Chapter 6: General Temple

Our village is also in the mountains, and there's a large temple made of gray bricks. My dad said that the temple's origins are unknown; it was already there when my great-grandfather fled here during a famine, but it had no management even back then. Over the past hundred years, it has become even more dilapidated.

During the Cultural Revolution, a large part of the temple was set on fire by the Red Guards, turning the walls a deep red, while the main hall somehow remained unharmed. Gradually, people began to take bricks from there to build houses. Strangely enough, houses made from these bricks were prone to collapse, and there was an incident where a family was killed by such a collapse. Eventually, people started using those bricks to build pigpens.

I also have a brick from there, which I broke when I was a child. It was heavy and dense, one side carved with a qilin, while the other side was smooth. It was likely a relief brick, which my dad picked up when he was young, but it ended up getting ruined in my hands.

The older generation refers to the temple as the "General's Temple." As for what general might have come from our poor mountain valley, I really have no idea. There are about a hundred households in the village, mostly migrated from other places. The original inhabitants were reportedly wiped out during the Taiping Rebellion, so no one knows the origin of the General's Temple. Fortunately, it doesn't obstruct anything and everyone has become accustomed to its presence.

As kids in the countryside, we either climbed trees to find bird nests, went into the water to catch fish and shrimp, or played hide and seek. I've always been quite bold, not really knowing what fear was. I had a good friend named Li Yi, who was just a day younger than me. We called him "Monkey" because he was skinny when we were little.

One time, Monkey and I went to play at the General's Temple. The temple always had a strange smell, something like moldy air. If you've ever been to an old ancestral hall, especially one with a closed-off area, you might recognize that kind of scent. I was very curious about it back then and always wanted to find its source.

That day, I went to play with Monkey and the younger Red Haze, who was just a year younger than me. Actually, we were both little troublemakers, and the three of us played games like pretending to be doctors. How did we play? 

Usually, it was Monkey and me taking turns being the doctor while Red Haze was the patient, getting her check-up. At that time, we didn't understand the differences between boys and girls; we just knew that girls and boys pee differently. So, this game of checking Red Haze's body and giving her injections came about, which served two purposes: it was a game, and it helped us understand why the peeing posture was different.

Although we were still young, we knew this game couldn't be seen by anyone. We tricked Red Haze into going behind the General Temple, and with a glass marble, we reached an agreement: she would be the patient, I would be the doctor, and Monkey would just watch. Just as I was about to pull down Red Haze's pants, we heard her mother's furious voice from outside: "You little bastards! What are you doing hiding back there? You little devils, I'll deal with you!"

Before I could cover Red Haze's mouth, she shouted, "Mom, they're pulling down my pants to play injection!"

That shout sent our spirits fleeing. We turned to find a place to hide, but the walls around us were just bare stone. There was nowhere to escape; when fate brings such trouble, there's no hiding. Just as Red Haze's mother approached with heavy footsteps, Monkey shouted, "Quick, there's a hole here! Let's crawl in!"

Turning around, we saw a hole at the bottom of the temple wall, just big enough for a six-year-old to fit through. Monkey and I crawled in.

By the time we got inside, Red Haze's mother had already stormed in, scolding us as little perverts while dragging Red Haze out. We sat there on the ground, not daring to breathe.

We didn't want to come out for a while because if we wanted to go home, we'd have to pass by Red Haze's house—where could we run? Monkey suggested we wait until dark to go home. It was around 4 PM, and Red Haze's mother was probably looking for her to have dinner, which is usually early in the countryside.

Once Red Haze's mother left, we suddenly realized we were inside that ancient temple. Initially, we were only focused on the outside, but when we looked up, we saw that the walls were marked with traces of smoke. Most of the features were still recognizable, and this hall was likely the main hall. The ceiling had intricate wood carvings depicting Tai Chi, gourds, cranes, and more. The main door was tightly locked with a large copper lock. I had never seen this temple door open, so I didn't know what was inside.

The walls were covered in murals; two of them were so faded we couldn't tell who they were, but the mural on the right was still somewhat recognizable. The old man in the mural, holding a whisk, must be Taishang Laojun!

After all that, it became clear that this so-called General Temple had Taoist murals, suggesting that it used to be a Taoist temple!

What scared us even more was that the entire hall was completely empty, except for a large coffin of reddish-brown color placed in the middle, covered with a thick layer of dust. The musty smell in the room was overwhelming, but fortunately, there was a section of bright tiles above, allowing some light from outside to filter in. We could still make out a few things, but in such an environment, even the bravest of kids would feel terrified, especially the monkey. It turned and ran, squeezing through a small opening. Just before I left, I took one last look at the smoke-blackened wall, where the patterns seemed to form some kind of letters or symbols, which looked very peculiar. I couldn't help but stare at them for a while; at that time, I wasn't in school yet and couldn't read, but I was captivated by those letter-like shapes, my mind blank.

The monkey's voice urging me from outside snapped me back to reality. Looking again at the big coffin, I couldn't help but squeeze out too. The monkey asked me why I took so long to come out, worried that I had been caught by a ghost.

I asked if I had been in there for a long time. The monkey replied, "Look, the sun has already set." That's when I realized that the monkey had been outside for nearly half an hour while I had been inside alone for… half an hour, but I had no recollection of it at all.

As we passed by Xiao Hongxia's house, we inevitably faced her mother's scolding, calling us little hooligans, shameless. But I didn't care at all; my mind was filled with the things I had seen in the temple—those letter-like shapes, the wall paintings, and the big coffin. When we were little, adults always warned us not to play at the military temple. When we asked why, they always said not to ask, just to stay away from there.

The strangest thing to me is that it is obviously a Taoist temple, why is it called the General Temple? I said hello to the monkey and told him not to mention that we were going to the General Temple when we got home, otherwise he would be beaten. The monkey stuck out his tongue and said he couldn't tell, so we both hooked up before we went home separately.

Nothing strange happened after I got home. My mother always thought that I had gone wild again, so she didn't care. It wasn't until dinner that Xiao Hongxia's mother came to my house. . .

 At this moment I knew it was over. As expected, her big mouthed mother started talking about what Monkey and I were doing to her daughter, asking my mother to discipline me and so on. In fact, I really didn't see Xiao Hongxia's butt that day. Before she even took off her pants, her mother came. However, no matter how powerful her mother was, she could not have imagined that years later, the monkey would still take off Xiao Hongxia's pants. . .

"My mom was apologizing to someone while twisting my ear at the same time. I'm really scared of her; she has three ways to deal with me: twisting my ear, using a bamboo branch to hit my bottom, and making me kneel. Given the situation today, it seems I can't escape any of them. Sure enough, after Little Hongxia's mom left, I was already being lifted off the ground by my ear, and then it was time for me to kneel. I knelt obediently because if I resisted, I would be inviting the bamboo branch to hit me. My mom ignored me, just warning me that I shouldn't go there again. In the end, it was my grandpa who pleaded for me and helped me get back up.

My grandpa felt very sorry for me, his grandson. In that time of material scarcity, he always secretly bought me some snacks or would save a bit of meat for me when he was cooking. Grandpa would hold me and rub my already-numb knees. I asked him why that place was off-limits."

Grandpa said it was haunted there. When the Red Guards set fire to it, they were the only ones who did not burn down the main hall. The person who took the lead in arson was found hanging from the beam of the main hall not long after. From then on, the village was locked down. The door of the temple.

 I asked my grandpa who the coffin belonged to, but grandpa seemed very taboo when I mentioned the coffin and refused to say anything.

 Within a few days, I started to have a red rash on my body, then a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea. My mother took me to the hospital. The doctor said it was a viral cold. They gave me injections and medicine, but I was getting worse day by day. , I was already relatively thin, but at that time I was just skin and bones, and my whole body was itchy, and my skin would break when I scratched it.