In 1992, at Laoniutou Ridge in Tang County of Southern Shaanxi.
Yan Huaishan left home early in the morning, cycling across half the county to deliver gifts to seven or eight “relevant departments,” both official and unofficial. He operated a small coal mine on the western ridge—lacking proper qualifications, incomplete paperwork, and serious violations. Without private “tributes,” they could shut him down in a minute.
Then again, in these times, the national economy had just been revitalized and was growing rather vigorously. Regulations couldn’t keep up, so one had to rely on relationships and connections to get things done.
Over the morning, Yan Huaishan gave out twenty to thirty thousand yuan, but far from feeling pain, he was delighted: with connections secured, the mine’s operations would go smoothly. His wife Lin Xirou was pregnant, and after paying someone to check the ultrasound, they said it was a boy.
A boy! A son! The Yan family would have an heir!
With both career and family flourishing, Yan Huaishan was thoroughly satisfied. On his way back to the mine, he pedaled his bicycle with a swagger, humming Teresa Teng’s “Sweet as Honey.”
Even from a distance, Yan Huaishan could see Lin Xirou standing at the mine entrance, her belly slightly protruding.
This wouldn’t do—how could a pregnant woman be wandering about? Yan Huaishan was so flustered he didn’t even bother with the bike stand, carelessly tossing the bicycle aside as he strode forward. “Why did you come here?”
Lin Xirou was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and true to her name, had a pleasant and gentle countenance. She held up the thermal lunch box in her hand. “The mine’s cafeteria food isn’t good, so I made you pork dumplings.”
Only then did Yan Huaishan realize it was nearly lunchtime, and he felt a surge of pride in having a wife by his side. Those bachelors in the mine, or those whose women were far away in their hometowns, couldn’t enjoy such warm “loving” meals.
He carefully supported Lin Xirou as they walked toward the mine office. “Come, come, watch your step, take it slow.”
Lin Xirou laughed until she was breathless. “I’m barely showing yet, what are you so worried about?”
The office was somewhat messy, with various “Top Ten” and “Advanced Unit” certificates plastered on the walls—all acquired through Yan Huaishan’s networking over the past two years.
Lin Xirou merely glanced at them before averting her gaze. She disliked these fraudulent things, but her girlfriends all praised such behavior in men as being clever, shrewd, and adaptable.
Opening the lunch box released a mixture of chive fragrance, meat aroma, and the sourness of aged vinegar. Yan Huaishan took several satisfied sniffs before digging in.
Lin Xirou sat across the table, taking out knitting needles and a ball of yarn from her bag. She skillfully began knitting a sweater while making conversation. “That Li Ergou, still hasn’t found him?”
Yan Huaishan spoke through mouthfuls of food: “That bastard… stole money from the mine and ran far away. How are we supposed to find him?”
The Li Ergou incident was the only unpleasant matter Yan Huaishan had encountered lately.
But he took it in stride—which mine or factory didn’t have such worthless people? Not only was Li Ergou lazy and always late or leaving early, but he also spread rumors about ghosts in the mine, seriously affecting workers’ morale. After being severely reprimanded, he grew resentful and broke into the finance office at night, making off with nearly ten thousand yuan.
Nearly ten thousand yuan—it still pained him to think about it.
Lin Xirou said, “Really not reporting it to the police? Letting such a bad person off easy.”
Yan Huaishan mumbled even more indistinctly: “Report what? Better to avoid trouble.”
After all, his mine had too many irregularities—he didn’t want to invite the police to look around.
Lin Xirou fell silent, knitting several rows before glancing up to find Yan Huaishan no longer wolfing down his food. He was biting his chopsticks, staring out the window.
Following his gaze, she saw a crowd of workers gathered at the mine shaft entrance. Lin Xirou looked at the wall clock: twelve-thirty—the miners should be coming up for lunch.
She started a new topic: “What’s the main meat dish in the cafeteria today? Lamb?”
Yan Huaishan muttered, “Something’s not right. Did something happen?”
Lin Xirou was startled and looked out the window again. This time, she noticed the irregularity: usually at mealtime, the off-duty workers would race to the cafeteria faster than wolves, but now they were clustered in groups at the shaft entrance, arguing excitedly about something. If you paid attention, you could even see their spittle glistening in the sunlight.
Could something have happened?
Mine operators feared underground incidents most of all, and underground incidents were never as simple as mere scrapes or bumps. Yan Huaishan felt uneasy, put down his chopsticks, and rushed out, shouting from several meters away: “What’s going on? What’s happening here?”
This was an experience gained from years of working his way up: no matter what happened, even if someone died, you couldn’t show fear, panic, or disorder. You had to be fierce, and able to control the situation with just your voice.
The shout had an immediate effect—the clamoring diminished significantly. Team leader Liu Sanchi’s coal-blackened horse-face showed hints of paleness beneath: “B-boss, Li Ergou wasn’t lying, there’s… there’s a ghost down there.”
No deaths—a huge weight lifted from Yan Huaishan’s heart, and he shouted with even more authority: “Damn it!”
When Lin Xirou came over, she heard Yan Huaishan giving everyone a lecture on atheism.
“The books explain it clearly—there are no ghosts in this world. Li Ergou is illiterate, but are you all illiterate too? Where are these ghosts? Bring one out for me to see!”
Chang Xi, a young worker who’d just joined the mine, carefully explained: “We can’t call it out. In broad daylight, I heard ghosts dissolve in sunlight.”
Oh, now they’re being considerate of ghosts?
Yan Huaishan grew increasingly angry: “All of you running your mouths—did you see it? How interesting, what does this ghost look like?”
Surprisingly, people answered.
Mao Wang: “It was white, didn’t see clearly, disappeared in a flash.”
Sun Gui: “It makes sounds, I heard whimpering.”
Han Defu: “I took two honeydew melons down there, and both disappeared!”
Yan Huaishan spoke sarcastically: “Even as a ghost, still craving melons?”
Lin Xirou had a thought. She tugged at Yan Huaishan’s sleeve, pulling him aside: “Could it be Li Ergou?”
Born in the 1960s, she and Yan Huaishan had received solid Marxist-Leninist education and always scoffed at supernatural claims. When hearing about mine disturbances, their first thoughts went to human causes.
—Li Ergou had fled in the middle of the night, leaving his belongings behind, reportedly wearing only a white undershirt and black shorts. “It was white”—could that be the white undershirt? In the pitch-black shaft, white would certainly stand out.
—If Li Ergou couldn’t be found anywhere, wasn’t it possible he was hiding in the mine shaft? “Both melons disappeared”—with no food down there, of course, he’d have to steal.
Yan Huaishan caught on immediately, slapping his thigh: “It must be him, who else?”
Now confident, he turned back with an even harder tone: “Alright then, I’ll go down and meet this ghost.”
Most miners were illiterate laborers—it was difficult to explain materialism to them. The most effective method was letting them see for themselves, exposing this “ghost” before everyone’s eyes.
Unfortunately, no one was willing to go down, not even for a twenty-yuan reward.
That was fine—on second thought, Yan Huaishan figured going down alone to drag out Li Ergou would be more impressive, showing these miners that being a mine owner wasn’t just for show. Once his authority was established, giving orders would be easier in the future.
He cast a disdainful look around: “None of you dare? Just wait, your Brother Yan will invite it out to sunbathe.”
Comparisons can be fatal—against the backdrop of downcast miners, the naturally handsome and distinguished Yan Huaishan appeared even more mighty and imposing. Lin Xirou felt delighted, thinking her man was truly presentable. It wasn’t until Yan Huaishan’s figure was almost lost in the mine entrance that she remembered to call out: “Don’t be too rough!”
Yan Huaishan had spent time on the streets in his early years, with hard fists and fierce kicks—taking on two or three strong men wasn’t a problem. Lin Xirou worried that in his anger, he might lose control and cripple Li Ergou.
Large, well-equipped coal mines had elevators for going up and down, and mine cars for moving between tunnels. Yan Huaishan’s small mine kept everything simple—the shaft entrance had several sets of simple pulleys, and everyone used “monkey bags” attached to the pulleys to move up and down.
These “monkey bags” were hemp sacks with two holes cut in the bottom. After sitting inside, legs dangling through the holes, one would be lowered to the bottom via a pulley. Due to the low safety factor, people had to stay curled up and still throughout the journey, looking like stupid monkeys—hence the name “monkey bag” instead of “people bag.”
Yan Huaishan greeted the shaft entrance watchman and descended in a monkey bag.
He had taken over this mine from the previous owner—second-hand goods, whatever state it was in when he got it. If there was anything special about it, it was its depth—particularly deep.
Precisely because of its depth, this mine had more supernatural rumors than others. For instance, Li Ergou spread rumors that this mine was an entrance to the eighteen levels of hell, even insisting he’d seen green-faced, fanged ghosts. Wasn’t this nonsense? If it were hell’s entrance, why would he, Yan Huaishan, bother mining? He could sell tickets to tourists—guaranteed all 1.1 billion Chinese would come to see the spectacle.
Reaching the bottom, there was equipment piled nearby. Yan Huaishan picked up a pickaxe, took a mining lamp, and entered the spider web-like maze of tunnels.
He wasn’t very familiar with the tunnels below, which was unavoidable: small coal mines didn’t bother with tunnel maps, and manual mining was too random. Sometimes while digging, they’d sense danger of collapse, hastily prop up some wooden supports, and switch to a different direction. Over time, the tunnels became as messy as if dug by dogs and rooted by pigs—neither pleasant to look at nor easy to remember.
Yan Huaishan called out as he walked: “Little Dog, come out yourself, and we’ll consider leniency!”
The tunnel was particularly dark, the mining lamp’s light swaying left and right, illuminating only a table-sized area at a time, but Yan Huaishan wasn’t afraid at all. First, he was naturally bold, and second, what was there to fear about people? As for ghosts, where would they come from in this world?
After walking for about a quarter-hour, Yan Huaishan’s throat was hoarse from calling, but Li Ergou hadn’t shown up to confess. Growing annoyed, he was about to try another tunnel when his foot suddenly stepped on something.
The thing was slippery, making it impossible to steady his foot. Caught off guard, Yan Huaishan yelped, sliding several steps on whatever it was, then fell flat on his back. The fall was so hard it made his vision go black, and the mining lamp’s glass cover cracked in several places.
It took Yan Huaishan a full five seconds to recover. He raised the mining lamp to look around, quickly identifying the culprit: it was the stem end of a honeydew melon—no wonder it was so slippery.
Damn it, which bastard threw this!
Cursing, Yan Huaishan was about to get up when he suddenly froze.
Just nearby, at the edge of the lamplight, in the dim and blurry darkness, there was a pair of feet—slender and fair, clearly not a man’s feet.
No way—how could there be a woman down in the mine?
Yan Huaishan instinctively raised his lamp higher.
He saw a dark mass—indeed a woman, naked and curled up in the corner. Her hair was thick and dense, covering her face and most of her body, and beneath the messy hair, her eyes stared at him unblinkingly.
Strangely enough, while these eyes were brighter, more beautiful, and deeper than average, the first descriptor that popped into Yan Huaishan’s mind had nothing to do with brightness, beauty, or depth.
The word that came to his mind was “new.”
Brand new eyes, unused, like those of a newborn, just created.
Yan Huaishan stared at these eyes.
He discovered he couldn’t move.
The woman crawled toward him.
September 16, 1992 / Wednesday / Sunny turning cloudy with heavy rain
It’s ten-thirty, and Dashan still isn’t back. The rain outside is so heavy, and I’m alone at home, feeling a bit scared.
At noon, I brought dumplings to Dashan and encountered something funny: the workers were making a fuss, saying there was a ghost in the mine.
What ghost? I guess it must be Li Ergou.
Dashan went down alone to “catch the ghost.” I was quite expectant, but then I thought: Li Ergou did something wrong, how could he dare let Dashan find him? He must have hidden when he heard movement.
Sure enough, I guessed right. Dashan came up empty-handed, saying there was nothing down there.
It’s ten forty-five now.
The mine keeps him so busy. Dashan works too hard. I hope our son is born soon and grows up quickly, so Dashan can have a capable helper.
I’ve been thinking of names for our son lately, always flipping through the dictionary. I’ve grown fond of a word: Kaituo.
Kaituo, it sounds so nice—pioneering new frontiers, expanding new paths, daring to make the sun and moon shine anew.
Yan Kai, and Yan Tuo, both sound good. I like them both so much, I can’t choose.
Well, I’ll let Dashan choose.
There’s a sound outside, must be Dashan coming back. I’ll stop writing here.
—[Excerpts from Lin Xirou’s diary]