Return to the Body

Mother could not see me. I stood in the courtyard, watching her clutch that old shoe, her shoulders trembling. My cousin stood nearby, a length of white cloth folded over his arm, not knowing where to put it. Aunt Liu brought the bowl of hot broth over again; Mother shook her head, and she set it down by the water vat. The bowl lid tapped the jar. I knew where I had to go. I turned and walked through the hall door. It was ajar, and I went through it — not pushing it open, but passing through it, like stepping through cold water. The door bolt brushed past my waist, cold, and blocked nothing.

In the main hall, the ancestral tablets stood. Two white candles burned before them, tears of wax piled high on the brass stands. Three sticks of incense in the censer, smoke rising straight up before thinning in the air. Beside the altar, a coffin rested.

It was cypress wood, unvarnished, axe marks still visible on the planks. The lid was propped against the coffin, not nailed on. Village custom: the lid is nailed shut on the third day, after relatives have paid their last respects. I had been ill seven days; today was the eighth. The coffin had been finished yesterday, my cousin said — the neighbors had already given me up.

I stood before the coffin and looked down.

Inside lay a white sheet. On the sheet lay a man.

It was me. I wore the blue cotton robe my mother had sewn, the collar frayed. My eyes were closed, my face pale, pale to gray, lips without color. My hands were folded over my stomach, arranged neatly — Aunt Liu had washed me and dressed me. The old scar on my left brow, from a fall at twenty, was pale too, like a streak of light ink.

I crouched and looked at my own face. I looked for a long time. It was me, and it was not me. There was no expression on the face — not the expressionlessness of sleep, but of all expression having been drawn out. The brow was flat, the mouth flat, the eyelids closed, the lashes still. When I was ill, I had tossed all night, brow furrowed. Now it was flat, like a sheet of paper wiped clean of written characters.

I reached out and touched the edge of the coffin.

My hand passed through it.

I tried again, this time with force — my fingers landed on the wood, but there was no sensation. The wood was wood, my hand was my hand, and between them lay something I could not see. Outside in the courtyard my hand had passed through my mother's shoulder; now, before my own coffin, I could not even rest my fingers on the rim.

I looked down at my body. In the candlelight of the hall, it was fainter than it had been in the courtyard. The candles shone through me, casting no shadow.

I understood.

I was not back yet. The horse had carried me to the door of my home, but I had not returned to my own body. I stood before the coffin looking at my own shell, like a man standing before his own door, the key missing from his hand.

I walked around the coffin once. The hall was quiet. White candles burned, occasionally popping a lamp-flower with a hiss. Beside the censer on the altar stood a bowl of rice, a pair of chopsticks stuck upright — my "last meal." Beside the rice bowl sat a small dish, with a block of tofu and a piece of fermented bean curd. My mother knew I liked this.

Next to the tofu rice, there was a small wine cup. The cup was empty, no wine in it. When I was ill, my mother would warm half a flask every evening, and I would drink two cups. Now the cup sat there, empty, as if waiting for someone to pour.

I stood at the foot of the coffin, looking at that dish of bean curd, for a while.

Then I climbed into the coffin. Not walked in. I first stood on the rim of the coffin — my feet on the cypress wood were translucent too, but I could stand. I looked down at my own face on the white sheet, separated from me by a thin plank. I drew a breath — I no longer needed to breathe, but I drew one anyway — and then I lay down.

When I lay down, there was no sound.

My body settled onto the white sheet, beside the body that was mine. "Settled" was the word — it sank in, slowly, like sinking into warm water. First my chest sank, then my shoulders, then my legs. I could feel something below holding me — that was my body, lying there, cold, stiff, unmoving.

Then two pairs of hands came together.

Not that I put them together. The hands of my body on the white sheet, and my hands as a spirit — they matched. Five fingers, one by one, interlocked.

Cold. Starting from the fingertips, a cold crept up my arms. It was not the cold of the hall, but something deeper — like reaching into a well in winter, water without a bottom. I gritted my teeth and did not move. The cold passed my shoulders, reached my chest, my belly, my legs. At last two pairs of feet matched, toes interlocking one by one.

Then I could not move. Not that I did not want to. I could not. I lay in the coffin, inside my own body, eyes open — but I saw nothing. Black. I tried to lift my hand; it would not lift. I tried to open my mouth; it would not open. I could feel the inner wall of the coffin above my head, separated by a thin plank of cypress. I could smell the incense candles, and the wood, and an indescribable sweetish, coppery smell — that was my own body's smell.

I was inside my own body.

But I was not yet awake.

**【Archive Verification】** From the remains of the *Records of the Netherworld Examination*, entry "Returning to Life": when an appointee returns home, his body is already dead. If the soul does not enter the body, it becomes a wandering ghost; if a wandering ghost does not disperse within seven days, it becomes a restless spirit. The method of entry is none other than three words: "lie back." Yet after entering, one cannot immediately awaken — the soul and body must converge over three days before the eyes open. Recorded for reference. — This passage is scribbled, with a marginal note in vermilion ink: the three words "lie back" are in Song Tao's own hand.

Someone entered the hall.

It was my cousin. He came to the coffin, looked at it, and reached out to straighten the lid, which was still propped. He muttered something I could not make out, only heard him sigh. Then he went out, the door curtain lifting and falling.

After a while, my mother entered.

She walked slowly. I could not see her in the coffin, but I could hear her footsteps — soles scraping the ground, shush-shush. She came to the coffin and stopped. She stood a long while and said nothing. Then she reached out and rested her hand on the edge of the coffin. Her hand trembled.

She did not cry. She simply left her hand there, a moment, then withdrew it and turned to go.

As she left, I heard her say something. Her voice was very soft, as if talking to herself: "Good, that you've come home." I lay in the coffin. She knew. She had always known.

Outside, dawn was near. I could feel it — not see it, feel it — the light in the hall shifting from candle-yellow to gray-blue. A rooster crowed, once, twice. Someone was sweeping the courtyard, the bamboo broom scraping the ground.

Then footsteps came to the hall door. Two people. I heard one say: "Nail it?" The other said: "Wait till midday, let the relatives see it once more." The first grunted and said: "When you nail it, set the lid properly." I lay in the coffin, listening to them. I could not move. I could not open my eyes. I lay in my own body, in the cypress coffin, a thin plank between my head and the hall — my home, my mother, my hall.

But I could do nothing. I could only wait.

Wait three days.