I stared blankly at the woman wearing a floral apron in front of me, disbelieving shock welling up from my eyes.
If she hadn't spoken or pushed me away...I might have been able to accept it,
After all, my mother is dead...her remnants of her soul are still in my pocket.
How could it appear in front of me again?
I would rather believe that it is fake, or a fantasy caused by self-missing,
But the facts before me have to make me believe this woman,
This woman who looks exactly like my mother, even with the same tone of voice, is real.
Chongtong didn't see that it was a fantasy, and she responded to me truly, but that response was hard for me to accept.
My Ah Si has died a long time ago...
Maybe if she named another person, I would be better off. It’s not impossible for people in the world to look the same.
But she was talking about Ah Si!
I didn't bother to check whether the paper figure on my body was still there.
Maybe the paper man is actually fake? Maybe my mother and my sister weren't captured by the Peeves at all?
Maybe they were hiding in the Zhang family's ancient house.
Being denied by my family before my eyes was undoubtedly the heaviest blow.
I hurriedly defended myself and proved my identity:
"Mom, I am Ah Si...I am Ah Si...I am not dead."
"I'm still alive, I'm not dead."
"Look, I'm really Ah Si." I took off my sunglasses to show off my appearance.
My mother looked at me warily and still cursed:
"It's nonsense. I don't know him at all. Besides, when did I have a son as old as you?"
"My Ah Si has died a long time ago, okay?"
"Who are you? Is it interesting to come here and pretend to be a dead child?".
"I..." I looked at my mother's back cursing and leaving, not knowing what to say.
Could it be that she is really not my mother?
Did I admit the wrong person?
I groped around on my body and found only half of the paper figure left.
The familiarity above is still there... It seems that my mother's remnant soul is still inside... Maybe the people in the Zhang family's ancient house can explain all this.
At this time the mahogany house next to me opened,
A tall figure walked out covered in shadow,
I felt nervous when I noticed that person. Is he from the Zhang family?
There was a piece of white paper pasted on the man's face, and a ferocious word was scrawled on the white paper in red ink.
The holes in the two eye slots in the character Zhang revealed two eyes, and I could hear the man laughing.
"You are finally back".
I responded calmly: "I'm back... tell me what your purpose is?".
"Why are you trying so hard to get me back? Let me go back to the Zhang family's ancient house?".
He didn't respond to my words. At this time, there was a series of creaking and pushing sounds of the door.
An inexplicable cold wind blew by, and a figure walked out of the many mahogany houses.
They are all of different shapes, male, female, old and young. They all have a piece of white paper pasted on their faces, with red words written on it.
Pairs of eyes leaking out of the white paper stared at me.
"You're back."
"Finally home".
I took two steps back under the gaze of those dull eyes.
They have no movement, just a single repetition of words.
There was a slight movement of figures, and three old men came out.
They passed through the people with white papers and came straight to me.
Their faces also had white paper with blood written on them, and their eyes behind the white paper were so dark that it was difficult to distinguish their pupils.
"Ah Si...is back."
The clothes worn by the three old men looked like paper clothes burned to the dead. The colors of the paper clothes were also different.
The red, green and blue paper figures look particularly weird on them.
The old man in Tsing Yi coughed dryly: "Ah Si...we meet again."
The old man in red: "Yes... we meet again, after eighteen years."
The old man in blue: "You left here eighteen years ago, and you came back here eighteen years later."
I looked at these three people and asked them word by word: "What is the Zhang family? Why are you so insistent on me coming back?".
"What's going on in Niuma Village? What's going on in my family?".
"What am I?".
The old man in blue looked like needles: "You have too many questions."
Me: "The purpose of my coming here is to find out."
The old man in Tsing Yi held the white paper on his face and said, "Let's go somewhere and have a good talk."
"Where to go".
He pointed to a mahogany temple not far away.
"Yeah, but wait."
I no longer paid attention to these three strange old men, but turned around and ran in the direction I came from.
The Four-Eyed Celestial Master was still waiting for me. When I saw my mother, I lost control and came over first.
Now when negotiating head-on with the Zhang family, it is always safer to have the Four-Eyed Celestial Master around.
I ran to the closed vermilion door and my brows twitched.
The Four-Eyed Celestial Master disappeared... Now there is only Wang Zhi lying on the ground behind the red door.
The blind Taoist priest in white disappeared.
I tried to look around, but there was no trace of anyone, just the Zhang family with white papers stuck on them.
After searching to no avail, I tried again to see if I could get out. It turned out that the red door was not pushable by humans, and it was useless to yell at it.
This is also expected. I finally got here. Will the Zhang family let me go?
It is necessary to talk to the Zhang family.
The Four-Eyed Celestial Master is gone, so I can't leave Wang Zhi here anymore. If Wang Zhi doesn't see me again, I will really be alone.
Besides, I was the one who cut him.
I carried Wang Zhi back to the redwood houses. The three old men did not move and were waiting for me.
Seeing me carrying Wang Zhi, they didn't look much at me, as if this person didn't exist at all.
The three old men took the lead and walked towards the mahogany temple.
Followed by a group of people with white paper.
I followed.
Entering the temple,
The three old men and the Zhang family members were already seated.
The three elders sat on the ebony chairs directly in front, and the others sat on the high chairs on both sides.
Suddenly, I felt like I was being judged at the Yamen.
They made no attempt to offer me a chair, but kept their eyes on me.
I took a breath and threw Wang Zhi to the ground, and simply sat down on the spot.
If they don't give me a chair, I won't wrong myself.
I looked directly at the three old men in red, green and blue: "Can we talk?".
The old man in red tapped his fingers on the armrest: "You should call us clan elder."
I laughed: "Does it still make sense to pay attention to these things now?".
The elder in blue: "You are a descendant of the Zhang family."
"You should be proud of this."
Me: "But you haven't told me what the Zhang family is?".
The red-clothed clan elder said: "The Fuxie family... The Zhang family is a family that has been inherited since ancient times. It is a family whose purpose is to subdue evil and exterminate ghosts."
"A family that conquers evil and destroys ghosts?" I felt funny when I heard this.
"If the Zhang family was the Fuxie family in ancient times, why did they end up in this situation? Are you hiding under your ancestral graves?"
"Only my grandfather's branch is left."
The old man in Tsing Yi's eyes were as gloomy as dark clouds: "It's not hiding! It's suppressing. The Zhang family is suppressing evil spirits."
