inspire-indiana Chapter 51 Panic
Chapter 51 Panic
The autumn chill arrives silently.
During the day, when the sun is high in the sky, the rice on the threshing floor emits a dry, sweet fragrance.
As the sun began to set, a chill rose, creeping across the fields, climbing over the ridges, and seeping into every crevice of the village.
The villagers closed their doors and windows early, and added firewood to their stoves.
late at night.
The world turned into a thick, inky black.
The wind whistled through the treetops, producing whistles of varying lengths.
All sounds are silent.
Something strange happened quietly.
Widow Zhao, who lived at the west end of the village, was the first to notice something was wrong.
Widow Zhao's real name was Zhao Xiuying. She was forty-eight years old, a woman with a large frame and nimble hands and feet. Her husband, Wang Ma, went into the mountains to collect herbs three years ago, but was caught in a landslide and his body was never recovered. She raised her two sons alone, Da Hu was thirteen and Xiao Hu was nine. Life was hard, but she managed to support her family.
The villagers all said she was brave, daring to go to the well alone at night to fetch water and to stand guard alone in the threshing ground.
But that night, Zhao Xiuying felt inexplicably palpitated.
She was fine when she lay down, but less than half an hour after closing her eyes, she suddenly woke up. It wasn't a sound that woke her, but an inexplicable tightness in her chest, like a cold, damp stone pressing on her heart. She opened her eyes; the room was pitch black.
Just as Zhao Xiuying was about to close her eyes again, she heard a sound.
At first, it was very subtle, like something wet being dragged across the muddy ground of the yard.
It wasn't a cat or dog; cats and dogs move with a light and quick gait.
It wasn't a mouse; mice make soft, guttural sounds.
The sound that came was slow and heavy, each step like pulling one's feet out of a swamp.
The sound swirled around and stopped below the window.
Zhao Xiuying froze, holding her breath. She could feel something pressed against the window. Occasionally, a pale sliver of moonlight peeked through the clouds, and in that instant, she saw a blurry shadow reflected outside the window.
The silhouette is human, yet it is not entirely human.
Its neck was eerily thin, as if it had been stretched out by something.
One shoulder is higher than the other.
What's most chilling is that the shadow's head is slowly turning, as if searching for a crack in the window.
Zhao Xiuying's hands trembled under the blanket. She wanted to call for her son who was sleeping in the next room, but it felt as if an invisible hand was choking her, and she couldn't utter a sound.
Zhao Xiuying suddenly remembered the dragon god talisman that Mr. Lin had given her the day before yesterday. It was made by mixing cinnabar with water offered in the ancestral hall and drawing it on neatly cut pieces of yellow hemp paper.
Three sheets per household, to be pasted on the front door, kitchen, and inside the main room window.
The talisman that he had pasted by the window was kept in a small wooden box not far from him.
Zhao Xiuying gritted her teeth, suppressing her fear, and slowly moved her arm to open the box. She touched the triangular talisman, its surface rough and the vermilion strokes slightly raised.
Zhao Xiuying clenched it in her hand and pressed it tightly against her heart.
At that very moment.
The window rattled.
It wasn't the wind blowing; it was fingernails scraping, one after another, slowly and rhythmically, as if trying to break the window.
"The dragon god protects us, and evil spirits cannot invade."
"The Dragon God is above, discerning even the smallest detail."
Zhao Xiuying closed her eyes and desperately chanted in her heart, chanting quickly and urgently, like a drowning person grasping at the last straw. She didn't know how many times she chanted it, but suddenly the talisman on her palm became hot.
The heat came suddenly, but it wasn't scorching; it was like a piece of jade warmed by body heat, warming you from your palm all the way to your heart.
At the same time, the scraping sound outside the window disappeared.
Zhao Xiuying mustered her courage and opened her eyes.
The shadow on the window paper is fading, like ink dripping into clear water, disappearing from the edges. The outline of the slender neck blurs first, then the twisted shoulders, and finally the whole figure melts into the night.
Widow Zhao collapsed onto the kang (a heated brick bed), her body drenched in cold sweat. The talisman in her hand was still warm, and a small heart was beating in her palm.
Shanghe Village.
Yang Qianchui had worked hard all day, wielding three hoes and two machetes, until he was so exhausted he could barely lift his arms. He fell into a deep sleep the moment his head hit the kang (heated brick bed), snoring loudly. He was startled awake in the middle of the night.
The sound of a woman crying, faint and sobbing, came and went, sometimes near, sometimes far.
At first glance, it sounds like it's outside the courtyard wall, mournful and desolate.
Listen closely, it sounds like it's from a distance.
Upon closer listening, it seemed to be floating faintly behind the pile of old farm tools in the east corner of the room.
Yang Qianchui sat up abruptly and woke up his wife, Chen Lian, who was beside him.
The couple listened intently, their hair standing on end.
"It hurts so much to be suspended like this! The rope is digging into my flesh! My neck feels like it's going to break! Come on, come on!"
The crying wasn't just crying; it was mixed with words, broken and intermittent, yet the words were chillingly clear. The last two words were drawn out extremely long.
Chen Lian trembled with fear, gripping Yang Qianchui's arm tightly, her nails digging into his strong muscles.
Yang Qianchui took a deep breath. He had been blacksmithing for more than 20 years, braving fire and iron, and his courage was stronger than that of ordinary people. He touched the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), where a dragon god talisman was pasted.
"The Flood Dragon God is here! Evil spirits, begone!"
Yang Qianchui ripped it off, raised it high, and shouted in a deep voice.
The crying stopped abruptly.
A moment later, an even more piercing cry erupted, like that of an enraged beast, sharp enough to pierce eardrums, and the temperature inside the room plummeted.
Yang Qianchui saw his breath instantly condense into white mist, drifting into the darkness. The bowl beside him was covered in frost, making a faint cracking sound.
The most terrifying thing was that the crying began to move.
From the left corner to the right corner, from behind the cabinet to above the roof beam, it drifts erratically, yet remains within the room.
Yang Qianchui felt the talisman in his hand getting hotter and hotter, so hot that it stung his palm, as if he were holding a red-hot charcoal. He gritted his teeth and endured it without moving an inch.
Yang Qianchui and Chen Lian sat back to back, one holding a talisman and the other chanting scriptures with her eyes closed. They endured the biting cold and the mournful cries for about half a cup of tea's time.
Suddenly, the crying turned into a piercing scream that went straight to the brain.
The whistling sound grew louder as it approached and faded into the distance, as if something had burst through the wall, eventually disappearing into the night wind.
The indoor temperature began to rise. The frost melted.
Yang Qianchui released his grip, and the talisman fell onto the kang (a heated brick bed). A corner of the paper was scorched yellow, but the cinnabar strokes remained as red as blood.
Yang Qianchui and Chen Lian collapsed, their heavy breathing unusually loud in the quiet room. Only then did Chen Lian realize that she had been holding her breath the whole time, and now her lungs felt like they were being pricked with needles.
That night, nine households in Shixi Village and Shanghe Village experienced similar harassment.
Some heard footsteps outside the door—not just one person's footsteps, but three or four people, wearing soaking wet shoes, pacing back and forth outside the door for a full half hour. By dawn, there was a puddle of water left at the door, but no footprints were visible.
Sometimes, the water tank in the kitchen would inexplicably foam up in the middle of the night. The foam was grayish-black and viscous, emitting a foul stench like rotting flesh, but not a drop of water was lost from the tank.
Some children cry in their dreams, and when they wake up, they point to the corner of the room and cry out that a dark shadow is eating their dreams and has turned them black! No matter how you try to comfort them, you can't soothe them.
Beneath the century-old locust tree at the entrance of Shixi Village, early risers collecting manure discovered a series of footprints on the ground, wet and sinking half an inch into the mud with each step. The footprints were shaped like humans, with unusually long and thin toes and almost no heels. The footprints came from the riverbank, extending to the locust tree where they disappeared. On the rough bark of the locust tree, about seven feet above the ground, a faint welt could be seen, the bark slightly concave, as if it had been bound by a rope for many years.
Panic spread quietly.