“Blast it all, it was you long-haired beast causing trouble for me!” In a fit of rage, Young Master Liu swiftly snatched a pebble from the roadside and hurled it at the crow. The crow easily dodged the stone, flapped its wings twice, and then surprisingly dive-bombed straight toward him.

At the moment of crisis, Young Master Liu instinctively crouched down to evade the crow’s attack. With a loud smack, something landed squarely on his head—no need to guess, it was another dollop of freshly baked bird droppings, still warm! Liu frantically brushed it off, every hair on his body standing on end, feeling both disgusted and terrified. When he looked up again, by the time Tian Guoqiang and Little Mazi managed to pick up stones to throw, the crow had wisely flown away.

“Bad luck, truly damned bad luck!” Young Master Liu spat in the direction the crow had flown, muttering curses in his old Northeast dialect.

“Alas! Dog Young Master, not to say it unkindly, but you’re truly out of luck.” Tian Guoqiang pulled several melon seeds from his pocket, popped them into his mouth, and cracked them with his front teeth. After rolling the kernel onto his tongue, he mumbled indistinctly, “After leaving the temple, meeting whatever lantern-carrying little ghosts—that was you; buying that Guan Er Ye statue and getting inexplicably shoved, breaking things—that was also you; and now, the one who got hit with two fresh piles of crow shit right in the face—that’s still you!”

“Tian Guoqiang, don’t gloat!” Young Master Liu pointed a finger at him. “If anything happens to me, the rest of you aren’t getting away either!”

“Besides, a man hangs by his head when he dies. Those old ghosts and little ghosts can at most kill me or turn me into one of them. Once I become a ghost, I won’t be afraid of them anymore. If I don’t mess with them until they’re done for, I’ll write my name, Liu Da Shao, backward!”

“Alright, alright! Dog Young Master, you’ve grown bold.” Tian Guoqiang chuckled.

“My guts have always been plenty big,” Young Master Liu asserted, lifting his chin.

“Enough, enough. Let’s not listen to your rambling nonsense. Don’t blow so hard you scare all the village cows away; those old cowherders won’t forgive you.” Tian Guoqiang rubbed his shrunken, hungry belly, glanced at the sunset, and let out a yawn. “It’s getting late, I’m heading back first. See you tomorrow! Remember to be careful tonight! Before you sleep, it’s best to stick something under your pillow. If anything happens, don’t care if it’s a person or a ghost—grab it and chop. To hell with it, blade in white, blade out red.”

“That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it! I could sleep naked on the plank bed, and those ghosts wouldn’t dare touch me. If a female ghost prettier than a swallow showed up, better yet, I’d subdue her right then and there!” Young Master Liu joked with a playful grin.

Hearing this, Little Mazi stepped forward and punched Young Master Liu. “Hey, Dog Young Master, that’s not being a decent friend. I haven’t even held a girl’s hand yet. If you run into a female ghost, at least let me touch her, hehe, I wonder what that feels like!”

“Get lost, you pockmarked face. You won’t touch a pretty woman in this lifetime. Of course, if you don’t mind, the door of Old Man’s daughter is open to you,” Young Master Liu teased, winking slyly.

“Old Man’s daughter?” Little Mazi blinked, then realized. “Holy crap, she looks like a huge hippopotamus. You take her!”

“I can’t. A friend’s wife must not be deceived. Why don’t you ask Tian Guoqiang! I remember he likes that sort—he stares so hard at a widow bathing, he can’t even look away…”

“Dog Young Master, we’re not done yet!” Tian Guoqiang nearly jumped up.

The three immediately tumbled into a heap, laughing good-naturedly with their mouths, but the thoughts in each of their minds were unusually heavy, though they showed none of it.

An ineffable dread had already cast a deep shadow over the hearts of these youths.

As twilight descended, the sun dimmed; its red was no longer so dazzling, its gold no longer so brilliant. In the courtyard, Old Man Liu, draped in a coat, was fiddling with a wooden bucket and bamboo pole, clearly tinkering with something. Wang Guihua trotted behind him with a rag, dusting here and wiping there, never satisfied with cleanliness.

“You scamp, you’re back!” Seeing Young Master Liu walking toward them step by step, Old Man Liu spread his aged face into a bright, sunny smile.

“Mm,” Young Master Liu nodded.

“Help me out in a bit. We need to tidy this room up; it hasn’t been cleaned in over a year, probably crawling with roaches and rats.”

“Dad, you can relax! Our situation isn’t great anyway, and Mom locks up the food in the big cabinet. If I’m hungry, I have to find two keys just to open it. Rats coming into our house probably leave with tears in their eyes,” Young Master Liu replied.

“Besides, I ran around all day today. I’m exhausted; my legs are practically broken.”

“You’ve got too many complaints. If you don’t work later, there’s no meat for dinner!” Old Man Liu frowned, handing the bamboo pole to Young Master Liu.

“Tie the feather duster to that, and start sweeping the cobwebs off the roof first.”

Swallowing hard, faced with the choice between not working and not eating, Young Master Liu resolutely chose the latter. He reluctantly took the pole and walked toward the house, swaying with every step.

“Since the child is tired, you should let him rest, you arsenic-hearted man!” Wang Guihua, who doted on her son, said with concern, watching Young Master Liu’s retreating back.

“You, what can I say about you? You can’t spoil this child. Look at how you indulged him from a young age; look what he’s turned into now,” Old Man Liu said earnestly.

“But…”

“Don’t say another word. A little work won’t kill him.”

“Ouch!” Just then, halfway there, Young Master Liu suddenly staggered and nearly fell to the ground. Two large beads of sweat tracked down his temples, and a burning, stinging pain shot through his lower back, as if someone were stabbing his flesh with needles.

Fortunately, the pain arrived quickly and left just as fast, vanishing without a trace in the span of a single breath. So Young Master Liu didn't dwell on it, only offered a few words back to his loving mother, Wang Guihua, before stepping over the threshold.

The moment he entered the room, a blast of cold air rushed down from above his head. That unusual chill made the hair on the back of his neck prickle right up from his soul.

He shuddered violently and looked up.

There was a hole in the roof, letting the wind through.

“Pah!” Young Master Liu spat hatefully and walked deeper into the room.

“Dad, can’t you see the roof is broken? Why are you messing around with women’s things!”

“Where?”

“Right above your old head!”

“Damn it, how did this tile break? Guihua, bring me a ladder quickly, I’ll fix it…”

Seeing his father busy, Young Master Liu finally breathed a sigh of relief. He picked up the large enamel mug and poured a glass of the cooled tea that had been steeping, gulping it down until his stomach was round as a small watermelon. It was no wonder; he’d been running all day—climbing mountains, walking, and riding a tractor. He hadn’t had a drop of water, and his throat was parched enough to smoke.

“That felt great!” Setting down the mug, Young Master Liu squinted his eyes and said. Then, facing the mirror in the living room, he began preening his hair with a comb. But just as the comb swept down, he accidentally caught a glimpse of a fleeting white shadow behind him in the reflection.

When he looked again, the shadow was gone.

“Seeing things, just seeing things…” Young Master Liu laughed self-deprecatingly, put down the comb, and went to clear the cobwebs from the roof.