Nie Jiuluo found the day’s itinerary utterly dull.
Of the three temples, while grand and imposing, two required entrance fees. The sculptures were all new, crafted in a commonplace style—essentially mass-produced items with no distinctive features.
By a little after four in the afternoon, she had finished viewing the last temple and went to find the car.
Old Qian was sitting at a small stall eating barbecue, enthusiastically gossiping in various chat groups. Catching sight of her, he hurriedly paid his bill and ran to the car ahead of her, warmly opening the door.
Nie Jiuluo sat in the back seat and said simply, “Let’s head back.”
She felt exhausted—not the satisfying exhaustion that comes from a productive day, but the mental fatigue of having wasted time.
On the road, Old Qian felt uneasy: in the travel agency’s group chat, Sun Zhou had complained just two days ago about how Miss Nie would spend endless time examining sculptures—so why was she finishing so early today with such a sour expression? Was she unsatisfied with his service?
He had to salvage this somehow and improve customer satisfaction. As the saying went: “If the attractions fail, try culture; if culture fails, try legends; if legends fail, just make something up.”
Fortunately, he’d just heard plenty of gossip in the group chat. Old Qian cleared his throat: “Miss Nie, didn’t you visit Xingbazi Township the day before yesterday?”
Nie Jiuluo made a sound of agreement: “The day before yesterday, and yesterday too.”
“Did you know that just the day before yesterday, a woman went missing in Xingbazi Township?”
Nie Jiuluo paused, immediately recalling the gossip of the old women playing cards under the big locust tree in eastern Xingbazi.
She hadn’t expected there would be a follow-up to this story. That was the nice thing about small places—east or west, everyone discussed the same things.
“Did they find the missing woman?”
Old Qian shook his head: “No, not yet, but they say… they say she was taken by wolves.”
It turned out that after the missing woman’s husband failed to catch her in adultery, he reported her disappearance to the police last night.
Old Qian didn’t know how far the police investigation had progressed, but his aunt lived in Xingbazi Township and knew all the local developments.
When news of the woman’s disappearance spread, the townspeople were very concerned. After breakfast today, they spontaneously organized a search party—old men, old women, and children all participated, conducting a thorough search of the surroundings, even going to the usually avoided western end of the township.
Nie Jiuluo keenly caught the key phrase in Old Qian’s words: “Why does nobody go to the western end?”
Thinking back now, during those two days of examining sculptures in the ruined temple, it had been remarkably quiet—though the eastern and western parts of the township weren’t far apart, she’d never seen anyone from the east come to the western end.
Old Qian said: “Well, it’s a habit. Country folks are superstitious, they think the western end is unclean… But back to the point, they found something suspicious there.”
First, there were scattered, dried bloodstains, and second, there was a trail of broken and collapsed straw stalks. Following these traces, they finally found a burrow near the mountain’s edge.
At this point, Old Qian steered with one hand while using the other to scroll through his phone: “There are photos in the group chat… oh, they’ve chatted so much, I can’t find them anymore.”
Nie Jiuluo reminded him: “No need to show me, just tell me about it. Keep your eyes on the road.”
Old Qian quickly put down his phone and described the burrow as best he could: the entrance was dug open, the whole thing slanting underground about two or three meters deep, with a rank, nauseating stench that assaulted the nose.
Nie Jiuluo found this confusing: “Wasn’t it supposed to be wolves? Were there wolves in the burrow?”
Old Qian’s answer made her want to laugh and cry: “They didn’t find a person or wolf. But the burrow looks like it was dug by wolves—wolves like to dig dens, they have strong paws for digging.”
The person is gone, nearby burrow looks like it was dug by wolves…
That’s how they concluded she “was taken by wolves.”
Nie Jiuluo was speechless, but still offered her opinion: “I think it’s unlikely to be wolves. Even if wolves did eat someone, wouldn’t there be bones left?”
Old Qian nodded vigorously: “My aunt also said it wasn’t wolves. She said it was… ah, she’s nearly ninety, just rambling nonsense.”
Nie Jiuluo grew interested: “What did your aunt say it was?”
She felt that someone nearly ninety, even if speaking nonsense, was worth listening to.
Old Qian hadn’t wanted to say but then thought that since Miss Nie seemed somewhat superstitious, she might like this sort of thing.
He said rather smugly: “Miss Nie, it’s only because my aunt is so old that she knows these things. Even people who’ve lived there since childhood might not have heard of it. My aunt says it’s because the temple was destroyed, and the Earth Guanyin got angry and came out to cause trouble.”
“Which temple was destroyed?”
“That ruined temple, the one in the cornfield.”
“Why would the ‘Earth Guanyin’ be unhappy about the temple being destroyed?”
“Well, it was her temple, her home.”
This was an unexpected delight. Nie Jiuluo perked up: “That was a Guanyin temple? It doesn’t look like one at all. I didn’t see any Guanyin statue in the temple either.”
Old Qian chuckled: “Miss Nie, you think it was a real Guanyin? It was just a demon with a nice-sounding name.”
***
Old Qian told Nie Jiuluo a rural horror story.
Many years ago, dating back to the late Qing Dynasty, Xingbazi Township was just a nameless mountain village. Back then, there was no division between east and west. About ten li from the village was a large swamp, like seasonal skin ringworm: frozen solid in winter, but a treacherous mire in summer that had swallowed countless chickens, ducks, pigs, and even people, giving off an unbearable stench at the slightest rise in temperature.
In the village lived an old woman with her two sons. One autumn, around this time of year, the elder son carried some mountain goods to sell at the town market.
To reach the town, one had to pass by the great swamp. Usually, people would go around it, but the elder son sought a shortcut, thinking that in September the swamp would be firm enough to cross.
After that crossing, he never returned.
A person couldn’t just disappear like that. After comforting their mother, the younger son went searching along his brother’s route.
He searched the great swamp for three days and nights. Though he didn’t find his elder brother, he encountered a young woman in tattered clothes, disheveled hair, and bare feet. She claimed she had been traveling with her family to visit relatives when they were scattered by bandits, and she had been wandering lost in the mountains for several days without food.
Seeing her pitiful state, the younger son brought her home.
Country folk are hospitable. Though the old woman was still grieving for her missing elder son, she forced herself to heat water for the young woman to bathe and took her dirty clothes to wash. As she was washing, she suddenly noticed something strange.
The young woman’s clothes were oddly sized—some too big, some too small, mostly worn out. The only decent piece was a pair of black cotton trousers, and these were men’s trousers.
The old woman remembered her elder son wearing such trousers when he left.
In those days, country people dressed simply, and black cotton trousers were commonplace. Afraid she might be mistaken, the old woman examined the stitching—she had sewn all her son’s clothes herself and knew her needlework.
These were her elder son’s trousers, and when soaked in water, a reddish, fishy-smelling tinge rose to the surface.
***
At this point, Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but praise him: “You tell this so vividly, you could be a writer.”
She had expected Old Qian, being rather rough around the edges, to tell stories crudely, but he narrated with surprising skill and imagery.
Old Qian replied: “Because I remember it well. I grew up in Xingbazi Township, and my aunt used this as a bedtime story… My goodness, back then the countryside often had power outages, pitch black everywhere. Imagine, telling this kind of story by candlelight—I couldn’t sleep for nights on end.”
Nie Jiuluo laughed: “Your aunt was quite daring, telling children such stories.”
Old Qian agreed: “Back then children were raised tough, sometimes stories about ghosts, sometimes about wolves. They don’t tell such stories anymore—children are precious now, afraid it might… cause childhood trauma.”
***
The old woman questioned the young woman, who said she had found the trousers in the mountains. Not far from where she found them, there was also a broken straw sandal with scattered bloodstains, but since she couldn’t find its pair, she hadn’t taken it to wear.
But as for exactly where in the mountains, she didn’t know the area and couldn’t say.
This must have been the work of tigers or wolves. The old woman had a good cry.
That was all she could do—mountain folk lived off the mountains, and occasionally the mountains took something back. It wasn’t unusual.
The household lost one member but soon gained another: with nowhere else to go, the young woman stayed and became the younger son’s wife.
However, the old woman wasn’t very happy: her younger son was slow-witted, while this young woman was too pretty and lively—from experience, she knew such matches didn’t last, and this woman was probably another Pan Jinlian.
Villagers also said this young bride looked restless, likely to run off with another man someday.
Yet, contrary to everyone’s expectations, the young wife and the younger son lived harmoniously. Any lewd men who tried to flirt with her were firmly rebuffed. Moreover, anyone who offended their family would suffer misfortune within days: either chickens with broken necks or cooking pots with holes in the bottom.
This led to rumors that the young wife was a mountain spirit or tree demon with strange powers.
The old woman was initially frightened but later came to terms with it: spirit or demon, as long as it protected their family and didn’t harm them, everything else could be overlooked.
A year or two passed peacefully, with only the slight disappointment that the young wife’s belly showed no signs of life.
However, misfortune strikes without warning. One day the village suffered two successive disasters: first an earthquake collapsed buildings, and then lightning struck the forest, starting a great fire that, aided by the wind, spread like a rolling blanket of flames to engulf the entire village.
As ill luck would have it, the young wife was alone that day, cooking while the old woman and younger son worked in the fields. First, she was pinned immobile by a falling beam, then forced to watch helplessly as the flames consumed her.
When she was finally rescued, she was practically a breathing piece of charcoal, blackened all over, her body oozing yellowish pus-filled blood, only her eyes still bright and capable of tears.
The old woman and younger son wailed in despair, but the young wife remained calm. In a whisper, she said she accepted her death but couldn’t rest easy without leaving an heir for the family. She wanted to see the younger son remarry and have children before she could close her eyes.
For a time, people within ten li praised the young wife’s “virtue,” with some even arranging to report to the county officials to erect a memorial arch for her—but that’s beside the point. Soon enough, the younger son rebuilt their home and quickly remarried. [Nie Jiuluo: Heh, men…]
The new wife wasn’t pretty but was strong and capable, managing both housework and farming skillfully. Within a year she was pregnant. During this time, the charcoal-like young wife lay in the side room, barely making a sound, eating little, quietly waiting to close her eyes.
When the time came, they had a healthy baby boy. The family was overjoyed—the old woman was busy taking care of the new wife while the younger son went to share the good news with the first wife.
Like his elder brother before him, the younger son never returned.
The old woman waited anxiously before going to the side room herself. There she found the room empty, the wooden window propped open to the night of whirling wind and snow, with blood dripping from the window frame.
***
At this point, Old Qian asked: “Miss Nie, can you guess what happened?”
Nie Jiuluo thought about it—late at night, wind and snow, a mountain village… Usually in winter, when wolves couldn’t find food in the mountains, they would risk coming into villages—in Lu Xun’s famous work, Xianglin Sao’s young son Ah Mao was taken by wolves this way.
She said: “I bet it wasn’t wolves.”
Old Qian was surprised: “Why not? When my aunt asked us to guess as children, we all guessed wolves.”
Nie Jiuluo laughed: “Precisely because everyone would guess wolves—if it’s that easy to guess, what’s the point of asking?”
This logic was a bit convoluted, and Old Qian didn’t immediately grasp it.
But Miss Nie was right. Back then, his aunt had said: “I knew you’d all guess wolves, with your little minds… There are many things in this world far more frightening than wolves.”
***
The old woman also guessed wolves.
She frantically grabbed a sickle and pulled a burning torch from the stove, then went to search behind the house.
The snow wasn’t deep yet, and though only a thin layer, tracks could still be made out, leading to an old locust tree not far behind the house—the tree had been burned black and lifeless last year, but had started sprouting new branches a few months ago, and now even had flower clusters hanging from its branches.
Locust trees rarely bloom in winter. The villagers said it was an auspicious sign, and the old woman had believed them, but now she felt it was an omen of evil.
From behind the tree came a “crunch, crunch” sound of gnawing.