The three of them had just slowed their pace when, before Grandpa Bai could finish speaking, the sound of children humming a nursery rhyme drifted from behind them.
Grandpa Bai turned around with a trembling gaze. The two children, dressed in strange clothes with red patterns painted on their faces, seemed to be holding back for some reason. They didn't come closer—just stood at a distance, watching them.
"Let's talk while we walk." Grandpa Bai grabbed Old Wei and Chen Ge and pulled them forward, racking his brain for the stories his father had once told him. "Villages deep in these old mountains and forests—all kinds of ghosts and spirits appear once night falls. Besides the eave ghosts, sedan ghosts, and wall spirits we saw earlier, there are also the pillow ghost, the cloth ghost, the head lantern, and others that are even more troublesome."
"Head lantern? Can you describe those last three in more detail?" It was Chen Ge and Old Wei's first time hearing about any of these.
"In the villages where I grew up, the pillows that the dead had slept on had to be burned, specifically to prevent the pillow ghost from forming."
"This kind of ghost is usually the lingering resentment of the deceased, clinging to the pillow. If someone falls asleep at night on a pillow the dead have used, they'll have nothing but nightmares, and they'll hear someone whispering right beside their ear."
"If they're lucky, they sleep through to morning. But those who are low on vitality and whose fortune has waned may jolt awake in the dead of night—and that's when they'll see another person lying face-down right next to their pillow. That person is the pillow ghost."
Grandpa Bai had no talent for storytelling, so his descriptions were rather dry, but Chen Ge committed the pillow ghost to memory. It might prove useful in the haunted house someday.
"The pillow ghost won't stray far from the pillow. As long as we don't enter those old houses, we shouldn't run into one. What's actually dangerous for us are the cloth ghost and the head lantern." Grandpa Bai spoke very carefully, deeply worried that what he was describing might actually appear before long.
"The cloth ghost is trickier than the pillow ghost. It comes from what villagers call a burial shroud—the cloth and clothing wrapped around a corpse during burial have strict requirements. If the fabrics used on a corpse are thrown about carelessly, they can give rise to a cloth ghost."
"It walks the streets during the hour when yin energy is at its peak. From a distance it looks just like a person, but inside there's nothing at all—just a hollow shell of cloth."
"Running into a cloth ghost is a real problem. It wraps itself around a living person's body, forcing them into a dead person's clothes, then gradually takes control of them."
"If you ever see someone whose clothes look brand new but give off a strange smell, stay far away from them. They may have been taken over by a cloth ghost, wearing a dead person's garments."
After finishing, Grandpa Bai first glanced around at his surroundings. The ritual was still underway, and the street was empty—except for those two sedan ghosts hovering uncertainly, as though considering following them.
Picking up his pace, Grandpa Bai shielded Ah Qing's child and continued: "The head lantern was the most terrifying ghost my father ever told me about."
"No one knows how that thing comes into being. All anyone knows is that people have spotted it in deserted villages or places saturated with resentment."
"A traveler on a night road would see a light flickering in some distant village shrine. Excited, they'd rush toward it, only to discover the light was drifting in a particular direction."
"They'd call out and keep chasing after it, and only when they got close would they realize it was actually a floating human head—with a lantern clenched between its teeth."
"They say the head lantern exists because the wrongfully dead, desperate to seek justice, carry a lantern with them as they search for someone to hear their plea."
Grandpa Bai finished the last story and noticed that neither Old Wei nor Chen Ge had said a word. "What's the matter with you two? I know plenty more folk legends like these."
"Grandpa Bai, that cloth ghost you mentioned—does it look pretty much like a real person?" Old Wei was staring down the street behind Grandpa Bai.
"That's right. They look just like people. The fabric folds itself into a human shape, but they have no faces and no hands—just a set of clothes." A sense of dread was already settling over Grandpa Bai.
"Then did your father ever tell you what to do if you encounter one?" Chen Ge gripped his skull-crushing hammer, his eyes fixed on the same street behind Grandpa Bai.
Grandpa Bai didn't dare turn around. His face was growing paler by the second. "My father said that if you see these things, all you can do is run."