"Yes, it was me." I knew I couldn't hide it, so I decided to be honest in my response.
"Before I went to the ancestral hall, I went to your house and saw that you went to Lin Erdan's house for a drink." She said to me again.
My mouth went dry, but I wasn't a fool, nor was I a social idiot. Her words were already very clear. She had gone to the ancestral hall to find me, and her words were a kind of questioning. Since she had gone to the ancestral hall and seen me, why didn't I push open the door and go in?
How was I supposed to answer her?
"Xiaofan, do you think Auntie is particularly disgraceful?" She looked at me, tears streaming down her pale face, making me sympathize with her deeply.
"Auntie..." I called out. "You misunderstand, I have never thought about it that way."
"Then why didn't you push the door open?!" She suddenly roared.
I didn't know how to answer. In my heart, I already had an answer. I'm not a saint, nor am I a morally upright person. If Wu Miaoke had been just a lonely widow, I would have done what needed to be done that day. But her crying made it difficult for me to make a move.
"Xiaofan, Auntie knows you are a good person. Don't worry, Auntie just wants a child." Her face flushed as she said this.
"But, Auntie..." My heart was racing, torn between two conflicting voices. One, with a dark form and devil's horns, kept insisting, "Go for it, if you don't, you're not a man." The other, pure and angelic, with a halo on its head, was saying, "Xiaofan, don't. This is no different from being a beast!"
"Xiaofan, are you a believer in the supernatural?" Wu Miaoke seemed to be deranged, continually jumping rapidly from topic to topic. She was so quick that I couldn't keep up with her thoughts.
"I didn't believe before, but your grandpa's situation made me have to. Your uncle, on the surface, claims not to believe in these things, but he's actually the most devout, to the point of superstition. Sometimes I wonder, if there's no such thing as destiny, why is it that he and I have no child?" As she spoke, tears flowed freely once more.
"This time, your uncle wants to divorce me not because that woman forced him to, but because as long as I'm around, there won't be a child in his family. In his words, I am someone with a curse of being childless."
"The first time that woman got pregnant, I thought it wasn't your uncle's. But he said it was. That child was lost, and then that woman got pregnant again, and that child was also lost."
"Once, a fortune teller told him my destiny was to bring doom to my husband's family line. Originally, if he had married me, he wouldn't have lived past forty. But because of his ancestors' virtue, he wasn't doomed to a short life. His child averted the disaster, so this lifetime he wouldn't have a son. So, even if he divorces me now, I don't blame him. I've been with him all my life just to give him a daughter like Xiaoyao. At his age, whatever he does, I can understand it." Wu Miaoke's speech was now choked with sobs.
"Could it be your grandpa was a bad person in his lifetime? I've seen what your elder uncle was like since marrying into this family. If there were a heaven, why would he cause a commotion like this after passing away?" Wu Miaoke countered.
I was speechless.
The two of us fell silent again. I really didn't know how to face this unfortunate woman. I didn't know what to say, because she was not stupid and understood everything.
Most importantly, what she said felt uncanny. Neither of us had any problems, but we couldn't have a child. Lin Sanshui could have a child with someone else, but after becoming pregnant, the child could not be kept.
Could it really be some kind of curse?
"Xiaofan, when that child I had got better, Auntie will give you a chance, just one chance. I've already died once, and if I don't talk about having a child, I have Xiaoyao. Even if she's not perfect, she's still my child. After dying once, I've learned that women, people, have to live for themselves. I'm not just trying to please your uncle, so you don't need to feel burdened. I'm just taking a look to see if I'm really a cursed woman." Wu Miaoke leaned against the bed, speaking calmly.
"Aunt," I opened my mouth.
"If you can't handle it, I'll find someone else. If I, Wu Miaoke, lost my dignity, would I still be unable to find a man?" When Wu Miaoke said this, her expression was lifeless.
I didn't know how to respond, and the atmosphere fell into silence. But this time, my savior was Lin Xiaoyao, who returned. However, when I saw her blushing face and the strange look she gave me, I knew for sure that this little girl must have been eavesdropping on my conversation with Wu Miaoke.
Being under the same roof as this awful mother-daughter pair made me incredibly embarrassed. Now that I finally had a chance to escape, I quickly left the hospital room and found a small inn near the hospital. I stayed there for thirty yuan for the night. I couldn't sleep that night; my mind was filled with thoughts of Wu Miaoke's repeated "Aunt, I'll give you one back."
Early the next morning, I returned to the hospital room and saw Lin Sanshui with bloodshot eyes and the silent mother-daughter pair. When Lin Sanshui saw me, he stood up and said to me, "Xiaofan, come out for a moment. I need to talk to you."
I looked at Wu Miaoke, wondering why she would ask to see me so early. Could it be that this woman had completely gone mad and confronted Lin Sanshui?
Looking at Wu Miaoke, I found her gaze slightly meaningful. I immediately felt uneasy and couldn't decipher what her eyes meant. This made me truly uncertain. If this woman really committed herself irreversibly, how would I, Lin Xiaofan, be able to stand in Lin's Mansion in the future? I dared not agree to her request. Apart from the moral dilemma, the issue was that I feared the overwhelming pressure my family would face if my misconduct were exposed.
Nervously, I followed Lin Sanshui out of the hospital room. He continued walking without stopping, and we went through the corridor. I became even more anxious about what he wanted to talk about. Was he planning to take me to a place where no one would see to beat me up?
We kept walking until we reached the hospital garden, where Lin Sanshui finally stopped and handed me a cigarette, lighting it for me. He said, "Xiaofan, I need to talk to you about something. You should be prepared."
For a moment, my legs felt weak. What kind of news was this? Actually, he should be the one to be prepared, shouldn't he?
Despite this, I said, "Sanshui, just tell me what you want to say."
"The other day, your aunt cut her wrist in the ancestral hall. When we rushed in to save her, I don't remember if it was me or Xiaoyao who accidentally extinguished the lamp left by Mr. Xu. At the time, the situation was urgent, and I didn't notice. But when I went back yesterday, I wanted to check, only to find that it was extinguished, completely extinguished," Lin Sanshui said with a bitter smile.
"Uncle, you should tell Mr. Xu about this! You should ask him to find a solution quickly!" I urgently said, feeling that while I did not completely believe Xu Lin's words and had not seen what was inside the red coffin, whatever was in there was probably frightening. But it was better to believe that it existed and take action than to doubt its existence. It was best to let Xu Lin handle it quickly.
"I did reach out to him. He hadn't even returned to the hospital this morning when I came. But Mr. Xu's family told me that he was in Shanghai, helping someone with a funeral service, and he wasn't at home. Mr. Xu doesn't even use a phone, so I wanted to discuss this with you," Lin Sanshui said.
"And has anything happened? I mean, any incident where ghosts hurt people, like what happened to my grandfather?" I asked.
"At the moment, nothing has happened. I haven't heard about any activity in the village. But I have to tell you, I didn't care about the lamp being extinguished, it was just for one night, and it could still be turned on now. But last night, even after changing the lamp oil, no matter how hard I tried to light it, I couldn't. Even if I managed to light it, in the blink of an eye, in the calm room, that lamp would be extinguished by something I couldn't see! It really scared me!" Lin Sanshui said, causing me to shudder even in broad daylight.
When I was in college, I read a tomb-raiding novel called 'Ghost Blows Out the Light.' Lin Sanshui's account of the situation was exactly like being 'blown out' as described in the novel!
"Uncle, what should we do now?" I asked, feeling panic rise in me as it seemed there really was a ghost in that coffin.
"Normally, as the village chief, I would handle this in the village. But with your aunt's condition, I can't leave. That's why I'm talking to you. You go back and be alert for a few days, make the villagers take precautions, you're a college student, so you have a method for handling things. Remember, if anything happens, call the police first - whether it's ghosts or people, the police have to deal with it. It gives us confidence. Remember, if something happens, come and find me," Lin Sanshui told me.
This was perfect; I was just worrying about how to confront this bizarre family in the hospital room. The daughter was eager to marry me, the mother wanted to challenge me. All of this was making me uneasy.
I rode my bike back home and found my father sitting at the door smoking, wearing a troubled expression. I parked my bike and asked him, "What's with that expression on your face?"
"The lamp was extinguished. It went out," he sighed.
"I know it went out, but nothing has happened yet, right? Xu Lin's words aren't completely reliable. Don't worry about it," I said.
My father shook his head, hesitating before saying, "How's your aunt Miaoke doing?"
"She's recovered. Now Sanshui is taking care of her. I came back after hearing about the lamp," I told my father.
"You should go to check on Erda. This is disastrous," my father added.
"Erda?" I was taken aback, immediately feeling anxious. "What happened to him?"
"He almost got strangled by his wife!" my father said.