Hiding in the woodshed on the other side of the yard, Midwife ran over and told my father to quickly carry my mother to the woodshed to take shelter from the rain, saying that a woman in confinement absolutely must not get wet. Although my father was also very sad, compared to the house, people were much more important, so he hurriedly carried my mother to the woodshed to avoid the rain.

At that time, the newly founded People's Republic of China had just been established, and every household had little money, barely enough to get by. The house was the family's only property. Now that the main room had collapsed, it was as if everything was lost. One can imagine how heartbroken my mother was.

Midwife couldn't help but comfort my mother, telling her not to cry, saying that women in confinement must not cry, otherwise their eyes would often tear up and develop eye problems in the future. With my father also comforting her by her side, my mother eventually stopped crying, slowly turning her gaze to the well at the side of the yard, and asked my father whether they should bring the child up, worried that he might freeze.

My father glanced around, not knowing what to do for a moment. He said, "We don't know if the ghost messengers have come yet. What if I bring the child up now and the ghost messengers arrive? Let's wait a little longer before bringing him up!"

After hearing this, my mother, though reluctant, still nodded.

Midwife at the side sighed and said, "Earlier, when you said the child was unlucky, I was worried you had been tricked by the Taoist, but now it seems, alas, this child really is unlucky! Just a few minutes after being born, the house collapsed."

My father also sighed, saying that this was all destined, and that he only hoped the child could be safe. If the house collapsed, they could rebuild it after earning some money.

Just as my father was sighing, my mother suddenly kept tugging at his sleeve. My father asked what was wrong. My mother seemed very frightened, pointing toward the main gate of the yard, stammering, "Th-there's someone... someone there!"

Upon hearing this, my father quickly turned to look toward the main gate and was startled. He saw that there were already two people at the gate. Both were over nine feet tall. One wore white clothes, a white hat, and held a white stick in his hand. The other wore black clothes, but since it was a rainy night, the one in black was hard to see clearly—he just looked completely shrouded in darkness.

My father immediately understood that these two must be the soul-reaping ghost messengers the Taoist had mentioned. He quickly made a silencing gesture to my mother and Midwife, whispering, "These two must be here to take the child's soul. We must not make a sound!"

Even without my father saying so, my mother and Midwife dared not make a sound, because everyone understood what was happening. Now that two strangers had entered the yard, who else could they be but soul-reapers? If they were human, who had ever seen people over three meters tall? Everyone was trembling all over, not knowing whether it was from the cold rain or from fear of seeing the ghost messengers.

As for those two ghost messengers, they entered the yard and headed straight for the house, of which only one bedroom remained standing. The bedroom could only be entered from the living room, but now that the living room had collapsed, the door was blocked. However, the two ghost messengers did not look for a door among the ruins, but instead went straight to the outside of the bedroom and walked right through the wall!

This scared my parents and the others out of their wits, knowing that these two were indeed ghosts, able to walk through walls. Midwife, being more knowledgeable, told my parents that these two must be the legendary Black and White Impermanence, which frightened my parents even more.

Back to the two ghost messengers: not long after entering the bedroom, they walked through the wall and came out again. Then they looked around the yard, and soon spotted my parents and the others, and walked over.

When my parents saw the ghost messengers walking toward them, they were terrified. Fortunately, Midwife, being older and more experienced, quickly whispered to my parents not to look at the two, and to pretend they couldn't see them. My parents could only listen to Midwife, nodding hurriedly, and the three of them anxiously made small talk about the collapsed house.

The two ghost messengers came up to my parents, glanced at them, and seeing that they were chatting away and clearly couldn't see them, finally relaxed. The one in white said, "Old Clark, it seems you were overthinking it. How could these mortals possibly see us? Look, we're standing right in front of them and they haven't reacted at all."

The man in black said, "Strange, just now I saw them staring at us. Oh well, let's hurry up and find that little ghost, or King Yama will blame us!"

The ghost messenger in white nodded, then started searching around the yard again. But after circling the yard twice, they still couldn't find me, hidden in the well. Strangely enough, my parents later told me that at the time I was crying loudly in the well, but the two ghost messengers just couldn't find me.

Chapter 6 The Well

Back to the story, the two ghost messengers searched twice and finally returned to my parents, even coming up close to my mother and looking her up and down, scaring her half to death, but she didn't dare show any fear and could only force herself to hold on.

The two ghost messengers examined my parents for a while, and finally the one in black said, "Old Harris, today is really strange. The boy is neither in the house nor with his parents—where could he have gone?"