“So her name is Axiu, huh?!”
From around Sun Wenwen’s collar a hunched, ragged old woman crawled free, twisting like a thing wrung out of fabric. Her few remaining teeth made her mouth look like a hollow tree trunk — grotesque and terrifying. She glanced down at the red puddle on the floor, the steam from the scalded water already thinning, and gave a cold, rasping laugh. “Heh heh. If it weren’t for her meddling, I’d have had my revenge long ago!”
“Who are you? Why pick on a little girl?” I fixed my gaze on the old woman. She hadn’t been appended to Sun Wenwen’s body in the usual way, so I hadn’t been able to see her at first. A moment ago she’d slid out from Sun Wenwen’s neck; I had deliberately looked at the girl’s collar and noticed a short red cord tied there — the sort of protective amulet children often wear.
“Eh! How… how are you people here again?” Mrs. Sun’s face went pale when she recognized me and Si Jiangchen. She wanted to lash out but feared his presence, so she stammered, cheeks flushing. “Y-you two again playing tricks with ghosts?”
My talking to empty air had reminded her of the little spirit that had flashed across the restaurant window. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
I had no time for her accusations. My eyes were locked on the old woman, waiting for an answer.
“…Of course I have grievances. That’s why I latched onto her!” the old crone snarled, turning her head. A chunk of skull was missing from the back of her head — a bowl-sized hole where grey hair was matted with blood-red stains. “They took my things and had some lousy priest seal me up… heh heh heh… but I’ll get out sooner or later!”
The red stain on the floor thickened, gathered, and then — impossibly — Wang Yingxiu crawled up, her soul coalescing back into shape.
“Axiu!!” I shouted.
She was barely holding herself together. I hurriedly drew a tiny spirit vial and began an appeasement chant, trying to coax her back inside.
“Why are you like this?” I asked.
Instead of going into the vial, Wang Yingxiu leaned her ghostly head on my shoulder and gave a bitter little smile. “I… I couldn’t stand by while the kids suffered.”
She had followed Si Tong to the kindergarten to avenge Dongdong. Her plan had been simple: hang close to Sun Wenwen and she’d inevitably find whoever had killed Dongdong’s soul. She’d even imagined how to retaliate against the Sun family.
During nap time she’d tried to possess Sun Wenwen, but something on the girl’s neck blocked the entry — a small jade Maitreya pendant threaded on a red cord. Wang Yingxiu assumed it was a Buddhist talisman, but inside was sealed another restless spirit: an old woman who’d been dragged to death. Her resentment was enormous, and she’d latched onto the pendant, perverse fate binding the two spirits together. Wang’s hatred had inadvertently awakened that trapped ghost.
The old woman lacked Wang’s subtlety. She could only impose a single kind of illusion: bone-deep cold. Ghosts are yin creatures; making a child feel freezing is alarmingly easy. The old crone intended to drive Sun Wenwen to pour boiling water over herself and scald her own flesh raw.
Wang Yingxiu wanted revenge for Dongdong — but she couldn’t bear the thought of a little girl being tortured. She couldn’t dispel the cold illusion the other ghost projected, so she did the only thing she could: she turned herself into a living reservoir, a water bag of spirit, and absorbed every drop of boiling water so it wouldn’t harm Sun Wenwen…
“Hey!! You!!” Mrs. Sun had already helped her daughter to her feet. She glared at Si Jiangchen for a moment, then, braver for having an audience, she yelled at me. “This is your doing again, right? Is Wenwen like this because of you?”
“Of course… not,” I said, pointing at the red cord at Sun Wenwen’s throat with a cold curl at my lips. “It’s the owner of this jade Buddha pendant who wants revenge.”
Mrs. Sun’s face went white. Cold sweat beaded on her brow. “How do you know…? You’re lying!”
“Mommy!” Sun Wenwen’s wail broke in the middle of the argument. She grabbed at the red cord around her neck; at the end dangled a finely carved jade Maitreya. “I don’t want this! That dead old woman keeps bothering me!”
She tugged the cord hard and, with a snap, the pendant — which had clearly been worth a lot — split in two. The Buddha’s head flew off and its belly separated, pieces skittering across the floor.
“Oh, that was expensive!” Mrs. Sun snapped, reaching to pick it up — then the child clutched her mother’s hand, sobbing and shaking. “Mommy, it’s your fault! You said we couldn’t just leave things at a crash site!”
“You little brat — you put it in your pocket yourself! I even had your father bless it, had a monk cleanse it before you wore it!” Mrs. Sun’s hands trembled as she scolded and fretted. They’d found the pendant beside a woman who’d been hit in a car accident — the old lady had landed face-up on the curb, and the jade had been spat out. Mrs. Sun had pawned the pendant and been told it was worth a small fortune; of course the girl had demanded to keep something so beautiful. Worried it might be tainted by death, she’d taken it to a monk for consecration.
Now I’d just laid out the pendant’s true origin, and the woman couldn’t deny it any longer. “What can we do now, Mommy? I don’t want to drink boiling water anymore! It’s so scary!” Sun Wenwen cried. Her cheeks were ghost-white; she was still shivering, and the steam from the water had singed the air around her mouth.
From by the office desk, Song Yixuan watched with an easy smile. “This really has nothing to do with Taoran, does it?”
“It has everything to do with you! You didn’t manage the hot water properly and you put the kids in danger!” Mrs. Sun didn’t miss a chance at leverage. “You must take responsibility!”
Song’s smile widened. “Heh. And what responsibility do you want me to take?”
“Compensation — money!” Mrs. Sun hedged, then brightened with another thought. “Or sign Wenwen to Taoran as a little star!”
“…Fine, no problem. But being part of Taoran comes with conditions,” Song Yixuan said, suddenly reaching out. With a casual motion he grabbed the snarling old woman mid-air. Then, as if tidying his hair, he touched the back of his head — an ordinary movement to everyone watching.
But I saw what no one else did: a second mouth had split open at the base of Song Yixuan’s skull. Its rows of tiny, sharp teeth clicked and chewed with sickening efficiency. The fierce old woman that had been shrieking and threatening was bitten, chewed, and ground to nothing by that hidden maw, her jagged existence pulverized in an instant.