Chương 13: The Dead Return
Grandpa, determined to offer a chance for peace, visited each of the five Zhang brothers individually that evening.
His message was simple: warn the fifth son, tell him to get guard dogs, those fierce earth dogs, and big, protective geese.
He hoped this would appease whatever spirits were now circling, demanding retribution.
But fear, it seems, is a powerful distorter of intentions.
The brothers, convinced Grandpa was on a quest for revenge, wouldn't even open their doors.
The next morning, the eldest Zhang brother set out to see his youngest brother, the fifth son.
They needed to talk, to figure out how to apologize to my dad, to mend the fractured peace of their shared village.
But when he pushed open the door of his brother's home, the sight that greeted him sent him collapsing to the ground in terror.
There, hanging from the rafters, was his brother.
The fifth son, swaying gently in the breeze, already gone.
His death, a horrifying spectacle: tongue protruding, eyes wide and bloodshot, face a grotesque mask of purple and red.
And yet… a chilling detail, a faint smile etched upon his lips, corners of his mouth slightly upturned.
It was eerily familiar – the same haunting smile they'd found on Ma's wife.
Panic seized him. He scrambled back, fleeing the house, his shouts bringing villagers running.
They too recoiled from the sight, a chorus of gasps and murmurs filling the air.
But there was more, something even more unsettling than a dead man hanging in the stillness of morning.
Beside him, dangling from the same beam, was a yellow weasel.
It was a chilling tableau – the man and the creature, side by side, bound by the unseen hand of fate. It was as if the weasel, a creature whispered to be a "Yellow Immortal," had traded its life for the man's.
A shiver ran through the crowd, a primal fear taking root.
Who dared touch the work of a spirit, the vengeance of a Yellow Immortal?
Who would risk inviting the same fate upon themselves?
Word of the double hanging reached Grandpa, and he, along with a grim-faced Granny Liu, went to see for themselves.
The sight of the yellow weasel hanging beside the fifth son drained all colour from Granny Liu's face.
"Something wicked this way comes," she muttered, fear lacing her voice.
Grandpa, ignoring the whispers and dread, saw only a need for respect, for dignity, even in death.
"Are we made of stone?" he boomed, his voice echoing in the uneasy silence. "Take him down! Have we no respect for the departed?"
His words, a challenge against their fear, seemed to break the spell.
No one dared defy him.
A chair was brought, a blanket procured, and with a gentleness that belied his gruff exterior, Grandpa lowered the fifth son's body and laid it down.
The dead man's brothers had arrived by then, their faces masks of grief and anger.
The second brother, known for his quick temper, pointed an accusing finger at Grandpa.
"Don't play innocent, old man!" he spat, his voice thick with fury. "Your family killed him! Everyone knows about your freakish grandson, the bastard child of a weasel spirit! You've been getting deliveries from those creatures for years! We rough up your son, and this is how you retaliate? Murder?!"
His words unleashed a torrent of accusations from the others.
They circled, a pack of wolves sensing weakness.
Grandpa's demeanor hardened.
He glared at them, eyes blazing with a cold fire that silenced their accusations.
"You spineless curs," he growled, his voice dangerously low. "You gang up on my family when I'm gone, beat my son, lay hands on my daughter-in-law and grandson… and now, when your own flesh and blood hangs lifeless, you come crying for vengeance?"
He took a menacing step towards them, his shadow falling over them like a shroud. "I helped cut him down, gave him the dignity you wouldn't, and still you yap like dogs? Do you want to test me? To face the same fate as those devils I've buried?"
The air crackled with tension.
The brothers, all bravado gone, shrank back.
They'd seen that look before, felt the icy grip of true rage, the kind that lingered on battlefields.
Granny Liu stepped forward, her voice a calming wave against the rising tide of fury.
"Enough. The dead deserve peace, not more bickering," she said, her tone brooking no argument. "The Zhang family invited this upon themselves. Let it end here."
They all knew Granny Liu, the disciple of the divine, her words carrying weight beyond any earthly law.
If she said it wasn't the Wu family's doing, they wouldn't challenge it openly.
But the second brother, consumed by grief and blinded by rage, wasn't done.
Eyes fixed on the limp weasel, he grabbed a nearby shovel.
Before anyone could stop him, he swung.
The weasel's body crumpled to the ground.
But he wasn't finished.
With each blow, he vented his fury, the thud of metal against flesh sickeningly audible.
"He killed my brother!", he shouted, each word punctuated by another blow. "This… this is justice!"
Even Granny Liu's pleas were futile.
She could only watch in dismay as the creature, once revered as a Yellow Immortal, was reduced to a bloody, unrecognizable mass.
The air, heavy with the stench of death and the bitter tang of fear, seemed to crackle with unspoken energy.
Grandpa, his anger a simmering ember, left with Granny Liu, his jaw set and fists clenched.
"This isn't over, Lao Wu," Granny Liu said, puffing on her pipe, her face etched with worry. "The Zhang family… they've poked the hornet's nest. There will be consequences."
"What more can happen?" Grandpa asked, bewildered. "His brother is dead. What more vengeance can a spirit demand?"
"We can't know the mind of a Yellow Immortal, Lao Wu," Granny Liu replied, her voice laced with dread. "But desecrating its earthly vessel… That's a debt that demands payment."
"Will my grandson be alright?", Grandpa's voice trembled with worry.
"We can only wait and see," she sighed.
That night, beneath a sky thick with foreboding, the impossible happened.
The fifth son, his body yet to be prepared for burial, sat up in his bed. Alive.
The dead had returned, and the village shuddered.
Granny Liu's words, once dismissed as superstitious ramblings, now hung heavy in the air, thick with the chilling promise of things to come.
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