The talisman Qin Yao had affixed was gradually taking effect. By the time Chang Rong and Wei Bo arrived at the alley, the small old man’s plain, wrinkled face had already transformed into another, furry one — a broad forehead, sharply prominent cheekbones, the lines of his face narrowing abruptly toward the chin, his mouth jutting forward into a sharp point, on which several long, whisker-like hairs now hung.

Ever since coming to know Qin Yao, Lin Xiao had long grown unfazed by all manner of strange and bizarre happenings. He walked up to study the half-human, half-beast old man closely, and was reminded of certain wild creatures he’d hunted in years past — the resemblance to a river deer was unmistakable.

The little old man strained to move, but the talisman on his forehead seemed like a great boulder pressing down on him, making even standing upright an effort.

Qin Yao picked up the paper packages from his hands and opened them to look — sure enough, they were medicinal herbs, all the sort used for dispersing blood stasis and stopping bleeding, like notoginseng and cattail pollen.

The sense of wrongness in her heart grew stronger. A minor demon who had only just learned to take human form, and it still knew enough to go buy medicine?

“Who are these medicines for?” She gave the little old man’s whiskers a hard tug, showing no mercy at all. The river deer spirit gasped in pain, and the hat on his head slid off, revealing a pair of pointed ears.

The river deer spirit had only cultivated for three hundred years, and it was only through a chance encounter that it had managed to take human form. Though it could understand human speech, it could not speak. At Qin Yao’s question, its yellowish eyes rolled, looking away haughtily, refusing to answer.

“Won’t talk?” Qin Yao slapped another talisman on him, landing it right on his Yuyao acupoint. His whole body went numb and itchy at once, as though countless ants were biting at him, and the river deer spirit nearly reverted to its true form on the spot, gritting its teeth to hold its spirit together.

“If you won’t talk, I’ll chop off your little claws one by one.” Qin Yao threatened him viciously. Strange incidents had been piling up one after another in Chang’an recently — now that she’d finally caught one alive, if she didn’t follow the thread and trace it back, it would surely come back to haunt them.

So Qin Yao had not the slightest intention of letting the river deer spirit off easily.

Lin Xiao, meanwhile, walked past the river deer spirit to the well behind it. It was an old, dried-up well with no water inside; standing at its mouth and looking down, all he saw was an expanse of black, lifeless and bottomless.

He recalled how the river deer spirit had been about to push aside the well cover and climb down — could there be a tunnel hidden beneath this well?

A’Yao was still interrogating the little demon. He frowned, peering down into the well, debating whether to climb down and investigate.

Suddenly, from the well’s previous deathly silence came a rustling sound. It wasn’t loud, but its appearance was so eerie and ill-timed that everyone present froze for a moment.

Qin Yao went on instant alert, abandoning the river deer spirit and pulling the Soul-Devouring Bell from her sleeve as she ran to Lin Xiao’s side, leaning over to look down.

The sound grew louder and louder, as if something were slowly moving deep at the bottom of the well, its body brushing against the walls in a muffled scraping noise.

There really was something down there!

Qin Yao swiftly raised the Soul-Devouring Bell, but hesitated a moment and lowered it again. If she used it to guard the well’s mouth now, it could deal a fatal blow to an ordinary demon — but if whatever lurked in the well was no ordinary thing, releasing it rashly would only alert the enemy. The creature might never come out of the well at all, simply turning and fleeing back through the tunnel.

Better, then, to hold still and try to lure the thing out of the well first.

Though Lin Xiao’s eyes stayed fixed on the well’s mouth, his attention was on the Chixiao Sword at his waist. The sound from below grew ever louder, yet the sword had given no warning at all. Doubts piled up in his mind — could this not be a demon or evil spirit after all?

Chang Rong had also arrived at the well by now, bracing both hands on its rim to listen clearly. Remembering the great demons he’d seen a few times before, uncertain what manner of grotesque thing might emerge from the well, his face couldn’t help paling somewhat.

He looked up anxiously at Lin Xiao and Qin Yao, baffled in his heart as to why the young master and young mistress were simply standing there, taking no action.

Qin Yao listened intently to the sound from the well, and caught a hissing noise, as though something had caught fire. A faint scent, something like sandalwood but not quite, drifted up from the bottom of the well — a smell all too familiar to her. She froze for a moment, then broke into a smile of sudden understanding.

The sound of burning grew louder still. Glancing up to see Chang Rong still standing motionless against the well’s rim, Qin Yao called out quickly, “Guard Chang, get back!”

Chang Rong startled and hurriedly stepped back twice. Just then came a sharp whistling sound, and something shot up out of the well into the sky, bursting into a small burst of fireworks before raining down several pieces of paper covered in drawn talismans.

Seeing that her guess had indeed been right, Qin Yao turned to Lin Xiao with a smile. “It’s Master and the others!”

Whenever she’d gone out demon-hunting with her master in the past and run into situations where the conditions outside a cave were unclear, Master had always used this method to try to drive off any evil things lingering outside.

Lin Xiao turned to instruct Wei Bo, who was still rather confused about what was going on, “Light a torch, light the way for the Daoist Master.”

Qin Yao stopped him. “No need — I’ll just send the Soul-Devouring Bell down to guide them.”

With that, she released the Soul-Devouring Bell, and three fire dragons coiled one after another down into the well. Before long, sure enough, Qing Xuzi’s voice came up from below. “A’Yao, is that you?”

“It’s me, Master.” Qin Yao ran to the well and leaned over to look down. The fire dragons lit up the once-dark bottom of the well brightly, revealing two figures in Daoist robes climbing up along the well’s wall — who else could they be but Master and Senior Brother?

Qing Xuzi and A’Han struggled up to the well’s mouth, seemingly exhausted to the bone, clinging to the rim and gasping for breath without pause. Without waiting for Lin Xiao’s instruction, Chang Rong and Wei Bo hurried forward to help haul Qing Xuzi and A’Han out of the well.

Both the old man and the young one were covered in dust, their hair thick with grime, their Daoist robes torn through in several places — a sorry sight indeed.

A’Han brushed haphazardly at the dust on his clothes, looking up at Lin Xiao and Qin Yao with a face full of astonishment. “Young Master, A’Yao — what are you two doing here?”

Qin Yao, holding a whisk in her hand, was busy pointing out to her master where a leaf was still stuck in his hair, and hadn’t gotten around to answering A’Han. Lin Xiao spoke instead. “Your junior sister just caught a river deer spirit.”

He turned and pointed to the thin, small old man, who had by now reverted halfway to his true form.

A’Han’s eyes widened slightly, but before he could respond, Qing Xuzi, sharp of hearing, had already caught the words, his hands pausing abruptly as he straightened his Daoist robes.

Looking up, he indeed saw a river deer spirit standing not far off, and anger surged up in him at once. “These vile creatures grow bolder by the day! Not only did they snatch away another young lady just the night before last, now they even dare to march brazenly into the city!”

Qin Yao startled. Another young lady taken? Caught up these past two days with her wedding, she hadn’t caught even a whisper of this.

Lin Xiao recalled having vaguely heard Chang Rong and the others discussing it briefly that morning, and he asked Qing Xuzi to confirm. “Would it be the young lady from Imperial Physician Liu’s household?”

Qing Xuzi, still glaring fiercely at the river deer spirit, turned at this and nodded toward Lin Xiao. “Indeed it is. I hear it’s the Fourth Miss, quite a beauty too. Hmph, this devilish thing certainly knows how to pick — every one it’s taken has been good-looking.”

He turned to Qin Yao again. “Ever since you scorched that Ghost Swordsman with the Soul-Devouring Bell last time, Chang’an finally had a stretch of peace. These past while, Yuan Jue has had disciples patrolling the city every night — they couldn’t find where the Ghost Swordsman lay hidden, but nothing untoward happened either. Who would have thought that the day before yesterday, Yuan Jue received an imperial order to leave the city, pulling most of his disciples along with him. With fewer patrols, the Ghost Swordsman came out to make mischief again.

“It was simply bad luck for the Fourth Miss Liu. She hadn’t originally meant to take Green Bamboo Lane home, but after buying something along the road, she turned into the lane — and ran into the Ghost Swordsman. After Miss Liu was taken, your senior brother and I chased him through half of Chang’an, finally catching up with the Ghost Swordsman at an abandoned temple on the outskirts of the city. We nearly managed to rescue Miss Liu, but that Ghost Swordsman seems to have some ability to vanish into earth. We struggled with him for most of the night, but in the end he got away.”

Vanish into earth? Qin Yao recalled her own two previous encounters with the Ghost Swordsman — the creature didn’t burn in fire, and had slipped away from right under her nose several times. She had assumed his Daoist cultivation was simply too deep for him to be tracked, never imagining he actually had the ability to vanish into earth.

Lin Xiao glanced at the dry well behind Qing Xuzi and asked, “Daoist Master, how did you two come to be coming up out of this well just now? Did you find the Ghost Swordsman’s lair down there?” Qin Yao, too, looked up at her master questioningly.

Qing Xuzi waved a weary hand. “The Ghost Swordsman vanished right before our eyes at the time. Your senior brother and I weren’t satisfied — though we returned to the monastery, we kept feeling that abandoned temple was strange. So today we went back there at the crack of dawn and searched around for a long while, finding a long-abandoned dry well in the woods behind the temple, with a faint demonic aura lingering inside. Your senior brother and I climbed down — the tunnel was incredibly narrow, and it took us most of the day to crawl through to this exit. We nearly suffocated to death.”

Qin Yao was startled for a moment, then turned and dragged the river deer spirit before her master. “Master, your judgment must be right — this river deer spirit was just about to climb down into the well too. Perhaps that Ghost Swordsman uses this very well to come and go from Chang’an.”

With that, she also presented the packages of medicine in her hand to her master. “Master, look — these are the medicines this thing just bought.”

Qing Xuzi pinched a few of the herbs and sniffed them, a puzzled look crossing his face. “Notoginseng? Could this be wound medicine?”

Qin Yao nodded. “I thought it was strange too — what would this demon want with wound medicine?”

Wounds suffered by ghostly beings were mostly caused by Buddhist or Daoist ritual implements — like the burns the Ghost Swordsman had taken from the Soul-Devouring Bell that night — and such wounds were certainly not the sort that ordinary human wound medicine could heal.

Master and disciple both turned sharp eyes on the river deer spirit. For this demon to risk being discovered just to come into the city and buy medicine was surely no sudden whim — there had to be some compelling reason behind it.

The river deer spirit’s expression turned grim and sullen, its sharp mouth clamped shut tight, showing not the slightest intention of confessing.

Qing Xuzi was nowhere near as gentle in his methods as Qin Yao. Seeing the river deer spirit refuse to cooperate, he flicked his whisk, ready to make it suffer dearly.

But Lin Xiao suddenly spoke up. “Daoist Master, when Miss Liu was taken that day, was she injured at all?”

At this, Qing Xuzi’s expression sharpened. He yanked his half-swung whisk back, frowning in thought, and said hesitantly, “That night, Miss Liu was held the whole time in that ghost’s arms — even during the fighting she was never set down. I never saw her get hurt—”

A’Han, who had an excellent memory, blurted out in objection at his master’s words. “What do you mean she wasn’t hurt? I remember there was a broken wooden beam lying on the ground in the abandoned temple. At one point Miss Liu was bound around the waist with your hemp rope, and you tried to pull her out of the Ghost Swordsman’s arms, but the ghost wouldn’t let go. The two of you pulled at her for a while, and Miss Liu fell from his arms onto that wooden beam. She passed out from the pain right then, and I remember there was a pool of blood left on the ground too.”

Lin Xiao nodded, brow furrowing. “Miss Liu was taken by the Ghost Swordsman the day before yesterday and unfortunately got injured. Today, this river deer spirit came out to buy wound medicine — could it be that this medicine was bought for Miss Liu?”

Though the theory sounded outlandish at first hearing, it happened to explain perfectly the inconsistencies in the whole affair.

Qin Yao silently praised Lin Xiao’s cleverness, glancing at him with a smile before turning to her master. “Master, what the young master says makes sense. Whether it’s a ghost or a demon that’s injured, neither would think of buying human medicine to heal itself — human medicine can only be used on humans.”

A mix of joy and worry crossed Qing Xuzi’s face. “Does that mean Miss Liu might still be alive even now? How strange — this Ghost Swordsman takes people but neither kills nor eats them. Is he keeping them, then? I wonder if Madam Zhou and Miss Cheng, taken before her, are still safe as well.” He bowed his head in thought for a moment, then looked up at Qin Yao and Lin Xiao. “No, we mustn’t delay any further. Since all these people might still be alive, we need to find this Ghost Swordsman as soon as possible!”