The old woman trembled as she peeked out, and what she saw struck her like a bolt of lightning. The sickle in her hand clattered to the ground.
She saw the little daughter-in-law, charred like coal, clutching the corpse of the second son and gnawing at it. The upper half of his chest was already gone, and his dangling arms and legs twitched sporadically from natural nerve reactions.
Hearing the noise, the little daughter-in-law turned her head and grinned at the old woman.
Her face was black, her lips mostly burned away, revealing ghastly white teeth smeared with blood and flesh. Her eyes gleamed, and behind her head hung a mess of hair like withered grass—after the fire, her hair had been completely burned off. The old woman hadn’t paid her much attention and had no idea when she had started growing hair again, like an old tree sprouting new branches.
The old woman couldn’t take it. Without even a sound, she stiffened and collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Before her eyes closed, she vaguely saw the little daughter-in-law, clutching the mangled remains of the second son, dart into the pitch-black night.
Lao Qian stopped his story here.
It was almost dark, and the road was sparsely trafficked. Autumn had arrived, and the vegetation in the distance was beginning to wither, making the world seem desolate and cold.
For about ten seconds, neither of them spoke. Nie Jiuluo was digesting the story, while Lao Qian was gathering his thoughts.
"Miss Nie, when I heard this story as a child, I was just scared. But looking back on it as an adult, it doesn’t make much sense logically."
Nie Jiuluo felt the same way. "Go on."
Lao Qian poured out his doubts like beans from a bamboo tube: "You’d think this demon would have more patience—living with the second son for a year or two before eating him. What was she waiting for?"
Nie Jiuluo thought for a moment. "Maybe it had to do with her injuries. She needed to recover her strength."
Lao Qian shook his head vigorously. "No, no, no."
He had heard this story since childhood and had pondered it countless times over the decades. "First, if she needed to recover her strength, why wait over a year after getting injured? And why insist on leaving the family with descendants? That’s way too considerate. Second, familiarity breeds affection—people develop feelings over time. The whole village was right there. She could’ve picked anyone to ‘replenish’ herself—young boys, young girls, whatever. Why target her own family?"
He was getting genuinely worked up. Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but laugh. "It’s just a story. A lot of folk tales are like this—they don’t hold up under scrutiny."
Lao Qian sighed. "My great-aunt said the same thing. Whenever I tried to discuss it with her, she’d get impatient—the older she got, the more short-tempered she became. She’d yell at me, saying that’s just how she heard it and how was she supposed to know what a demon was thinking?"
After all, people’s hearts are hidden behind their ribs. If you can’t even know what another person is thinking, how could you possibly guess a demon’s thoughts?
Nie Jiuluo asked, "What happened next?"
What followed was simple.
After the old woman woke up, both the little daughter-in-law and the second son were gone. Only a pool of blood, frozen into ice beneath the old locust tree, reminded her that it hadn’t been a hallucination.
Her wails drew the neighbors. Armed with hoes and machetes, they followed the blood trail by torchlight, all the way into the great swamp. But the bitter cold and howling wind, which sounded like ghostly wails, made them too afraid to go further. They had no choice but to turn back.
The next day, a heavy snowfall blanketed the land in white, erasing all traces.The Great Marsh, it was always the Great Marsh. The eldest son went to the market, passing through the Great Marsh, and never returned. The second son went to look for his brother and encountered a young woman in the Great Marsh. And that young woman, who came from the Great Marsh, wore the eldest son’s black homespun trousers while carrying the second son’s mutilated corpse, only to vanish back into the Great Marsh.
The Great Marsh—the old woman was truly terrified of it.
And she wasn’t alone. The entire village had begun to tremble at the mere mention of the Great Marsh, and this fear spread to neighboring villages. The Qinba Mountains stretched far and wide—how could anyone be sure that thing wouldn’t come for their own family next?
Rumors boiled over like a raging pot: Li Da from Li Village had also seen the young woman at the village entrance—she was terrifyingly strong, dragging away a pig with one hand. Wang Qi from Wang Village, while gathering firewood in the mountains, spotted a wolf gutted open, and that charred figure of the young woman was feasting on its heart and lungs, her hair now grown so long it nearly reached her waist, swaying like thick spider silk draped over an old wooden stump as she moved…
Panic spread like wildfire. Many were so frightened they packed their belongings and fled their homes. The matter even alarmed the county magistrate, but since it involved supernatural forces, he dared not report it—the "Soul-Stealing Case" during the mid-Qing Dynasty, originating in Jiangnan, had once triggered a wave of sorcery panic across half of China, and the authorities had been furious, beheading many officials over it.
Left with no choice, the magistrate consulted his advisor and sought out experts capable of "subduing demons."
Another year passed, deep into the harsh winter, when a wandering Taoist priest passed through the area. After much divination and casting of hexagrams, he declared that the root of the evil lay in the Great Marsh. To eradicate this scourge, the marsh had to be tamed first.
…
Hearing this, Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
The story’s twists and turns were truly dramatic. At first, she thought it was just rural folklore, then a tale of gratitude and kindness, before suddenly taking a dark and bloody turn. And now, the tone had shifted again—into an environmental protection campaign.
Lao Qian was baffled by her laughter. Nie Jiuluo suppressed her amusement and urged him to continue.
"My great-aunt said the Taoist’s ritual was a grand spectacle. Thousands came from near and far to watch—back then, China’s population was sparse, so a crowd of thousands was like a massive festival."
Nie Jiuluo pictured it—the population density of the late Qing Dynasty, in a mountain village, thousands gathering—it must have been quite the event.
"Taoists, you know, have all sorts of mystical methods. My great-aunt couldn’t describe them all, but in the end, over a hundred people set up furnaces and bellows in an open field, smelting molten iron on the spot."
Nie Jiuluo was puzzled. "Molten iron? For forging?"
Lao Qian shook his head. "It was winter. The Great Marsh had frozen solid, and with the cold, it had cracked into countless fissures. The Taoist had divined that the demon lurked beneath the marsh, so they poured molten iron into the cracks—sealing her door shut, trapping her inside forever."
Nie Jiuluo understood. The method was crude, but it sounded satisfying—and undeniably effective.
Lao Qian clicked his tongue. "It was a massive undertaking, requiring many hands. But China’s never lacked manpower. They say the pouring went on for three days and nights. At night, the molten iron sparked like fireworks—truly a sight to behold. Hey, Miss Nie, have you ever seen molten iron fireworks? It’s a specialty of Mizhi in Shaanxi—absolutely worth seeing."No wonder he was in the tourism business—even telling a horror story could circle back to his profession. Nie Jiuluo steered the conversation back on track: "After pouring the molten iron, what happened next?"
"That was the end of it. The Taoist priest left, and life in the surrounding villages returned to normal. As for the great swamp—maybe it was baked by the molten iron—by the next summer, it wasn’t as muddy anymore. Later, the villagers thought the bare land looked ugly and unsettling, so they hauled in yellow earth and stones from elsewhere to cover the entire area thickly."
With soil, annual rainfall, and seeds carried by wind or animals, the land gradually became overgrown with wild grass and crops, turning into the kind of unclaimed wasteland commonly seen in rural areas.
At this point, he suddenly remembered something: "When I was a kid, after hearing this story, my friends and I even took shovels and dug there, hoping to find the iron shell—we dug over a meter deep but found nothing. Just wore ourselves out for nothing."
This wasn’t surprising. Due to the rock cycle and human activity, the earth’s layers naturally thicken over time.
Nie Jiuluo asked, "What about the temple? How did that come about?"
"Well, after the Taoist priest left, he claimed the demon had been subdued. But the villagers still felt uneasy. Country folks are superstitious—they thought they should build a temple to make offerings."
No wonder, Nie Jiuluo thought, recalling that bewitching statue.
When Chinese people build temples, they usually worship two types of beings: one is benevolent deities who bring blessings—like the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, or the God of Wealth; the other is demons and ghosts—worshipped out of fear, to beg them not to harm the worshippers (though they’re free to harm others).
"They built a temple but couldn’t openly say it was for a demon—that would sound terrible. So they vaguely called it a ‘Guanyin’ temple. But since it was clearly a demon, they feared the real Guanyin might get angry and bring disaster. So they named it ‘Earth Guanyin’—as in, emerged from the earth."
By now, Nie Jiuluo had mostly pieced it together: "Later, when the city was divided into townships, Xingba Township split into East and West. West Township happened to be where the temple was. The villagers avoided it, saying the place was unclean?"
That was part of it, but not the whole story. Lao Qian thought for a moment and added, "It’s more like a vicious cycle. Because people avoided West Township, incidents like robbery, murder, or assaults became more common there. And because so many bad things happened there, people avoided it even more. Over time, it became a habit. The temple isn’t really the main reason. Besides, how many people these days even know the ‘Earth Guanyin’ story?"
Nie Jiuluo hummed in acknowledgment and leaned back against the seat. She hadn’t even realized she’d been sitting up straight, so engrossed in the story.
After a pause, she still felt the tale lingered: "This story is really interesting—much more so than visiting the temple."
She’d make sure to jot this down in her notes tonight. What had been a rather dull day had suddenly gained color because of this story.
Pleased by the client’s praise, Lao Qian felt a warm glow inside.
Nie Jiuluo suddenly thought of another point: "The temple is in ruins now. Is there any basis for the saying, ‘Earth Guanyin is displeased and will come out to harm people’?"Lao Qian let out a sigh. "That's pure superstition. After the late Qing Dynasty, didn't our country go through hard times? Always backward and getting beaten, with constant internal strife—whether it was the Taiping Rebellion, the White Lotus Sect, bandits, or military mutinies—every upheaval meant villages suffered. And if villages suffered, how could temples remain intact? The temple you see now was rebuilt before liberation, but it's not the original version anymore. My great-aunt was just forcing connections, thinking temple damage meant disaster, and blaming it all on demons. But really, it was all man-made disasters—the temple got damaged because disasters happened... Ah, damn, damn..."
By the end, Lao Qian suddenly gasped, slowing the car down.
The road ahead was empty—no cars, no people, not even a stray cat or dog. Nie Jiuluo was puzzled. "What's wrong?"
Lao Qian pointed diagonally ahead. "Miss Nie, look at that guardrail!"
Only then did Nie Jiuluo notice a section of the guardrail had been smashed, the broken remnants dangling precariously, a rather grim sight.
But as someone who often traveled for fieldwork, she was no stranger to scenes like this—guardrails smashed or cars flipped upside down on the roadside. "Must've been an accident," she remarked.
She glanced down the embankment but saw no car—likely already cleared. Beyond the guardrail was a downward slope, followed by a stretch of wild hemp. This tall crop could grow up to two or three meters. In earlier years, many rural areas cultivated it, but it had gradually been replaced by other cash crops, leaving most of it wild and untended.
Lao Qian sighed. "This accident must've happened today. The guardrail was fine when we passed this morning."
As a driver, Lao Qian paid extra attention to accidents involving fellow motorists. He edged the car closer to the side, peering out repeatedly before suddenly hitting the brakes. "No, no, Miss Nie, look—look at those tire tracks."
By now, they were near the broken guardrail. Under the car's headlights, it was clear: there were only two sets of tire marks leading down the slope. If the scene had been cleared, the tracks would've been chaotic, and there would've been rescuers' footprints.
Following the tracks, they extended into the wild hemp field, where many stalks had been crushed—likely run over by the car. But hemp stems were somewhat resilient; unless completely broken, they'd partially spring back. So further in, the tracks disappeared.
There were two kinds of drivers: those indifferent to accidents because they'd seen too many, and those overly concerned, empathizing and hoping others would help them in their own time of need.
Lao Qian was the latter.
He hurriedly unbuckled his seatbelt. "Damn, did the driver lose control and just plow straight in? Could the car and people still be in there? I should check—might still be able to save someone."
Nie Jiuluo looked at the wild hemp field.
Tall crops—tall crops again. She thought of the cornfield in Xingbazi Village.
She was starting to dislike such places now: thin, towering stalks, dense and thick, blocking all sight. Who knew what could be lurking inside?
She wanted to warn Lao Qian to be careful or at least grab a stick, but he was already sprinting ahead, disappearing into the distance in moments.
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