Chapter 23: CH 22

Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi had been standing contemplatively on the shore. Now, they swivelled to glare at Xue Xian.

Every time this niezhang opened his mouth, it sounded like he was telling a ghost story!

"The pharmacists in your county are really brave," Jiang Shining said to Lu Nianqi with a dry chuckle. 

Lu Nianqi replied, "It's not usually like this. It's just these days –– for some reason, it's always foggy."

Jiang Shining laughed another hollow laugh: Even without the fog, this place wouldn’t be that much better.

"I can see why the little rascal [a] looked behind him, but why did you look back too, bookworm?" demanded Xue Xian irritably. "A ghost scared of ghosts?"

Now, Lu Nianqi swivelled to stare at Jiang Shining.

"Please think about it," Jiang Shining replied dully. "Humans are scared of criminals. Why can't I be scared of evil spirits?" 

Lu Nianqi looked down at the cleaned wound on his hand, then back at Jiang Shining's wispy silhouette. He decided that Jiang Shining must be quite a weak ghost, and therefore was not a threat.

"There! I hear another sentence! Do you hear it?" Xue Xian said seriously. "It's so quiet..."

To check that it really wasn't Xuanmin speaking, he looked up at the monk and regarded him with that ghoulish runny-ink face that made it look like he was bleeding from every orifice. The two painted eyes stared rigidly ahead.

Xuanmin: “...”

Xuanmin met the ghastly gaze, but it was too much. In one firm motion, he blocked out the niezhang's face with a finger. "You are the creepiest thing here."

Xue Xian scoffed. "How dare you touch my head? I'll bite off your finger!" 

Jiang Shining tried to play arbiter. "To be fair, if you tried to fight dashi’s finger with your head, you'd definitely lose. He could just rip off your paper head."

Xue Xian: “...” At this crucial moment, how could you take the enemy’s side and not mine? [b]

Xue Xian couldn't be bothered to pry Xuanmin's finger away. His face still buried in Xuanmin's fingertip, he strained his ears listening for another whisper in the darkness, but he could no longer hear that prayer sound that had sounded so similar to Xuanmin's droning voice. Suddenly, he felt self-conscious: Did I really hear wrong?

"Fine. I won't die on this hill." Xue Xian slapped Xuanmin's hand with his claws and finally managed to get the annoying bald donkey away from his face. "Let's keep going. The priority is to find Lu Shijiu. If I hear anything else, I'll let you know."

And him? Well, he'd go back to brooding. It was far more meaningful than getting into a fight with the bald donkey.

He tumbled back into the pouch and wrapped his body around the golden marble again, rocking back and forth with the gentle motion of the bald donkey's footsteps.

Xuanmin walked even more quietly than a ghost –– his steps were steady and balanced. Cradled inside the pouch, Xue Xian followed the peaceful, almost imperceptible movement and began to feel sleepy. The golden marble, having been in the pouch for a bit, had already begun to radiate warmth. And pressed against Xuanmin’s body heat, the paper man, who had for the past few days been tortured by each passage of winter wind through his thin body, also began to feel soothed. He felt that this was a rather nice place to live.

Xuanmin knelt down to inspect the mud, which was soaked through and covered in damp fallen leaves.

Lu Nianqi imitated him and knelt down too. The boy was young, but he was clearly an independent spirit –– probably because he'd experienced so much tragedy as a small child. He preferred to do things himself rather than depend on others. If something was unfamiliar to him, all he had to do was observe and learn, and he would feel safer. 

"What are you looking at?" Jiang Shining couldn’t help but ask the boy. [a]

Lu Nianqi did not even look up. All he said was, "I don't know." No matter how hard he tried, he could not find a single clue in the mud.

Xuanmin's hand shot out and hovered above the layer of dead leaves. Seeing as he’d previously needed to tear off a strip of his own robes just to pick up a bit of moss, it was highly unlikely that he was now going to touch the dirt with his bare hands. In the meantime, Lu Nianqi reached out to feel the mud too, but apart from, well, mud, he didn't find anything of note. Suddenly skeptical, he glowered at Xuanmin, then wiped his hands on his shirt and got back up.

To Lu Nianqi, Xuanmin's actions had seemed theatrical: they looked mysterious, but netted no results. Being both naturally cautious and slightly treacherous himself, Lu Nianqi was not one to lightly put his trust in others. He knew that there were not that many trustworthy people in the world; most were either selfish bastards or blithering idiots who must’ve had water in their skulls instead of brains. 

He was a selfish bastard. His father had been a blithering idiot.

Yes, Lu Nianqi admitted that he had neither heart nor soul. Back at the compound he'd been screaming and begging for Xuanmin to take him along –– now, he suspected that Xuanmin might be a scammer. [c] He even glanced back at the boat by the beach, wondering if he should go back and hide until the fog had dissipated a bit more. 

As he retreated his gaze, he accidentally met eyes with Jiang Shining.

For a brief moment, Lu Nianqi thought he felt a surge of self-consciousness. He was a child, after all. But he forced it down and glared at Jiang Shining. However, the scholar had already averted his gaze and was now looking over at Xuanmin, waiting for the latter to speak.

Finally, Xuanmin stood up and dusted his pristine robes. He reached into his chest pocket and procured a folded up talisman.

“...” Not again! 

Lu Nianqi rolled his eyes. Does this monk really only have one trick up his sleeve? 

But Xuanmin hadn't taken out the talisman to make it do his dirty work again. Folded up inside the talisman paper this time was a matchstick, which Xuanmin managed to light despite the howling wind around him.

Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi huddled to either side of him, watching wide-eyed as he brought the flame to the talisman and lit it on fire.

These two could not tell the difference between talisman paper and the joss paper used to burn money for the dead –– all they knew was that both types of paper were easy to burn. In any case, they watched as the paper curled up into a shrivelled black mass.

Xuanmin twitched his finger, and the paper disappeared into ash in the wind, which eddied ahead of them into the forest.

Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi watched, mouths hanging open like a pair of quails, as the ash disappeared into the forest. As the ash fluttered past, footprints gradually appeared on the ground where there had previously been none.

These were not ordinary footprints created from planting one's foot into the mud: these footprints had been outlined by patches of ash and rested lightly upon the surface of the ground, as though the person who had made them had only gently grazed the earth.

"These can't be human footsteps. That looks like someone was hanging above ground," Jiang Shining blurted out.

Lu Nianqi: “...” He regretted bringing this group to the island -– each of them was utterly deranged. 

"What do you mean, hanging?" Xue Xian demanded from inside the pouch. He was conflicted: on the one hand, he was deadly curious about what Xuanmin and the others were doing; but on the other, he could not bear to be separated from his marble. He couldn't help but feel that, in the brief time he'd spent inside the pouch, the marble had warmed up even further –– had begun, perhaps, to feel even hotter than Xuanmin's hip. 

But it was too subtle, so he couldn’t be sure.

Xue Xian hugged his marble tighter. "Bald donkey," he said.

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Xuanmin: “...”

Seeing that there was no response, Xue Xian said again, "Bald donkey. Bald donkey."

Xuanmin: “...”

Xue Xian made a face to himself. "Xuanmin! I need to talk to you."

Finally, Xuanmin said, "Speak."

"You like to tear off bits from the bottom of your robe, right? Listen here: don't tear from there anymore. Why don't you start tearing from your pouch?" Xue Xian cajoled. "If you do, it'll make this pouch much shallower. Then I can stick my head out without having to let go of the marble."

To be fair, Xue Xian hadn’t really expected Xuanmin to agree.

Finally, Xuanmin said coolly, "You overestimate yourself. That paper neck is weak. If you keep sticking your head out, it will rip. I do not perform funeral rites for paper men."

In other words: Go away, asshole.

Xuanmin stopped engaging with Xue Xian's nonsense. Following the ashen footsteps, he began to stride confidently into the forest, with Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi scurrying after him.

Inside the pouch, Xue Xian spent a brief moment sulking, then suddenly came to life again. Who knew how long this niezhang had been alive, but he seemed never to have learned the meanings of words like ‘restraint’ and ‘discipline’ –– a wild spirit. Hugging the marble tightly, he rolled around some more, then finally managed to stick his thin neck out of the pouch. He refused to let go of the marble, so the neck hung lifelessly and painfully against the pouch lining. The paper man was pulling himself in two opposite directions; it looked painful.

No fear: his grip was impressively strong. Almost as soon as Xue Xian got a good look at their surroundings, he suddenly exclaimed, "There's something under the tree!"

Xuanmin stopped. He couldn't help but feel that the feng shui on Gravestone Island was deeply off. He couldn't say how, but it felt like someone had sabotaged it... though he had not yet been able to detect the traces of another person’s handiwork. As they'd walked into the forest, Xuanmin’s full attention had been on the ashen footsteps and the layout of the island –– not on what was around them.

So when Xue Xian spoke up, he asked, "Which tree?" 

"Over there on the left. The one with the split tree trunk."

This was a wizened tree about three zhang away from them. It seemed to have been struck by lightning at some point; it had split down the middle. Such trees were rather common in the wilderness, however, so they were not fazed by the sight of this one. Xuanmin walked over and inspected the ground around the tree, finally finding — in an obscure, inconspicuous corner — a brown string which blended near-perfectly into the mud. Someone had cut or torn the string, and part of it was frayed.

"Huh?" Lu Nianqi said curiously. He wasn't afraid of the filth: he picked up the string and studied it, frowning. "This is the string my family uses to make coin chains."

"Are you sure?" Jiang Shuning asked, shocked. "How can you tell?" 

"I twisted this rope. I do it differently from everyone else." Lu Nianqi tugged the string over and showed them. "Look."

Xuanmin saw how muddy the string was and backed away.

As Lu Nianqi showed them the string, he suddenly realised what was wrong about it. "Wait, all of my money was stolen! How could the string end up here?" 

Just as Lu Nianqi said this, something seemed to strike his knee.

There was a dong–– sound, and, before Lu Nianqi could react, his knee crumpled and he fell to the floor.

His clumsy stumbling must have caused him to kneel and trigger some kind of booby trap. Suddenly, weng–– noises arose from somewhere and a void appeared beneath everyone's feet.

As the ground was snatched out from underneath them, there came the unpleasant, aggressive grinding sound of stone rubbing against stone. The sound was highly grating and caused everyone to become confused and disoriented.

Falling into that void, Xue Xian felt respect toward Xuanmin for the first time. Somehow, the goddamn bald donkey managed to maintain perfect balance in mid-air, and was able to slow down the speed of their fall –– when they landed, he was somehow able to do so steadily and gracefully, rather than rolling across the floor. 

But when Xue Xian landed, all he could feel, with his head hanging out of the pouch, was a powerful jolt.

Oh no oh no oh no. Damn that bald donkey and his big mouth. My neck really is going to fucking break!

Xuanmin stood up in the pitch black. He had the strange feeling that something was floating nearby, finally settling lightly on the ground beside him.

"Aiyou..."

"I almost broke my hand."

"Where the hell are we? I'm so dizzy."

"Dashi? Xuanmin-dashi, are you there?"

Upon hearing Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi's nearby complaints, Xuanmin answered with an "Mn." He lit another talisman on fire.

With the light from the flame, he was able to take a look around. He happened to make eye contact with a paper head as it fluttered by.

It was just a paper head.

Xuanmin: “………”

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The author has something to say: 

On Wednesday the chapters will become VIP. My period of lowered brain activity has still not ended, and I’m typing quite slowly. I’d like to request Tuesday to be a day for drafting, and on Wednesday morning at 10 am I’ll upload 10,000 characters. I hope that’s alright!

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[a] In Chinese, Xue Xian says 小崽子 (xiao3 zai3 zi), which means “little bastard”. 崽子 means the whelp of an animal.

[b] Here, Xue Xian calls Jiang Shining 二百五 (er4 bai3 wu3), literally “250”, a colloquial modern term that means “stupid”. 

[c] Musuli uses the term 空架子 (kong1 jia4 zi), literally “empty structure”, meaning that Xuanmin was much less than he purported to be.

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