Sinophagia (extracts)
Extracts from Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, translated and edited by Xueting Ni, published in Sept 2024 by Solaris.
HUANGCUN
荒村
By Cai Jun 蔡骏
...
It all began with my latest book, “Youling Kezhan”. This horror novel is set in a place whose name means “The Haunted Tavern”, which was located in Huangcun – a small village in the mountains of Zhejiang, situated between a cemetery and the sea. Because it faces a stretch of deserted coastline, its name means “The Desolate Village”. Actually, I had never been to Huangcun, because it was entirely my own fabrication – invented in order to provide the novel with a unique environment. Were it not for that book signing, Huangcun could have stayed existing only in my imagination.
This signing session for “Youling Kezhan” took place at a subterranean bookshop, and for some unknown reason, they had arranged it to start after seven pm. That evening, sitting at a table near the entrance of the shop, I signed for two hours straight. It was quite an effective sales strategy. At nine o’clock, when the bookshop started to pack up, and the traffic in the adjacent metro station gradually began to thin, I was sitting alone behind the table, head lowered, packing my things and getting ready to go home.
Suddenly I heard a soft rustling, and immediately raised my head. I saw a young girl standing before me – she was in a large, ill-fitting jumper, the bottom edge of which hung all the way down to the knees. She carried a cheap fake leather backpack, and her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked like a university student.
She clutched a copy of my novel in both hands, and with her eyes lowered, she placed it on the table without saying a word. I was a little distracted; the winters in Shanghai had a bite to them, and the heating in the bookshop had broken down, so I had been shivering with cold. She was the last reader to have made it in, and, despite having the author all to herself, she did not look pleased in the slightest. Without a word, she slid it towards me as if I was the cashier. I paused, lifting my head to observe her. It was a face with delicate features and was very likeable, even capable of generating a little tenderness in the viewer. I flicked the book open to its title page, and, looking into her eyes, asked, “May I have your name, please?”
She looked startled for a second, before lowering her eyes again, and answering in a tiny, thin voice, “Xiaozhi.”
“Xiaozhi?” Oddly, it seemed like a better name for a flute to my mind. “Xiao as as in ‘small’, and zhi as in ‘branch’, yes?”
She did not speak, but affirmed it all with a nod. I wrinkled my brow and wrote on the title page: “For Xiaozhi, with pleasure”, before adding my signature. I returned the book into her hands, adding, “Thank you for coming so late in the evening, just to buy my book.”
At last, she looked up at me, her eyes wide, as if she wanted to say something – her lips moved but no sound came out. I raised my eyebrows and widened my eyes at her, encouraging her. Finally, she took a deep breath, and said, “I come from Huangcun.”
At first, I didn’t understand, but she continued to focus her trance-like gaze on me, until I coloured a little – Huangcun? The place from my own novel? I stared at this strange girl named Xiaozhi, standing in front of me – had she leaped out of my book?
Under my piercing gaze, she buried her head again, mumbling a few barely distinguishable syllables that sounded like, “I’m sorry.”
Actually, I felt even more awkward than she did. I wrung my hands nervously. “May I– Can I take you for a cup of tea?”
She hesitated for an instant. “OK, I can give you ten minutes.”
Three minutes later, I’d led her to a teahouse just outside the station. Sitting across from me, she was still surprisingly taciturn, sipping the tea with a lowered head. I checked my watch: there was not much left of the time she had agreed to give me. I cleared my throat. “Sorry, you said – you come from Huangcun?”
Xiaozhi lifted her eyes at last, and fixed them on me, slightly dipping her chin in a nod.
“Where is Huangcun?”
“Just past... Like it says in your novel: ‘Huangcun was situated between the sea and the cemetery’.”
Gazing into her black, jade-like eyes, I could tell she was not lying. “You’re saying Huangcun really exists?”
“Of course it does. Huangcun has existed for centuries. I was born there, grew up there – I’m Huangcunese.” She avoided my gaze, saying feebly, “I guess you’ve never been to Xileng Town, let alone Huangcun.”
I suddenly felt fraudulent. “You’re right. I have only seen Xileng Town on the map, and as for Huangcun? It was entirely my own creation. I thought the name suited the atmosphere the novel required. I had no idea there was a real Huangcun, and certainly didn’t expect someone from the village to turn up at my signing. Thank you for telling me all this.”
“Actually, I happened to be passing by this evening, taking the metro back to school, but then saw the advert outside the bookshop. I read your book a few days ago, and it left a deep impression on me, so I decided to come in, buy another copy and ask you to sign it.”
“Ah, so it was a coincidence – I very coincidentally wrote a Huangcun that actually exists into my novel, and as someone from Huangcun, you also coincidentally saw me at a metro bookshop.”
Xiaozhi nodded slightly.
...
“I’d like to visit Huangcun, too.”
“What?” She was clearly not prepared for this and shook her head blankly. “Impossible... that is not possible... please don’t joke like that.”
“I wasn’t joking, I’ve already made up my mind. I want to go and see the place that appeared in my novel. It must be fascinating – you said that Huangcun was just like it is in my book, between the sea and the cemetery. Since there have been all these coincidences, then I must have a certain destiny leading me to Huangcun. Xiaozhi, all you need to do is show me the way.”
She looked right into my eyes, and then, frowning, took a step back. I felt a current of mild horror emanating from her body. Her breathing had become shallow. “No, I don’t know...”
Realising how awkward I had made this, I smiled. “Of course, we are only chance acquaintances, like leaves that fall into the same stream. You can say no to me. How about this? Take my card, and if you change your mind and decide that you would be happy to take me to Huangcun, give me a call?”
I thrust the card into the hand of Xiaozhi, who seemed at a loss, and like a small wild beast escaping from a hunt, she tore herself away and dashed out of the tearoom. Slowly I followed at a distance to see her off, as she disappeared into the streets on that cold Shanghai night.
She came from Huangcun.
THE WAKING DREAM
清醒梦
By Fan Zhou 范舟
The spacious, circular meeting room is bathed in sunlight. Shen Yue sits with the two other architects at the long, snow-white, solid wood table, listening to the eloquent speech of their chief. The blue sky beyond the curved glass wall is so perfect it looks fake. From time to time, birds swoop past, spreading their wings. Shen Yue pretends to lower her head casually, focusing her gaze on the grain on the table surface, and avoiding what is pacing behind the chief: the giant spawn monster with countless eyes.
Like a spider, the monster has eight long, thin and crooked legs that step across the thickly carpeted floor noiselessly, its rubber-textured body constantly secreting a transparent sticky fluid, leaving a suspicious trail on the grey carpet. Drops of this viscous liquid are falling onto the back of the chief’s chair, but he seems scarcely to notice. No matter where it goes, the monster’s gaze is permanently fixed on the chief – who is excitedly introducing Phase Two of the Mars Base Construction project, like a hunter drooling over prey that is just out of its reach.
...
“What you’re saying makes sense, though personally, I think...” The chief continues his lengthy commentary. Shen Yue lowers her head, and surreptitiously breathes a sigh of relief. The withered, branch-like claws of the monster are now gripping the back of the chief’s chair, its dull, lightless many-eyes boring into the back of the chief’s head.
It feels like a century before the meeting finally finishes. The chief walks out of the meeting room, glowing with an air of vitality, followed closely by Shen Yue and her colleague Zhao Zhijian, with whom she shares an office. Zhao Zhijian leans in close to Shen Yue and says in lowered tones, “Thank goodness we’re not in a real office right now, or I’d have developed haemorrhoids.” Shen Yue humours him with a chuckle, and surreptitiously sidesteps around the monster’s sticky secretions smeared across the carpet.
To get from the meeting room to her office, Shen Yue has to pass through the open-plan lobby, in which the display is simply dizzying. A cephalopod monster stands behind a female colleague, its tentacles tightly wrapped
around her like a lover. Another creature, resembling a completely skinned human, crouches on the desk of a male colleague, its bright red gore flowing down, pooling onto the carpet and staining a large patch of it crimson. A moth- like monster is perched on the back of another member of staff, like a woodpecker perched on a tree, constantly piercing his chest with its furry claws. Nobody else in the hall seems to be aware of this nightmarish scene, just busying themselves with their own affairs. Shen Yue also pretends not to see this, and makes her way back to her office, bantering along the way with Zhao Zhijian.
Before the start of virtual working, Shen Yue had thought, like others, that working in the online world would be more relaxing than the real world. The principle behind virtual working is to transfer people’s consciousness to the Yuanjie metaverse, so their cerebra work at full capacity, while their bodies lie in the Consciousness Converter (CC), in a deep sleep induced by a gas. To quote the media, virtual working is like a twelve-hour long, diverting dream, in which all the activities of the dream can be controlled. When VW really began, Shen Yue realised that she had been naïve. In real-world working, although her body would feel tired, her brain could make use of all those little moments of downtime; even when she was working, her mind could occasionally wander and relax. But in the Yuanjie, even though her body is in deep sleep in a CC, her brain is in a state of constant wakefulness, a kind of enforced focus that makes every second spent in the metaverse interminable, and inescapable, turning her twelve hours of work into a daily nightmare from which she cannot wake.
...
Someone brings up another topic: “I heard on the news that some experts have suggested extending VW from twelve hours a day to fourteen – their reason being that sleeping more hours a day is better for your health.”
Their neighbour complains, “Extend it? Sleeping for twelve hours a day is making me feel light-headed as it is. Another two hours, I’d be worried my body would waste away.”
His comment generates a wave of agreement. “If you sleep for too long, you might not wake up.”
“There’s been cases abroad where people have been in the CC for a prolonged time and turned into vegetables.” “That’s all rumours, and already officially denied. That person just had a particularly realistic nightmare.” This topic piques Shen Yue’s interest. “What’s the most
terrifying nightmare you’ve ever had?” “Caterpillars,” blurts out a female colleague. “When I was little, I went on a school trip to the botanical gardens, and a caterpillar fell into my clothes. It crawled around on my back all day. After getting back, I had a month of nightmares about caterpillars.” Shen Yue believes her, because a monstrous green caterpillar covered in downy black fur is currently sitting on her back.
“I dreamt of skeletons,” says another female colleague. “I went to an escape room with my boyfriend and got a shock from a skeleton prop. That night I dreamt of the same thing happening, and it frightened me again.” A skeleton with its hand full of needles is standing by this colleague right now, poised to jam them into her eyes.
Zhao Zhijian pushes aside his empty bowl and looks at Shen Yue somewhat curiously. “What are you afraid of?”
TI’NAANG
替囊
By Su Min 苏民
...
Due to the narrowness of the town, we had hardly taken a few steps out of the station before we were on the riverfront. The riverbank had been repaired and made very tidy, no longer full of potholes. The people were the same as always, taking an after-dinner stroll along it in twos and threes. They walked at leisure, enjoying the shade of the green trees and the serene winding paths in the distance; all made an image perfectly befitting of all the tranquillity and placidity a small town should offer. But I knew, deep in my heart, that things here were never as simple as they seemed on the surface.
Directly ahead were three people: a man and a woman, who seemed to be a married couple, and another man following behind them, his hands full of carrier bags, as if returning from the supermarket. If you looked carefully, you would find that the placid, servile man looked exactly like the husband. The couple bumped into an acquaintance, and greeted them warmly, with typical chit-chat, whilst the servant-like man stood aside, not engaging in the conversation. None of the others even acknowledged his presence.
“Are they twins?” Liang Jiu asked, curiously. “No.” This was just how this little town had always been; it was still the same after all this time, and I was beginning to regret bringing Liang Jiu back here.
“If you meet someone here, and then see them again, don’t rush to talk to them. Wait till I greet them before you do,” I urged him.
The dark green house in the small old district ahead of us was my family home. As soon as we entered the district, we almost immediately ran into Auntie Li, from opposite. She, too, was followed by a woman that looked exactly like her, except for being laden with shopping. As soon as she saw me, Auntie Li started to exclaim in a pantomime fashion: “Well, goodness, isn’t this the Zhang girl? It’s been so many years, you’re home at last! You’ve not changed one little bit. I recognised you straight away!”
Politely I greeted her: “Hello, Auntie Li, I hope you’ve been well.” I deliberately spoke in Mandarin, in order for Liang Jiu to understand, but he was baffled, just staring at the two identical people for a while, before following my lead and greeting the Auntie Li standing in the foreground.
She twigged his northern accent and looked him up and down. “Found a boyfriend from outside? What a handsome lad!” And then, without turning, added in the local language, “Does your father know? Would he agree to you dating an outsider?”
I really disliked the local habit of switching to the topolect in front of outsiders – it was rude. I replied vaguely with platitudes, and at last, got free of her. Confusion was scrawled across Liang Jiu’s face. “Is the identical twin gene particularly prevalent here?”
“Those are ti’naang,” I replied.
“And what’s a ti’naang?” Liang Jiu did not understand, because the word came from the Jiangshan topolect.
Should I explain to him? As I hesitated, a familiar dark red wooden door appeared in front of me.
“We’re home,” I said.
***
I had lost my house keys a long time ago, so now I rang at the door like a guest.
The doorbell rang twice, but nobody answered. I could hear the sound of stir-frying in the kitchen. I pressed the bell again and heard hurried little scurrying steps. The door opened to reveal Mother. She wiped her grease- stained hands on her apron and took the gifts from Liang Jiu’s hands with a face full of smiles, asking after our health. Father sat upright, in the middle of the sofa facing the door, inert, holding a half-smoked cigarette. I had told my parents I was coming back today with my boyfriend, but they had not come to meet us at the station, or even asked the ti’naang to. I guessed this was intentional, just like he intentionally occupied the sofa, smoking rather than getting the door for us. I tried hard to bite down my anger, and said, “Father, Mother, this is Liang Jiu, he’s a journalist, he works for the news.” Before I’d even finished, his coarse voice unceremoniously tore through the apparent domestic peace: “So you still remember your way back, do you? What did you come back for?” As always, my father, his face twisted by arrogance and egotism, knew exactly how to rouse my fury
...
I had spent six months accumulating as much money as I could, and in the middle of the night, I hopped onto a long-distance coach, running all the way to the north, as far away from this small southern town as I could. I did not contact my family for several years, and it was not until Father stopped bellowing abuse down the line in every call that I told them where I was living, and told him, in fact, I was managing very well in B******, with a respectable job, a decent salary, and that I had also met Liang Jiu. Yes, I was an adult who could make my own way in society, and no longer had to be scared of him, as I had been as a child.
So, I harnessed the dignity and decency of a grown-up, and announced, “I’ve come back to tell you I’m getting married.”
“Like fuck you are! To an outsider?” he barked in local speech, and whilst Liang Jiu did not understand, he was clearly intimidated by Father’s aggressive tone.
Mother rushed forwards to conciliate, taking my hand to pacify me, saying, “You must be tired from your journey. Why don’t you two go to your room and take a rest?” She had aged so much, almost becoming a dry and shrivelled old woman, totally devoid of personality. Father was still glaring at me with rage, the aggression burning in his eyes not at all dimmed by her intervention. I will just say it. Father’s arrogant and domineering behaviour was the product of Mother’s years of weakness and incompetence.
I threw down the luggage and dragged Liang Jiu back to my room.
This was the room I had lived in from primary school to university. The heavy curtains were firmly drawn, without a crack, blocking out all light, so that the room was in near darkness.
...
“Liang Jiu, I’m sorry,” I said. “I never told you the truth about my hometown.”
I decided to tell Liang Jiu everything, about the monstrosity of this little town, its xenophobia, and the infinite pain and sorrow its deep-seated evil had caused me.