Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 16: The Invisible Friend (Part 8)

Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 16: The Invisible Friend (Part 8)

Su Xiaoyu couldn’t quite bring herself to stay. She took a few steps toward the door, school bag on her back and walked straight into Zhao Lan and Lin Xiao Fei coming in.

She shot Lin Xiao Fei a look full of anger and disappointment, and left without looking back.

Lin Xiao Fei gripped Zhao Lan’s hand tight. “Mom,” he said in a small voice, “what do I do, I’m still so scared.”

“Xiao Fei.” Zhao Lan didn’t pull her hand away in frustration. Instead, she asked him very calmly: “Why didn’t you tell me the truth back then? If it had been you who fell in the water, and nobody went to save you, you would have been gone from Dad and Mom forever do you understand that? If that had been you, could you have forgiven yourself for doing what you did?”

She had assumed at first that the children shared some peripheral responsibility. She had never imagined the truth would be so much worse than anything she’d pictured and her son, Lin Xiao Fei, had been one of them.

Lin Xiao Fei wiped at tears that refused to stop. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Mom… I was wrong…”

“Go inside and apologize to the uncle and auntie,” Zhao Lan said, and let go of his hand.

Lin Xiao Fei’s fear spiked so sharply he could barely breathe through his sobbing.

Then Zhao Lan’s tone changed suddenly grave, utterly serious. “Lin Xiao Fei. If you don’t apologize to Jiang Hao’s parents today, you will think about this for the rest of your life, and you will regret it forever. Mom knows you’re timid, not cruel. But you cannot keep hiding behind that fear. You have to be brave enough to face what you did wrong.”

At that, Lin Xiao Fei clenched his teeth, fighting to keep himself from dissolving completely. He walked through the door, shoulders shaking with every sob.

He moved slowly across the room and came to stand beside Sun Yang, wooden and stiff as a marionette. Then he bowed deeply toward Jiang Hao’s parents.

“I’m sorry…” “I’m sorry…” “I’m truly sorry, uncle, auntie I was wrong. I was so wrong…”

He stayed bent at the waist, apologizing again and again, tears falling from his face and striking the floor like broken beads.

The woman leaned against her husband and murmured, “What good are apologies? Haohao isn’t coming back.”

“It wasn’t only your fault, child.” The man stroked his wife’s cheek, his voice drained of feeling, hollow. “Go home.”

Whatever small reserve of courage Lin Xiao Fei had managed to gather dissolved in an instant. He pressed his lips together and bolted out the door, throwing himself into his mother’s arms.

Zhao Lan rubbed his back and the back of his head, over and over, and tilted her face up toward the heavy, gray sky. Her own eyes had gone a little wet.

When night fell, Chen Jiu brought Jiang Hao’s parents to Qiming Elementary School. Ms. Xu had heard they were coming and made all the necessary arrangements; the group moved through the building without obstacle and arrived at Class Four, Year One.

At this hour, every classroom was dark and still, emptied of all life. The only light came from the half-open office down the hall, and occasionally a cough drifted out from behind its door, echoing softly through the quiet corridor.

Chen Jiu’s footsteps stopped at the classroom door. It swung open at her approach. She turned on the fluorescent light, and there was Jiang Hao — sitting in his usual seat, perfectly still. From where she stood, the boy appeared to be staring at the ceiling with total absorption, the way he might have listened to a lesson when he was alive.

Jiang Hao’s parents could not see their son’s spirit with their own eyes, but from Chen Jiu’s silence, they understood that he was somewhere in this classroom. A restless, barely contained energy moved through them both.

“When you can see him don’t get too overwhelmed. And don’t reach out to touch him. It will hurt him.” Chen Jiu gave the instructions, then drew a rhinoceros-horn incense stick from her bag. “Close your eyes.”

The couple closed their eyes at once, found each other’s hands, and stood waiting, unsteady with anticipation.

Chen Jiu lit the incense and circled it slowly around them, passing it before their faces, letting it work. After a moment of stillness, she said: “All right. Open your eyes.”

The woman opened her eyes slowly, looked around the room and then looked back toward that familiar seat. And there he was.

“Son Haohao!” She was overwhelmed with joy even as the tears came flooding out. She started forward to throw her arms around her son, then snapped herself back, barely, remembering what Chen Jiu had just said. She stopped where she was, trembling, and let her gaze travel over every feature of his face tracing the lines of his brows, his eyes as though she could memorize a lifetime of him in just these few moments.

There is no grief like a parent who outlives their child.

Chen Jiu raised an eyebrow and drew back the hand she had been about to use to catch her.

A father’s love tends to turn inward. The man stood with reddened eyes, his throat working in silence, swallowing back what he couldn’t say. After a long moment, he asked hoarsely: “Master can we… can we get a little closer?”

He wanted to see his son more clearly. After tonight, there would be no more chances.

Chen Jiu exhaled slowly. “Go ahead.”

With permission given, the couple moved carefully into the classroom, a few small steps at a time.

The thought of what they had been doing these past weeks made the woman feel as though something was cutting through her chest. They had been so foolish taking the word of a fraudster, offering worship to some demon they knew nothing about, and in doing so, had trapped their own son so thoroughly that he couldn’t find his way home, couldn’t do anything but sit in this classroom and repeat the same motions over and over without end. If Su Xiaoyu hadn’t been able to see him, his soul might never have been properly laid to rest by anyone.

“Son, Mom bought you a new school bag,” the woman said, her voice soft and rambling, heart breaking with every word. “It has the character from your favorite cartoon on it. You never got to wear it…”

She missed him so completely the obedient days and the difficult ones, his laughter and his tears. If he could come back to her, she thought, she would let him do whatever he wanted. If he said he never wanted to go to school again, she would say fine. She would give her own life in exchange for his without a second thought.

She wept, and her legs gave out beneath her. The man caught her just in time.

A tear ran down her face and dropped to the floor.

The sound it made was almost nothing. And yet it seemed to reach somewhere deep because in that instant, something changed in Jiang Hao’s eyes. His gaze shifted, and he looked toward where his parents stood. But he stared for a moment in silence, and then his expression dimmed again, as though he had seen nothing at all, and he returned to stillness.

Chen Jiu could see this couldn’t be drawn out any longer. “All right,” she said. “It’s nearly time. Please wait outside for a moment.”

The man took a long, steadying breath, then half-supported, half-carried his wife out of the room.

“Come on, come on,” he murmured to her as they went. “We’re going to bring our son home.”

She didn’t respond. She was probably still crying.

Once the room was cleared, Chen Jiu stilled herself, pinched a talisman between her fingers, and said quietly: “Blessings of the infinite heavens.”

Jiang Hao remained in his seat, not moving at all.

Chen Jiu crouched down and took seven white candles from her bag, arranging them on the floor in the shape of the Big Dipper — the cup opening to the north, the handle pointing south, toward the door.

Soul-guiding lights. Where the seven stars pointed was the path the departed soul was meant to walk.

The candle flames rose and swayed. Chen Jiu placed the rhinoceros-horn incense at the very center of the formation, and the thin thread of white smoke that had been drifting upward quietly seemed to gain purpose it began moving slowly, deliberately, toward where Jiang Hao sat.

Chen Jiu kept her eyes on the smoke. She formed a sword seal with her right hand and began the incantation.

“Wisdom bright and clear, heart and spirit at peace. The three souls endure; the seven souls remain whole.” “Jiang Hao let your soul return”

She drew out a copper bell. With each line she chanted, she rang it once, repeating the cycle through seven complete rounds until at last, Jiang Hao’s spirit slowly rose from his seat and began to walk toward the door.

The soul-guiding candles went out one by one. Chen Jiu rang the bell and walked at an even pace, leading Jiang Hao out of the place that had held him captive for so many weeks.

“You lead the way from here,” she said to the couple when they reached the entrance.

The man hoisted his wife onto his back she had nothing left and said in a low, firm voice: “Let’s go.”

To guide a soul home, every step must be taken on foot. No vehicles, no shortcuts. The weight of the journey honors the bond between the living and the lost, and proves the sincerity of the longing.

The distance was tens of thousands of steps. The man walked it all without a single word. Only when they reached his own front door did he finally sink against the wall, spent entirely.

In the center of the room, Jiang Hao’s body lay quietly in the chest freezer. The altar had been rearranged fresh fruit, incense, candles, and Jiang Hao’s memorial photograph had been set out on it.

Here, it was as though Jiang Hao’s three souls and seven spirits had been returned to him at last. He came back to himself, and stood staring at his own body, at his own photograph, then at his parents weeping with their heads in their hands, and finally at Chen Jiu, whose expression was calm and unreadable.

The rhinoceros-horn incense had long since lost its effect. The couple could no longer see their son they simply let themselves cry, without restraint, pouring out everything they had held in.

How many years had it been since either of them had cried like this? Even when their own parents had died, they had held themselves together, only allowing themselves to break down once every guest had gone. But Jiang Hao was the only thing that had ever given their lives meaning, and the grief was too enormous to contain Chen Jiu’s presence as a stranger no longer mattered.

“It’s time for you to go,” Chen Jiu said to Jiang Hao. “If you wait much longer, they won’t take you below.”

Jiang Hao looked startled. “You can see me?!”

Chen Jiu gave a noncommittal look. She ran her fingers over the bowl of clear water on the altar and let a few drops fall lightly across his forehead, his brows, his eyes, his lips.

“The scattered soul returns at last to its rightful door.” She rang the bell one more time.

The half-closed door swung open wide, and a girl stumbled in. Su Xiaoyu’s eyes went straight to Jiang Hao, and immediately filled with tears.

Behind her, a row of boys practically fell through the doorway. They scrambled to their feet and stood with heads bowed so low they resembled a row of quail, not knowing where to look.

Su Xiaoyu stared at Jiang Hao, watching his gaze track her movements in disbelief.

Jiang Hao, I talked to you so many times, and you never responded once. She felt a little wronged about that, and her lips pressed together.

The other children watched her apparently conversing with empty air, and felt a chill creep through each of them.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t hear anything, and I couldn’t see anything,” Jiang Hao said. He glanced at Chen Jiu. “It was this older sister calling my name that let me come home.”

Su Xiaoyu looked at Chen Jiu with shining eyes. “Boss I knew you were incredible!”

“There really isn’t much time left. If you have things to say to him, say them now.” Chen Jiu cleared her throat, turned away, and pretended to be mildly impatient.

Su Xiaoyu heard the urgency and felt it. She took a few deep breaths, turned to face the boys, and pointed directly at Jiang Hao. “He’s right here! Apologize to him now!”