Guiyun Province had been shrouded in water mist for seven or eight consecutive days. The smoky haze made it difficult for one’s spirits to lighten. Ever since Li Si left Hu’an Town, he always felt as though he was still trapped in the dreamlike, illusory realm of Gutan Village. Sometimes his mind went completely blank, while at other times, faces both familiar and strange would surface—faces he watched gradually crack and crumble apart, vanishing cleanly before his very eyes.
Wu Wen observed Li Si’s growing despondency and felt anxious in his heart, yet he couldn’t think of any good way to console him.
On this particular day, they arrived at Jinxi County, located at the border between Guiyun Province and Jin Province. They had just settled into an inn when Li Si discovered that Wu Wen had disappeared without a trace. Around the fourth quarter of the Hour of the Monkey, Li Si was drinking tea in the inn waiting for him when Wu Wen suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a foolish grin on his face. Li Si asked, “Where did you go?”
Wu Wen acted mysteriously. “I went to find an old friend for the Head Constable.”
“Old friend?” Li Si set down his teacup and asked in confusion, “Who?”
“Me…” A clear, crisp voice rang out, as pleasant and moving as an oriole emerging from a valley. A young woman in pale yellow bounded into the inn, leaping right into Li Si’s line of sight. She wore a lotus-hemmed skirt and light makeup. In her bright, glistening eyes floated large teardrops, yet her white teeth showed through a smile.
“Big Brother Li, you’ve been so hard for me to find.” With those words, the young woman brought a gust of fragrant wind as she rushed toward Li Si. By the time Li Si clearly saw the young woman in pale yellow, he was utterly astonished. As she rushed toward him, Li Si spoke, “Zhenzhu, how can it be you!”
“Why couldn’t it be me?” The charming person who had rushed over was none other than Li Si’s close female friend and Xuan Yuanshan’s cousin—the young woman Bai Zhenzhu.
Li Si helped her wipe away her tears and said with a smile, “It is you, it is you. The only girl I know who loves to cry the moment we meet is you—there’s no second one.”
“I’m just happy,” Bai Zhenzhu said, her face like pear blossoms drenched in rain.
“Weren’t you supposed to be with your cousin Xuan Yuanshan? Did he allow you to come find me?” Li Si asked. Bai Zhenzhu pouted and replied, “He’s an old fuddy-duddy even more stubborn than my father. He’s always hung up on the discord between you two and refused to let me leave. But you see, this young lady is no longer the inexperienced girl from under the city walls of yesteryear. I seized the moment when he wasn’t paying attention and slipped sleeping powder into his beloved wine gourd. Only after he fell into a deep sleep did I sneak out.”
“Alas, someone as meticulous as Xuan Yuanshan must be driven mad by you,” Li Si said, unable to suppress his amusement.
“Let him be angry, I’m not afraid! Wherever I want to go, whoever I want to see—he has no say in the matter,” Bai Zhenzhu said with blazing eyes. Li Si thought to himself: This little girl is throwing a tantrum now, but once her temper subsides, I’ll just send a letter for Xuan Yuanshan to come fetch her.
After Bai Zhenzhu had vented enough complaints about Xuan Yuanshan, she turned to reproach Li Si for two months of complete silence—he had promised to write letters but she hadn’t seen even the shadow of half a word. Li Si could only smile bitterly and didn’t argue back.
Wu Wen interjected from the side, “Miss Bai, you’ve forgotten about that carriage outside.”
“Oh no!” Bai Zhenzhu cried out, immediately pulling Li Si toward the entrance of the inn. Outside stood an ornate and expensive-looking carriage. Bai Zhenzhu stepped forward and lifted the curtain, revealing inside a man with round, glaring eyes—and what’s more, a dead man!
The dead man had a deep, bloody hole in his abdomen. Fresh blood flowed abundantly, soaking through his silk robe.
Li Si stared at the corpse for two moments. Bai Zhenzhu spoke up, “I came across this carriage on my way here. It was blocking the official road, neither advancing nor retreating, so I went up to find someone to reason with. Who would have known that the moment I lifted the curtain, I’d discover a dead man? What terrible luck.”
Wu Wen also added, “On the way to Jinxi, I caught sight of a young woman who looked very much like Miss Bai. At the time it was just a fleeting glance, so I didn’t dare confirm it. But the more I thought about it, the more certain I became, so after we stopped to rest in the county seat, I went back out of the city to search. Sure enough, I found Miss Bai pulling the carriage along the official road two li away.”
Li Si looked at the two of them and then sighed. “Wu Wen, go notify the Jinxi County Magistrate.”
“It looks like we’ll have to stay here for a few more days.”
At the very moment Bai Zhenzhu and Li Si were reunited, deep within the secluded mountain valley not far from the eastern part of Jinxi City, in that faintly visible bamboo pavilion courtyard, a person knelt motionless before a grave mound like a stone statue. His hands were bent like eagle talons as he suddenly clawed into the dry, cracked grave soil.
Clumps of earth crumbled into powder and slipped through his fingers, mixed with streaks of shocking red.
He chuckled softly, then laughed loudly, and finally broke into a mad, sinister cackle.
He continuously plunged his hands into the soil, as if trying to dig out the corpse buried within… But in the end, he gave up. He slammed his fist heavily into the ground before the grave and nearly groaned, “It has begun, Foster Father… Just you wait. I will make them pay with blood—every single one of them!”
A shadow seemed to flicker in the grey forest. With the keen alertness of a wolf, he roared, “Who’s there!”
He saw only the pavilion’s shadow among ancient trees, lush and dense, but no further signs of movement in the wind or grass.