The crows swoop around them, picking up bits of broken shingles and bricks on the ground and dropping them on the spiders. But they are too weak, and the spiders ignore them. The broken shingle pieces strike against the steel shells, making faint, hollow echoes.
The vegetable garden has been destroyed. All that remains are some mud and pale white roots. I see one of the Monk’s rusted arms sticking out of a pile of broken bricks.
I run through the garden calling for Yan Chixia. He hears me and slowly walks out of his cabin. He’s still wearing his battle gear: sedge hat on his head, the sword Demon Slayer in his hand. I want to shout for him to fight the spiders, but somehow I can’t spit the words out. The words taste like bitter, astringent paste stuck in my throat.
Yan Chixia stares at me with his sad eyes. He comes over to hold my hands. His hands are as cold as Xiao Qian’s.
We stand together and watch as the great and beautiful main hall is torn apart bit by bit, collapses, turns into a pile of rubble: shingles, bricks, wood, mud. Nothing is whole.
They’ve destroyed all of Lanruo Temple: the walls, the main hall, the garden, the lotus pond, the bamboo grove, and Yan Chixia’s cabin. The only thing left is a muddy ruin.
Now they’re moving on to the rest of Ghost Street. They pry up the slate slabs, flatten the broken houses along the sides of the street. The ghosts hiding in the houses are chased into the middle of the street. As they run, they scream and scream while their skin slowly burns in the faint sunlight. There are no visible flames. But you can see the skin turning black in patches, and the smell of burning plastic is everywhere.
I fall into the snow. The smell of burning ghost skin makes me vomit. But there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up. Instead, I cry during the breaks in the dry heaves.
So this is what the Thunder Calamity looks like.
The ghosts, their faces burned away, continue to cry and run and struggle in the snow. Their footprints crisscross in the snow like a child’s handwriting. I suddenly think of Xiao Qian, and so I start to run again.
Xian Qian is still sitting in the dark bedroom. She combs her hair as she sings. Her melody floats in the gaps between the roaring, rumbling thunder of the spiders, so quiet, so transparent, like a dreamscape under the moon.
From her body come the fragrances of myriad flowers and herbs, layer after layer, like gossamer. Her hair floats up into the air like a flame, fluttering without cease. I stand and listen to her sing, my face full of tears, until the whole house begins to shake.
From on top of the roof, I hear the sound of steel clanging, blunt objects striking against one another, heavy footsteps, and then Yan Chixia’s shouting.
Suddenly the roof caves in, bringing with it a rain of shingles and letting in a bright patch of gray sky full of fluttering snowflakes. I push Xiao Qian into a dark corner, out of the way of the light.
I run outside the house. Yan Chixia is standing on the roof, holding his sword in front of him. The cold wind stretches his robe taut like a gray flag.
He jumps onto the back of a spider and stabs at its eyes with his sword. The spider struggles hard and throws Yan off its back. Then the spider grabs Yan with two sharp claws and pulls him into its sharp, metallic, grinding mandibles. It chews and chews, like a man chewing kimchee, until pieces of Yan Chixia’s body are spilling out of its mandibles onto the shingles of the roof. Finally Yan’s head falls off the roof and rolls to a stop next to my feet, like a hard-boiled egg.
I pick up his head. He stares at me with his dead eyes. There are no tears in them, only anger and regret. Then, with the last of his strength, Yan closes his eyes, as though he cannot bear to watch any more.
The spider continues to chew and grind up the rest of Yan Chixia’s body. Then it leaps down from the roof and, rumbling, crawls toward me. Its eyes glow with a deep blue light.
Xiao Qian jumps from behind me and grabs me by the waist, pulling me back. I pry her hands off me and push her back into the dark room. Then I pick up Yan Chixia’s sword and rush toward the spider.
The cold blue light of a steel claw flashes before my eyes. Then my head strikes the ground with a muffled thump. Blood spills everywhere.
The world is now tilted: tilted sky, tilted street, tilted snow falling diagonally. With every bit of my strength, I turn my eyes to follow the spider. I see that it’s chewing on my body. A stream of dark red fluid drips out of its beak, bubbling, warm, the droplets slowly spreading in the snow.
As the spider chews, it slows down gradually. Then it stops moving. The blue light in its eyes dims and then goes out.
As though they have received some signal, all the other spiders also stop one by one. The rumbling thunder stops, plunging the world into silence.
The wind stops, too. Snow begins to stick to the spiders’ steel bodies.
I want to laugh, but I can’t. My head is now separated from my body, so there’s no way to get air into the lungs and then out to my vocal cords. So I crack my lips open until the smile is frozen on my face.
The spiders believed that I was alive, a real person. They chewed my body and tasted flesh and saw blood. But they aren’t allowed to harm real people. If they do, they must destroy themselves. That’s also part of the rules. Ghosts, spiders, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has to follow the rules.
I never imagined that the spiders would be so stupid. They’re even easier to fool than ghosts.
The scene in my eyes grows indistinct, as though a veil is falling from the sky, covering my head. I remember the words of the crows. So it’s true. When your head is cut off, you really die.
I grew up on this street; I ran along this street. Now I’m finally going to die on this street, just like a real person.
A pair of pale, cold hands reaches over, stroking my face.
The wind blows and covers my face with a few pale pink peach petals. But I know they’re not peach petals. They’re Xiao Qian’s tears, mixed with snow.
TONGTONG’S SUMMER
Mom said to Tongtong, “In a couple of days, Grandpa is moving in with us.”
After Grandma died, Grandpa lived by himself. Mom told Tongtong that because Grandpa had been working for the revolution all his life, he just couldn’t be idle. Even though he was in his eighties, he still insisted on going to the clinic every day to see patients. A few days earlier, because it was raining, he had slipped on the way back from the clinic and hurt his leg.
Luckily he had been rushed to the hospital, where they put a plaster cast on him. With a few more days of rest and recovery, he’d be ready to be discharged.
Emphasizing her words, Mom said, “Tongtong, your grandfather is old, and he’s not always in a good mood. You’re old enough to be considerate. Try not to add to his unhappiness, all right?”
Tongtong nodded, thinking, But haven’t I always been considerate?
Grandpa’s wheelchair was like a miniature electric car, with a tiny joystick by the armrest. Grandpa just had to give it a light push, and the wheelchair would glide smoothly in that direction. Tongtong thought it tremendous fun.
Ever since she could remember, Tongtong had been a bit afraid of Grandpa. He had a square face with long, bushy white eyebrows that stuck out like stiff pine needles. She had never seen anyone with eyebrows that long.
She also had some trouble understanding him. Grandpa spoke Mandarin with a heavy accent from his native topolect. During dinner, when Mom explained to Grandpa that they needed to hire a caretaker for him, Grandpa kept on shaking his head emphatically and repeating, “Don’t worry, eh!” Now Tongtong did understand that bit.