Grave Eating

Before my grandfather died, he gave me just one instruction: Never, ever wash that pot. I thought he was losing his mind. It wasn't until I took over the run-down noodle shop deep in the alley that I discovered the black pot wasn't coated in grime. It was covered in a layer of breathing “flesh moss.” Every night at midnight, a “click-click” sound came from inside as fingernails scraped against the cast iron, followed by my grandfather's voice asking, “Are the noodles... done yet?” Only later did I learn that beneath the pot lay a sheet of human skin from the Northern Song dynasty, pinning down a “thing” that couldn't be eaten, only fed. A man who gave his surname as Zhang walked into the shop and ate just one bite of noodles. Then he left a charred copper coin and told me, “The pot is leaking. There's not enough Qilin blood.” That was when I understood: my grandfather wasn't a cook. He was a gatekeeper. And now it's my turn. This isn't a noodle shop at all. It's a tomb.