The Three Pure Ones' Secret: Expressing Spirit

Fan Biao was playing some lowbrow pop music, singing something like, "When I'm rich, I can spend whatever I want, drive a BMW, and smoke Zhonghua cigarettes!"

The shock made my buddy dizzy.

Because most of the journey was on highways, after about an hour, Fan Biao turned the car onto a country road. The road was bumpy, and the concrete surface was full of potholes. It wasn't until the vehicle reached a very secluded bamboo forest that we saw buildings around us.

There should be a village in the bamboo forest, with houses built quite close together, probably seven or eight households.

Fan Biao and I went to the location his boss had sent him. The cement road had been in place for many years, but there shouldn't have been many people or cars around. The cement road was covered with moss, and the car would slip and slide.

The bamboo forest was quite cool, shielding me from the scorching summer sun. I looked around at the surroundings; there were several houses nearby. Sparrows flitted and danced among the bamboo branches, chirping softly from time to time.

Fan Biao looked at the few houses in the bamboo forest, but he wasn't sure which one it was, so he called his boss. A little while later, someone greeted us. Fan Biao and I looked at the man, who was fat and bald, wearing sunglasses, and there was a woman with him, who looked to be in her fifties.

The middle-aged man, with a fat head and big ears, was very polite and asked me and Fan Biao, "Oh, which of you is Master Fan? I didn't expect you to be so young!"

Fan Biao looked at the middle-aged man and said with a grin, "Sorry, I don't know the way, so I'm sorry to have troubled you to come and pick me up."

The middle-aged man and Fan Biao exchanged pleasantries: "How many numbers do you think this date will be, brother?"

The man was probably asking Fan Biao about the date for the burial. Fan Biao replied that there was no rush: "Let's first see the old man's remains. Is there anyone specifically assigned to prepare and manage his body?"

The middle-aged man looked at me and Fan Biao and said, "No, Master Wu said we had to wait for your people to come. He said that touching things would be bad for people, so we haven't dared to touch anything. My old man has been acting a bit crazy lately, and the master said that his death date clashes with my birth date, so touching it might bring bad luck."

Fan Biao nodded after hearing this: "Then let's go take a look first. We'll handle the castration later!"

We walked around and looked at the surroundings. The bamboo forest was vast, and although there were a few houses in the courtyards within it, hardly anyone lived there, only a few elderly people. The reason for this rural environment is that everyone has moved to the cities; you can hardly see any young people in the countryside anymore, they only occasionally return home for family matters or holidays like the Lunar New Year.

Actually, I didn't understand anything at the time, and I just felt that there weren't many people in the village. But Fan Biao was a proper geomancer after all, and he noticed that something was wrong with the village after he got off the bus. However, because the couple was in front of him, he didn't tell me directly.

After walking for a while, I arrived at the front door of the middle-aged couple's house. There was a black Mercedes parked on the road in front of their house, so it seemed that this family was quite wealthy.

The house was likely the couple's ancestral home, a two-story traditional Chinese wooden building. Their courtyard wall was quite high, with a large gate in the middle, probably made of cypress wood, flanked by two stone lions. It seemed this family had been quite wealthy for a long time. We then followed them into the courtyard.

His courtyard was very large, with side rooms on both sides, unlike the architectural style we usually see. Apart from the foundation stone, the entire building was made of wood. Decades ago, only a landlord could afford to build a house of this size.

Fan Biao and I looked at the wreaths that had been placed on both sides of the main entrance to the hall. There was also a brazier under the steps in front of the gate, with some paper money for worship burning inside, and firecrackers set off next to the brazier.

Fan Biao walked to the front door of the main room and then said to the middle-aged couple, "Have you prepared the funeral clothes?"

The obese man hurriedly gestured for his wife to fetch it, and Fan Biao took the burial clothes and walked towards a place covered with a white sheet. It was his first time dealing with such things, and he couldn't help feeling a little resistant.

But Lao Fan gestured for me to follow him and told me what to do. He handed me the funeral clothes, which I reluctantly took, feeling a bit unlucky. But this was the job I had asked Lao Fan for myself. However, apart from feeling unlucky, I wasn't particularly scared, probably because Fan Biao was there.

He asked the couple to leave: "You need to leave for a moment, we need to change the old man's clothes!"

The couple went outside to wait. Then Fan Biao lifted the white sheet covering the body, and I saw a somewhat frail old man lying peacefully on the wooden board, as if he were asleep. But Fan Biao, standing beside him, had a deep frown. I asked him what was wrong, but the usually jovial Fan Biao shook his head and whispered to me, "I'll explain in detail later. Next, I'll tell you what to do. You absolutely mustn't touch the body's flesh, or you'll have bad luck."

I nodded, and then Fan Biao grabbed the old man's collar and pulled him up to sit up. He then told me to take off the old man's coat.

Honestly, I'm speechless. This old man is still wearing a coat in this season. No wonder his son says he's crazy and can't even tell the difference between hot and cold.

Without hesitation, I quickly pulled off the old man's coat, revealing the short vest he was wearing underneath. But I was immediately stunned. Why were there so many blackened areas on the old man's shoulders? He'd probably been dead for some time. This couldn't be what people call livor mortis, could it?

Fan Biao frowned as he looked at the corpse and asked me to take out the burial clothes and put them on the old man.

Perhaps it's because we're too close, but no matter how I look at it, it feels rather unsettling, a feeling that's hard to describe.

After changing the body into the burial clothes, Fan Biao shaved the old man's head and then put an ugly hat on the corpse. He covered the face with a white cloth and walked out of the room, saying to the couple waiting at the door, "Alright, but you two might have to avoid this place for the next few days, because the old man, just as you said, isn't quite right!"

The couple were a little worried. The woman asked Fan Biao, "Brother, when are we coming back? How many more days will it take for the ritual to start? We need to go back and make the arrangements."

Fan Biao stammered to the two of them, "In this situation, we need to avoid it for at least one day. We can officially start in three days. You can come back the day after tomorrow afternoon. Then find some relatives and friends to help. The old man's children can go to the yard, but they must not go into the house. If there is anything, ask relatives to do it. You can also ask our people."

The obese middle-aged man nodded hurriedly. He asked us if there was anything we needed, and he would prepare it for us. Fan Biao told them that they didn't need anything for the next two days except food and water, and advised them to go back to the city to rest and wait until the next two days were over before returning.

I was a little curious; why make such a fuss over someone's death? It wasn't until the middle-aged couple had settled in for the next two days and left that Fan Biao slowly said to me, "Brother, did you sense anything unusual about this village?"

I sat on the stone lion's head by the door: "What's strange? I find this dead old man a bit scary. Why does he have so many lividity lesions on his body?"

Fan Biao was stunned by what I said. He smoked his cigarette and said to me, "This village is not normal. It's too quiet. Even rural people raise chickens and dogs, but no one in this village raises any livestock. Also, the marks on that old man's body are not lividity."

When Fan Biao told me it wasn't livor mortis, I asked him, somewhat confused, "Not livor mortis? Then what's that black patch on your body?"

Fan Biao said in a deep voice, "It's demonic energy. Something must have happened to this old man. We need to be careful tonight!"