DA chapter 81

Sway… sway… sway…

The bed seemed to be moving, though not by much—like a floating bed on a lake.

Lin Jia’s eyes snapped open. The bedside lamp had gone out at some point. The air rushing into his nose was damp and stifling; a suffocating pressure pressed down, making it difficult to move.

Darkness quickly consumed him. As it slipped away, Lin Jia realized that something was wrong. This time, the feeling of falling into darkness was different. Unlike the usual sense of detachment when losing consciousness, he clearly felt the damp, stuffy air this time. As he breathed rapidly, no fresh air entered; what he inhaled felt like stagnant water.

He forced himself to raise a hand. His arm wouldn’t fully extend. In its curled position, it hit something above. Lin Jia then felt to both sides. The same thing happened—his arm hadn’t even straightened and was still bent, yet he touched the walls.

The walls were covered in rough wooden splinters. As his arm dropped weakly, several splinters pricked his skin.

The pain brought back a bit of clarity. In a dry voice, Lin Jia called out. He remembered the cat had been at the foot of the bed.

He opened his mouth to call to it, but the lack of oxygen made him forget its name. He swallowed with difficulty.

“Captain Yan…”

“…Yan Xu.”

“I’m here! I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!”

The next second, a panicked voice came from near his feet.

The cat jolted awake and fumbled to swipe open the smartwatch and turn on the flashlight.

Light lit up the cramped space. The cat held the watch in its mouth and jumped toward Lin Jia. Each time it jumped, its head hit the top with a “bang bang bang.”

There was light now.

Lin Jia closed his eyes, waiting for his consciousness to return fully.

As his awareness grew clearer, the feeling of suffocation worsened. The stagnant air became heavier and heavier.

The cat held the smartwatch and looked at him anxiously. “Are you feeling better?”

Lin Jia gave a response.

His reaction to the darkness had eased.

However, his body was still extremely uncomfortable. Lin Jia opened his eyes, enduring the discomfort as he examined the situation.

As he had felt, everything was sealed above his head and on both sides.

He wasn’t on a bed. He was sealed inside a small, enclosed space.

The cat realized it, too. “Weren’t we sleeping on the bed? What’s going on?”

Lin Jia ignored the “sleeping on the bed” part. He took a breath, curled his fingers, and knocked on both sides.

Knock, knock, knock.

The dull, muffled sound echoed in the confined space. Even though he knocked near his head, it felt like the entire space was resonating.

The cat’s fur immediately bristled. “Don’t tell me we’re in…”

It had already guessed.

Lin Jia took the smartwatch from the cat and used the flashlight to illuminate the walls. The splinters that had pricked his fingers indicated the material—it was wood.

He stared at the wooden walls for a while, then reached out to touch them.

The texture was relatively soft overall, and the surface was fairly smooth, though rough in some places, leaving splinters.

Seeing this, the cat’s fur puffed up even more—an instinctive reaction.

The cat extended its paw and scratched the wall. “We…we’re inside a coffin, right?”

“Worse,” Lin Jia said. “A coffin made of peach wood.”

The air was growing thinner. The cat panted heavily as it racked its brain. “Peach wood? I’ve only heard that willow and locust wood are bad. Why is peach wood worse?”

Lin Jia glanced at the cat. He raised his hand, hesitated for two seconds, and finally placed it on the cat’s head, smoothing its bristly fur.

Perhaps because the cat had pulled him back from the darkness or responded when he called out in his daze, Lin Jia chose to patiently explain at a moment like this:

“Yin wood doesn’t enter the house, and yang wood doesn’t enter the grave.”¹Yin and Yang are two opposing yet interdependent forces present in all aspects of life and the universe. Yin is associated with darkness, passivity, femininity, cold, and receptivity, while Yang represents light, activity, masculinity, warmth, and outward force.

Lin Jia worked in real estate, where feng shui and metaphysics were often taken seriously, so he knew a bit about them.

Trees were divided into yin and yang. Peach wood, also called “ghost-repelling wood” (tao mu), was one of the most commonly used materials to ward off evil and suppress spirits. It was the most typical yang wood.²Peach wood (桃木) is traditionally believed to repel evil spirits and ghosts. People often craft items such as swords, charms, and talismans from peach wood to ward off evil.

Outside the coffin, a peach wood coffin wouldn’t pose any threat. But now that they were inside it, the wood meant to suppress evil was actually suppressing them.

It was as if the wood intended to trap them inside, never letting them escape.

Lin Jia pushed against the top of the coffin and found that it was indeed sealed shut. He was lying flat inside and unable to muster any strength. Coupled with the lack of air, his whole body felt weak.

Clearly, the idea of “brute force creates miracles” didn’t apply here.

The cat said, “Yan Xu is next door. Call him to save us.”

Just as the cat was about to shout, Lin Jia stopped it. “Yan Xu is outside the door.”

Before going to sleep, Lin Jia had checked the door several times. The lingering shadow was still there—Lin Jia knew Yan Xu wasn’t planning on sleeping and was going to keep watch through the night.

The cat lit up with surprise. “Isn’t that perfect, then?”

But Lin Jia said, “If he had heard any movement, he would have come in immediately.”

Yan Xu had promised to ensure Lin Jia’s safety. He was right outside the door. If a coffin had been moved into the room, there was no way Yan Xu could have missed it. Moreover, when the man and the cat fell into the coffin, there would definitely have been noise—Lin Jia himself had been woken up by the shaking.

But Yan Xu hadn’t shown up.

There was only one possibility: The coffin hadn’t appeared in the room; he and the cat had been moved to wherever the coffin had been originally.

Outside the coffin, the room was no longer there; it was somewhere else—another place, or rather, another space.

As for what was outside the coffin, Lin Jia had no way of knowing.

Maybe it was a mourning hall where people in funeral garb stood expressionless, tossing joss paper into a fire basin. Or maybe it was a mortuary with rows of coffins laid out in silence. Or maybe it was already buried underground, with damp soil piled into a mound in the dead of night.

Shouting for help or calling a living person’s name inside a peach wood coffin was not a wise move. It was better to conserve energy and think of another way.

The space inside the coffin was cramped. Lin Jia could only lie flat and was barely able to turn over. The cat lay on his chest, listening to his breathing.

Suddenly, it noticed something. It pressed its ear against Lin Jia’s chest and said, “Wait…you’re breathing.”

Lin Jia understood what it meant. Peach wood suppresses ghosts. Since he was still breathing, he couldn’t be considered a ghost, so the peach wood wouldn’t suppress him.

Lin Jia said calmly, “That’s even worse.”

The cat wasn’t very smart to begin with, and with the worsening lack of oxygen, its brain could barely function. “W-why… why is that worse?”

“Peach wood is usually used to make swords to suppress evil and drive away ghosts,” said Lin Jia, looking at it. “How much wood does a peach wood sword need? And how much wood does a peach wood coffin need? If the coffin isn’t meant to suppress us, then it must be meant to suppress something else. Guess—where is the thing that requires a peach wood coffin to suppress it?”

The cat froze, then swallowed hard. “I-it’s… also in the coffin…”

Lin Jia said, “Under us.”

All the fur on the cat’s body stood on end.

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• 1
  Yin and Yang are two opposing yet interdependent forces present in all aspects of life and the universe. Yin is associated with darkness, passivity, femininity, cold, and receptivity, while Yang represents light, activity, masculinity, warmth, and outward force.
• 2
  Peach wood (桃木) is traditionally believed to repel evil spirits and ghosts. People often craft items such as swords, charms, and talismans from peach wood to ward off evil.