①
I picked up the phone and said impatiently, "Hello? Dad!" This was the third time he had called me today, and there was nothing important, just some family matters.
I don't have time to nag about this now. If this manuscript is not completed before the 25th, I will be doomed.
"It's okay, I know you are busy. Please take care of yourself!" My father's old voice tickled my ears along the telephone line. It itched, and it itched in my heart.
I scratched my ear, "I know, Dad, you too!"
"You don't have to come back the day after tomorrow." Dad said quietly.
"Uh! I don't plan to go back the day after tomorrow? Besides, I have to hand in an important manuscript the day after tomorrow…" I asked doubtfully, "Dad, are you mistaken…"
"Oh… I'm getting old and confused…" After hanging up the phone, I sat cross-legged in front of the computer and continued to ponder the perfect ending for this novel. Just when I had some inspiration, the doorbell rang. Then, those inspirations disappeared like a frightened deer.
I stood up angrily and opened the door. It was Grandma Su.
Granny Su lives across the street from me and is also my landlord.
Like all landlords, Granny Su was a stingy and harsh old lady.
I leaned forward and said, "Grandma Su, I didn't hammer any nails into the wall or put anything on it. I didn't turn on the stereo to listen to music today. I turned off the gas. Also, I must remember to close the windows before going to bed. It's autumn now, so I won't keep the air conditioner on all night…"
Granny Su's wrinkles were pressed together, and she smiled: "Oh, Yan Zi, can you do me a favor?" As she spoke, she came closer, and the strange smell on her body hit me in the face. The smell was very dull, a little bit smelly, a little bit sour, and it was hard to describe.
Granny Su saw me frowning and stepped back in embarrassment. "It smells terrible, doesn't it? There's nothing I can do about it. This is the smell of death. The skin, flesh, bones, and internal organs on your body are all like a watermelon left overnight in the summer, slowly turning sour. You're getting old, too."
"What's the matter?" I didn't respond to her. I don't know why, but I always feel that I will never grow old. Maybe everyone thinks so when they are young.
"Is that so… Can you help me prepare the family dinner these two days? I'm old and my legs and feet are not flexible…"
"I'm sorry, Granny Su," I tried to suppress my temper, "I'm very busy!"
"If you help me, how about I waive your rent for next month?" Granny Su saw that I was indifferent and continued with a pleading tone: "It won't take you long."
"Okay…" For the rent's sake.
"Thank you so much, Yan Zi!" Grandma Su's face wrinkled into a flower.
"But… Granny Su, don't you have no relatives? I remember you said before that your spouse and children have all passed away… Then why are you preparing a family dinner…"
"Yes, they are all dead, but…" Granny Su's cloudy eyes flashed with an inexplicable light: "Every Mid-Autumn Festival, they will come back to reunite…"
"Mid-Autumn Festival?"
"Yes, the day after tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival… It's the day when our family gets together…" Granny Su said as she slowly opened the door of her room.
Looking in from the door, the curtains in the room were drawn and it was pitch black. A strange smell spread from her room, exactly the same as the smell on her body.
I frowned and quickly closed the door.
This Grandma Su is really getting old and confused.
②
This was my first time to visit Grandma Su's house. The structure of her house was exactly the same as the one I rented, so I could easily tell where the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom were.
In the middle of the living room, incense was burning and there was a memorial tablet. Above the tablet were photos of three people.
"This is my husband…" Grandma Su pointed happily at the man in the middle photo, "He loves to eat osmanthus cake the most…"
"The one on the left is my son," Granny Su pointed at the photo on the left, "Alas… this silly boy couldn't stop drooling when he saw the braised pork. But later, he insisted on marrying a lazy woman who couldn't even tell the difference between pork and beef."
"The one on the right is my favorite daughter, haha," Grandma Su smiled happily, and fell into sweet memories: "She always yells about losing weight while eating mooncakes with big mouthfuls, what a pity…"
As Grandma Su laughed, she actually started wiping away her tears.
"Grandma Su…" At that moment, my heart actually felt sad, and I thought that Grandma Su was such a pitiful person.
"Look at me…ah…when people get old, they tend to feel sad…" Granny Su raised her head, "Come on, Yan Zi, put the vegetables in the refrigerator. You can pickle what needs to be pickled today, and check if there's anything missing. Tomorrow afternoon , I'll be itching so bad , you can come and help me with it…I said I won't waste too much of your time…I'm going to lie down for a while…"
"Oh…" I opened the refrigerator, which was full of yellowed vegetables and smelly pork.
“Grandma Su!” I walked towards the bedroom. “Grandma Su? Those dishes…”
I stood at the bedroom door, stunned.
There was nothing in the bedroom except a coffin and an altar. On the altar there was a small photo, which clearly was of Grandma Su.
Granny Su in the photo was smiling eerily. I took a step back in fear. My heart felt like it was filled with cotton and was stuffy.
"What's wrong?" Grandma Su sat up from the coffin wearing bright red and green shrouds, squinting at me, her gray and black wrinkles trembling.
"Su, Su, Su…" I trembled, pointed at her, and stepped back.
"Oh… don't be offended…" Granny Su walked out of the coffin, "I won't live for a few more days. So last year I ordered a coffin, shroud and memorial tablet for myself, so that after I die, no one will take care of these things carefully…"
oh……
I have heard of this. In the countryside, many elderly people order coffins and shrouds for themselves in advance, as if the only meaning of their lives is to wait for death.
"The food in the refrigerator is all spoiled…"
"Broken?" Granny Su frowned. "It's okay, it's okay. Dead people just like to eat bad things…"
After saying this, Grandma Su lay back down in the coffin.
I stood woodenly at the door and turned to look at the memorial tablet and photos in the living room.
The three people in the photo also looked at me with weird smiles.
Will they really come back tomorrow?
③
Tomorrow is the 25th.
I anxiously put out the cigarette butt in the ashtray and angrily deleted the messy ending.
Damn it! I stood up and opened the refrigerator, and a strange smell hit me. I poured a plate of rotten salad tomatoes into the toilet, raised my nose and sniffed, and the strange smell was still there.
A familiar strange smell, yes, it was Granny Su's smell. It must be this smell that made me uneasy and unable to write a good ending! I smelled my clothes, and walked to the bathroom in a rage. While washing, I applied a layer of fragrant shower gel on my body, and then a layer of lotion. However, the smell seemed to have penetrated into my skin and into my blood. No matter how I washed, it still floated into my nose unyieldingly, stimulating my sense of smell.
I opened the window and decided to ventilate the room.
There is wind outside the window, no clouds, and the moon is bright, round, and dotted.
I remember when I was a child, every Mid-Autumn Festival, my father would tell me the story of Chang'e and the Jade Rabbit. He would often bring a basin of water to the yard and scratch my nose lovingly: "Dad picked the moon for you!"
dad……
I thought of my father’s phone call. Did he, like Grandma Su, prepare a family dinner and sit alone under the night sky, waiting for me to come back?
I sighed. How about going back tomorrow? But what about the manuscript? What about Grandma Su's family dinner?
Thinking of Granny Su, my heart ached again. Outside the window, black paper ashes drifted into the room with the wind, along with that strange smell. It turned out that the smell came from outside.
I stood in front of the window and saw Granny Su squatting on the ground, trembling under the bright moonlight, burning paper money and muttering as she burned: "Come back… come back… it's the holiday… go home and reunite… come back… come back…"
The sound seemed to have turned into paper ashes floating in the wind, drifting unsteadily in the moonlight.
Granny Su suddenly raised her head, as if she knew I was looking at her, and smiled with her dry lips: "Are you back? You're back… It's good that you're back, I'll ask Yan Zi to make you something delicious tomorrow…"
I hurriedly hid behind the curtains and patted my chest. Why did this old lady make things so creepy?
After a while, there were slow footsteps outside the door. I leaned over the peephole and saw Granny Su staggering up the stairs, holding onto the wall, and then standing at the door with a smile: "Don't worry, don't worry, I'll open the door…" She took out the key tremblingly, opened the door, and stood sideways at the door: "Come in, come in… hurry up… you haven't been home for a long time, right?"
As she spoke, she waved her dry hands, as if she was brushing the dust off her family's bodies.
I sat in front of the computer, my mind blank.
I thought, Grandma Su must be crazy.
I was also going crazy because I couldn't write the ending of the story.
④
It must be because my sleeping posture is wrong, that’s why I have such a messy dream.
In the dream, the family members in the photo in Grandma Su's living room floated down, and the family gathered around the dining table, eating the spoiled food with relish. While eating, Grandma Su suddenly turned into Dad. Dad was as old as Grandma Su, with a gray face. He held a bowl of water and said to me: "Dad picked the moon for you…" When he spoke, there was a strange smell in his mouth, exactly the same as Grandma Su's.
I woke up in horror, realizing that I had actually slept in front of the computer all night. When I woke up, the strange smell was still there.
"Swallow…" Grandma Su's voice sounded beside me, and I screamed in fright. Looking at her, she smiled awkwardly, her eyes full of flattering expressions.
"I knocked for a long time, but you didn't say anything, so I came in with the spare key." Granny Su lowered her head, like a child who had done something wrong. When we first moved in, she was always so rude. She often secretly used the spare key to open the door in the dead of night, and she would go to great lengths to close the windows or turn off the main gas valve for me, which made me terrified every night, thinking that there was a ghost. After I expressed my dissatisfaction many times, she changed her bad habits.
"Grandma Su, please don't do this again… I have my own privacy…"
"I know, I know…" Granny Su said hurriedly, "You kids are always busy." Granny Su looked at me with excitement in her eyes: "My husband and children came back last night! You should hurry to my house and cook!"
"Granny Su…" I looked reluctant.
"Yan Zi, you have already promised me… Don't forget, one month's rent…" Although Grandma Su was speaking threateningly, her tone was full of pleading.
I sighed: "I'll pack up and come over!"
"Hurry up!" Grandma Su went out happily.
⑤
The strange smell in Grandma Su's house became stronger, even a little pungent.
"Grandma Su, open the window…" I said loudly to the bedroom while cutting the blackened pork.
"No…" Grandma Su's voice was full of joy, "Open the window, the children will slip out of the window!"
nerve!
I poured the rotten pork into the plate and thought to myself, I must remind Granny Su not to eat these things. Perhaps only dead people eat these. A rotten stomach eats rotten food.
I brought the dishes to the dining table in the living room and looked up—the photo was gone.
The photo in front of the memorial tablet disappeared, leaving only a mottled mark. Could it be that, just like in the dream, Grandma Su's family members walked down from the photo and came to spend the holiday with her?
"Grandma Su!" I pushed open the bedroom door. "The food is ready… ready… ready…"
I stood at the door with my mouth open, holding onto the door frame, trembling.
Three more coffins appeared in Grandma Su's bedroom overnight. Grandma Su sat in her own coffin, looking at this coffin with joy, then at that coffin with joy, and then reaching her hand into the coffin next to her and gently stroking something.
Granny Su raised her head and said, "Swallow, come and meet my partner and children."
"Grandma Su… that's…" Oh my God! Could Grandma Su have dug out her family's coffins overnight?
"Don't be afraid. Although they are not alive, they are very kind…" Grandma Su climbed out of the coffin, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to the side of the coffin.
Only after seeing what was in the coffin did I breathe a sigh of relief and wipe the cold sweat from my face.
There were three paper figures lying in the three coffins, with photos of Grandma Su's husband and a pair of children pasted on their faces.
"Grandma Su…"
"Okay, it's time for the reunion dinner!" Grandma Su picked up the paper doll of her husband and hobbled to place it beside the dining table. She then picked up the paper dolls of her children and placed them on the chairs as well.
After all her actions, the whole living room was turned into a mourning hall, which was extremely awkward.
⑥
Granny Su picked up the chopsticks, and I hurriedly stopped her: "Granny Su, this food has gone bad… it's… it's for the dead… you can't eat it."
"I'm not far from death either…" Granny Su put a piece of braised pork into her mouth as if nothing had happened, and swallowed it without chewing. "My dear… you are right, since ancient times there have only been foolish parents and heartless children…"
"Grandma Su… I want to go back…" I suddenly thought of my father. What was he doing at this moment? I, too, was a heartless daughter.
Granny Su seemed not to have heard what I said. She continued to eat and said, "My son has really forgotten his mother after marrying a wife. Is the wife really that good? Alas… So, if I let you die, you can't blame me. How can I give birth to you and how can I put you back…"
When Granny Su said this, she stuffed a piece of meat into her mouth with hatred, as if it was her son's meat. I couldn't help but take a breath and leaned against the wall. Granny Su's son, could it be that she killed herself?
After talking about her son, Granny Su pointed her chopsticks at the paper figurine with her daughter's photo on it and said, "You stinky girl! Is that man so good? So good that you obey him in everything. I didn't agree with your marriage, so you severed the mother-daughter relationship with me… You didn't even call me for several years! Oh… Are you obedient now? If I had known this would happen, I should have poisoned you to death when you were born!"
"Grandma Su! Grandma Su! I'm leaving first!" I rushed out in a panic.
I never thought that I would be a neighbor of a perverted murderous old woman for nearly a year. I remembered that she had sneaked into my room a few days ago, and I suddenly felt terrified. Fortunately, I have poor sleep quality and wake up easily. Otherwise, maybe I would have died a long time ago.
At this moment, I suddenly thought of my father. Yes, my father is always itchy , and I always think of him when I feel scared, panicked and helpless.
"Dad!" I dialed the phone, "Dad!"
"Yan Zi, I know you are busy. I will be very satisfied if you call me…" said the father understandingly.
"Dad! You…" I choked, "I… I want the moon…"
"Okay… okay…" Dad's voice trembled: "Come back… Dad, I'll pick it for you…"
"Um!"
I simply packed my luggage and walked out the door with determination.
From the house of Grandma Su across the street, her cheerful laughter could be faintly heard.
⑦
After spending the Mid-Autumn Festival with my father in the countryside, I returned to my residence in the city. The house was in a mess and all my things were piled in the living room.
I stood at Grandma Su's door and was about to knock when I suddenly heard a burst of harsh quarreling from inside.
"Isn't it enough for each person to have a house?"
"In my hometown, daughters don't have inheritance rights!"
I knocked on the door gently, and a fierce woman opened the door: "What are you doing!" I turned pale with fear and pointed at her: "You…you are Granny Su's daughter…how come you…you are not…already dead!"
"You are the one who died!" the woman cursed.
Behind the open door of Grandma Su's house, the layout of the mourning hall was still there, but the photo was replaced with Grandma Su's.
"Granny Su…she…she…" I pointed at the photo.
"Dead! He should have died long ago!" A man rushed out, who looked like Granny Su's son. "I was wondering why my business has been so unsuccessful in the past two years. It turns out that this old man pasted my photo on a paper figurine and even set up a spirit tablet. A mother who cursed her own child to die should have died long ago!"
I leaned against the wall and said through gritted teeth: "You are the one who deserves to die!"
"Who are you?" The man grabbed my collar.
"I live across the street."
"Get out of here! That house is mine now!" the man shouted.
"What's yours! If you want this room, then the room opposite should be mine!" the woman said angrily.
So they continued arguing, completely ignoring my existence.
I quietly packed my luggage and walked out of this house full of gossip.
I think if I were Granny Su, I would also tell others that all my children were dead.
I moved, apologized to the publishing house, and started to rewrite the ending. I don’t know if it was because of the new residence, but inspiration flowed like a spring and the novel progressed smoothly.
It was late at night, and the moon was no longer as round as it was during the Mid-Autumn Festival, but it was still very bright.
I yawned, closed the window, and turned the gas valve.
These habits were developed by me under the pressure of Grandma Su.