Beneath the ruin of the mountain shrine was a pit that fell away into blackness.
The opening was narrow and vertical; you had to stoop to get in, and it only took three or four meters down before it stopped. Under the beam of my phone it became clear this wasn’t a natural cave at all but a crude, human-dug chamber. The walls were rough where someone had hacked at them, but they were weirdly clean—nothing like the filthy, rotten dens I’d imagined for the undead. Still, the splatters of blood on the floor told their own story: this place had seen violence.
My compass was gone. I had no way of tracking whatever thing I’d come for, so I had to feel my way forward.
The corridor was so tight I had to stoop the whole way. It was hard to picture someone like Si Jiangchen—huge, broad-shouldered—trying to squeeze himself through here without sounding like a trapped shrimp. As that ridiculous image ran across my mind a sudden, animal scream cut the dark and a black, stinking shape lunged at me.
I held the phone in my left hand and, with my right, traced the Yang Five-Thunder charm through the air and palm-struck the thing.
The thing I hit was a greasy, furry mass, rank with blood and offal; there was no visible soul to pin down. In my head the old explanations came back—jiangshi aren’t simple monsters. They’re the residue of hate and fear that clings when someone dies, the soul blocked from leaving the body. Bury them in bad feng shui or have some twisted person refine them, and they become the dead who won’t die. My master had tried to teach me pity for them—how awful it is to be stuck between life and death, to wake and find your body rotting and to be forced to live among snakes and rats. He hoped sympathy would make me a better heir to his art.
Pity didn’t take with me. I felt none of it. I was only here for my compass—the tool I lived by.
Under the phone’s light I saw what I had actually been clutching: the mangled carcass of a pheasant. Its neck was snapped, the head flopped loose against its back, the red comb gone slate and dead. In just a few heartbeats every drop of blood had been sucked clean from the bird.
“Lu Dayong!” I threw the bird away and called into the dark. “I’m here to fix a feng shui compass, not to catch you!”
Silence.
I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “My grandfather found you by the big willow. You fixed a Dinglan ruler from the late Ming for him—his name’s Du. I’m Du Wenzhong.”
There was a rasping sound from the dark, like an old bell run out of air. “Du… Du Wenzhong…”
Relief flared in me. If Lu still held human memory, there might be a way to make him useful. If he’d been reduced to instinct, if the corpse-toxin had eaten his brain, I was out of luck—but a mind meant leverage.
Something darted out of the shadows where my phone could not reach: small, quick, and black as oil. It hit me full on.
“Du Wenzhong! You old—” The little thing’s face was darkly smudged, cheeks caved in, its mouth a grotesque grin. Feathers and fine bits of blood clung to its teeth as it lunged for my throat.
“Heaven-fire Thunder! Five directions, rain down lightning! Earth-fire Thunder, banish demon and spirit!” I chanted, throwing the Yang Five-Thunder straight at it.
The charm is born from the heart—brutal and blinding. It scorches the undead as if the sun itself were ripping into them. I didn’t want to use anything that would deeply wound a hungering jiangshi’s soul, but this thing had attacked first. I’m not known for letting teeth go unreturned.
Just as my qi built to a burn, the small figure flipped backward through the air—and a huge hand scooped me up.
“You’re going to have him break whatever you came to fix,” Si Jiangchen said in my ear.
I turned instinctively. The chamber was barely wide enough to stand in; Si had to hunch, his chin practically resting on my shoulder. When I pivoted my mouth brushed his lip and, absurdly, he nipped me as if tasting. My palm had almost unleashed the charm on him.
“Si—have some—restraint!” I choked, and forced myself to dissipate the qi. The room was too cramped for a fight, and I didn’t want the thing in the dark coming at us while we were struggling.
“Already restrained,” Si said, still hunched, his chin warm on my shoulder as he glared into the gloom. “Lu Dayong, come out. Our Xiaohe’s got powerful magic. If I hadn’t held back just now you’d be dust.”
“Hmph! Even if my soul were scattered I’d never do what you want!” Lu Dayong’s voice came from somewhere inside the black, thin with hatred. “Du… that old bastard Du Wenzhong set me up!”
“That’s a lie!” I have no patience for slander—especially against my family.
“Du Wenzhong was in the ICU for weeks. He couldn’t have set you up.” I trained the phonelight toward the shadow where Lu’s voice came from. The beam cut through the dim and showed a thin, crouched figure. When it looked up the whites of its eyes were cloudy, the pupils a faint, greenish glow.
“You did it!” The figure spat. “I fixed your Dinglan ruler for you out of the goodness of my heart, and you sold me out! He swore on a poison oath—said he wouldn’t tell a soul that I was a jiangshi… but he betrayed me! The Du family of northern Yu set an ambush at the willow. I barely ran. I lost both my hands!”
Under the light Lu stretched his hands forward. Flesh and bone were mashed into grotesque, pulpy stumps—gore clotted and sagging, as if a cartwheel had crushed them.
“You didn’t expect this, did you, Du’s grandson?” Lu’s face split into a vicious grin. “Even if you catch me, it’s empty pleasure. Tastes pretty good, doesn’t it—hollow victory?”
A cold prickle ran up my spine. “You mean—the Du family from northern Yu came after you?”
I froze, every hair on my arms standing on end. “Did they find this place?” I demanded, voice tight.