Chapter 23

Song Qian had planned to ask Ji Jiusheng about that jade after dinner, but they were only halfway through the meal when a middle-aged man came bursting into the house, shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Aunt Song! Aunt Song! Come quick—something terrible has happened!”

The man froze for a split second upon seeing all the people inside, but then he hurried around Lin Qing and over to Grandma Song’s side.

“Aunt Song! Xiuhe drank poison!”

“What!?” Grandma Song set down her bowl and chopsticks. Sweat poured off the man’s face; he clearly wasn’t lying. “She was chatting away with me just fine yesterday.”

“That’s right! This morning she even patched up my clothes for me, saying they were too ragged and she’d buy a new set at the market. Who would’ve thought she’d come home with a bottle of pesticide and drink it instead!” The man’s lips quivered; he looked on the verge of tears.

“Then what are you doing running over here!?” Grandma Song shot him a fierce glare before adding urgently, “Hurry up and get her to the hospital!”

The man shot a troubled glance at the unfamiliar young people, then lowered his voice. “You know how things are in the village. Taking her to the hospital right now would stir up a huge fuss.”

“And…”

He hesitated, glancing around again. Grandma Song despised this kind of dithering. She snapped at him, “And what? She’s your wife! There are no outsiders here.”

Grandma Song had lived in Weishui Village long enough to have watched everyone around this man’s age grow up. Chastened, he stomped his foot and finally blurted it out. “And Xiuhe said she saw her!”

“I got home just in time to see her drink the poison. I forced water down her throat, and thank goodness she vomited most of it back up. Once she came around, she grabbed hold of me and started sobbing that she’d seen her!”

Grandma Song’s face grew grim. In a low voice, she murmured, “Not again… she’s back…”

“She?” Lin Qing seemed to pick up on something.

Grandma Song and the man both turned to look at him, their eyes filled with varying shades of the same wariness.

Lin Qing clammed up at once, hanging his head and staring obediently into his rice bowl.

“Little Daoist, why are you so spooked?” Ji Wuxin’s gaze shifted to the newcomer. There was a long scar on his left hand, shrouded in a layer of icy, pitch-black Ghost Qi.

“You’re not mistaken. This man is carrying a heavy load of Ghost Qi.”

Song Qian could hear her. She had some vague recollection of the man; his name was Wang Dachuan, if she remembered right. He’d been something of a troublemaker in his youth, but marriage had settled him down.

“Grandma.”

“Yes, Sensen?”

“On the way here, we heard…” Song Qian glanced at Wang Dachuan’s ashen face before continuing. “They pulled a woman’s body out of the village well. The ‘she’ that Aunt Xiuhe mentioned—isn’t the one they fished out…”

“No! It’s not!” Wang Dachuan bellowed suddenly, his eyes turning bloodshot as he glared at Song Qian. “That’s just outsiders talking nonsense!”

Smack!

Grandma Song was fiercely protective of her own; she wouldn’t stand for him yelling at Song Qian like that. She slammed her palm on the table. “Dachuan!”

“Aunt Song…” Wang Dachuan buckled at the waist and dropped to his knees, clutching at her pant leg as he wept bitterly. “Please, I beg you—save me and Xiuhe!”

Grandma Song tugged at his hand, trying to haul him back to his feet. “I don’t know the first thing about that stuff. What good is begging me?”

Wang Dachuan lifted his head, then whipped around toward Song Qian. “You! You know all about it! Back then, with Sensen… Mmph!”

Everyone at the table turned to look at Song Qian now that Wang Dachuan had brought her up—even Ji Wuxin perked up, her yawns forgotten. There was a story here.

Grandma Song shoved a steamed bun straight into Wang Dachuan’s mouth, muffling the rest of what he had to say.

Lin Qing raised a hesitant hand. “Where’s your wife right now? Maybe… I could take a look.”

Grandma Song glared at him until he sat back down. “Kids shouldn’t butt in where they don’t belong!”

She might not have taken a liking to this sudden arrival of a boy, but there was more to this matter than met the eye. What business did a half-grown kid have getting involved?

Lin Qing hurriedly fished out some talisman paper and his peachwood sword from his shoulder bag to prove himself. “I… I do know about this stuff!”

Grandma Song blinked in surprise. She glanced over at Ji Jiusheng. Song Qian had brought home someone versed in the mystic arts—it seemed that old business might finally be laid to rest. The two of them exchanged knowing smiles.

“That’s right, Grandma. My friend really knows his way around this kind of thing.”

“Really? You do!?” Wang Dachuan let go of Grandma Song’s pant leg and lunged to grab Lin Qing’s hand.

Of everyone at the table, only Ji Shixing had been baffled from start to finish. She had a vague guess about what was going on, but nothing solid.

By the time they all trailed after the group to Wang Dachuan’s house, Ji Shixing sidled up to Song Qian and whispered, “What you were talking about just now… it was a ghost, wasn’t it?”

Song Qian could tell she was terrified, and a spark of mischief ignited in her. The corner of her mouth curved in the faintest smile as she drew out her words. “Yeees—”

“And it’s right here beside you—”

“Ah!” Ji Shixing jumped clean out of her skin and latched onto Song Qian’s arm, pressing her whole body against her.

Song Qian: “…”

Damn it, that had backfired spectacularly.

“Hey, let go of me. If you’re so scared, head on home. Why’d you even tag along?”

Ji Shixing shook her head vigorously. “No way, no way—I’m not letting go!”

Song Qian rolled her eyes and tried to wrench her hand free, but it was no use.

She was in the middle of shoving at Ji Shixing’s head to make her back off when a flash of red caught the edge of her vision.

…Crap. She’d forgotten the ghost was still hanging around.

Ji Wuxin had just been conferring with Lin Qing about the strength of this particular ghost when she turned her head—and there was Song Qian, pulling and tugging with some other woman!

“Don’t give me that look. She won’t let go—what am I supposed to do?” Song Qian saw that Lin Qing and the others had already gone inside Wang Dachuan’s house, leaving just her and Ji Shixing outside. She spoke to Ji Wuxin without holding back.

Ji Shixing could tell the words weren’t meant for her. In a quavering voice, she asked, “Who… who are you talking to?”

She couldn’t possibly be talking to a ghost…

The thought had barely formed when Ji Shixing felt someone yank hard on her arm. She assumed it was Song Qian, but when she looked down, Song Qian’s hands were hanging limply at her sides.

“Aaahhh!!!” There’s a ghost!!!

If Ji Shixing’s hair had been any shorter, it would have stood straight on end. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and bolted in the opposite direction. Whoever wanted to stay in this godforsaken haunted place could have it—she was never coming back!

Ji Wuxin dusted off her hands with a satisfied sniff before shooting Song Qian a glare.

Song Qian withstood that man-eating stare without flinching and strode right into the house.

Ji Wuxin’s eyes bugged out even wider. What was that supposed to mean!? Not even a single word!?

Once inside, Song Qian realized the entire village had turned out. Xiuhe was slumped in a chair, her lips and the hollows under her eyes tinged with black. She looked in terrible shape.

“What a tragedy! How many is this now?”

“Yeah, if it keeps up like this, no one will be able to live here anymore.”

“I say we ought to rebuild that Niangniang Temple. Everything was fine before—smooth winds, good rains. Ever since they tore it down, one disaster after another! It’s the goddess punishing us!”

Song Qian turned toward the speaker, a white-bearded old man who leaned on his cane and shook his head mournfully.

“What Niangniang Temple? That’s nothing but superstitious nonsense,” Ji Wuxin muttered, propping her chin on her hand. She turned and caught Song Qian staring at her with a complicated expression.

“What is it?”

Song Qian badly wanted to say: Aren’t you the perfect example of feudal superstition? But with so many people around, she bit her tongue.

Lin Qing knelt in front of Xiuhe. He pinched the tip of her middle finger until a drop of blood welled up, then smeared it across her lower lip.

“What’s he doing that for?”

“No idea. I hear the kid’s got some kind of spiritual gift.”

“That young? Can we trust him?”

“Who knows. With Xiuhe in this state, who else can Wang Dachuan turn to? Even the shaman in town says she won’t touch anything from our village.”

The villagers murmured among themselves. Song Qian frowned as she listened. She’d heard stories as a child about a master fortune-teller in town—some called her a shaman. But why would she refuse to help Weishui Village?

“Come here, you!”

A low, sharp scolding voice carried to Song Qian’s ears. She looked up to see Song Fu—his face a patchwork of bruises—being dragged along by a middle-aged woman. That had to be his mother.

Had he gotten beaten? Neither of them noticed Song Qian as they shoved their way to the edge of the crowd to peer at what Lin Qing was doing.

Song Fu’s mother watched the scene inside with tense anxiety, then thumped her son in frustration. “If that boy’s got real skills, we’ll go beg him ourselves! None of this would’ve happened if not for the mess you made—your dad wouldn’t have broken his leg! You wouldn’t have gotten swindled out of over a hundred thousand!”

A hundred thousand wasn’t pocket change, even for young people these days. Song Qian had guessed Song Fu must have been down on his luck lately, but she hadn’t realized it was this bad.

It looked like Song Fu’s mom had heard about Lin Qing and come over to verify if the rumors were true. She wanted to help dispel the bad luck hanging over Song Fu.

“Whoa!”

“The blood’s black!”

The crowd suddenly let out a startled cry. Song Qian snapped back to her senses and looked over. Lin Qing stood off to the side holding the Peachwood Sword, the talisman paper in his hand more than half burned away. Xiuhe knelt on the ground, retching up mouthful after mouthful of inky black blood laced with thick, viscous clumps.

The blood gave off a foul, fishy stench that drove most of the onlookers right out of the house. Even Wang Dachuan, who had been standing guard beside Xiuhe, went pale, turned his head, and started dry-heaving.

By the time Xiuhe had emptied all the black blood from her system and slumped weakly to the floor, her complexion had improved markedly.

“The pesticide and the Ghost Qi are all out now. She’ll recover after half a month of rest,” Lin Qing said as he packed up his things. “And no more eating the offerings.”

“Offerings?” Xiuhe racked her brain but came up empty. Clutching her chest, she shook her head. “I didn’t eat any of that stuff.”

Offerings weren’t meant for the living to begin with. Who in their right mind would touch something like that?

Lin Qing glanced at the objects mixed in with the black blood but said nothing more.

Spotting his gaze, Xiuhe whipped her head around toward Wang Dachuan, who was still retching. “Wang Dachuan! You old beast! That stuff you brought home the other day—those were offerings, weren’t they?!”

Wang Dachuan never imagined it would come out like this. He tugged at Xiuhe’s sleeve and muttered under his breath, “There are so many people here.”

A tough guy like him always cared about saving face in public. Sure, everyone knew he was henpecked, but getting called out so openly still rubbed him the wrong way.

“So what if there are people around?! You fed me offerings, and now you’re scared of word getting out?!” Xiuhe had a short fuse. She sprang to her feet and cracked Wang Dachuan across the cheek with a sharp slap.

The people outside winced, their own faces smarting in sympathy. The sight—and smell—of the black blood on the floor had already cleared out most of the room. Grandma Song stepped to the doorway and called out to the lingering crowd. “Nothing to see here, folks. Head on home.”

She slammed the front door shut. The grumbling from outside died down soon after.

Thud!

With the door secured, Song Fu’s mom yanked Song Fu down to kneel before Lin Qing.

“Master! Please, save our whole family!”

Song Fu squirmed, trying to rise. He’d never knelt to anyone his own age before.

Song Fu’s mom whipped a hand across his face, snapping his head to the side. “Don’t you dare move!”

“Get up first—no need to kneel to me. Stand and tell me what’s going on. I’ll help however I can!” Lin Qing rubbed his aching temples. Why did everyone drop to their knees at the slightest thing?

Reassured by his words, Song Fu’s mom hauled Song Fu back to his feet.

“Master, our family’s Guardian Immortal… it’s gone.”