I promised to take Xiao Lingdang out for some food some other time. Just as I was about to take Xiao Lingdang back to the ghost building, Xiao Lingdang refused. Her reason me was simple, I wasn"t keeping my word. I had promised to look for her skin a long time ago, and I still hadn"t accomplished much. I didn"t know what to say. I was attempting to use daylight as an excuse to persuade her to go home, when Xiao Lingdang told me that she could live in the bracelet Lulu gave me. I looked curiously at the bracelet around my hand, I asked Xiao Lingdang the origin of this bracelet and how it was possible for her to live inside it.
"Because this bracelet is Sister Lulu"s …. .
"What?"
"Nothing, I"m going in!" Xiao Lingdang was definitely hiding something from me. She turned into a gray mist, and began floating towards the bracelet, and then quickly disappeared around my wrist. To be honest, I felt very relieved with Xiao Lingdang staying close by. I just suddenly thought of a question. The bracelet was on my right hand, and I wasn"t left-handed. So if I were to go to the toilet and I had to wipe….well…it"d be kind of embarra.s.sing.
Mom and Xiao Lingdang slept deeply. My head slowly leaned to the side, still keeping an eye out on my family. I don"t know when I fell sleep, the next thing I remember, I was being woken up by the sound of voices around me.
Mom and Xiao Lingdang were also awake and looked as if they had slept very well the night before. It also seemed that the rest had revived their spirits. They were now talking with the nurse. I rubbed my eyes and listened carefully. Originally my mother was asking for a discharge from the hospital, but they nurse seemed reluctant and was constantly explaining something. I knew it must have been something about my Mom and Xiao Lingdang seeing the photos. Though to be honest, I couldn"t say if the medicine was going to be completely useless or not, I was fairly certain there was no medication that would make it all stop.
Mom noticed that I was awake told me to go wash my face. I wiped my face casually while looking at the squat toilet, and thought for a moment. I finally decided that I"d walk out of the bathroom and hold it, for now. When I closed the door behind me, I noticed there were a couple more people in the ward than before. They were probably my mother"s doctors. They couldn"t persuade my mom to stay no matter how much they insisted, so they ended up settling for leaving my mom with some advice. They told her to pay attention to her diet and how much rest she was getting. I stood to the side and listened quietly. Although the doctor did not determine the reasons why my mother and Xiao Lingdang were sick, at least this was a conscientious doctor.
Once we had successfully gotten out of the hospital, mom suggested we go shopping. I understood what my Mom meant. She did not want to go back to her place and see those horrific photos, so I gladly agreed. Not only was I still awaiting news from Wu Jian about Yang Fan the taxi driver, I also hadn"t been out with my mom in so long.
My family kept browsing till noon, when Wu Jian finally reached out with the telephone number of the taxi driver. I called him right away. Right away I could tell that that Yang Fan still remembered me. He was very pleased to tell me about the strange old man who wore the Chinese tunic suit. As he spoke, he reminded me that I had already seen that old man before. I saw him at the place where I had bought the paper amulets the second time. I sort of remembered him giving me a card, but I also remembered throwing it away.
I took a good look at my mother, now showing a few signs that she was tired. I dared not take her and Xiao Lingdang to a place like that right now. We kept walking until we came upon a part of the night market that had games like those in an amus.e.m.e.nt park. It was a happy enough place that I felt comfortable telling them that I"d have to go to my job to fill out some paperwork. I said my goodbyes and I was on my way.
There weren"t many people in the funeral supplies shop. Several men were chatting away, while an old person was leaning up against a wall, casually reading a newspaper. I remembered the boss and the guy I was looking for looked very similar and were probably twins. Last time I saw them, one wore a Chinese tunic suit, and the other one wore casual clothes. So odds were the man in front of me was not the person I was looking for.
I kept looking inside, which caused me to get a man"s attention. He stood up and walked over to me: "Can I help you wth anything?"
The young man was quite helpful, I could already tell. However, I wasn"t here to buy anything. "I"m looking for the owner who often wears a tunic suit, is he here today?"
The young boy was stupefied: "You mean the big boss,right? That"s him over there." he said pointing to the old man wearing casual clothes and reading the newspaper. I froze, confused. Even though I had confirmed that I was looking for the man in the Chinese tunic suit, the boy still pointed towards the old man.
I guess I shouldn"t find it too odd that someone would change clothes every now and then.
The young man saw that I wasn"t making any moves, so he went over and warmly approached the old man, informing him of my presence. The old man put down the newspaper, took a good look at me and began to walk over.
"Old man, you …. ."
The old man waved his hands and interrupted my words: "Your Yin Qi is very heavy. But among the Yin qi there is a pure Yang, which is very strange."
Now I was certain that this was the same old man I was looking for. I asked with curiosity "What is pure Yang?"
The old man looked at me meaningfully, without explaining anything, he asked me about my intentions. So I told him about the story about my mother receving photos, but I didn"t mention anything that had been going on with me. Even though this old man clearly knew what he was doing, I wouldn"t want him to become an enemy of the ghost house. Besides, I knew the ghost house and those in it, had no intention of hurting me. I also did not want to cause troubles for those in the fan house.
While the old man was listening to the story about my mother, he stared at me with a pensive stare. He quietly told the younger employee something and took me to an open tea booth, a sign that he wanted to have a long talk.
I quickly told him my mother was waiting for me, in order to avoid the old man really pulling me in and begin monologing a story of his childhood or something like that.
Instead, the old man slowly dripped boiling tea from a teapot, drawing a strange figure on his desk. His eyes darted towards me the entire time time as though he was observing my reaction. Of course, I wasn"t reacting at all to the figure he"d drawn, since I"d never seen it before.
The old man seemed disappointed, but didn"t say anything. He just began telling me a story, what seemed like a long and irrelevant story, of which I"ll spare you the details. Fortunately, my mom called me and he only managed to get through the beginning.
The old man gave me his card for the second time. There were two lines of text on it. The first line said: Madman Zang; the second line was a telephone number. Although I was pretty sure that there was n.o.body with the surname Zang, I still received the card respectfully with both hands and carefully put it in my pocket.
After saying my goodbye to Madman Zang, I hurriedly rushed back to the games section of the night market because I could hear that my mother"s tone was somewhat anxious and didn"t want her to worry.
When I got there, my mom was talking to someone her age with a slender figure. As I approached, she allowed me be courteous and greet the little aunt. I was familiar with this aunt, but I couldn"t quite remember where. My mother reminded me that she was a neighbor in my grandma"s hometown and she had made a living by being a witch. In my grandmother"s hometown she was very famous.
She was also known by a very odd nominer, they called her Witch Yan. Yan didn"t sound like a real last name to me either, but I went with it and politely called her "Aunt Yan."
Aunt Yan looked at me and said with a slightly hoa.r.s.e voice: "Boy, hey you!"
Aunt Yan"s words were very strange and made no sense. It felt like the type of scolding elders give when they blame younger generations for disobedience. But I hadn"t done anything!
Mother didn"t notice anything. She just continued telling me that Aunt Yan and she were good sisters and that she had told her about everything that had been happening. Unfortunately Aunt Yan wasn"t in town when she called. She came here to find them immediately as soon as she got back home. I thanked Aunt Yan for coming.
I spoke with my mother"s words, being polite and proper, but my heart was speechless. What was really going on in this world? Why did was I having an evergrowing feeling that ghosts and G.o.ds were now casually flying in the sky.