Chapter Thirty-Six: The Gate of the Wan Family

As I followed Hu Sanqi out of the mountains, I asked casually, "Godfather, according to the second boss, the four keys correspond to the paper effigies of carriage, horse, boat, and sedan chair. Where should I look for the remaining three?"

Hu Sanqi replied, "Since you are fated to cross paths with the Spirit Hall’s jeweled coffer, just follow your instincts. Go wherever you feel compelled to go."

"If Heaven has already set your trials, you can't escape them. No matter how you try to run, you'll always circle back to face your fate. If you move toward it of your own will, you might meet it sooner."

"You can think it over first, or simply wander wherever your heart leads you."

I considered for a moment. "I want to visit the Wan Family Residence."

Hu Sanqi turned his head. "You truly want to go there?"

"Yes," I nodded. "I can’t shake the feeling that place is anything but ordinary. Otherwise, Old Beggar wouldn’t have made a special trip himself."

Hu Sanqi countered, "Do you know what the Wan Family Residence really is?"

His expression became grave. "It’s a Ghost Market."

I’d heard about Ghost Markets from my grandfather. Thirty years ago, private trading was forbidden. If you wanted to buy something, you had to go to the supply cooperative, and everything was rationed with coupons. Even if you had money, you couldn’t buy what you wanted.

I’d seen my grandfather use cloth and grain coupons when I was a child.

Ordinary people had to trade in secret. Back then, mountain villages held Ghost Markets: villagers would lay out their goods in the dark, both buyers and sellers silent, communicating only with hand gestures. Once the deal was struck, they’d take their things and leave. As dawn approached, everyone packed up and vanished before the sun rose.

Hu Sanqi said, "The Ghost Market I’m talking about isn’t the one you know. It’s a place where the living trade with the dead. If you dare to go, there’s nothing you can’t buy. But if things go wrong, you might never leave."

I gritted my teeth and said to him, "Didn’t you teach me, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained'? Didn’t you also say, 'Survival is found only in desperate situations'?"

While other people taught their children how to survive, Hu Sanqi taught me how to gamble with fate.

He told me: Ninety percent of people in this world are afraid to risk their lives. When you dare, you rise above ninety percent of your rivals. Those skilled and accustomed to gambling with fate are usually the ones who win in the end.

Hu Sanqi smiled at me. "Don’t rush. Let me finish telling you about the Wan Family Residence, and then decide if you still want to go."

The Wan Family Residence’s real name was the Wan Family Gate.

It first appeared near Heshui Town. At the time, people claiming to be from the Wan Family Gate would come down to Heshui to buy things. Everyone in town knew of the wealthy and generous Wan Family Gate up in the mountains, but no one could say exactly where it was.

It wasn’t until the Wan Family Gate committed murder in town that people realized it was not a place for the living.

The first disturbance was when they said they needed a carpenter for work at the Wan Family Gate. The steward came down, laid fifty silver taels in the street, and said he’d select a skilled carpenter to work for them. Three days later, he returned to choose someone, and the fifty taels were only an advance.

On the appointed day, even carpenters from the county seat came. Nearly thirty craftsmen crowded the main street. The steward spent a long time making his selection, finally picking one.

A few days later, someone found the carpenter’s corpse outside the city. Both his hands had been chopped off, wrapped in yellow paper, and hung around his neck. Alongside them was a pouch with ten silver taels.

The officials searched the mountains for the Wan Family Gate but, after crossing several peaks, found nothing and returned empty-handed.

But the old constable who led the search quietly told his men: "When you report to the magistrate, just say we found nothing. Don’t mention anything else. Think about it: we searched everywhere except the deepest mountains. If the Wan Family Gate is there, could ordinary people live in such a place? If it's somewhere invisible to ordinary folk, then who—or what—lives there?"

His words so frightened the others that, after returning, they all insisted they'd found nothing.

At that time, the Qing dynasty was nearing its end, and the county magistrate had little interest in pursuing the matter, so he let it drop.

No one expected that the next year, the Wan Family Gate would take a tailor.

The tailor’s body was left outside Heshui Town too; all ten fingers cut off, strung together and hung around his neck, with a pouch of ten silver taels.

The Wan Family Gate paid for the work, but demanded the craftsman’s life in return.

After two years and two deaths, the people of Heshui couldn't sit still. They went to the authorities in a group. The magistrate, even if unwilling, had to make a show of action.

He collected money from every household in the county and hired a monk to go up the mountain and find the Wan Family Gate.

Within three days, the monk was found decapitated and dismembered, his head and legs hung from the magistrate’s hall.

The magistrate was terrified, and from then on, no one dared mention the Wan Family Gate again.

Over the next decade, people from the Wan Family Gate descended the mountain once a year, each time taking a craftsman. More than a dozen skilled artisans from the towns and villages around Heshui lost their lives.

No one knew why the Wan Family Gate sought out these craftsmen, or what its true nature was.

Some said it was a den of mountain spirits; others, a band of malevolent ghosts. In any case, no one dared provoke them. If they targeted you, you could only accept your fate.

Curiously, after claiming over a dozen lives, the Wan Family Gate vanished.

Some speculated that the killings were meant to complete some creation, and once it was done, they no longer needed to come down among the living.

No one ever proved this theory, but later, someone saw a Ghost Market appear in the mountains near Heshui.

People said that place was the Wan Family Gate.

Here, Hu Sanqi paused. "Now, do you still want to visit the Wan Family Gate?"

I looked at him and asked, "Godfather, how do you know so much about the Wan Family Gate? Have you been there yourself?"