My name is Chen Jiu. I am twenty-four years old, and I run a coffin shop in Yin Village, a remote place in western Hunan.
The shop was left to me by my grandfather. He always said that three generations of the Chen family had walked the yin path before me, and as the fourth, I must not let the craft die out.
To walk the yin, in plain terms, meant doing errands in the underworld for the living. When a dead person's soul lost its way, the family would come to me, and I would descend to the underworld to guide the soul back. When a household was haunted by vengeful ghosts, I would first negotiate; if talks failed, I would send the spirits away for good.
It sounded mysterious, but it was little more than a kind of intermediary work—except that I traded not for money, but for my life.
Grandpa had long warned me: people in our line of work never lived past sixty.
He turned fifty-nine this year.
I was squatting inside the shop, varnishing a willow coffin, when the call came. It was the village chief, his voice trembling violently.
"Xiao Jiu, come home quickly. Your grandpa… your grandpa's gone."
I did not cry.
It was not that I felt nothing. Three days earlier, Grandpa had told me:
"Jiu'er, my time is near. When I'm gone, do not touch the bronze coffin in the corner. Just cremate me."
At the time, I thought he was rambling in his old age. He had been sitting in the sun by the shop door, looking healthy, even eating two braised pork feet.
"Cremate who? You've got decades left," I replied without looking up.
Grandpa said nothing more. He just stared at the bronze coffin in the corner, for a very, very long time.
That bronze coffin had been there for as long as I could remember. Three feet long, two feet wide, smaller than ordinary coffins, its surface carved with runes I could not understand. Grandpa never let me touch it, never told me what was inside. He only repeated:
"This is not for the living."
When I rushed home in panic, the courtyard was already filled with villagers, all with pale, grim faces.
Grandpa lay on a bamboo bed in the main room, covered with a white cloth. His exposed hands were dark purple and black, as if twisted violently by something. I lifted the cloth, and my heart turned to ice.
Grandpa's eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, but the whites were crisscrossed with dense blood threads, like spiderwebs. This was not how any normal person died.
"Who found him first?" I asked coldly.
Aunt Wang from next door trembled and stepped forward.
"I did. I heard rummaging noises from his room this morning. I knocked, but no one answered. When I pushed the door open, he was lying on the ground… and that bronze coffin… it was slightly ajar."
I spun toward the corner. The bronze coffin had indeed been moved. The lid was shifted two fingers wide, revealing a pitch-black gap. A strange odor drifted out—rotten wood mixed with rust, like something sealed for a century finally seeing daylight.
"Nobody opened it, right?" I urged.
Everyone shook their heads frantically.
"Good." I stepped forward to push the lid shut.
But the moment my hand touched the bronze, a bone-piercing cold shot from my fingertips to the top of my skull. It was not the cold of metal, but a living chill, as if I had dipped my hand into icy water where something squirmed beneath the surface.
I froze—not from the cold, but because I clearly heard a sound coming from inside the coffin: faint, rhythmic, the scraping of fingernails against metal.
Clink… clink… clink…
One after another, making my scalp prickle.
The villagers heard it too and shrank back in terror.
"Xiao Jiu…" the village chief stammered, "is it… is your grandpa trying to come out for air?"
I did not answer. My mind was filled with Grandpa's last words:
"Jiu'er, remember this. If I die and sounds come from that bronze coffin, never open it. Whatever is inside… is no longer me."
I took a deep breath, mustered my strength, and shoved the lid closed. The scraping stopped at once. But on my finger, a black mark had appeared, as if bitten by something. It did not hurt, but it was icy to the bone, and no amount of rubbing would remove it.
Just then, Aunt Wang screamed.
I turned around, and my blood nearly turned to ice.
Grandpa, who had been lying on the bamboo bed, had sat up by himself.
His eyes remained open, his purple-black face expressionless. The villagers scattered in panic. Only I stood frozen.
I stared at him. He "stared" back. Though his eyes held no focus, I could feel something alien, using his gaze, watching me intently.
Then Grandpa spoke.
It was not his voice at all. Hoarse, dry, like someone learning to speak for the first time, vocal cords untested. It said slowly:
"Chen Jiu. You've finally come."
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms, forcing myself calm.
"Who are you, really?"
The thing wearing Grandpa's face twisted into a hideous grin, its mouth splitting almost to the ears. It was not a smile—it looked as if someone had torn the corners apart by force.
"You don't even know who I am?" it said slowly. "Your grandfather kept me trapped for thirty years. But he forgot: if he cannot stop me from leaving… he can enter instead."
I understood in an instant.
Grandpa had not died naturally. He had been dragged forcefully into the bronze coffin, trading his own body to set the evil free.
What lay on the bed now was the fiend. My grandfather was locked inside that cold bronze coffin.
"You never should have come out," I snarled.
"But I already have," it tilted its head, mocking. "You want to lock me back? Your own grandfather couldn't do it. What makes you think you can?"
It stood up, the white cloth sliding off. Beneath Grandpa's skin, countless things slithered like snakes—disgusting, terrifying.
The villagers broke down completely, screaming and fleeing. Soon I was alone.
I pulled out a copper coin Grandpa had left me, bit the tip of my tongue hard, and smeared blood on the coin. I flicked it straight at its face.
But the coin stopped three feet away, as if hitting an invisible wall. Then it slowly melted in midair, turning into a puddle of molten copper that dripped onto the ground.
The creature sneered.
"Cheap tricks. Useless."
It raised a hand and made a grasping motion toward me. My chest felt as if smashed by a hammer. I flew backward, crashed through the wooden door, and landed heavily in the yard, spitting a mouthful of hot blood onto the stone slabs.
The thing approached slowly, looking down at me.
"Chen Jiu, your grandfather guarded me for thirty years. At last he understood: some things cannot be caged forever. I will not kill you today. You are more useful alive."
With that, it turned and walked toward the village edge. Passing the bronze coffin, it paused and gently patted the lid, its voice disturbingly soft, like coaxing a child.
"Don't worry. When I'm done, I'll let you out."
Its figure faded into the morning mist.
I lay on the ground, bones aching as if shattered, unable to move even a finger. I could only watch it leave.
Then the scraping returned from inside the coffin—faster, more urgent, as if Grandpa was scratching wildly, trying to speak to me.
My vision blurred. Before I blacked out, I saw a drop of dark red blood seep from the crack of the bronze coffin. It flowed down the runes, dripped onto the ground, and formed a single clear character:
Run.