“Little Immortal Maiden, let’s go drinking!”
‘Bang—’
Fengxue shut the wooden window without a flicker of expression, walked out of the room, and gave the maids and servants keeping watch by the door a few instructions.
The Zhang family wasn’t a grand household, there weren’t many servants, maids, a cook, odd-job hands, ten people in all.
Once Zhang Xingzhi learned a vicious ghost was behind everything, he’d handed out silver and told them all to go home, that there was no need to stay. A vicious ghost killed without blinking, there was no reason for ordinary people to stick around and throw their lives away for nothing.
But the Zhang family had always treated their servants generously, and most of them, moved by that kindness, chose to stay anyway.
The cook, Auntie Zhao, held a pot in one hand and a lid in the other, Nanny Sun crossed a broom over her chest. The two of them stood flanking the door, stern as a pair of guardian door gods.
“Little Immortal Maiden, we’ll be sure to look after the young master and young miss!” they said solemnly. “You just leave it to us.”
Fengxue handed each of them a protective talisman and walked out of the room.
Ye Pengzhou waved at her, extending his invitation again with great enthusiasm. “Little Immortal Maiden, going for a drink?”
Fengxue said, “There’s still business to finish. What drink?”
Hearing her scold him, Ye Pengzhou hunched his shoulders and said, “Well, let’s finish the business first, then. Little Immortal Maiden, what exactly is the business?”
Fengxue said, “Someone’s dead.”
Ye Pengzhou said, “Oh? Someone’s dead? Where?”
Fengxue said, “…You’re sitting on him.”
Ye Pengzhou looked down at the coffin he was sitting on and hopped off, cupping his hands toward it with a laugh. “No offense meant.”
Zhang Xingzhi emerged from behind a tree and said, “Little Immortal Maiden, that’s an empty coffin, I had it made for myself. It’s fine, the little Immortal can sit there if he likes.”
Ye Pengzhou immediately hopped back onto it, sitting cross-legged, and shrugged at Fengxue. “See? He said I could.”
Fengxue ignored him and turned to give Zhang Xingzhi a few more instructions, sending him off to buy some supplies for the ritual.
“That ghost wants a pair of flower-scattering attendants. I’ll play the girl, but we’re missing a boy, we’ll have to use a paper effigy instead. Go to the paper-goods shop and have the master craftsman make one fresh. Get one made to order, not a stock piece.”
A proper paper effigy required a master craftsman several hours of full concentration to make. The effigy absorbed the craftsman’s own focused effort, which was what gave it spirit.
“I don’t know if there’s time.”
“There’s time!”
Fengxue turned.
The youth in red, still sitting on the coffin, said with an easy grin, “What do you need a paper effigy for? If the little Immortal Maiden’s playing the girl, why don’t I just play the boy?”
Fengxue said, expressionless, “You think this is some kind of game? If you take that child’s place, the ghost will come for you. I’m here on my sect’s orders, why would you take that risk?”
Although Ye Pengzhou would one day have some strange encounter that turned him into a demon lord everyone feared, as far as she could tell right now, he was just a youth her own age.
Ye Pengzhou thought about it, tapping the coffin with his fingers. “Then… I suppose I’m here on my drinking companion’s orders! Little Immortal Maiden, let’s go catch that vicious ghost and have it as a side dish with our wine!”
The corner of Fengxue’s mouth twitched upward despite herself, though she quickly schooled her expression back to seriousness and went on arranging the preparations.
…
“I’ve set a formation around the lady’s room.”
Fengxue weighed her now much-lighter pouch and said to the assembled Zhang family, with some sympathy, “Stay inside. The ghost shouldn’t notice you there. Whatever happens, don’t come out on your own.”
Zhang Xingzhi took a step forward.
Fengxue looked at him.
The young man cleared his throat. “Little Immortal Maiden, let me stay outside and help keep watch. Didn’t you say I have a protective aura of uprightness? Maybe I can be of some use.”
Fengxue said, “You don’t know any techniques. Not coming out is already helping. Just stay inside.”
Zhang Xingzhi sighed. “Little Immortal Maiden, I just…” His eyes reddened slightly, sorrow crossing his face. “I just want to see what the ghost that took my family looks like. If there’s any way, I want to avenge them myself. This is a blood debt, I’m not even afraid of dying for it. What I fear is dying without understanding why, without even knowing whom to accuse before the King of Hell.”
Ye Pengzhou clapped him on the shoulder. “Now that’s spirit! That’s a real man of resolve. Come, let me pour you a cup!”
Fengxue snorted coldly. “Just so you know, if you end up being a burden later, I won’t be saving you.”
After a few cups pressed on him by Ye Pengzhou, Zhang Xingzhi’s blood ran hotter and hotter, and stirred on by a few well-placed words, he even ran to the kitchen and grabbed a cleaver, declaring he’d fight the ghost to the death.
Ye Pengzhou said, “Good man! I’m behind you all the way!”
Fengxue pressed a hand to her forehead, thinking that this was truly the future demon lord, he clearly had a gift for stirring people’s hearts.
Night fell.
The darkness settled unusually heavy over Ningzhen. The little town lay utterly still, not even a dog’s bark or an insect’s chirp to be heard. The two ghost-pale lanterns hanging at the Zhang family’s gate swayed faintly in the wind.
A stone garden lamp along the path cast a small halo of hazy light.
Auntie Zhao and Nanny Sun kept watch at the door, scanning for any movement, bolstering each other’s courage.
The two children huddled in the corner of the bed, pressed close against their mother’s warm body, clutching the yellow talismans tight in their small fists.
‘Whoosh, whoosh…’
A cold wind swept through the courtyard, rattling the branches, casting shadows across the window like flitting ghostly shapes.
Outside the mourning canopy, the funeral banners billowed high in the wind. Four black coffins sat lined up neatly beneath the newly erected shelter.
Zhang Xingzhi sat in a square, high-backed chair, the ancestral tablet cradled in his arms, beside him stood a square table with a wind-shielded oil lamp on top.
The lamp’s glass cast a warm glow across the young man’s face.
He waited outside the mourning canopy, ready for the vicious ghost to come.
Fengxue watched the young man’s back and felt a quiet flicker of admiration. For an ordinary man with no knowledge of any technique, Zhang Xingzhi really did carry himself with genuine backbone.
“Little Immortal Maiden.” The youth’s clear voice drifted from inside the coffin.
Fengxue turned to look, the coffin lid was half open, and Ye Pengzhou had sat up inside, smiling at her. “It’s quite comfortable in here. Want to come lie down for a nap?”
“No thanks!”
Ye Pengzhou hopped out and said, “Don’t worry, I would never bury you quietly while you slept.”
Fengxue said, “Should I thank you for that?”
Ye Pengzhou smiled. “No need at all.”
Fengxue turned away, ignoring him, watching her own shadow cast across the mourning canopy, and couldn’t help but frown faintly.
She tightened her grip on her sword, then suddenly drew it from its sheath, wiping the blade carefully in the lamplight, thinking uneasily to herself that in this whole world, the only thing she could truly rely on was the sword in her own hand.
Ye Pengzhou leaned in too, catching sight of a pair of cold, sharp eyes reflected in the frost-white, moonlit blade. He touched the corner of his mouth, unable to help a laugh. “Little Immortal Maiden, why do you always keep such a stern face, so full of killing intent? Isn’t Qingming Mountain supposed to teach tranquility and non-action, how did they end up raising a little death star like you?”
Fengxue’s almond eyes went round as she shot him a glare.
Ye Pengzhou’s smile only widened. He hopped back to sit on the coffin behind him, arms crossed. “Little Immortal Maiden, I saw your former fiancé up on the mountain.”
Fengxue retorted coldly, “He’s not my fiancé. And besides, someone’s actually inside the coffin you’re sitting on this time.”
Ye Pengzhou patted the coffin. “It’s fine, he won’t mind. Brother, if you do mind, feel free to sit up and say so.”
Fengxue turned her face away and sheathed her sword, not dwelling on it further.
She’d had very little to do with Ye Pengzhou before this.
She’d caught glimpses of him occasionally, before a dim, boundless marsh, mist rolling thick over black water, a single figure standing in the haze, a fishy wind sweeping past and billowing through his blood-red robes.
From that distance, all she’d ever seen was his profile.
A gloomy, ashen figure clad in blood, the very image of every demon lord anyone could imagine.
Who would have guessed he’d turn out to be this lively, this carefree, this utterly unserious…
The white mist of that boundless marsh seemed to rise before her eyes again. Every morning, cold vapor would rise off the black water, ripples stirring the surface as thousands upon thousands of water ghosts swam beneath it. Looking down through the water, past strands of drifting hair, one could sometimes glimpse a pale, bloated human face.
The air around them turned suddenly cold, a chill sinking into the bone.
Fengxue snapped back to herself and exchanged a glance with Ye Pengzhou.
Ghost qi.
Both of them knew that feeling well.
Fengxue rose, sword in hand, and stepped outside the mourning canopy. Beyond it, everything had been swallowed in pale white mist, rolling and churning like a sea of white.
Music and drumming drifted out from the mist.
The tune carried a ghostly, chilling quality.
The drumming and music drew closer, and out of the mist, a procession of figures gradually emerged.
Zhang Xingzhi swallowed hard, holding the ancestral tablet tight, sitting bolt upright.
As the music-playing procession drew near, they finally saw clearly that what approached wasn’t a vicious ghost, nor was it living people, either.
A group of remarkably lifelike paper effigies carried a black coffin, approaching the mourning canopy.
Aside from the four carrying the palanquin, the rest of the paper figures held instruments, playing and singing in full accompaniment.
“Quite the production,” Ye Pengzhou said with a laugh.
Zhang Xingzhi’s face had gone deathly pale. He murmured, “These, these are the paper figures we burned as offerings for our great-grandfather before.”
The music abruptly stopped.
A paper effigy stepped forward, its cheeks painted a garish red, a few wrinkles drawn on its face, decked out head to toe in gold and silver finery.
Zhang Xingzhi’s voice dropped even lower. “This is the wife we made for him. We thought our great-grandmother had already been reborn, so we burned him a companion, thinking he’d be lonely as a ghost otherwise.”
Fengxue said, “…How filial.”
Ye Pengzhou said, “This companion you found him is rather shabby, though. No wonder your great-grandfather wants to collect a debt of lives.”
Zhang Xingzhi said, “The little Immortal Maiden already said, that wasn’t really my great-grandfather! It’s a vicious ghost using his identity!”
Ye Pengzhou said, “See, that’s exactly why he turned into a vicious ghost.”
Fengxue shot him a look.
Ye Pengzhou rubbed his chin and fell silent.
The old-woman effigy spoke in a shrill voice. “Lord Manshan requests the two attendant children. Please, board the palanquin.”
The whole troupe of paper figures stood there in the white mist.
Fengxue asked, “Lord Manshan? Have you heard that name?”
Zhang Xingzhi shook his head. “Never heard of it, but it sounds a bit familiar… oh, I remember now! Immortal Masters, our family’s ancestral grave is on Man Mountain, though the mountain’s actually shaped like a mantou steamed bun, and used to be called Mantou Mountain. The court later decided that sounded too crude, so they renamed it Man Mountain.”
Ye Pengzhou snickered. “So it’s Lord Steamed-Bun, then. What’s Lord Steamed-Bun inviting us for, to eat buns?”
Fengxue couldn’t help the corner of her mouth curling up too.
The old-woman effigy continued in its shrill voice, “Lord Manshan requests the two immortal children. Please, board the palanquin.”
Fengxue stepped forward. “We’re right here.”
The paper figure fell silent for a moment. Its face, painted thick with ink, showed no expression at all, but there was, unmistakably, a note of hesitation in its voice. “You two are the immortal children?”
Ye Pengzhou said loudly, “Of course. Don’t we look the part?”
The paper figure drifted closer. Zhang Xingzhi clutched the tablet tight, staring at it fixedly.
It floated up to the two of them and sniffed carefully.
Its ghost-pale paper face pressed close to Fengxue’s own. Fengxue’s hand went to her sword, but remembering she hadn’t had the chance to meet this Lord Steamed-Bun yet, she held back the urge to punch a few holes through it.
The effigy sniffed at Ye Pengzhou next, and said suspiciously, “Why is this immortal child so tall?”
Ye Pengzhou said with a smile, “Since I’m an immortal child, what’s so strange about being a bit tall?”
The effigy asked, “May I ask the two immortal children’s ages?”
The two of them gave Zhang Zhi and Zhang Man’s ages.
Fengxue said, “I’m four.”
Ye Pengzhou said, “I’m three.”
The paper figure muttered, “Doesn’t seem quite right.”