I didn't know how to tell them about the ancestral hall. Losing two sons on the same day was no small blow for an elder of his advanced years; and the reality of a dead father and a mad mother was far too cruel for a five-year-old child.

Wang Jue and I sat beside them, one on each side, sighing, neither of us able to speak.

The old man’s eyes streamed with tears. He took my hand and looked at me through the shimmering wetness, asking in a trembling voice, "Are all the people in the ancestral hall gone?"

I turned my face away and nodded silently, not daring to meet the old man’s eyes again.

"Tell me, why are you two here?"

Though he kept looking at me, I couldn't speak. Deceiving the unfortunate is a very difficult thing to do, because the liar must bear a heavier burden of self-reproach and guilt. I couldn't repeat the flimsy excuse Wang Jue had concocted, nor did I know where to even begin to sort out the tangled mess of events and tell him bit by bit. Thus, silence became my answer.

Wang Jue remained quiet beside me, clearly unsure how to account for the current situation to the old man either.

"Don't be afraid that I can't understand or endure it! Guess how old I am?"

Silence was still his only reply.

"I have lived for seven hundred years, and Gui Zhi for fifty. You two outsiders are probably only in your teens or twenties, right?"

Alas, this answer was entirely unexpected!

"You are seven hundred years old?" I couldn't believe my ears; perhaps the old man had gone mad from excessive grief.

"This is Jingyin Village; it only appears in the mortal realm when the moon rises. Think carefully about how you arrived here, and you should be able to grasp the general idea. What happened to the people in the ancestral hall?" The old man spoke meaningfully, seeming somewhat better than before.

Hearing what the old man said, Wang Jue remained the calmest. He recounted everything that had happened in the mourning hall and everything they had seen in the ancestral hall, detailing it all to the old man. Finally, he briefly explained our purpose for coming here, along the way mentioning the origins of the ill-fated pair, Li Xiaoshu and Li Xiaohao.

The old man nodded as he listened, showing no doubt or denial, nor did he blame us for the village's affairs. When Wang Jue finished speaking, he suddenly asked, "Between those two brothers, which one is the Ming Xiong?"

Wang Jue and I exchanged glances. This term, Ming Xiong, was something we had never heard before. If the question were who among them was not human, the answer would undoubtedly be Li Xiaohao; but as to who the Ming Xiong was, I was slightly bewildered. So, I opened my mouth and asked, "Old Sir, what is a Ming Xiong? This is the first time I have heard that term."

The old man picked up a pipe stem from the ground, and Wang Jue pulled out a lighter from his pocket to help him light it. The old man took the lighter and fiddled with it, saying, "The world is constantly changing. Your world already has this device, but our world is still stuck in the era of witchcraft and curses."

He sighed, and after a long pause, continued, "The Ming Xiong is the twin who failed to complete reincarnation at birth. In the beginning, it is merely a ghost infant; if it successfully matures from a ghost infant into a lingering spirit, it will harbor resentment against the surviving brother for stealing its chance at birth, and will forever be his enemy. The surviving twin will either die young or perish prematurely, for as long as the Ming Xiong exists in the world, it will pursue him, trying every means to drag him into hell."

Hearing his explanation, the questions that had been lodged in my heart for a long time began to surface one after another in my mind. I wanted to ask him more about the lingering spirits; perhaps he held many of the answers.