After mocking Zhao Jie's father, Uncle Sun called to the dummy in the yard. "Roll on the ground dummy!" When he didn't move, Uncle Sun shouted again. "Roll, I said!"
The boy dropped down and rolled on the ground. He giggled wildly at Uncle Sun.
Uncle Sun looked down on the man and said arrogantly, "Dummy, I'd be your father if your mother really came back as a ghost."
The fool didn't understand and went on giggling.
Although he was foolish, the boy was one of the villagers, and Uncle Sun was being excessive. An older woman walked to him and placed a hesitant hand on his arm. "Don't, Sun. His mother just died, after all."
Uncle Sun restrained himself under the pressured gaze of those around him. He kicked his boot into the rolling boy's flabby rear, ushering him towards the yard.
The child giggled at Uncle Sun before entering the yard. Zhao Jie and I stood scared in the distance. Uncle Sun pulled his arm away from the woman, "He's is too foolish to be sad about anyone's death."
Mom and I headed back to our house at noon, where she cooked lunch. She told me of the gifts some villagers gave to poor Xiao Chun and we talked about what he would do now. He could not prepare a meal for those who helped him, so the villagers had returned home to eat. I don't know why I asked, but the thought popped out of me, "Did anybody cook for Xiao Chun?"
"Yes," she told me, "The Village Head asked Xiao Chun's neighbor to cook for him. They'll send a meal his way."
Finishing lunch, mom and I laid down to rest. Resting my head on the straw pillow, I heard Zhao Jie's mom shouting from outside my window, "Fu Xia, Fu Xia, Xiao Chun's family has been cursed! His mother's corpse stood up!"
My mom shot out of bed as soon as she heard this. She rushed out, pulling me by her side to see what happened.
Zhao Jie's mother told us everything.
The villagers left Xiao Chun's home at noon. His neighbor, Wang Erhua's wife was cooking noodles for her family and him. She'd brought over a helping of noodles for him shortly after they had cooled. On her way to his house, she noticed that all of the volunteers had left the yard in disarray. Walking through the cluttered yard and up to the door she stood outside and called his name.
"Dummy! I don't want to come inside. Come get your lunch, ya' hear?"
But no one replied to her. Even Xiao Chun's silly giggling had disappeared. The whole yard was quiet. Even the cicada's buzz was muted that summer evening.
"There's a body inside that house." she thought and swallowed a lump that had risen in her throat.
"But, the Village Head asked me to feed the fool. If I don't because I'm afraid of a little dead old lady, I'll be mocked all over town."
Wang Erhua's wife silently dared herself to enter. Then her eyes moved in the direction of Xiao Chun's dead mother.
She froze where she stood and gripped the bowl of noodles in hands that had turned a stark white. Xiao Chun's mother was dressed in black clothes, sitting straight up in a chair by the doorway and staring out with wide blank eyes. Xiao Chun squatted next to his mother, eating the steamed bun offerings that were meant for a dead woman.
The noodles spread all over the floor with a crash. "Ghosts!" She shouted and then stumbled out of the yard.
While Zhao Jie's mother finished telling us everything, we arrived at Xiao Chun's doorway. There were many people crowded around the house.
Zhao Jie's mother whispered to us, "Thank you for coming with me, my husband said he would arrive soon with many others."
Zhao Jie came out of the crowd as we arrived. He called my name and my mom let me go. "You two go play in the distance." She called after us.
Zhao Jie dragged me to the other side, "Do you know what happened?" He breathed, "The corpse of dummy's mother stood up!"
I nodded, telling him what his mother had said. "Did you see it, uh, her?" I asked.
"Absolutely, I saw it!" He almost yelled, "When Wang Erhua's wife started screaming, I was pooping in the washroom. I almost fell down when I heard her crying. I cleaned myself up and ran out to see. Nobody was around yet, so I went into the yard to look." He was grinning and looking around.
Zhao Jie was braver than me. I shivered when I heard he had entered the yard alone.
"You went in alone?" I asked.
"Shit, I wouldn't have even gone in the yard if I knew what bouncing corpses were really like."
"Bouncing corpses?" I asked.
"It means that the dead move." He whispered.
I was cold all over.
"What did you see?"
He told me that Dummy was eating muddy noodles off the floor when he went in. "Of course Dummy doesn't care about eating a little dirt…" Zhao Jie trailed off.
"Did you see his mother?"
He looked at me worriedly, "I saw her. I wanted to ask Dummy to stop eating dirty noodles. I told him I would take him somewhere clean to eat, but then he looked inside the room and I followed his eyes. His mother smiled at me! Heck! I was so scared, I couldn't move." His face was very pale.
"Did she try to eat you?" I practically screamed at him.
Zhao Jie said angrily, "Nonsense! I would not be standing in front of you if she tried to eat me!"
A few adults had turned towards us. They parted ways and Zhao Jie's father pushed up to us.
"Stay here boys." He looked at Zhao Jie. "I'll deal with you later."
Zhao Jie's dad went into the house without a moment of hesitation. The dead woman was still sitting in the chair, but her eyes were closed and no hint of a smile shone on her pallid face. He looked around the room for a few moments and came out of the door before the crowd.
"There are no bouncing corpses!" He told the crowd in a very authoritative voice. "The woman's body was lifted into the chair by her son, there is still straw under where she sits from the resting place and all over Xiao Chun."
The crowd began to murmur and several people asked why Dummy would move his mother. Zhao Jie's father called "Maybe he was hungry and he wanted his mom to cook for him?"
An audible sigh of pity slipped through the crowd.
Finally, Zhao Jie's father moved the corpse back. With Xiao Chun to blame, everything calmed down.
But, Zhao Jie said that he saw Dummy's mother smiling at him and I believed him. We were positive that she had become a ghost.
We went to his father and asked how to keep a ghost from eating us. Zhao Jie's dad said with a slight smile, "Go find some wood ashes to scatter in front of the doorway. Do this and the ghosts will never bother you."
Zhao Jie and I went back home to get wood ashes from the oven. We each took a dustpan and brought them to the house. Carefully, we scattered ashes in front of the door.
"What if that's not enough?" I thought out loud. So we went out, found more wood ash to scatter around our houses. After finishing, we began to play happily, making various shapes with the scattered ashes.
I made a Sky Door Maze and Zhao Jie made the Stone Fortress. "It was invented by Zhuge Liang." He told me.
My father often told Zhao Jie and I stories about the Three Kingdoms. Zhuge Liang, a statesman, strategist, and prime minister of the Kingdom of Shu in the period of the Three Kingdoms, was our idol.
The ashes in my hand blew in the wind. Tiny black pieces scattered into my mouth and got into my eyes. I cried out in pain.
"AHHH! I'm blind!"
"Stay here, I'll get help!" Zhao Jie went to find my mom. She hurried to us and we went to the village clinic. The doctor gave me first aid, checked carefully, and told me I'd be fine. I would still have my sight.
Though I could still see, the whites of my eyes had turned a dark red. "Pinkeye," The doctor had called it.
Mom punished me for being so foolish with the wood ash. Fortunately, the skin on my butt was thick. I could still walk and play after that beating.
What I didn't know at the time was that the warding wood ash that landed in my eyes had given me a special ability, which would accompany me for the next twenty years.
Later called 'Supernatural Eyes' by a master I wouldn't meet for quite some time. This ability allowed me to see what was invisible to others.