a long day of exertion, it wasn’t long before we fell asleep. However, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I was horrified to see a person hanging from the beam above my head.
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