My mother was a descendant of the Queen Mother of the West, yet after she died, her grave was dug open and her corpse vanished without a trace.

Half a year later, when my father was dredging corpses from the great river, he pulled up a coffin from a thousand-year-old temple, and I saw her again.

She lay like a sleeping celestial maiden, her features uncorrupted, a beauty that shook one to the core.

But my father pretended not to know and used her to breed a corpse gu.

Until the master told me:

“A gu taken from the Yin-Suppressing Tomb of Barren Mountain must be paid for with a life.”

A great river ran past the entrance of our village, thick with people who had done away with themselves, and my father’s work was fishing the corpses out.

One day he hauled up a century-old coffin and smuggled it home that very night.

Granny rained curses on it—bad luck, an ill omen—but her eyes kept drifting back to the red coffin as she muttered:

“If a coffin this fine were saved for me when I die, I would live in luxury even down in the underworld.”

My father gave a sweeping wave of his hand. “It is all yours, Mother. If anything good turns up inside, it all goes to you.”

I shrank into a corner, watching his insatiable face and thinking: can the things of the dead truly be claimed as one’s own?

When my father, with great effort, pried the coffin open, every one of us sucked in a cold breath.

As the dust settled, a beauty with skin like white jade lay quietly within. Her features were uncorrupted, her beauty heart-stopping.

But only I stood frozen on the spot, tears pooling in my eyes.

“Father. This is clearly my mother.”

The mother whom he and Granny, despising her for failing to bear a son, had falsely branded an adulteress and beaten to death.

I had searched in secret for her body for so long, yet it was nowhere to be found; I never dreamed my own father would dredge it up out of the river.

But why had her body stayed uncorrupted for half a year, looking like a young lady of a great household?

“Wretched girl, shut your filthy mouth. Don’t spout nonsense.”

“Your mother died long ago. Your father buried her bones with his own hands.”

Granny refused to believe it. She slapped me hard across the face again and again, staring at me as though she could eat me alive.

My father only shot me a glare and said nothing. I thought they were simply deceiving themselves: her skin tone had changed, that was all, but the face was still there—how could they fail to recognize it?

“Go on. Strip off her clothes and trinkets—they are still worth good money.”

I held back; this was a dead body, and I was afraid, but my hesitation earned me another beating.

Fighting down my fear, I changed the corpse into my mother’s old, tattered, reeking clothes.

But the moment my hands touched her skin, I saw the many wounds. My tears would not stop then. This was my mother.

I remembered the scars of every size on her body—just like mine, all put there by Granny and Father.

Word had it that I was born premature, and so they suspected Mother had taken a lover.

As Granny so often said: “The firstborn of our Zhang family ought to be a son. Every child I bore was a son. Why does hers come out a daughter?”

“The wicked woman has shamed my boy.”

She never tired of needling Mother with those words, of beating her.

Back then Mother still dreamed of running away with me, but the village had so few people that someone was always watching, and so we could never escape these mountains.

Besides, rumor said Mother was a descendant of the Queen Mother of the West and her blood could cure illness—but it was all false.

It was a lie Granny herself spread. She locked Mother in the cellar and made her give blood to bring extra income into the house.

Whenever Mother refused, Granny would beat me within an inch of my life; Mother had always doted on me and could not bear to see me wronged.

Time after time they drew her blood, and with so little to eat she wasted away to nothing; when at last no more blood could be drawn, Granny would not give her food at all.

I remember those last days of my mother’s life. When I slipped down to the cellar to feed her, she was black and blue all over, with not one patch of good flesh on her.

She was thin as a skeleton. I was growing older, and I remembered these things more and more clearly.

Even in my dreams I thought of taking Mother away from here, but it was no use: before I was grown, she was dead.

Once she had no more use to them, they beat her to death.

Afterward they even blamed Mother for not being able to take a beating, while telling outsiders she had taken a lover and, caught in the act, killed herself out of guilt.

Once stripped, the frame of the corpse was as thin as my mother’s. No—she was my mother. But they would not admit it.

My tears fell on her withered red lips. Was it my imagination? I could have sworn those red lips moved.

In the night, such an eerie illusion made one’s scalp prickle.

I hurriedly finished changing the clothes and backed far away. My father, however, went over the body for a long while, until at last, when he drew out a pearl hidden under its tongue, the flesh rotted through on the instant, a rank, fishy stench hitting our noses and setting Granny retching where she stood.

That night, when I got up to relieve myself, shrill howls came, wave after wave, from the cellar where my mother had spent her last days.

I was too terrified to make a sound and scurried back to the kang.

The next day my father proposed using the corpse to breed gu, and Granny agreed with both hands.

I timidly reminded him: “Father. Disrespect toward the dead is a grave taboo.”

But I knew he was a chauvinist to the bone who could not bear to be contradicted.

My words were sure to anger him, and just before his hand could land, I ran off and hid in the pigsty.

Numbly I watched him gather insects of every kind and put them into the coffin, beginning to breed the gu.

“Mother, this yin gu is the most venomous and dark of all; the corpse gu it produces will be superb.”

“The manual says it will not only guard and prosper the house, it will ensure our family line never breaks and our descendants flourish.”

“Haven’t you always wanted a grandson? It will soon come true.”

They stood there excitedly picturing the future, while I quietly lowered my eyes to hide the hatred in them.

To get in my father’s good graces, I offered to go with them to Barren Mountain to catch snakes and insects.

My father was in rare good humor and even gave me half a cornbread bun, telling me to stay with Granny along the way.

Delighted, I followed Granny, letting her grumble and curse however she pleased the whole way.

But with dark clouds covering the sun, when I chanced to look up I saw a rotting corpse floating at Granny’s side, turbid fluid dripping from its body, its decayed face twisted in a feral glare fixed on her.

Streams of that murky slime ran from the corpse all over Granny, but she could not see it and went on, fluent and foul-mouthed in her abuse.

My legs went weak. Fighting the urge to bolt, I kept well away from Granny.

“Bastard girl. Tell me—wasn’t your mother’s body stolen by that wild man of hers?”

“Why didn’t he take you, you money-losing little wretch, along with it?”

I followed behind in silence, meekly gathering up several snakes. As for why my mother’s body had vanished—surely they knew perfectly well.

The rotting corpse followed all the way, and each time I looked at her I was frightened out of my wits; especially when my eyes met hers and she looked back.

An icy aura crept over my skin, setting every hair on end; fortunately I swallowed my fear and ignored her presence.

I could not have named the feeling in my heart, but I knew she would not hurt me. As for the others—they all deserved to die.

The deeper into Barren Mountain we went, the colder the ill wind blew; when Granny ran out of things to curse, she fell silent and tugged her clothes about her. Still cold, no doubt, she turned her thoughts to me.

“Filthy girl, don’t you know to respect your elders? Take off your clothes and give them to me.”

She glared at me viciously, and when I would not move, she set to stripping them off herself.

Once she had my clothes on, I said quietly: “Granny, if you are cold, wait for me here. I will go search on my own.”

Naturally she refused. “Bastard girl. Don’t you dare try some trick to run off, the way your whore of a mother did.”

Looking at her cruel, dark face, I said nothing and simply led her deeper into Barren Mountain.

My mother had once told me there was a place deep in Barren Mountain no one should go, where the snakes and insects swarmed thickest—and quietly, I led Granny straight to it.

As gusts of ill wind swept in, I seemed to catch a heavy fishy reek, along with a faint, elusive fragrance rising from Granny herself.

Soon countless snakes appeared from nowhere, every last one of them swarming onto Granny. She screamed and fled in terror, but the snakes only came in thicker and thicker.

Watching her grab at the snakes in a frenzy and throttle them, I took the chance to gather what she missed; her head was so thick with snakes she could not see that not a single one came near me.

The silent mountain was full of her screams. She seemed in agony, no doubt—but it could not have been one thousandth of what my mother suffered.

Wherever the snakes had bitten her, the rotting corpse dripped its slime onto the wounds; could she have seen it in that moment, she would have died of fright on the spot.

At last Granny lay bitten half to death, sprawled on the ground, half dead; only then did I take off my shoes and scatter the medicinal powder all around.

Watching the snakes fall away, I cried out in a trembling voice: “Granny! Are you all right?”

“I will take you home.”

I was too small to carry her and could only drag her the whole way home. Granny was swollen all over, her face blue and puffed; she may have meant to curse me.

But not a single word would come. The rotting corpse pushed her from behind as well; I felt no force myself, but Granny was covered all the more in that rotting fluid.

I was frightened: my father was a famously filial son, and I had no idea what he would do when he saw what had befallen Granny.

I had little strength, and on the way back my dragging took us past the doors of Second Uncle and Third Uncle.

Seeing Granny in that state, neither woman nor ghost, they were both ready to pretend they had noticed nothing.

I hurriedly wailed: “Second Uncle! Third Uncle! Save Granny! She came to this for the Zhang family’s sake!”

Seeing them grow impatient, I hastily told them the whole truth of how my father meant to breed a corpse gu.

At that they grew excited at once and warmly carried Granny back to our house to wait for my father. Now the whole family was gathered.

When my father came home and saw the crowd, his face went cold on the instant.

He did not care to share a road to wealth, any more than he cared for someone blocking it.

But things being as they were, he could only take Second and Third Uncle down to the cellar and go on cultivating the gu. As for Granny, he set her aside.

“Mother,” he said, “hold on. Once my gu lays its eggs, I will save you right away.”

The corpse gu he spoke of meant breeding gu worms on the yin-sodden rotten flesh of a corpse; once the worms laid eggs, the eggs were eaten or drunk, and they were said to strengthen the body and cure every illness.

Kept in the house, the corpse-gu lady would likewise guard the home, prosper its fortunes, and make the line multiply.

This time he did not take me down and left me above to watch over Granny.

But by now Granny was swollen like a fat pupa; I was afraid, and so I stole down after them.

I heard Second Uncle, half in doubt: “Brother, where did you find this body? Never mind how ugly it is—this rotting flesh stinks to high heaven. You breed gu on it, and the gu is supposed to be eaten?”

It was not so. My mother was not ugly at all.

My father lowered his voice. “What are you talking about? She is a descendant of the Queen Mother of the West, and she suffered no end in life. Her resentment runs deep. I kept her another half year in the Yin-Suppressing River of Barren Mountain, and only then did she put on a little flesh.”

“Don’t worry, it will be edible well enough. Have you forgotten her blood cures every illness?”

“Heavens above, Brother—this isn’t Sister-in-law, is it? You would use Sister-in-law’s body for something so wicked? Aren’t you afraid of retribution?”

Third Uncle’s voice suddenly rose. He was the first, after my mother died, to speak up in her defense.

My father was displeased and gave a cold snort. “Third Brother, if you don’t want to get rich, walk out yourself and stop blocking my road.”

“You’re a pair of old bachelors. Don’t tell me that just because I lent you this hag for a few days’ sport, you have forgotten whose woman she is.”

“She was mine in life, and she is mine in death. What is done with her is for me to say.”

What my father did not know was that the woman he heaped his curses on was standing right behind him.

My father and the others parted on bad terms. Granny, bitten by venomous snakes, was breathing her last; with no other way, my father went to beg a great master to come.

His gu still would not cultivate, and Granny worsened by the day; he was growing desperate.

But once the master stepped into our house, his brow knitted tight, and one look at Granny brought a cry that things were ill:

“A gu taken from the Yin-Suppressing Tomb of Barren Mountain must be paid for with a life.”

His face went pale, and after the words he moved well away from Granny.

Stroking his beard, he said to my father: “The dead have spirits. If you want your mother to live, give the bones hidden in this house a proper, splendid burial. Otherwise the price is your life.”

The truth laid bare, my father’s face darkened, but he would not admit it.

“Master, what kind of talk is this? If the master cannot save her, then please be on your way.”

He began to see him out, and the master only shook his head; before leaving, he cast one glance toward our cellar,

“When your yin gu is fully bred, your life will be at its end. Take care of yourself.”

My father seemed not to take the master’s words to heart. Every day I, like Second Uncle, went about catching snakes, and my father gave up his work salvaging corpses entirely.

Granny lay howling in pain on the kang, kept alive each day only by the vegetable broth I poured down her throat.

Each time I fed her, trembling, her eyes, swollen to mere slits, looked ready to shoot fire. These past days my father had been driven half mad and spared Granny not a single thought.

And so I stopped the broth. Starving, her eyes growing dim, she let out shrill screams like a vengeful ghost, and the swollen places on her body began to rot and reek.

I thought of the sharp, cruel face she had worn when she first began despising my mother.

I could not help leaning to her ear: “Granny. Look at yourself now—filthy and reeking. Even the flies would turn away.”

It was summer, and the room was no sealed cellar; the swollen, rotting flesh began dropping off her in strips.

Through the rot, her bloodshot eyes glared at me viciously; her body jerked several times, trying to strike, but she had the will without the strength.

I could not help smiling. It had been two days since I had fed her.

“Granny. It was just like this for my mother—starved by you for three days, then beaten to death.”

“Rest easy, Granny. You are the first. The rest will come along to keep you company.”

I did not lay a hand on her; I only sat on the stool, my face wet with tears, swinging my legs and watching her death throes as the room grew colder and colder.

Granny suddenly thrashed in a frenzy, her lips working but no sound coming out; perhaps she meant to reach for me, but she could do it no longer.

So it was true, what they said: the dying can see many things.

But she could only stare wide-eyed at the rotting corpse as it entered; from her seemed to burst pure terror and hatred, even disbelief and an unwillingness to accept it.

She must have known that corpse well; these past two days she and my father had tended it like a treasure.

Remembering, I could not help smiling at the terrified old woman: “Don’t worry, Granny. I will keep that coffin saved for you. As for when you will get it—that I won’t tell you just yet.”

Frightened and bewildered though I was, watching my enemy die was a pure, clean joy.

I wore an innocent smile as the corpse drew near; Granny’s eyes rolled back, and she was frightened to death—literally.

My mother was the only one who had ever been good to me, and Granny had tortured her until she was neither human nor ghost.

And so I thought Granny had died far too easily, but no matter—surely my father would bring her back.

As I turned to go out, I saw Third Uncle in the doorway, his face all astonishment.

“Xiaoxiang. Your granny is gone, isn’t she?”

I nodded, not knowing whether he would report me to my father—but I had not touched her. The old woman had died of her own fear.

“So be it. She had it coming.” He shook his head and turned to leave. Third Uncle could not see, and so the rotting corpse, already at his very feet, let him pass.

At dusk my father and the others came back. They seemed to have had another fruitful day.

I had cried my face red, and my voice came out in sobs. “Father. Granny, she... she is gone.”

I wept freely. Shocked, he shoved me aside with a slap and strode to Granny.

As chance would have it, my father’s gu had finally bred. He fed the newly spawned white worms into Granny’s mouth and laid her below in the cellar.

Then he looked at me with a smile: “Xiaoxiang, your granny was timid and she will be frightened alone. Go down and keep her company.”

That night I was bound hand and foot and thrown into the cellar.

“Xiaoxiang, you had best be good and keep out of trouble, or don’t blame your father for being cruel and refining you into a child gu.”

“The mother-child gu is far more powerful.” Watching his greedy face, I wept in silence and said nothing.

The moment the cellar mouth shut, fear rose in me unbidden: they said the dead kept no memories.

And so even if she were my mother, she would not remember me—especially since she was not my mother at all.

I huddled in a corner and watched countless corpse worms crawl over Granny; with no vent to be found, an ill wind blew through the cellar, and when a cold gaze settled over me from head to foot, I was frightened out of my body.

My father could never have dreamed that what he had hidden with his own hands and spent half a year bringing back was not my mother.

My mother’s soul was still in the old tomb of Barren Mountain; I had suppressed her there myself.

To say I was not afraid would be a lie, and when the rotting corpse crouched down and laid a dripping hand on my cheek, I was terrified to my very marrow.

Cold sweat soaked my clothes through, and as the corpse’s hand moved to rest over my heart, my own leapt into my throat.

As it opened its great bloody mouth over me, fear took me straight into blackness.

The next day my father’s curses woke me: “Wretched girl, get up here and help. Today I mean to summon your granny’s soul.”

I said nothing and climbed quietly out; looking down into the cellar, everything was as it had been.

My father had invited the master from before; these past nights he had been gambling and seemed to have won a great deal, for he fairly glowed.

“Master, money is no object. I beg you, help me call my mother’s living soul.”

“I have preserved her body with the yin gu; once it has a soul, she can rise from the dead.”

“Now that I have finally made my fortune, I want my mother to share in the ease of it.” I huddled frightened in a corner, not daring to speak.

“Well. For the money’s sake I will help you, but the living soul must be sought by one of her own blood.”

“Your mother died in terror, and her soul has flown to the mass graves of Barren Mountain. You must go and find her yourself.”

The master’s face was grave. My father hesitated, then in a moment beckoned me over.

“Master, this is my daughter—her own blood as well.”

I clenched my fists. He spoke sweetly now, but he had never counted me his own blood—only called me bastard girl, time after time. But I did not care anymore.

The master glanced at me and laid out many rules: “Calling a soul is like calling a ghost. You must not mistake the right one, nor bring home every stray soul you find. And so at the Hundred Graves of Barren Mountain, you must call and plead at each grave, one by one.”

“Carry your granny’s birth characters. When you call the right soul, the characters will grow hot.”

“At the Hundred Graves, begin with three bows and nine kowtows; when you have the right one, bring her straight home.”

“After every three bows light a stick of incense. If it is not the right soul, simply put the incense out. If it is, pay the incense no heed and bring her home.”

Just then Third Uncle came in with a cold smile: “Xiaoxiang, it is dangerous out there. We will go together.”

I looked at him gratefully. In truth I did not want to go at all, but if I didn’t, my father might beat me to death.

I could not die, and I would not die at his hands; hiding the hatred in my eyes, I went with Third Uncle to Barren Mountain.

Barren Mountain at midnight was frighteningly still; ordinarily the place was loud with cicadas and birds, but tonight was strangely, uncannily quiet.

An ill wind howled, and gusts of it crept beneath our clothes, biting to the bone; was it my imagination? Tonight the moon was red.

Only a half moon showed, the rest hidden in cloud. Ancient trees stood thick at the Hundred Graves, and as we went in the ill wind came gust after gust; yet for all its force, not one leaf could be heard to stir.

The silence crept into one’s bones. Grave after unmarked grave, full of stray and orphaned souls; one like my granny might be curled at some gravehead even now.

Third Uncle kept me behind him all the way, but deep in the night I felt countless eyes fixed upon us.

“Don’t be afraid, Xiaoxiang. Third Uncle will protect you.” His own voice trembled a little, and my heart ached; I had always trusted Third Uncle.

Looking at his broad back, I felt safe, and so along the way I made the three bows and nine kowtows with him.

But when he couldn’t see, the soul-guiding talisman in my hand ran red with blood; I had bitten my own fingertip to call the soul.

Before we left, my father gave me another set of birth characters; he said if I sensed that soul, I should pin it where it stood with a soul-suppressing talisman, for he had great use for it later.

I made the bows and kowtows with Third Uncle, holding the master’s instructions fast in my mind.

But Third Uncle trembled all over; he never so much as looked at the incense and only knocked his head against the ground at random.

Soon there seemed to be movement around us, the ill wind even taking on a sound, and out of the dark several crows flew to perch and stare right before us.

Before long cries rose on every side, men’s and women’s, piercingly sharp; though we saw nothing, we could feel something drawing near, and our bodies grew colder and colder.

Third Uncle shielded me with his whole body, shaking; my legs trembled too, and even my teeth chattered.

We might as well have been ringed by vengeful ghosts; even breathing grew hard.

I even saw something in the dark that seemed to smile at me, and I felt a fierce killing intent: these things meant to have our lives.

The cold killing intent turned solid, and my heart began to ache with it; I felt I would die here today, and I hated it—hated my own helplessness before I could avenge my mother, hated all the more that my father still walked free. I could not bear it.

“Xiaoxiang, Third... Third Uncle will hold them off. Run.” Third Uncle stood before me, and I could not help a bitter smile: there was no holding them off.

The soul-guiding talisman in my hand began to burn, and my tears would not stop. Mother. I don’t think I can avenge you after all.

I felt death drawing nearer and nearer, and in the pale moonlight I saw a ghastly ghost face, its head lolling on its neck; from the blood-masked face two eyeballs bulged out.

Third Uncle fainted dead away. The thing had Second Uncle’s very face. Its twisted face fixed on me, the mouth pulling into a ghastly, eerie grin.

“A father’s debt is paid by his child. Your father killed me as an offering to the yin gu, and now you will come and keep me company in the grave.”

As he reached for me, fierce refusal burst up in me: why? Why should his refusal to admit I existed, his own debt, be charged to me?

My mind filled with all those years when Mother and I had only each other; she had suffered so much before she died. I would not accept it.

A towering will to live made me haul Third Uncle up and run. Shrill, ghastly screams came from behind, and I held one thought only: get out, and make the ones who deserve it pay.

When the thing was a single stride behind us, the ill wind howling, the birth characters in my hand grew hot.

My tears fell freely, and in an instant a cool, yin aura flowed straight into my body; I felt someone embracing me, though this time I could see no one.

Toward dawn I dragged Third Uncle home, the summoned soul following along.

My father could not see her, but the delight on his face was beyond words.

Exhausted, I dropped where I stood and slept; as for how they afterward drew Granny’s living soul in and raised her from the dead, I took no interest at all.

But when I woke, I saw Granny was indeed awake, the rotted flesh on her body treated, as though she had truly come back to life.

My father held tea out to her in both hands, and I could not help a cold smile: he could be good to anyone—just never to my mother and me.

Yet the look Granny gave me held an eerie gentleness, and she even beckoned me over.

Could the dead truly rise? Especially when she had died hating me!

I stood frozen where I was, but she did not take it amiss; that old face, unrecognizable as its old self, grew only more kindly.

“My treasure. Come here.” I trembled all over: only my mother had ever called me her treasure.

My father was more frightened still; he stared at Granny in disbelief, then turned a vicious glare on me.

“Give me the birth characters.” His face was dark, as though suspecting something; frightened, I handed them over, and after studying them closely he was about to speak.

Granny’s rotting palm struck him full in the face, turbid fluid splattering all over him.

“Are you doubting your own old mother?” The voice was cold, and my father bowed his head at once to soothe her.

I was used to it: my father had always treated Granny best of all; even when her palm struck his face, he believed himself the one at fault.

That night, I actually watched Granny feel her way, swollen body and all, up onto my father’s bed.

He had set me to keep watch in the yard; I knew he was angry over the slap and took it out on me. I was used to that too.

Granny climbing into his bed included; in times past, it was my mother who was driven out of it.

Granny said it had been this way since he was fatherless and she a widow, and there was no reason to change for the sake of an old hen that couldn’t lay sons.

My father thought it made perfect sense, but tonight he panicked; perhaps the stench was too sharp, for he actually tried to kick Granny out of bed.

But no one knows a son like his mother: I watched Granny seize him by the ear and beat him with all her might, and he only cried and begged for mercy, never once striking back.

How unlike the way he had beaten my mother—rough and cruel, every blow as though he meant to kill her outright.

His reasoning was that my mother was a descendant of the Queen Mother of the West he had paid good money for, and she ought to earn her keep; a beating not given was a beating wasted.

And so it was with me; he thought me a bastard, and therefore fair game.

My eyes stung. Mother, do you see it? He has his day of judgment too.

Granny had once spared the rod on her precious son; today she beat him without a shred of mercy.

But the next evening, when the master saw Granny, his face changed utterly.

“Ill. There is something wrong with the living soul inside.” I gave a start and hurried behind the master, trembling.

“Master. Do you mean the one raised from the dead isn’t my granny?”

My father panicked too, his face dark iron, and roared: “Impossible. The birth characters are correct.”

Just then Granny moved behind him, and as her great bloody mouth opened to bite through his neck, the master dragged him hastily away.

Granny came on step by step, a ghastly, shrill laugh bubbling from her throat.

“Heh-heh-heh. My good, good son. Why don’t you come to Mother now?”

My father was too frightened to know what to do; the ill wind blew without ceasing, until even the cellar door was blown open.

Then, before all our eyes, a stench of rot and blood washed over us, and in the pale moonlight the rotting corpse too came on, step after wooden step, toward us.

“A fierce, murderous aura. There is no cure save offering up in blood the ones who wronged her. Fend for yourselves.”

The master actually turned and fled outright, leaving my father more terrified than he had ever been.

He stumbled back in a shiver and even flung me toward the door to shield him.

“Who are you really?” he demanded of Granny, pointing, unwilling.

Then a powerful resentment burst from Granny, and I heard her speak hollowly: “I was your wife for years and bore your child. And you? From first to last you thought only of how to kill me with cruelty, of sending me to my death steeped in resentment.”

“That was only your first step. After I died you began to suppress my soul, to prison me and keep me from reincarnation; and when the time was ripe you brought me back under another guise to blind the world, breeding gu upon my corpse.”

“You feared other descendants of the Queen Mother might live to call you to account, and so you hid your head and covered your tracks.”

“Did you mean to refine me into a mother-gu fiend, then kill my daughter the very same way?”

“I will not let you have your wish. The one who deserves to die is you.”

The stronger Granny’s resentment grew, the fiercer the ill wind howled, until even the moon was blotted out.

In that moment hatred filled me from head to heel: he truly deserved to die.

Then Granny left my father alone and came toward me step by step, her eyes all tenderness; she wanted to hold me, yet feared the rotting flesh on her would turn my stomach.

My heart ached unbearably: this was my mother. Even turned into a vengeful ghost, she was my mother.

The mother who had gently combed my hair, who again and again, when my life hung by a thread, had used her own flesh and blood as a guide to save me.

I gave her a tearful smile, hauled my father, frozen with terror, up from the ground, and took him down to the cellar.

Behind us my mother and the rotting corpse followed all the way; in the coffin in the cellar many eggs had hatched.

Look closely, and even the rotting corpse had them on it.

I looked at the corpse; she was truly hideous, truly terrifying, and each glance set my scalp prickling.

She seemed to understand and moved toward my father step by step, then threw him into the coffin.

“Bastard girl, how dare you—I am your father.” He glared at me viciously, and I could not help a cold smirk: only at a time like this would he admit he was my father.

When his body struck the dead snakes within, he meant to leap out in terror, but at the sight of the rotting corpse outside he dared not.

The eggs he had lusted after began to crawl over him, dense white worms writhing across his body, impossible to brush away.

He began to panic, urgency in his voice: “Xiaoxiang, help your father brush these things off, quick.”

“From now on it will be just the two of us with only each other. Father will be good to you.”

I smiled and said with an innocent face: “Father, these eggs are so plump and fine. Eat them, and from now on you will win every night you gamble; you will even win yourself a wife, and maybe a son.”

“Why don’t you want them anymore?”

“Go on, Father, eat. My mother is watching. These were bred on my mother’s flesh, after all.”

My mother’s living soul was called with my own blood; as for Granny, my father may already have offered her to the corpse-gu lady.

I still remembered how, every year when there was good food, my father and Granny shared it between them and shut the door tight, leaving us standing in the wind and snow.

More often than not, this cold, damp cellar was the only home we had.

They were gluttons and idlers both, and in the end they stopped planting rice and salvaging corpses and simply made money off my mother.

The village was full of bachelors: the men paid for her flesh, and Father and Granny sold her blood.

My mother and I planned to run more than once, but the villagers tipped them off; we were caught and brought back, and Mother’s legs were beaten until they broke.

Those days worse than death I will remember forever. In the end my mother went mad, and my father and Second Uncle went in and out of the cellar, kicking and beating her.

She was my mother—the gentlest, prettiest of women, ill-fated all her life—and after death she would be refined into a corpse lady. How was I to bear it?

They said one who died steeped in resentment became an evil ghost even the King of Hell would not take. I only wanted her to be properly reincarnated, to be born in her next life into a good family.

And so my mother’s resentment had to be spent on them.

“Father. I will let you taste, for a change, what my mother lived through.” I smiled, innocent as anything.

That very night I dragged him, terrified, into Barren Mountain; this ground must have been familiar to him.

“Father. Is this road familiar? That midnight you dug up my mother’s body, this is the road you took.”

“I was right behind you the whole time.” I saw it all, yet he insisted my mother’s body had been stolen by her wild man, and I could only play the fool and swallow my anger.

“Xiaoxiang, let your father go. You cannot spend your whole life keeping company with the dead.” Listening to his coaxing, I said nothing: I would not keep company with the dead.

But I could live on my own. Granny stayed at my side, now near, now far, following me, and so did the nameless rotting corpse.

Whenever my father threatened me or snarled, Granny opened her ghastly bloody mouth and bared her teeth at him.

I no longer seemed so afraid. That was right: the one who ought to be afraid now was not me.

Ill winds blew all across Barren Mountain, every gust seeming to carry the fishy stench; this was the place.

“Father. Would you like to climb down?” I held him over the pit and asked. Below were remains of every kind; this was a grave pit, and the remains within were all stray and orphaned souls he had scraped together from the Hundred Graves.

Back then he had laid my mother within and anointed her with snake oils of every kind to keep her flesh from corrupting a while; pinning her soul in a place of utmost yin, feeding the rotting flesh with those oils, all the better to breed gu.

Quietly I set my bound father aside. “Father. The one in there back then wasn’t my mother. I made the swap.”

I looked to the rotting corpse, and she and my mother moved toward my father step by step; what came next was not something I needed to watch.

“Come back, Xiaoxiang, come back! All the money I make is yours.” He seemed to beg from the pit, his voice growing shriller.

Seeing I would not be moved, he flew into a rage and began to curse, his voice trembling.

“Damn you, you damned wretch, you called your mother here on purpose to ruin you—this is patricide, and you will die a dog’s death for it.”

Then my father suddenly looked into the distance: “Third Brother! Come quick, save me.”

“Third Brother, I will give you half the money, save me!” He seemed to see hope, but Third Uncle walked straight to me: “Xiaoxiang. Are you all right?”

I shook my head, not wanting to speak. My father grew desperate: “You two—fine pair you are, ganging up on me.”

“Father. You set your heart on breeding gu, so today I will let you taste what it is for a living man to be bred as gu.”

“Besides, you have eaten so many gu worms already you will be proof against every illness. You will be able to savor it a good long while.”

“Father. Do you see the rotting corpse at your side? Soon you will see more; when a man is about to die, he can see so many little companions. Maybe even Second Uncle.”

I was not frightening him for sport; he only glared at me viciously and tried to claw his way out.

But the rotting corpse he could not see stood in his way the whole time.

So did my mother; inside Granny’s body, she kicked and beat my father.

Amid his screams, each louder than the last, the full moon rose complete, the ill wind howled, and the resentment in Granny’s body spread outward bit by bit.

At the same time the silent mountain seemed to come alive at once; Third Uncle could see none of it.

But he pointed at Granny, then pointed at the air around us, and shielding me once more he fainted away.

I could not help the curve of my lips. I saw many things arrive; never mind Second Uncle—even the stray souls he had dragged into this pit came too.

Every last one came bloodied, dead in agony; refused rebirth, they had all turned into vengeful ghosts.

My father seemed able to see now; he even saw my mother.

Weeping, he dropped to his knees and begged, knocking his head against the ground, but the resentment filling the sky swallowed him all the same.

The ill winds over Barren Mountain seemed to cry out with that sky-wide resentment, and rustling sounds rose through the woods.

I watched black snakes in their cohorts crawl toward the pit; the sky seemed about to lighten, and quietly I turned to leave.

But I did not walk out of Barren Mountain; I went on into the darker heart of it, for someone still had not had his wish.

Having waited so long, I could only disappoint him.

I walked with care, eyes closed, following the road mapped in my heart; my mind was full of the paths my mother had taken me along up the mountain to gather mushrooms.

She had said never to come deep into Barren Mountain alone; I would not remember the way and I would be left there. But now I remembered.

I could not help wishing Barren Mountain might carry us out of the village to some new place, but it could not.

In my ear seemed to sound again the little song my mother had hummed to me as a child; I knew she had followed.

My treasure, my treasure,

you will always be Mother’s treasure.

Weakly my eyes grew hot; looking back at the one who followed, I quickened my pace.

Soon, in the coldest heart of Barren Mountain, I found the tomb; with secret arts I laid blood upon it, and the earth door opened. A man slipped in along with me, hiding himself in a shadowed corner.

“Third Uncle. Come out.”

“Though I am not sure whether to call you Master—or Grave Robber.” Expressionless, I watched him emerge from the corner with a smile, clapping his hands.

“Xiaoxiang. You really are a clever girl.”

“Third Uncle has always liked you best. Tell me—how would you like to come learn the trade with me from now on?”

“Is that so? Then what does Third Uncle want from me? You know where the yin tomb is. What else is left?”

“Let me guess—my mother’s body. And the complete gu-breeding manual?” I walked on idly through the dark tomb passage, him following like my shadow, his low laugh in my ear.

I felt an unspeakable disappointment: I had once trusted Third Uncle. My mother had too.

“Clever girl. Give me those things, and I will take you out of this yin tomb alive.” I meant to have my way, and with a smile I drew the manual from my clothes and gave it to him.

As he turned its pages, my figure vanished. “Goodbye, Master.”

“If you want my mother’s body, we will see whether you have the skill for it.”

What I did not tell him was this: the Yin Tomb of Barren Mountain lets none but a descendant out; for all others, there is only entering, never leaving.

I passed through the long passage to the main vault, heaped with gold, silver and jewels; pity, as Mother had said, none could be carried out.

Taken outside, they would crumble in the light; even a descendant could not save them.

“Mother. I have come to see you.” In the ice coffin my mother’s body lay perfectly preserved.

A year before, I had turned my father’s own scheme against him and swapped my mother’s bones back; as for that rotting corpse, I never knew who she was—even her face I had shaped with secret arts.

“Wretched girl, shut your filthy mouth. Don’t spout nonsense.”

I sat in the corner and chanted the rebirth mantra, hoping that in her next life my mother would know peace and joy, a gust of ill wind folding around me; I knew she had come to say goodbye.

My mother’s resentment had scattered, and she too was going to be reborn.

As for me, I would leave this place and learn the healing arts that truly belonged to a descendant of the Yin house; here I had found many old books.

My mother had said that by dripping blood upon them, one thing could be carried out.

And so I chose the Medical Canon of the Yin House.

“Mother, I am going. I will carry your wish with me, out beyond the mountains.”

As for Third Uncle, he could take nothing from the tomb—not even himself.

I had given him his chance when he fainted; he was the one who chose to come.

Or perhaps, from first to last, he had meant to reach the old tomb, to find my mother’s body and carry her out, to breed gu on a true descendant of the Queen Mother of the West.

That being so, he could hardly blame me for leaving him in the place he had lusted after.

The whole world worships the Queen Mother of the West, praying for sons, praying for freedom from illness and disaster, praying for their houses to flourish; yet there are always some who would walk the crooked roads of dark arts.

Before leaving Barren Mountain, I went especially to see my father: he had become a blood-red skeleton, if there were such a thing as retribution in this world, this was it.

And Granny lay rotted and reeking, her body a nest for corpse flies and worms, the stench enough to turn one’s head.

But at least mother and son were together at last.

When I returned to the village, the roosters were crowing. I burned the cellar, burned the house, and the villagers all gathered to watch the show.

Quietly I walked out of the old village—carrying, as my mother once had hoped, out of the village, out past Barren Mountain.

（The End）