Yin Yang Diviner

The sound of shovels being driven into the earth echoed through the mountain valley, one sound after another.

Old Li couldn't keep going after digging for more than a dozen shovelfuls, so the tall, thin guy took over. The four young men took turns digging, piling the soil into a small hill beside the grave. The soil they dug out became increasingly darker in color—from the surface yellowish-brown, to a deep brown half a person's depth, and then to a dark brown a person's depth. Mixed in with the black soil were some white fragments, which at first glance looked like stones, but upon closer inspection, they turned out to be fine bone fragments, wrapped in soil, buried underground for who knows how many years.

"Stop," the second grandfather suddenly said.

The tall, thin man's shovel hung in mid-air. A layer of viscous black liquid clung to the blade; it wasn't mud, but a black, shiny substance like tar, slowly trickling down the shovel surface, forming a thin thread that dripped back to the bottom of the pit.

At the bottom of the pit, beneath the soil, a wooden plank was exposed.

The wooden plank was black, covered with a sticky, glue-like substance that gleamed damply in the hazy sunlight. A crack ran down the center, from which water seeped. The water was a muddy yellow, exactly like the pool of water around the grave, but thicker and more viscous, like undissolved pus.

The "cold feeling" suddenly intensified. It didn't gradually grow stronger; it was as if someone had pulled a plug, and centuries of accumulated malevolent energy erupted from the crack. The tall, thin man standing at the edge of the pit staggered back two steps, clutching his throat, his face turning pale—he had been hit head-on by that energy.

Second Grandfather walked over, took a small handful of glutinous rice from the cloth bag, and stuffed it into the mouth of the tall, thin man: "Hold it in your mouth, don't swallow it."

The tall, thin man, with rice in his mouth, gradually regained his composure. Second Grandfather squatted down by the pit, looking down at the wooden plank. He didn't reach out to touch it, but stared at the crack for about half a minute.

"Not just one coffin," he stood up. "It's two."

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. The second grandfather pointed to the faintly visible seam along the edge of the wooden plank: "This is the coffin lid underneath. The old master's coffin was on top of it, two coffins stacked together. When your uncle was digging the pit back then, he dug up the old coffin underneath, didn't move it, and directly put the old master's coffin on top of it."

Boss Li's voice changed: "Then... what's in the coffin down there?"

Second Grandfather did not answer. He took out an inkwell from his cloth bag and flicked an ink line above the coffin lid. The cinnabar landed on the black wooden board with a hiss, producing a wisp of extremely thin white smoke. The smoke rose to about half a foot high, then suddenly turned eastward, as if violently pulled away by some force, and dissipated into the air.

"The thing below has been disturbed." Second Grandfather put away the ink line. "It's pushing upwards."

I stared at the crack. The murky yellow liquid was still seeping out, but faster than before. And—was the edge of the crack a little wider than before?

"Pry it open," said the second grandfather. "First, move the old master's coffin, seal it, then deal with what's underneath. The order is crucial."

The four young men inserted crowbars into the cracks in the coffin lid and pulled together. The wood creaked and groaned as the cracks widened inch by inch. The glutinous rice in the tall, thin man's mouth had mostly dissolved; he swallowed hard, his cheeks bulging.

The coffin lid was pried open with a crack about three fingers wide.

No white steam rose. Nothing at all. Only a cold, pure and unadulterated cold, seeped out from the cracks. The people standing at the edge of the pit all took a step back—not out of fear, but because their bodies instinctively knew the cold was wrong, faster than their brains.

The copper coin on my wrist was burning hot, like a piece of charcoal just taken from the stove. The heat shot up my forearm, along the meridians to my shoulder, and my entire right arm was faintly warm. The copper coin was protecting me—without it, the cold would have seeped straight into my bones.

Second Grandfather bent down and peered through the crack.

He didn't speak. The silence lasted about ten seconds. He straightened up, took a pair of extremely thin gloves from his bag, and put them on. The gloves were pale yellow, as if sewn from some animal hide, with a fine texture on the surface. He reached his gloved hand into the crack of the coffin, felt something, and gently pried it open.

A crisp snap. Like the sound of a dry branch breaking.

Second Grandfather pulled his hand back from the gap, with something between his fingers.

Fingernails. Long, curly, and coiled fingernails, about the thickness of a little finger, grayish-white in color, with ring-like patterns on the surface. At the base of the nail is a small piece of grayish-white skin, not cut off, but broken off from the old man's finger by the second grandfather.

Mr. Li leaned against the tree trunk, bent over, and gagged.

Second Grandfather placed the fingernail on a stone beside the grave, then reached into the coffin. He broke off a second, a third… a total of ten. The ten fingernails lay side by side on the stone, the longest over half a meter, the shortest thirty or forty centimeters, their grayish-white surfaces gleaming damply in the overcast sky, like ten worms dug out of the ground.

"The old man's fingernails had been growing for fifty years." The second grandfather took off his gloves and threw them into the pit. "The fingernails were connected to the corpse's aura. If they weren't broken off, the corpse could strangle a person's throat with its fingernails when it rose from the dead. Now only its teeth are left."

He tightened the ink line again and flicked three more lines onto the coffin lid. The cinnabar fell onto the black wooden board, the three red lines arranged in parallel, like three seals.

"Pry it all open."

The four young men gritted their teeth and used the crowbars simultaneously. The coffin lid rose inch by inch with a piercing creak, and was finally pried open completely, overturning onto the nearby mound of earth.

I glanced into the coffin.

The old man lay inside. His face was exactly the same as the one in my dream—grayish-white skin, deep wrinkles, and a faint smile at the corners of his mouth. His official robes were mostly rotten, revealing his withered chest beneath. His hands were folded over his abdomen, his fingernails broken off, leaving only bare knuckles with ten grayish-white stumps at the ends.

My second grandfather once said that the characteristic of a white-haired rice dumpling is "long hair and nails." Now the nails have been broken off, but the hair is still there. The old man's cheeks, neck, and chest exposed from his rotten collar are covered with a layer of fine white hair. It's not the white of hair, but the white of mold, more than an inch long, standing upright in neat rows, trembling slightly in the windless air—like it's breathing.

"Black dog blood." Second Grandfather reached out his hand.

I handed the glass bottle over. Second Grandfather unscrewed the cap, poured the black dog blood into his palm, rubbed his hands together, then leaned forward and pressed his palms against the old man's forehead.

hiss--

The moment the black dog's blood touched the skin, a thick plume of white smoke rose. The white fur on the old man's face, like a spiderweb burned by fire, quickly curled, turned black, and then turned to ash. The white smoke spread from his forehead in all directions, and wherever it passed, the white fur disappeared, revealing the grayish-white skin underneath.

The second grandfather's hand didn't leave. He pressed it against the old man's forehead, muttering something in a very low voice, only he himself could hear it. The white smoke grew thicker and thicker, and the old man's body began to tremble slightly—it wasn't a resurrection, but rather the accumulated yin energy of fifty years being forced out of the corpse by the black dog's blood.

It trembled for about two minutes, then stopped.

Second Grandfather withdrew his hand. The old man's face was no longer covered in white hair; a dark red palm print remained on his grayish-white skin, deeply embedded in his forehead, as if branded. The expression on his face changed—the slight curve at the corner of his mouth disappeared, his mouth opened slightly, revealing a row of yellowed teeth, black gums, and a small piece of dark green embedded in the root of each tooth.

It's that Soul-Suppressing Jade.

The second grandfather took out a silver needle from his cloth bag. Unlike the needle he used to draw talismans at the hotel yesterday, this needle was longer and thinner, its tip almost invisible in the dim light. He inserted the needle tip into the old man's open mouth, gently pressing it against the edge of the jade.

The jade moved.

It wasn't moved by a needle—it moved on its own. A layer of watery sheen appeared on the dark green jade surface, and fine water droplets seeped from within the jade, trickling down its surface. Drops of murky yellow liquid fell onto the old man's lower lip, seeping into his blackened gums.

Second Grandfather held the silver needle steadily, its tip tracing lines across the jade surface. His wrist hovered in the air, his movements extremely slow, as if he were writing something. One stroke, one line. Where the silver needle passed, the jade's color changed from dark green to grayish-white, as if something had been drawn away.

As the last stroke was made, the jade suddenly emitted a crisp sound.

It sounded like ice cracking. A fine crack appeared on the jade surface, extending from the edge to the center. From the crack, a last wisp of blue smoke—extremely faint, almost transparent—rose from the inside of the jade, swirling above the old man's face, then, as if drawn by some force, abruptly turned eastward.

East. The gap in the mountain ridge. The direction from which the wind blows in through the gap.

The wisps of smoke dissipated into the air.

The old man closed his mouth. His upper and lower teeth gently tapped together, making a dry, bone-on-bone sound. The jade, which had been held in his mouth for fifty years, had now turned into a grayish-white, dull stone.

Second Grandfather took out the jade and placed it on the stone, alongside the ten fingernails.

"The soul is gone," he said. "The body will not rise again. Close the coffin lid and carry it out."

The four young men closed the coffin lid again and tied it three times with hemp rope. Then, each man holding one corner, they lifted the coffin out of the pit. The moment the coffin left the pit, a voice came from the bottom of the pit.

It wasn't a sigh. It was a scraping sound. Like something was slowly, bit by bit, scraping the wooden board inside the coffin lid with a fingernail.

Cluck—cluck—cluck—

The four young men carrying the coffin stood frozen in place. The second grandfather walked to the edge of the pit and looked down.

The crack in the coffin lid beneath was twice as wide as before. The murky yellow liquid was no longer seeping, but gushing out, spreading along the grain of the wooden planks and soaking half of the lid. The scraping sound continued, unhurried, one after another.

Cluck—cluck—cluck—

"Move it away first," said the second grandfather. "Move the old master's coffin twenty paces away. Then everyone step back."

Four young men carried the coffin, staggering as they walked out of the ravine. Boss Li followed behind, looking back as he went, his face contorted as if something had grabbed his throat.

Only my second grandfather and I remained by the pit.

The scraping sound continued. Cluck—cluck—cluck—the rhythm grew faster and faster.

"Second Grandfather," I stared at the widening crack, "what's in the coffin below...?"

My second grandfather took a compass out of his cloth bag and held it in his palm. The pointer on the compass did not point to the grave pit, but in the exact opposite direction—to the opening of the ravine, to the path we had come from.

"It's looking for direction." The second grandfather put the compass back into his cloth bag. "It's been buried for who knows how many years, and this is the first time it's seen the light. It's looking for the nearest living person."

The scraping sound suddenly stopped.

It didn't stop gradually; it stopped abruptly. It was as if it had been cut off by something.

Then, a sigh came from the crack at the bottom of the pit. It was long and soft, exactly the same as the one heard while digging. But this time it was closer and clearer, as if someone was standing at the bottom of the pit, looking up at the gray sky, slowly exhaling.

"Let's go." Second Grandfather turned around. "We can't move anymore today. Go back and prepare. We'll open the coffin at the bottom first thing tomorrow morning."

I followed him out of the valley. After a few steps, I couldn't help but look back.

The grave sat alone in the middle of the ravine. A thin layer of murky yellow liquid seeped from the cracks, soaking the entire coffin lid. A fine layer of foam floated on the surface of the liquid, bursting one by one in the still air with a very faint, smacking sound.

I turned my head back and quickened my pace to catch up with my second grandfather.

The copper coin on my wrist was no longer hot. But the lingering warmth of that heat remained, like a scalding hand still gripping my wrist, refusing to let go.