Book: Compendium of a Hundred Demons (Complete Collection)

Prologue

He wasn’t a bad man. I feel like I owe him thirty years of good time.

Young Master Liu said his greatest wish right now was to have a massive mansion. He’d dedicate half of it entirely to clothes and shoes, so that the moment an outfit got dirty he could switch to a fresh one—changing once an hour would be no trouble at all. The other half would become a laundry room, staffed with twenty or thirty workers scrubbing and washing around the clock. What a clean, wonderful life that would be.

But the plump middle-aged woman standing before him was thoroughly ruining his vision of the future.

“I guarantee you could search the entire capital and never find lodgings this good,” she declared, standing in the cluttered courtyard like a confident queen. “And the rent is dirt cheap, too. If you find anyone else in this whole city treating out-of-towners as generously as I do, they’re either a swindler or a crook—you’d better watch out, or you’ll lose both your money and your safety.”

Mo Ya squeezed out through the ramshackle fence on the side of the courtyard and shook himself off; Gungun, trailing behind him, shook too, kicking up a little cloud of dust.

“Auntie Yuan, this place is…” Mo Ya fanned away the dust that had settled beneath his nose.

“Er… that used to be where the previous tenants grew flowers and vegetables. They just let it go to waste,” Auntie Yuan said with a straight face. “Once it’s cleaned up it’ll be lovely—every bit as nice as anyone else’s garden! And I’ll throw that part in for free! Where else are you going to find someone as generous as me?!”

“Throw it in for free? How generous of you indeed.” Young Master Liu stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the old tree in the yard with a look of thorough disdain. “Garden, my foot… even a blind man could tell that used to be a pigsty or a stable.”

Auntie Yuan smacked her lips awkwardly and muttered, “If you raise pigs in it, it’s a pigsty. If you grow flowers in it, isn’t that a garden?” Then she turned to Tao Yao, who stood in front of the two old rooms glancing this way and that. “Miss, don’t you think I have a point? Anywhere else, with the rent you’re paying, you wouldn’t even get a single outhouse, let alone a place this size.”

Young Master Liu glared at Tao Yao. “A person of my pure and noble bearing cannot possibly live in a dump like this. You—”

“Auntie Yuan, it looks like you already have a tenant here.” Tao Yao ignored him completely, pointing at a clothesline strung up in the corner of the yard, where a half-worn man’s robe swayed in the breeze.

“Er…” Auntie Yuan said quickly, “yes, there is one tenant, but you’ll each have your own rooms—it won’t affect you at all. Besides, it’s good to have someone around in case you get a headache or fever. And since you’re new to the capital and don’t know your way around, chatting more with my other tenant could only do you good.”

At that, Young Master Liu turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Tao Yao grabbed him.

“Where else? An inn—and a good room, at that.” He flashed Tao Yao a smile. “If you like it here so much, feel free to stay and share a room with some stranger you’ve never met. Oh, and take Mo Ya with you too.”

“Inns are expensive!” Tao Yao tugged at his sleeve, giving him a pitiful look.

“I’ll pay for it myself!” Young Master Liu gritted his teeth.

Tao Yao let go of his sleeve helplessly and looked at him with concern. “But you don’t have any money right now.”

“Who says I don’t—” Young Master Liu’s expression changed. He patted himself down quickly, then exploded, “Where’s my money pouch?!”

Tao Yao shook her head sympathetically. “I have no idea. Oh, what a shame—it was full of gold bars and pearls too!”

Young Master Liu held his hand out to her. “Give it back!”

“I didn’t take it.” Tao Yao looked up at the sky.

“You clearly have your own money!”

“Spent it all ages ago. I’ve been covering all our food and lodging this whole trip.” Tao Yao looked thoroughly wronged.

“What about the very first silver you won a few days ago? Did you eat it like a steamed bun?” Young Master Liu barked.

“Silver with that much sentimental value—how could I just spend it?” Tao Yao giggled, grabbing his sleeve and swinging it back and forth. “Come on, don’t be so hung up on money. I think this place is fine—let’s rent here. It’s more fun with another tenant around.”

Young Master Liu yanked his sleeve back and looked her up and down, suddenly suspicious. “What scheme have you cooked up now? We looked at several places much better than this, and you insist on this one?”

“Those other places weren’t necessarily much better,” she said, slipping away from him like a slippery, mischievous fish. “Mo Ya, don’t you agree?”

Mo Ya looked around, pressing his palms together. “Amitabha. A monk desires nothing—having even a roof over one’s head is already a great blessing.” Then he fixed his eyes on Tao Yao and added earnestly, “As long as you don’t gamble away the money we save and leave us starving, then fine, we’ll live here.”

Young Master Liu walked silently up to Mo Ya and grabbed his ear. “Just last night you were telling me you wanted a mansion with a big bedroom, a big kitchen, and a big garden, so you could chant sutras and eat vegetarian meals in comfort, and so the fox could have room to walk around!”

Mo Ya said calmly, “Amitabha. Yesterday’s me is not today’s me. Enlightenment can strike in a single thought.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Young Master Liu laughed sarcastically three times. “So your ‘enlightenment’ is that yesterday, knowing I had money and would surely find us a good place, you flattered me every way you could—and today, the moment you learn I’m broke, you abandon me without a second thought?” He flicked Mo Ya hard on the forehead. “Didn’t the Buddha teach you that friends should stand shoulder to shoulder against the world? Right now you should be helping me get my money back from that wretched girl!”

“But the Buddha never taught me to let my friend eat me,” Mo Ya said, rubbing his forehead in distress. “Young Master Liu, eating me is your greatest ambition in life…”

“…”

Off to the side, Auntie Yuan, thoroughly confused by all this, swayed her sturdy hips over to Tao Yao. “Miss Tao, don’t start bickering just yet—I’m still waiting for your answer!”

“Fine, we’ll take the house.” She smiled at Auntie Yuan.

Auntie Yuan slapped her thigh, eyes crinkling into slits from smiling. “Good! We’ll go with the price I quoted before, three months minimum. You can move in today—I’ll bring the lease papers tomorrow.”

Before she’d even finished speaking, the courtyard gate behind them swung open, and a thin, gaunt figure slipped in without a sound.

He was a man in his fifties, wrapped in gray robes like a monk’s, his head shaved none too cleanly, the scalp showing faintly blue in the light. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, and his whole body seemed to huddle against the autumn wind.

At the sight of him, Auntie Yuan raised her eyebrows and called out loudly, “Oh, you’re back? What, didn’t manage to become a monk again?”

The man’s mouth twitched—whether it counted as a smile or a sneer at her was hard to say.

As he passed by Tao Yao and the others, Tao Yao instinctively took a step back. The man gave them a lazy glance, his eyes brightening slightly only when they passed over Mo Ya—with a touch of envy.

He stopped and asked Auntie Yuan, “New tenants?”

“Yes, yes!” Auntie Yuan said quickly. “They’ve just arrived in the capital—please look after them a bit. As the saying goes, a close neighbor beats a distant relative. It’ll be lively around here from now on.”

He seemed not to hear a word of what she’d said after that, sweeping his gaze over Tao Yao and the others once more, giving a slight nod of greeting before turning and heading straight into his room, leaving them behind.

“What’s his story?” Young Master Liu frowned, tilting his chin toward the now-closed door.

“No story to speak of,” Auntie Yuan said, spreading her hands. “Just an idle drifter, not a local, no family to speak of. Never seen him hold a proper job in his life—just odd jobs here and there for a few coins to eat. His fate’s as bland as his name: Chen Baishui.” She let out a snort of laughter. “But he’s an odd one, too—all he wants is to become a monk. These past two years he’s probably visited every temple, big and small, in the whole capital, and still hasn’t managed it. A few of them were even ready to take him in, but it’s downright uncanny—the day before his tonsure, either the abbot suddenly falls ill, or the temple catches fire. Somehow it always ends with him having no fate with Buddha, and he trudges back looking gloomy. Folks who know the story love to tease him for it. Look at him—shaves his head bald all year round, and still can’t become a monk. Heaven only knows what sins he racked up in his past life. If you ask me, he’ll never get his wish in this one either.”

“Amitabha, there really are people like that…” Mo Ya said, astonished.

Tao Yao patted his bald head and giggled. “Maybe you should find a chance to chat with him—teach him the secret to becoming a monk successfully? They say the capital’s different from everywhere else—turns out even becoming a monk is competitive here.”

Mo Ya glared at her. “Everything happens for a reason.”

And so, the matter of renting the house was settled that autumn afternoon. Amid the falling leaves and autumn wind, Auntie Yuan left happily with her new tenants secured; in the fairly spacious courtyard, Young Master Liu sneered that it would take at least eighty rounds of cleaning before the place was even fit to live in; Mo Ya, with Gungun in tow, happily planned out where to plant flowers and vegetables. Settling down in a place of such bustle and prosperity—it was, all things considered, something to look forward to.

Of the two rooms in the courtyard, the left belonged to Chen Baishui, the right to them. While Young Master Liu and Mo Ya bickered endlessly over who would sweep and who would wipe down the table, Tao Yao sat unconcerned on the stone steps in front of their room, chin propped on her hand, gazing at Chen Baishui’s room next door, occasionally furrowing her brow.

Dinner was cooked by Young Master Liu, and it tasted, as ever, like something that would move the listener to tears and the eater to despair… In the end even he couldn’t stomach it, and the three of them plus the fox ended up gnawing on leftover steamed buns from lunch, trading complaints all the while. Tao Yao accused Young Master Liu’s cooking skill of being inversely proportional to his age; he shot back that she, who couldn’t even boil an egg-drop soup and only knew how to eat what was handed to her, had no right to criticize someone slaving away in the kitchen. Mo Ya sighed and suggested he try cooking next time, only to add that from then on there’d be no more meat—a suggestion instantly vetoed by the two carnivores present, while Gungun, quietly taking advantage of the commotion, snuck off with an extra steamed bun.

Just as the argument was reaching its peak, someone knocked at the door.

Chen Baishui stood there holding two dishes and a pot of soup, the aroma wafting through the air. “I saw your young master here nearly burn down the kitchen while cooking. I figured you probably wouldn’t get much of a decent meal tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’ve got extra—help yourselves.”

The kitchen was shared, and while Young Master Liu cooked, Chen Baishui had been quietly risking his life picking vegetables in the same space.

Without waiting for a response, Chen Baishui walked in on his own, set the dishes on the table, and said to Mo Ya, “Little Master, it’s all vegetarian—you can eat this too.”

Food really is a powerful tool for closing distance, and the mood in the room quickly warmed. Chen Baishui sat by the table, looking like a kindly elder watching over a group of unlucky, hungry children.

“Delicious, truly delicious,” Mo Ya said between slurps of soup and belches.

“Just a little better than mine, really,” Young Master Liu said, trying his best to elegantly pop the last leaf of vegetable into his mouth. “Next time, use less salt—it’s too heavy.”

Tao Yao just ate without speaking, sitting as far from Chen Baishui as possible the whole time.

“You children really aren’t careful enough when you’re away from home,” Chen Baishui said with a smile. “The capital’s full of all sorts—you should be wary of food offered by strangers. Plenty of people get carted off and sold that way, none the wiser.”

“But you’re our neighbor,” Tao Yao said with a smile. “Surely you wouldn’t harm us. Looking at you, so composed and at ease, I’d guess you’re some world-weary recluse.”

“Recluse, nothing—just muddling through until I die,” he said, waving a hand with a laugh. “You’ve got a sweet tongue on you, girl. Where are you all from? Settling down here?”

“From Shu. The capital suits us well—we’re not planning to leave for now,” Tao Yao said, her gaze settling on his bare scalp as she asked with a smile, “And you, Uncle Chen? Still planning to fulfill your dream of becoming a monk?”

He startled, then shook his head. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever manage to become a monk in this life.” He gave a self-mocking laugh, rose, and began gathering the empty dishes and soup bowl onto the tray. “You young ones—how nice, to have endless time, endless chances, and endless wishes still to fulfill.”

“You could too, benefactor,” Mo Ya said quickly.

He smiled, gathered his things without another word, and left, his back seeming a bit more stooped than when he’d arrived, his spirit noticeably dimmer.

“That old man’s strange,” Young Master Liu said, frowning and tapping his own head. “Something wrong up here, maybe?”

“Whatever’s wrong up there is still better than your cooking—you should be ashamed,” Tao Yao said, displeased. “We just ate the food he gave us, and the second he’s gone you start talking behind his back. Are you even a man?”

“Heh! Heh! Heh!” Young Master Liu laughed coldly, three times, with exaggeration. “I’m a male snake, not a man.”

“You’re just a gossiping village woman who got born into the wrong body!”

“Let’s go settle this outside!”

“Stop it, you two! Don’t you think Master Chen has something weighing on him?” Mo Ya cut in. “That man looks like autumn wind—so bleak.”

“By his age, most people have children and grandchildren filling their halls, but look at him—alone in the world, no money, no family, not even a proper trade to make a living. Maybe the reason he wants to become a monk so badly is that temples feed you, house you, and bury you when you die?” Young Master Liu made no effort to hide his dislike of Chen Baishui. “If you’ve got the energy to pity him, you’d do better urging him to find work while his body’s still strong, so he can at least live like a normal person.”

“There must be a reason,” Mo Ya said, unconvinced. “I don’t think Master Chen is the lazy, freeloading type. Someone who worries whether new neighbors he just met have had enough to eat can’t be a bad person.”

Tao Yao said nothing, turning to glance out the window and yawning. “Enough talk. Let’s sleep.”

The little courtyard grew quiet. Beyond its walls, the lights of the marketplace still twinkled like stars. On this mild autumn night, neither too cold nor too warm, nothing suited better than wrapping oneself in a soft quilt and sleeping straight through till dawn.

The third watch of the night—the stillest hour in the whole capital.

Tao Yao had draped Young Master Liu’s outer robe over her shoulders and sat on the stone steps before their room, chin propped on her hand out of habit, half-lidded eyes gazing at the world beyond the courtyard wall. In the night sky, a few sparse stars glimmered faintly, as dim as sleepy eyes.

Thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump—something small seemed to be bouncing on the ground behind her.

“I always assumed the Tao Yao of Tao Capital was some old woman. Didn’t expect a little yellow-haired girl,” a voice said once the bouncing stopped—impossible to tell if it belonged to a man or woman, thin and fine like a cat’s.

“You’ve hidden yourself well—even my companions never noticed you,” Tao Yao said with a smile, not turning around. “Talking to me is fine, coming to see me is fine too, but don’t come closer—stay at least three steps away.”

The voice let out a snickering laugh. “Afraid of me?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

The voice laughed again. “Even the Ghost Doctor of Tao Capital is afraid of demons?”

“I’m afraid I’ll never win money gambling again,” Tao Yao said, turning back and sticking her tongue out at the thing behind her. “After all, that’s my greatest wish in life.”

The creature was two or three inches tall, entirely emerald green, with a round head like a rice dumpling, its limbs attached to its body so that it formed a soft, squishy shape like the character “大” (big). Its eyes, tiny enough to be nearly ignored, blinked on its round head. Most curious of all, it moved by walking—or rather, bouncing—with its head pointed downward the whole time.

“Then I’ll just stand here,” it said, settling down about three steps away and flipping itself over to sit. “Actually, your worry is unnecessary. Even if I jumped onto your head, the money you’re meant to win wouldn’t fly away.”

“No thank you—no matter what you say, I don’t want to touch you,” Tao Yao said, wrinkling her nose. “Not when you’re a feifei.”

It blinked. “You say that like we enjoy being touched by you.”

“You’re pretty rude to me, considering you need my help,” she said, turning back to gaze idly at the night outside. “Chen Baishui’s the unlucky one—what did he do to offend you, that he can’t even become a monk?”

“Does he look like a murderer to you?”

“He doesn’t…”

Creak, creak.

In a dimly lit room, a white-haired old man stood before a table, laboriously turning a small stone mill about a foot across. From the mill’s spout, green liquid trickled slowly out, dripping into a black porcelain bowl.

It huddled in the corner of the iron cage, peering cautiously out through the gaps at every movement outside. Beside it were three or four others of its kind—some lying down, some crouched and trembling like it, pressed as far into the back of the cage as they could get.

The grinding of the millstone finally stopped. The old man carried the porcelain bowl to another table, one piled with paper and ink. The oil lamp’s light flickered across his aged face; the excitement of an imminent triumph was kept in check by the composure that came with his years, giving him an odd expression—as if he wanted to smile but dared not.

He unfolded a sheet of yellow paper cut into a rectangle, picked up a brush, dipped it generously in the bowl’s green liquid, and began drawing twisting symbols across the paper.

“Master Xu…” he muttered as he drew, “go buy a coffin for your son…”

Lately, the person he hated most was this Master Xu, who was always competing with him for business. His son irritated him too—tall, handsome, remarkably clever, sure to become his father’s right hand one day. It was only fitting that, having finally caught a serious illness, he shouldn’t recover.

The thought of Master Xu weeping over his dead only son filled him with a wicked satisfaction.

It watched silently as his brush flew across the paper, trembling with every stroke. Because what lay in that bowl wasn’t ink—it was one of its own kind.

A single feifei could be ground into a small bowl of liquid, enough for one sheet of yellow paper.

Once, it and its companions hadn’t belonged to this man at all. They’d been imprisoned in this cramped cage since long ago. It could no longer quite remember who the cage had first belonged to—the years of drifting from place to place had blurred that memory too. All it knew was that now they belonged to a eunuch in the palace, ancient as a withered corpse. The old eunuch wasn’t only a eunuch—he was also skilled at fashioning tiny straw effigies and driving needles into them; whenever he did such things, someone in the palace would suffer for it. But his true specialty was using their bodies as “ink,” writing strange symbols on strips of yellow paper along with a person’s name and birth data, then burning the paper in a fire. Still, the old eunuch didn’t do this often—only three of its companions had been ground into “ink” over the years, at different times. What followed each time was always something like this: a favored consort losing her son, a general losing a battle crucial to the empire’s survival, and finally, at the very end, the emperor losing his throne.

Three deeply cherished wishes, each one twisted into its opposite outcome.

On the day the dynasty fell, the old eunuch lay in his own bed, laughing eerily to himself.

His apprentice, a boy who had followed him since entering the palace and was now past thirty, felt both fear and curiosity toward his master. He knew the old eunuch kept a cage of small monsters, knew he ground them into liquid with the stone mill, but he had never dared ask why.

“Master, the throne can’t be held—the dynasty’s about to change hands,” he said, kneeling before the old eunuch’s bed. “Let’s go.”

The old eunuch shook his head. “My days are numbered. Better to die comfortably right here.”

“Then… then I’ll be going.” He had no intention of dying alongside him; he felt little attachment to this strange master of his.

“You little brat…” the old eunuch called after him—a name he’d used privately for years.

He stopped and knelt back down, an inexplicable dread still gripping him.

“Do you know what my greatest wish in this life has been?” The old eunuch’s eyes grew distant.

He shook his head blankly.

“A wife, children, a home to return to.” The old eunuch let out a long breath. For just that instant, he looked like a normal man of flesh and blood—but the eerie laughter quickly returned. “But I’m a eunuch, ha ha ha, how could I ever have a wife and children? I was sold off at eleven. My wish ended up inverted, through and through—alone my whole life, and alone even in death.”

He didn’t know how to respond, kneeling there foolishly.

“Still, I’m glad, in a way. At least I wasn’t the only one whose wish got turned inside out.” A gleeful, faintly malicious light flashed in the old man’s clouded eyes. “Even the emperor couldn’t escape it. Heh heh heh.”

A chill ran through him, and the words slipped out before he could stop them: “Master, was this… your doing?”

The old eunuch just laughed and said nothing. After a long while, he finally spoke: “Come closer.”

He crept forward, trembling.

The old eunuch’s hoarse voice echoed in his ear.

Before dawn, the old eunuch breathed his last.

He fled the palace in haste, taking nothing with him but a wooden box containing a small iron cage, a stone mill, and a stack of yellow paper.

Now, he himself had reached the age his old master once was. He’d opened a coffin shop in the city, and aside from having no wife, no children, no family, life wasn’t bad—at least he didn’t want for money.

But that Old Xu across the way was insufferable, just like Old Xie, Old He, and Old Qin before him. Having sons and daughters made them so high and mighty, entitled to mock his situation however they pleased? He remembered how Old Xie, who ran the antique shop, once pointed at his nose and cursed him as a dead eunuch; remembered how Xie’s two sons had deliberately urinated in front of his shop door. Seven or eight years old, pulling their pants back up while smirking at him, and everyone around laughing behind their hands. No one cared about the dignity of a solitary coffin-seller with neither wife nor family.

Whenever such “jokes”—intentional or not—came his way, he never got angry. He’d just smile, then retreat to some corner where no one could see or hear him, his smiling face instantly darkening into another person entirely.

Sometimes he even hoped he’d catch some fatal illness, so his life could simply end there. He didn’t have the nerve for suicide—couldn’t bring himself to drive a blade into his own heart—but living on, unhappy day after day, was its own kind of torment.

That spring, Old Xie’s two sons, who’d urinated at his door, left home for the first time, heading to a distant city to restock goods for the family. The Xie couple fussed over them endlessly, begging them to be careful on the road, to go safely and return safely, sending seven or eight servants along as escort.

He sat, as always, in the corner of his own shop, watching the Xie couple tearfully see their two precious sons off.

Suddenly, he remembered the “legacy” his master had left him.

That night, he stood before the stove as a sheet of yellow paper turned to ash in the flames.

About three months later, a white lantern reading “Mourning” hung at the Xie family’s door.

The two young masters, so proud of their own cleverness on their first venture out, ended up—one dead, one maimed. The elder was hacked down on the spot by river pirates; the younger had a leg severed and was thrown into the river, but by sheer luck survived, washing ashore and being rescued. Ever since their sons left home, the Xie parents hadn’t slept a wink, praying to every god and Buddha they knew, wishing only for their sons’ safe return—never imagining their wish would twist into something like this.

He went to pay his respects as an old neighbor, acting as though nothing were amiss.

Watching the Xie couple wail and beat their chests in grief, he felt a weight finally lift from his chest.

Over the following decade or so, Old Qin the cloth merchant ran into cash-flow trouble and went bankrupt; Old He, who sold medicinal herbs, got tangled up in a legal case and was ultimately sentenced to exile, never to return. Now it was Master Xu’s turn—that hypocrite who played at being simple and honest disgusted him utterly. Recently, his precious only son, the apple of his eye, had fallen gravely ill—another chance to “invert” his wish.

His brush moved faster and faster across the yellow paper.

With just two strokes left, the door burst open, and seven or eight men with black cloths over their faces charged in, blades drawn.

This was a particularly “simple” band of bandits—after one thing only: money.

That night, several shops in the area were robbed.

He didn’t much care about the money. But when the searching bandits started toward the corner where the cage sat, something in him instinctively rebelled. That cage was the only “joy” he had left in life—they could take his money, but not that!

The bandits, naturally, had no intention of agreeing. What right did a helpless old man have to stop them from taking whatever they pleased? He clung desperately to the bandit leader’s waist. “Everything here is yours—just leave me the cage!”

It was a foolish, desperate move, made in the heat of panic—and of course, the more he resisted, the more they assumed it must be some priceless treasure.

The leader told him to let go. He wouldn’t. Enraged, the leader shoved him off—and, in the same motion, drove a blade into him.

He collapsed to the ground like a leaf finally falling. His whole life had been like his body—broken, incomplete, clinging on by a thread. People always said life was beautiful, but he never quite understood it. Was the so-called beauty and joy of life simply the feeling he got watching other families fall apart, watching them weep and wail?

No one remained to answer him now.

In the instant before he died, a thought struck him: that to this day, he’d never once had a genuine wish of his own.

The leader gave his corpse an indifferent kick, then walked over to the cage.

The corner was dark; the leader called for someone to bring a lamp.

Soon, chaos erupted in the room. The leader, apparently startled, cursed at whatever “monster” this was and hacked the twisted iron cage apart.

The others jumped too, as four or five little green things scrambled out of the mangled cage, scattering in every direction, heads down as always.

“Demons!” someone shouted.

Sudden terror turned the room into a whirl of flashing blades; the leader and his men hacked wildly at the little creatures darting past their feet.

And these small things, scurrying like mice, seemed even more terrified than the men—running in complete disarray, and in the end, not one escaped the blades. Some were beheaded, some cut clean through the middle, their shattered bodies quickly dissolving into puddles of green liquid on the floor.

Once things settled, the leader, panting hard, ordered, “Search again!”

So they searched, high and low, once more.

It squeezed itself into a crack in the wall, pressing in as hard as it could, though its hands and feet still stuck out.

A shadow fell over it. Someone stopped right in front of it.

It trembled as it watched him crouch down, his eyes narrowing slightly above the black cloth covering his face.

He saw it. The blade in his hand gleamed.

Die, then—everyone else already had. There was no going home anyway. It closed its eyes.

“Ah Shui! Find anything?” a companion called from behind him.

He straightened up. “Nothing. Not even a rat.”

It was stunned.

Freedom, arriving after just one strange, senseless night.

It watched the bandits step over the man’s corpse and leave with everything of value they could carry. It stayed by the body until dawn, then through to nightfall again, and only when chaotic footsteps and shouting rose outside did it finally squeeze out through the gap in the door, leaving behind forever the years of its captivity.

It had never hated the old eunuch, nor the young one—only felt, faintly, a little sorry for them.

News of the coffin shop owner’s murder and the robbery of several neighboring stores soon spread through the surrounding streets. Officials came and went from the scene a few times, cursorily, before the case stalled at “under investigation.” A seal was pasted across the coffin shop’s door and stayed there, fading with time, until no one bothered to peel it off.

People quickly forgot the old man who’d once been a eunuch—his existence as lifeless and unremarkable as the coffins he used to sell, unloved, undeserving of remembrance.

Summers in this city were easier to bear than winters; winter winds cut like blades showing no mercy.

On an ordinary little street, crickets chirped intermittently in the warm night air. Now and then a passerby strolled off into the distance, fanning himself and chatting idly. The scent of osmanthus hung in the air.

A young black cat ambled slowly along the base of a wall, past a stone bridge, past a row of weeping willows, and finally stopped at a bend along the riverbank.

In an easily overlooked corner, a man and a woman stood talking, the woman’s head buried against the man’s shoulder.

“Wait three years for me. I’ll come marry you properly, in grand style.”

“Chen Baishui, you said it yourself. You have to make it happen.”

The moon peeked out halfway from behind the clouds, then quickly retreated again, tactfully.

The black cat stopped beneath a nearby willow tree, quietly watching the man’s eyes.

Soon, the woman reluctantly left. The man stood rooted to the spot, unwilling to move even after her figure vanished and her faint fragrance faded from the air.

He sat down heavily on the ground, picked up a stone, and tossed it into the river, his brow knotted in a tangle no one could undo.

The black cat walked over and sat down beside him.

Noticing the uninvited little creature, his frown eased slightly. “I’ve got no fish, no mice. Sitting next to me won’t get you anything.”

The black cat turned to look at him and said, “So you’re Chen Baishui.”

He nearly toppled straight into the river.

“You…” He scrambled to his feet, pointing at the cat. “A cat… how can a cat talk?” Then he smacked his own head several times. “Must be something wrong with the wine I drank earlier…”

“I recognize your eyes,” the black cat said, and then, with a soft thud, it collapsed to the ground—and a small green creature crawled out of the cat’s body, still moving head-down as ever.

He clapped a hand over his mouth in shock, and it took him a long moment to find his voice. “Is… is that you?”

“It’s been two years, hasn’t it,” it said, stopping a step away from him, blinking its tiny eyes. “Didn’t expect we’d meet again.”

“You… what exactly are you?” He backed away several steps.

“I’m called Feifei. I’m a demon.” Its voice was thin and small, sexless, like a child’s.

He forced himself to steady his nerves, asking with disbelief, “You… you’re really a demon?”

“I am.”

He was quiet for a long moment, then suddenly burst out laughing. “If you’re really a demon, how could you have been trapped in a cage, unable to escape? How could you have been slaughtered without any power to resist? Aren’t demons supposed to summon wind and rain, kill without a trace?”

It thought this over, then countered, “And are you human?”

“Of course I’m human.”

“If you’re human, how could you have plotted to kill for money? How could you fail to marry the person you love? Aren’t humans supposed to call themselves masters of all creation, able to rule the world?”

He was left speechless, unable to find a rebuttal to this tiny green creature he could’ve crushed with a single step.

A moment later, he laughed again and shook his head. “Had I known, I wouldn’t have spared you back then. Who’d have thought—you look as timid as a mouse, but your tongue’s sharper than any blade.”

“So it seems—wherever there are humans like you, bound by forces beyond your control, there will naturally be demons like me, unable to summon wind or rain,” it said seriously. “The world is vast, and yet you and I have crossed paths again. Why don’t you accept a bow from me, to repay the favor of you sparing my life?”

“No, thanks—how’s a creature that stands head-down going to bow to me anyway?!” He waved a hand at it. “Just pretend I never saw you back then. You don’t owe me anything. I’m off—I’m not used to keeping company with demons.”

It thought this over, then turned and walked back into the black cat’s body. In the blink of an eye, the cat shook its head and stood back up.

“You’re possessing this cat?” he asked.

“On the third day after I regained my freedom, I came across this kitten lying dead by the roadside. Since I’ll be wandering the streets from now on, it’s inconvenient to appear in my true form all the time—can’t very well go bouncing around head-down in front of you people every day,” it explained.

“Why must you go head-down?” he couldn’t help asking. “Can’t you just turn right-side up?”

“Because I’m a feifei, so I can only go head-down,” it said seriously. “From the day we’re born, we live this inverted way.”

“Who gave birth to you all?” he asked, growing more curious. “Do you have parents too?”

“We’re born from the soil of the Inverted Realm,” it said.

He was more confused than ever. “The Inverted Realm? What’s that place?”

“My home.” It lowered its head. “A place I can leave, but never return to.”

He frowned, glanced up at the faint moonlight, and said, “I’m leaving. Whatever you are, I hope we never meet again.”

“Chen Baishui!” it called after him as he turned to go.

He stopped and looked back. “I already told you, no need to thank me.”

“Everyone I once knew is dead. Now you’re the only one I know at all—can I come with you?” it asked earnestly.

He paused, then said, “I don’t have any spare silver to buy you fish.”

“I’m not a cat. I don’t need to eat.”

“Then can you catch mice?”

“No.”

“Then why should I let you tag along?”

“I… I’m quite cute, aren’t I?!”

“Goodbye! No, wait—don’t be seen at all!”

Where Chen Baishui was living at the time was called Tulong Stronghold—Dragon-Slayer Stronghold, an imposing name for what was really just a bandit den, a ragtag gang lording it over Chituo Mountain, thirty li west of the city.

Chituo Mountain had, since ancient times, been the route merchants had to pass through to reach the city. Later a water route opened up, but it was a longer detour, so many merchants, to save time and manpower, still chose to cross the mountain. Those with good luck made it through fine; those without often got robbed clean by this gang of bandits, and sometimes paid with their lives too.

The authorities had sent troops to wipe them out several times, but the roots always survived. Tulong Stronghold was like a stubborn tumor, passed down generation after generation, cunningly hiding in the secret corners of Chituo Mountain, forever outmaneuvering everyone who tried to root them out.

Today, Chen Baishui was the butt of his companions’ jokes, because he’d come back with a cat.

In truth, during his years at Tulong Stronghold, he was often the target of teasing. Reason one: he was fine-featured, without a shred of the bandit look about him. Reason two: he’d had an education—not only could he read, he could compose poetry, which, compared to his mostly illiterate companions, only made him look like more of a soft, useless misfit, his advantages wasted in a place like this. Reason three: he couldn’t bring himself to kill.

When he’d first shown up at the gates of Tulong Stronghold, disheveled and destitute, he’d knelt for three days before the chief finally let him in.

“Why do you want to join Tulong Stronghold?” the chief asked, stroking his thick beard, seated on a throne draped in tiger skin as grand as any dragon seat, looking down at this scrawny, powerless young man like he was watching a joke unfold.

He said, word by word, “I have no money. I need money.”

After a moment’s silence, the whole hall erupted in laughter—everyone laughing at him.

“What do you need money for?” the chief asked, as if humoring a child.

“To marry a girl,” he said plainly. “I heard your line of work makes money fastest.”

The chief blinked, then burst out laughing. “Ha ha, Tulong Stronghold’s got plenty of girls—you don’t even need money to marry one.”

He kept his face composed. “I only want to marry her. With a proper matchmaker, a proper betrothal, done openly and honestly.”

“You’ve got some backbone.” The chief thought it over. “Fine, then. Pass our three trials, and I’ll take you in.”

The three trials of Tulong Stronghold: walking the fire road, crossing the sea of wine, climbing the blade mountain.

He nodded.

The so-called three trials meant walking barefoot across a three-meter path of burning coals, then downing nine large bowls of strong liquor, and finally climbing a small hill built from jagged rocks to retrieve a flag planted at the top—should anyone slip and fall along the way, the ring of blades planted at the base of the hill would do the rest.

When Chen Baishui told it about all this later, it hadn’t quite believed him—not until he took off his socks and showed it the scars on the soles of his feet.

“It’s that girl, isn’t it—the one you were holding by the river,” it said, crouched on a wooden post by the stronghold’s gate. Around them, the forest flickered with faint green lights—summer nights on Chituo Mountain were full of fireflies, more numerous than the stars overhead.

Chen Baishui was on night watch, gripping a long spear, looking like an underfed door god.

“I don’t quite understand,” it said. “Isn’t marrying a girl just a matter of you being willing and her being willing? What does it have to do with whether you’re rich or poor?”

“Her parents look down on me for being poor, told me to get lost. Actually, thinking about it, they’re not entirely wrong. Without money, I can’t even give her a roof over her head; without money, we’d go hungry and cold; without money, she couldn’t even buy the rouge and powder she likes.” He smiled. “She was willing to run off with me, but how could I let her carry that kind of shameful reputation? I want her to marry properly into the Chen family, in style, to live a life free of worry, to grow old together with me.”

“But right now you’re… a bandit,” it said, blinking. “You could die under a blade at any moment, or get thrown in prison with no way out.”

He glanced around, made sure no one was near, then said quietly, “The money I’ve saved up so far—it’s enough to buy half a house already!”

It wasn’t sure whether to congratulate him.

“So tell me, you’ve been following me around for a while now—what kind of demon are you, exactly?” he said, changing the subject. “Can’t fly, can’t burrow through the earth, weaker than a mouse—apart from possessing a dead cat and chatting with me, what can you even do?”

“I… I really can’t do anything,” it said, lowering its head. “Is it so bad, just following you around and talking like this?”

“It’s not bad, exactly, but you are a demon after all—shouldn’t your life be less dull than this?” He glanced at it. “Don’t you have any wishes of your own?”

It paused, then murmured, “Born to invert other people’s wishes—what right do I have to any of my own…”

“What are you mumbling about?” he asked.

Before it could answer, a string of lights appeared on the mountain path below, moving quickly toward them.

He tightened his grip on the spear at once. As the lights drew closer, he made out that it was the brothers assigned to scout out “business” opportunities, returning.

This time it was “big business”: in five days, a merchant caravan would pass through Chituo Mountain, carrying not grain or spices, but gold and jewels. However, they’d hired armed escorts for the journey, so pulling it off wouldn’t be easy.

The chief’s decision was to bet the whole stronghold’s lives on it—bringing down this fat sheep would mean three years of easy living for everyone if it worked out.

In the end, it was decided: everyone would go.

Even Chen Baishui was to join in—remarkable, considering he’d only ever tagged along on minor jobs under a lesser leader before.

The night before they set out, Chen Baishui told it that if this job succeeded, maybe he wouldn’t have to be a bandit anymore.

It said nothing, just lay quietly by his bed.

The information proved accurate. On the afternoon of the fifth day, sure enough, a merchant caravan came winding up the mountain road toward Chituo Mountain.

Tulong Stronghold sent out roughly a hundred men.

Traps had already been laid along the route; the lead horse tumbled into a deep pit, and then bandits swarmed in from every direction—Tulong Stronghold’s style: simple, brutal, one decisive strike. Most of them carried bags of lime powder too; when they couldn’t win a fight, they’d throw it in the enemy’s face. Whatever it took to win—truly a pack of bandits through and through.

Chen Baishui carried a blade; he’d tied a sack of lime powder to his waist at first, but ended up putting it back—something about it felt too low, too shameful, and he could never quite talk himself into it.

Chituo Mountain hadn’t seen carnage like this in a long time.

Faced with box after box of gold and jewels, human nature turned savage; the men of Tulong Stronghold became beasts, and under the blades and axes, no one was left alive.

His hands and feet went weak; the blade felt impossibly heavy, kept slipping in his grip. He cowered behind a tree, barely trading a few clumsy blows the whole time with some of the caravan’s less combat-trained servants. When they struck at him, he blocked; when he couldn’t block, he ran. He hadn’t gone more than a few steps when he felt something hot splash onto the back of his neck. He turned around—a servant, clutching his throat as blood sprayed from it, collapsed before him, and the short man who lived next door to him, who often mocked him, stood there gripping a bloodied blade, sneering contemptuously in his direction.

He suddenly felt like retching—probably the overwhelming smell of blood. On ordinary days, they were just men who drank, ate meat, and talked about pretty girls; some of them couldn’t even bring themselves to kill a chicken, saying the blood would ruin their clothes. So why weren’t they afraid of getting their clothes dirty today?

The more one could plunder, the less human one became.

He felt dazed, as though caught in some dream. The shouting and cursing around him gradually faded, and by the time he came back to himself, the chief, covered in wounds from head to toe, was waving his notched blade excitedly, roaring, “Load it up! Head home!”

They’d won. All the gold and silver was theirs. The other side had been wiped out completely; Tulong Stronghold had lost half its men.

No one paid attention to what Chen Baishui had been doing. Before leaving, the chief ordered him to stay behind and clean up the battlefield, and while he was at it, check the corpses for anything of value they might have missed—whatever he found, he could keep.

“Look how scared you are—here, this’ll calm your nerves. We’ll come back and deal with these corpses once we’ve eaten.” The chief tossed this remark at him before striding off, laughing—he was in an unusually good mood today.

Once the main group had left, he stood frozen among dozens of corpses, not daring to move.

After a long while, he finally forced his trembling hands to move, awkwardly picking his way among the bodies, pulling off rings and jade pendants, anything that looked valuable. Every time his fingers brushed against cooling skin, his heart clenched, and the blankness in his mind deepened.

He’d never been this tense in his life—a string pulled taut somewhere in the most fragile part of his soul. He couldn’t even say what exactly he was afraid of. Pathetic—they were just dead bodies, after all; it wasn’t as though they’d leap up and bite him! And yet the fear surged through him, nearly drowning him.

It stood not far off beneath a tree, leaves rustling above its head like the moaning of restless spirits.

The caravan’s escorts had done their duty—not one had thought of fleeing from start to finish. One of them, quite young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, lay there covered in wounds.

He reached to unclasp the jade pendant around the boy’s neck—when the boy suddenly gasped in a breath. He startled backward three full steps, nearly screaming.

The boy’s eyes opened slowly, his body still unable to move. With great effort, he turned his gaze toward the bandit who’d woken him, his lips trembling. “You… I… I remember all your faces, every one of you… you don’t know… you don’t know whose belongings you’ve just taken…”

Those faint, gasping words struck his chest like a bolt of lightning.

A survivor? How could there be a survivor? He said he remembered all their faces—did that mean, as long as he lived, he’d hunt every one of them down? And what did that last sentence mean? Whose belongings—what powerful figure’s—had they just stolen?

Chaotic thoughts crashed through his mind. The chief’s favorite saying was to cut the grass and dig out the roots, leave no future trouble—once your face was seen, once blood was drawn, you could never leave a witness alive, never leave a witness alive…

He felt as though his soul had split from his body at that moment—he was still hesitating, and yet his body lunged at the boy on its own, hands colder than the corpses around them closing around the young man’s throat.

Can’t let him live, can’t! The thought finally seized hold of his mind completely.

Suddenly, a black shadow shot toward him from behind, slamming into his back like lightning.

The world spun wildly; heaven and earth seemed to swap places, tree roots stretching up into the clouds—everything turned inside out.

His back felt cold, as though someone had slapped him hard with an icy palm.

An unseasonable gust of wind kicked up out of nowhere, sending sand and grit flying straight into his eyes.

In the sudden burst of pain, he instinctively let go of the boy’s throat, clutching his eyes and collapsing to the side.

The boy, catching his breath, broke into violent coughing.

After a good while, he managed to force open his bloodshot, aching eyes—and in that instant, his soul and body reunited once more.

The boy pushed himself up with effort, staring back at him without fear of death.

His racing heart suddenly lost all its momentum, as though a sneeze had died halfway, or something inside him had been jabbed just once—every ounce of built-up force draining out of him in a single breath.

He couldn’t summon the strength to act again. His wish to kill the boy had failed.

He hastily stuffed the loot he’d gathered into his robes and fled in disgrace, like every failure before him.

He didn’t go back to Tulong Stronghold. Instead, he ran down the mountain, jumped into the river to wash off every trace of blood, soaked there for a long time, and only after dark, once the blood was gone, did he put his still-dripping clothes back on and wander into the city like a lost soul.

He walked straight past the stone bridge, through the willows along the riverbank, and under the crescent moon he finally stopped before the courtyard he’d visited so many times, yet never once dared to enter. The woman he wanted to marry lived just beyond that wall.

Still, he didn’t knock. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have been her who answered—only her father or mother, broom or dirty water in hand.

He stood beneath the courtyard wall for a long while, then finally left.

Only sitting beneath the willow tree, listening to the murmur of the river, did his heart beat like a normal person’s again.

Everything that had happened that day grew hazy in his mind; he refused to recall any detail of it, only vaguely sensing that he probably couldn’t be a bandit anymore. He’d deserted today, and Tulong Stronghold never tolerated that—by the rules, it meant a broken leg. He didn’t even dare set foot on Chituo Mountain again. And yet, the savings he’d built up over the years were still hidden under his bed there—without going back, the rings and jade pendants on him now wouldn’t be nearly enough to fulfill his promise to her.

What should he do—sneak back in secret? What if he got caught? How would he explain his desertion? If the chief found out, would he just mock him, or actually break his leg?

Fine. Even if being a bandit paid well, he couldn’t keep it up any longer. Right now, his greatest wish was simply to retrieve his savings, add today’s haul to it, find some way to earn a little more, and scrape together enough for a modest house and a not-too-shabby betrothal gift.

But how to get it back?

In the middle of his worrying, he suddenly remembered it—the demon living inside the black cat’s body. Was it still on Chituo Mountain? It probably had no idea he’d fled—had they simply lost each other for good?

A pang of melancholy struck him, like losing something not terribly important, yet still somehow a pity.

In his whole life so far, it was the only one who’d ever asked nothing of him, never mocked him—like a friend who kept just the right distance.

But now, he had no strength left to search for it. If fate only stretched this far, then so be it.

He checked into the cheapest inn in the city under a false name, staying indoors during the day, not daring even to see the woman he loved. In fact, she still believed he was off doing business out of town.

For days he racked his brain over how to retrieve his money without alerting the rest of Tulong Stronghold, but no matter how he turned it over, it seemed impossible. Should he simply go beg the chief’s forgiveness, plead to be let go as a useless bandit, without having his leg broken? That seemed even harder.

He agonized over it for ten-odd days with no result. Then, one morning, a large column of troops passed through the city. The convoy dragged prison carts stuffed with faces he recognized. On the corner of one cage, a severed head hung on display as punishment. The chief had died with his eyes wide open.

He stood frozen, watching the troops and prison carts recede into the swirling dust.

The common folk rejoiced, saying Tulong Stronghold had finally been wiped out, that Chituo Mountain would be peaceful from now on. The rumors that spread afterward grew more detailed—that Tulong Stronghold’s downfall had come from robbing the belongings of some imperial relative; that one lucky escort had survived and reported back, confirming Tulong Stronghold’s guilt; that the enraged nobleman had promptly sent his own elite soldiers to wipe out the bandits under the pretense of suppressing outlaws.

He left before he’d even finished his meal, slipping away from the crowd of onlookers still buzzing with the story.

Half a year later, he finally worked up the nerve to return to what had once been Tulong Stronghold. All that remained now were crumbling walls and charred timber, dead silent.

His money was nowhere to be found. No sign of the black cat either. Everything was gone—his wish, once again, unfulfilled.

That day, he sat on the fallen stronghold gate, staring blankly at the ruin in the rain, sitting there until the rain stopped before finally trudging down the mountain in a daze.

It was only after that he came to realize just how absurd his fate truly was. He’d wanted to kill someone, and failed. He’d wanted to reclaim his money, and failed. And even the woman he’d longed to marry, in the end, married far away instead.

The last time they met, she’d cried and said, take me with you—I don’t care if people call me shameless.

But how could he say yes? He had no money now, and didn’t know when he might be recognized, thrown into a cage, or even executed. All he could do was hold her tighter—nothing else.

Someone arranged a good match for her, a family far better off than her parents ever dared hope for—they thought their ancestors had answered their prayers, and joyfully packed her into the bridal palanquin.

He hid behind a willow tree, watching the palanquin sway away amid the thunderous wedding music.

From twenty to fifty, over thirty years, he came to understand one thing: every wish that sprang truly from his heart would, in the end, twist into its opposite.

In the end, he became the most unremarkable person in the world—no home, no trade, drifting through the streets, scraping by on odd jobs for a few coins.

At thirty, he’d vowed to become a proper businessman; the result was utter ruin, everything lost. At forty, he’d taken in a stray cat, white and clever, one he grew quite fond of—it later fell ill, and though he nursed it devotedly, it died anyway. Things like this became the ordinary rhythm of his life.

Wishes became the most extravagant, most untouchable thing in his existence. He vaguely felt this might be some punishment for the wrong path he’d taken in his youth, or perhaps a curse from the dead of Tulong Stronghold.

In his hardest times, he’d attempted suicide. Poison—probably expired, it only gave him a stomachache for a few days. Hanging—the beam broke; he found a sturdier spot and tried again, but the rope snapped. Jumping off a cliff—he got caught on a tree, and a passing woodcutter found and saved him. Death, too, was a wish denied him. He didn’t want to cry. He wanted to laugh.

After enough wishes turned inside out, he became like an old dog worn down past any fight left in it, no longer resisting, simply drifting along. Two or three years ago, he settled in the capital, rented a room; the previous tenant had left behind a few Buddhist sutras, which he read and found genuinely good. Why not become a monk? Monks, above all, were meant to want nothing, need nothing—if he could just become one, maybe the rest of his life would be easier.

But he couldn’t even manage that. Every single time, something bizarre got in the way.

Was there really a curse? He didn’t believe it—could this final wish of his life really be denied too? Again and again he went to temples, again and again he was turned away.

He shaved his own head, becoming a joke among the neighbors.

How long this would go on, he didn’t know.

Whether the woman who’d married far away was happy now, he didn’t know either.

Where that demon had gone, he had no idea at all.

And so, he simply went on living, however things came.

There are always failures in this world. Unfortunately, he was one.

“What a dull, wretched life,” Tao Yao said, chin in hand, shaking her head with a sigh. “You’ve stuck with him for thirty years—that’s rough on you too.”

“Don’t mock me,” Feifei said, blinking its tiny eyes. “Tao Yao, the reason I called you here is because I want you to cure him.”

“I only treat demon afflictions, not human ones,” she said lazily.

“I am his affliction,” it said, somewhat downcast. “Once a feifei possesses a living creature, as long as the feifei lives, every wish that springs truly from that person’s heart, for the rest of their life, gets ‘inverted.'”

“You just shouldn’t have possessed him in the first place, then—problem solved,” Tao Yao said, wrinkling her nose.

“I didn’t think that far ahead. I only knew that if he killed someone that day, he might never wash the blood from his hands again. I’m weak—what else could I have done, except make his wish to take that boy’s life fail, in that moment? The old eunuch and the young one—their lives were never truly happy, not even from the things they thought would bring them satisfaction. People should live like people. It shouldn’t be like that.”

She fell silent a moment, then yawned. “Thirty years, living side by side, and he never once knew you existed?!”

“We feifei were never meant to possess any living thing to begin with. Once we do, the host can never see or hear us again, and I become a part of him forever—inseparable except by death. I’m a demon, he’s a man; he’s bound to die before me.” It hopped in front of her, serious. “Tao Yao, once a feifei possesses a living being, its own life is no longer its own to decide. As long as Chen Baishui lives, I won’t die—not even if you grind me to pieces in a stone mill yourself. I think you’re the only one who can help.” It paused, then added, “He isn’t a bad man. I feel like I owe him thirty years of good time.”

Tao Yao said nothing.

It grew anxious. “You won’t help? You’re the Tao Yao of Tao Capital—don’t you both save demons and slay them? Isn’t ‘not a single scale left behind wherever the golden bell passes’ your reputation? What’s the point of a demon like me, one that only ruins people’s wishes?”

“You know, you could’ve possessed the old eunuch or the young one back then—then they couldn’t have killed you at all. Sitting there waiting to die along with your companions was pretty foolish,” she said, sidestepping the question.

“The cage was sealed. Our demonic power had been suppressed too long—it would’ve taken a year or two to recover before we could even possess a living human,” it said. “But even if I’d had the power, I wouldn’t have wanted to do such a thing—not even a little. Turning us into talismans is bad enough—that only harms someone once. But possession harms someone for an entire lifetime.”

Hearing this, Tao Yao smiled and jingled the golden bell in her hand. “It didn’t ring. So I won’t kill you.”

It froze, then said hastily, “No, absolutely not! I burned paper to summon you here for exactly this reason!”

She yawned again and asked, “You lot aren’t supposed to exist in the human realm.”

“Right. All feifei are born in the Inverted Realm, where dense forests grow with everything upside down—flowers, grass, trees, all inverted, their roots drifting up into the clouds. Beautiful, really. We grow from the soil there, living freely. But at some point, traps started appearing in the Inverted Realm—not much more than small holes, really. If we’re not careful, we fall through, and then we can never go back.” Its voice grew fainter, thin as a mosquito’s hum. “The sorcerers of the human realm are formidable. Even though the Inverted Realm and the human realm are unrelated, they still found ways to lay traps and steal us out.” It laughed bitterly. “But I don’t think we’re worth all that trouble to them. Even turning our bodies into talismans, making the person cursed lose their greatest wish—so what? The consort still lost her child, the emperor still lost his empire, the old eunuch was still the same old eunuch, and the young one never came to a good end either.” It fell silent for a long moment, then took a deep breath and said seriously, “So, Tao Yao, you really should kill me. I bring humans no benefit at all.”

Tao Yao thought it over, then stood. “I understand now.”

It didn’t follow. “What do you mean, you understand? Will you kill me or not?”

“I’ll grant your wish,” she said with a sly smile. “But you know my rule.”

“Once I’m dead, you can do whatever you like with my body—use it for medicine, whatever you need,” it said at once.

Tao Yao rolled her eyes, then giggled. “Deal.” But she pulled her outstretched hand back just as quickly. “Touching you won’t do anything to me, will it?”

It laughed helplessly. “I only affect whoever I possess. Even if you ate me, your own wishes could still come true.”

“Good, that puts my mind at ease.” She held out her hand. “Let’s shake on it, then.”

It hopped onto her palm and pressed down firmly, as if stamping a seal.

“Tomorrow, then. Same time, same place.” Tao Yao stretched. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait.” It stopped her.

“So annoying. A demon about to die and it still won’t stop talking!” she said impatiently.

“He has a daughter,” it said suddenly.

“Huh?” Tao Yao looked surprised. “Since when?”

“That girl was already pregnant when she got into the bridal palanquin,” it said. “She’d wanted to die, so she deliberately confessed everything to her husband. His family was furious—they meant to quietly do away with her, but in the end they let her live, driving her out of the house instead, and telling everyone the new bride had died of a sudden illness. She wandered far from home after that, suffered plenty, but eventually gave birth safely to a daughter. Mother and daughter have relied on each other ever since. Now they’re living in Cuiquan Village in Wuzhou, farming for a living—settled, more or less. And she’s never remarried.”

“You even know all that?” Tao Yao’s eyes widened.

“There are countless demons in this world—asking one of them to dig up some information isn’t hard,” it said, unbothered. “Even the paper I burned to summon you was bought by another demon on my behalf.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“How could I let him know?”

“Fair enough,” Tao Yao said with a smile. “If reuniting with them became his greatest wish, that would only cause trouble. All right, I’m off to sleep. See you tomorrow.”

The courtyard settled back into silence, and Tao Yao’s golden bell never once rang.

The moment she stepped through the door, Tao Yao jumped—Young Master Liu and Mo Ya were sitting perfectly upright in their chairs, staring at her like they’d caught a thief.

“Couldn’t sleep because you ate too much?” she said, scratching her nose.

“You’re going to kill Feifei?” Mo Ya blurted out.

“You can kill it, but I have a request,” Young Master Liu said solemnly. “I want its corpse.”

Tao Yao rolled her eyes dramatically. “Was eavesdropping fun?”

“This bed’s uncomfortable, I couldn’t sleep, and there was nothing else to do!” Young Master Liu said righteously.

Mo Ya walked over and tugged at Tao Yao’s sleeve. “Are you really going to kill it?”

“That’s not something you two need to worry about,” she said, shaking him off, then turned to Young Master Liu. “Give up on that idea—you’ll never get to use Feifei for anything wicked in this lifetime.”

“Heh heh heh, and how do you know I’d use it for something wicked?” Young Master Liu scoffed. “What if I write your name and birth data on that talisman paper and burn it? If your greatest wish right now happens to be marrying the Thunder God, I’d say I did you a favor—maybe even saved the Thunder God’s life.”

“Heh heh heh, and if it were me, I might just write your name and birth data down instead,” Tao Yao shot back without mercy. “If your greatest wish right now happens to be eating roasted field mice.”

“Lady Tao Yao, do you know my birth data?”

“No. But Young Master Liu, do you know mine?”

“No…”

“Amitabha…” Mo Ya, realizing he had zero presence between these two, simply pressed his palms together and shuffled off to bed, dejected.

“Hold on.” Tao Yao called after him. “Write a letter later.”

“A letter?” Mo Ya asked, confused. “To whom?”

“Chen Baishui,” Tao Yao said, blinking. “Doesn’t need much content—just give him a destination.”

“A destination?” Mo Ya paused, then his face lit up with understanding. “I get it!”

“Mm. Get some sleep. Slip it under his door before dawn tomorrow.”

“All right. But Tao Yao, are you really going to kill Feifei?”

“Go to sleep!”

Epilogue

On the third day after Tao Yao and the others moved in, Chen Baishui left—in quite a hurry.

But before he went, he still came by to say goodbye to Tao Yao and the others.

“Off in such a rush—where to?” Tao Yao stood outside her door, smiling.

“To see an old friend,” he said, an excitement he couldn’t hide written across his face. “It’s quite far. This might be a trip with no return.”

“Well then, safe travels, and may everything go your way!” Tao Yao said, deliberately raising her voice on that last part.

“As I wish, everything as I wish. I hope so, anyway.” His eyes suddenly reddened, but he quickly rubbed them and smiled. “Until we meet again!”

Tao Yao watched him go, disappearing into the morning light.

Everyone else would see only a joyful man walking away. What they wouldn’t see was the little green demon sleeping inside his body.

Mo Ya poked his head out from behind her, grinning. “I know you didn’t kill Feifei. Your bell’s been quiet the whole time.”

She stretched. “Putting a patient to sleep for twenty years isn’t hard. A little demon like that—asleep is as good as dead. Though after twenty years, it’s out of my hands.” She scratched her head. “Twenty years should be about enough, though. Once Chen Baishui kicks the bucket, I’ll have myself a living, breathing feifei! So many medicines I could make with it! Just thinking about it makes me happy!”

Young Master Liu sneered from inside the room. “Why let it live? How do you know it won’t possess someone else down the road, or get chopped up into a talisman that hurts people? Feifei shouldn’t exist in the human realm at all.”

Tao Yao said, stretching her limbs, “If I’m going to kill anyone, I kill the one holding the knife—not the knife itself.”

Young Master Liu curled his lip. “You didn’t show the slug demon or the echo spirit any mercy when you killed them.”

“Because I hate those,” Tao Yao said, turning back to smile at him. “I don’t like feifei, but I don’t hate them either. It’s that simple.”

Mo Ya thought it over, then asked, “Tao Yao, what exactly is a feifei? Is it in the Compendium of a Hundred Demons?”

“Of course it is,” she said, poking his bald head. “Beyond the Three Realms lies the Inverted Realm, where all living things exist upside down. Feifei are born from the soil there, soft-bodied and green, walking on their heads. Whoever they possess will find none of their wishes fulfilled. Their bodies, ground down, can be made into talismans—burned with a person’s name and birth data, they will invert that person’s most pressing wish at that moment. Feifei are gentle by nature, yet caution is still advised when encountering one.”

“Amitabha.” Mo Ya pressed his palms together, shaking his head. “To live perfectly well in their own world, only to be stolen away to harm others—what a sin, what a sin.”

“Enough sinning for today. You’re cooking breakfast,” Tao Yao said, giving him a push. “Go on!”

Before he’d even finished speaking, Young Master Liu came bursting out shouting “my porridge, my porridge,” and dove straight into the kitchen, which was already thick with the smell of something burning.

“Him cooking again?” Tao Yao said, pointing at the kitchen in disbelief.

“Young Master Liu’s still quite enthusiastic about it…” Mo Ya said helplessly.

“I’d bet Gungun could cook better than him!”

“Let’s give it one more try… maybe it won’t be so bad this time?”

“I’ve lost all faith in him. I’m going to buy buns.”

“Get me two vegetable buns, then… and while you’re at it, just get lunch and dinner too. I know a good restaurant!”

The sun rose steadily higher, and the smell of burnt breakfast grew thicker in the little courtyard. And so the new life of the three—plus one fox—began, wrapped in exactly that kind of smell… well, so it goes. Shrug.