Chapter Twelve: The River God

I didn’t know why Uncle Zhuzi was telling me all this. He could see that I was anxious to hear how he had managed to retrieve the fool’s body from the Twelve Ghost Caves. Sitting at the edge of the bed, squinting, he said to me, “Yezi, don’t be impatient. What I’m about to tell you, you must relay to your elder brother when you return.”

I wanted to say something, but he stopped me, saying, “Whether he believes it or not, that’s up to him.”

I nodded and sat beside Uncle Zhuzi, lighting a cigarette for him. “Uncle, please go on.”

Uncle Zhuzi’s first wife was said to have been taken by the Dragon King, which was how the villagers explained it. To be more precise, she was killed by lightning. In the villagers’ hearts, the Dragon King commands the clouds and the rain, and controls thunder and lightning. So anyone struck dead by lightning was believed to have committed sins and been taken by the Dragon King, fulfilling the will of heaven.

His first wife, Xiu’e, was a hot-tempered woman—a typical village shrew. Uncle Zhuzi himself was mild and never blamed her, so not only did she quarrel with neighbors often, but she was also harsh to his elderly mother, cursing her at every turn. She’d let food go bad before giving it to the old woman. Uncle Zhuzi had no temper, but he was a dutiful son, so he decided to leave this woman. At that time, divorce was a serious matter, and besides, his mother was firmly against it. She told him, “I’m nearly in my grave. Suffering is nothing, but if you become a widower, I won’t rest in peace when I’m gone. If you dare divorce her, I won’t live.”

Uncle Zhuzi understood his mother couldn’t bear to see the family fall apart, so she was willing to suffer for its sake. Because of her words, he endured in silence and secretly cooked food for her. But Xiu’e eventually discovered this. Hands on her hips, she cursed Uncle Zhuzi and his mother until the air turned blue. The whole neighborhood came out to watch the spectacle. She felt no shame, only grew fiercer in her tirade. In the end, she forced Uncle Zhuzi’s mother to kneel before her and promise that she would never let her son secretly cook for her again before she relented.

That night, Uncle Zhuzi’s mother called him to her bedside, once again instructing him not to divorce Xiu’e. The family was poor, and the couple had no children. If he divorced her, he’d never find another wife, and the family line would be broken. She said Xiu’e was hot-tempered, but once she herself was gone and Xiu’e had children, she would gradually change. Every young woman had a bit of temper.

The next morning, Uncle Zhuzi’s mother hanged herself from the beam in the house. When Uncle Zhuzi saw her, he went mad. Xiu’e, usually overbearing, was terrified when she saw her mother-in-law dead and her husband’s bloodshot eyes, blazing with rage. That time, Uncle Zhuzi, who had always endured in marriage, took up a stick and beat Xiu’e so badly she couldn’t leave her bed for a month.

Afterwards, remembering his promise to his mother, Uncle Zhuzi didn’t divorce Xiu’e. After her mother-in-law’s death and the beating, Xiu’e’s temper mellowed somewhat. But just three days after she recovered, while weeding in the fields, Xiu’e was struck by lightning and died on the spot.

The villagers all said Xiu’e deserved her fate, that her lack of filial piety had angered the Dragon King, who took her soul. But whatever outsiders said, and whatever wrongs Xiu’e had committed, death wipes the slate clean. Especially for Uncle Zhuzi—no matter how bad she was, at least she was industrious, keeping the house in order and working tirelessly in the fields. Now that she was gone, Uncle Zhuzi bore her no grudge.

Two years later, through someone’s arrangement, Uncle Zhuzi met his second wife and married her quickly. Her name was Xiulian, very similar to Xiu’e’s, almost like sisters.

The second wife was completely different from the first. She spoke softly, was gentle, and was so shy she barely dared talk to the neighbors—a bashful girl. Soon, Xiulian became pregnant. But in the fourth month of her pregnancy, Uncle Zhuzi came home from the fields to find Xiulian lying in the house, incontinent.

After the village barefoot doctor sobered her up, Xiulian’s eyes were vacant, and she had become mentally impaired. The child in her womb was lost. The doctor told Uncle Zhuzi that Xiulian must have seen something truly terrifying. Otherwise, no healthy person would suddenly become like that.

Uncle Zhuzi immediately thought of Xiu’e. Just days before, Xiulian had been dreaming the same dream nightly—Xiu’e crying before her, saying she’d sinned and couldn’t bear children for Uncle Zhuzi, now suffering in the underworld, grateful for Xiulian taking care of him.

When Xiulian told Uncle Zhuzi about her dreams, he laughed at her timidity. Then this happened, and he naturally suspected Xiu’e was behind it.

Having long since forgotten Xiu’e’s sins, Uncle Zhuzi now hated her bitterly. At that time, a man sought him out—the very one whose name Uncle Zhuzi refused to divulge, making me suspect he was someone I knew, likely a villager.

This man found Uncle Zhuzi and performed a ritual to extinguish Xiu’e’s soul, using the sky lantern. Uncle Zhuzi didn’t spell it out, but I could sense he felt guilty about it, for when he spoke of this, his face was full of remorse.

“Originally, I had the sky lantern ritual done for Xiu’e to save Xiulian, but after it was performed, Xiulian didn’t recover and passed away in a few months. That man came to me then, knelt before me, and said he’d made two mistakes in his life: failing to save your father, Ye Tiancheng, and wrongly condemning Xiu’e by extinguishing her soul with the lantern,” Uncle Zhuzi said.

Once he finished, I patted his shoulder in comfort. I finally understood why he insisted on telling me this story first—he wanted me to know the unnamed man was not my father’s killer.

“I’ll relay what you told me to my brother. Now, I want to hear about how you retrieved the fool’s body,” I said.

Uncle Zhuzi nodded and continued.

When the fool drowned that year, Uncle Zhuzi, who made his living fishing in the Luo River and owned a boat, was approached by Chen Stone. Chen begged him to recover the body. Though he knew Chen couldn’t pay him, relationships then were simple—everyone was a neighbor. Uncle Zhuzi agreed. Just as he was about to set out to search for the fool’s body, that man came to him and handed him a talisman.

He said nothing else, only instructed him to wear it close to his body, never to remove it. Uncle Zhuzi trusted the man, so he put it in the pocket closest to his skin.

Uncle Zhuzi used a drag hook to recover bodies—a large array of hooks dragged through the water. When the hook caught a body, it would pull it up. This type of hook is still used by body retrievers today, and in many places it’s called the “ghost-head hook.”

He started searching at the spot where the fool drowned, moving downstream, searching for three days without success. By then, he was approaching the Twelve Ghost Caves. Uncle Zhuzi worried the fool’s body would be caught in the underwater currents and sucked into the caves. He resolved to cast one last hook; if he didn’t find the body, he’d pack up. He didn’t dare enter the caves themselves.

Just as he was about to reel in the hook, something suddenly floated to the surface—something that looked like a person. He rowed over, and even from a distance recognized the swollen, bloated body as the fool’s. He quickly threw the hook, catching the body in one go. He circled the body several times with his boat, making sure the rope was wrapped tightly. But as he tried to haul it aboard, something below seemed to pull hard, as if holding the body back. Uncle Zhuzi gripped the rope and battled the force beneath the water.

He thought it was a big fish.

In those days, the river was less crowded, and fishermen were few. The Luo River had many big fish. Uncle Zhuzi had caught fish over two meters long. Many carnivorous fish—like catfish—can attack people, so he instinctively believed a giant catfish was trying to eat the fool’s body.

He didn’t let go, but realized he couldn’t match the force beneath the water. As he tried to play it like a hooked fish, a sudden surge pulled him down into the river.

Just as I was caught up in his tale, Uncle Zhuzi paused and asked, “Do you have any more cigarettes?”

I jumped, but quickly handed him one and lit it. He took a deep drag and said, “After I fell into the water, I realized it wasn’t a fish, but a coffin—a stone coffin. An arm reached out from the coffin and grabbed the fool. That was what held him.”

“An arm? Human?” I stared wide-eyed.

Uncle Zhuzi nodded, then shook his head. He looked at me and said, “The arm was human, but I don’t know if there was a person inside the coffin. I thought I was going to die, but just then, the talisman suddenly sprang from my body and struck that arm. I seized the moment to surface and managed to pull the fool’s body onto the boat, fleeing for my life.”

I quietly lit another cigarette.

Just as I thought Uncle Zhuzi had finished, he went on, “As I rowed away, I glanced back and saw, beneath the water, something like a giant beast stirring up huge waves, rushing into the Twelve Ghost Caves.”

“And then?” I swallowed hard.

“I got back to shore, dragged the fool’s body onto land, and found that man. He told me it was the river god, the god of the Luo River, and instructed me to keep this secret, never to tell a soul,” Uncle Zhuzi said softly.