The second question: Had Blind Zhao lied? He had provided three pieces of information. First, there was a precious treasure on the back of the lid of San Niang's coffin. Second, taking the treasure would bring no negative consequences. Third, San Niang's coffin lay inside the grotto of San Niang Temple.
The third question: the statue had eyes that shed tears, so why did it have a mouth if it didn't speak? It ought to at least come with some weeping sounds.
Speak of weeping, and weeping came—a faint sobbing sound promptly rose in the air.
At that instant, Ding Shi's hairs stood on end like hedgehog quills. Did this thing read minds? It wasn't the crying that terrified him—crying was just crying, after all—but mind reading was lethal.
Two seconds later, his hairs settled back down; the crying was coming from outside the main doors. It was faint and elusive, rising and fading, sounding like muffled, choked-back sobs.
Ding Shi slid down from the table and tiptoed to the main doors, peering outside through the crack between them. Ten-odd meters away in the darkness, a figure was clad in a bridal gown. He couldn't make out whether they were sitting or standing in a low spot. Ding Shi blinked hard, straining to see, but remained unable to tell.
The offering table was wooden. Ding Shi caught a faint sound and turned his head back. It was too dark inside, and he didn't dare turn on the flashlight. He watched the darkness for a moment, saw nothing amiss, and turned back to peer through the crack again, having heard the rattle of pebbles outside—as if someone walking had kicked a stone.
Another faint noise came from the offering table: a creak, like a heavy weight stepping down onto the wood. Ding Shi waited silently for a few seconds, then suddenly whipped around, snapping his flashlight onto the statue of San Niang.
Nothing wrong.
After watching quietly for five seconds, Ding Shi looked back outside, only to find the red-clad figure gone. Had they left? Or had they come inside?
No, this was too eerie. He still had far too little intel and information; he couldn't act rashly.
With this thought, Ding Shi retreated toward the back hall, constantly feeling for any subtle shift in the darkness. Unfortunately, there was none. Ding Shi crawled back out through the dog hole, set the wooden boards in place, wrapped his clothes around the nails, and tapped them back in.
It made a bit of noise, but nothing serious.
Once finished, Ding Shi withdrew immediately. Passing by Haitang's house, he noticed a light still on in one of the rooms. Suspicion rose in his mind: could the woman weeping outside the temple have been Haitang?
Blind Zhao. He still had to go find Blind Zhao.
...
Day five. After breakfast, the vampire village chief assigned a new quest: help the five-guarantee household, Uncle Zhao, renovate his roof.
Ding Shi was flabbergasted at the time. What made the village chief think he knew how to reroof a house? That wasn't just manual labor; it took actual skill. Fortunately, the village chief followed up by saying Ding Shi only needed to help transport two handcarts of tiles from the village entrance to Uncle Zhao's house.
Uncle Zhao's house was five hundred meters from the village entrance, two hundred meters of which were uphill. Worse yet, this quest had a time limit: it needed to be completed before 10:00 a.m.
Ding Shi went to Uncle Zhao's house first. Two tilers were having porridge for breakfast, waiting for the tiles to arrive. Ding Shi stepped forward and pulled out two packs of Daqianmen cigarettes he had bought at the general store. "Masters, could I trouble you two to haul the tiles yourselves?"
One tiler refused. "How could we? It was agreed beforehand that the village office provides the tiles and we only lay them."
Ding Shi withdrew two two-dao notes from his bank card and laid them on the table. "It's what the village chief wants." Subtext: give the village chief some face.
The two tilers glanced at each other. One of them pocketed the bills and said, "All right. Leave it to us brothers."
Having handled the village chief's quest, Ding Shi pushed his bicycle to a shop to pump up the tires, then rode over to Blind Zhao's home.
Blind Zhao was sitting in a grand armchair in his courtyard, a radio and a cup of tea by his side. Eyes closed, smoking a cigarette, he couldn't have looked more comfortable.
Hearing the knocking on the gate, Blind Zhao pretended not to notice. Ding Shi's voice promptly drifted in: "Uncle Zhao, I know you're home."
Blind Zhao sighed, pulled himself up from the grand armchair with difficulty, walked to the main gate, removed the latch, pulled the door open, and asked, "Something the matter?"
Ding Shi seized the initiative: "You lied to me about San Niang."
Blind Zhao adopted an innocent look. "Every word I said was the absolute truth. You went to San Niang Temple?"
Ding Shi: "I did. But I didn't find any grotto, nor did I see a coffin."
"Come inside and talk." Blind Zhao led the way as he said, "What I told you is definitely the truth. But you also have to understand, with so many people in the village, almost no one has seen San Niang's coffin in a hundred years. How could it be that easy to find?"
Ding Shi pressed, "Where is it, exactly?"
Blind Zhao: "I already made it very clear: in the grotto of San Niang Temple."
Ding Shi didn't ask further. He sat down in another chair, picked up the water pipe on the table, and pondered as he packed shredded tobacco into it.
Blind Zhao noticed something in his demeanor and asked, "What's the problem?"
Ding Shi lit the tobacco, took a gentle draw, and looked at Blind Zhao. "I was originally going to ask you whether the San Niang Temple in the village is fake."
Blind Zhao felt a jolt inside, but kept his composure on the surface. "Then why didn't you?"
Ding Shi replied, "I went to San Niang Temple yesterday, and I confirmed that it's real."
Blind Zhao was somewhat baffled. How could he confirm that the fake San Niang Temple was the real one? But he couldn't ask that, because he had concealed the location of the true San Niang Temple.
Ding Shi shared a similar predicament: he couldn't admit to sneaking into San Niang Temple last night. Blind Zhao was a villager of Taoyuan Village after all, and might view such actions as sacrilege. Yet Ding Shi had to lay out certain facts to press him further.
Ding Shi lifted the stem, blew on it, and a fleck of tobacco ash flew out. Setting the water pipe back on the table, Ding Shi looked at Blind Zhao and asked, "Uncle Zhao, does San Niang cry?"
Hearing this, Blind Zhao unexpectedly bounced straight up out of the armchair, his expression changing drastically. "Y-You... say that again!"
Ding Shi asked, "Does San Niang cry?"
Blind Zhao asked in shock, "You saw San Niang cry? The San Niang in the temple?"
Ding Shi recalled for a moment and nodded. "It looked like tears were falling."
Blind Zhao stood frozen in place for a moment. With trembling hands, he picked up the water pipe, but couldn't manage to pack the tobacco properly. In the end, Ding Shi helped him pack it and light it.
Ding Shi regarded Blind Zhao with scrutiny. "What's going on?" Sure enough, none of these people were honest.
Though it was daytime and the sun hung high, Blind Zhao's eyes were full of dread. "I don't know."
Ding Shi waited for Blind Zhao to calm down a little before questioning him further.
Blind Zhao told Ding Shi that an expert had used arts back then to suppress San Niang, instructing the villagers to hold an annual sacrifice to disperse her malevolent aura over the course of a century. After a hundred years, San Niang would become the local Earth God and protect everyone in Taoyuan Village. By that count, this year happened to be the hundredth year.
Blind Zhao's question: was San Niang weeping out of joy at becoming a god because the century of sacrifices was complete, or was the soon-to-be-deified San Niang shedding tears of resentment because the sacrifice had been sabotaged? If it were the former, she should only weep with gratitude on the final day. Therefore, Blind Zhao surmised that in all likelihood, someone had disrupted the sacrificial proceedings.
Ding Shi asked, "If the sacrificial ceremony is sabotaged, or can't be held on schedule, what happens?"
Blind Zhao looked at Ding Shi and answered, "I don't know. I need to see the village chief. Take me to the village chief."
Chapter 18