Chapter 5: Cat Startled Corpse

More than a month had passed since I last encountered Black and White Impermanence, and now I was following my master every day, traveling between villages within a ten-mile radius, fortune-telling and advising people on how to attract good luck and avoid disaster.

Of course, I have gained some small achievements over this month. If it was just a matter of relocating graves or identifying them, there was no need to bother my master — I could handle it all by myself.

Relocating graves means moving the graves from one place to another. Identifying graves refers to situations where the graves are so old it's difficult to discern if they belong to one's family, or cases where the exact location is not known.

"Heaven's spirit, bright; Earth's spirit, alight; Spirits from all directions, show your might; Seven stars' lamplight guides the soul's flight—appear now!"

Every time I had to identify a grave, I would use the method my master taught me to summon the guardian soul of the corpse, and a single question would reveal to whom it belonged.

Humans possess three souls: the Heaven and Earth souls that guard the body before and after, with the Human soul dwelling within.

When a human dies, it's like a lamp extinguished; the three souls leave the body and take three paths.

The first path, the Heaven soul, governs reincarnation; the second path, the Earth soul, guards the corpse; and the third path, the Human soul, wanders.

The ghosts people usually see are the Heaven souls; the Earth and Human souls are generally invisible to the naked eye, unless summoned by chanting spells.

With this capacity to identify and relocate graves, the villages nearby started calling me Mister Xiao.

On a dark and stormy night dense with clouds and flashes of lightning, the master went to perform rituals in Yang Village. As my birth sign conflicted with that of the household, I was left behind to watch the gate of our monastery.

A series of insistent knocks on the door disturbed my peaceful sleep. Who could it be at this hour? I put on my clothes and opened the monastery door to find a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in mourning clothes, standing before me, his face filled with panic.

"Is Mister Li here? I have an urgent matter to find him," the man said urgently, upon seeing that the door was not opened by my master.

I informed him that my master went to perform rituals in Yang Village and would not return until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Upon hearing this, the man became frantic, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind him, muttering to himself about what to do.

When I told him that I was Mister Li's disciple, he relaxed his furrowed brow somewhat, showing a mixture of surprise and relief.

Without another word, he took me and started walking. After a hundred meters, perhaps thinking I was too slow, he hoisted me onto his shoulder and ran through the darkness with large strides.

Because he was running and out of breath, I couldn't clearly understand what he was saying; it sounded like he was saying something about a desperate solution akin to "using a dead horse as if it were alive."

After about an hour of running, he set me down beside a ditch and pointed into it, asking if I knew what was going on.

I followed the direction he pointed and saw a brightly lit little courtyard draped in white cloth, desolate in its isolation. Inside the empty courtyard, with two long benches, an elderly man with mourning bands, carrying a door board, was running with his eyes tightly shut, like a headless fly crashing around aimlessly. Outside the small courtyard, a group of people also in mourning clothes stood, wailing and crying to the heavens.

After inquiring, I learned that the man's surname was Wang, and his father had died three days ago. Due to the tradition that burial must not occur within seven days, they were to keep the body in the house for seven days with incense and offerings, taking turns to keep vigil.

That evening, just as on the previous days, Uncle Wang and the others knelt before the deceased to offer incense after dinner. However, following a clap of thunder, his father unexpectedly stood up with the door board, which they initially thought was a sign of their filial piety moving the heavens and bringing their father back to life.

But that was not the case. His father, with his eyes closed, easily kicked off the funeral boots' tripping cords and lunged at them with large strides.

A corpse had come to life — perhaps due to their shared blood — and the same thought occurred to all of them, sending everyone running in terror, out of the courtyard and locking the main gate behind them.

The others urged Uncle Wang to find my master, and due to a fortunate or unfortunate turn of events, he ended up carrying me here instead.

I asked him if there were any signs before his father's corpse came back to life, or if anything unusual had appeared, like cats or dogs.

Uncle Wang recalled carefully and seemed to remember that a black stray cat had been standing on the roof during dinner. Since stray cats were not uncommon around here, he didn't pay much attention to it.

I slapped my forehead, the key point was right here.

After linking a series of clues together, I remembered a creature my master had once told me about—the Cat Startled Corpse.

Heaven thunders roll, earth lightning flashes, sky cats cry, ground cats shout, sky and ground cats respond to each other, bringing calamity to the human world.

It means that on a night of flashing lightning and roaring thunder, if by chance a sky cat cries out and a ground cat hears it and responds, if there happens to be a corpse nearby, it will come back to life and cause harm to people.

All things have laws, all things can be broken.

Once I had confirmed that it was indeed the Cat Startled Corpse, Uncle Wang and I went down into the ditch. Seeing Uncle Wang bring me back, everyone was greatly disappointed and began to criticize him for his incompetence, saying that bringing a little brat like me would be of no use.

I didn't mind their contemptuous glances because I wouldn't believe it either. What could a ten-year-old child do, exorcise demons? A reincarnated spirit child? This wasn't a movie set.

Under the reproach of the crowd, Uncle Wang turned to look at me and asked if I could handle it. I nodded and said there would be no problem.

He asked me what magic artifacts I needed to prepare for the ritual.

I shook my head and told him all I needed was a steel fork, a big bundle of straw, and a piece of bluestone.

Under the skeptics' gaze, Uncle Wang alone found a big bundle of dry straw, tied it up tight and solid. He also carried over a huge piece of bluestone. Seeing it, I was somewhat amused—it was a bit too substantial. Actually, just palm-sized would do. Hearing this, Uncle Wang said he would find a smaller one, but I stopped him.

Since the straw was somewhat heavy, I had Uncle Wang use the steel fork to pick up the straw, telling him that when we open the door later, he simply needed to put the straw directly into his father's arms.

When everything was ready, I had the Wang Family's relatives open the door, and Uncle Wang charged in like an arrow. Smelling human presence, his father pounced towards him.

Uncle Wang seized the moment and sent the straw over with a thrust of his fork.

Seeing an object coming towards him, his father broke free from the mourning bands and embraced the straw bundle.

"Hahaha…" A sinister laugh emerged from Uncle Wang's father's mouth, and then, along with the door and its frame, he toppled over rigidly.

Seeing him fall, I too breathed a sigh of relief. I had only heard about this from my master and had never put it into practice before; you could say it was all just theory on paper.

The relatives, seeing the matter resolved, filed into the courtyard. Three of them joined Uncle Wang in lifting the body onto a long bench.

The attitude of the Wang Family's relatives towards me did a complete one-eighty—they praised me as Mister, calling me promising despite my age, making me feel almost light-headed with pride.

Under my direction, Uncle Wang finally completed the task by placing the bluestone under the wooden board at the head of his father's body.

Placing a piece of bluestone next to a body is also a practice known as the Corpse Suppression Stone, also called the Ear Covering Stone. When placed near the body, it can prevent the corpse from being startled and coming back to life.

Seeing that it was about to rain, I said my goodbyes. Uncle Wang insisted on escorting me, but I declined; after all, he still had the wake to attend. Before I left, he gave me an umbrella and a fat red envelope. I hadn't intended to accept it, but he insisted, so I reluctantly took it.