So, I quit my job at the law firm and drifted around Nanjing for a long time.
I didn't dare tell my family, and I started trying all kinds of jobs, including but not limited to working in restaurant kitchens, as a waiter, in electronics factories, and so on.
The one I stuck with the longest was sales. It was the only job that made me feel like if I didn't keep learning, I would be eliminated. In the end, because the company delayed payments so severely that I simply couldn't hold on anymore, I had to resign, or else I would have starved to death.
This made me feel like I was wasting my life, yet apart from the major I had studied, no other work interested me.
If I had no interest in my work, I would become a walking corpse without a soul.
I took a trip back home, with no destination in mind.
I went back to soak in the atmosphere, return to my room, look at those things I knew the location of even with my eyes closed, and check if the magazines under the bed had gathered dust.
The magazines were gone.
I figured my parents must have cleared them out during the rare times they cleaned my room while I was away studying over the past few years.
For some reason, I suddenly thought of Shen Xuanrou again.
I knew that she was the second tribulation the old master had mentioned.
I also knew that if she had come to see me that year in early May, I probably would have died right then and there.
I guessed that the old master probably knew of Shen Xuanrou's existence, but given his level of Daoist cultivation, he likely couldn't defeat her, which was why he had my dad hire someone to perform a useless ritual—just as a subtle hint.
Shen Xuanrou understood this too, but she didn't spell it out at the time; she simply left with such resolute determination.
I still remembered the old master saying that I needed to be on guard until I turned eighteen. But I had already been past eighteen for several years, and aside from going to sweep the graves during Qingming in the daytime, I had never been there at any other time.
I wanted to see her.
Knowing I was back, my parents specially cooked a meal at home at noon and ate with me.
During the meal, they asked about how I was doing lately, whether I was adapting to work, if I had enough money, if I was used to life out there, and if I wanted them to have someone transfer me back to my hometown's court to work for a while first...
I was a bit evasive, not knowing how to answer, feeling like a Daoist priest who had spent ten years in bitter cultivation only to lose his Daoist power overnight.
They probably guessed, but they didn't say anything.
After we finished eating, my mom went to wash the dishes, and my dad sat with me for a little longer before finally shoving a bank card into my hand.
"There are one hundred thousand yuan on this card. Do whatever you want to do, but when the money runs out, don't let false pride keep you from asking—remember to come home."
Those were my dad's exact words, but I had more important things to do now.
I took the card, went out to buy some joss paper, candles, folded gold ingots, and a lot of snacks, stuffed them all into a backpack, and took a long-distance bus back to my hometown.
Not wanting to expose my whereabouts, I didn't visit any of my relatives in the hometown, lest one of them let it slip to my dad.
After getting off the bus, I quickly found the graveyard.
Just like in the past, I first burned some paper at my grandfather's grave and then wiped the dust off his photo.
Unlike when I came back for Qingming last year, this time my grandmother's photo had been added beside my grandfather's tombstone.
She passed away on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month last year. I was in Chongqing at the time, and after rushing for two days, I made it to see my grandmother for the last time at four in the morning.
After finishing all this, I followed my old habits and burned some paper for the surrounding neighbors, and added a bit more for each of the ancestors of the Jiang family.
When I finished, it was still early, so I went back to the rural market and found an inn nearby to stay in, quietly waiting for nightfall.
I waited until around ten-thirty before stepping out with my backpack.
The moonlight tonight was quite lovely, and the breeze was gentle.
Entering the graveyard, I bypassed those familiar tombs, fearing that my grandfather and ancestors might find out in the middle of the night that I had run over here and come to me in a dream to demand accountability.
This detour took nearly half an hour, and by the time I reached that small mound of earth, it was ten minutes to eleven.
I casually laid down a sheet of paper to sit on, dumped the snacks from my bag, cleared away some of the weeds on a small patch of ground, and sat there burning paper money while talking to myself.
This was the first time I had burned paper money while sitting down, and it actually gave me an unprecedented sense of liberation.
Doing these things in the past always required kneeling, followed by three loud kowtows after the burning was done. Anyone who didn't kneel, or didn't kowtow after burning, would be breaking a taboo.
As for what taboos they were, I didn't know either.
I didn't know how much time had passed. Not a single corner of paper was left among the joss paper I had, and the ingots had burned to ashes, yet the pile of snacks placed in front of the grave remained completely undisturbed. There was no movement around me at all; between heaven and earth, only I remained.
Why hasn't she appeared yet?
I began to doubt whether everything I had experienced was real.
Could it be that this person—no, this ghost—never existed at all?
Could the so-called Shen Xuanrou have been nothing more than a delusion of mine from the very beginning?
I tried to use modern science to explain everything I had experienced back then, and I found that it actually made sense.
During that period, I had fallen ill with a delusional disorder, conjuring out of thin air a female ghost named Shen Xuanrou, and weaving false story after false story using the knowledge I usually had.
The unwrapped candy wrapper was just my misremembering; all those snacks prepared for Shen Xuanrou had been eaten by me alone. Because my illness was cured in the hospital, Shen Xuanrou never appeared again afterward.
At this thought, I couldn't help but smile bitterly. Could it be that she, whom I had missed for several years, was actually something I had conjured out of thin air?
I felt somewhat deflated. Looking at the small mound of earth in front of me, I had the urge to step on it a couple of times.
Yet I restrained this impulse, because this mound of earth was innocent—it was merely a background element I had dragged into my delusional world.
It was innocent.
Suppressing this impulse, I also let go of my tension. I casually picked up a snack from the ground and began to eat.
If Shen Xuanrou truly existed, then my actions had meaning. Otherwise, I was just an utter fool who came to the edge of a graveyard in the middle of the night to burn paper, eat, and admire the moon.
When I had eaten almost enough, I stood up, stretched, and let out a sigh as if mocking myself, saying, "Time to wake up from the dream."
"Little mound of earth, I won't come to see you anymore."
As soon as my voice trailed off, the entire landscape somehow suddenly dimmed. A gust of wind whipped up around me, and the lights of the distant houses began to blur.
I looked up and saw a large, thick dark cloud drifting from somewhere unknown, blocking the moon and obscuring the starlight.
It looked like it was going to rain.
I didn't bring an umbrella.
So, I packed my trash into my bag, took one last look at the little mound of earth I had yearned for so deeply for so long, and prepared to leave.
The very second I turned around, a faint, elusive fragrance drifted through the air. And right there on the small mound of earth behind me, a figure had somehow appeared.
"Young master, trust you have been well since we last met."