The Lost Tomb : Extras & Special Stories

(Extra Story: 2009 Chinese New Year Special) Chapter 1: Shrine Hall

This village was no different from the new countryside. (Translator's note: apparently this "building a new countryside" movement was done in the early 2000s by China's government to coordinate urban and rural development and gear up national economic growth).

It happened after New Year's Day in a certain year, but I can't remember the exact date. It was freezing cold during that time and I must've stayed in Hangzhou during this season, either staying at home or occasionally going to the shop. Basically, it was unlikely that I would go out of town under such circumstances. But that year was an exception—I had to travel over long distances with my family to return to a mountain village on the edge of Changsha.

The village is our ancestral village and its name is Maoshajing.

From the outside, this village was no different from the new countryside of today—the houses were built high and the walls were pasted with fancy porcelain tiles. A little further inside was the old village with many old yellow mud houses along the mountain. They were really very old houses and it was almost impossible to find out when the first wooden beam was erected. Most of them were occupied by the elderly, but some of them had been left unattended and were vacant. As a whole, the houses were leaning and looked ready to collapse.

We didn't come back to the ancestral village to catch up on the old days. In fact, from my birth up until now, I could count on one hand the number of times I had returned to my hometown, especially after I went to college. There were no entertainment facilities and only a few TV channels that I could receive in these ten miles. Naturally, I didn't want to stay.

But this time I had to come back—not only me, but also Uncle Three, Uncle Two, and my father.

On the surface, it seemed that something big had happened in the village, but the actual reason made me speechless: the highway was going to be built here. The road would pass just through the old cemetery, so the family's ancestral graves had to be moved, otherwise they would be bulldozed.

This kind of thing seemed very pointless to me, but the old men in the village valued it very much. Moving ancestral graves involved changing feng shui and disturbing the ancestors, which was a big event. My father was the eldest son, and our branch of the Wu family was the most prosperous in the village, so my father and uncles had to come back to take charge of the overall situation—in fact, they had to pay most of the money.

My father was notoriously accommodating and also agreed to let me and several cousins return home to recognize our ancestors. So we all came back here.

Originally, I had a little hope—with many people getting back together at this time, it might be more interesting than before. After all, in the mountains you could have some fun as long as you had company. I vaguely remembered that my cousin might still have an old shotgun, and thought hunting might be a good way to pass the time.

Unexpectedly, our party had just arrived when Uncle Two was taken away to handle the feng shui. Uncle Three was very familiar with this place and came by more than fifty times a year, so when he arrived, he looked for someone to play mahjong with. My father was approached by several old members of his family to discuss the matter, but he knew I was restless and wouldn't let me run away. They discussed things in front of the ancestral hall while I was left to wander around inside alone.

Our ancestral hall was on the border of the old village. It was a big house, but it was different from the old houses on TV—although it was also painted with yellow mud, there were no white walls or black tiles. The first thing you would see when entering the hall was a courtyard. There was a pavilion-like stage in the middle of the courtyard, and the hall was further inside. The hall itself was tall and big, but looking up at the roof showed it was full of holes and must be impossible to waterproof on rainy days. The ancestral tablets were placed at the end of the hall—there were many niche-like holes dug in the wall, each with two tablets inscribed with the names of our ancestors. There was a table in front of the spirit tablets, but the candles had been switched out with electric ones.

This ancestral hall was built by my grandfather, so it had been around for a long time. The Wu family wasn't very prosperous, and the most populated branch had moved to Hangzhou, so the ancestral hall was passable. I looked for grandpa's spirit tablet, which was one of the bigger ones. In fact, because my grandfather went to Hangzhou, he shouldn't be allowed in this ancestral hall according to the rules. But now that I was here, I thought maybe it was one of his tricks thought up during his lifetime.

It was extremely boring in such a place, and since the weather was cold and there was no one in the ancestral hall, I couldn't bear it and began to touch everywhere, reading the couplets and looking at the merit monuments. At that time, I suddenly found that there was a corridor on the side of the hall which led to a door. After going out the door, I saw a vacant lot where an old thatched cottage sat.

At that time, I didn't think much of it and walked over— there was sun in the open space and the thatched cottage looked very old and was locked with a big iron chain, which was very intriguing.

When I walked to the edge of the cottage to look at the lock, I found it was really old.

The cottage's windows were two large holes, and the window frames were pasted with very old newspapers—there was obviously glass.

I was bored so I looked inside. The light was very faint, but I could vaguely see that the mud floor was full of dry wood, on top of which sat a coffin covered in dry mud.

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The light in the thatched cottage was dim, so I could only see that it was an old-fashioned coffin—a large wooden box with a big top and a small bottom, but it wasn't very big, unlike the coffins of large families that you would see on TV. The coffin was covered with so much mud that its contours could hardly be seen.

This coffin made my heart beat a little faster, which aroused my infinite curiosity. Although the memory wasn't very clear, it seemed that this ancestral hall was originally related to the coffin, since family funerals and ancestral halls were the places where dead bodies rested during the rituals. I still remember that when grandpa died, his body stayed here. Since it was still midsummer at that time, a Taoist priest sealed the stench using a generally a cumbersome ceremony which I can't remember clearly. So it shouldn't have been surprising that there were coffins here.

The question was: why was this coffin placed in the thatched hut behind the ancestral hall and covered in dry mud? According to the surrounding cobwebs, the thickness of dust, and the degree of rust on the locks, it could be seen that this coffin had been sitting here for quite a long time. Whether it was ten years ago or a few decades ago, why was this coffin carried here and left like that until now? Was there a body in the coffin? If so, who was it?

In an instant, many thoughts flashed through my mind, and I felt a little antsy. It seemed that there was a story behind this ancestral hall, this thatched cottage, and the ancient coffin inside.

But I was wearing a new ME CITY shirt I bought a few days ago, and my skill wasn't agile enough; otherwise, I would definitely climb in and have a closer look. But I knew that even if I went in, I couldn't see anything—I couldn't pry open the coffin—and who knew what was inside? After looking for a long time, I angrily turned and walked around the thatched cottage where I found a piece of farmland. I walked down the ridge of the field and found that the farmland had been abandoned for a long time and was overgrown with weeds. This was supposed to be our family's share of the ancestral land—it was a pity that all three of my grandpa's sons weren't made for farming, and the land had become such a wasteland.

I could see other people's land further ahead because it was always easy to make out where the boundary was—there was the hillside, which extended from the path down to the next section of the terrace.

To keep going was pointless. I was thinking about how much these lands would cost if they were in Hangzhou while I walked back to the hall. I didn't know if dad and the others had finished their talk, but if they hadn't, then I would just listen from the side. It was better to practice listening to the Changsha dialect than hang around here, anyways. When I passed the thatched cottage, I took another look inside.

The sun was a little weaker, and the room was darker, so I couldn't see anything clearly.

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