When I woke—was this still the world of the living?

　　I was sitting inside a beat-up van, crudely modified for purposes I dared not ask about.

　　The air was thick with the acrid smell of burnt joss paper—the kind burned to send the dead on their way. From the rearview mirror dangled a bronze spirit bell, about the size of a child’s fist, swaying and thudding dully as the van jolted along the mountain road.

　　My hand, trembling, reached for the seatback. My fingertips brushed against something clammy—ash, cold and wet. Someone, unbelievably, had burned funerary paper right here in the van. The grey flecks clung to my palm, nestling into my lifelines like flakes of a corpse’s skin.

　　I wanted to curse, but my body felt drained, my voice hollow. So I let the anger die in my throat, wiped my hand absently, and smeared the residue across the windowpane.

　　That, I shouldn’t have done.

　　Because where my hand had wiped—two bloody handprints stared back at me.

　　The blood was fresh, sliding down the glass in slow, viscous trails, like magnified strands of some virulent plague. And if you looked closer, you could see the marks of fingernails dragged through the blood, as if the person had clawed at the glass in desperation.

　　The van was moving. Which meant the handprints had been pressed there not long ago.

　　And right beside me—

　　Sat Aunt Lin, thin as a bamboo stalk.

　　I couldn’t tell if it was her pallor or my own dizziness, but her face looked bloodless, her eyes dull and lifeless. If not for the faint hiss of breath in her nostrils, I would have sworn the figure leaning against me was a corpse, dried and brittle with age.

　　Still, since Aunt Lin—the one who doted on me as if I were her own—was here, I might as well ask her about the blood.

　　I lifted a shaky finger toward the window.

　　“Ma-ma,” I said—the word we Huamiao people use for our aunts, soft and respectful.

　　“What… what happened to the window? Why are there blood prints on it?”

　　At the sound of my voice, Aunt Lin flinched. Then, forcing composure, she smiled faintly.

　　“Lin… you’re awake!”

　　Her tone carried both surprise and calm, as if she had expected this moment all along.

　　I didn’t answer. My eyes shifted to the bottle sitting beside her.

　　A clear glass bottle—filled not with water, but with a crimson liquid whose nature I didn’t dare name. (Later, I’d learn she always sprinkled a few drops of it at every crossroads—a strange ritual I’d never understood.)

　　If my guess was right, she must have fed me some of it while I was unconscious; the faint red stains on my shirt said as much.

　　Aunt Lin had married my father over ten years ago. In our village, the elders called her shifu—“master.” She had witnessed every exorcism my father ever performed.

　　Now, she looked at me gravely and said,

　　“Lin, what our family’s facing this time… isn’t simple. Your father must’ve offended one of the Great Ones from the other realm. That’s why all these strange things keep happening. Those bloody handprints—you saw them? They were left by one of that being’s servants, when we fled with you. I honestly thought we wouldn’t make it out alive.”

　　As she spoke, she wiped her face with trembling fingers, and from the front seat, the driver chuckled dryly.

　　The driver, taking the chance to interrupt, said, “Come on, Sister Lin, don’t scare the boy. ‘Underlings from the other side’? Please. They’re probably just mountain spirits, that’s all. Though—funny thing—why do they only seem to be after your nephew, huh?”

　　He turned slightly to look at me.

　　The man was bald, early thirties maybe, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His round face might’ve looked friendly if not for the untrimmed beard crawling down his cheeks—made him look like a modern-day Lu Zhishen1.

　　“Drive properly, Ah Song!” Aunt Lin snapped, pointing toward the windshield.

　　Only then did I notice—the drizzle outside had turned heavier, the mountain road winding endlessly ahead. Mist curled around the slopes on both sides.

　　But the mountains had no grass. The trees had no leaves. And this wasn’t even winter.

　　Rain traced slow trails down the glass, like the tear lines painted on the faces of mourners in our funeral rites.

　　Suddenly, Aunt Lin pulled out a wooden comb and began combing against the veins of my left arm. I froze—this was what they did to the dead, combing backward before the burial to “set the soul free.”

　　Had she lost her mind?

　　She muttered under her breath:

　　“Comb against, draw out the frost in the palm,

　　When yin gathers, souls cannot hide.

　　Three souls, seven spirits—return to dust,

　　By decree of the law divine.”

　　Before I could react, the driver yelled, “Damn it! Those things are back again—your enemies won’t quit!”

　　We looked ahead.

　　Somehow, a black car had appeared before us, about thirty meters away, moving at the exact same speed. When we sped up, it sped up. When we slowed, it slowed. It refused to let us pass.

　　The black sedan flickered in and out of the mist like a shadow from the underworld. Mud splattered across its body, yet the paint seemed untouched. The license plate was veiled by a thin layer of mist, impossible to read.

　　Old talismans were plastered across its rear window, their ink washed pale by the rain. A faint, eerie glow seemed to seep through them. The taillights blinked like ghost flames in the fog.

　　“A Soul-Bearing Car,” the driver muttered. “Heard of it, never thought I’d see one. Don’t tell me it’s full of drowned girls again…”

　　At the words Soul-Bearing Car, Aunt Lin’s face turned ashen.

　　And me—I felt my thoughts dissolve like a wet blanket. That car seemed to mirror our own, as if we were driving through twin worlds—one living, one dead.

　　“Maybe…” I whispered, “maybe I should go with them.”

　　“What did you say?” Aunt Lin’s voice cracked. Her dry fingers dug into my arm, nails almost piercing the skin.

　　“I said—maybe I should go with them. We can’t win this.”

　　“Nonsense!” she snapped. Her hand shook as she gripped the comb, but she forced herself to stay silent.

　　The driver’s knuckles whitened on the wheel, sweat dripping down his temples. “This is bad—real bad,” he muttered. “It’s like some girl’s spirit—no matter how hard I turn, I can’t shake her off!”

　　Just then, a gust of cold wind slammed into us.

　　The drizzle outside thickened into a torrential downpour. Fat raindrops lashed against the windows—thud, thud, thud—like countless unseen hands beating to be let in.

　　The taillights of the black sedan flared suddenly, red as fresh blood.

　　The glare stabbed my eyes, and the driver swore under his breath, jerking the steering wheel hard to the right.

　　As the van swerved, I caught a glimpse through the rain-blurred window—

　　a bluish-gray face was pressed against the black car’s glass, its eyes sliding along with the motion, locked on me.

　　“Damn it! Guess I’m off to meet the King of Hell’s wife!” the driver shouted, voice cracking with terror, as he yanked the wheel again to avoid a collision.

　　Tires screeched. The two vehicles scraped past each other—

　　and in that instant, a chill pierced straight from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head.

　　I saw it clearly—

　　the black sedan passed through the rear half of our van, as though it were made of mist.

　　The Soul-Calming Bell hanging from the mirror fell silent.

　　Our engine died.

　　Aunt Lin hurried to burn yellow talismans, their ashes swirling through the air with a sharp, acrid scent—but nothing changed. The air grew so cold it bit into bone; we could hear our own heartbeats pounding in the dark.

　　“This thing’s no ordinary ghost,” muttered the driver, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror, terrified the Soul-Bearing Car might appear again.

　　My head throbbed. The veins on my left arm bulged, blue and pulsing, crawling like a nest of worms. Pain tore through me and I groaned aloud. Instantly, both of them turned toward me.

　　“Hold on! Don’t let it hook your soul!” Aunt Lin shouted, her voice cracking with panic I’d never heard from her before.

　　Before I could answer, the black sedan appeared again—not far ahead this time—its body wrapped in rolling black mist, so thick it looked alive.

　　The veins on my arm swelled violently, as if something inside wanted out. I couldn’t control myself; I started crawling toward the door, mumbling,

　　“I have to… I have to go…”

　　Aunt Lin lunged forward, clutching me tight, her nails digging deep into my flesh.

　　“No! You can’t go!” she cried.

　　The driver yelled, “Do something! If he goes, you’ll never have grandkids!”

　　The window of the Soul-Bearing Car rolled down—slowly.

　　A figure took shape inside, blurred by the fog, but its gaze was sharp and cold, slicing straight into me.

　　Then, a gust of howling wind slammed into us.

　　The van shook violently.

　　Before I knew it, that unseen force had yanked me right out of Aunt Lin’s arms—out of the van—and I was walking toward the black car as if pulled by invisible strings.

　　Aunt Lin and the bearded driver leapt out after me, grabbing at my arms.

　　The wind was so fierce it roared in my ears.

　　I screamed, “Help me!”

　　In her panic, Aunt Lin bit her finger and scrawled something on my forehead with her own blood.

　　Then the bearded driver suddenly shouted. I turned back—and saw it.

　　A black shadow was clawing its way out from under the van.

　　It stood over two meters tall, its body dripping with a tar-like slime. Hollow sockets glowed with ghostly green light.

　　Its gnarled claws dug deep into the mud, carving three long trenches in the earth.

　　The bearded man snatched up an iron rod and smashed it down on the creature’s back.

　　The impact sent up a spray of hissing slime, like molten iron dropped into water.

　　The shadow shrieked—a sound like a crying infant—and then its body tore apart, the pieces sucked violently into the Soul-Bearing Car.

　　The last twitching finger fell into a tire track, dissolved into black smoke, and vanished.

　　We stood there in the rain, staring, stunned.

　　So the car hadn’t come for us—it had come for that thing.

　　But then I caught a strange scent in the air—the iron tang of blood mixed with mutton fat.

　　I touched my forehead. It was Aunt Lin’s blood.

　　Confused and dazed, I managed to whisper,

　　“Why… why did we come here?”

　　Aunt Lin finally steadied her breath and answered,

　　“Not here. We’re headed for Taiping Town.”

　　1 Lu Zhishen, a fictional character in The Water Margin (Shuihu Zhuan), one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. Originally named Lu Da and nicknamed the Flowery Monk, he is a towering, broad-shouldered man with a fierce face and immense strength. Known for his sense of justice and impulsive temper, he becomes a monk after killing a local bully in defense of an innocent woman, later joining the outlaws of Liangshan as one of their 108 heroes.