The King of Curses

Chapter 228 The Old Man Burning Paper Money at the Crossroads
Late autumn has passed and the weather is getting colder. The clothes worn by pedestrians on the road are getting thicker. People hold their collars with their hands to prevent the cold wind from blowing in, and walk hurriedly on the sidewalks.

The night wind was bleak, and a few fallen leaves were blown up from the sycamore trees planted on the roadside. They swirled and fell on the raised bright yellow blind path, and the street lights cast halos of light.

A few more hours passed until there was no one on the road and only cars could be seen whizzing past every few minutes.

The clock hands in the roadside convenience store pointed to the top, and it was now twelve o'clock in the morning.

The location here is Sanin City, Yongning Station.

The station was some distance from the city center. All the shops along the road had closed early, leaving only a 24-hour convenience store open. An ATM next to a bank was emitting a bright white light, and a homeless man was sleeping inside, spread out on old newspapers.

This city is located at the junction of the north and the south. It is one of the four ancient capitals in China, with a long history and profound cultural heritage. As a transportation hub and provincial capital, although its economic development is not as good as that of coastal cities, it is making steady progress and is an important city in North China.

It's just that in recent times, a lot of bizarre rumors have inexplicably spread in San'in City. Some are wild stories that have been passed down from before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and some are urban stories that have only emerged in the Internet age. They are spread through third-rate tabloids, online communities and word of mouth among citizens.

I don’t know if it’s because this city has such a long history, and the “thickness” of weird legends is often proportional to the length of time they have been passed down, so there are so many weird and strange stories that spread explosively like a virus infection;

Some people also say that it is due to the geographical environment of the city. As its name suggests, Sanin City is located on the shady side of the mountain, which is full of yin energy. The whole city is a yin basin, which easily attracts ominous things and ghosts...

The latter statement was naturally refuted by people, because according to this theory, Shanyin City should have been abandoned by superstitious people in ancient times many years ago, but it still served as the capital of several feudal dynasties and was regarded as the "place where dragons rise" by emperors and generals. When did it become the "gathering basin of yin"?
In the eyes of some insiders, San'in City is indeed an unusual city, which may have something to do with geographical feng shui, cultural traditions, and historical origins, but none of them are decisive factors.

Sometimes, the beginning of everything is just an accident; and the subsequent development is like a train on the rails, which never turns back, until everyone follows that track, until it becomes a law that does not need to be spoken of, existing in the subconscious...

……

When the automatic door opens and closes, it makes a harsh "creaking" sound, like the sound made by insufficiently oiled gears rubbing against each other.

The young man who was dozing off behind the cash register heard the noise and quickly looked up, only to find that only the door was open and no one was visible.

He was not surprised at all, and muttered, "I wonder when this broken door will be repaired. It's scary..."

Feeling a gust of cold wind rushing in through the gap, Xiao Chen shrank his neck and pulled the collar of his uniform up half an inch. The oden on the glass counter was bubbling, and the steaming hot air condensed into white mist in the cold air, exuding a fragrance that aroused the appetite in his stomach.

"Lao Zhang, do you feel it's very cold tonight?"

He rubbed his hands, glanced at the empty street outside the door, and in order to divert his attention, he began to talk to his colleagues.

Lao Zhang didn't respond. All he could hear was him squatting behind the shelf counting the inventory while people were rummaging through the boxes and cabinets.

It wasn't until he repeated it again that the man responded.

"We have the air conditioner on, how cold can it be?"

"Too."

The young man asked again.

"Would you like to have something to eat? I want to cook some rice cakes."

"If you're not afraid that the store manager will notice that something is missing tomorrow morning..."

Lao Zhang finally raised his head from behind the shelf. He was holding a box of beer and sorting it with some difficulty.

Suddenly, the middle-aged man stopped moving and looked straight in a certain direction.

The young clerk couldn't help laughing when he saw him like this.

"You're trying to scare people again."

Lao Zhang is not as serious as he appears to be. In fact, he is a carefree person, otherwise he would not joke around so casually and would not be afraid of being reported by others if he occasionally steals food or takes things, because the other party is even more dishonest.

This person also likes to show off his past qualifications, likes to chat, and especially likes to tell ghost stories. In the past two days, the young man has heard a lot of strange stories that have been circulating in Shanyin City for many years from him. He himself came here from another place to attend university and is working part-time in a convenience store, so he finds it quite interesting to listen to them.

According to Lao Zhang himself, this is a trick he developed when he was young to pick up girls, and it works very well. Unfortunately, this trick is not very effective for people nowadays, as everyone is well-informed on the Internet, while the ideas in a person's mind are always limited.

"What's this time? A guest coming in the middle of the night? Or a ghost taxi?"

However, Lao Zhang did not respond to him.

The young man then felt something was wrong. He looked outside in the direction he was looking and saw a hunched, thin figure.

It was an old lady, she was unsteadily walking, and no one knew what she was busy doing at the curb. After a while, I saw a ball of fire burning towards the night sky, and then I realized that the old lady was offering a sacrifice.

Without even turning her head, she tremblingly took out paper money and gold ingots and kept throwing them into the brazier.

This was not the first time Xiao Chen had seen this scene. Burning paper money at a crossroads was a custom of the older generation. The purpose was to make it easier for the ghost messenger to run around and deliver the clothes to the ancestors. It also meant that people and ghosts should go their own way and should not get entangled with the paper burners. As the saying goes, "The crossroads connects all four directions, and the east, south, west and north roads are all accessible; all kinds of dead people passing by here can easily receive paper money."

It was a little creepy to see it in the middle of the night, but there was nothing wrong with it.

"They are worshipping their ancestors, stop staring at them."

"What do you mean by 'worshipping ancestors'? If it was just burning paper money, would I care so much?"

Old Zhang glared at him, then quickly turned his gaze back, squinted his eyes, and continued to stare at the hunched figure squatting at the intersection.

"My eyesight is not good. Xiao Chen, can you help me see if what the old lady is wearing is... a shroud?"

After hearing this, the young clerk was stunned at first, and then felt a chill down his spine.

"You, don't scare me..."

He felt that neither the heat from the oden nor the heat from the air conditioner could dispel the chill in his heart. His neck was as stiff as a stone, and he turned to the side with a "crack" and looked at the old lady at the intersection.

The night was pitch black and the figure was busy burning paper. Xiao Chen could barely make out that the old man was wearing clothes similar to a Tang suit.

At this moment, the young man suddenly remembered something: he had attended the funeral of an elderly person in his family before and had seen the clothes of the deceased.

"You said that's a shroud? But I remember shrouds are traditional clothing... Why do you think it must be worn by the dead?"

"Of course I can recognize it! Didn't you see the 'longevity' pattern on it?!"

Old Zhang seemed to have gone insane. His voice was high, but his eyes were staring without blinking.

"I remember it very clearly. It was the same style my mother was wearing when she died. I picked it out myself. Or rather, or rather..."

He suddenly stopped talking, and after a moment, he spoke slowly in a difficult and strange tone.

“…This old lady looks a lot like my mother.”

The young clerk was speechless for a moment.

No wonder, if he saw a figure that looked like a deceased elder wandering the streets in the middle of the night, he might find it hard to accept. But this is definitely not true, most people would not mistake their loved ones, but this time maybe they look too similar.

Speaking of similarities... Xiao Chen's expression became more and more strange. Like his colleagues, he seemed to be possessed, staring at the intersection and lost in memories.

"Is it your...mother, Lao Zhang? Really? Why do I feel...she's more like my deceased grandmother?"

"..."

The two shop assistants exchanged glances and saw the fear in each other's eyes.

After a while, they noticed another strange thing, which further confirmed the terrible guess in their hearts:

——The old lady who was burning paper money had no shadow behind her.

The bright street light shining on her always gave people an eerie feeling. Even the light in the brazier seemed to be changing color, sometimes like a faint green phosphorous ghost fire.

"It's fake, right? This isn't the Ghost Festival..."

"We can't be like this on the Ghost Festival. We really are..." Old Zhang murmured.

"...What the hell?" the young man added the second half of the sentence in a trembling voice.

They looked at each other and simultaneously thought of running away.

At this moment, they didn't have time to think about whether their dead relatives would harm them. Moreover, they didn't know what the ghost really looked like. It looked like someone's mother at one moment and someone's grandmother at another. It might be an illusion.

"Then, what should we do? Leave now? But people are blocking the door..."

"Call the police?"

"Don't be ridiculous, no one would believe it."

"No, let's fight first," Lao Zhang took a deep breath, "As for us, let's see if we can leave through the back door first..."

The young man's eyes were firmly attracted by the night. There were fine ashes floating in the halo of the street lamp. He didn't know whether it was the ashes of burning paper money or something else. He only heard the echo of teeth chattering in his ears.

The next moment, his pupils widened as he trembled, and the shadow under the light disappeared without a trace, leaving only scattered dust.

"No, she's gone! She's gone—"

The screams that were terrified to the point of distortion came to an abrupt halt, only for the hunched figure to reappear.

It was like the "frame skipping" in the video being played, the old lady moved directly from the intersection to the zebra crossing, and the movement process in between was simply and crudely cut out.

This time, the old woman no longer had her back to them, but was "looking" straight at them. However, she had no eyes, only a blurry face, like a processed photo in an old newspaper.

Now they couldn't sit still anymore. Xiao Chen screamed again, jumped off the stool, and tried to rush to the back door in panic.

Old Zhang's forehead was covered in cold sweat. He wanted to open the door, but found that he couldn't turn the handle at all.

The door wasn't locked, it just couldn't be opened.

"Boom!"

The two were busy working and sweating profusely, but they heard a voice coming from behind.

"Boom boom boom!"

Something was knocking on the automatic door rhythmically, like an ominous crow pecking at the window, revealing an indescribable evil.

The young man didn't dare to move, but his sight was attracted by an inexplicable gravity, and he turned slowly and stiffly, looking in the direction where the sound came from.

...The hunchbacked old lady has arrived at the door of the convenience store.

The blurry, deformed face was pressed tightly against it, and the wrinkled, skinny arms were clinging to the door, trying to enter the store. Although no expression could be seen, one could feel deep malice from the movements of the strange creature.

The temperature in the store suddenly dropped several degrees, and the darkness and coolness of the night seeped in.

At the same time, the incandescent light above my head flickered, making a crackling sound of electricity; the ground shook as if there was an earthquake, the shelves shook with a "ping-pong-clang" noise, and the bottles and jars neatly placed on the shelves fell to the ground.

Among them was a glass bottle of tomato juice, which rolled off the edge along the track and fell due to gravity, and was about to fall to the ground and break into a puddle.

Just then, a man's hand reached out and grabbed it forcefully.

The trembling lights, the chill of the night, and the evil aura that had accumulated like silt in this convenience store all disappeared in the blink of an eye like an illusion, and in their place was the voice of a man who was out of tune with the atmosphere, and he seemed very happy.

"Oh, I didn't expect there were still shops open at this time."

The hand holding the tomato juice walked to the cashier and put the item down.

"Fortunately, we arrived in time, and the things don't seem to be damaged."

……

“…Wh…what’s going on?”

The two shop assistants were now hiding in the corner and trembling. The back door was blocked by an invisible force, and the front door was blocked by a strange old lady. They didn't dare to look up at all. They could only bury their heads in the sand like ostriches and pretend not to see anything. So even if the situation returned to normal, they couldn't react.

Until the owner of that hand, a tall young man, pulled open the shelf and appeared in front of them.

"Get up."

He was carrying large and small bags filled with instant noodles, self-heating rice, bento boxes that he planned to heat up, and snacks like potato chips and cakes.

"Just now, just now..."

Old Zhang could hardly speak clearly and just stared at him in a daze.

"You just saw a ghost. Yes, that's right, a 'ghost'."

The man's tone was understated.

"Please help me pay the bill. Oh, and three more servings of oden."

*
Cen Dongsheng returned to his car carrying a plastic bag and the midnight snacks he had bought.

Two hands belonging to different hostesses stretched out from the back seat of the car, trying to help him get things; after stopping in mid-air, they took away different bags tacitly.

He took his share, closed the car door, sat in the driver's seat, drank a sip of hot soup, and said to his teammates:

"This city doesn't look peaceful."

(End of this chapter)