I felt a chill run down my spine, and my hands started to tremble. After a long pause, I said, “How could your grandmother be like this? Does she have some strange illness?”
“Later, the nanny found me. It turned out she had gone to the bathroom. After that, I was always afraid of my grandmother. It wasn’t until I became more mature that she told me this was the method that women in the Huo family used to practice soft skills. They had to hang their bones while sleeping to achieve maximum flexibility. She had been sleeping like this since she was nineteen, and now she couldn’t sleep on a bed at all. There are bone spurs in many places, and hanging is the only way it doesn’t hurt.”
“Wow, your grandfather must have practiced for quite a while before the wedding,” said the chubby boy.
Huo Xiuxiu ignored him and continued, “Because this left a deep impression on me, I became very concerned about her last words.”
From Huo Xiuxiu’s own narration and my observations of her, it was clear that she was a girl who had her own worldview from an early age, with independent thinking and a talent for reflection. Thus, she was haunted by her grandmother’s sleeping posture and those few words she murmured in her sleep. Of course, this obsession did not happen overnight. The reason she felt that those murmurs had some unusual significance was that she heard similar sleep talk many times afterward.
As she grew older, she gradually began to believe that beneath her seemingly strong grandmother’s exterior, there was a huge emotional knot.
This knot was very secretive; her grandmother might never speak of it even until her death. However, Huo Xiuxiu was certain that this knot was definitely related to that one sentence: “There is no time left.”
What was it that had no time left?
It was hard to say whether it was curiosity, or perhaps the same fate that I felt in my heart, or maybe it was what she herself said—wanting to untie this emotional knot for her beloved grandmother. She began to probe into this matter, and what surprised me was that this little girl showed incredible initiative in her investigation. The clarity of her thinking and her grasp of the situation were disproportionate to her age.
“Our Huo family girls are often both beautiful and clever, while the boys are handsome but often quite foolish,” she explained. “I don’t know why; maybe it’s because the girls have been raised by my grandmother since they were little. My brother just spends all his time dating and is quite irresponsible.”
“I think it’s not exactly normal to investigate your own grandmother or aunt,” the chubby boy interjected.
She thought for a moment and seemed to agree, letting out a sigh. “In any case, as I kept investigating, my grandmother’s emotional knot became my emotional knot.”
She likely started to delve into this matter four years ago when she was fifteen. There were no clues at all, only that one sentence, “There is no time left.” If it were me, I might have had no way to start, but for her, there was surprisingly a point of entry that I could not have imagined.

At first, she intended to search for her grandmother’s diary, but unfortunately, not everyone has the habit of keeping a diary. Her grandmother had very few written records, unlike my family where my grandmother was a well-educated lady. The sons and grandsons raised by her had, to varying degrees, some scholarly qualities. Even my third uncle, when silent, could pass for a thirty percent scholarly gentleman. The style of the Huo family is more pragmatic and worldly; women have to fight, engage in competitions, and manage their husbands and children, leaving them no time to practice calligraphy or write essays. Therefore, the temperament of the old lady Huo was definitely not like that of Lin Daiyu. As a result, there would inevitably be very few written records left behind.

However, Huo Xiuxiu did manage to find something. She discovered a lot of letters, all of which had been archived. With a mischievous desire to perhaps find her grandmother’s love letters, she went through several boxes of old correspondence. Unfortunately, all the letters were mostly business correspondence, containing none of the content she was curious about.

But she did find something strange. She noticed that starting from 1995, there was a particularly special letter each year. It was a package that arrived in the latter half of March. Back then, when packages were sent, there was a notification slip, and one had to go to the post office to collect it. Because of the Huo family’s status, everything was filtered through a few people before being recorded. Most packages would be opened for inspection, and the contents would be listed on a form, which also indicated who the items were sent to. It was on this form that Xiuxiu discovered something unusual.

On the forms from 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999, the contents of the packages were all: videotapes. And the person collecting them was always her grandmother. In other words, during those years in March, someone would send a videotape to her grandmother.

Her grandmother was a very old-fashioned person who only enjoyed watching operas; it was hard to imagine that a videotape would have any connection to her. Without a doubt, she developed a keen interest in the whereabouts of those videotapes. Thus, she began to pay attention and searched for those tapes through every possible opportunity.

(I recall having a similar experience in the past, except I was looking for the adult films that my father had obtained from a friend in Hong Kong. Later, I realized that it wasn’t the erotic images that excited me, but the thrill of finding those tapes themselves.)

To this end, she even made a very detailed plan, noting when her grandmother would go out and how she would handle the tapes upon seeing them. She saved money for two months to buy a VCR and set up a connection to duplicate the tapes with the one at home.

Eventually, she found those tapes under the floorboards of her grandmother’s wardrobe. She picked one, quickly went to the living room to make a copy, and then put it back. The entire process was as tense as being a spy.

Afterward, she chose a time to go to her friend’s house to watch that tape. The content of the tape was as she described: it seemed like a surveillance video, showing a very dimly lit small room with several people dressed in white crawling on the floor. The entire tape lasted over thirty minutes, and she recognized her aunt, Huo Ling, among them.

Her aunt seemed soulless as she crawled on the ground, which was truly terrifying. She had known about her aunt’s disappearance since she was a child, so when she saw that strap, she was so frightened that her soul felt like it had left her body. She didn’t understand what was happening, nor did she know what was wrong; she just instinctively knew that it was something very bad. It seemed her grandmother was hiding some secret, and indeed, her grandmother had a very terrifying emotional knot.

However, she didn’t dare to ask her grandmother what was going on because she knew it would surely lead to a bad outcome, and she also didn’t dare to tell anyone else. For the next month, she remained anxious and uneasy. But perhaps it was truly because she and I shared a similar personality that, after gradually calming down, her thirst for the truth began to torment her. Those who are fated to encounter great mysteries have a curiosity so intense that others find it hard to believe.

She then continued her investigation, but at first, there were no results until she adopted a very clever yet risky method. She spent several months imitating her grandmother’s handwriting and wrote a reply to every address mentioned in those old letters.

The letter generally read as follows:
“Dear all,
I recently dreamt of that matter again. For many years, this nightmare has lingered. I wonder if you are all well. As I approach my twilight years, with one foot in the grave, I hope to see you all again. There is one thing I did not mention back then, which I now believe may be key. I hope we can discuss it face to face, as old friends reminiscing.”

These letters spanned nearly half a century, with the most recent one being quite dated. Most of the addresses should be undeliverable, but Huo Xiuxiu felt that the places involved in business correspondence were mostly rural areas or small counties, where changes are minimal. Especially in rural areas, even if the addresses changed, due to the small geographical range and familiarity among people, as long as the letter reached the village, someone would deliver it to the recipient.

After sending out the letters, she took charge of the family mailbox, making everyone think she was in love and waiting for her boyfriend’s letters, when in fact, she was just filtering the mail. For the first two months, there was no response at all. By the third month, sporadic replies began to arrive, mostly expressing confusion.

The little girl persisted, checking the mailbox every morning at five without fail. In the fifth month, the letter finally arrived.

There was only one line:
“Do not bring up old matters.”

She immediately knew there was a lead; this person must know something. Looking at the address, the letter came from a small shop in Liulichang, Beijing. She quickly packed her things and went to that shop.

It was a rainy day, and the entire city of Beijing was shrouded in rain. Liulichang was sparsely populated, with many storefronts closing early. When she knocked and entered, she saw an old man in the back room. The old man smiled at her, revealing his gold teeth.

Huo Xiuxiu said, “That old man, his name is Jin Wantang. Do you remember anything?”