Chapter 2: Recruitment Notice Posted
Jian Xingxia used the key from the envelope to open the rusted gate of the front courtyard.
She didn’t know if it was just her imagination, but Jian Xingxia felt the front courtyard of her grandmother’s house was much larger than she remembered from her childhood.
“Maybe it was renovated…”
Jian Xingxia didn’t dwell on it. She walked through the weed-choked courtyard and entered the old house.
The house still had traditional double-leaf wooden doors, held shut by a heavy padlock over the copper ring handles. Once opened, the door hinges creaked and groaned.
Because of the gaps in the door and the fact that the roof wasn’t perfectly sealed, the house had accumulated a thick layer of dust. Moss, vines, and tiny, nameless mushrooms had quietly snuck in through the cracks in the doors and windows.
The old house had two and a half floors, with both a front and back courtyard. Passing through the front courtyard brought one directly into the main hall.
On either side of the main hall were two wing rooms.
The first room on the east was her grandmother’s bedroom; Jian Xingxia had stayed there with her grandmother when she was small.
The second room on the east was her grandmother’s storeroom, secured by a large lock. Jian Xingxia rummaged through the envelope but couldn’t find the key to it.
She set that aside for now, planning to ask Uncle Lu if there was a way to open it when she next left the mountains.
The two wing rooms on the left were guest rooms.
Although her grandmother lived alone in the mountains, the house was never lonely. As she got older, she often hired laborers to help with farm work.
There were also people who gathered or collected mountain goods who would come to stay during the harvest seasons.
In the northwest corner of the main hall was a small door leading to a back parlor.
On both sides of the back parlor were storage rooms. Her grandmother used to call them the “firewood rooms”—one side stacked with firewood, the other used for storing grain.
On the wall of the back parlor adjacent to the main hall, there was a wooden staircase, but it had fallen into disrepair over the years, its steps rotted away, making the second floor inaccessible.
Outside the back door of the parlor was the back courtyard. The eaves there were a full meter wide; the left side led directly to the kitchen, and the right side led to the washroom.
Jian Xingxia took a quick tour and then returned to her grandmother’s bedroom.
The wooden bed was still covered with a blue, coarse-cloth sheet. The quilt at the end of the bed was folded neatly, and the stone pillow her grandmother used to sleep on was still there.
Only, it was covered in a layer of dust.
And her grandmother was gone.
Uncle Lu had told her that the day before she passed away, her grandmother had gone out of the mountains to ask someone to come in and help with something the next day.
At the time, Uncle Lu and the others hadn’t understood what “help” meant.
But out of respect for her grandmother’s habitual kindness to others, they all arrived as promised the next day.
What they found, however, was a coffin in the main hall. Her grandmother was lying quietly inside, as if she were merely sleeping, leaving behind only two letters.
One was for the villagers, telling them where to find her funeral supplies and the burial plot she had selected, asking for everything to be kept simple.
It also instructed them to give the other letter to Jian Xingxia.
Jian Xingxia sat by the bed, gently stroking the pillar at the foot of it.
Afterward, she took her sickle, the remaining apples and biscuits in her backpack, and a small bottle of white liquor she had bought near the train station, and headed to her grandmother’s grave.
Jian Xingxia used the sickle to clear the weeds around the burial site.
Uncle Lu and the others had cleaned it once during Qingming Festival, so there weren’t many weeds, but the abundant rain had caused them to grow quite tall.
There were incense, candles, and a lighter in a crevice of a nearby rock. Jian Xingxia placed the apples and biscuits before the grave, lit incense for her grandmother, then opened the white liquor and poured it around the burial site.
Her grandmother was a free-spirited person; this was her favorite drink while she was alive.
After finishing the incense, Jian Xingxia sat on the rock beside the grave for a while, talking to her grandmother, before returning to the old house.
From now on, she would live in the old house all by herself.
…
Thanks to the State Grid, the old house had electricity.
But unfortunately, whether due to long-term disrepair or being unoccupied for so long, the power had been cut due to unpaid bills.
Jian Xingxia tried for a long time, but there was still no power.
Just as she was about to make a phone call, her phone—which had been navigating her way—ran out of battery and shut down.
Jian Xingxia only managed to catch the time—2:30 PM.
After some thought, she decided to tidy up simply today to settle in, and tomorrow she would head out of the mountains to ask Uncle Lu and the others to help with the electrical circuitry.
After all, staying in a hotel or at Uncle Lu’s house would cost money.
Uncle Lu might not accept it, but Jian Xingxia couldn’t be thick-skinned enough to stay for free.
And Jian Xingxia’s savings didn’t allow her to spend extra money on accommodation when she had a place to stay.
Besides, power outages were common in the mountains.
Jian Xingxia felt she could adapt.
There were four hours left until nightfall.
Jian Xingxia decided to first clear out the bedroom, kitchen, and washroom; she would clean the rest slowly over time.
The plan was good, but cleaning was no small feat.
Houses in the mountains were different from those in the city. If left unoccupied for a few months, snakes, insects, rats, ants, and wild plants would claim them.
Her grandmother’s house was built sturdily, but having been empty for over a year, moss and tiny weeds were growing in many places.
Nameless vines had crept in through the gaps under the door, climbing over half of the bed’s foot railing.
Jian Xingxia worked hard for an hour, pulling at various grasses and vines, but she had only barely managed to clean out one room.
“This won’t do. At this rate, I won’t even be finished by dark.”
She had arrived in town in the morning, switched buses multiple times, and hadn’t gotten back to the old house until two in the afternoon. Now, after just pulling out some weeds, it was already past three.
Jian Xingxia sighed deeply: “If only someone could come and help me clean.”
Otherwise, she would have to choose between eating dinner or sleeping tonight.
She had just checked: the kitchen was filled with even deeper, denser weeds; she couldn’t even walk inside.
Just as she was lamenting, a voice suddenly echoed in her mind—
[Recruitment Need: One temporary worker. Job Description: Cleaning. Do you wish to post a recruitment notice immediately?]
Jian Xingxia was startled.
She looked around but saw nothing.
But Jian Xingxia was certain she hadn’t gone crazy; she had indeed heard a voice in her mind.
She tentatively repeated: “If only… someone could come and help me clean?”
Two seconds later, that voice sounded again.
[Recruitment Need: One temporary worker. Job Description: Cleaning. Do you wish to post a recruitment notice immediately?]
Jian Xingxia was stunned. She tried to respond: “Yes, I want to recruit a temporary worker.”
[Recruitment notice published. Please wait for the temporary worker to arrive.]
“What on… earth is this?”
Even though Jian Xingxia was bold and had heard many legends about spirits and monsters at her grandmother’s house when she was little, she was a bit bewildered now.
She tried to talk to the voice in her head, but the other side seemed like a machine.
Other than repeating [Recruitment notice published. Please wait for the temporary worker to arrive], it offered no other response.
Jian Xingxia was getting a bit scared, considering the possibility of going to live in the village.
Just then, a timid voice suddenly came from the direction of the back courtyard.
“Excuse me, is this where you are looking for someone to work?”
Jian Xingxia was shocked. Deep in these mountains and forests, where could a person have come from?
There was only one two-kilometer mountain road through the canyon leading to Lu’an Village in the front; the back was nothing but towering, jagged mountains. It was impossible for anyone to come from there!
Jian Xingxia grabbed the anti-wolf device in her pocket, walked through the main hall and the small parlor, and looked outside the back courtyard through a crack in the wooden door.
Outside the large back courtyard, a person stood far away. It was actually a little girl of about twelve or thirteen.
She was thin and frail, wearing what looked like a burlap sack, all dusty and gray.
The clothes were oversized—she wore a skirt over pants, with patches layered upon patches, looking like a refugee.
Jian Xingxia was momentarily dumbfounded.
Through the hole in the wooden door, she called out: “Little sister, who are you? Where did you come from, and why are you here alone?”
Jian Xingxia spoke suddenly, and the little girl was startled. She turned and tried to run in a panic, but the mountain ground was slippery and blocked by wild weeds and tree roots.
She didn’t make it many steps before she tripped and fell.
Jian Xingxia opened the door. Not rushing to approach, she watched from a distance and shouted: “Are you alright?”
“I-I’m okay!”
The little girl scrambled to stand up and hid in a nearby patch of grass.
She was in pain and frightened.
But she summoned her courage, her voice trembling slightly as she replied: “I—I am called Taoya. I come from… from across the mountain. I heard someone here was looking for a helper to clean, so I came.”
Jian Xingxia paused. She had indeed inexplicably posted a [Recruitment Notice] just moments ago, but she didn’t know where exactly it had been posted.
But across the mountain… across the mountain was nothing but endless, deep mountains! How could anyone live there?
Was the little girl really recruited by the [Recruitment Notice]?
When something goes against common sense, there must be a demon afoot. Jian Xingxia didn’t dare to let the little girl in rashly. Looking at the weeds that were over a person’s height outside the back courtyard, she tentatively gave an instruction—
“You pull out the weeds outside the back courtyard first. Pull at least twenty meters’ worth.”
Jian Xingxia was bold, and having heard many stories at her grandmother’s house since she was small, she wasn’t afraid.
But she still had to take self-protection measures. She had the girl pull the weeds, which would also eliminate the possibility of someone ambushing her outside the back courtyard.
Hearing this, the girl realized they were truly hiring!
A bit of joy appeared on her face: “I’ll get right on it!”
With that, she stretched out her thin arms and pulled hard at the weeds nearby.
