Chapter 2: The Spirit-Crossing Woman Mrs. Zhou

Speaking of Mrs. Zhou, the eldest daughter-in-law of the Zhou family, she was a celebrity in our village because she could cross over to the other side. According to the elderly in the village, the things she said when she crossed over were quite accurate.

The so-called “crossing over” is to go to the underworld to help find the deceased relatives of others, and then let the relatives take over her body to solve some problems of the living above.

In fact, the widow Zhou was a very ordinary woman before she had the ability to cross over. She only acquired this ability after her husband died. As for how she acquired it, she herself kept it a secret, and the villagers only heard some rumors.

The rumor was spread by the second daughter-in-law and the daughter of the Zhou family, saying that on the night of the seventh day after the death of Zhou Da (the husband of the widow), the widow somehow returned to her own western room.

The Zhou family did not separate, and the seven members of the family lived together. Originally, the family should have avoided the first seven days, but there was nowhere to go, so they had to vacate the western wing room that was originally occupied by the Zhou widow and her husband.

But that night, the widow suddenly woke up and went back to her room. The family members who were already asleep didn’t know anything about it until her sister-in-law, who was sleeping next to her, woke up and realized that her sister-in-law wasn’t there.

At first, the sister-in-law didn’t think much of it, thinking that her sister-in-law must have gotten up in the middle of the night. But when she left the house and was about to go to the toilet, she was scared half to death by the sudden laughter.

After all, it was the seventh day after the death of her brother, and the laughter sounded especially frightening in the quiet night. At that time, the sister-in-law of the widow Zhou was only 14 years old, so how could she stand such a fright? She immediately screamed and ran back to the house.

The whole family was woken up and ran out into the yard. At this point, there was no laughter in the yard, but a woman’s mumbling could be heard. It was unclear what she was saying, but it was clear that it was a woman talking.

After the death of Zhou Da, Tuesday became the pillar of the family. After listening carefully for a while, Tuesday picked up a piece of firewood and said, “I heard the sound coming from the west wing. I’ll go see what’s going on. Which one of you is playing tricks?”

Tuesday’s wife held Tuesday back from going. This was the seventh day after his death. Rural people are superstitious, and she was afraid that Tuesday would be possessed.

At this moment, there was another burst of laughter. The sound made people feel very happy, but the voice was a bit strange and chilling.

“It’s my son’s seventh day, why is there a female ghost in the house?” The old man of the Zhou family sighed, still feeling the pain of losing his son. He was not happy that his son would not return on this day, and that a female ghost would return.

“But why does it sound like my eldest daughter-in-law?” The grandmother of the Zhou family also said with a puzzled look. When the voice was speaking gibberish just now, the accent was so strange that they didn’t understand it, but when she was laughing now, the sensitive grandmother of the Zhou family always felt very familiar.

After Mrs. Zhou said that, the family listened carefully and realized that it was not Mrs. Zhou’s voice.

“Forget it, we have to go and see. I’m afraid my sister-in-law is having a breakdown.” Widow Zhou had lost her husband in her middle age, which was already a great pain in life. It was normal for her to have a breakdown, which is to say, to be mentally ill.

In addition, the affection between people at that time could be said to be very strong. How could there be no reason to care?

On Tuesday, she clutched the firewood in her hands and walked towards the west wing room step by step.

It was still the same familiar west wing room, but the closed door looked so terrifying to Tuesday that it seemed as if hell was behind it.

When he reached the door, he took a deep breath and, to give himself courage, suddenly shouted. Taking advantage of the momentum, he kicked the door hard.

A rural man who has been working for many years, with all his strength, still has a lot of strength in his legs, but the two doors were not as closed as Tuesday had imagined, they were only closed. Tuesday, who had exerted too much strength, suddenly fell to the ground like a dog eating shit, and fell into the door.

“Old Two, what happened to you?” The worried voice of Grandpa Zhou came from behind. Having lost a son, he was very worried that something had happened to this son.

“It’s nothing, I just fell accidentally.” Tuesday’s voice was muffled. He had fallen and hurt himself, but he was afraid that his family would worry, so he quickly replied.

Mr. Zhou let out a sigh of relief, but then he looked up and his heart suddenly went up to his throat.

The west wing was not large, and was basically just a bedroom. When people walked in, they could see the entire room at a glance. At that time, Tuesday had not yet had time to stand up. He was kneeling on the ground, still making the gesture of standing up, but his head was raised.

It was at this moment that he saw the entire west wing clearly. Could he not see clearly? At this moment, the only table in the room was lit by a dim oil lamp. His sister-in-law, Mrs. Zhou, was facing away from him, but her shoulders were shaking and she was laughing very happily.

This scene would not have been enough to scare the man Tuesday, but the reason why his heart was in his throat was because his sister-in-law’s posture at the moment was very strange, her head tilted, her body slanted, as if she was leaning against something! What was even more strange was that there were two stools in front of the table, and his sister-in-law was sitting on one of them.

Tuesday’s throat was tight and he forgot to stand up. He was only half kneeling on the ground. He wanted to go out, but this scene was too strange. In front of him was his sister-in-law. His brother had just left, so he couldn’t just ignore her.

He swallowed two mouthfuls of saliva and summoned up the courage to say, “Sister-in-law… sister-in-law…”

The voice was a bit stuttering, and because he was so nervous, the words he shouted out were actually trembling, but Tuesday himself didn’t notice.

When he shouted, Widow Zhou turned around. When she turned around, she was smiling. Under the dim oil lamp, her smile looked strange. Her mouth was turned up, her eyes were squinted, but the two pieces of flesh on her face were stiff.

It felt like a clay statue!

“Look, the second child is here…” Widow Zhou stared at Tuesday, her eyes very concentrated, giving the impression that she was like a cat at night staring intently at some statue.

In an instant, tears welled up in Zhou Er’s eyes. He was scared. He wasn’t stupid. He clearly heard his sister-in-law say the word “look.” Look at what?

And the sound of his sister-in-law, Tuesday could not say, according to the voice of a person, even if it is calm, there is a kind of anger in it, the so-called anger is also refers to the human emotions, but the voice of his sister-in-law is purely just a sound, at that time there was no computer, otherwise Tuesday would be able to accurately say that the voice was like a synthesized electronic sound.

At this point, Tuesday couldn’t get up, couldn’t keep kneeling, couldn’t move forward, and didn’t dare to move backward. He just felt a chill run down his spine.

Suddenly, Mrs. Zhou, who had been staring at Tuesday, stopped smiling. Her expression instantly became calm and strange, but her eyes were fierce. She said, “Go out. Don’t bother us. You can’t enter this room.”

Tuesday did not answer, not because he did not want to, but because he simply did not dare to say anything. When people are scared to the extreme, they either become hysterically angry and yell, or they become silent. That kind of silence is a kind of subconsciousness that wants to hide oneself.

Tuesday was facing his sister-in-law, and he couldn’t get angry, so he just kept silent.

He stood up, turned around, and walked out of the west wing with a calm face. But his back itched, as if something was staring at him. But he dared not turn around, so he walked forward with his feet weak. As soon as he stepped out of the door, he heard a squeak, and the door behind him closed by itself.

“Mom…” Tuesday immediately cried out, tears streaming down his face. He then quickly ran, but his legs were weak and he fell after just a few steps. But where would he dare to delay for a moment? He immediately ran with both hands and feet toward the family standing not far away, looking as disheveled as possible.

Mrs. Zhou was so distressed by the cry of “Mom” that she quickly ran two steps with her little feet, and quickly went to help her son: “My son, what’s wrong with you?”

“Mom, I think… I think my brother is back.” Tuesday couldn’t even wipe his tears before he shouted that. What else could explain the situation except that his brother’s soul had returned on the seventh day?

“My dear Zhou Da…” Hearing this, Mr. Zhou suddenly started to cry and beat his legs. Perhaps he heard that his son’s soul had returned, and he couldn’t help but feel sad.

On the seventh night of the soul returning, the family was really restless. Although they thought that Zhou Da had returned, because Zhou’s widow said not to disturb them, and they were really a little scared, the family never entered the west wing again that night.

This is the story of the widow Zhou that has been passed down in the Zhou family. It is really strange to talk about it, but in the villages of this land of China, which village does not have a few strange legends? There are even more strange and unexplainable things. After people talked about it for a while, they didn’t take it seriously.

Not long after this incident, the Zhou family spread the news that the widow Zhou had the ability to cross over to the other side. Some people first went to take a look out of curiosity, but they didn’t expect that the widow Zhou was really somewhat magical. This ability to cross over to the other side was quite reliable. Two years later, not only did the neighboring villages know that the widow Zhou of Xiaowan Village could cross over to the other side, but people from the town also came to admire her.

There are three things worth mentioning in this matter.

The first is that after the seventh day of the death of her husband, Mrs. Zhou recovered and was heard to have come out of the west wing that morning and prepared breakfast for the whole family. The only thing is that she has had a new problem since then, which is hiccups. She can hiccup eight or nine times a minute, and the sound is strange. People who see her for the first time are basically scared.

The second thing is that Mrs. Zhou strongly requested that the family seal up the window in the west wing. The window faced the courtyard and had good lighting, brightening the entire room. Who would pay attention to this request if they weren’t sick? But after that night, the family always had an inexplicable awe of Mrs. Zhou. Mrs. Zhou requested, so they quickly did it. In the end, not only were the windows sealed, but the doors were also covered with thick black curtains.

Third, five months after Mr. Zhou’s death, Mrs. Zhou gave birth to a son. The villagers didn’t gossip about it, but everyone knew that it must be Mr. Zhou’s posthumous son. Some elderly people in the village said, “No wonder Mr. Zhou made such a big fuss on the seventh day after his death. He must have known that he had a son and couldn’t abandon the widow and orphan. But no matter what, Mrs. Zhou, with her ability to communicate with the dead, and her son, lived very well in the village, and even the Zhou family received help.

If it weren’t for the start of the movement, the widow Zhou might have continued in this line of work until she was old, and with the income from this, she could have sent her son to school, got him a job, and even married him off. But how can history be diverted by the will of an individual? The Zhou family is now under close surveillance, especially the widow Zhou, who is being watched by several people, and she simply dares not mention the idea of crossing over to the other side.

No matter how the Zhou family is doing, my family’s days are really a bit gloomy, all because of me.

My health did not improve. Although my father wrapped me up tightly and took me to the village clinic on a donkey cart early in the morning on the third day after my birth, the doctor there did not see anything wrong with me.

In the end, the doctor just told my father, “This child probably has some malnutrition. Go home and give him a good supplement and he’ll be fine.” He didn’t even prescribe any medicine.

On the way back, my father was in a bad mood. He said that the child was malnourished. No, my mother was not only the best-fed and best-maintained pregnant woman in the village, but also better than most people. How could a child be malnourished? It looked weaker than the weakest baby in the village.

My father couldn’t understand it, but he still chose to believe the doctor. After all, going to see Mrs. Zhou was only the worst-case scenario. Not only could it harm our family, but it could also harm the Zhou family.

After returning home, my father thought about giving me tonic. My mother had no milk, so my father went to a neighbor’s house every day to get some from a dairy farmer, and he exchanged some of the family’s grain for it. Not only milk, my father also went to the supply and marketing cooperative in the town to get some nutritional supplements with great effort.

The conditions for children at that time were in no way comparable to those of children today. My treatment was already unique in the village. Not to mention any nutritional supplements, even the milk I had every day was something that many children could not even dream of. At that time, if children did not have their mothers’ milk, most of them were fed with rice gruel.

Because I was given tonic, the family’s life was very tight. My parents naturally had no complaints about it for me, and what was even more touching was that my two sisters didn’t have any complaints either.

My eldest sister even said, “Dad, give your younger brother more milk. He’s so small, he doesn’t even have the energy to cry.”

My two daughters were so greedy for the white milk that anyone could see it, but they didn’t make a fuss, and they were so sensible. It really made my father feel very distressed and moved for a while.

On a side note, my family was not very patriarchal. For many years, except for a short period when I was young, my two sisters and I were treated equally. However, in the rural areas at the time, it was really not possible to live without a son, because a son represented the greatest significance as a labor force. Without labor, how could a family survive?

So my father gave me a month of tonic. On the day of my first birthday, my father’s firm belief finally collapsed, because according to the rules, children have to be weighed at the first birthday to see how much they have grown.

On that day, my father weighed me with a near-devout hope, but the truth shocked my father. When I reached my first month, I had only grown two taels!

All along, my father had been gritting his teeth and thinking, “Maybe the eyes aren’t growing, but they are actually growing? After enduring the full moon, but to such a result, my father could not help but collapse?

“Xiu Yun, I think we should go see Mrs. Zhou about the baby.” After a long pause, my father finally said that to my mother. It was the last resort.

My mother’s heart was in a knot. To be honest, a child who weighs only 3 catties at the end of the first month is not common in those days. With such a method of nourishment and such meticulous care, it must be abnormal.

If it were because of a physical illness that the baby was not growing well, then it would be fine, but the doctor said there was nothing wrong, and my behavior at the time was just weak, and I had never even had a cold or a cold. Besides, if it wasn’t evil, then what was it?

“Lao Chen, why don’t you try another week of tonic? I’ve heard that some children don’t grow well before the first month, but after the first month they grow very fast. Besides… Besides…” My mother hesitated and couldn’t say it.

“What else?” my father asked, his eyebrows raised, his heart filled with frustration.

“What else? That week the widow was over the yin and yang. Does she see yin and yang? It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with our child’s situation.” The reason my mother hesitated to say it was that she was afraid of breaking my father’s only hope.

“I know, but she is the most spiritual in the ten villages, who else can we turn to? Besides, midwife Liu also mentioned to me that we should go to her,” my father said in a muffled voice. After thinking for a while, he suddenly became cheerful again and said with hope, “Do you remember Wang Gou’er’s doll? It was the one I played with since I was a child. Didn’t Wang Zhu, Wang Gou’er’s father, have a stroke when he was two years old? He was cold all over those days, like a fool, and drooling. Wasn’t it Mrs. Zhou who cured him?

“Then go to Mrs. Zhou, but you have to be careful. Don’t let those people catch you. Otherwise, our family will fall apart.” My mother sighed helplessly. For my sake, my parents finally decided to take a big risk.