The Three Pure Ones' Secret: Expressing Spirit

Actually, I never really cared about ghost stories or anything like that. The reason I heard so many ghost stories from my second uncle is because of a girl, a childhood friend of mine. Her name was He Qiaohe. This girl's personality was the complete opposite of mine; she was the kind of person with social anxiety. We went to elementary school in the town near our home, and her mom often came over to our house to play mahjong, so we were very close. From the moment we met, she was like a younger sister to me, even though she was only a few months younger than me.

We were in the same class when we were in elementary school. Because I would sit in the classroom daydreaming all day, the teacher couldn't stand it anymore and moved me to the front of the first row, giving me a special seat. Coincidentally, this girl was not very tall when we were little, so she sat behind me and liked to pull my clothes and hair.

She was quite bold, and she would come to my house for a visit every night after dinner. My two unruly grandfathers, after drinking a few sips of horse urine, liked to brag about this ghost and that fairy.

Because she missed some of the stories, she liked to pester me to tell them to her whenever she had free time. I didn't have many friends, so I liked to listen to my second uncle tell the stories first, and then tell them to her.

Later, we went to different high schools, but she would still ask me to play games during her holidays. If it weren't for her long hair and the fact that she was different from me in terms of physical development, I would sometimes suspect that she was a boy!

I thought that after we both went away to school, I wouldn't have to tell her ghost stories anymore. But although I didn't tell her ghost stories afterward, we experienced something extremely terrifying—though that all happened after I went to university. And the first thing that changed my life was also incredibly frightening. Looking back, perhaps that was a calamity in my life!

It all started one afternoon, right after summer vacation. I was home for the first weekend and playing games with my roommate, Wang Xiaoshuai. Although he shared the same name as the Wang Xiaoshuai who sang "Recently" online, he couldn't sing, and his hoarse voice was always saying, "Let me tell you!"

That's his catchphrase. As for what he's trying to tell me, I often feel like he's just rambling on. What could be said in one sentence, he'll use several sentences to tell you, and every time he'll start with those words: "Let me tell you!"

Just as Wang Xiaoshuai and I were engrossed in our game, my second uncle suddenly walked in from outside. He had a pipe dangling from his lips, taking puffs here and there. I noticed he had his hands behind his back, glancing at my computer screen absentmindedly, so I asked him, "What's up, Uncle? Aren't you going to play chess with those old men downstairs?"

He looked at me, then walked past me, sat down on the edge of my bed, took a drag of his cigarette, and said, "Why are you back so early today? How's the new semester?"

I was engrossed in the game and casually replied, "It's just like last semester, nothing much different, it's fine."

Seeing that I practically wanted to bury my head in the computer screen, he said to me helplessly, "You brat, you're most focused on playing games. Remember to come downstairs for dinner later. I'm not going down the mountain tomorrow. I've been a bit busy these past few days. If anything happens, remember to call Grandpa."

I chuckled at him and said, "It's nothing. Something only happens when I'm starving at school!"

Seeing my smug look, he said helplessly, "You little brat, all you ever think about is your grandfather's money for his funeral."

He then ignored me and slowly walked out of my room, leaving behind a room full of the smell of tobacco. I was so choked by it that I almost passed out, and I quickly turned on the fan to blow it out.

I played games until evening, until my mother called me downstairs for dinner. I went downstairs and ate dinner in a daze, then continued to play games. When I sat down on the bed to take out my phone, something hard bumped my bottom. I got up to check and found an old book with yellowed pages and lots of dirt and sweat stains.

I knew at a glance that this was the book my second uncle had left on my bed, but when I looked at the words on it, I couldn't recognize a single one. The writing was very strange, like little people dancing, crooked and twisted.

So I called my second uncle, and the call was answered shortly after. My second uncle asked me, "What's wrong, grandson?"

He asked me, so I said to him, "Hey, Second Master, did you drop something?"

He was puzzled: "What? I didn't drop anything!"

Seeing that he seemed a bit dazed, I told him, "Did you leave a book here with me?"

He thought for a moment and then told me, "Ah! What book? I haven't read any books."

But after a while, he remembered something: "Oh, you mean my old book? It's okay, you can keep it. You wouldn't understand the stuff in it anyway."

Uh, I was a bit speechless, but also a little curious, so I asked him, "What kind of book is this? Why are the words on it written like little people?"

Seeing that I seemed interested, he casually told me, "That's a divine decree; I don't even recognize many of the characters on it. It's normal that you haven't seen it before, because those characters aren't meant for humans to read."

When he said it wasn't for human readers, I felt a little uncomfortable, so I immediately tossed the book aside and said to him, "If it's not for human readers, then it's for ghosts! That's so unlucky! Why did you put it here?"

The old man probably sensed my timidity, so he quickly said to me, "What do you mean, 'showing it to ghosts'? What are you thinking about all day, you little brat? That's called a divine command. You can tell just by listening to it that only gods or people with special abilities can understand it. I only know a little bit about it."

When I heard him say it wasn't for ghosts, I let go of my fear. But then I realized he could read some words. Was he trying to show off that he was a demigod?

I didn't think much of it, so I just said "Oh" and hung up.

Hearing that it wasn't for ghosts, I picked up the book again and started flipping through it. It turned out that although I couldn't understand the words, there was a picture on the back of each page. I thought the pictures were quite well drawn, so I started looking at them one by one.

The painting was probably done with a brush, but the artist's skill was excellent. Many parts were depicted very clearly, and the expressions of the figures and the scene were very realistic.

But looking at the book's old appearance, it didn't seem like something from modern times. Yet the illustrations looked like they were computer-generated. Did anyone really achieve the effect of a sketch with a brush back then?

After looking at it for a while, I still couldn't understand what it meant. It depicted some old men in long robes, and in front of them were some small figures that looked like animals. I guessed they were some little monsters begging the old men for something.

I didn't find it interesting and couldn't understand it, so I threw the book into the drawer under the computer desk. Wang Xiaoshuai and I played games while grumbling and cursing, and finally, we got tired and fell asleep on the bed.

After that night, I went to school. Later, I called my second uncle to ask him to pick it up, but he didn't take it back. He said he would let me keep it if I liked it. I thought to myself, "What do you mean 'like' it? I can't understand anything about it." But judging from his tone, the book seemed to be an ancient book. If he didn't want it, I could keep it. Maybe it was some kind of antique treasure.

Perhaps fate is a truly wondrous thing; the things we touch most unexpectedly can have the greatest impact on the course of our lives. And my life, too, began with this unassuming, strange book. But back then, I couldn't understand anything about it. The reason I was finally able to understand and learn from the book was a few months after I received it, during the autumn of my senior year of high school.

Back then, I was a materialist who didn't believe in ghosts or gods. As for metaphysics, I'd only believe in it if science reached its limit. As a modern young person who had received nine years of compulsory education, I would never believe in gods or monsters. Even if I believed in Buddha, Iron Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teletubbies, and Calabash Brothers, I still wouldn't believe that ghosts existed.

But after that incident, it felt like the world slapped me in the face. It turns out there are still some things in this world that people haven't been able to reach.

Our home is in a city in the center of the Sichuan Basin. The city isn't too big, but it's not small either. This city was once the birthplace of the Spring Festival. Historical records indicate that Zhang Fei was stationed in Langzhong for many years, which is in our area.

However, our story and city have little to do with the fierce generals of the Three Kingdoms period, so let's get back to the main topic.

Our climate, being located in the heart of the Sichuan Basin, is like this: it rains a lot, and the rain is usually prolonged and can last for many days. In my memory, one winter it rained for a full two weeks. Unlike other cities where the rain would stop after a while, it was a continuous drizzle, and the air was damp and cold.

I sat in the classroom and endured the last class. Wang Xiaoshuai came up to me and asked if I wanted to play games when I got back. I replied listlessly, "Play games? What's the point? I play them every day, I'm so tired of it. Can't we find something else to do?"

He stared at me blankly, then said, "Let me tell you, there's a new event in the game today. You can get rewards just by logging in."

I looked at him listlessly: "Brother, it's not like I can't read. I saw it. I'm just too tired today."

Wang Xiaoshuai was a little embarrassed, then he kept pestering me to find something to do. I tidied up my desk and got up, saying to him as we walked, "You rascal, how come you're always so energetic?"

He looked at me with an innocent grin and said, "I slept in the back all afternoon, didn't I? Why don't you tell me a couple more ghost stories when we get back?"

As I walked forward, I looked back at him and said, "Where would I get so many ghost stories to tell every now and then? I'm not a legal talk show, so what interesting ghost stories would I have left? Why don't you tell me a couple tonight?"

I knew this fat guy wouldn't come up with anything, so I went down the stairs of the teaching building and watched Xiaoyu run towards the dormitory building.

Wang Xiaoshuai followed behind me, panting as he said, "Hey, I actually have another ghost story, do you want to hear it? I heard it from someone else, it's really scary, don't blame me if you can't sleep tonight after I tell it."

I ignored him and ran back to my dorm. He chased after me, panting heavily as he clung to the edge of my bed, half-dead, telling me ghost stories he'd heard from others.

I saw beads of sweat on his forehead, and then I asked him to speak. Wang Xiaoshuai started talking to me with a serious expression: "Hey, do you know our school?"

I was a little confused. He seemed quite serious, so I asked him what was wrong at school.

He then slowly and vividly told me, "I heard it from someone else. They said our school used to be an execution ground."

I was a little curious: "Who told you that?"

Wang Xiaoshuai caught his breath: "I'll listen to what others say. It's so scary! I'm afraid to go out to the bathroom at night now!"

Actually, there's some truth to Wang Xiaoshuai's story. He said that the school we're currently attending used to have an execution ground where many prisoners were shot.

He said earnestly, "It's true, this used to be a place where people would break sand pots."

"Knocking on a sand pot" is a local dialect in the southwestern region, meaning the same as "chopping off a head." In Sichuan dialect, it translates to "the place where people are executed" in standard Mandarin.

The other students in the dormitory heard us talking about Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, so they came over to listen. Wang Xiaoshuai continued slowly: "Before the school was built, the school playground was really an execution ground. And it wasn't just the playground that was an execution ground; the old classrooms behind our school's teaching building were also converted."

Everyone was stunned. Zhou Xing, his roommate, asked him, "What was it before? A place where dead people were kept?"

Wang Xiaoshuai shook his head: "No, that's not it. I heard them say that the old classrooms behind the school used to be a temple, I don't know if it was a Buddhist temple or a Taoist temple. It is said that because the murderous aura was too strong, something had to suppress it, and the playground used to be an open space. And don't you find it very strange? No class has ever had a lesson in the old classrooms behind the school since we started school. And have you looked closely at the decorations on the roof of the auditorium at the back? They are the architecture of the old temple, and there are even patterns painted on them that are exactly the same as those inside the temple."

When he said that, we thought back and realized that what he said seemed to make sense. Every time we went into the auditorium at the start of the semester, it gave us an indescribable strange feeling. The more we listened, the more mysterious it seemed. Zhou Xing was a little curious: "It seems to be true, but we haven't paid attention to it before. But it doesn't really matter. It might just be an old building that has been renovated. Old buildings often have those characteristics. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a temple."

Seeing that Zhou Xing didn't believe him, Wang Xiaoshuai said urgently, "It really is a temple, and there's definitely a temple behind the school."

I was completely confused, but just as I was feeling a bit surprised, I remembered a story that my second uncle had told me before.

It's said that in ancient times, temples were indeed converted into schools, and there were even stories of people living on gravesites. This was especially true of large cemeteries, which embodied the principle of yin and yang's mutual generation and restraint. Cemeteries were considered to have heavy yin energy, while schools housed young people with abundant yang energy; yang energy suppressed yin energy. The temples were even easier to explain: old monks and Taoist priests chanted scriptures and practiced Taoism, which conveniently helped to guide the souls of the deceased to a better place.