Chapter 16: Chapter 14: Impurity in the Wine

If the stench of rice wine and blood had been terrible from afar then up close it was nearly unbearable. It was enough to make the stomach turn and eyes water. The smell of rot had not set in, but the effects of the humid hot air on the body were already beginning. The body on the ground was drenched, yet the holes that had been savagely pierced at specific points in the body bled little if at all. Bo’s eyes turned to look at Rui Yifu, who still managed to maintain some sort of impeccability despite the blood blotching at different points on his clothing along with the rice wine and what had leaked from the corpse’s numerous new orifices.

“What is it, dog? Hoping for a snack?” Rui Yifu asked with a derisive snort, pulling his fan from his sash with one hand and placing the two stone monk charms back in a little pouch that hung from his belt. He began quickly fanning himself, loose strands of hair dancing around in the air flow.

“No!” Bo shook his head, “Liu Xie told me to go find where she is.” He pointed down at Idony who had given up trying to get the shaken crying young man up to instead finish the now cold meat buns with her back to the scene of horror. He looked back at the body, “what was that thing!?”

“A corpse,” Rui Yifu answered.

“I know that!” Bo stomped his foot, “don’t answer me like I’m some blind idiot! Why was it moving? What did you do to it?”

“Were you not listening? I said she died an unclean death,” Rui Yifu huffed impatiently as he bent over the body to start pulling at the hair that covered the ruined face. “Someone who dies an unclean death has a chance of becoming a walking undead thing.” He gestured down at the corpse before he looked over at Li Baobao to speak in what Bo decided was clearly a mockingly sweet voice. “Oh Master Li Baobao, please stop crying in front of your sister-in-law, if there’s anything left inside of her it might feed on your fear and come back.”

Li Baobao instantly went silent.

With that Bo watched Rui Yifu slightly pull at the collar of the dead woman’s robes and gasped. “Hey! Hey! Why are you undressing her!? Creepy fucking cut sleeve do you fuck corpses too?” Bo asked as he stomped over to knock Rui Yifu away only to notice the man was staring very intently at something on the woman’s body. Bo looked too. Where her throat met her collar bone was a long thin line that wrapped around it like a pale red string. Years of butchering farm animals told him what it really was. Someone had carefully cut her throat open, although in a very strange way, and the blood had been drained out. “...it looks…” he struggled to find the right word. “It looks like she was opened up for a butcher shop.”

“Hmm,” Rui Yifu tapped his fan against his chin in thought as he got back up. “The blood we saw must have been what was left. But why now? Most would hide away during the afternoon-”

“What?” Bo’s eyes narrowed as Rui Yifu spouted off nonsense.

“This isn’t a subject for dogs. Go find your master.”

“No, tell me what you’re going on about!”

“You wouldn’t understand it, a peasant who spent all his life shoveling mud should continue to do what he knows,” Rui Yifu replied snidely.

“Tell me!”

Rui Yifu threw his hands up in exasperation. “Day and night are ruled by the Amber Flame and the Black Flame respectively. Both can be further divided into yin and yang. But yin is more dominant at night, while yang is more dominant during the day.”

“The hells are yin and ya-”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Rui Yifu hissed, “you wanted to know so now I’m telling you. You can at least be good enough to keep your mouth shut until I’m done!” He then fanned himself as if raising his voice slightly had been a laborious effort for him. Bo snorted. Stupid soft bodied scholar. “I will give you a very very simplified explanation. Undead creatures, such as ghosts or corpses possessed with malice, prefer to be active during the night since negative energy is more common. Yang energy is like a toxin to them. One being out at midday like this would be like you walking into a raging inferno. Did you understand any of that? I haven't even begun explaining where the White Flame fits into all this.”

“Well yes ki-”

“Of course you didn’t,” he rolled his eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not!” Bo protested, his cheeks flushing with anger. “Look, I understood enough that this means the lady shouldn’t have been out right now, right?” Rui Yifu gave a curt nod of acceptance. “So how was she able to be out here if being out in the sun is like a poison to her?”

Rui Yifu was silent for a moment. Bo watched a mixture of expressions race over his face. It seemed to him the man was struggling with the decision between answering with what he knew, since it would be admitting he did not know something, or just admitting he did not know at all. “Well,” he began slowly. “There’s several explanations. She had died with so much hatred in her that it gave her the strength to resist the sunlight or-”

“Or she died very recently, very violently, and was left without proper rites.”

Bo nearly jumped from his skin at the soft voice behind him. He turned around rapidly to see Liu Xie standing behind him. “M-Master Liu Xie!”

“Don’t call me that,” he said briskly before he moved over to the body. “It’s his wife.”

“Whose wife?” Bo asked.

“M-my brother’s…” Li Baobao finally found his voice again and stood up. He walked slowly, shaking, looking over the corpse. “Wh...what happened… to her? She looked fine at the feast but…” He sank to his knees and reached out to touch her ruined face, only for Rui Yifu to bat his hands away with his fan. “Rui!”

“Don’t touch her, without proper protection you may end up getting sick, or becoming like her,” Rui Yifu scolded.

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Bo felt a presence near his leg and looked down to see Idony peeking at the scene, holding the small bite that remained of her meat bun. She turned a bit green at the sight of the body and shifted again to stand near Liu Xie. They had a very short conversation which led to her throwing her meat bun towards the trees and stomp over to hide behind Rui Yifu. “What did you say to her?” He asked Liu Xie.

“She’s apparently eaten almost nine meat buns by herself. I told her if she vomited I’d make her clean it up,” he shrugged before he abruptly bent down to pick up the corpse, he lifted it easily as though it were nothing but a feather, the mixture of liquids sinking into his clothes. Then he spoke in an authoritative tone, “we’re going back to inform the Li's father of this.”

“Y-yes!” Li Baobao got to his feet quickly. “We have to tell father right away! Right away!” With that he sped off down the path back to his home. Rui Yifu gently picked Idony up in his arms and followed in what was best described as a languid jog. Liu Xie looked back at Bo, who shrugged, and they both moved onwards.

The Li Family matriarch, at the very moment the rice wine drenched corpse of her daughter-in-law was carefully laid out upon the ground, collapsed with a wail into unconsciousness. Bo stared down at the downed woman, then turned his gaze at the head of the family. The man looked at least fifty years older than his wife. His face was more like a pickled plum, with numerous liver spots, while his thinning hair was kept hidden beneath a hat.

As he looked upon the corpse and listened to Rui Yifu and Li Baobao’s story, his face darkened. He spoke in a grave yet hoarse voice, “this is terrible news indeed. She had last been seen going to the family shrine to pray for forgiveness and guidance for my wayward son, and now here she is…” his eyes looked at the face with great sorrow, it still contorted in rage. “What a cruel death, what a violent and terrible fate for such a young woman! If only she had an escort upon the path…”

“What sort of person drowns another in rice wine after slitting their throat?” Bo asked the question, rather than think it. All the eyes turned upon him for speaking without permission so he shrank back slightly to stand a bit behind Liu Xie.

The old man’s brows furrowed, “one of our business rivals have made their riches upon the selling of rice wine. Perhaps they wish to send a sign that they wish to start another merchant war!” The old man’s anger was palpable, too palpable. “Yet they cannot handle it like men, and instead tortured a poor woman to death! Perhaps they snuck onto the property through the old storage tunnels. I knew I should have closed them off years ago! Those gutless monsters!” He raised his hand in a fist.

“Father, please,” Li Baobao spoke in a shaking yet soft voice. “Remember your heart!”

The old man gasped, setting a hand on his chest and bowing his head. “If only I were sixty years younger…” he sighed. “I must ask that you all stay upon the grounds for a while, and if you must leave to take an escort with you! If a merchant war is going to start, even associating with us could be lethal!”

Bo leaned towards Liu Xie more and whispered as low as he could, “what’s a merchant war?”

“What do you think it is?” Liu Xie whispered back.

Bo tried to imagine merchants at war, but could only conjure up images of fat well dressed men tossing money at each other. He then found himself thinking of scooping up some of that money, buying himself a nice sword, and opening Zhang’s neck. He felt an arm swing around his neck and found himself being pulled backwards, “h-hey! Hey!” He protested, turning around in the arm’s grip to walk forward.

“You were dreaming of bitches, weren’t you?” Rui Yifu’s voice was in his ear and Bo felt his spine shrivel.

“I was thinking,” Bo pushed Rui Yifu away from him. Despite the slender appearance, Rui Yifu was fairly solid and did not fall down, much to Bo’s disappointment. He did however click his tongue and brush at the spots on himself where Bo had touched as if he was cleaning away dirt.

“Thinking of what? Hmm?”

“None of your business!” Bo walked faster out of the room and into the hallway where he saw Liu Xie standing stiff as a tree as Li Baobao wailed into his chest. Li Baobao seemed like a good kid, despite being a merchant, in Bo’s opinion. But his heart quivered so easily. It seemed like any slightly mean word would be enough to start floods. But Bo could understand his sorrow, losing anyone in one’s family was painful. His mind went back, to smiling laughing faces of his sisters as he struggled to catch some particularly quick chickens.

At the time, their laughter angered him so much he kicked the poor chicken halfway across the village. But it had just been sincere fun, with no malice in it. He would trade one hundred reincarnations to return to that moment.

The honest love of a family.

“... Huh,” a new thought came to him and he looked at Rui Yifu. “Hey, didn’t the old man-”

“‘Old Man’? Be respectful!”

“No, hey, listen hear me out!” Bo leaned close to Rui Yifu’s ear. Now it was Rui’s turn to act disgusted. “He was acting a lot like Baobao, right?”

“Mmm,” despite the disinterest in his voice, Rui Yifu’s eyes were firmly on him.

“But it seemed a bit odd, didn’t it? He looked so composed back at the dinner thing.”

Rui Yifu was quiet for a moment, before he spoke in a strange tone, “keep your howls to yourself, dog. Did you grow up without a father or something? Men can be just as emotive during tragedy, however much it might lose some face.”

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