Prologue

My Dear Unknown:

In the time before Heaven and Earth had drawn such clear lines between themselves, in the one hundred and eighth cave beneath the Thousand Feather Cliff of the mysterious Xi Ming You Sea, there lived a small number of foxes unlike any other. They were nothing like the elegant white foxes that fill the pages of countless romance novels — those sleek, shape-shifting creatures who transform into breathtaking beauties and dashing men, weaving stories of passionate love and bitter hatred. These foxes were ugly. Genuinely, truly ugly. Their fur was a patchy mess of deep and shallow reds, like silk fabric that had been dyed all wrong. By nature, each was born with only one ear and three legs, and even when they took human form, they could only become the plainest, most unremarkable sort of person.

In the writings of certain learned masters who knew of their origins, these foxes were called “Silk Foxes” — a name that is, in truth, quite beautiful. You only give something a lovely name when you have a fondness for it. The reason these learned masters did not bestow an ugly name upon an ugly fox was simple: they were fond of them. Because, unlike other fox spirits — those creatures so accustomed to excessive cleverness, constant scheming, and minds sharp as needles — the Silk Foxes were ugly, yet they held a genuine appreciation for every beautiful thing in this world. A sincere appreciation, without a trace of envy. Even if they became the plainest person alive, scorned and struck down by others at every turn, they remained wholly and unapologetically themselves. They would go without sleep or rest for the sake of someone they cherished; they would use their own bodies to shield a little roadside flower they loved from the careless kick of a drunkard; they would endure endless mockery from a tailor and everyone around them, all for the sake of learning how to sew a beautiful garment.

But whatever else might be said of them, their greatest charm lay in this capacity for appreciation — a deep gratitude and delight simply for being allowed to come into this world, to behold the countless people and things more beautiful than themselves. Their eyes, fittingly, were perfectly clear and colorless, incapable of holding jealousy or malice. When a Silk Fox’s life came to its end, its body dissolved into a tongue of flame, blazing brilliantly before fading into nothingness — but those two eyes would transform into colorless, transparent stones, left behind in some corner of this world. They looked almost exactly like the flawless white crystals you and I might see in a jewelry store today.

Such stones were called “Silk Fox Eyes.”

Just as the “Flower of the Abyss” represents hope, appreciation is the sole “stone language” of the Silk Fox Eye.

Though your mother is unlikely to come by one of these legendary stones — mythical things that are themselves a chapter of history — your mother does have plenty of gold, and can travel the world to find something close enough. If you’re willing, when you turn one year old, your mother will give you a fossil that blooms — this one your mother may have to DIY herself, using a dinosaur fossil as a substitute, would that do? And when you turn two, your mother will give you a white crystal polished to look like a fox’s eye, shaped into a button and sewn onto your little clothes?

In short, Unknown — to carry hope and appreciation in your heart is your mother’s greatest wish for you. With these two treasures, your road ahead won’t be quite so difficult to walk.

This is the first journey you and your mother have taken together. How long the road is, how hard it will be — your mother isn’t entirely sure. But your mother is very happy, because at no moment does she feel truly alone anymore. And you are the lucky one — not yet born into this world, yet already on your way. The fates of this life, the ten thousand things that drift through existence, have already walked into your soul before you’ve even opened your eyes. Forgive your mother for occasionally indulging a bit of literary sentimentality — after all, this is the first letter I’m writing to you.

Also, let us together thank — and despise — that Daoist uncle called Jiayī. He told your mother the stories about these stones, but refused to the very last to hand over that Silk Fox Eye. Though this Daoist uncle is presentable-looking, not at all like what you’d expect a Daoist to look like, your mother has lost count of how many times she’s wanted to smother him in his sleep…

I’m writing a letter. Unknown is the name I’ve given to the little one in my belly — a code name, really. He or she remains, for now, unknown.

I’m not sure why I suddenly felt like writing this sort of letter. Maybe the journey is boring, maybe it’s that thing called “maternal instinct” causing trouble? In any case, a keyboard can never replace pen and paper. Some things only take on true meaning when they’re written down by hand, in black ink on white paper.

The Flower of the Abyss, the Silk Fox Eye — both entirely unheard of until now.

My judgment is that the likelihood of Jiayī making these stories up is very small. Because I did personally witness that piece of blue amber that came from Chunlu — the following day, it shed its outer “jade shell” and transformed into a smooth, translucent, perfectly colorless “white crystal.” Yes, exactly like those fine-quality white crystals I’ve seen in jewelry stores. I desperately wanted to take a closer look at that Silk Fox Eye, but that freeloading Jiayī flatly refused to let me touch it even once.

I also tried to steal the stone while Jiayī was dozing off, and never in my life did I expect that this wretch had placed a petty cursed prank on the stone. I’m embarrassed to tell you — a demon who has cultivated for a thousand years got played by this young man. The consequence of triggering the curse was that my entire body, completely beyond my control, leapt out of the vehicle, stood in the middle of some small town’s street, and proceeded to tell every single passerby “I love you” — ten times each — for a full ten minutes straight, regardless of gender, successfully frightening every last innocent townsperson into fleeing in terror, convinced they’d encountered the legendary female hooligan of legend.

By the time I stormed back to the car in a fury, Jiayī had woken up and said only, with complete calm: “What isn’t yours shouldn’t be touched. Touch it and things go wrong.”

That stab of helplessness — too brutal! The feeling of powerlessness was absolutely piercing!

Right now, we’re at the tail end of a bitter winter. All things have glimpsed hope; new green is already quietly creeping along the roadsides. What fine weather it would be — if not for this Daoist who has appeared at my side. His eyes are permanently hidden behind sunglasses, day and night alike. His mouth seems glued shut with chewing gum, making it impossible to get a “why” out of him — he won’t even say where he’s headed. Each day, beyond following me and eating my food, he does nothing but sleep endlessly, always in the passenger seat, always sitting upright.

I’m deeply bothered that I can’t get the Silk Fox Eye. I’m deeply bothered that Jiayī shows every sign of intending to tag along indefinitely. And I am deeply bothered that I can’t reach Ao Chi!

The moment I learned about the stone, I called Ao Chi immediately — but the wretched ghost’s phone has been out of service range ever since. The northern sea mountain he went to with the Dragon King is said to be a haunt of demons and monsters. It’s not entirely impossible that grandfather and grandson have been seized by female demons and kept as captive husbands.

Back to the point. What I mainly want to tell them about is my deduction regarding the blue amber. Based on what Jiayī said, I suddenly realized the person who used these stones as the first seal had put an extraordinary amount of thought into it. He or she used the Flower of the Abyss — a flower that means “hope” — to seal away You Ju, a creature that feeds on despair; used the Silk Fox Eye — a creature that knows appreciation — to seal away that jealous female demon who delights in envy. Although I still have no idea what background the female demon who controlled Chunlu came from, following this logic, each of the remaining ten pieces of blue amber must contain a stone whose nature is the opposite of the creature sealed within. Thinking it over carefully, the person who devised this sealing method was not, at first, trying to utterly destroy these beings — the original intention was likely to use these extraordinary stones of Heaven and Earth for some other purpose. Something like… purification, or correction? As for why those original intentions failed, where the second layer of blue amber seals came from, and how all of this ended up as the eyes of the Twelve Coffins of the Celestial Phoenix lying in the Dragon Tomb of the Eastern Sea — only Heaven knows.

At the risk of Ao Chi scolding me to death, I sent him a text asking him to call me the instant he saw it. Urgent matters.

And now, I must carry this insufferable dead Daoist and continue drifting aimlessly forward, because this time, on the Silk Fox Eye, two new characters have appeared: Qianji.

Again, obscure characters that give nothing away.

There’s nothing for it but to follow fate and pick a direction at random. I asked Jiayī for his opinion and he said to go wherever I wanted — then fell asleep again. At a moment like this you decide to be agreeable?! The rage building inside me…

A demon and a Daoist traveling together — this was always going to be an unnatural journey.

Still, I do feel some joy. At the very least, I’ve discovered that these stones provide clues, and between them there seems to be some strange, invisible connection. If I push a little harder, it’s very possible I might round up all twelve of these beings before too long. The prerequisite being that I also deal with this cryptic, lethargic, but decidedly non-stupid Jiayī.

What’s maddening is that since receiving the clue, a month has slipped by effortlessly. Shiyou Village has long since been tucked away at the very end of my memories. Beyond continuing forward — eating, sleeping, and hawking tea leaves along the way — nothing unusual has happened. On the subject of the tea: Fusheng tea is far too niche a product. Every person who tries a sip is frightened off by its bitterness, and to this day, I haven’t sold a single tin. If Jiu Jue and the others ever found out, they’d surely die laughing at me for earning not a single coin. Thank goodness I didn’t bring them along. Though every now and then, I do miss them a little.

On many a night full of stars, anyone who happened to pass by might have caught a glimpse — parked in some wild mountain clearing or along some small-town roadside, a motorhome, a snoring Daoist sitting in the passenger seat, and in the sleeping berth of the rear cabin, a woman whispering to her own belly: telling it about her past with Ao Chi, venting her frustration at Jiu Jue freeloading off her, and confessing her confusion about what lay ahead. On clear days, one might even see her perched on the hood of the vehicle, sunning herself while hunched over a journal, writing letters…

In any case, I must thank this little one, for making my journey so much more interesting.

One more aside: Jiayī is asleep while I drive, asleep when the car is parked and I take a break, and today — some midday in early February — he is still asleep. Has the God of Sleep taken possession of him?!

I shot him a glare, then wrenched the wheel sharply, swinging onto a smooth paved highway. The road sign indicated: ahead, Songshan City.

1

What a ravaged, ruined summer it was.

Though the thunderous roar of cannon fire had temporarily fallen silent, the dreams of every child in the capital were still filled with the twisted faces of the foreign devils, their frenzied howling.

The Forbidden City, teetering on the edge of ruin, could only manage to appear somewhat dignified in the dead of night.

Beneath labyrinthine palace walls, several masked figures gripping swords and blades escorted two young people dressed in eunuch’s clothing as they fled in hurried silence.

A squad of night patrol guards passed by, and the group quickly concealed themselves in the shadows, holding their breath.

When the guards had moved far enough away, one of them murmured: “Your Majesty, once we leave, there will be no turning back.”

A delicate, fine-grained voice — clearly a young woman.

“Mm.” The other person glanced carefully around, a little distracted.

“Your Majesty, do you really—”

“Don’t call me ‘Your Majesty’ anymore. This palace and this realm ceased to be mine long ago.” He let out a quiet sigh, gently cupping her face in his hands. “Only, I fear you will suffer hardship from here on — a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers, the journey won’t be easy.”

“Your Majesty, as long as we are together, I’m not afraid of anything!”

“Mm. Let’s go!”

They ran headlong, and just as the palace gate came into sight, a group of prepared soldiers surged out and blocked their path — behind the blazing torches, a peculiarly sharp-voiced head eunuch stepped forward, gave the two of them a bow, and with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, said: “Your Majesty, my Lady, the Old Buddha is waiting to receive your greetings.”

In the height of summer, the capital suddenly plunged into winter.

An hour later, from within the lantern-lit Jingqi Pavilion, a sound of anguished despair rang out —

Qianji — !!

A single thud — and one life plunged into the deep well. In this palace, death was the easiest thing in the world.

The noblewoman at the center of it all drew a contented breath, then glanced at the man standing beside her with bowed head, who did not even dare to weep, and said coolly: “Emperor, let us depart.”

His body trembled faintly. He choked out the words: “Yes… Imperial Father.”

The procession filed slowly away. Behind them, the mouth of the now-empty well stared up at the black sky like an eye that could never catch up, full of bitter resentment.

“Little Lizi — what did you just hear her call out?” The noblewoman asked, mid-step, turning to the eunuch at her side.

“In reply to the Old Buddha: this servant believes it sounded like Qianji.“

“And what is Qianji?”

“Most likely the Lady’s delirious last words?”

“This child. I told her time and again to be careful with her words. Even in her final moments she spoke nonsense. The Emperor was led astray by her as well.”

“The Empress Dowager is absolutely right. Now that His Majesty has come to his senses, the Old Buddha may rest easy.”

The noblewoman nodded, and the entire procession departed the Jingqi Pavilion in a state of satisfaction.

Far away, cannon fire boomed again.

Those who fled were too many. Those who resisted were too few.

Some say: as long as you have no demands, you will be treated with respect and kindness.

Do you believe it?

2

“Yours.” Inside a small restaurant in the city that was doing brisk business, a heavyset man with gold-rimmed glasses and a cigarette dangling from his lips slid a fat brown paper envelope across the table to a figure sitting in the corner.

Dressed head to toe in black athletic wear, hat pulled low over most of their face, the figure took the envelope, stood, and walked toward the door without a single word from start to finish.

“Hey! Clean work this time! Next time I’ve got something, I’ll come to you again.” The man called after them with a grin.

Before he’d finished speaking, the other person had already stepped out of the restaurant and dissolved into the crowd.

The man took a drag of his cigarette, picked up a newspaper from the table, and narrowed his eyes with an expression that wasn’t quite reading — it was more like appreciation.

The newspaper carried a story: two equally matched corporate groups had been competing for the bid on a major project. Group A had won by a narrow margin; the person in charge of Group B had suffered a stroke in a fit of fury and was hospitalized, and Group B’s stock had dropped several points the following day. Beside the article was a photograph of Group A’s chairman looking thoroughly pleased with himself — a round, beaming face beneath gold-rimmed glasses, grinning so wide he was practically glowing.

“Mr. Zhang, if I hadn’t known your price floor in advance, it would have been much harder for my side to make a move.” The heavyset man mused to himself with the smile of a victor. “Thank you so much!”

A fly buzzed over. The man swatted it away in disgust with the newspaper, smoothed his expensive clothes, and left the restaurant.

In the dead of night, inside a dimly lit room, a hand covered in scars and wounds opened an unremarkable burlap sack and placed several thick bundles of banknotes inside, to rest alongside the other neatly bound stacks already there.

Time trickled by. When the clock hands pointed to four in the morning, a strange dark figure silently approached the most expensive villa in the Banshanqu district of Songshan City.

Many people knew that this villa belonged to Songshan’s wealthiest man — the chairman of the Ye Group.

3

I hit someone!!

The child came flying out of that quiet side road with no warning at all, fast as a wild horse.

The car wasn’t going fast, but he was still sent tumbling several meters away. The plastic bag in his hand flew loose, scattering several medicine bottles.

I jumped out of the car immediately and ran to the child’s side. But before I could even crouch down to check his injuries, this dirt-covered little brat shot to his feet in an instant — simultaneously pulling his fallen hood back down to hide most of his face — with an agility that startled me.

“Are you hurt?” I instinctively grabbed the child’s wrist; he was trying to run.

I clearly heard him draw a sharp hiss — the kind of sound that only comes from being hurt.

“I’m fine. Thank you.” He kept his head lowered, wrenched his arm free with force, and hurriedly gathered up the medicine bottles.

I noticed something that made me uneasy. The parts of this child’s body that were visible — his lower face, his two ice-cold hands — were covered in lines of scarring. Not the bruises from being struck by a car, but unmistakable cuts, new and old, some still seeping blood, others already scabbed over.

These injuries absolutely did not come from the collision.

And then there was his scent — demon energy and resentment energy, wound together.

In the moment I was distracted, the child turned and ran, as though every additional second he stayed was more than he could afford. I reached out reflexively, catching only his clothing. From the stretched-open pocket, several white cards tumbled out.

He yanked himself free with force and fled, vaulting the dividing railing with the ease of a bird taking flight, down the slope, and into a cluster of old buildings in the distance. Like a mouse that had finally found its freedom, a few twists and he was gone.

Wait — I wasn’t seeing things. In the instant he bolted away, I suddenly glimpsed a hazy, indistinct female figure drifting alongside him. She wore a banner gown and the high coiffure of a Qing dynasty woman, floating like a specter, unknowable in nature — neither good nor evil. She kept a distance of precisely one step from him at all times.

I picked up one of the cards. It held only two lines of text: Qianji Communications Studio, Contact Number: 136XXXXXXXX. The printing was extremely crude.

But — Qianji?!

My gaze locked onto those two characters, completely forgetting the sound of rushing cars around me.

Whoosh! A large freight truck, hugging the center line, screamed past just beside me. Almost simultaneously, someone took hold of my waist with a measured, unhurried grip and “relocated” me to the safe ground behind them. Two fingers slid the card from my hand, glanced at it twice, and said: “This is it.”

I stared at Jiayī: “You’re sure?”

He opened his palm. The Silk Fox Eye glimmered in the sunlight — and the words that had been inscribed on its surface were gone. The same thing had happened last time: the moment we entered Shiyou Village, the words on the Flower of the Abyss had vanished. Could it be that each time one of these stones found its next “companion,” it used this method to signal the way?

“Every man for himself.” He closed his fingers around it, not willing to let me look a moment longer.

Almost forgot — beyond being improbably matched traveling companions, we were also rivals.

With no cars passing and no one nearby, I pressed a palm against the windshield. The motorhome instantly shrank to about an inch in length. Don’t be surprised — I placed a spell on this vehicle long ago, exactly for situations like this. Convenient and portable: the basic requirements I have for any vehicle.

Concealing my form, I flew off in the direction the child had escaped. As long as not too much time had passed, I could track him by the distinctive scent on his body.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” said Jiayī from beside me, riding through the air on a tree branch he’d picked up from somewhere, arms folded across his chest. “Forget about yourself if you want, but you should at least think about the other one.”

The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them: “How do you know about that?!”

“You talk in your sleep. Loudly.”

I talk in my sleep?! Ao Chi has never once mentioned I have that habit! I glared at Jiayī with pure fury: “Starting today, you are not allowed to sleep in the passenger seat at night! Stay away from me!”

“I wonder which of us will find him first?” Jiayī shifted the conversation without blinking.

Rows of buildings rose closer and closer, reflected in Jiayī’s sunglasses like the fragments of an aged and crumbling maze.

4

The one who found the child first was neither me nor Jiayī — it was a wiry little old man.

After tracking the child to the block of buildings where he had disappeared, Jiayī and I had split up to search. I used my demon energy to track the child’s scent; Jiayī used his own methods. In the end, we both arrived simultaneously at the exit of an underground tunnel — just in time for a narrow, head-on encounter with this old man. He had clearly already gotten what he came for: with a look of complete satisfaction, he was directing several sturdy young men in dark suits and sunglasses to haul the child bodily out of the tunnel, one grip on each limb, carrying him like a chicken.

I looked closer. The child’s four limbs were bound with fine metal threads, several of which had already cut into his flesh. One more notch of force and his hands and feet would be severed entirely. And yet he made not a single move to struggle — the mouth beneath his hat brim pressed into a hard, tight line. No pleading. No asking for help.

“Isn’t that a bit extreme for an underage person?” I stepped in front of them.

“Young lady, don’t meddle in other people’s affairs. Clear a path and we’ll all be better off.” The old man — dressed in a navy blue Mandarin jacket, round spectacles perched on his nose — stroked his beard and spoke with a tone that was, for the moment, relatively measured.

“Then please do me the same courtesy.” I smiled and pointed at the child. “Hand him over to me.”

The old man’s brow furrowed. “Only if I die in front of you first.”

“At your age, you were always going to die before me.” I stepped closer and dropped the smile. “Whatever grudge there is, handling a child this way is too far. I’m asking you to let him go.”

“Child?” A cold laugh from the old man. “Only a naive young person like yourself would think this malevolent creature is a child!”

“Let go, or don’t?”

I scanned the surroundings — if a fight broke out, would there be innocent bystanders in harm’s way?

The old man looked me up and down. “Young lady, you want to take on me, Grandmaster Ding? This is no trifling matter.”

Before he’d finished speaking, a bizarre snoring sound came from behind me. Jiayī — who had been standing back watching the whole time — had fallen asleep. He had fallen asleep standing up!!

I drove my elbow into him hard. He stirred sluggishly and said: “Oh — I’m not good at negotiations. Are you two finished?”

I bowed my head. “Never mind, you go back to sleep.”

Grandmaster Ding. A grand enough name. His subordinates looked formidable enough too. But what choice did I have? A pregnant woman picking a fight falls squarely in the category of dangerous behavior. Human mothers, do not attempt this at home.

Ten seconds later, Grandmaster Ding’s subordinates were scattered haphazardly across the ground in a heap. As for the Grandmaster himself — a black eye, bruised face, crushed to the very bottom of that human pile, his long beard in my fist, grimacing and gritting his teeth.

Everyone in the tunnel had fled.

Jiayī, stifling a yawn, unwound the metal thread from the child’s limbs.

“You can’t undo those!” Grandmaster Ding cried. “A master diviner told us this creature is a demon! It kidnapped my young mistress! I captured it precisely to force it to reveal where she is!”

Before he’d finished, the child — freed from his restraints — suddenly dropped into a crouch on the ground. His entire form deflated like a punctured balloon. A gray shadow shot out and plunged into the earth in an instant; the ground trembled faintly for two seconds, then stilled completely. All that remained before Jiayī was a cloth doll — black athletic wear, face rendered with uncanny realism.

“It’s over — it’s all over!” Grandmaster Ding collapsed in despair. “We had a master calculate exactly when and where this creature would appear, and went to enormous lengths to obtain the sacred Bodhi Silk Restraint to bind it — and you’ve gone and ruined everything! The Chairman has only this one granddaughter. He’s already fallen ill with worry! A seventy-year-old man who only wants to find his granddaughter — you two wouldn’t understand!”

“Your young mistress was kidnapped by it?” I asked.

“Who would joke about something like this at my age! I watched the young mistress grow up!” Grandmaster Ding wept openly, every trace of his earlier authority gone.

I was beginning to believe him. Whatever had just escaped — if it was connected to the stones, and if I considered what happened with Ao Chi’s father and Chunlu, there was a real possibility it had been attached by one of the blue amber pieces and infected with some negative energy. If so, causing trouble would come as no surprise.

“Your young mistress — I’ll bring her back for you. If she truly was kidnapped by that thing.”

“Is that a promise?” The old man asked urgently.

“If I bring her back alive — ten kilograms of gold bars. Dead — five kilograms.” I stated this with great seriousness.

The old man stared at me for a moment. “Deal!”

“Then get up off the ground and tell me everything that happened!”

Grandmaster Ding’s story was not complicated. In essence: the young miss of a wealthy family had been abducted from her own home one week before her arranged marriage to a young man from an equally prominent family. The kidnappers had left no ransom demands. The police were called and found not a single lead — a kidnapper with no financial demands is the hardest kind to track. The Ye family, bereft of their only granddaughter, had a matriarch who had always been fond of feng shui, divination, and fortune-telling, and maintained contact with various so-called “masters.” In her desperation, she naturally called several of these individuals to the house to “take a look.” Among these “masters,” one or two turned out to be something more than frauds. After casting their hexagrams, they said the eldest young miss of the Ye family had been abducted by a demon. According to the hexagram, this demon would appear at a specific location on a specific date and at a specific hour. They described the demon’s general appearance and said: simply take this Sacred Bodhi Silk Restraint and throw it over the creature — and it won’t be able to escape.

The fee the master charged for this so-called Sacred Bodhi Silk Restraint was, naturally, a check with a great many zeros.

In practice, what Sacred Bodhi Silk Restraint? Upon examination, it was nothing but iron wire soaked in the blood of five black animals — the most rudimentary method of demon-catching in existence. Only a demon with insufficient power could be dealt with by something like this.

At which point I felt a twinge of regret: this person charged a fortune for a piece of worthless iron wire, while I was promising to find and recover a kidnapping victim for a mere ten kilograms of gold. I’d sold myself short…

5

Qingfeng Apartments — what an elegant and pristine name. Sadly, the real thing was nothing more than a subterranean dwelling carved out of an old air-raid shelter beneath a crumbling building on Sixth Street in Songshan City, never seeing daylight year-round, perpetually damp and oppressive. But it was, without question, the cheapest accommodation in the entire city.

Qingfeng Apartments, Room 30. Our destination for today.

Threading through narrow corridors, past ragpickers in tattered clothes and fallen would-be artists reeking of liquor, every pair of eyes that followed us was cold. This was a place inhabited by people who could not or would not show their faces in the light. Qingfeng Apartments was like a tomb that happened to be occupied.

The closer we drew to Room 30, the thicker that strange scent grew. Jiayī had found the right place, at least.

“This stone is mine.”

“On what grounds?”

“Without me, could you have found him?”

“Without you, I’d have asked the Worm People for help. Same result.”

“The Worm People don’t come cheap.”

“I don’t mind paying.”

“Fine — then pay me. I don’t provide information for free.”

Jiayī was going to be the death of me by sheer irritation alone — and yet I also couldn’t help but look at him with new eyes. I had been wondering how he could have watched that creature escape without making a move to stop it, and now I understood: in the instant the creature fled, he had placed a Green Coin Spirit Thread on it. This thread, finer than a single hair, had one blue end and one red end. The blue end was fastened to the owner’s finger; the red end, once thrown onto another, would cling to that being without end, and no matter how ingeniously the target tried to hide, following the thread would always lead you there. And this Green Coin Spirit Thread could only be seen by the person who had made it — an absolute high-quality item, not something an ordinary Daoist would possess. The ring on Jiayī’s little finger, it turned out, concealed something this remarkable. Truly, the more I thought about that nameless temple of his, the more curious I became — what kind of extraordinary place must it be, to produce a singular specimen like Jiayī?

The further in we went, the dimmer the light grew.

Standing before that rust-speckled iron door, before we could even raise a hand to it, the door swung open on its own. Through the gradually widening gap came a dim sliver of light, and within it, a squat, rounded silhouette.

“I knew you would come.” Seated at a round table was a gray-furred “little bear.” It coughed several times, its voice faint as thread, as though one touch would snap it. “You are not like the others.”

By the time the door had swung fully open and Jiayī and I had walked inside, we both faltered for a moment — this bear’s body was covered in wounds. In some places, even the fur had fallen out. Most striking of all were… its ears. Beyond the two on its head, there were small, round bear ears growing all over its body! I had never in my life seen a bear with so many ears.

Wait — and there was the “other one.” The woman in the Qing dynasty dress I had seen during the day was floating right beside it. A translucent, pallid face. A pair of beautiful eyes blazing with hatred, fixed on the creature.

But she had no feet. Below the thighs, there was nothing — only a wisp of faint blue-green vapor rising from her form. Whatever I could sense from the scent she gave off: if I breathed it in long enough, even my own throat felt uncomfortable. She was clearly not a ghost — merely a kind of “energy.”

“The last breath of resentment from the moment before death,” said Jiayī, watching the “woman.” He shook his head slightly and asked the bear: “What did this come from? The grudge between you two.”

“Forgive me — I no longer have a ‘costume’ to wear. I didn’t have time to make one.” The bear answered with something entirely unrelated. “Please, sit.”

Weak lamplight illuminated a room that was entirely ordinary — worn but not quite untidy. On the shelf against the wall sat three cloth dolls of a peculiar design: three gray bears, each a little over a foot tall, very much resembling the creature itself. One wore a pale moon-white long gown with a braid trailing down its back, and in its bear’s paw it held a book — a real one, with a cover inscribed in characters smaller than sesame seeds reading The Peony Pavilion. Beside it stood a small bear in a banner gown and high coiffure, holding a hundred-flower folding fan, its bear face arranged in a gentle smile. The third wore dragon robes and held a bow and arrow, every thread of those robes catching the light. The craftsmanship on all three was so exquisite it would surely reduce every dollmaker in the world to shame.

I also noticed that the white walls were covered in drawings of birds — birds outlined in ink, their forms hazy and indistinct, in flight.

I had never been to a place this contradictory — fairy tale and strangeness woven together into something entirely their own.

“If you’ve come to capture me, I can’t fight back against you.” The bear watched me with its slow, unhurried gaze. “But right now I’m waiting for someone, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait long enough. Could you give me a little more time? Just until dawn. I’ve never asked anyone for anything before.”

I didn’t answer it. My gaze had fallen on the pile of scattered business cards on the table. “Qianji Communications Studio — what do you sell? I’m rather curious. Phones?”

“I sell voices.” It didn’t seem to hold back at all. “There are many people in this world who wish to hear things others have kept hidden in their hearts and never spoken aloud. Two people in love, each wanting to know if the other truly holds love in their heart. Business people wanting to know the price floor their rival has prepared. People who despise each other, wanting to know what shameful secrets the other party is hiding. These are all ‘voices.'”

“You’ve always run this kind of business?” I suddenly understood what all those ears on its body were for. What a peculiar sort of demon.

“Not always — only for a few months,” it said honestly. “It’s the fastest way to earn money, and I felt I needed to save up a sum. But it’s enough now. The studio is already closed.”

“Isn’t that a shame?” I smiled. “With a talent like yours — the ability to hear ‘voices’ — you should be expanding your enterprise, not shutting it down.”

“I’ve gone deaf,” the bear said flatly. “My injuries are too severe. I can no longer hear the voices in people’s hearts. Even what you’re saying right now reaches me only faintly. In a few more days, I probably won’t be able to hear anything at all.”

I stilled slightly.

“Someone told me you are a dangerous individual.” I said plainly. “You kidnapped the eldest young miss of the Ye family. I accepted payment from the Ye family to bring her home.”

“Whether she goes back or not isn’t for me to decide, and it isn’t for you to decide either.” The bear’s coughing worsened. It reached for a medicine bottle on the table, tipped a handful of tablets into its mouth, and only gradually settled. “You carry demon energy.”

“I’m a tree demon,” I said.

“Then do you know what kind of demon I am?” The bear asked with great earnestness.

“Testing me?”

“I’m asking for your guidance.”

“You don’t know what you are yourself?”

The bear shook its head, eyes slightly unfocused.

“How did you come to be here?”

It tilted its round bear head and tried, with great effort, to remember…

6

“Qianji, tomorrow is my birthday. What would you like as a gift?”

“It’s your birthday — why would I receive the gift?”

“Because you made me so many interesting things before! Come on, tell me — what do you want?”

“A bird in flight.”

“A bird in flight? What sort of bird? Father’s garden keeps so many birds! If you want one I’ll have Xiao Anzi fetch one!”

“It seems to be gray — no, white? Perched on a branch, singing endlessly toward the east.”

“The thing you’re describing sounds like a rooster…”

“No, a very small bird, so very small. I can only see it when I’m asleep.”

“Then where am I supposed to find something like that?”

“Never mind, don’t trouble yourself — I’ve made quite a few birds of my own.”

A small, fuzzy bear’s paw stretched out, and resting in its palm was a tiny bird sewn from scraps of fabric — lifelike and utterly charming.

Radiant moonlight spilled across the window lattice. Beneath the window, two small figures lay side by side propped against the sill, blinking as they gazed at the world beyond. The Forbidden City in the dead of night — a silent maze in every direction. Those who walked into it rarely found their way back out.

“Qianji, you won’t leave the palace, will you? You’re so capable, you can do anything. I’ve never had a friend this remarkable!”

“I’m… remarkable?”

“Of course! The bow and arrow you made for me, the dolls, the shoes and clothes — they’re all better than anything even the best craftsmen in the palace can make!”

“Are we friends?”

“Yes. For a lifetime.”

The moonlight grew a little brighter. In all the vast expanse of that palace, no one would have noticed — tucked away in the flower house behind the Chengqian Palace, a young imperial prince who should have been asleep long ago, and beside him, a talking little bear.

Of course, no one knew the thing beside the prince was a bear. During the day, it would slip inside one of the cloth dolls it had sewn: today a nimble little cat, another time a loyal little dog. No one thought anything of it — a child keeping various small animals close was hardly unusual.

This was a talent it had been born with: using a cloth doll as a “skin” that concealed the truth, tucking its real self inside, and emerging as another living form entirely. Sometimes it felt stifled, and on quiet nights it would give a little shake — the fabric “skin” would fall away — and it would return to its original form: a bear not quite a foot tall, covered in gray fur.

Though as to whether it was truly a bear, even it was not entirely sure. During the long years it had lived in the White Mountains, it had seen countless bears — black ones, brown ones — but every one of them was far larger and far more ferocious, and none of them could speak. They spent their days doing nothing but hunting and sleeping. More than once, it had nearly become food for these bigger creatures. Fortunately, it could burrow through the earth. Beneath the ice and snow, underground was its free and frictionless paradise — it loved nothing more than tunneling through the soil and eating the earth it displaced. That’s right: it didn’t eat hares or honey. Dirt was its only food. It had once tried a wild fruit from the tree beside its cave, took only a single lick — and spent three days in agonizing pain. So it understood: it was born only to eat dirt.

As for its own origins, it had no real certainty. It seemed to have always been dreaming, as if lying in a cradle. In the dream there was only that bird, persisting in its singing toward the east. The east that had once been utterly dark slowly brightened with the bird’s song.

In that long and endless dream, the bird was its only solace and companion.

It vaguely remembered: the moment the first light appeared in the east within its dream, it instinctively stretched — and then opened its eyes. In the dark cave, a few wild mice stared at it, then shrieked and fled, abandoning even their stored food.

Rubbing its aching limbs, it sat up, and beneath its paw something went crack. Looking down, it found glittering fragments — like shattered jade. Not only on the ground; there were chips of this same material clinging to its head and body as well. It sat dazed for a moment, with a vague sense that it was a freshly hatched chick, and these scattered pieces of jade were its shell.

It slowly walked out of the cave. Before it stretched a mountain range cloaked in night — peak after peak, white with snow.

It blinked, walked back into the cave, pressed its forehead to the ground — a little cold, a little itchy. It scratched the spot, lay back down, and went to sleep.

This new world that had appeared was nothing but a blank page to it. Its heart had not yet formed any urge to explore. It still felt somewhat tired. It wanted to sleep more. And besides — this world carried no trace of the bird’s song, and that unsettled it.

From then on, its life passed in cycles of sleeping and waking, eating dirt and sitting in a stupor. When it was too restless to sleep, it would count the ears on its body — it was a bear with a great many ears. Beyond the two on its head, round bear ears kept emerging from its hide: front, back, all over, even on its limbs. Slightly strange, and not particularly attractive.

It counted and counted and could never finish counting, because every time before it reached the end, it had fallen back asleep.

This quiet life on the White Mountain lasted until a group of armored men carrying weapons swept it up in a net while it was drinking from a river — and just like that, its unassuming days in the mountains came to an end. The name White Mountain was something it had picked up from the man who captured it.

It could burrow through the earth, but not through a cage made of gold. It was sent into that great labyrinth called the Forbidden City as a gift from a maternal uncle to his nephew, and presented before a boy who looked like a figure carved from jade, whom everyone around him called the Fourth Prince.

That was how a person and a bear first came to know each other.

As a pet, it was installed in the flower house behind the Chengqian Palace — the Fourth Prince’s own paradise. He had hidden all of his toys there, along with his beloved crickets and slingshot, in this charming little room, and had even nailed a placard to the door with considerable ceremony that read For the Exclusive Use of the Fourth Prince, forbidding anyone from entering.

The child loved talking to it. He talked about everything — including the times he’d been rapped on the palms by his Imperial Father, and the time his tongue got burned during a meal that day. The way he carried on, it was as though once he stepped outside this flower house, he had no freedom to speak at all.

And when it told him, “I don’t eat meat. I only eat dirt” — the young prince went silent for a long moment, hand clamped over his mouth, not even daring to blink.

It wasn’t actually hungry. One meal of dirt kept it going for over half a year. It simply couldn’t stand watching that genuinely anxious, earnest little face. He had brought all manner of fine foods, but it wouldn’t eat any of them.

“You… you can talk?!”

Yes — it could not only talk, it could make all manner of things. It seemed to be a skill it had been born with; there was nothing in this world that could stump it. Cloth dolls, clothing, bows and arrows — given enough time, it believed it could construct an entire palace.

Their meeting became the greatest surprise and wonder in each other’s lives.

He asked if it had a name. It shook its head.

The young prince furrowed his brows and thought hard for a long time. “Then I’ll call you Qian’er — Thousand Ears — you have so many ears!” He considered this, then decided it didn’t sit right and muttered, “Thousand Ears doesn’t feel quite right either — you don’t actually have a thousand ears. What should I call you, then?”

It watched this earnest child and said: “Whatever you like.”

“That won’t do — a proper name is essential. Names must be fitting!” The young prince turned his eyes in thought. “Father always says that every meeting between the ten thousand things of this world is a question of fate and timing. The two of us meeting like this — isn’t that a once-in-a-thousand-lifetimes kind of fate? So I’ll call you Qianji — Thousand Mechanisms!”

It had no objection. In truth, it felt it had no particular demands of this world. But it did like this child a little. And the name he gave — it was a good one.

In the days that followed, it became more and more willing to show this child its abilities, one by one. Slipping into cloth dolls to become various animals, staying always by his side; staying up through the night to help him finish copying passages when he was punished with the task; fashioning amusing toys to cheer him up when he was dejected.

It was willing to do this because it could always hear him — clearly, unmistakably: “It is my friend.”

If it chose to, it could hear the voice of any person on this land. It seemed that in some year long before, all of these ears had been tasked with exactly this work — listening to the voices hidden within human hearts.

Work. Why had it used that word? It thought for a very long time but could make nothing of it. So the question became a small, nagging thing lodged somewhere inside it.

As for this ability, it never told him. But when his brothers played tricks on him — hiding his schoolwork, or when he had misplaced something important — it would quietly tell him where to find it. Sometimes it would reveal the questions for the next day’s examination in advance so he could pass smoothly. It would even warn him on certain mornings: His Majesty your Imperial Father is in a poor mood today. Be careful in all things. All in all, the young prince ate considerably less bitterness thanks to these interventions.

Finally, one day, the prince — now a young man — looked very seriously at the creature sitting in the flower house mending shoe soles, and asked: “Qianji, are you a demon?”

“Possibly.” It stopped its needlework, blinked. “Why?”

“Nothing. I’m going back to the study.” He shook his head and left the flower house.

Somewhere along the way, without its noticing exactly when, he had become a person laden with things unspoken. The slingshot and the cricket jar were now thick with dust. Except for his daily visits to pay his respects, attend lessons, and practice martial arts, he would either be in the study poring over books or holding candlelit conversations deep into the night with his maternal uncle or a group of young scholars — no one permitted to disturb him, not even it.

Was this what people meant by… growing up?

And a place like the Forbidden City would make people grow up faster, surely. It bowed its head and continued mending the shoe sole. As long as they were still friends, it would go on making things for him — whatever he wanted.

Come to think of it, hadn’t it been in this palace that it had truly come alive? It loved these days — being praised, being valued. Even the self it glimpsed in the mirror seemed considerably more tolerable now. Perhaps it really was a capable, clever, good-hearted… rather admirable sort of creature?

At night, as usual, it crawled into the little black dog doll. Lately it had been appearing beside him in the form of a small dog. The weather had turned very cold; sleeping inside a doll was warm and comfortable. All these years, and in its dreams, the bird’s song still rang out, clear and melodic.

One year. Two years. Three years. Everyone around it was changing — his figure grew taller and more commanding, his Emperor father grew ever older, even the always-obedient Xiao Anzi had sprouted a few white hairs. The only things that hadn’t changed were the palace itself, and this bear — living in the flower house, assuming various forms, inhabiting his life.

He said they were friends for a lifetime. It had once believed that very much.

7

“Your Majesty, the demon creature has been contained. Henceforth, you may rest at ease.” In the sealed chamber, an aged monk spoke with deep reverence to the man before him — tall and commanding in his dragon robes.

“You are dismissed.” He waved his hand.

Torchlight on the walls illuminated the cage wrought from golden crow metal. A great lock, its cold gleam flashing, hung on its door.

Inside the cage, Qianji sat mending a cloth doll, as it always had.

After so many years, it had returned to a cage. The old monk had expended little effort. In truth, it had walked in on its own.

The man stood in silence, his expression grim.

“You are never going to let me follow you again. Are you.” It didn’t look up as it asked.

“Correct.” His voice was cold.

“Goodbye then.” It turned away, focusing its full attention on the doll it was sewing.

“If you have any requests, you may still raise them now.” He looked down at its back from on high.

“I need nothing. Thank you.”

He turned away. “Dirt and water will be delivered at regular intervals. If you’re bored, occupy yourself with your needlework.”

He pressed the mechanism; an iron door weighing a thousand catties thundered shut. Every one of his secrets, he sealed away together with this bear, forever.

There was still time before dawn. He dismissed every eunuch and attendant, walking alone between the palace walls. The moment he appeared, the moon withdrew behind the clouds — whether out of fear of him, or contempt.

Further ahead was the martial arts training ground. Many years ago, when he was still the young Fourth Prince, he had bested countless opponents on this ground — and had, of course, been fiercely beaten in return by certain others. Those people shared his family name, his blood.

The small eunuch keeping the night watch had long since fallen into a deep sleep. He slipped inside without a sound. In the faint light, familiar weapons stood forlorn against the walls; the deep crimson training mat spread across the floor exuded, as always, a scent belonging to combat and death — even on a quiet night like this.

Death… yes. Many years ago, he had nearly died on this mat. Three pairs of hands pressing him down with total force, grinding his face into the floor, as if determined to take away his breath entirely.

This had been a private fight. No one knew that four brothers were “sparring” here. The one who had sent the challenge was the former Crown Prince — his Second Elder Brother. Joining him were his Third Elder Brother and his Eighth Younger Brother.

He knew these brothers had never looked upon him with favor, especially after their Imperial Father praised him — that hostility and contempt only deepened.

Who says children don’t harbor murderous intent? Or perhaps the better way to put it is: in the Forbidden City, age is merely a number. Everyone who lives here, young and old alike, is the same.

He struggled with everything he had. In single combat, which of them could have been his match?

Whoosh! A dark shape burst from the corner with tremendous force, sending the Crown Prince and the others tumbling.

He seized the moment and rolled upright, gasping hard.

Qianji — always at his side — stood motionless, making a soft whimpering sound, not moving an inch from beside him. Though its form was hardly imposing: it had lately taken the shape of a small black dog, less than two feet long.

His fallen brothers picked themselves up, stared for a moment — and then burst out laughing.

Third Elder Brother stood and pointed at the little dog: “Hahaha — Fourth Brother, since you’ve proven you can’t beat us, you’ve resorted to using a dog to save yourself?”

“This, I suppose, is the true definition of a dog slave? Even if it spends its days at a prince’s side, it’s still a dog.”

“Exactly — some people, no matter how long they’ve grown up beside the Empress, will always have a bondservant for a birth mother.”

“So of course the dog is fond of him. They’re both servants, heh heh.”

The three young princes dusted off their clothes, laughing, and strode away.

He tightened his fist and drove it into the floor.

“Are you all right?” Once they had moved far enough away, the little black dog turned to face him and spoke.

He said nothing, chest heaving violently.

“Don’t be angry — what you need to do now is study and train, master statecraft and conduct, and in the future—” The little black dog wagged its tail as it earnestly spoke.

“What right do you have to make demands of me?” He cut it off abruptly, eyes suffused with red. “Who told you to come out? Who told you to help me?”

“What’s wrong with you?” The little black dog blinked in bewilderment. “If I hadn’t come out, they would have killed you!”

He sprang to his feet, seized the fur at the top of the little black dog’s head, and wrenched it down hard. A flash of white light — and a cloth dog doll lay in his grip. On the floor, Qianji — restored to its true form — seemed startled by the gesture. “You—”

“Listen carefully: from this day forward, you will no longer address me as ‘you.’ You will call me Master.” He drew a long, slow breath, his voice cold. “You are nothing but a beast.”

He hurled the doll to the ground and ran out of the training hall, leaving Qianji standing alone, stunned in place.

It had heard him — this child who had grown up. His mouth and his heart were speaking the same words…

After that day, he never returned to the flower house, and never again permitted Qianji to take the form of a cat or dog to follow at his side.

Qianji asked no questions. It stayed quietly in the flower house, going about its days as before.

It didn’t need to ask. It knew what he was thinking. It had the most extraordinary ears in the world. If it chose, it could hear anyone’s voice — including his, including the Emperor’s.

It heard his resentment of his birth mother’s low origins. It heard his desires, slowly rising like a tide.

Time passed. Flowers bloomed and fell, year after year. It sat alone in the flower house where not even flies came, counting its ears each night before sleep. But in its dreams now there was no sign of the bird, no melodious song — only a sky sinking back into darkness, and one sentence, repeated over and over: You are nothing but a beast.

He went from prince to Prince of Third Rank to Prince of First Rank, took a wife, had children. When everyone around him was entangled in desperate, blazing infighting, he said only that he was a man of idle wealth, with no desire to compete. Some believed him. Some did not.

But it knew with certainty: his ambitions were not for an idle life. They were for the dragon robes.

And it knew something else with equal certainty: his father would not pass the throne to him. In the old Emperor’s heart, another son had long since been chosen. The decision was settled. The edict was drafted and entrusted to a loyal official for safekeeping. When the time came, this trusted minister would retrieve the document and read it aloud on the spot.

In his heart, the old Emperor had already arranged the future of his dynasty.

He had never imagined that those private thoughts had been “heard” by a bear.

No one expected that in the end, the one who ascended to the throne would be this supposed “man of idle wealth.”

And yet no one could offer a word of objection. He had the support of powerful ministers — and the old Emperor’s edict, with his name written on it, plain as day.

To those who had lost the succession, this became a permanent, unanswerable mystery they would take to their graves. They could never understand — what method had he used to change the old Emperor’s wishes?

Qianji…

It was Qianji who had told him which official held the edict — and that knowledge gave him the opportunity to make that official, and the true edict, disappear forever.

The one he should have been most grateful to was Qianji.

But he also suddenly understood: the one he most feared was Qianji. So it was not only capable of using cloth dolls to take on other forms, not only capable of making amusing toys… He had vastly underestimated what Qianji could do.

Keeping a demon that could hear others’ innermost thoughts nearby might offer extraordinary advantages. But the reverse was equally true: there was no guarantee that one day it would not sell his own secrets to someone else. He could not take that risk. He absolutely could not. This demon must never be allowed to enter his life again.

He walked out of the training hall. A few snowflakes drifted onto his shoulders.

The capital had received its first snowfall of the year. Only in such seasons did the land beneath the feet of the Son of Heaven feel particularly clean. Many people loved snow more than rain — perhaps because of its talent for burying everything unbeautiful beneath itself.

8

The drunkard loves his tavern. The gambler loves the gambling house. The pampered young misses of noble households never stray three steps from their embroidered towers. The high officials wade through seas of fame and fortune. Everyone is accustomed to fashioning a paradise that suits them just fine.

But when a sitting Emperor’s paradise lay not in the dragon throne, not in the affairs of state, but in an old flower house — that was something slightly out of the ordinary.

“Your Majesty, slow down.”

A girl of about fifteen or sixteen in fine clothing, pressing a handkerchief to her lips, gently patted the young man beside her as he wolfed down his food. He had a large bowl of noodles in hand, nearly finished.

Across from them sat a small, thin little eunuch, slowly mending a dragon robe threaded with gold. The stitching was expensive.

In truth, this young Emperor — who had only recently received his dynasty from the hands of his “Imperial Father” — was a frequent visitor to the flower house. When he was scolded, he came here. When he was punished to stand in meditation, he came here. When there was nothing to eat, he came here too. For him, this flower house was both sanctuary and private kitchen.

An Emperor going hungry? Yes — laughable as it was, it was the truth. His “Imperial Father” often lectured him with the distorted reasoning that “even the Son of Heaven must wear plain clothes and eat simple food, for only one who can feel the suffering of the common people is a wise ruler.” As a result, the punishment he had been subjected to most consistently from childhood onward was being locked in the imperial study to read, hungry, for hours on end. This situation had not much improved even now. The realm looked like his, but he belonged to his Imperial Father — personal property, to be disposed of at will.

“Yunnan and Guizhou are in the grip of drought. I asked only that the Ministry of Finance allocate funds for disaster relief and was reproached for ‘insufficient deliberation.’ I cannot fathom which is more important: expanding the military, or the livelihoods of the common people!” The young Emperor set down his bowl, wiped his mouth, his face a picture of bewilderment and discouragement.

The little eunuch listened quietly, saying nothing.

“Isn’t that right — if your own household can’t even eat, what strength is left to take up arms against foreign enemies?” The girl was young but possessed no small amount of fearless boldness; the things she said were enough to terrify every faint-hearted soul in the palace.

“Shh! Zhen’er — say this sort of thing only here. If others were to hear, you’d be in grave trouble.” The young Emperor hurriedly and gently pressed a hand over her mouth — both exasperated and tender.

“So what if they hear? If you’re in the wrong, you don’t get to stop people from saying so.” The young girl pulled his hand away, lips pursed.

“That fearless nature of yours is going to cause disaster sooner or later.” He pinched her cheek.

The needle moved deftly through the little eunuch’s fingers. The small tear in the robe had already vanished without a trace.

“Your Majesty, it’s mended.” The little eunuch folded the robe and passed it over.

The young girl snatched it first, examined it closely, and exclaimed in delight: “Qianji, you truly do have a pair of hands that can do anything! You can’t even tell where the damage was!”

“So long as neither of you is punished by the Empress Dowager because of it. This robe is precious. Please be careful wearing it in future.” The little eunuch said mildly.

The young Emperor looked at the garment gifted by his “Imperial Father” and smiled ruefully. “Qianji — why is it that no matter how hard I try, she is never satisfied with me?”

The little eunuch rubbed its eyes and said: “Having no demands is perhaps the surest way to avoid being disliked.”

The young Emperor blinked.

“Nonsense!” The girl widened her eyes. “Only a dead person has no demands! How can a person living in this world have no demands at all?”

This girl’s spirit — not one bit changed. A lively little fish that had swum by mistake into a stagnant pool, thinking a few ripples could change the entire world. Wherever in the palace she ended up, she was always and inevitably out of place.

And yet — if not for her, that bear isolated from the wider world would likely have gone on counting its ears in that lightless cage forever.

9

It was a restless stretch of days in the palace. Deputy Minister Li of the Court of Sacrificial Worship and his entire family had been executed, accused of treason and embezzlement of palace funds. Evidence and witnesses were all in order; the one who had reported him was his sworn enemy, Minister Chang. Events of this kind were, in truth, hardly uncommon — everyone had grown accustomed to them. As for the lead palace maid caught in a secret liaison with a guard and executed in secret, or some eunuch boldly stealing from his master or spreading defamatory rumors and having his hands or tongue removed — such “minor matters” were too numerous to count.

But they would all go to their deaths without ever knowing how their secrets came to be exposed.

It was Qianji’s doing.

Half a year earlier, that young girl who had just entered the palace — playing hide-and-seek with her Emperor husband — had wandered by accident into the sealed chamber beneath the flower house and discovered it sleeping inside the gold-metal cage.

By then it was already very weak. In the early years, someone had come by imperial command to deliver dirt and needlework supplies. But at some point, without its knowing precisely when, no one came anymore. So it slept — burying itself deep in the pile of cloth dolls it had made to pass the time. Asleep, it didn’t feel the hunger. It had stopped noticing.

The dream now held no trace of the bird. Only a deepening abyss, drawing closer and closer.

It was the young girl’s exclamation of surprise that woke it.

Remarkably, neither she nor the Emperor fled when it opened its eyes and said instinctively: “I’m a little hungry.”

History truly does repeat itself. Time enjoys this kind of joke.

The two faces outside the cage slowly overlapped, blending into a familiar yet unfamiliar face from long ago. It rubbed its eyes, and it took a long time to come back to itself. It had been nearly two hundred years. The person who had once said they would be friends for a lifetime, who had then said it was only a beast and locked it away forever — that person was long gone from the world.

For several days running, she came in secret to see it. Watching it eat its fill and then lie back down, she asked with puzzled curiosity: “Talking bear — why don’t you ask me to let you go?”

“What grounds would I have to make a request of you?” it replied.

The question stopped her. She thought for a long while and said: “We’re friends!”

“I’m just a bear.” It turned over.

“I’m going to let you out, regardless!” She turned stubborn in the way of a boy.

She was as good as her word. With a short blade her uncle had given her — sharp enough to cut iron like mud — she spent seven days working at it until both her hands were covered in blisters, and finally severed the lock on the cage. The moment the door swung open, she jumped with joy.

What was there to be happy about? It felt not the slightest excitement. Cage or no cage — by now, for Qianji, it had ceased to make much difference.

Returning to the flower house, it sat in a daze for three days, then decided to go on with the same life as before: hiding away in this quiet, forsaken little room, sometimes taking the form of a small cat or dog, sometimes becoming a little eunuch or palace maid. It had no thought of leaving this palace, because it had nowhere it wanted to go.

The only people who came to find it were her and the Emperor. This young couple had not yet fully shed their childlike quality, and they marveled at every little thing it created. They also discovered its ability to transform using cloth dolls.

They came to love this flower house more and more — her especially. Only in front of this bear called Qianji could she set aside caution and submission. Her Emperor husband felt the same: vast as the palace was, only in this flower house was there true separation from the world, true quiet and peace.

On many a moon-bright night, that abandoned flower house behind the Chengqian Palace held scenes that no one else would ever know — the Emperor in plain clothes, lazily propped against the table, tossing peanuts into his mouth while absorbed in The Peony Pavilion; beside him, a beautiful young girl dressed in eunuch’s clothes, pressing close to a small bear with scraps of fabric and needle and thread, begging it to teach her how to make cloth dolls; the bear, tired of being pestered, crawling under the table to be left alone, and the girl wriggling under the table too, grinning cheekily, to pester it further. Sometimes they played games: the young Emperor would hide a chess piece in his palm and let his beloved guess left hand or right — she always lost. But when it was Qianji’s turn to guess, it was always the winner.

Sometimes she would get into the mood and sing while doing her handwork, her voice bright and melodic as an oriole in spring.

Such singing would, at times, remind it of the bird in its dreams.

Affairs of state, the Emperor’s authority — in the warmth of this small room, these things suddenly seemed not worth mentioning.

“It truly isn’t easy to have a real friend in the palace,” she said to herself one day, sitting at the window sewing a cloth doll.

It didn’t respond.

“Qianji, you can’t just keep hiding in the flower house forever — it isn’t right. Since you can take on so many forms, why not become a person? A little eunuch would do. I’ll find a way to register you in the Bureau of Affairs, and from then on you’ll follow me and His Majesty. What do you say?”

“Whatever you like,” it said indifferently. A beast with no purpose, with no attachment to any particular way of living.

Sewing a eunuch doll was easy enough. So it became a little eunuch serving in the Jingren Palace.

Everyone grew busier. The Emperor was busy with his realm, busy managing his difficult Imperial Father. And she — living in the inner court — had far more to keep her occupied. The war between women — Empress, consorts, concubines — was ceaseless and unrelenting.

In its spare time, beyond making its little curiosities, Qianji walked through the palace, observing. No one paid attention to a little eunuch. It moved through the corridors between palaces, watching how the real eunuchs and palace maids bowed and scraped, watching how the high officials and nobles schemed and maneuvered against one another. She was right — friendship was a difficult thing to find in a palace like this, even among those who spoke the word constantly.

From “friends for a lifetime” to “beast” — it had taken no time at all. It often looked at itself in the mirror and said: “Never mind. You can do everything. You have abilities no one else possesses. You don’t need anyone.”

Gradually, it found other things to do.

In the palace, everyone was intensely absorbed in guessing others’ hidden intentions — masters and servants alike. And Qianji, with just a gentle movement of an ear, could hear the innermost thoughts of any one of them — beautiful, ugly, all varieties. So it began to form acquaintances with people, and then quietly passed along what it had “heard” from one person to another. The ease of it was remarkable. And interesting things followed: people who had been friends turned against each other because of it; people who were already enemies found the means to destroy each other because of it.

Deputy Minister Li’s secrets. Cuie’s secrets. The secrets of many people in the Forbidden City — all of them Qianji’s doing.

When the human heart is no longer a secret, this world becomes something else entirely.

This seemed considerably more interesting than sewing cloth dolls and mending shoe soles! It was completely absorbed. It felt its existence growing more meaningful with each passing day — it could do everything, truly. Even if it was only a… beast?!

Because of it, many people came to bad ends. But Qianji didn’t care at all. Dead was dead. Hated was hated. It didn’t need any of them. Its world needed only itself.

What it had taken to recently was listening to that woman who sat at the highest position in the palace. The interior of this woman’s heart was not a deep sea — it was a battlefield of unceasing smoke and blood, step after careful step, at all times.

Occasionally, it would offer her a word of warning: when she came to pay her respects to the Empress Dowager today, there were certain things she should absolutely not bring up. Sometimes it told the Emperor: tomorrow the Empress Dowager intends to “discuss state affairs” with you again. Be prepared.

Sometimes it also found it odd — it could perfectly well have said nothing to these two young people who didn’t know the depths they were swimming in. Their safety had nothing to do with it. And yet when it thought of those two small hands covered in blood blisters, and that girl who had grinned cheekily from under the table, its heart stirred, just a little warmer.

After enough occurrences, the two of them grew curious and asked it how it always had foreknowledge of things.

It said its hearing was simply sharp.

In truth — had it not listened to the hearts of this couple as well?

This girl’s heart was so simple and clean it was almost heartbreaking: all she thought about was what to eat and how to play, her inside and outside perfectly aligned. The Emperor, for all his outward gentleness, harbored a crouching beast within — biding its time.

But only a beast, even so.

10

The summer that year was oppressively hot, earlier than anyone could remember.

The arrogant cannon fire of the foreign powers had the sky above the entire capital threatening to ignite.

The uninitiated girl in the palace had grown into a full-grown consort. Her Emperor husband, following a failed attempt at reform, had been confined to theYing Terrace by the Empress Dowager.

The Empress Dowager grew increasingly displeased with this daughter-in-law. She was firmly convinced that her son’s “disobedience” had been in no small part provoked by this woman.

The consort knew this. Qianji knew this too.

Deep in the night, within the sleeping chambers, a single candle burned low. She stood at the window, a chess piece clasped between her fingers, her heart ill at ease.

This chess piece was from the game they had played in their younger days — polished smooth by years of handling.

She glanced at the clock on the table from time to time, her expression complex.

“My Lady, it grows late,” it said. The word “my Lady” had long since become natural for it.

In the candlelight, her profile was still lovely — but the brightness had gone out of her eyes. The faint furrow between her brows, and a few white hairs at her temples, had quietly taken away the carefree young girl she had once been.

She was only twenty-five. And yet in these past two years she had aged so visibly.

“Qianji…” She turned, with a bitter smile. “Have you been happy, all these years? From the moment I let you out and brought you back into this world.”

“Well enough,” it said slowly. “And you?”

“Do you remember what the Emperor asked you once?” She said suddenly. “Why is it that no matter how hard we try, we cannot seem to make others satisfied with us?”

“Have no demands, and living becomes effortless,” it replied. “You demand ten thousand affections from the Emperor. The Emperor demands freedom from being a puppet. The Empress Dowager demands absolute power…”

“I am neither dead nor a saint,” she laughed. “I cannot be without desire or demand. Qianji — you’re a demon, aren’t you?”

“Possibly.” Qianji nodded.

“There is no cage to hold you now. You can go anywhere you wish.” She sat down, watching the dancing flame. “You’re so capable, and so good — wherever you go, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m… good?” It frowned. “A demon of unknown origin. A beast like a bear.”

“Beast?” Consort Zhen looked at it steadily. “A beast doesn’t teach me to make cloth dolls. A beast doesn’t warn me to be careful of this, to watch out for that. A beast doesn’t care about a friend.”

“You think we are friends?”

“Yes. For a lifetime.”

Such familiar words.

An old wound ached, faintly.

But she was different from that person. What she said now was the same in her mouth as in her heart.

“I have never done anything for you,” it said. “And you don’t truly know me.”

She smiled: “If we truly knew each other — would we even be able to remain friends?”

It had no answer for that.

For Qianji, the word friend had always been too costly.

“Go and rest,” she said, returning to her reverie before the flame.

It walked slowly toward the door. Two steps out, it stopped. “If I were you, I wouldn’t go to meet the Emperor tonight.”

A clatter — a water cup overturned on the floor.

She shot to her feet, face drained of color. “You… how do you know someone is planning to rescue the Emperor tonight?”

“I’ve said before — my hearing is sharp. If I’m willing, I can hear the voice of anyone in the world.” It watched her bloodless face. “In any case — don’t go.”

She stared at it for a long, silent moment. Then shook her head: “I’m going. Those who’ve come to save him are the finest fighters in all the martial world. They will get the Emperor out!”

It was silent for a long stretch. “As you wish.”

It turned toward the door.

“Qianji!” She called out to stop it. “No matter how you came to know — you’ll keep my secret, won’t you?”

It said nothing. And walked out.

In the early hours before dawn, the Emperor and his consort — caught attempting escape — were seized at the palace gate. The fighters who had infiltrated the palace to take the Emperor were cut down by a storm of arrows. She, charged with the crime of conspiring with rebels, was thrown into a well and executed.

The following day, a great procession bore the Empress Dowager and the Emperor hurriedly out of the Forbidden City, amid the increasingly ferocious roar of foreign cannon…

It stood in her chambers — emptied now, stripped of her presence — gazing at the unfinished handicrafts still on the table. Its eyes came to rest on a small, freshly completed pair of padded ear covers.

This object — it knew it far too well. For many years she had been saying she would make it ear covers, because ever since it had become a little eunuch, its ears would get chilblains every winter. But her needlework was poor, and she had no staying power: she would work a little and then run off to play with something else. It had dragged on and on, and she had never managed to finish. It had assumed she was merely saying so in passing — but she had made them. She had simply never had the chance to give them away.

It suddenly felt tired. It took the ear covers, walked with heavy steps, slipped out of the eunuch “skin” as well, and returned to the flower house. In the distant light of flames and the rolling thunder of gunfire, it slept.

In the dream, the bird had returned at last, and its song was as beautiful as ever.

11

“That’s the whole story?” I held one of the bear dolls, watching Qianji, which was coughing repeatedly.

It nodded.

“That last breath of resentment before her death — it was never meant to be yours.” I looked at the woman in the Qing dynasty dress and picked up the small bear holding The Peony Pavilion.

“Why do you think that?” Qianji blinked. “I was deeply absorbed, for a time, in exposing the secrets of others.”

“But you never exposed a friend’s secret.” I smiled.

Qianji shook its head. “I have no friends. Nor do I need any.”

“You say one thing and mean another.” I turned the doll over in my hands. “The one who betrayed her was the Emperor.”

“He had long since stopped thinking about escape. He no longer dared. Time wears away at a person’s ideals and edge — and he was precisely that kind of person.” Qianji looked at the doll in my hands. “How many men came to save him, when they came, the escape route — he had sent word to the Empress Dowager of all of it long in advance.”

“By doing so, he could not only eliminate a group of ‘rebels’ — he could also push all the blame onto his consort. She was already a thorn in the Empress Dowager’s side. And perhaps he thought that if his ‘Imperial Father’ was pleased, she might think he had turned over a new leaf and allow him to return to the throne.” My voice came out cold.

Qianji thought for a long moment. “Perhaps he was unwilling, too. But in a place like the palace — does willingness or unwillingness ever matter?”

The room was utterly silent.

There was no point asking why it had not tried to save her. It couldn’t have. A demon whose only abilities were eating dirt, making handicrafts, and hearing the voices of others was no match for a group of human beings who had already twisted their own natures beyond recognition.

“If she thought it was I who betrayed her — that’s fine.” Qianji murmured. “It’s a slightly better thing to believe than the truth. She trusted him so completely.”

I set down the doll and sighed.

At this moment, Jiayī — who had been drifting in and out of sleep ever since sitting down on the sofa — half-opened his eyes and asked: “The bird on the wall — is it the one from your dreams?”

“Yes.” Qianji looked at the walls. “Have you ever heard of a bird like that — standing on a branch, singing endlessly toward the east? I’ve searched for a long time and found no record of any such bird. Can it truly be nothing more than a dream of mine?”

Jiayī said nothing. He shifted to a different position and went back to sleep.

“Those wounds on your body — how did they happen?” I looked Qianji up and down. It was genuinely a pitiful sight.

Before I’d finished speaking, there was a knock at the door.

In Qianji’s otherwise vacant eyes, a faint flicker of light appeared.

12

This tall, slender, bookish young man clutched his bag tight and looked at me with alarm, then at Jiayī, then at Qianji on Jiayī’s lap. “Where are you taking me? I was told Qixī was waiting at Qingfeng Apartments!”

The current situation: my vehicle was speeding down the highway in the early hours before dawn. In the front cab, Jiayī and I had the man wedged between us, like a prisoner under escort.

Seeing that neither of us answered, he grew more agitated and stumbled over his own words: “I’m just an ordinary middle school teacher! I don’t have much money! There’s no point kidnapping me! I only came today to see Qixī! Where are you taking me?!”

Half an hour later, I exited the highway. Qianji pointed out a direction — a winding lane half-concealed in tree shadow.

The sight of a talking bear giving directions left the young man nearly losing his jaw.

Twenty minutes after that, we stopped in front of a stretch of dense, overgrown wilderness. A simple wooden cabin rested in a field of withered grass. From the half-open window, a young woman with long hair was sitting with her chin in her hands, gazing into the distance.

Before my car had even fully stopped, the man beside me let out a great shout of joy: “Qixī!”

Jiayī had barely opened the car door when this fellow launched himself like a delighted rabbit toward the wooden cabin. The girl saw him, and rather than using the door, leapt straight out of the window.

By the time we walked over, the two of them were already clasped tightly together — as common and sentimental as could be.

“The person you were asked to bring back is there.” Qianji watched the girl. “Ye Qixī — eldest granddaughter of the chairman of the Ye Group.”

My thoughts were still catching up when, without warning, four imposing men in black suits appeared from nowhere behind us, guns in hand, and slammed the young man flat on the ground, pressing the barrel hard against his skull. The remaining guns spread themselves generously in our direction.

“Let go of him!” Ye Qixī screamed and threw herself at the men, kicking and biting. “My grandmother sent you, didn’t she! I’m telling you — I’m not going back! I’m not her porcelain doll! I won’t marry whoever she’s chosen for me! I’m going with Fang Xu!”

“Young Miss, the Chairman has said — you are the sole heir of the Ye Group. We ask that you come with us.” The man said sternly.

“No! I’ll die before I go back!” Ye Qixī’s eyes were red as she shouted. “Let go of him! If you dare touch a single hair on his head, I’ll die in front of you right now!”

“Young Miss, rest assured, we will not kill him.” The man’s tone softened slightly. He hauled the man called Fang Xu upright by the scruff and spoke earnestly: “The Chairman sends you a message: if you agree to relinquish any attachment to the Young Miss and leave Songshan City forever, she will pay you ten million as compensation. A scholar like you — you couldn’t earn that much in a lifetime.”

“Ten million…” Fang Xu stared blankly at the man.

“Fang Xu…” Ye Qixī seemed to sense something bad.

Jiayī and I neither moved nor spoke. Cradled in Jiayī’s arms, Qianji watched Fang Xu with cold, still eyes.

A gust of wind swept in from the distance. Withered grass and fallen leaves rose up and fell against us with a soft pat-pat. Without that sound, this world would have been utterly silent.

After a long pause, Fang Xu adjusted his glasses, raised his head to look at the man, and his voice came out clearer than before: “Ten million isn’t enough. Qixī is beyond price. No sum of money could replace her. I want to take Qixī away. Please let her go.”

“The Chairman says — if you refuse to leave, she’ll have you leave behind your life.” The man’s finger moved to the trigger.

Fang Xu’s body tensed. He closed his eyes, bit down, and said: “I can’t fight you. Kill me then. Even if I can’t take Qixī away in this life — in the next one, I’ll come back for her.”

“Fang Xu!” Ye Qixī clapped a hand over her mouth; tears poured down like a river.

It was at that moment that Qianji said, low and flat: “You won’t need to wait for the next life.”

Several wisps of white vapor spiraled out from the backs of those black-suited men. Four living, breathing full-grown men became four cloth dolls in black suits — guns still in their hands.

Fang Xu and Ye Qixī stood frozen, utterly dumbstruck by what had just unfolded.

Qianji climbed back into the car with effort and dragged out a burlap sack, setting it down in front of the two of them. “Go. Before the real pursuers arrive.”

“You… your voice?” Ye Qixī stared at this talking bear with wide, blank eyes. “You were the one who kidnapped me — and had me wait here for Fang Xu?”

“Stop talking. Go.” Qianji coughed a few more times, out of patience. “Take this sack with you.”

“What are you, exactly?” Fang Xu looked at it in astonishment. “Why are you helping us?”

“If you don’t go now, I’m calling your grandmother.” Qianji turned away. “Don’t be separated again.”

The two exchanged a glance, stood frozen for a few more seconds — even forgetting to say thank you — then scrambled up, grabbed the sack, and ran. After only a few steps, Ye Qixī turned back and without warning wrapped her arms around Qianji, eyes red: “I never believed there were immortals in this world before. Whatever you are — thank you.”

Then the two of them hurried off down the mountain path, disappearing quickly into the brightening dawn.

At the same moment, I suddenly noticed that the “resentful woman” who had been drifting at Qianji’s side all this time was gone — like a fallen leaf carried away by the wind, leaving no trace.

13

The wind was strong that night.

Our vehicle was parked out in the wilderness. Jiayī had built a fire. Beside it, Qianji lay on the jacket I had spread on the ground.

Not long after Ye Qixī and Fang Xu left, the creature had collapsed in a most alarming fashion. From the wounds on its body, silver points of light kept welling up, flickering like fragments of crushed diamond.

“I bought a great deal of cough medicine, but apparently none of it is very effective.” Qianji coughed. “I spent over a hundred years listening to the voices of everyone in the world — including the voices from the realm of the dead — until a few months ago, when I finally found her reincarnation here in Songshan City. It appears that in this life too, she has not had an easy time.”

“So you began making preparations early. Working frantically to earn money was also for her and Fang Xu’s sake. You took her away, used your abilities to test her lover in this lifetime — all to prevent the tragedy of a hundred years ago from happening again?” I frowned. “The voices of the underworld are not things demons can freely listen in on. The wounds on your body — are those the lasting consequences of spending so long eavesdropping on the realm of the dead, trying to find out where she had reincarnated?”

“I didn’t anticipate that listening too long to the voices of the underworld would have such troublesome consequences. In truth, not long after I learned that her current life was Ye Qixī, that kind of ‘hearing’ gradually faded away. Otherwise I could have earned a bit more money.” It said with self-deprecating irony. “And I wouldn’t have needed a cloth doll trick to test Fang Xu’s intentions. It’s laughable, isn’t it — a demon with this many ears, and it’s gone deaf.”

“You might be facing something worse than simply going deaf.” Jiayī looked at its wounds with no attempt to soften the blow. “Every sign indicates that, as a demon, you’re close to disappearing entirely.”

“So be it. Disappearing is fine.” It gazed up at the thin scatter of stars. “My only regret is that I still don’t know what I am. And that bird — why has it been in my dreams all this time? I’ve searched for so long, and found not a single written record of such a bird. Can it truly have been nothing but a dream?”

Jiayī said slowly: “In an ancient text I once read, there was a kind of bird from the oldest of times — very small, gray and white all over, the most unremarkable of its kind, frequently mocked by other birds. But it never took any of that mockery to heart, because it knew it possessed the most beautiful voice beneath Heaven, and it was deeply, wholly proud of that. When the world was visited by a great catastrophe, when the sun was blotted out by black poisonous fog and every creature hid in terror, only this small bird stood fast on the highest branch — the one closest to the sky — and sang without ceasing toward the east. Its matchless voice scattered the poisonous fog and restored sunlight to the land. But by the time the first ray of light fell upon it, its life had been spent utterly by its endless singing. A teardrop fell from the tree, wrapping the bird as it fell from the branch, sealing it forever within a teardrop-shaped piece of amber. This stone — which held within it the proudest heart in the world — was called by later generations the Branch Sparrow.”

“The Branch Sparrow…” Qianji murmured. “The bird in my dreams — is it this bird?” At that moment, I noticed a strange, shimmering light appear on Qianji’s forehead.

It turned its head toward me with effort and said: “I was a very wicked demon, wasn’t I? I did a great many bad things…”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Why not? Many people suffered because of me.” Its eyes had grown unfocused. It struggled to try to sit up.

I let it rest against my arm. “You were never proud of yourself. You didn’t believe anyone could like you. You had no demands of others. You handled everything alone — because you were… acting out of self-doubt.”

“You’re saying I doubted myself?” Qianji looked at me, disbelieving.

“You didn’t stop needing friends. You were just wounded by that word ‘beast’.” I said. “Having no demands of this world, locking yourself away — that isn’t ‘being free of desire.’ It’s the cowering of a creature who doesn’t believe it deserves anything.“

“I…” Qianji smiled bitterly. “I am not a turtle.”

“Stop denying it. Turtle-bear!” I gave it a look. “The previous life of Ye Qixī said it exactly right: only a dead person has no demands. To live in this world is to inevitably ask things of one another, to require things of one another, to fight for things from one another. Even the ugliest child has the right to eat sweets.”

“Even the ugliest child… has the right to eat sweets?” It blinked once more, and slowly let out a long breath. “If I had a little more time, perhaps I would think carefully about what you’ve said.”

“There will be time for you to think about it. For now — sleep a while.” I placed a hand on its head. As an old demon, I understood clearly in my heart: if it slept now, it would not wake again.

“You said your vehicle is a tea shop?” It refused to close its eyes.

“Yes. It sells only one kind of tea — called Fusheng.”

“Could you give me a cup? All these years, no one has ever brewed tea for me. I’ve always poured my own water.” Its voice had gone hoarse and raspy. After several more coughs, it could barely speak.

“Of course.” I called to Jiayī — who was sitting nearby playing with a cloth doll: “Go to the car and bring the tea leaves and a blanket!”

“You’re giving me orders?” Jiayī gave me a sideways look.

“Yes. From this moment on, for as long as you continue to ride in my car for free, you’re working for me. Temporary employee of the Fusheng Tea Shop!” I said with absolute finality. “Move!”

“My wages are charged by the hour,” he said, getting to his feet and walking toward the car.

“Is your tea good?” Qianji swallowed slowly.

“Many people can’t bear it and say it’s too bitter. But some people love it — because by the very end, it turns sweet.”

“What a strange tea…” Qianji’s breathing slowed. Its bear paw suddenly gripped my hand. “One more thing — will you help me?”

“Tell me.”

14

In the end, Qianji never got to taste that cup of Fusheng.

By the time Jiayī returned with the tea leaves, this bear of unknown origins had already faded away in my arms. The only things that remained were a few points of light still flickering in the air.

A golden, translucent piece of amber fell from its forehead and came to rest in my palm. In its very center, a grayish-white shadow in the shape of a bird was suspended inside.

Jiayī stood there holding the tea leaves, watched me in silence, and said: “This one is yours.”

I drew a slow breath. Not a trace of the satisfaction of having gotten what I came for.

“This stone is different from the ones we’ve encountered before.” I held up the amber. Through the night air, threads of light swirled endlessly within it, extraordinarily beautiful.

“This one has no outer layer of blue amber,” said Jiayī, studying the stone. “It seems the way these stones exist isn’t uniform. The previous Silk Fox Eye — the female demon sealed within hadn’t broken through the blue amber seal; she existed in a parasitic state, attached to Chunlu’s body. But the creature sealed in this Branch Sparrow — Qianji — had already broken through the blue amber seal and existed in the world in its true form.”

I also noticed: compared to You Ju and the jealous woman, Qianji could hardly be called thoroughly wicked. In fact, before being captured and brought into the palace, it had been a completely harmless demon. If a certain someone’s word — “beast” — and two hundred years of imprisonment hadn’t wounded it so deeply at its core, it might well have been a completely gentle, well-meaning bear forever. Was it possible that this stone had been quietly “purifying” it from within all along? That the bird it saw in its dreams was the manifestation of the sealing force itself?

If the Silk Fox Eye sealed a jealous female demon, then this Branch Sparrow — representing pride — sealed a bear that had lost all pride in itself?

I had assumed that the things dwelling within these stones were all as formidable and troublesome as You Ju and the jealous woman. It appears that isn’t entirely the case.

I grew more curious than ever about what secrets lay hidden in the remaining eight stones.

Epilogue

I returned to Room 30 at Qingfeng Apartments — Qianji’s dwelling. I took the three bear dolls.

The weather today was neither good nor bad: overcast for most of the afternoon, and now showing the faintest sliver of sun. Jiayī and I — now in our temporary employer-and-employee arrangement — stood in front of the small wooden cabin where Ye Qixī and Fang Xu had been reunited.

I had Jiayī dig a deep pit in front of the cabin, and then the two of us, together, buried a large square wooden box in it.

Inside the box, there should only have been three bear dolls — but now there were four. On the way here, I had stopped at a toy shop and bought a gray little bear that looked rather like Qianji.

Before it faded away, Qianji had told me, with some embarrassment, that for the past hundred-odd years, it had carried these three dolls with it everywhere it wandered. Sometimes it would slip inside them, taking on the appearance of each one in turn, speaking to itself in the mirror — as if the three of them had never truly left its life.

The last thing it said to me was: “I think… I did miss them.”

I still don’t quite know how to explain the strange and complicated feelings inside Qianji. I only know this: a person — or a demon — who is willing only to hide in self-doubt beneath one skin after another; who believes the world can be handled entirely alone; who thinks they are so strong that they don’t need friends; who has never once been proud of themselves, never once fought for anything on their own behalf…has come to this world for nothing.

These less-than-gentle words, I wrote out as an eulogy on a piece of paper and placed it among the four dolls. I closed the box, filled in the earth, and called it done.

Back in the car, Jiayī stared at that small wooden cabin with an expression of unexpected depth.

“Employee — what are you thinking about?” I had assumed he, like me, was left with a stirred and unsettled heart after such an unusual “funeral.”

He looked in the direction Ye Qixī and Fang Xu had gone and said, unhurriedly: “If you went after them now, you could probably still catch up to your ten kilograms of gold bars. You haven’t completed a single transaction to this day. I’m deeply concerned.”

The sting of having an open wound poked without warning was entirely too much!

“The ten kilograms of gold bars — you really don’t want them?”

“One more word out of you and I’m docking a hundred yuan from your pay.”

Carrying a vehicle full of wistfulness, and three stones already in hand but still holding their secrets, I and my newest addition to the Fusheng crew — the most expressionless Daoist who causes me the most internal damage — drove on into the midday light.

I drew a deep breath, floored the accelerator, and swore a private, fierce oath in my heart: next time. Next time I would absolutely make a fortune.

Hmm… haven’t I been swearing this same oath in endless circles for some time now?