Chapter 2: The Spirit Medium, Widow Zhou

Speaking of Widow Zhou, the eldest daughter-in-law of the Zhou family, she was quite a famous person in our village back then because she could perform guoyin, and according to the village elders, the things she said during those sessions were often remarkably accurate.

The so-called guoyin involved going down below, finding the deceased relatives of the living, then allowing those relatives to possess her body and answer questions for the people still alive.

In truth, Widow Zhou had once been a very ordinary woman. She only gained her ability to perform guoyin after her husband died. As for how she acquired it, she kept completely silent on the matter, and the villagers had only heard various rumours.

Those rumours were spread by the Zhou family’s second daughter-in-law and their daughter. They said that on the night of Zhou Da’s first-seven return, Widow Zhou suddenly ran back into her own west side room.

The Zhou family had not divided the household. Seven people were crammed together under one roof. Normally, the family was supposed to avoid the room on the first-seven return night, but they had nowhere else to go, so they merely left vacant the west side room that Widow Zhou and her husband had once shared.

Yet that night Widow Zhou behaved strangely and slipped back into the room in the middle of the night. The rest of the family, asleep at the time, knew nothing about it until her young sister-in-law got up to relieve herself and discovered that her sister-in-law was no longer beside her.

At first, the young girl paid it no mind, assuming her sister-in-law had also gone out to relieve herself. But after stepping outside and preparing to head for the latrine, she was nearly scared to death by a sudden burst of laughter.

After all, it was her elder brother’s first-seven return night. In the stillness of the night, that laughter sounded especially terrifying. The younger sister was only fourteen years old then. How could she withstand such a fright? She immediately screamed and ran back into the house.

The whole family was awakened. Everyone rushed into the courtyard. By then the laughter had stopped, but they could hear a woman’s voice muttering away. Nobody could make out what she was saying. No matter how carefully they listened, all they could tell was that it was a woman speaking.

With Zhou Da gone, Zhou Er had become the pillar of the household. Being a man, he had more courage than the others. After listening for a while, he picked up a firewood stick and said, “The sound seems to be coming from the west side room. I’ll go see what’s going on and find out who’s pretending to be a ghost.”

His wife grabbed him and refused to let him go. It was his elder brother’s first-seven return night. Rural people were superstitious, and she feared he might run into something unclean.

Just then, another burst of laughter rang out. Whoever was laughing sounded extremely happy, but there was something oddly drifting and hollow about the voice that sent chills down everyone’s spine.

“It’s clearly my son’s first-seven return night. Why is there a female ghost causing trouble in the house?” Old Master Zhou sighed. The pain of losing his son was still fresh in his heart, and he was deeply displeased that instead of his son returning, a female ghost seemed to have arrived.

“But doesn’t that sound like my eldest daughter-in-law?” the old matriarch of the Zhou family said doubtfully. Earlier, when the voice had been muttering, the accent had been too strange for anyone to identify. But now that it was laughing, she found it oddly familiar.

After she pointed it out, the whole family listened carefully and realised that it really did sound like Widow Zhou.

“Forget it. We have to go look. I’m afraid Sister-in-law may have gone out of her mind from grief.”

Losing a husband in middle age was one of life’s greatest sorrows. If Widow Zhou had developed some mental problems because of it, that would have been understandable.

Moreover, family ties were very strong in those days. How could they simply ignore her?

Thinking this, Zhou Er tightened his grip on the firewood stick and slowly walked toward the west side room.

It was the same familiar room as always, yet the tightly shut door now looked terrifying in Zhou Er’s eyes, as though hell itself lay behind it.

When he reached the door, Zhou Er took a deep breath. To bolster his courage, he suddenly let out a loud roar. Riding that surge of bravado, he kicked the door with all his strength.

A lifetime of hard labour had made him strong, and the kick carried tremendous force. But the two wooden doors were not barred shut as he had imagined. They had merely been pulled closed. Using too much force, Zhou Er lost his balance and fell flat on his face, tumbling straight into the room.

“Second Son, are you alright?” Old Master Zhou called anxiously from behind. Having already lost one son, he was terrified that something might happen to this one as well.

“I’m fine. Just slipped,” Zhou Er replied in a muffled voice. The fall had hurt, but he quickly answered so his family would not worry.

Old Master Zhou sighed in relief, but when Zhou Er raised his head, his heart leapt into his throat.

The west side room was small, essentially just a bedroom. The moment one entered, the entire room could be seen at a glance. Zhou Er had not even gotten to his feet yet. He was still half kneeling on the floor, midway through standing up, with only his head raised.

And in that instant, he saw the whole room clearly. How could he not? A dim oil lamp burned on the room’s only table. His sister-in-law, Widow Zhou, sat with her back to him, her shoulders shaking as she laughed happily.

Ordinarily, such a sight would not have frightened a man like Zhou Er. The reason his heart shot into his throat was that her posture was extraordinarily strange. Her head was tilted, her body leaned at an angle, as though she were resting against something. Even stranger, there were two long benches before the table. She sat on one of them. Normally, a person would sit in the middle or the bench would tip over. Yet she sat right on the edge without moving in the slightest.

Zhou Er’s throat tightened. He forgot to stand up and remained half kneeling on the floor. He wanted to leave. The scene was too bizarre. But the woman before him was his own sister-in-law. His elder brother had only recently died. He could not simply ignore her.

After swallowing hard twice, Zhou Er gathered his courage and called out, “Sis... Sister-in-law...”

His voice stuttered. Because he was so nervous, even the words trembled, though he himself did not notice it.

At his call, Widow Zhou turned around. She did so with a smile on her face. In the dim oil light, that smile looked disturbingly unnatural. The corners of her mouth curled upward, and her eyes were narrowed, but the flesh of her cheeks remained stiff.

It felt as though she were a clay statue.

“Look, Zhou Er is here...” Widow Zhou said while staring at him. Her gaze was intensely focused, like a cat in the night staring fixedly at something.

Tears instantly welled up in Zhou Er’s eyes. It was pure fear. He was not stupid. He had clearly heard his sister-in-law say the word “look.” Look? Look for whom?

And there was something indescribable about her voice. Even the calmest human voice normally carried a trace of life and emotion. Her voice, however, was nothing but sound. Computers did not exist back then, otherwise Zhou Er could have described it perfectly. It sounded like a synthetic voice.

At that moment, Zhou Er did not know whether to stand up, remain kneeling, move forward, or retreat. All he felt was an icy chill running down his spine.

Suddenly, Widow Zhou stopped smiling. Her expression became eerily calm in an instant, though her eyes remained fierce. She said, “Get out. Don’t disturb us. You must not enter this room.”

Zhou Er did not answer. It was not that he did not want to. He simply no longer dared to speak. When fear reached its extreme, a person either exploded in furious shouting or fell silent. That silence was the subconscious urge to hide oneself.

And facing his own sister-in-law, Zhou Er could not summon any anger. All he could do was remain silent.

He stood up, turned around, and forced himself to walk out of the room calmly. Yet his back prickled, as though something were staring at him. He dared not look back and could only continue forward on trembling legs. The moment he crossed the threshold, Creak. The wooden door behind him closed by itself.

“Mother!” Zhou Er cried out immediately. Tears burst forth, and he began running. His legs were weak, and after only a few steps he fell. But he dared not waste a moment. Scrambling on hands and knees, he rushed toward his family. The sight of him crawling and stumbling was utterly pathetic.

The cry of “Mother” made the old matriarch’s heart ache. On her bound feet, she hurried forward and quickly helped her son up. “My son, what’s wrong?”

“Mother, I think... I think my elder brother came back.” Zhou Er did not even have time to wipe away his tears before blurting it out. What other explanation could there be for what he had just witnessed except his elder brother’s spirit returning on the first-seven return night?

“My Zhou Da!” Old Master Zhou suddenly slapped his thigh and wailed. Hearing that his son’s spirit had returned, grief overwhelmed him once more.

That first-seven return night left the entire family uneasy. Although they believed Zhou Da had come back, Widow Zhou had told them not to disturb them, and they were genuinely frightened. Not a single member of the family stepped into the west side room again that night.

That was the story about Widow Zhou that spread from the Zhou family. It certainly sounded mysterious, but what village in China did not have a few strange legends? There were plenty of tales even stranger and harder to explain. People discussed it for a while and then gradually stopped paying much attention to it.

Not long after that incident, word spread that Widow Zhou possessed the ability to perform guoyin. At first, some people visited her merely to test the rumours. To their surprise, she really did seem remarkable, and her abilities appeared quite reliable. Within two years, not only did several neighbouring villages know about Widow Zhou of Little Bay Village, but even people from the town came seeking her out.

There are three points worth mentioning about this matter.

First, after Zhou Da’s first-seven return night, Widow Zhou returned completely to normal. It was said that she came out of the west side room the very next morning and even prepared breakfast for the whole family. The only change was that she developed a habit of constant hiccupping. She could hiccup eight or nine times a minute, and the sound was rather strange. People meeting her for the first time were usually startled by it.

Second, Widow Zhou strongly insisted that the family seal up the window of the west side room. The window faced outside the courtyard and provided excellent lighting, making the room bright and cheerful. No healthy person would normally make such a request. Yet after that night, the family felt a vague sense of awe toward her. Since she asked for it, they did it immediately. In the end, they not only sealed the window but also hung a thick black curtain over the door.

Third, five months after Zhou Da’s death, Widow Zhou gave birth to a son. No one in the village gossiped about it. Even a fool knew the child was Zhou Da’s posthumous son. Some of the village elders even said that it explained why Zhou Da’s first-seven return night had caused such a commotion. He must have known he was going to have a son and could not bear to leave behind his widow and child. In any case, thanks to her guoyin abilities, Widow Zhou and her son lived quite comfortably in the village, and the rest of the Zhou family benefited as well.

Had that political movement not begun, Widow Zhou might have continued this work for the rest of her life, using the income to educate her son, help him find work, and eventually marry. But history does not bend to individual will. The Zhou family was now under close surveillance. Widow Zhou in particular was watched by several people. She no longer dared mention her guoyin abilities at all.

No matter how the Zhou family was getting by, life in my own family had become increasingly bleak, and it was all because of me.

My condition had not improved. On the third day after my birth, my father wrapped me up tightly, borrowed a donkey cart, and took me to the township clinic early in the morning. But the doctor there could not find anything wrong with me.

In the end, the doctor merely told my father, “The child is probably a bit malnourished. Take him home and feed him well, and he should be fine.” He did not even prescribe any medicine.

On the way home, my father was deeply troubled. Malnourished? That could not be right. My mother might not have been the best-fed and best-cared-for pregnant woman in the village, but she had certainly been better off than most. How could her child be malnourished? I looked weaker than even the frailest infant in the village.

My father could not understand it, but he chose to trust the doctor. Asking Widow Zhou for help remained the last resort. If things went wrong, he might harm not only his own family but the Zhou family as well.

After returning home, my father began looking for ways to nourish me. My mother had no milk, so every day he went to a neighbouring village and traded grain for cow’s milk from a family that raised dairy cattle. It was not just milk either. He even made special trips to the town supply and marketing cooperative to obtain various nutritional supplements. In short, he tried every possible method to strengthen me.

Children in those days could not be compared to children today. The treatment I received was unique in the village. Forget nutritional supplements, many children could not even dream of drinking milk every day. Back then, if a baby could not nurse from its mother, it was usually raised on rice paste.

Because of all the food and supplements spent on me, our family’s finances became strained. My parents naturally had no complaints, but what was even more touching was that neither of my two sisters complained either.

My eldest sister even said, “Dad, give more milk to little brother. He’s so tiny. He doesn’t even have the strength to cry.”

Anyone could see that the two girls longed for the fresh white milk themselves, yet not only did they refrain from making a fuss, they were so considerate that my father was deeply moved.

As an aside, my family was not actually very biased toward sons over daughters. Apart from a brief period when we were young, my sisters and I were treated equally. It was simply that in rural areas at the time, a family without a son had little standing, because a son’s greatest significance was that he represented labour. Without labour, how could a household survive?

Thus my father continued nourishing me for an entire month. On the day I reached one month of age, his steadfast faith finally collapsed, because according to custom, babies were weighed at one month to see how much they had grown.

That day, my father weighed me with a hope that was almost reverent. But reality struck him hard. By the time I was one month old, I had gained only 100 grams (~3.5 oz).

All that time, my father had gritted his teeth and persevered, thinking that perhaps I was growing even if it was not visible. He endured until my one-month weighing, only to receive such a result. How could he not break down?

“Xiuyun, I think we need to ask Widow Zhou to take a look at this child.” After staring blankly for a long time that day, my father finally said those words to my mother. It was the last option left.

My mother’s heart tightened. A child who weighed only a little over 1.5 kg (~3.3 lb) at one month old was rare even in those days. After so much nourishment and such careful care, for him to remain like this could only mean something was wrong.

If it had been an illness preventing me from growing, that would have been one thing. But the doctor had said there was no problem, and apart from being weak, I had never even caught a cold. If it was not something strange, then what was it?

“Old Chen, why don’t we keep feeding him well for another week and see? I’ve heard that some children grow poorly before their one-month mark but then shoot up afterward. Besides... besides...” My mother hesitated, reluctant to continue.

“Besides what?” my father asked, raising an eyebrow. The frustration in his heart was impossible to ease.

“Besides, Widow Zhou communicates with the dead. Does she even know how to examine matters of yin and yang? It doesn’t seem related to our child’s situation.” My mother hesitated because she did not want to destroy my father’s last remaining hope.

“I know. But in all the villages around here, she’s the most effective person we can find. Who else is there? Besides, Midwife Liu hinted the same thing to me, that we should ask her to take a look.” My father’s voice was gloomy at first, but after thinking for a while, it suddenly brightened with hope. “Do you remember Wang Gou’er’s child? Wang Gou’er, the friend I grew up with. Didn’t his son Wang Zhu run into something unclean when he was two years old? For several days his whole body was cold, he acted like an idiot, and drooled constantly. Wasn’t it Widow Zhou who cured him?”