A Short Story Collection with Non-Human Protagonists - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Investigation Records of the Abandoned Housing Project

Another year of deep spring.

The owner of the Liu Trading Firm in the city arrived at the Bodhisattva Temple with twelve horse-drawn carriages laden with grain and rice to make an offering.

During the floods of the previous year, the heavy rains had fallen for an entire month before finally ceasing. It coincided with the Liu family’s relocation from elsewhere. They set up sheds to distribute congee, aiding those in peril and providing relief to the needy, saving half the city’s population. No one knew the true name of that wealthy woman; privately, people called her “Lady Immortal Liu” or the “Living Bodhisattva.”

It was during that natural disaster that Tang Wanzhi, having witnessed the bitterness and misery of the human world, shaved her head to become a nun. Given the dharma name Cizhou, she built a few side rooms next to the Bodhisattva Temple and settled there.

On that day, the woman from the Liu family was dressed in plain clothes, yet she still possessed skin like ice and bones like jade, with an exquisite and radiant countenance.

“Master, the Liu family has a request,” she said to Cizhou.

Cizhou, holding her prayer beads, looked at the person before her, and at the vast trichiliocosm, the boundless sea of suffering.

“What matter troubles the benefactor’s heart?”

“This humble woman only knows her surname is Liu, but has never had a formal name. I have come today to ask the Master to bestow one upon me.”

The spring breeze caught the bhikkhuni’s cassock and stirred the willow catkins filling the sky.

Cizhou stopped the movement of the prayer beads in her hand, her voice like a sigh. “Wildfires cannot burn them all; the spring breeze brings them back to life. You shall be called… Liu Jin (Willow Cinders).”

Liu Jin gazed at her for a long time, crystal tears spilling from her eyes.

“…My profound thanks, Master.”

From then on, they were separated by the paths of the immortal and the mundane, year after year.

Willow catkins blanketed the mountains and fields, like the grandest snowfall within the morning dew of a human life.

Ding-ling—

Tang Yanqing woke up on the alarm’s third ring, her whole body aching.

She seemed to have had an incredibly long dream—willow trees, heavy rain, white fur, tearful eyes… yet she couldn’t remember any of it clearly. Two dried tear stains were marked on her pillow.

It seemed nothing good had happened in that dream.

Tang Yanqing rode her motorcycle across the city, the sound of cicadas and the blur of buildings whistling past her ears.

Lu Xiaokui surprisingly hadn’t slept in. She was waiting obediently at the alley entrance, catching the helmet Tang Yanqing tossed her and hopping onto the back seat.

“Senior Sister, where are we going today!”

The girl stretched out her arms, firmly encircling Tang Yanqing’s waist, practically pressing her entire body against her back.

“Don’t stick so close,” Tang Yanqing shifted her hips forward a few centimeters to create some distance. “It’s hot.”

“It’s fine, once the bike starts moving it won’t be hot!” Lu Xiaokui completely missed the subtext and pressed forward again, leaning even closer than before.

…Whatever.

As Tang Yanqing turned the key and prepared to ignite the engine, Liu Jin leaned her head out of the inn’s main entrance.

She had changed into a blue-and-white checkered cheongsam today, looking as fresh as a young girl, with two silver-crafted butterflies swaying gently by her ears.

“Aqing, be careful on the road,” Liu Jin exhorted as usual. “Bring Xiaokui back for dinner tonight.”

Tang Yanqing had read several papers on behavioral psychology; redundant verbal cues like “be careful” actually do increase a driver’s level of caution, thereby reducing the probability of traffic accidents.

Auntie Liu probably didn’t know anything about behavioral psychology; she was just caring for her in the gentlest way possible.

Before Tang Yanqing could speak, Lu Xiaokui was already waving her arms, answering for her: “Okay, Auntie Liu! Make lots of yummy food and wait for us to get back!”

…Noisier than cicadas in the rainy season.

“Go back inside, it’s sunny out,” Tang Yanqing said softly.

Liu Jin smiled at her. “I know, I’m just seeing you off.”

With one last glance at the woman standing still by the door, Tang Yanqing twisted the throttle and sped away.

The first stop of their fieldwork was an abandoned housing project near the West Third Ring Road called Futai Xinyuan.

Twenty-four unfinished concrete skeletons stood covered in dark scars left by years of rainwater. Countless black, cavernous windows looked like failed game assets, exuding an unsettling eeriness.

Tang Yanqing parked the bike on the dusty roadside, took off her helmet, and walked inside.

Lu Xiaokui hurried after her. “Senior Sister, what is this place?”

“The old site of the Fox Immortal Temple,” Tang Yanqing replied without turning back.

“But the gate is locked, how do we get in?”

Before Lu Xiaokui could finish asking, Tang Yanqing leaped up, scaled the perimeter wall with her bare hands, turned around, and reached a hand out to her junior.

“Come up.”

The housing estate before them was overgrown with weeds. Trees poked out from the doors and windows of the vacant structures, looking like an early rehearsal for the end of the world. Tang Yanqing observed the surroundings while walking deep into the complex.

“Senior Sister, what are we investigating here?” Lu Xiaokui followed closely, terrified of getting lost.

Tang Yanqing didn’t have much of a lead either. “Let’s just look around and see if there are any clues.”

Forget traces of a Fox Immortal Temple; there weren’t even traces of human activity here.

They trudged through knee-deep weeds. The gaps between the buildings grew narrower, and the light grew dimmer accordingly.

Kuang—

A black feral cat suddenly darted from a corner, kicking a loose brick and making Lu Xiaokui scream.

“Senior Sister, don’t you think it’s… really creepy here…” Lu Xiaokui cautiously grabbed Tang Yanqing’s sleeve.

“Not as scary as your Huabei credit card bill,” Tang Yanqing joked with a cold face. “But speaking of which, this place actually has quite a few stories.”

Tang Yanqing began recounting the old stories she had found in the library the day before.

“About seventeen years ago, a real estate group obtained the development rights for this land. They promised that after demolition, they would build a brand-new Fox Immortal Temple. Rumors spread that this place was blessed by the Lady Fox Immortal and was a prime feng shui spot in Moqiao City. Consequently, thousands of units sold out instantly; demand far exceeded supply.”

“During construction, due to poor management, many accidents occurred on the site, but everyone emerged unscathed. One worker fell from a seventh-floor scaffold and was taken to the hospital by ambulance, only to be found with a minor fracture. Another time, steel bars fell from a tower crane; there were over a dozen workers nearby, yet not a single one was hit. Everyone said the Lady Fox Immortal had manifested to protect the workers.”

“But a few years later, the real estate boss absconded with the funds to a foreign country, leaving these unfinished buildings behind. The reconstruction of the Fox Immortal Temple was abandoned.”

“Aiyee~ then the Lady Fox Immortal isn’t that effective after all,” Lu Xiaokui remarked dismissively.

Tang Yanqing’s tone shifted. “But what happened next is the most legendary deed of the Fox Immortal. After hiding in South Africa for two years, that real estate boss actually turned himself in. He returned all the embezzled funds plus his own personal assets to the owners who had bought apartments in this complex.”

“Why?” Lu Xiaokui’s eyes widened. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a corrupt boss who ran away coming back to pay the money back voluntarily.”

“Official records say he wanted to go home to care for his elderly parents—a sudden prick of conscience. But there are many rumors online saying that while he could hide from his debts in South Africa, he couldn’t hide from the gods. It was the Lady Fox Immortal who got the money back for everyone.”

As she spoke, Tang Yanqing noticed two crooked blue water pipes on the exterior wall of one of the buildings. “Let’s go, let’s check over there.”

They walked inside the building.

The interior was even dimmer than expected. The walls were all rough grey cement with occasional rusted rebar sticking out.

Lu Xiaokui continued to press: “Senior Sister, how did the Lady Fox Immortal ask that boss for the money?”

“There are many different versions. The post with the most likes says that every morning when the boss woke up, there would be a pair of bloody glass eyeballs on his pillow, staring straight at him. He moved house countless times and hired many bodyguards to watch over him; he barely dared to sleep. But the moment he accidentally dozed off and opened his eyes—”

“What are you doing!” a fierce male voice boomed from behind.

Tang Yanqing turned around. An elderly man with greying hair had appeared behind them at some point, glaring at them menacingly. He was wearing a washed-out Mao suit. Although his attitude was poor, he didn’t look like a bad person.

“Hello, sorry about that. We are graduate students of Folklore from Moqiao University. We’re here to investigate the Fox Immortal Temple.”

Tang Yanqing introduced them and pulled her student ID from her pocket. The old man looked at the ID carefully, and his tone softened. “What do you want to investigate?”

“We want to see if there are any remains of the Fox Immortal Temple nearby. I know the probability is low, but I wanted to try and find something,” Tang Yanqing answered truthfully.

The old man looked them up and down, pondered for a few seconds, then turned toward a stairwell without railings.

“Come over here.”

Tang Yanqing hesitated for a moment, then followed.

She had never seen such a rudimentary home. Inside an unfinished apartment on the third floor, the old man used cheap plastic shower curtains to partition rooms between the concrete walls, furnished with a handful of items. Wires and water pipes were pulled from unknown sources, sloppily taped to the walls with transparent tape.

“This is something I secretly salvaged back then when the Fox Immortal Temple was demolished.”

Following the old man’s finger, Tang Yanqing saw a blue brick resting on a red cloth atop a plastic altar against the wall. The brick was snapped in two and barely pieced together. The pattern had almost completely weathered away; one could only faintly make out a blurry figure with several bushy fox tails floating behind them.

“This is the only thing left here related to the Fox Immortal Temple,” the old man sighed deeply.

Tang Yanqing arranged for Lu Xiaokui to take photos of the brick, then turned back to follow up on the old man’s words: “Why did you pick up this brick back then?”

The old man’s expression darkened, his words guarded. “At the time, I just thought about keeping it at home for good luck. As for what happened later… you wouldn’t believe it even if I told you.”

This was getting interesting.

Tang Yanqing tried to dig for the subtext: “Could it be… you’ve actually seen the Lady Fox Immortal?”

The old man’s pupils trembled. “How did you know?”

“I’ve researched records in the library. There are many rumors about the Fox Immortal in Moqiao City, including accounts from different eras saying the Lady Fox Immortal manifested here.”

Tang Yanqing explained calmly, giving two examples.

“In the early years of the Republic, a vegetable farmer surnamed Zhang couldn’t afford his rent. Even his daughter’s wedding dress and his elderly mother’s coffin were seized by the landlord to pay the debt. Just as the farmer was in utter despair, a strange old woman delivered a jar of silver coins, solving his urgent crisis. A year later, the silver coins the farmer hadn’t used all turned into ginkgo leaves, and a tuft of white fox fur was sealed at the bottom of the jar.”

“In 1997, a primary school girl went missing during a spring outing. Three days later, she was delivered to the entrance of a police station. She said a beautiful elder sister saved her and took her to a temple fair to eat green rice balls. The girl was unharmed, except for a red mark shaped like a fox claw on her arm.”

After hearing Tang Yanqing’s stories, the old man completely lowered his guard and pulled out several small plastic stools from under the bed.

“Sit down, I’ll tell you slowly.”

An electric kettle struggled to boil tap water, which he used to brew two cups of thick green tea.

“My name is Xu Rulin. I was originally a worker in a food factory. About ten years ago, my son became addicted to gambling and owed a lot of money. Even selling the house wouldn’t cover it. Debt collectors came to the house every day, saying they’d make him sell his organs to pay it back. I was truly at my wit’s end when I remembered this brick in the house.”

“I lit incense for this brick, offered fruit, and knelt to beg the Lady Fox Immortal to save my son. The next morning, I went out to buy groceries. I don’t know how I walked, but when I snapped out of it, I had suddenly arrived at a place as beautiful as a palace.”

The old man gazed into the air before him, falling into a distant memory.

“I saw the Lady Fox Immortal in that palace. She was more beautiful than any movie star, and she smelled wonderful. I still remember that scent to this day… it was the scent of osmanthus.”