My Dragon Is Always Hungry

This happened when Lin You was twenty-four.

Summer break had just started, and for once, he had gone home with absolutely no intention of doing anything.

The AC was running, his phone was charging, someone called him when food was ready, and nobody cared how late he slept. As far as a college student on vacation was concerned, life couldn't get much better than this.

Then, on his second day home, his dad gave him a job.

"Go up the mountain tomorrow. Pay your respects to the ancestors."

Lin You was sprawled across the sofa scrolling through his phone. He looked up.

"Same place as before?"

"Yeah. Same area."

His dad had drunk quite a bit the night before and still looked half-awake as he rubbed his temples.

"You used to go there all the time when you were a kid. Just follow the old path up."

Lin You really didn't want to go.

For one thing, it was hot. For another, the mountain trail was a pain. More importantly, he hadn't been there in years and barely remembered where the family graves were.

Still, he figured it couldn't be that difficult.

It wasn't like a grave could get up and move.

So the next morning, he headed up the mountain carrying two enormous bags.

Fried chicken. Milk tea. Grilled cold noodles. Malatang.

And a box of snap-pop firecrackers.

Lin You had bought all of it himself.

He only came home once in a blue moon, and showing up with the same old apples and bananas felt a little uninspired. His ancestors had been down there for years. Surely they were sick of eating the same offerings every time.

A little variety wouldn't hurt.

As for the snap pops, those had been an impulse buy.

He had loved them as a kid. You threw one at the ground, it made a sharp little bang, and that was basically it. Lin You had no idea why he'd once found them so entertaining, but back then he could squat in the courtyard playing with them for hours.

He'd happened to see a box while shopping yesterday and figured his ancestors were probably bored down there too.

So he brought them along.

Unfortunately, once he actually reached the mountain, Lin You discovered he'd severely underestimated the situation.

He couldn't find the graves.

At all.

At first, he figured he'd just taken a wrong turn somewhere. A quick loop around the area and he'd surely find them.

Half an hour passed.

Nothing.

An hour passed.

Still nothing.

By the time he'd wandered around for nearly two hours, Lin You was beginning to question his life choices.

He stood halfway up the mountain and stared at the trees surrounding him.

The longer he looked, the more familiar everything seemed.

"That's weird."

Lin You looked down the path again.

The place looked right. The trees looked right.

So where the hell had the graves gone?

He wouldn't find out until later that, while he'd been away at university, his family had relocated the ancestral graves.

Pretty much everyone in the family knew.

Everyone except Lin You.

But right now, of course, he had no idea.

All he knew was that he'd spent two hours wandering around a mountain, his legs were aching, his phone was almost dead, and now the weather was turning against him too.

At first, only a few drops of rain fell.

Lin You ignored them.

Then the rain suddenly came down harder, drumming against the leaves as the mountain trail quickly turned dark and slick.

He opened his umbrella and stood beneath a tree for a few minutes.

Judging by the sky, the rain wasn't stopping anytime soon.

That was enough.

He was done looking.

"Forget it. Good ancestors forgive their descendants. I'll come see you next time."

Muttering to himself, Lin You turned around and started down the mountain.

He hadn't gone far when he noticed a stone monument off to the side of the path.

It looked old but surprisingly clean, with hardly any weeds growing around it. At first glance, it looked a lot like the old grave markers scattered throughout the area.

Lin You stopped.

He stared at the stone for a moment.

Then he looked down at the two heavy bags in his hands.

Carrying everything all the way back down felt like a waste.

A somewhat questionable idea quickly formed in his head.

Why not leave the offerings here?

His family's graves had been somewhere around this area anyway.

Whether the dead had known each other while they were alive was anyone's guess, but if they'd been buried this close together, they were practically neighbors.

Surely one neighbor could pass something along to another.

The more Lin You thought about it, the more reasonable it sounded.

So he crouched down, opened the bags, and began arranging everything in front of the stone.

Fried chicken in the middle.

Milk tea beside it.

Grilled cold noodles and malatang on either side.

Once everything was laid out, Lin You took a step back to admire his work.

Not bad.

It was a pretty generous spread.

The only problem was that he'd basically occupied someone else's front porch without permission.

Feeling a little guilty, Lin You clasped his hands together and gave the stone monument a respectful bow.

"Hey, buddy. Mind if I borrow your front yard for a while? My ancestors seem to have disappeared, and I've been looking for them forever. You guys used to live pretty close, so if you happen to run into them down there, could you pass this stuff along for me?"

Even Lin You had to admit that saying his ancestors had "disappeared" sounded a little strange.

But he couldn't think of a better explanation.

He picked up the empty bags and walked a couple of steps before his fingers brushed against something still inside one of them.

The snap pops.

Lin You stopped.

He turned and looked back at the stone monument.

He was asking someone for a favor, after all.

It would be rude not to offer anything in return.

So he walked back and placed the box beside the offerings.

"You don't have to pass these along. Keep them for yourself."

There.

Now they were even.

Satisfied, Lin You opened his umbrella and headed down the mountain.

That night, he had a dream.

It was dark.

So dark that Lin You couldn't tell where he was.

All he knew was that stone slabs lay beneath his feet, and the empty space around him felt enormous, almost like a vast courtyard.

A man sat ahead of him.

His clothes looked ancient, and his hair was ridiculously long.

Lin You's first thought was that he'd probably watched too many historical dramas lately and his brain had decided to mash them into his dreams.

Then the man raised his head slightly.

Lin You saw the horns.

"…"

What the hell was that?

His gaze drifted behind the man.

Something long seemed to trail across the ground in the darkness. Every now and then, it moved, brushing lightly against the stone with a faint scraping sound.

Lin You decided not to get any closer.

Sure, this was probably a dream.

But there was nothing wrong with being careful in a dream too.

"Hey, buddy. Who are you?"

The man ignored him.

Lin You waited for a couple of seconds.

The man kept his head lowered, apparently staring at something.

Lin You followed his gaze.

Then froze.

There was fried chicken on the table.

Beside it sat milk tea, grilled cold noodles, and malatang.

Even the familiar box of snap pops was sitting in the corner.

Lin You stared.

Why did all of this look so familiar?

Wasn't this exactly what he'd left on the mountain earlier that day?

The man finally spoke.

His voice was low and unhurried.

"These things… are they all for me?"

Lin You was still trying to figure out why the food from earlier had appeared in his dream.

So he answered without thinking.

"No."

The man looked up at him.

Lin You continued explaining.

"Most of it is for the grave next to yours. You're just holding onto it for me."

The air went silent.

Strangely silent.

For some reason, Lin You felt as if even the wind had stopped.

The man stared at him for a while before asking, "If they are not for me, why did you place them there?"

"Because I couldn't find my ancestors."

Lin You didn't think it was that complicated.

"You live close to each other, so I figured you could pass the stuff along if you ran into them. Besides, I left the snap pops for you. It's not like I'm asking you to work for free."

The man's gaze shifted toward the little box.

A few seconds later, he looked back at Lin You.

Lin You started feeling a little uncomfortable under that stare.

"What? Neighbors help each other out."

The man said nothing.

Then, suddenly, he laughed.

Lin You couldn't quite explain what was wrong with that laugh.

But the moment he heard it, a chill crept over the back of his neck.

The next second, he woke up.

Morning light had already filled the room.

Lin You lay there for a moment, trying to recover, before realizing his back was covered in sweat.

He reached for his phone.

A little after seven.

"Great. Scared myself awake first thing in the morning."

He rolled over, planning to go back to sleep.

His phone rang.

It was his grandfather.

Lin You answered.

"Grandpa? Why are you calling this early?"

His grandfather got straight to the point.

"Did you go to the old burial ground yesterday?"

"Yeah."

Lin You closed his eyes again and sank deeper into the pillow.

"The place Dad told me was completely wrong. I wandered around that mountain for two hours and couldn't find anything."

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"Did you leave something in front of that stone monument nearby?"

That woke Lin You up a little.

"Just some food."

Another silence.

Lin You pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the screen.

The call was still connected.

"Grandpa?"

"What did you leave there?"

"Fried chicken, milk tea, grilled cold noodles, malatang."

Then he remembered the snap pops.

Better not mention those.

He'd probably get yelled at.

His grandfather continued, "Did you say anything?"

"A couple of things."

"What did you say?"

"What else would I say? I told him that if he ran into our ancestors, he should help pass the food along."

This time, the silence lasted even longer.

Lin You was nearly falling asleep again.

"Grandpa? What's wrong?"

After a while, the old man finally spoke.

"Don't go back there."

Lin You opened his eyes.

"Why?"

"And don't leave anything in front of that stone monument again."

"I only left him some food."

"That isn't a grave."

Lin You sat upright.

"If it's not a grave, what is it?"

The line went quiet for several seconds.

His grandfather clearly didn't want to talk about it.

But eventually, he said, "The thing sealed underneath it… everyone calls him Lord Yuan."

Lin You frowned.

"Lord who?"

Another silence.

Then his grandfather hung up.

Lin You stared at his phone.

"What the hell?"

He couldn't be bothered to think about it anymore.

He tossed his phone aside and lay back down.

But the moment he closed his eyes, last night's dream resurfaced.

The man dressed in black.

The horns on his head.

And the table covered with the exact same food Lin You had left on the mountain.

He stared at the ceiling for a while.

Eventually, he decided he was overthinking it.

It was just a dream.

He'd spent half the day wandering around the mountain. His brain had probably taken everything he'd seen and thrown it together while he slept.

That evening, Lin You returned to the small apartment he rented near his university.

The break wasn't very long, and he had things to do later anyway. Instead of rushing back early the next morning, it made more sense to return a day ahead of time.

The apartment wasn't big, just one bedroom and a living room, but it was perfect for one person.

After getting back, Lin You took a shower and spent a while scrolling through his phone on the sofa.

Around ten that night, his stomach finally started growling.

Only then did he realize he hadn't eaten dinner.

Dragging his slippers across the floor, he went to the refrigerator.

He opened the door.

Then froze.

There was a piece of wood inside.

It sat right beside the drinks he'd bought earlier.

The wood was dark, its edges rough and uneven, with a little dirt still clinging to the surface.

It looked completely out of place among the clean bottles and packages in the fridge.

Lin You held onto the refrigerator door.

His first thought was that he must have put it there himself and forgotten.

But no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn't remember ever seeing the thing before.

He reached inside and picked it up.

It felt cold in his hand.

The dirt was real too.

Lin You turned the piece of wood over.

Several words had been carved into the back.

The handwriting was crooked and ugly, as if someone had scratched the message into the wood with the tip of something sharp.

Just four Chinese characters.

Lin You stared at them.

Tasty. Loved it.

He didn't move for a long time.

He flipped the wooden slip over.

Then back again.

The message was still there.

His mind suddenly returned to last night's dream.

To the horned man sitting in the darkness.

To the question he'd asked.

"These things… are they all for me?"

Slowly, Lin You raised his head and looked toward the living room.

Empty.

The front door was still locked.

The windows were closed too.

He lived alone.

No one else could have gotten inside.

Lin You looked down at the wooden slip again.

A moment ago, he'd thought the message was almost funny.

Now it wasn't funny at all.

He stood there for a while before quietly closing the refrigerator door, the wooden slip still in his hand.

As he stared at those words again, a thought occurred to him for the first time.

Maybe something really had eaten the fried chicken he'd left on the mountain yesterday.