11 Old Woman

Chasing after it, she arrived upon a small clearing in the thick forest. There she saw an old woman who was carrying a bucket of water and was watering the tree and plants around her with a dipper.

"Strange, meeting an unbound ghost in these parts of the forest," said an old woman as she turned around to look at her. YuQiao was startled, but before she could even react the old woman asked her, "Which direction did you come from?" YuQiao pointed to the direction behind her, she could not tell where exactly she came from.

"You came from the west. I see," said the old woman, as if suddenly understood everything that was happening here. "Our meeting here might signify something," continued the old woman. She placed the bucket together with the dipper onto the ground.

Then old woman proceeded to sit on a protruded root from the ground and took out a pipe from her bag. YuQiao was rubbing and blinking her eyes because what she saw was that the branch uprooted itself so that the old woman could sit on it instead of the old woman sitting on the root, but she dismissed it and thought that she had hallucinated about it.

"Sit," said the old woman.

YuQiao was curious about what the old woman would say so she found an empty spot next to a tree and sat down waiting for her. She had time on her hands because even if she did hurry there was still no way that she did manage to find the way out from this forest.

Maybe she could ask the old woman about the way to leave the forest. She looked at the old woman as she lit the pipe and began inhaling from and then exhaling a few puffs of smoke from her mouth.

"Oh, why is there an unbound ghost here," said the old woman suddenly realizing YuQiao's presence.

YuQiao sighed. The fates are really playing a joke on her, to send a dementia old woman to her rescue. "Grandma, you are the one who told me to sit here. You are about to tell me something about, 'our meeting here might signify something'. You are the one who told me these words just now," said YuQiao.

"Oh yes. Our meeting," said the old woman, hitting her right knuckle on her left palm. "We were meant to meet in this forest. Um… Why are we supposed to meet? Oh, yes. Fate and destiny, I think," said the old woman, looking confused.

YuQiao was beginning to feel that the old woman was crazy, and it was wasting her time being with her and she wanted to leave. She was about to leave when the old woman said, "When I said you are unbound, do you know what it meant?"

YuQiao stopped in her steps and turned around to answer the old woman, "No."

"Of course, you do not know. You just died," after she said that the old woman laughed aloud. YuQiao started feeling angry towards the old woman. "Did you think dying was fun? I did not even want to die," thought YuQiao and she was turning her backs towards her, wanting to leave.

"Hey, do not leave. I got something important to tell you."

But YuQiao ignored her and continued to walk forward. "Go straight and then turn left, always turn left and you will find the way out of the forest," shouted the old woman.