An Rugu lived in the village head’s house until the age of six. She remembered things from her early years and had been smart since she was a child, and so the memory of her childhood was clear and very deep for her. Besides her master, the people closest to her heart were the village head’s family.

When An Rugu heard the village head’s words, the movements of her hands paused, and her face took on a more serious expression. She directly put the thing in her hands into her pocket and said, “I will go and have a look.”

The village head lived next to the village committee. He used to live in a clay-tiled house. After his children had achieved success, they discussed among themselves and built a small, three-story, western-style building for their parents. It looked even more exquisite and beautiful than the small villas built by foreign countries.

Alas, the villagers in Tangchi Village all have big pockets, and each house is more beautiful than the last one. The village head’s house was not too eye-catching.

As soon as An Rugu entered the gate, Liu Sang—the village head’s daughter-in-law—saw her and her eyes lit up. She walked over immediately.

She looked at An Rugu, her eyes full of surprise. “When did you come back? Why didn’t you tell Auntie?”

An Rugu treated the elders very well, and this was especially true towards Liu Sang. With this woman in front of her, An Rugu’s expression softened, as gentle as melting ice and snow. “I only just came back, I didn’t know you were here, otherwise I would have come here long ago.

The village head has two sons and one daughter. Liu Sang was the eldest daughter-in-law of the village head. She worked as a language teacher in Nancheng No. 1 High School. She usually lived in the city with her husband, not in their village hometown.

After An Rugu was picked up by the old Daoist priest, she was entrusted to the village head by the other party. Originally, it was the wife of the village head who took care of her, but Liu Sang had just married into the family at the time as a young bride and was relatively free, and she liked An Rugu who was cute and obedient, so she took the initiative to do things herself.

How good was the relationship?

If the village head hadn’t said that the old Daoist had no intention of sending An Rugu away, Liu Sang would have thought of adopting her a long time ago.

When An Rugu went to school, all the Chinese materials in her hands were personally sorted out by Liu Sang. At the same time, there were many top-secret papers of other subjects that Liu Sang took the effort to get from her colleagues. Those novel and eccentric exam questions were very useful to brush up and perfect her memory palace.

Even though Liu Sang gave birth to her own child a few years ago, she did not treat An Rugu coldly and was still as warm as before. During the four years in the college dormitory, Liu Sang called her more times to ask how she was doing than her own master.

The relationship between Liu Sang and An Rugu was like mother and daughter, and also like sisters.

“It just so happens that the school is on holiday, so I brought Jingjing back to see her grandparents.”

Liu Sang looked at An Rugu up and down, her eyes full of tenderness. The more she looked, the more excited she became—the little girl she raised had grown up to be so outstanding!

But An Rugu was worried about Liu Sang’s daughter, Jiang Jingjing, and had come here in such a hurry because of her, so she took the initiative to walk in, “I heard that Jingjing is ill, how is she?”

Jiang Jingjing was eight years old and looked very cute. During her full moon celebration¹, An Rugu came and drank her full moon wine, and she often saw her when visiting the village head during the holidays, and so she could also be considered as having watched her grow up.

When Liu Sang heard this, the joy on her face faded, her brows furrowed, and she couldn’t help worrying, “I don’t know the specific reason, but it’s just weird, you’ll know it when you see her.”

An Rugu went to Liu Sang’s room according to her knowledge of the house’s lay-out. There was a little girl lying on the bed. Her face was sweating, and her lips were white, and as if she was having a nightmare, she kept muttering to herself. “Don’t…don’t!”

Liu Sang walked in with An Rugu, her tone full of worry, and explained to An Rugu, “Jingjing plays very well with the children in the village. As soon as we came here, she was as excited as a bird entering the forest and said she wanted to go play with them. I’ve seen them play with each other many times before, pretending to cook with those mud and bricks on the stove, and there is no danger.

“Jingjing doesn’t have much chance to get in touch with nature living in the city. So I  told them to be safe and not to run around, and then I didn’t care anymore. “

She said worriedly, “When it was time to eat at noon, she came back and her clothes was wet with muddy water. She was quite normal at the time. But after I bathed her and asked her to eat, she told me that she was very sleepy, and she would nap first.

“So I set aside some food for her. Just now I was afraid that her stomach would be too hungry, so I called her to come up and eat, but no matter how much I shouted, she couldn’t seem to wake up.”

Liu Sang told her father-in-law and mother-in-law about this. The father-in-law took two puffs from his cigarette and suddenly ran out, as if having thought of something, probably to call the doctor who lived at the entrance of the village. Who knew that the doctor didn’t come, but An Rugu did!

The village head did not go down the mountain as fast as he did going up and only arrived home now. When he saw his granddaughter who was almost unconscious on the bed, he was very worried, “Xiaogu, hurry up and see if she is bewitched?”

When he thought of this strange disease where one couldn’t wake up even when continuously shouted at, he immediately thought of being possessed by evil spirits.

When he was quite young, there was another child in the village who also had this symptom. At that time, there was a known god mother² in the next village. After the god mother did some mysterious things twice, the child recovered within a few days.

“Bewitched? How could this be a matter of being bewitched?!”

Liu Sang’s eyes fell on the village head and An Rugu, her brow full of doubts. A flash of suspicion suddenly came to her mind, leading her to frown slightly. “Ah? Dad, didn’t you go to the village entrance to call for a doctor?”

As a staunch atheist, Liu Sang never believed in gods and ghosts.

Knowing that An Rugu was studying with an old Daoist priest, Liu Sang always disapproved in her heart. Metaphysics in this day and age was a career in decline, and the degree of social recognition was not particularly high, so she didn’t want An Rugu to engage in the metaphysics industry after graduation.

But Liu Sang didn’t dare to say such things in front of An Rugu.

Because every time she mentioned it on the sidelines before, An Rugu would explain to her that gods and ghosts existed with a straight face.

She never managed to convince An Rugu but, in fact, was almost persuaded by the other party!

The village chief also knew Liu Sang’s character, so he smiled awkwardly, and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, but he saw Liu Sang out of the corner of his eye, and his hands shook, and he dared not move.

Liu Sang was very protective of the little cub and never let him smoke in front of Jiang Jingjing. The village head did not dare to disobey her decision, otherwise he would be reprimanded like a student.

He would lose all face at his old age!

The village head coughed softly, his eyes wandering, avoiding her gaze, “Oh, you see it’s like this, Xiaogu plans to continue managing Cloud Rise Temple. Maybe she really has the ability, so let her take a look first.”

I Livestream Divination to the World translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com

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T/N: This little arc of Jingjing’s missing soul is how this story hooked me in. The livestream divinations were fun but the convergence of Chinese folk beliefs, the ying messing with the living, and how An Rugu solved it, FASCINATED me. And scared me a lot a bit ngl sksjskdjks.

Also, I loved how the author portrayed An Rugu and Liu Sang’s relationship. An Rugu is almost always calm, cold even—but she’s very human in front of this elder who loves her.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Full moon celebration, when the baby is 1 month old and the mother finishes her post-birth confinement. In olden days, many babies died in infancy, so this is considered a milestone. Nowadays with better child healthcare, it’s still a cause for family celebration. ↩︎
2. 師婆 or ‘shi po‘, godmother, is a ‘witch’ in Chinese folk beliefs. They have a long tradition and history of praying for blessings, averting disasters, drawing talismans, divinations, etc. In ancient times, it was a profession and even an official position, but due to the atheistic viewpoint of PRC of recent decades, their status has since devolved to feudal superstition ↩︎