Yin Yang Diviner

A silver needle hung above the coffin, a drop of cinnabar clinging to its tip.

Grandpa didn't act immediately. He squatted by the pit and took out a bronze mirror from his cloth bag—not the Bagua mirror he usually used, but another one, much smaller, only the size of a palm, its surface dark and gloomy, as if covered with a layer of fog that could never be wiped away. He turned the bronze mirror over; the back was cast with densely packed seal characters, with a deeply engraved character "镇" (zhen, meaning "to suppress") in the very center, its strokes sharp and filled with blackened cinnabar.

"A corpse that has swallowed Yin energy cannot be exposed to light." Second Grandfather hung the bronze mirror face down directly above the coffin. "The mirror reflects Yang energy. It has swallowed Yin energy for fifty years, and this is what it fears most. When I make my move, hold the mirror firmly, making sure the mirror is always facing it. No matter how it moves, the mirror must not be tilted."

I took the bronze mirror. It was icy cold to the touch and much heavier than I had imagined, like holding a stone just pulled from a deep well. I knelt by the pit, holding the bronze mirror with both hands, its surface facing vertically downwards, directly towards the bluish-black face inside the coffin.

The reflection of that face appeared in the mirror. The bluish-black skin, under the dim light of the bronze mirror, became an even deeper, almost inky blue. The features were blurred, except for the sharply angled corners of the mouth, which were as clear as if carved by a knife. I stared at the reflection for a few seconds and suddenly noticed something—the corners of the mouth in the mirror seemed to turn down even more sharply than those of the face in the coffin.

It has a different expression in the mirror.

Second Grandfather's hand fell. The tip of the silver needle touched the center of the corpse's brow, and with a gentle twist, it pierced through. It didn't pierce the skin—the corpse's skin was as hard as tanned cowhide—the needle tip only penetrated to a very shallow depth, just enough to fit into the depression between the brows.

The body didn't move. But the bronze mirror in my hand suddenly trembled. It wasn't my hand shaking; the mirror itself vibrated, as if something had rushed up from the coffin, struck the mirror surface, and bounced back. The force of the impact traveled along the handle to my palm, making my thumb and forefinger tingle.

"Hold the mirror steady," said the second grandfather.

I gritted my teeth and gripped the handle of the mirror tightly with both hands. In the mirror, the bluish-black face began to change—not its expression, but its color. The bluish-black color faded from the corners of its mouth outwards, like a drop of ink falling into clear water, spreading at the edges and fading in the center. The faded parts revealed a grayish-white base color underneath, like the plaster on an old wall.

My second grandfather moved the silver needle from between my eyebrows to my left eye. The needle tip touched the center of my eyelid and he gently pressed down. The eyelid sank in, revealing an empty space underneath, and the silver needle entered the eye socket without any resistance. The needle tip swirled around inside for a bit, and when it was pulled out, it brought out a small clump of grayish-white, fluffy material—like rotten cotton, with a little bit of blackish mucus on it.

This is the result of absorbing Yin energy. It swallowed the old man's corpse energy and the Yin energy from the earth into its own body. Its internal organs, seven orifices, and hundreds of bones were all soaked in Yin energy, turning it into this neither-Yin-Yang, half-corpse, half-living thing. Second Grandfather's silver needles weren't pricking it—they were "releasing energy" from it. Releasing the Yin energy accumulated over fifty years little by little from its seven orifices.

The silver needle pierced the right eye. More flocculent material came out, and its color changed from grayish-white to a yellowish, pus-like color. The "cold smell" suddenly intensified, not gradually, but as if someone had pulled out another plug—colder, heavier, and more like something was crawling up from the depths of the earth than what had come out of the old man's coffin yesterday.

The bronze mirror in my hand trembled again. This time the force was greater, and the mirror emitted a very faint buzzing sound, as if something had flicked a finger from underneath. My hand throbbed with pain, but I didn't let go.

A silver needle pierced the left ear. Then the right ear. Finally, it pierced the philtrum below the nose. With each puncture, the corpse in the coffin trembled slightly—not from resurrection, but like a deflated sac, its contents leaking out. The tremor traveled along the coffin lid to the water at the bottom of the pit, creating ripples that spread from the coffin to the pit walls.

The last point where the silver needle landed was at the mouth.

My great-uncle's hand hovered above the corpse's lips for a moment. Then he did something I hadn't expected—he put the silver needle away. He replaced it with something else. He took out a copper coin from his bag, almost identical to the one tied to my wrist: round on the outside and square on the inside, with the four characters "Tian Yuan Tong Bao" on it, the edges worn smooth and shiny. He held the coin upright, its edge pressed against the corpse's lower lip, and gently pushed it upwards.

The mouth opened.

No smoke rose. No sighs. Only a very thin wisp, like the white breath exhaled in winter, slowly seeped out from between the two rows of grayish-white teeth. The wisp rose to about a foot above the coffin, where it did not disperse but condensed into a thin line, hanging in mid-air like a taut cotton thread.

My second grandfather took the bronze mirror from my hand and pointed it at the white line. The reflection of the white line in the mirror was not white, but black. An extremely thin black line hung in the mirror, like a crack. My second grandfather slowly turned the bronze mirror upside down, and the black line was "inverted" from the mirror, drifting eastward, towards the gap on the mountain ridge.

The white mist dissipated.

The body in the coffin changed. The bluish-black skin faded to grayish-white in a few breaths, then to a brownish-yellow resembling earth. The downward curve of the corners of the mouth disappeared, and the lips closed, covering the two rows of grayish-white teeth. The entire face was devoid of any expression—not peace, not anger, not pain, just the face of a dead man, utterly expressionless.

The second grandfather placed the copper coin over the corpse's mouth, then took a handful of glutinous rice from his cloth bag and sprinkled it evenly around the body. The rice grains landed on the rotten clothes, without turning black or smoking, lying there quietly, white as snowflakes on the ground.

"It's done." Second Grandfather stood up, put the silver needles back into his cloth bag, and said, "The yin energy has been dissipated, and it won't wake up again. Close the coffin lid and bury it next to the old master. Place the two coffins three feet apart and plant a willow tree in between. Willow trees are yin in nature and can suppress the remaining evil energy underground."

Boss Li stood outside the chalk line, looking as if he'd been pulled from water, his clothes soaked with cold sweat and clinging to his body. He opened his mouth several times before managing to stammer out, "Mr. Qin... the thing down there... it won't..."

"It won't move anymore." The second grandfather patted the glutinous rice powder off his hands. "Your great-grandfather is the same. His fingernails are broken, his jade is removed, his yin energy is dissipated, and his body will not rise again. The two coffins are buried together, three feet apart, in the middle of Willow Tree Town. From now on, your Li family will no longer be burdened by the ancestral graves."

Boss Li's legs went weak, and he sat down on the ground. He sat there, his lips trembling for a long time, and then suddenly let out a howl—not a cry, but a sound that was squeezed out from the deepest part of his chest, a sound of fear that had been building up for countless days.

The four young men climbed out of the pit, their faces as white as paper. The tall, thin man's glutinous rice had turned to mush in his mouth. He squatted by the pit, spitting the mush onto the grass, and then dry heaved for a while. The other three were in no better shape; one of them lay directly on the grass, his chest heaving violently, as if he had just been pulled from the water.

Second Grandfather took out a stack of yellow paper from his cloth bag and handed one to each person. "Wipe your face. Wipe the sweat off your face. Sweat contains yang energy. If you don't wipe your sweat after coming from an inauspicious place, yin energy will seep into your skin through your pores."

Several people hurriedly took the yellow paper and smeared it haphazardly on their faces. Where the yellow paper had been rubbed, the paper surface quickly turned a dark grayish-yellow, as if it had absorbed something.

The second grandfather directed four young men to close the coffin lid again and wrap it three times with an ink line. Then he had them carry the old man's coffin back from twenty paces away, placing the two coffins side by side in the ravine, exactly three feet apart. In the very center of that three-foot space, he drew a palm-sized circle with cinnabar and placed a dot in the center.

"The willow tree was planted at this spot."

I stood in the ravine, looking at the two coffins placed side by side. One was the old man's; the lid had been pried open but was now closed again, the ink lines tightly bound around it. The other was the nameless one below; the lid was also closed, the bluish-black body covered in glutinous rice, a copper coin in its mouth. The two coffins were three feet apart, like two neighbors forcibly separated.

Fifty years ago, Li the fortune teller placed the old man's coffin on top of this old coffin. For fifty years, the upper coffin absorbed the yin energy of the lower coffin, and the lower coffin stole the corpse from the upper coffin. The old man turned into a white-haired rice dumpling, and the thing below became a yin-devouring corpse. They devoured each other underground for half a century, neither able to completely consume the other. Today, they were pried open simultaneously, their yin energy released simultaneously, and they were buried back in the earth simultaneously. Three feet apart, willow trees were planted. From now on, they sleep separately, never to be related again.

My second grandfather was right. Sometimes, things in this world aren't just about exorcising evil spirits. More often, it's about mediation. It's about letting those who should leave go, those who should stay stay, and those who should separate separate.

As we descended the mountain, the sky finally cleared up.

The clouds began to part from the gap in the mountain ridge, and a beam of golden light leaked through the crack, shining directly on the two coffins in the valley. The cinnabar in the ink lines gleamed with a moist red light in the sunlight, and the glutinous rice on the coffin lids shone white.

Boss Li walked in front, his steps much lighter than when he was going up the mountain. His back was still wet, but he didn't look back. Four young men followed behind, carrying shovels and crowbars, remaining silent the whole way. When they were almost at the foot of the mountain, the tall, thin man suddenly asked me, "Young master, does your great-grandfather still take on apprentices?"

I didn't answer. My second grandfather was walking in front. He heard me, but didn't turn around. His shadow stretched long in the golden sunlight, and the red thread patterns on the cuffs of his black clothes looked like thin flames in the sunlight.

The copper coin on my wrist was no longer hot. But the lingering warmth remained, like a hand that had been clenched for a very long time, only to be released just now.