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Grandma lived alone in the old house, and loneliness was inevitable.
So she kept quite a few little companions, like goldfish, a cat, and a large-tailed Beard Dog.
Grandma had a kind heart and treated these little creatures as if they were her own.
She sat in the meditation hall for a while before knocking on Ye Chenfeng's bedroom door.
Ye Chenfeng opened the door, and Grandma smiled as she asked, "Are you getting used to being here, my little treasure?" He felt awkward; he wasn't used to Grandma calling him that. She had always called him "little treasure," from when he was just learning to walk to now when he had grown tall and strong.
Grandma's face was lined with many wrinkles, and when she smiled, her eyes squinted into narrow slits. Ye Chenfeng invited her in to sit.
She entered and sat at the edge of the bed, reaching out to hold his hand. Ye Chenfeng noticed that from the moment she walked in, she had been staring at him intently, as if she could never get enough of looking at him. She said, "Tell Grandma what the girl you saw just now looked like."
"She was this tall, looked pretty good, and was all wet," Ye Chenfeng replied, gesturing seriously while focusing on Grandma's eyes that were deeply set in wrinkles.
Upon hearing this, Grandma fell silent. Her gaze seemed to slice through him like a knife, reaching deep into his heart before she sighed and said, "Fate... sigh! Fate..."
Grandma's hands were rough; holding Ye Chenfeng's felt prickly yet warm and solid.
He was puzzled by what Grandma meant by that.
She stood up and patted the back of Ye Chenfeng's hand, saying, "Wait a moment; I'll be right back."
As Grandma left, Ye Chenfeng wondered if she meant to get some snacks. The treats Grandma had were brought by his parents from the city and were stored in the fridge. There were wife cakes, pizza, walnut drinks, and many other things.
To his surprise, when Grandma returned, she held something wrapped in red satin. Judging by its square shape, Ye Chenfeng guessed it was a book.
Sure enough, Grandma carefully unwrapped the satin to reveal a tattered book with yellowed pages and frayed edges.
This book was ancient—perhaps even older than Grandma herself—and it had lost its cover. He wasn't interested in reading the title; he frowned instead, unsure of what Grandma was up to. Seeing her earnest expression reminded him of what his dad had said: that Grandma often spoke mysteriously and that he shouldn't take her words too seriously but should just keep her company for a few days before returning to study his lessons.
"Little treasure, Grandma wants to tell you something."
"What is it?" Ye Chenfeng asked with a slightly embarrassed smile as he interrupted his thoughts. He leaned forward to pour a glass of water for her.
She declined and said, "In our family, there is someone with spiritual abilities passed down through generations. Your mother’s generation doesn’t have it. After your mother became pregnant with you and after you were born, I checked—you should not have it because everything has been normal. But how is it that you can see her now? I went to the meditation hall to sit quietly for a while and realized something."
Grandma started her rambling again.
Ye Chenfeng recalled how, when he was a child, Grandma had secretly taken him to the cemetery on the back mountain, which had infuriated his father.
According to his mother, this was Grandma's way of testing whether he had any psychic abilities. However, after the test, Grandma seemed quite disappointed, saying that there would be no successors after her generation.
What he never expected was that on his eighteenth birthday, right after graduating from high school, he saw something he shouldn't have seen.
A ghost!
Ye Chenfeng was astonished that he could see ghosts, and it turned out to be the daughter of the couple who had gone missing.
What Grandma said next frightened him.
She mentioned that there were water ghosts by the river, existing throughout the ages. It was said that water ghosts generally sought out Substitute Ghosts, meaning the girl had been consumed by a water ghost and had become a Substitute Ghost herself.
This cycle continued endlessly; Substitute Ghosts sought other Substitute Ghosts until they found one to replace themselves, allowing them to report to the Underworld and wait for their chance at Reincarnation.
Water ghosts eating people? Thankfully, his father had warned Ye Chenfeng before that Grandma occasionally lost her mind (in the early stages of dementia) and advised him not to take her words too seriously. Thus, he listened quietly without taking her words to heart.
She explained that Ye Chenfeng had not shown any psychic abilities as an infant because the opportunity had not yet arrived. Now that it had manifested, it was because he had reached an age capable of bearing such abilities.
Ye Chenfeng felt a strange excitement in Grandma's words, as if he had stumbled upon a priceless treasure, though there was also an underlying worry.
Grandma warned that the water ghost by the river was a terrifying presence; every year during the Ghost Festival, children near the river mysteriously went missing. She was a Medium who had once negotiated with a water ghost, but instead of compromising, the ghost threatened her not to meddle in its affairs.
She intended to stop it as well, hoping to negotiate with the water ghost to release the girl's soul.
Grandma spoke of how pitiful that couple was; they worked hard when they were young and finally hoped for their first child in their old age—only for her to go missing. They raised her until she was eleven or twelve years old and then lost her without knowing what to do. Reporting it to the police yielded nothing; children who went missing in their village over the years were never found again.
Desperate, the couple came seeking help from Ye Chenfeng's grandmother. Yin Chai mistakenly intercepted them, and they left in tears.
Hearing about that couple made Ye Chenfeng think of the girl hiding in the shadows, stirring an inexplicable sadness within him.
Grandma held an ancient book with strange characters in her hands. She said it was passed down from their Great Ancestor and informed Ye Chenfeng that this ancestor was a Ghost Hunter. This book was his legacy; unfortunately, being a woman meant she couldn't openly hunt ghosts and could only use her psychic abilities to help those in need.
That night, Grandma shared many stories—from her marriage to Ye Chenfeng's mother's birth, from Grandpa's passing to his own birth. He must have yawned countless times before she solemnly placed the book into his hands and said, "My dear child, this book is now yours. Read it often and learn well; never do anything wrong."
When Grandma left, she instinctively reached out to stroke Ye Chenfeng's hair. Then, glancing back three times, she walked out. He stared at her departing figure, suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding, as if something was going to happen during this separation. His eyelids twitched uncontrollably.
Perhaps he was overthinking it. Ye Chenfeng yawned widely, sinking down into the warm comfort of his blankets, no longer wanting to move.
That night, he had a dream.
At first, there was one, then a swarm of blood-red butterflies, vibrant and dripping with color, danced before Ye Chenfeng's eyes. These crimson butterflies seemed to come from nowhere, and he felt an overwhelming fear upon seeing them.
He found himself following the blood-red butterflies, unable to control his steps. He walked and walked until he reached the riverbank. This river was familiar to him; it was just a hundred meters from Grandma's back door. The shoes of the Missing Girl were found by this river.
Upon reaching the riverbank, he was met with a sight filled with red butterflies that reflected in the water, making it appear as if the river flowed with blood—so vivid and chillingly real.
At the same time, Ye Chenfeng saw someone.
She stood with her back to him, her rigid posture facing the riverbank.
Ye Chenfeng recognized that silhouette all too well: the hunched back, silver-white hair, slender shoulders—Grandma! He shouted her name. Grandma turned around with a sorrowful smile and said, "Darling, you must take care of yourself. Grandma won't be able to look after you anymore."
Just then, a loud splash erupted from the churning water, and a head emerged from the frothy waves.
It was a head with a sharp, thin face, pale skin, and eyes glowing with a sinister green light. Ye Chenfeng's heart raced up into his throat as he screamed for Grandma and ran towards her. But the creature that had surfaced was faster; it opened its mouth wide, splitting its jaw down to its ears, and bit down on Grandma, dragging her into the water.
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