My grandfather was the last Daoist priest in the village.
While he was alive, everyone was afraid of him. They said he dealt with the dead and was unclean.
The day he died, the whole village came.
But when it was time for the funeral, the coffin suddenly grew as heavy as a mountain. Eight strong men couldn’t lift it. A pool of black water seeped out from underneath, and a bronze bell I’d never seen before rolled out of it.
The village elders’ faces changed. They said the dead man refused to leave.
I didn’t believe them.
Not until the night of the seventh day after his death, when I heard my grandfather’s voice outside the door.
“Ping’an, don’t open the door.”
The next second, a sodden sheet of yellow paper slid through the crack beneath the door.
It bore just one line of crooked, bloody writing:
Someone else in the village will die tonight.
Only then did I understand: my grandfather hadn’t left me an inheritance, but a debt to the underworld that I’d never be able to repay.
