Chapter 1: The Red-Clothed Boy Case of Gaoshikan, Chongqing

The Red-Clothed Boy Case of Gaoshikan, Chongqing

October 24, 2009 — Farewell

Kuang Zhijun stood at the doorway of the old house in Gaoshikan with a schoolbag on his back that had been washed until it had turned pale. He smiled and waved at his parents.

He had just turned thirteen years and ten days old. His face still carried a little baby fat. Before they left, he reminded them again and again, “Mom, Dad, be careful in the city. I know how to feed the pigs, and I know how to lock the door. When you come back, we’ll slaughter the New Year pig together.”

His parents watched his thin back as he walked away, and their hearts tightened for a moment. The child had been sensible since he was little. He never complained about staying home alone.

No one could have imagined that this would be the last time they ever saw their son alive.

When Kuang Zhijun turned and entered the courtyard, a gust of wind lifted the hem of his shirt, revealing a shallow red mark across his lower back, as if something had scraped it. No one paid any attention.

November 4, 2009, Before Dawn — The Nightmare

His mother, Gu Denghui, woke with a start on the hard plank bed in the construction-site dormitory. Cold sweat had soaked through her coarse cloth jacket.

The scene in her dream had been too clear.

A man with no mouth or nose, only black, hollow eye sockets, was carrying a bulging burlap sack on his back. He slipped in through the half-closed back door of the old house. From inside the sack came small, broken sounds of struggling.

When the man passed through the main hall, he suddenly turned back and grinned at her, revealing a mouthful of black and yellow teeth.

Gu Denghui grabbed her husband’s arm, her voice shaking.

“Something has happened to our boy. We have to go back now!”

Her husband told her that dreams at night came from thoughts during the day. But her heart kept pounding, and her eyelid twitched so violently it felt as if it would split open. She kept feeling that something was crawling along the telephone wire, heading toward the old house.

November 5, 2009, Around Noon — A Terrifying Moment

His father, Kuang Jilu, rode a borrowed motorcycle for three hours over bumpy dirt roads. When he reached the old house, the front gate was bolted from the inside.

The unease in his heart grew heavier and heavier. He walked around to the back door, the one that was usually kept locked.

The door was actually half open.

When he pushed it lightly, it gave a creaking sound.

A smell rushed toward him, a mixture of moldy straw, rust, and a faint trace of blood. It made him cough.

Sunlight came through the broken window of the main hall and slanted across the roof beam. In that instant, Kuang Jilu felt as if the blood in his body had frozen.

A figure was hanging from the beam.

It was dressed in his daughter’s old red floral skirt. Beneath the hem of the skirt, the exposed calves were bluish white. The ankles were bound with thick hemp rope, and from the rope hung a rust-covered scale weight, swaying gently in the draft that passed through the hall.

The figure’s hands were tied behind its back. The rope had cut deep bloody marks into the wrists, and the fingernails were packed with black mud.

What made his scalp nearly burst was his son’s head.

It was strangely tilted backward, yet the chin was pressed against the chest. On the forehead was a needle-tip-sized blood scab, like a dark red mole.

Kuang Jilu staggered onto a wooden stool and touched his son’s hand.

It was ice-cold, hard as stone.

A beast-like howl tore from his throat. He collapsed into the pile of straw, trembling so violently that he could not stand up.

November 5, Afternoon to Night — Doubts in the Investigation

The wail of police sirens broke the silence of the mountain village. Forensic officers and police stepped into the main hall through straw scattered all over the floor.

An older officer crouched down and shone his flashlight on the knot in the rope. His brows drew tighter and tighter.

It was a “dead knot” used by fishermen to tie fishing nets. The force was precise, the angle tricky. A thirteen-year-old child could not possibly have tied it himself.

The forensic officer carefully cut open the red skirt and found that underneath it was a women’s swimsuit. The size was clearly too large, and the edges of the swimsuit had been worn shiny. It did not look newly bought.

During the autopsy, the forensic officer’s hand paused.

There were no ligature marks on the victim’s neck. The suffocation had been caused by pressure from the rope against the chest cavity. The needle hole on the forehead reached as deep as the periosteum, as if it had been pierced repeatedly by a long, thin metal needle. The scale weight at the ankles weighed as much as three jin, and the dragging force had slightly deformed the bones.

Yet at the scene, aside from Kuang Jilu’s footprints and the dead boy’s, there were no traces of a third person. The doors and windows were intact, with no signs of being pried open.

The forensic officer whispered to the police, “It’s too strange. It doesn’t look like suicide, but there’s no evidence proving homicide.”

The police searched the old house from top to bottom. Under the bed, they found only a few old animation discs and several burned candle stubs. Candle wax had dripped onto the bed boards, hardening into twisted little lumps.

Mid-to-Late November 2009 — The Official Conclusion No One Accepted

The police briefing was held in a hurry. The conclusion was “accidental death by sexual asphyxiation.”

The reasons sounded “sufficient”: the discs contained bondage imagery; the candle wax on the bed was said to be traces of private sexual play; a semen stain from the victim had been detected on the swimsuit; the rope on the roof beam showed signs of repeated wear. The police inferred that the victim had repeatedly tried bondage before, and this time had accidentally kicked over the wooden stool under his feet.

Before the officer had even finished, Kuang Jilu’s eyes turned red. Pointing at the officer’s nose, he shouted, “My son was honest as a block of wood. He had never even held a girl’s hand. How could he have done something like this?”

The old people in the village also erupted. Gathered outside the village committee office, they whispered among themselves.

“That was a Soul-Borrowing Curse,” one of them said. “A pure-yang child, thirteen years and thirteen days old. Wearing a red skirt lures yin. The swimsuit locks the soul. The scale weight suppresses the po, keeping it pinned down. Someone wanted to borrow his life.”

No one believed the official conclusion.

Mountain wind blew through the broken window of the old house, making a wu-wu sound like a child crying.

November to December 2009 — Misfortune Descends

Uncle Li, who had helped carry the coffin, was known in the village as an exceptionally brave man.

But on the third day after the burial, he suddenly went mad.

In the middle of the night, he ran barefoot to the pond at the village entrance, wrapped his arms around a willow tree, and shouted, “Red dress, don’t come looking for me! I didn’t see anything!”

His wife dragged him home, only to discover that he was clutching a strand of red cloth in his hand. It was exactly the same material as the red skirt Kuang Zhijun had worn.

A week later, villagers pulled his body out of the pond.

On his wrists, there was actually a faint ring of rope marks, in exactly the same position as the marks on the dead boy.

Granny Zhang, who had dressed Zhijun for burial, did not dare close her eyes that night. She said that when she got up in the night to use the toilet, she saw a figure in red standing in the courtyard. It was small, with its back turned to her, and in its hand it held a scale weight.

The figure slowly turned around.

Granny Zhang had only enough time to see the dark red blood scab on its forehead before she screamed and collapsed to the ground.

The next day, she suffered a stroke and became paralyzed. Lying on the kang bed, she kept repeating the same words over and over.

“The scale weight… the rope marks… the red dress…”

December 2009 — Terror at Midnight

During that period, whenever I closed my eyes, I dreamed of Zhijun.

In my dreams, he wore the red skirt and hung from the roof beam, his face bluish white, black blood seeping from the scab on his forehead. He looked at me, his mouth opening and closing.

“I didn’t kill myself. Someone harmed me…”

I wanted to reach out and pull him down, but what I touched was a handful of ice-cold blood.

One night, I was startled awake by a faint, broken sha-sha sound.

Moonlight came through the gap in the curtains and fell on the wardrobe door. From the crack between the wardrobe doors, a faint red light was seeping out.

I was so frightened that I did not dare breathe loudly. I stared fixedly at the wardrobe.

After a long while, the red light disappeared. In its place came the dull thud of something heavy falling to the floor.

Trembling, I turned on the light.

Beside my pillow lay a rusted scale weight, exactly the same as the one that had hung from Zhijun’s ankles. A few pieces of black straw were stuck to it. It was bone-chillingly cold, as if it had just been taken out of ice water.

Early 2010 — The Taoist Reveals the Secret

My uncle took me deep into the mountains to find an old Taoist surnamed Chen. He carried a stack of paper money with him.

The old Taoist took the scale weight. With one finger, he lightly wiped across the rust. His face darkened instantly.

He said this was the Soul-Borrowing Array from Maoshan evil arts. It specifically targeted a pure-yang body of thirteen years and thirteen days old.

The red skirt was a yin-luring medium, able to draw in lonely souls and wandering ghosts.

The swimsuit pressed tightly against the skin, locking the soul and preventing it from drifting away.

The scale weight pressed down on the ankles, suppressing the po and keeping it from reincarnating.

The needle hole on the forehead was made by the Soul-Splitting Needle. It could draw the dead person’s soul out and allow the practitioner to command it, using it to extend his own life.

The old Taoist sighed and took out a yellow paper talisman.

“The practitioner is not far from here,” he said. “He used the child’s life to extend his own lifespan. But this evil art will definitely bring backlash. Within three years, he will be claimed by the soul he borrowed. His death will be exactly the same as this child’s.”

He burned the talisman into ash, mixed it into water, and told me to drink it.

When the talisman ash entered my mouth, I actually tasted a faint trace of blood.

Winter 2011 — The Backlash Comes True

A bricklayer surnamed Wang from the neighboring town died.

He died in his own woodshed.

When the news reached Gaoshikan, the entire village drew in a cold breath.

Some said Wang’s death looked as if it had been cast from the same mold as Kuang Zhijun’s. His whole body was bound with hemp rope. A strand of red cloth had been stuffed into his mouth. A scale weight hung from his ankles. On his forehead, there was also a needle-tip-sized blood scab.

The police searched his home and found a yellowed copy of the Maoshan Secret Canon. Inside were several sheets of yellow paper covered with talismans, as well as a photograph of Kuang Zhijun.

The photograph had been taken secretly. In it, Zhijun was feeding pigs in the courtyard, smiling brightly.

On the back of the photograph, written in cinnabar, were his birth date and Eight Characters. Underneath was a line of crooked writing:

Pure-yang soul. Three-year life extension.

Only then did the villagers remember that, in the days before the incident, Wang had often been seen wandering near Gaoshikan, muttering to himself and asking people about Zhijun’s birthday.

The old Taoist’s words had come true.

In the end, the murderer who had harmed others with evil arts was claimed by the soul he had borrowed.

The Years After — The Restless Spirit

The old house in Gaoshikan has long since been abandoned. Weeds have grown taller than people, covering even the broken windows.

But the old people in the village say that on nights of the full moon, whenever someone passes by the old house, they can hear a child crying inside, along with the clanging sound of a scale weight dragging across the ground.

A bold young man once climbed over the wall and went in.

He said that in the corner of the main hall, dark red talisman marks would appear for no reason. They looked as if they had been drawn in blood. Even after he wiped them clean, they would emerge again a few days later. The shapes of the marks were strange, exactly the same as the talismans found in Wang’s house.

Even now, the villagers of Gaoshikan do not dare walk that road at night.

The mountain wind blows through the wild grass with a sobbing wu-wu sound, as if a child in a red dress is calling out:

“I didn’t kill myself…”