Chapter 4: Lying on the Grave

Chapter 4: Lying on the Grave

The next day, I woke up to find myself neither on the back hill nor in the grass beside Yang Jian's grave. Before I could gather my thoughts, Aunt Li slapped me hard, making me look at her in surprise. "Auntie... Auntie, why did you hit me again?"

Aunt Li pressed me to the ground, making me kneel. "How dare you ask why I hit you? Look at the mess you caused last night."

Aunt Li said that early this morning, villagers found me lying on Yang Jian's grave.

The villagers informed Aunt Li and carried me back. Now, it was already noon. Aunt Li thought I was unlucky and said I had lain on a fresh grave.

But I was very clear that night. I had fainted from fright and did not lie on Yang Jian's grave. I told Aunt Li what I had seen, but she said I was lying and that I had sneaked out last night instead of staying home.

That day, I was beaten severely.

Afterward, I became the subject of the villagers' gossip. They said I was a jinx and a curse to the village, possessed by a ghost at such a young age and lying on a grave.

Everyone avoided me when they saw me, afraid of catching my bad luck. Aunt Li beat me more and more harshly because of this.

But it didn't matter. As long as I was alive and grew up, I could definitely escape from here. I had to stay alive.

One night, as I was about to sleep, I suddenly heard a chicken crowing loudly as if it had seen something terrifying. Then the village dogs started barking. The whole village suddenly became chaotic. I didn't dare to go out, but I had a bad feeling something terrible was going to happen.

I pressed my ear to the door, trying to hear what was happening outside. Sure enough, before long, Wu Dazhuang ran out of the courtyard with a stick, shouting, "Damn it! What's going on? Can't we sleep? Whose dog is barking?"

He ran out of the yard, and Aunt Li and Aunt Zhang hurried out too. I lived outside the courtyard, so I could see the situation outside through the door crack without going out.

All the villagers came, and all the village dogs gathered together, barking toward the village entrance as if they saw something coming. And the direction the dogs were barking at was the back hill.

Dogs can see things that ordinary people can't. The villagers seemed to realize this, stopped talking, and went home one by one.

After everyone left, the dogs were still agitated. When the villagers dispersed, I saw through the door crack a couple standing behind the big locust tree at the village entrance, holding a bloody baby. That... wasn't that Yang Jian and his wife?

I was so scared my eyes widened. How did they come back?

Yang Jian was dressed in mourning clothes, and his wife was wearing her wedding dress just like before. She even had the wound on her forehead, with blood trickling down her face, the same wound caused by the villagers with a shovel. Even in death, it hadn't changed.

The dogs didn't dare leave the village, and neither did they. The baby kept crying, seemingly frightened by the dogs.

I covered my mouth, unable to believe what I was seeing. Even though I was young, I knew they were no longer human.

Moreover, before Yang Jian's wife died, she had said, "Even as a ghost, I won't spare you." Could it be that they had come back for revenge?

Is something big about to happen in the village?