Haunted by Malevolent Spirits

"Grandpa!" I cried out, rushing to steady the old man. Xue Lao Wu paled, his voice trembling with urgency: "Uncle Musheng, are you hurt?"

Kneeling in the muck, grandpa waved off our concern between labored breaths. "Just lost my footing in this cursed mud." My racing heartbeat slowed as I pointed to the shattered remnants of the Divine Inquiry Incense. "What now? Should we relight it?"

The old butcher hesitated, his weathered face tightening. "Let it be. The incense nearly burned through without extinguishing—that should suffice." Xue Lao Wu bobbed his head deferentially. "Shall I fetch the slaughter crew?"

As grandpa nodded silently, brushing caked earth from his trousers, his warning carried the weight of decades: "Bind it tight to the slaughter platform."

Soon the pigpen echoed with gruff voices as Xue Lao Wu returned with eight village men. Their calloused hands moved with practiced efficiency, hemp ropes hissing through the air like serpents coiling around the doomed swine.

After nearly an hour of strenuous effort that left the men drenched in sweat, the four-hundred-pound hog lay securely trussed upon the slaughter platform.

 The subsequent proceedings unfolded with ritual precision. As grandpa's blade pierced the swine's throat, its thunderous squeals ceased abruptly.

Yet amidst this macabre efficiency, I witnessed - or perhaps imagined - an aberration: when the aged butcher severed the head, a golden luminescence emerged from the carcass.

 This ethereal glow ascended skyward, coalescing into a nebulous visage that fixed grandpa and me with its icy, mocking smile before dissolving into dissipating smoke.

The spectral encounter clung to me like frostbite during our homeward trek.

"grandpa," I ventured, my breath crystallizing in the winter air, "the golden face above the carcass…"

His knuckles whitened around the severed pig's head, a subtle tremor betraying his stoicism.

"Eh?" The old man's chuckle carried forced levity.

"Snowfall plays tricks on the eyes. Last winter I swore I saw silver dragons dancing among the power lines - turned out to be icicles clinging to cables."

He jostled the grisly trophy with theatrical nonchalance. "Let's have your grandmother braise this tonight. You'll forget phantom visions when the aroma of spiced headcheese fills the house."

Grandpa's unwavering certainty gradually eroded my conviction, leaving me questioning my own senses. Little did I suspect this would be our final night together.

At dawn, villagers found his body swaying from the ancient locust tree at the village entrance - a suicide as inexplicable as it was abrupt. No warnings preceded this act, no farewells whispered. The every household in the vicinity buzzed with unanswered questions: What drove the respected butcher to self-destruction? When had he slipped into the frozen night?

Li Tuzi, the bald tofu peddler destined to become our grim messenger, made the discovery during his pre-dawn market preparations. "Nearly pissed myself when that shadow came swinging," he later recounted, teeth chattering from residual terror. Recognizing the familiar weathered face, he came sprinting to our compound like death itself pursued him.

4:36 a.m. etched itself into our family history as Father carried grandpa's stiffened corpse through our threshold. Grandmother's wails crescendoed before dissolving into unconsciousness, her body collapsing like a broken puppet. Father knelt motionless in the frozen courtyard, his trembling shoulders betraying silent sobs that shook his frame.

As for me? Language disintegrated before the maelstrom of emotions - this surreal numbness pierced by shards of disbelief, this bone-deep agony that transcended physical pain, and beneath it all, the gnawing remorse taking root in my chest.

Yes, remorse. The terrible, unshakable certainty that I should have recognized the omen in that golden spectral glow.

Regret gnawed at me like a ravenous beast - regret for not watching grandpa more closely, for not insisting he relight the shattered Divine Inquiry Incense. How else could I rationalize his abrupt suicide when he'd shown no prior distress?

Dawn's arrival brought pandemonium. Neighbors clustered in shocked whispers, their conjectures coalescing into a damning chorus: "Decades of slaughter summoned karmic retribution."

Numbed by grief, I sat frozen in grandpa's room. My vision blurred as Father moved through crimson-eyed preparations - arranging the funeral altar, folding grandpa's patched work shirts, aligning his cracked porcelain teacup beside the slaughtering blade that had served him forty winters. Tears cascaded down my cheeks when I touched the knife's worn hilt, its grooves still bearing the imprint of his calluses.

Nightfall brought the uncles. During the vigil, their accusatory gazes converged on my hunched form. Eldest Uncle broke the silence with measured gentleness: "Ning, I refuse to believe this was mere karmic justice. Why would a lifelong butcher meet such… unnatural ends?" His inkstone eyes sharpened. "Tell us truthfully - what happened during yesterday's slaughter?"

Second Uncle fed paper money into the brazier, his mutterings rising with the ash spirals: "Xue Lao Wu mentioned the extinguished incense. What really occurred?"

From my shadowed corner, I stared at grandpa's funeral portrait - that familiar crinkled smile now frozen behind glass. Through shuddering breaths, I recounted the previous day's events. When describing the golden radiance, Eldest Uncle surged upright, his pipe clattering to the floor. "Celestial Official Swine," he rasped, face draining of color. "By heaven's decree… could the legend be true?"

Second Uncle's face turned ghostly pale, his trembling voice barely contained: "It must be. Why else would Father take his own life without cause? This isn't karma - it's possession by the Celestial Official Swine's vengeful spirit!" Father had been chain-smoking on the threshold. At these words, his cigarette snapped between his fingers, the broken halves tumbling into ash. "Ning was with Father that day…" He left the sentence dangling, but Eldest and Second Uncle exchanged weighted glances thick with implication.

"Let's consult a spiritual medium tomorrow," Father proposed, kneading the long-dead cigarette stub. His eyes when they met mine brimmed with unspoken dread. "After we lay Father to rest," Second Uncle interjected nervously, "I'll personally fetch a renowned medium from the city."

Bewildered, I nearly voiced my confusion - what could mediums achieve when grandpa was already gone? Before I could speak, Third Uncle, our family's perennial madman, erupted in shrill laughter: "Ningzi's dying! Ningzi's dying too!"

"Third Brother!" Eldest Uncle's rebuke cracked like a whip. "Cease your ravings and retire!"

Undeterred, Third Uncle began capering about the ancestral hall, chanting in a singsong voice: "I've seen it! Seen Ningzi's corpse!" His words struck like winter knives, freezing the blood in my veins. An unnatural chill seeped through my spine, crystallizing sweat into icy pearls across my skin.

Had anyone else uttered such curses, even my cultivated restraint would have shattered - I'd have slapped the vile predictions from their lips, teaching them the weight of reckless words. Yet the death omen came not from strangers, but my own uncle. Worse still, the mad uncle. How does one hold a lunatic accountable?

"Second Brother," Eldest Uncle snapped impatiently, "take Third Brother home. We'll manage the vigil without his disruptions."

Second Uncle, sensing my unease, offered gentle reassurance: "Pay no mind to his ravings, Ning. A madman's words are like inverted dreams - their truth lies in opposition." With practiced ease, he gripped Third Uncle's flailing arms and propelled him toward the moonlit courtyard where snow still danced its silent waltz.

1:17 AM glowed crimson on my phone. Exhaustion weighted my eyelids like leaden curtains, yet filial duty bound me to this hard-backed chair. My head dipped in fitful dozes until footfalls crunched through frozen snow.

The intruder wore imperial grandeur - vermilion official robes swirling about polished boots, jade-adorned golden crown glinting coldly. He studied grandpa's portrait with reptilian stillness, lips twisting into a smile colder than the burial chamber's incense.

As I marveled at this anachronistic specter, the transformation began. Flesh rippled like molten wax, reforming into a sinewy porcine snout. The creature bared yellowed tusks, its guttural growl vibrating my bones: "Su Musheng deserved death. Now comes your turn."

"Boom."

 The detonation cracked through the incense ancestral hall like midwinter thunderclaps. Where the hog-headed creature had stood moments before, only a swirling vortex of obsidian mist remained, its acrid tang lingering like funeral before dissolving into nothingness.