Prologue

The cicadas, growing louder by the day, heralded the arrival of summer once more.

I dislike summer. The scorching air makes me lazy — no desire to move, no desire to eat. I am a perfectly qualified summer-hibernating creature. Every time this season rolls around, my companions are a bamboo reclining chair, a cup of tea, and the shade of the trees in the backyard, unceasing. Those who know my temperament never disturb me at such times. But this year’s summer…

“Mama! Papa is waiting for you to eat! Uncle Armor made your favorite spicy and sour vermicelli!”

That sweetness-to-the-point-of-cloying childish voice jolted me from my half-sleep in a cold sweat. Nearly half a month had passed, and I still could not quite get used to that address — Mama!

Beside the reclining chair, a round little head popped up. A boy not yet two years old, wearing the traditional single-ridge hairstyle atop his head, clad in a belly-band, bare-bottomed, his eyes curving into two little crescents the moment he smiled.

“Let’s go, let’s go! Mama, you really are a dawdling little monster!”The little fellow grabbed my hand, his tiny palm soft as cotton candy.

“Who said I was dawdling?”

“Papa said so!”

“Hmm? What’s that tied around your waist?”

“It’s Mama’s gold necklace! The string on my belly-band broke, so Papa used your necklace to tie it back together! He said gold is the sturdiest of all!”

Ao Chi… you actually used my favorite gold chain as a waistband string!

I had barely charged into the house before the little fellow released my hand and flung himself into Ao Chi’s arms, tugging at his ear and announcing, “Papa, Mama is angry!”

“She’s just a monster with a balloon for a body — don’t bother with her.” Ao Chi let out a hearty laugh, scooped the boy up and set him down on a chair nearby, took a damp cloth and wiped his little hands clean, pulled a handkerchief over to pad his chest, then handed a spoon into his grip. “Eat, eat!”

I would wager against anyone: before this summer, no living soul other than myself would have survived tugging on Ao Chi’s ear with their body intact.

The little fellow clamped the spoon between his teeth, scrambled down from the chair like a little monkey, ran to my side, stuck to me like a piece of candy, and whispered, “Mama, Papa bought you a new gift yesterday — a beautiful flower made of gold! He hid it in a black shoe box! He said you’d never find it!”

I couldn’t help but smile. Ao Chi, that scoundrel, never handed a gift directly to the recipient — he always thought himself clever by hiding it away, then smugly declared, with great self-satisfaction, that watching me scurry around like a mouse looking for it gave him an immense sense of achievement. On top of that, his hiding spots were notoriously terrible — either the foot-washing basin or a shoe box, or the pressure cooker or the rice cooker.

“No carrying things in your mouth while walking!” I removed the spoon from his lips and carried him back to his seat.

And then, like any ordinary family of three in the human world, we ate and chatted. Ao Chi and I, just like any pair of parents, discussed our own topics while endlessly piling the child’s favorite foods into his bowl — so naturally that even I felt a flicker of amazement at myself. Of course, the little fellow had not a drop of blood relation to Ao Chi or me.

Half a month ago, frugal as ever, I had dragged Ao Chi out to a farm on the outskirts of the city to buy pesticide-free vegetables wholesale — a combined outing with a countryside excursion. Behind the farm, beneath a small hill blanketed in wildflowers and untouched by human footstep, I was just about to have Ao Chi take some fresh and artsy photos of me when this tiny creature came sprinting over the crest of the slope, hauling a bear on his back.

Ao Chi and I both have keen eyesight, yet we rubbed our eyes in unison without prior agreement — this kid was genuinely carrying a full-grown, genuine black bear! That enormous, black-furred body was pressed upon him, nearly burying him entirely. Through the sweltering air drifted the stench of the bear, and a dense, concentrated demonic energy.

The bear-hauling little fellow was undoubtedly a demon, but this thick demonic energy did not come entirely from him alone — a Mud-Bile Demon, not particularly rare but abnormally obese in size, was giving chase with bared fangs and brandished claws. These creatures dwell in damp, lightless places and feed on rotting flesh and filth; in outward appearance they are indistinguishable from mutant cockroaches. They belong to a rather dim-witted class of demons — though incapable of assuming human form, they can freely control the size of their bodies and roam the human realm at will. Most Mud-Bile Demons live in sewers and garbage dumps, and their life’s purpose is the search for food. Once they have designated something as prey, these single-minded monsters will use every ounce of brute force in pursuit of a meal, and will not stop until they have consumed it.

This child must have inadvertently strayed into territory the Mud-Bile Demon had marked as its hunting ground, I thought, pressing my hand over my nose. The poor kid was clearly already past the limits of his endurance — he had not run many steps past us before he pitched headfirst onto the ground.

Only then did I see clearly: the black bear was covered in wounds, a gaping hole in its abdomen. The little child looked no more than eight or nine years old, dressed in an oversized set of clothes that did not fit him at all — very dirty, the sleeves and trouser legs rolled up high. His face had gone pale, sweat pouring down him. With great effort he pushed himself upright and clenched his fists.

I assumed he was preparing to fight the Mud-Bile Demon with his last reserves of strength — but instead, he darted like lightning to stand before Ao Chi and me, and said, “It might still be saveable! Please, I beg you!”

He spoke quickly. The moment the words were out, he twisted around and bolted in the opposite direction. The Mud-Bile Demon, upon seeing this, let out a monstrous shriek and gave chase.

I had assumed that in this desperate situation, he would plead for us to save him — but clearly, I was wrong. What this fellow was begging us to save was the bear.

He had not gotten far before the Mud-Bile Demon, reeking of foul miasma, caught up to him. Well then — out of sheer revulsion toward creatures of this sort, we intervened.

In the instant the Mud-Bile Demon’s filthy tentacle was about to plunge into his body, a tree branch I conjured from thin air coiled around the small child’s waist and yanked him up. Ao Chi stood at my side; in his dragon form he hovered in the air, nostrils flaring with hot breath, and opened his jaws wide — a torrent of crimson-gold flame edged in sea-blue roared forth, sending the creature below into a shrieking frenzy.

The sea-blue true flame unique to the Dragon Clan of the Eastern Sea — almost no demon or malevolent spirit could withstand it. An absolute finishing blow, swift and decisive. Using it against a demon of this caliber was admittedly overkill, but to prevent the Mud-Bile Demon from summoning reinforcements when attacked, I agreed with Ao Chi’s method of handling it. Besides, I had no intention of engaging in close combat with such a slimy, foul-smelling creature!

The Mud-Bile Demon was incinerated into a heap of black ash. After being rescued, the first thing this little child did was not to thank us — but to go and look at the bear.

Sadly, the bear had already breathed its last. The wounds were too severe.

“It was kept in a cage by humans to harvest its bile. I was passing by and wanted to seal the hole in its belly.” He stared at the bear’s remains, and when he finished speaking, his body went limp and he collapsed in a faint on the ground. We carried him back to Bu Ting.

The next day, we received a shock: the child had shrunk! Yesterday he had appeared to be eight or nine years old, but today he looked no more than four or five. Even more startling — the moment he opened his eyes and saw Ao Chi and me, he opened his mouth and called us Papa and Mama. Everything that had happened before seemed to be entirely beyond his memory.

And so it became as it was now. He truly regarded himself as our child, clinging to us, demanding our company in play all day long, and at bedtime insisting on sleeping between Ao Chi and me, clutching either Ao Chi’s or my earlobe before he would settle into sleep.

I had originally expected Ao Chi to toss any small child who randomly called him Papa straight out the window — but this little fellow seemed to have perceived his weak point with uncanny precision. The very first thing he said to him was: “Papa is so handsome!”

Ao Chi was immediately struck down.

“Good child — honesty is the greatest virtue!” He laughed until his face looked ready to split, and stuffed a great handful of treats into his “son’s” hands.

And it wasn’t just with Ao Chi. This little rascal’s mouth was practically dripping with honey — every member of Bu Ting adored him. But I knew all of them were the same as me: though none of us knew the child’s origins, not one of us detected any malice from him. Bu Ting was full of old demons; we had long since developed the skill of discerning good from evil.

Beyond his sweet tongue, the little fellow was surprisingly capable of repairing things. A chipped teacup, a stool missing a leg, even a cashmere sweater moth-eaten with holes — he’d take them, fiddle around a bit, and the damaged parts would be restored to their original state. Aside from repairs, his favorite pastime was to pull either Ao Chi or me into a game of cat’s cradle with a silken cord he had made himself. Neither Ao Chi nor I could keep up — that little cord flipped through countless configurations between his fingers, each more astonishing than the last.

Whenever he sat with us at the window playing this game, the happiness on his face seemed ready to bloom into a flower. I discovered that this kind of happiness is contagious. Ao Chi — who had always had a rather short supply of patience — was becoming more and more like the most devoted father in the world, playing the childish cat’s cradle game with this “son” of his again and again, without end.

But when our perceptive-yet-careless Young Master Zhao discovered a USB drive in the hidden pocket of the old clothes the child had arrived in, the air inside Bu Ting grew somewhat heavy. Of course, in front of the child, we remained exactly as before. He became the most extraordinary guest Bu Ting had hosted since opening — not only was he exempt from paying for his room, but we provided for him without limit.

After the meal was finished, the little fellow went bounding off to find Chi Pian’er and Bowl-Millennium to play. He was curious about everything in Bu Ting, with the same fresh wonder a newborn has for the world.

“His hair…” Ao Chi’s brow furrowed as he watched the “son’s” cheerful departing figure. In truth, everyone had noticed — the child’s black hair was slowly turning grey, and his frame was growing smaller day by day. But no one brought it up. I was silent for a long while, then shook my head at him.

“Deep in the East Sea’s waters lies a type of spirit pearl — something even more potent than an immortal elixir.” Ao Chi’s eyes lit up. “I’ll go back to the Eastern Sea!”

“That kind of spirit pearl only works on dragons. You are not of the same kind.” I reminded him. Ao Chi sat back down and drove his fist into the window frame.

“What else can we do?” He sighed.

“We are already doing it.” I took hold of his hand.

The last rays of the setting sun sank away, and moonlight gradually filtered through the window. A USB drive rested quietly on the writing desk.

1

“Over here! There are survivors over here!”

“Oh! No — there are two!”

“Everyone be careful — there are fragments that look like glass! Mind you don’t get cut!”

Excited voices rang out across a snowy mountain somewhere within Switzerland’s borders.

The rescue team pulled two people dressed in black mountaineering gear out from beneath the avalanche-driven snow.

“Notify the helicopter!” The stretchers were quickly transferred from the landing helicopter to an ambulance, its alarm wailing all the way to the hospital entrance.

“How strange — that avalanche occurred in a safe zone! Unless someone planted explosives there, you wouldn’t expect an avalanche in a hundred years!”

“They might just have terrible luck.”

“Ah! God bless them — and let there never be another disaster like this! Seven people dead!”

Twenty-four hours later, a middle-aged man of Chinese descent came rushing to the hospital, accompanied by local law enforcement officers.

Inside the office, a doctor spoke to the middle-aged man. “Both patients are now entirely out of danger. The male patient has a fracture in his right palm; the female patient is in better condition — she has only minor frostbite.” The middle-aged man let out a breath of relief.

In a private hospital room, he entered quietly and walked to the bedside.

“Uncle Duan.” The person on the bed slowly opened their eyes.

“You’re awake?” The man rushed forward, took hold of the patient’s hand. “Are the wounds painful?”

“What about the others?”

“Ya Yue and you are both lightly injured.” The man gritted his teeth. “The others… none of them made it.”

From the bed drifted a long, slow sigh, its grief or relief indistinguishable: “We’re still alive…”

The other private room was far livelier.

“Father, he…” The young man in the bed bolted upright. “Is it true?”

“Yes. Elder Brother has passed away.” The middle-aged man’s expression turned sorrowful.

“Uncle Duan, suppress the news of my father’s death.” The young man gave the order without hesitation. “If word gets out now, it will inevitably affect our stock price. Those old foxes watching us with hungry eyes won’t let this opportunity pass.”

“This… all right!”

“Arrange for my discharge immediately. Tonight we return to Vancouver. Get Attorney Ma on the line for me — every asset of Haibo Energy must be transferred in an orderly fashion! Once all of that is settled, hold a press conference. And as for the cooperation plan with Carot Mining — it must be signed before the announcement of my father’s death!” He was utterly calm, his bearing showing not the slightest trace of grief at the loss of a loved one.

“Understood!” The middle-aged man withdrew from the room.

That evening, a luxury car slipped quietly away from the hospital. The middle-aged man sat in the front passenger seat; in the back, a young man and woman each stared out their own window. The interior was dead silent.

2

Yunlai Apartments really was a terrible building. But it was cheap.

The newest tenant of Room 601 was Ban Zhuomei. A week ago, she had arrived with a single suitcase and a lame, thin cat and stepped onto the staircase. No elevator, the stairwell light perpetually broken. The occasional banana peel of mysterious origin would lie on some step until it rotted, ignored by all — unless some unlucky soul stepped on it and went sprawling in all directions, then hurled it out the window in fury.

“Littering fruit peels is wrong.”

On her second day in the building, as Ban Zhuomei passed the landing between the second and third floors, she paused, apparently talking to herself. Having spoken, she picked up a fresh banana peel from the floor, tossed it into a rusted bin, glanced into the corner, and turned to continue upstairs.

In the corner, a short-legged black demon shaped exactly like a giant carrot was stuffing its cheeks with banana, wearing an expression of pure bewilderment.

Aside from being a little run-down and a little dirty, this place was not as dreadful as she had imagined. It faced the mountains, and in the warm season the flowers bloomed. On fair-weather days, the distant Chuyun Mountain was framed in the window like a landscape ink painting, beautiful as art.

When the housing agent had recommended this place to her according to her requirements, he repeatedly asked whether she might consider adding a little more to her budget for somewhere better — he had finer options to offer. A single young woman, he said, living in Yunlai Apartments seemed rather unsuitable.

Why unsuitable? she asked.

The location is too remote! A few more miles down the road and you’re at the foot of Chuyun Mountain!

Wouldn’t living in the county seat be much better? Lively and safe! the agent said.

I think it seems safe enough there as well. She smiled.

The agent hesitated, then lowered his voice: There’s something off about that place!

What do you mean, something off? she asked again.

The agent spoke with great gravity: By rights, Yunlai Apartments should have been demolished long ago. The relevant authorities issued all the permits. But the strange thing is — every time the demolition crew showed up, perfectly fine weather would suddenly turn to thunder and lightning. The moment they withdrew, the weather immediately cleared up again. This happened three or four times in a row, every time the same! People grew fearful. The demolition team was frightened, and the matter was shelved. After that, most of the residents who had been living there moved out. These days, the tenants are mostly people in financial hardship — low-income earners.

Oh! She nodded. But I like it here.

Won’t your family come stay with you? Faced with this young, attractive woman, clean and bright as a white rose, the agent couldn’t help but offer an extra word of concern.

Ban Zhuomei didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted across a local newspaper lying on the desk, and she smiled. I’ll take Yunlai Apartments.

The front page of the newspaper bore a massive headline: CHUYUN COUNTY VILLAGERS VS. HAIBO ENERGY! Chuyun Mountain Mining Dispute Escalates Further!

Beside it was a large photograph: a crowd of villagers gathered together, holding banners reading “OPPOSE THE EXCAVATION! PROTECT OUR HOMELAND!” with righteous fury.

This had been the biggest news in Chuyun County for days. The powerful, globally renowned Haibo Energy Group had announced that after investing enormous time, manpower, and capital, they had confirmed that Chuyun Mountain held rich mineral deposits — gold being the most abundant — and that in order to “rapidly develop the local economy,” Haibo Energy had decided to inject capital into a local mining company for the “joint development” of Chuyun Mountain’s mineral resources.

However, this move had met with fierce opposition from the local villagers, who had blocked the roads, sealed off the mountain, and refused absolutely to allow the excavation team to enter Chuyun Mountain, causing a great public furor.

As for Haibo Energy, its founder Chu Tianfeng was essentially a figure who lived inside a legend. An extremely low-profile individual, he rarely appeared in public settings. It was said he was a true Chinese man who, years ago, crossed the ocean to Canada, and built his fortune from nothing — in a remarkably short time accumulating vast wealth and establishing the formidable Haibo Energy. Unfortunately, this business legend had perished in an avalanche during a Swiss holiday two years prior. Thereafter, Haibo Energy had been inherited by his elder son, Chu Yayue. But public commentary held that young Chu Yayue, compared with his father, lacked experience. Since taking the helm, Haibo Energy’s trajectory had been consistently declining, and in recent years there were even rumors of a debt crisis.

“You’re really going to live there?” The agent’s voice drew her back from her reverie. She nodded.

“All right then!” The agent shook her hand. “Good luck to you!”

“Thank you!” She shifted her gaze from the newspaper and smiled at the agent.

Before she departed from home in Vancouver, someone had given her careful, detailed instructions.

“Once you get there, find the room closest to Chuyun Mountain and settle in. Wait for my word.”

“How long?”

“December 31st at the latest. Everything will be resolved before that day.”

“All right — I’ll wait for you.”

“Zhuomei, the thing I’ve entrusted to you — protect it well.”

“I will. You too, be careful. Now there are only the two of us left.”

“Don’t worry. Those old men think we’re nearly finished. I’ll show them soon enough that we’re only just beginning.”

“Mm! But I’m still a little worried.”

“Don’t be afraid — just think of it as a holiday.”

Ban Zhuomei walked out of the house and never looked back, not even once, the whole way.

3

On the day she moved into Room 601, the first thing Ban Zhuomei did was to take a small wooden box from the hidden compartment of her suitcase and place it in the most concealed corner of the room. Inside the box was an exquisite porcelain jar no bigger than a thumb.

Every morning at seven o’clock she rose on schedule, and the first thing she did was to pull back the curtains. Even on overcast days, she would let the imagined sunlight fill this room of fewer than fifty square meters. Every evening, the last thing she did was to mark a cross on the wall calendar. Every week, she had to boil a large pot of hot water to bathe the lame cat.

This cat was not her pet — she had encountered it in an alley on her second day in Chuyun County. At the time, a well-dressed young man had tied it to a utility pole and was beating it savagely with a stick.

She stepped forward to stop him. The man saw she was only a young woman and not only refused to stop but threatened to beat her along with the cat if she didn’t get lost. The cat’s cries were piercing.

“People with no backbone pick on creatures who can’t speak for themselves.” She glided toward the man like a ghost, her small penknife pointed at his nose. “I’m not afraid to die, and I’m not afraid to kill.”

She was far smaller than the man, and this little penknife — usually used only for peeling apples — was not even particularly sharp. After two seconds of a standoff, the man dropped the stick and ran.

Ban Zhuomei was not some martial arts heroine who fought injustice with hidden powers. She couldn’t fight — running eight hundred meters would wind her until she was spitting foam. If it had come to an actual fight, that man would undoubtedly have beaten her half to death. On this brief battlefield between her and the man, the only weapon that drove him away was honesty. Every word she spoke was sincere. She truly was not afraid to die.

She put away the penknife, untied the rope, and took away this cat with its permanently broken leg. A person and a cat became companions.

The cat had no name, so she simply called it Cat. Despite having a permanently crippled leg, it did not lack for appetite or a good nature.

It was also because of the cat that Ban Zhuomei came to know her neighbor in Room 602: A’Zhu.

That evening she had returned from a walk to find the cat nowhere in the room; she was just about to go out and look when someone knocked at the door.

The cat lay contentedly in the arms of this young man who wore a clean plaid shirt but had tied on a dark blue coarse-cloth apron. As far as Ban Zhuomei knew, the cat was hostile toward the outside world — likely due to its miserable past — and would only obey her, only accept her petting and her embrace. If anyone else attempted to come near it, its claws showed no mercy.

“This is a lonely little cat.” He smiled as he spoke to her, his manner natural, without the slightest trace of the awkwardness of strangers, his finger playfully tickling the cat’s ear. “It came to my place for a visit.” Only then did Ban Zhuomei recall that she had left the window open when she went out; the cat must have slipped along the window ledge to the next-door apartment.

“Thank you.” She took the cat back, then suddenly asked, “Did it mooch a meal off you? If it did, I don’t need to feed it tonight.”

“You really have no shame, neighbor.” He arched an eyebrow, and declared in a solemn tone, “It ate an entire braised fish of mine.”

The cat meowed in Ban Zhuomei’s arms, playfully waving its paw, batting at the amethyst pendant hanging from her neck.

“A braised fish! You really are a wonderful neighbor!” She gave him a thumbs-up. “Good night!” In the instant she was closing the door, she poked her head back out and told him, “If the cat comes to your place again next time, you can feed it steamed fish. Best to give it an apple afterward too.”

He turned around and pulled a face at her: “How about next time I come to your place instead, and you can give me fish and apples too! And neighbor, do you have any idea how much prices have gone up? Apples are eight yuan a pound now!”

Ban Zhuomei shrugged and pulled her head back in, shutting the door. This was how she and A’Zhu first came to know each other — as naturally as if they had been longtime neighbors for decades.

This man was a curious fellow. She had questioned whether his name was a pseudonym or a nickname — or whether he was just an devoted fan of The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils — because how else could a grown man have such a feminine name. He laughed until his mouth couldn’t close, saying she could think whatever she liked; everyone had already gotten used to calling him Master A’Zhu anyway.

Outside the door of Room 602 hung an inconspicuous little sign, on which was scrawled in a hasty hand: REPAIRS! (Household Appliances, Daily Goods, Clothing and Footwear, Computers and Laptops, and More!)

That day, upon seeing this sign, Ban Zhuomei finally understood that her neighbor was a repairman — and a cross-industry talent at that. Any damaged or broken object fell within his professional scope, from mending clothes to fixing refrigerators, nothing beyond his ability.

Their interaction was limited to chance encounters in the hallway, or idle chats through the windows — on fair days, the cat would perch on her or his windowsill and meow a few times. Whenever they heard the cat, they would drift, as if by unspoken agreement, to the edge of their respective beds.

“What lovely weather!” He was always the one to speak first.

“Mm. Have you eaten?”

“Please — I just came out of the bathroom!”

“How would I know!”

She liked this conversational setting — sunlit, hearing each other’s voices without having to see each other’s faces, not a drop of pressure. Most of their exchanges had no particular substance, but sometimes there were conversations like these:

“You’re a young woman from out of town — what brings you to a small place like this?”

“I came to wait for someone.”

“A boyfriend? Heh heh.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. What about you — it seems like you’re not from here either.”

“I travel everywhere, working as I go. I came here, thought it was nice, and stayed.”

“Where’s your hometown?”

“Wherever I’m living is my hometown! Ha ha.”

A’Zhu’s tone never held the faintest trace of sadness — he always seemed perfectly content.

Once, she asked him, “Looking at your appearance and manners, you seem perfectly capable of better things. Are you really going to be a repairman your whole life?”

“Broken things always need someone to fix them! There are masters in every trade.”

“Is there anything you can’t repair?”

“Nothing so far. But there is one thing that’s especially difficult to fix — the day I decide to repair that particular thing is the day I’ll be ready to retire. Ha ha.”

“What thing is so difficult?”

“I’m not telling you.”

The longer she lived in Yunlai Apartments, the more peculiar people and strange events she encountered. The bewildered little demon in the corner, who loved fruit, would pile a stack of fresh fruit outside her door and then, upon seeing her emerge, immediately flush red and whoosh away.

As Ban Zhuomei graciously accepted the free fruit, she would examine herself in the mirror from every angle, unable to see in herself any resemblance to a carrot, and wonder how she had come to be the object of a secret crush. However, ever since she had moved in, the corridor was immaculate each day — not only were there no fruit peels, not even a scrap of paper remained, and even the light bulbs had been repaired. The residents were all baffled, wondering where this volunteer good Samaritan had come from.

Only Ban Zhuomei had seen the bewildered little demon cleaning the hallway every single day — still turning red at the sight of her, then retreating into a corner to hide.

The strange events did not stop there. A’Zhu’s business appeared on the surface to be not particularly brisk — not many people came during the day to have things repaired. But at night, the visitors were not few. There were frequently unbroken streams of knocking that kept her from sleeping.

One night, unable to bear the noise any longer, she was about to go complain to A’Zhu — but the moment she opened the door, she was startled. A half-human, half-fish female demon floated happily past the hallway, cradling a porcelain jar, followed by a procession of various small demons of every shape and variety, each carrying all manner of objects, every face beaming as they departed. The hallway was filled with strange, iridescent lights — drifting and floating, like the rivers of a dream.

A’Zhu leaned against the doorframe, wiping his hands on his apron, and looked at her with a smile as she stood there dumbstruck. “You have a pair of eyes unlike anyone else’s.”

The other residents here could not see the demons, nor hear any sound the demons made. Ban Zhuomei could — as A’Zhu had said, she was born with a pair of “extraordinary” eyes. She had assumed A’Zhu would be astonished, and then explain himself to her — but instead, he wished her good night and shut his door.

She returned to her room. The cat had come back at some point without her noticing; it was growing increasingly fond of visiting next door and would often stay at A’Zhu’s place for quite a long time.

“Coming home later and later. Have you found a boyfriend?” She sat down with the cat in her arms, stroking its ears. “If you have, you can leave me whenever you’re ready. I’ll always keep the window open — as long as I’m alive, there will always be food for you in the kitchen.”

The cat leapt from her arms and sauntered off to eat its cat food with great self-possession.

“Truly not a sentimental cat.” Ban Zhuomei shook her head. Whether or not the cat had found a boyfriend, she didn’t know — but the cat’s crippled leg had evidently undergone a change. It grew healthier day by day. Now it moved with far more agility than before; if one didn’t look carefully, you would almost never guess its leg had once been so grievously injured. Strange indeed — the veterinarian had said the cat’s leg was beyond healing.

Perhaps the cat had done something good, and the heavens rewarded it with a new leg. Well, whatever the reason, it was ultimately a good thing. Even if she were gone one day, at least it wouldn’t face discrimination because of its injured leg.

At that moment, someone knocked at the door. She opened it to find a lean stranger standing in the doorway, respectfully addressing her: “Miss, as the Young Master instructed, we have gathered the items.”

She showed no expression. “Come in.”

The man reached into the briefcase he was carrying and produced a row of slender sealed test tubes — eight in total, each containing a single strand of hair.

“Taken from the most outspoken of the protesting villagers,” the man said, handing the tubes to her. “Forgive me for overstepping — what does the Young Master want these people’s hair for?”

“Thank you. Good night.” She paid no attention to the question whatsoever and stepped forward to open the door. The man dared not ask further and made a quick exit.

Ban Zhuomei returned to the inner room, held the test tubes up to the light, and looked at the strands of hair inside. She smiled.

Time in a small town always passed leisurely and slowly. Apart from the bewildered demon still delivering fruit on schedule, no one disturbed Ban Zhuomei’s days. She spent most of her time at home, and would occasionally take a walk to the foot of Chuyun Mountain, standing in a daze before the flowers and trees that grew there. She would also run into the villagers who lived nearby — all very amiable, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the fierce, embattled figures they cut in the newspapers.

There was one week left before the last day of the year. December 31st was marked on her calendar with a circle and a pair of wings.

The clock hands pointed to midnight. She yawned, just about to go to sleep, when someone knocked at the door. She opened it, and the still surface of her eyes rippled with a wave of something.

“It’s you…”

“It’s been a long time, Zhuomei.”

The figure at the door stood against the light, like an unreal shadow.

4

West Vancouver. A villa. Night.

“The result?” Chu Yayue flipped through a document, not looking up as he addressed the middle-aged man standing before him.

“No progress. No matter how favorable the terms we offered, the villagers still gave the same answer: ‘Guarding the mountain is like guarding our lives.’ They say that even if they die in poverty, they will not permit any encroachment upon Chuyun Mountain — or the mountain deity will bring judgment upon them, burying the entire Chuyun County in mud and sand.” The middle-aged man continued, “Ya Yue, abandon this project.”

Chu Yayue raised his head. “Uncle Duan, you were the brother my father trusted most. You and I both know how dangerous Haibo Energy’s situation is right now — besieged on all sides. I’ve staked everything I have on this mine. As long as we deal with these obstinate locals, we can rise from the dead.” He closed the file, and a strange smile crossed his face. “You cannot imagine what an extraordinary surprise lies beneath that mountain.”

Uncle Duan frowned. “The villagers say — if anyone wants to mine Chuyun Mountain, they’ll have to walk over their corpses to do it!”

“Then we’ll walk over their corpses.” Chu Yayue’s eyes turned cold.

Uncle Duan’s heart clenched. “Ya Yue, what are you thinking of doing?”

“Uncle Duan, you haven’t forgotten how our Chu family dug up its first pot of gold, have you?” Chu Yayue countered. “The one way I most resemble my father is that I have no room in me for the soft-heartedness of a woman.”

Uncle Duan’s face cycled through shades of red and white. “But even if we successfully mine Chuyun Mountain’s gold deposits, it may not be enough to repay our current debts!”

Chu Yayue stared out at the dense darkness beyond the window. “Uncle Duan, do you think my goal is merely the gold mine of Chuyun Mountain?” Uncle Duan was taken aback.

“The surprises beneath Chuyun Mountain are not limited to gold. I’ve already had people investigate.” Chu Yayue turned around. “What I truly cannot afford to lose is 4E as a major client. I intend not only to mine the gold, but to resume trading with 4E — working on both fronts at once. Haibo Energy will recover its peak in no time.”

Uncle Duan was greatly shaken. “You’re still in contact with 4E? Wasn’t the lesson of the Swiss mountain avalanche two years ago severe enough?”

“That was only an accident.” Chu Yayue waved it off. “Throwing away the spoon because you choked on a bite is not my style. Because Father died so suddenly, our dealings with 4E were interrupted for two years — time enough for everyone to have rested. I will not let Haibo Energy go bankrupt on my watch. All right, you may leave.”

He would not leave. She stepped forward and seized Chu Yayue’s arm. “If you still regard me as an elder, listen to me — do not go near 4E again! I’ll make further efforts to negotiate the Chuyun Mountain gold mine, but I implore you not to do anything else. Haibo’s situation is bad right now, but as long as we manage it honestly, even if we never recapture our former glory, we can still sustain ourselves!”

Chu Yayue let out a cold laugh and shook his arm free. “Uncle Duan, you were my father’s good brother — but you are not mine. Do not come interfering in my affairs, or neither of us will come out of it looking well.”

Standing outside those tightly shut carved doors, Uncle Duan remained in a stupor for quite some time. 4E. Never had he despised those two characters as much as he did today.

Then we’ll walk over their corpses — Chu Yayue’s words cut through his mind like a bolt of lightning. He hurried downward at once, passing through a hidden passage behind the back garden, all the way to the villa’s basement.

At the far end of the dark, cavernous basement was a heavy alloy door concealed behind an elaborately carved relief wall — solid as a fortress. Carved across its surface were strange, lace-like characters, faintly glowing with a green-blue light. If the lights were turned off, the same patterns would materialize across every wall and the floor of the entire corridor — light and shadow layered upon each other, real and illusory at once.

This was the Chu family’s prison.

Uncle Duan engaged the switch beside the door; the great door opened, and a row of enormous white crystal cabinets rose up from the ground — too many to count at a glance. Each measured about one cubic meter, stacked one upon another in tidy columns, every cabinet affixed with paper charms in different colors.

Many of the cabinets were empty. Only two or three appeared to contain something — masses of vapor with no fixed shape, glowing in different colors, drifting through the cabinets at varying speeds, some swift, some slow. Standing before this assemblage of towering objects, one might have the disorienting sensation that the world was being fractured into scattered shards.

Gazing upon these cabinets, his expression became suddenly very complex.

5

That year, he and Chu Tianfeng were both barely past twenty.

That day was the closest either of them had ever come to death.

The Chinese restaurant in Whitehorse was long left behind. At their age, with no money but an abundance of ideals and passion, recklessness and desire, they would sooner shoulder their packs and trek through the wolf-prowled, frost-bitten Yukon than waste away their lives among dish soap and greasy plates. They had left behind their impoverished hometown, crossed the ocean — all for the dream a man is made of.

“One day, we’ll be greater than all of them.” Whenever well-dressed, free-spending successful men appeared in the restaurant, Chu Tianfeng would always say this to him, then lower his head and go back to washing dishes.

He believed Chu Tianfeng. The mutual admiration of two dishwashers was, at that time, something to be laughed at.

When Chu Tianfeng told him he was going to the Saint Elias Mountains in search of the legendary ironstone deposits, he agreed to accompany him without a moment’s hesitation, not for a single second thinking it the act of a madman — as others in their right minds surely would have.

Wind and snow all the way. Cold and hunger. The threat of wolf packs. With no experience between them, they exhausted their strength, yet the Saint Elias Mountains remained stubbornly out of reach.

Food was gone. Worse still, they were lost. Chu Tianfeng said he needed to rest for a moment — and then could not be roused at all. In a panic, he hoisted Chu Tianfeng onto his back, burst out of the tent, and went charging through the snow shouting for help; not knowing where he was going, his foot caught nothing but air, and he tumbled down a steep slope.

Time froze in that instant. He thought that when he next opened his eyes, the sight greeting him would certainly be Death with its scythe.

But he guessed wrong. When he came to, what he saw was not Death — but a cluster of small figures, each no taller than five inches, their bodies gleaming with a smooth, beautiful light like scattered stars. They had round, oversized heads, large eyes and mouths, fully formed hands and feet, long trailing tails, and butterfly-like wings. They were chirping and chattering nonstop around him and Chu Tianfeng.

A hallucination, surely! He rubbed his eyes vigorously. He discovered that they were inside a wide, barrel-shaped rock cave — and because of these luminous little figures, the space was as bright as midday and as warm as spring. Chu Tianfeng had also awakened, too stunned to speak.

The little figures reached from deeper in the cave to present them with strange, semi-translucent mushroom-like plants, placing them in their hands and saying, “Eat, eat!”

The two looked at each other. These little figures clearly had no mouths moving, yet their speech could be heard. After some time — once they had satisfied themselves that the little figures meant no harm — they finally took a cautious bite of the mushrooms, and immediately found that this was the most delicious food they had ever tasted; what was more, a single mushroom was enough to drive away every trace of hunger and thirst.

Gradually their tension eased, and they attempted to communicate with the little creatures. One of them, a bearded little figure who seemed to be their leader, told them: this was an underground cave in the Saint Elias Mountains, and also their nest. They were sprites born of mineral rock, living off the energy absorbed from natural ore — returning to their original forms to sleep through the day, emerging to move about at night. The cave’s location was highly concealed. The two of them had tumbled in from above by pure accident and been discovered; so the sprites had dragged them inside. In truth, the sprites couldn’t speak — they were simply using their magic to communicate directly into the men’s minds. Quite remarkable.

The leader expressed warm enthusiasm toward them — and in fact, all the ore sprites were warm and welcoming. They said the household had not received human visitors in many years; the last time they had seen humans was decades ago, when a married couple had come by. At first the sprites had been frightened, thinking humans would harm them — but the couple had stayed only a day in the cave, winding a strange, transparent silken thread around the ceiling of the cave, and as they left, had told them: this cave is damaged; if it isn’t repaired it will collapse. Now it’s safe — you needn’t worry about being crushed anymore. And then the couple left, and never came back. So it turns out humans are not frightening creatures after all! The sprites’ view of things changed at once.

The next day, he watched as the light at the far end of the cave gradually grew brighter — day must have broken. The cave grew quiet by degrees. The light that had been constant slowly dimmed. It felt entirely like a dream.

The cave fell completely dark. To reach the entrance was still a long way. Chu Tianfeng felt for his lighter.

In the faint flicker of the flame, the cave lit up in scattered flashes of strange light, shifting with the movement of the fire. Both men gaped — every surface of those cave walls was studded with brilliant, crystalline diamonds!

So this was the true form of those little sprites! There had long been a legend: in caves formed by the concentrated spirits of the earth and mountains, sprites that lived off spiritual energy would come to exist, and whatever such caves produced — be it gold or gemstone — was of the finest quality, a rare and precious thing.

Chu Tianfeng stared for a long moment, then, trembling hands outstretched, pried a diamond from the rock wall — and then, half-sobbing, half-laughing, said: “We’re rich!” He reached quickly into his pack for his tools.

“Wait!” He grabbed Chu Tianfeng. “This doesn’t seem right. They… are not ordinary diamonds. They saved our lives!”

Chu Tianfeng looked at him the way one looks at a madman. After a long silence he said: “You want those diamonds too — don’t you? Or do you want to go back to that godforsaken place and wash dishes for twelve hours a day?”

He hesitated.

“Help me!” Chu Tianfeng tossed him a small bag. “Fill it up first, get it to the outside, find our tent, then bring back bigger bags for the rest!”

He slowly placed the glittering objects into the small bag and followed Chu Tianfeng toward the cave entrance. The entrance grew nearer and nearer; the snow had stopped, and brilliant sunlight poured in at an angle.

Then suddenly he felt something moving inside the bag — as if something had been stirred from sleep. In fright, he flung the bag away and sat down hard on the ground.

“No! Don’t take us outside! Sunlight will be the death of us!” From inside the bag came what sounded like the voice of the bearded leader. “Don’t hurt us! We never harmed you!”

He stared at the wriggling bag, not knowing what to do.

“What are you staring at?” Chu Tianfeng snatched up the bag. “Come on!”

“They said they’ll die.” He scrambled to his feet and grabbed hold of Chu Tianfeng. “Forget it. If not for them, we might have already frozen or starved to death!” Chu Tianfeng said nothing. He looked at the elongated cave, then looked at the two bags he held, and was silent for a moment — then suddenly and violently shook off his hand, and strode with great steps out through the cave entrance.

Sunlight. Such piercing sunlight. Where it fell upon the snow, it was nearly blinding. He heard a terrible shriek, and staggered out after them — only to see Chu Tianfeng standing stock still in the snow, the two bags in his hands seeping drops of deep crimson. Each drop that fell on the snow sent up a small wisp of smoke — and then left no trace.

He surged forward, wrestled away the bags, and tipped their contents out onto the ground. He found that the diamonds inside had turned from transparent to a faint shade of red; through the surface, one could dimly see those small figures inside, writhing in agony. He was at a loss, and could only stare.

“We swear by heaven and earth, by mountain and river, by darkness and light — we curse you with our lives, now forfeit to ruin. Let the heart of the demon begin to beat. Let the eyes of the demon be forever watching — until they lead you into the deepest depths of hell!”

The bearded leader’s voice flew from the snow to the sky, like a blade driving clean through their hearts.

He pressed his hand to his chest. It felt as though something truly hurt there.

At that moment, behind them came a thunderous crash — the cave, solid moments ago, collapsed without warning, swallowed into the earth.

And the diamonds before them, now discolored, emitted a crackling sound, shattering like a broken mirror, into pieces in every direction.

“Go!” He snapped back to himself and hauled Chu Tianfeng with all his strength.

Chu Tianfeng shook him off, crouched down, took up the bag, and began carefully gathering the larger diamond fragments, speaking as he picked: “Even with these pieces, we can exchange them for a fortune.”

He could not recall clearly what happened next — whether he had helped collect the diamonds, how they had left that place — it was all gone. The only image that remained vivid in his mind was the back of Chu Tianfeng, clutching his bag of diamonds in a transport of excitement.

And then, thirty years had passed.

He had not misjudged him. Chu Tianfeng was no ordinary man. The enormous sum obtained from the diamonds did not make him content to stop there — he wanted far more. He watched Chu Tianfeng build his empire from this one windfall, using his innate business acumen, exceptional intelligence, and ruthless resolve, step by step expanding his kingdom.

Chu Tianfeng treated him well, regarding him as a true brother — fine clothes, fine food, limitless material satisfaction. And yet, not a single day had he slept easily. When all was said and done, what he missed most was the days working in Whitehorse — two dishwashers, overjoyed at the tiniest bit of overtime pay, drunk on cheap wine and sleeping soundly until dawn.

He drew a deep breath; the distant memories faded slowly.

His gaze swept like a scan across each cabinet in turn, his weathered face reflected in the enormous white crystals, sliding eerily as he moved.

“A11, A12, A13…” He murmured — and then his gaze halted abruptly upon one particular cabinet. His face went white as a sheet.

The Yan Niu… the Yan Niu imprisoned in A13 was gone!

This demon, once confined within a jar, needed only a human’s hair to be placed inside — then, within twelve hours of setting the jar on the ground near that person’s dwelling, it would burst free and devour its target completely, leaving not a trace. This creature had long been a favorite tool of unscrupulous sorcerers: kill and silence, leave no evidence. The Chu family’s Yan Niu had not been captured — it was something Chu Tianfeng, not long before his death, had purchased at great price from a blind Taoist priest. He had said it was best to keep it available for any contingency. And now Chu Yayue had indeed taken that step!

Let the heart of the demon begin to beat. Let the eyes of the demon be forever watching — until they lead you into the deepest depths of hell.

Thirty years. Only these words seemed to have rung in his ears without pause.

He forced himself to stay calm. His thoughts raced, and he murmured, “Zhuomei…”

6

“Uncle Duan, I never thought you’d come to find me.” Ban Zhuomei poured him a cup of tea.

“Aside from you, he wouldn’t trust the Yan Niu to anyone else.” He did not move, did not touch the tea. “Hand the demon over to me.”

“No. I made a promise to wait until the last day of this year.” She shook her head. “Before then, I won’t hand the Yan Niu to anyone.”

“Do you know what Chu Yayue intends to do with it?” His agitation mounted.

“Kill someone.” She said it calmly. “But the last day hasn’t come yet — perhaps there’s still a chance things will change. Or perhaps my brother will give it up in the end.”

“Give it up?” He smiled bitterly. “The conversation I had with him before coming here will leave you in despair.”

“Oh.” She nodded.

“Give me the thing. And after this, don’t go back home. Uncle Duan doesn’t have much in the way of abilities, but I have some savings — enough to provide for you going forward.”

“Thank you, Uncle Duan.” Ban Zhuomei looked at him with gratitude — but still shook her head. “Even so, I can’t.”

“You—!” In his fury, he actually drew a gun and pointed it at her delicate face. “Don’t push me!”

Ban Zhuomei looked at the dark muzzle aimed at her. “Uncle Duan, when I was little you always brought me gifts. Today you want to give me a bullet?”

“Zhuomei, hand it over!” He pressed the gun closer. “Back then I was too cowardly — I didn’t dare stop your father. Today, there is nothing in this world that will make me watch you walk yourself into hell!”

Let the heart of the demon begin to beat. Let the eyes of the demon be forever watching — lead you into the deepest depths of hell. She murmured, then said, “Uncle Duan, even now I still remember those luminous little figures from the dream — round heads, butterfly wings.”

Beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. “Zhuomei, you can’t become as mad as your brother!”

“We’re twins.” Ban Zhuomei’s clear eyes looked straight at him. “Children born under a curse.”

“Zhuomei, there’s still time to turn back now!” He was nearly shouting. “Your father paid the most severe price for his mistakes! I don’t want to watch you and your brother follow in his footsteps!”

“Uncle Duan.” Her voice was unnaturally calm. “Family matters — let us decide them ourselves.”

“No!” He bellowed. The gun barrel pressed against her forehead.

She smiled, moved the barrel aside with her fingers, and rose to walk to the window. “Uncle Duan, I’m just like you — someone who frightens easily. There are many things we think of as giving way for a wider sky — but give way too many times and there’s nothing left to give. If back then you had not been so blindly obedient to my father, so afraid of losing the comfortable life you were hoping for, he would never have had the chance to take those diamonds away.”

He still held the gun raised, standing mechanical and dull, his bloodshot eyes intensely red.

“Zhuomei, what exactly do you want?” He softened his voice.

“Nothing — just go, Uncle Duan. Go live your own life. Treat us as if we’re dead. The Chu family owes you nothing, and you owe the Chu family nothing.”

He fell into a silence like death, his rigid arm trembling more and more violently. A gunshot — bang! It shattered the night air.

7

“OK! That’s the one! Take it!” In the mountain, bitter wind howling, snow spread across every surface, an excited voice rang out and echoed all around.

She sat wearily on a rock, gently stroking the red blotches on the back of her hand — blotches that looked like burn marks. They covered not only her hands, but her face and body were scattered with them now too — not fatal, but painful.

She lifted her head and watched that group of men in black mountaineering gear up ahead, carrying a sealed glass box away with jubilation.

Among them was her father. And her brother.

To ordinary eyes, the box appeared empty. But in her eyes, the box was filled with splashes of blood — a creature like a leopard, entirely snow-white, a single horn at its brow, was curled up inside with its blood-red eyes half-open, helpless, riddled with bullet holes. Suddenly, with great effort, it raised its paw and struck the wall of the box; from its mouth came a low, mournful wail of distress. The final scene its desperate eyes took in was the swirling snow, the mottled shifting light — and the young woman who sat alone in the wide open space, watching it.

The unicorn was a demon of the snowy mountains — fearsome in appearance, yet herbivorous, taking blood as its only food. The region where it dwelt knew no storms, no avalanches — only stillness and tranquility. In the past, it had also used the narrow crevices in the ice to lift trapped animals and lost travelers to safety. And so its whereabouts had been exposed.

Every time they hunted, her father said it would be the last time. But every time, intoxicated by the excitement of a successful catch, he would forget his own words entirely.

The last time. She drew a breath and said it in her heart, gripping her fists so tight. Brushing the snow from her clothes, she picked up the backpack that had fallen beside her, rose, and fell in behind the group. In the hidden compartment of the backpack was a detonator.

The world said her father was a business genius — yet none of them knew that this man, cloaked in every manner of distinction, had another particular “hobby”: “collecting” demons.

Haibo Energy, which her father had built with his own hands, was centered on mineral extraction and appeared, in the outside world, to be flourishing. But in truth, as exploitable resources grew scarcer across the globe, Haibo Energy’s profits had steadily declined — had it not depended upon another, special “industry,” Haibo Energy would have declared bankruptcy years ago.

Whenever Ban Zhuomei thought of this “industry” that sustained the Chu family, her eyes would experience a strange, numbing sensation — even the illusion of going blind. Of course it was only an illusion. Her eyes were perfectly fine, without any ailment — fine enough to see things ordinary people could not, such as demons.

For the longest time, the vast majority of humans did not believe in the existence of demons. They had always lived in excess of self-assurance — measuring the world by the scale of their own eyes, imposing their own will upon all living things. What they could not see, they declared nonexistent; what they did not wish to see, they determined must disappear. The world had but one master: humanity — an absolute, unshakeable supremacy.

Demons had come to understand human habits increasingly well, and so most had chosen concealment. From as early as Ban Zhuomei could remember, she had seen a human-faced worm strolling through the garden; she had seen a green-faced little monster hiding in the long hair of her nanny, knitting away; there was the stone stele outside that had stood for hundreds of years which, every time she passed, would produce a round, chubby face and say hello to her — she wasn’t afraid, she said hello back, and it was her response that startled the stele, causing it to let out a terrified shriek of “You can see me?!” before retreating back inside and refusing to come out again.

This was her secret, told to no one. In truth, there was no one to tell. Her mother had died early; her father was absorbed in business, spending half the year on airplanes. In the Vancouver villa, only she and her brother remained, along with a retinue of straight-faced servants. All along, what she loved most was playing with her brother — hide and seek, building blocks, trotting behind him like a little sidekick. Until one day, she saw her brother pick up a little dog that had urinated on his toy shelf — his expression entirely blank — and throw it from the rooftop balcony. She screamed and covered her eyes in horror.

The little dog was caught by a tree branch and did not fall to its death. She ran down and scooped up the dog, whose paw was hurt, and looked at her brother standing behind her with tearful eyes, unable to understand.

“It’s not a well-behaved child — peeing everywhere!” Her brother pointed at the still-terrified, whimpering dog. “Father says we must be good, obedient children. Otherwise he won’t want us anymore — he’ll throw us out of the house and let the monsters eat us.”

“No!” She was so frightened she sat down on the spot and shook her head frantically. “I don’t want to be thrown out! I don’t want to be eaten by monsters! I’ll be very good!”

“Good.” Her brother nodded, turned and left. “Throw that bad dog away — it doesn’t look like it’ll survive anyway.”

Her heart seized. She stared at her brother’s retreating figure, and suddenly, unbidden, was reminded of the invisible demons in her picture books.

After that incident, she became even more obedient. When their father was home, he often praised her brother — called him sharp and decisive, very much like himself as a boy. Occasionally he would praise her too, saying she wasn’t noisy and rambunctious like other children — quiet and well-behaved. That period of time was the happiest. As long as she was obedient, Father wouldn’t dislike her, and so she wouldn’t be thrown out.

Until one day, in the seventh year of her life, her father happened to see her talking to a bare, blank wall, and asked what she was doing. She told him everything. After hearing it, her father looked at her with an expression that suddenly resembled the way one looks at a monster.

That night, her father summoned Uncle Duan to the study and the two talked until dawn. Her brother was there too.

From that point on, her father traveled noticeably less, staying home most of the time, watching her from a distance.

She found it strange and asked her father what was wrong. He smiled and said he had neglected them for too long, and now wanted to make it up to them.

At the time, she did not quite understand what “owing” and “repaying” meant. Years later, she finally understood: what is owed must always be repaid.

Her life appeared to continue as usual, yet the house seemed subtly changed. Strange visitors began arriving, invited by her father — some Chinese, some foreign. Her father held closed-door meetings with them in the study, conversations that lasted full days. Then these people would be seen wandering through the house. Her father also changed the nanny beside her; the new one followed her every single step, refusing to let her outside, not even to school — a private tutor was hired to come teach her instead.

Her world contracted at once into a cramped little prison. Only Uncle Duan would occasionally visit with small gifts and play with her, though his smiles always outnumbered his sighs. But she didn’t dare ask what was happening — children who pestered adults with questions would be disliked.

Fortunately, there were still those strange and wonderful creatures. When the moonlight was at its brightest, the one-eyed creature with a flower growing from its head would climb onto her windowsill and serenade her; there were those cotton-candy-soft creatures who frequently bubbled up through the floorboards, leaping into her cookie tin to steal food when she wasn’t looking; there was a small, fuzzy spider on the ceiling with a ring of round blue markings on its back, which would often lower itself on a thread of web onto her picture books, blow a breath of air to turn the pages, read quietly to itself, and when it found something that pleased it, would even laugh out loud.

“You can read?” One day, she finally could not resist, and whispered to the spider.

The spider cried out “Oh!” in shock and asked, “You can see me?”

“Yes! I didn’t dare call out to you.” Ban Zhuomei rested her chin on the desk and looked at the little fuzzy creature. “Because I thought you were all very afraid of being seen.”

“Most humans don’t like demons, so we hide ourselves and don’t let them see us.” The spider said.

“Oh! So you’re all demons!” She realized with sudden understanding. “Do all demons like to hide themselves?”

The spider waved its legs: “Not all of them. Some powerful demons are capable of taking human form, and can walk openly among people. Small demons like us haven’t yet reached the stage of transforming into humans, so we live in invisible form — that way we can coexist with humans without interfering with each other.”

“What else can you do besides reading?” Ban Zhuomei nodded, half understanding. “Sing? Eat cookies?”

The spider blinked: “I’m still learning.”

“Learning what?”

“Repairing things.” The spider pointed upward. “Look — there are no cracks in your ceiling anymore! We usually begin learning from the simplest patching.”

“Ha ha, aren’t spiders supposed to just spin webs and catch bugs?” She laughed.

“That’s ordinary spiders — I’m a demon spider!” The spider said with great seriousness.

“Then tell me about demon spiders!” She sat up straight with great interest; the pendant on the necklace around her neck swayed, and knocked against the corner of the desk. She cried out in alarm and quickly cupped the necklace in her hands to examine it — the oval amethyst with its decorative rim had been chipped.

“What is that?” the spider asked curiously.

“Something left by my mother.” Ban Zhuomei sniffled. “I never met her. Father gave it to me — said it was Mother’s favorite necklace. They say my brother and I spent thirteen months in her womb before we were born. The day after she gave birth to us, she passed away. Everyone says my mother was an extremely beautiful and kind woman. I imagine she was probably just like a fairy in a picture book! Father had me take my mother’s surname — he says I look very much like her.”

“Oh.” The spider nodded.

“What about your parents?” She took the necklace off and placed it on the pillow beside her.

“I don’t know.” The spider shook its head. “After teaching me to repair my first thing, they left. We were together for only a short time — I don’t even really remember what they look like! But they could transform into humans! Very beautiful humans! Everyone in our kind grows up to be able to take human form!”

“Did they not want you anymore?” She asked.

The spider hung its head, tracing circles on the desk with its legs. “Probably not that they didn’t want me… they said that’s just how the rules are. There are so many broken things in this world, and the purpose and meaning of our kind’s existence is to repair them. So they must spend their time working and can’t look after me anymore. And I must, just like them, go to many places to work.”

“Repairing broken things…” She shook her head. “Then they must be very busy. The world is so vast!”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you miss them?”

“If you miss something too much, eventually you miss it a little less.”

“Oh. I have other picture books — would you like to read them?”

“Yes!”

A little girl in conversation with a spider — natural, harmonious.

That night, Ban Zhuomei slept very well.

The next morning she woke up, picked up the necklace from the pillow to find someone to see if the chip could be repaired — and discovered, to her astonishment, that the chip in the amethyst was gone. It looked just as it always had, perfect and intact. Only by looking very carefully could one see a fine line where the old chip had been.

The spider said bashfully, “I’m still learning — I could only repair it to this standard.”

“You’re incredible!” She leapt up in delight.

If it were possible, she wanted the spider to stay on her ceiling forever.

But one day, she suddenly realized the serenade outside the window had not been heard for several days; the things in the cookie tin had gone undisturbed, with no more little creatures coming to help themselves. When she sensed that something was wrong, her bedroom door burst open. An old man with a goatee wearing a cross-collared cloth jacket barged in, his mung-bean-small eyes fixed straight at the ceiling, a yellow slip of paper pinched between his fingers, the corner of his mouth curling. “Heh heh — there’s still one here!”

Ban Zhuomei didn’t know who the old man was, or what the paper slip between his fingers meant — but she knew the spider was in danger.

“Spider, run!” She shouted, and sprang forward like a little leopard, and before the old man could fling the yellow paper slip, she grabbed hold of his leg and bit down hard. The old man howled in pain and released the paper slip; it fluttered to the floor.

At that moment, she sensed a faint streak of white light burst from the ceiling and streak out through the window. After that, she never saw the demon spider again.

Her father offered no explanation for what was happening in the house — not the strangers, not the old man. And she dared not ask.

Time passed. Her father’s attitude toward her gradually changed. He no longer kept her confined, even encouraging her to go out and walk around, meet new friends. He frequently asked her what demons she had seen, and where, and whether she was afraid. She was a little flattered by the attention, and naturally said everything she knew. But little by little, she began to notice the demons she saw becoming fewer and fewer — even the stone stele demon at the street corner had disappeared. A quiet unease began to grow within her.

At the same time, her father’s financial power grew greater and greater; the family’s Haibo Energy entered its most glorious peak. This year, she was thirteen.

One night, jolted awake once more by a nightmare, she walked out of her room in a muddle of anxiety. As she passed her father’s study, she heard Uncle Duan and her father inside in heated argument — her brother was there too.

“This absolutely cannot be done!”

“The new experts we’ve recruited have developed more effective tools — we can obtain higher-level demons now. I’ll have a proper talk with Zhuomei.”

“Haven’t we taken enough already? We cannot continue doing business with 4E! That organization is far more complex and dangerous than either of us imagines. Who in the world would pay such lavish sums to purchase demons? While there’s still no major incident, stop now!”

“Uncle Duan, what are you afraid of? It’s just fair trade.” Chu Yayue’s calm voice was entirely incongruous with his age. “Surely you’re not sympathizing with those demons? Please — they’re worth even less than ants, pure surplus matter in this world. As human beings, keeping our world clean is the right thing to do, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Ya Yue is correct. You might think of demons as an exploitable resource. Zhuomei is thirteen now — as a member of the Chu family, it’s time for her to be fully brought in.”

“Have you forgotten the curse?!”

Something shattered. The argument seemed to escalate.

“Let go! Have you lost your mind?! I don’t believe that’s a curse at all — I think those eyes can bring us good fortune!”

“Nonsense! You’re more guilty in your conscience than anyone, and you know it! You didn’t start capturing demons to make money — you started because you were afraid of them appearing in your life! You never truly thought of Zhuomei as a daughter! You regard her as a monster!”

“Unless I disown her, she will always be my daughter! She is an obedient child — as long as she stays obedient forever, our lives will grow more and more blessed.”

As long as she stays obedient forever. As long as she never stops being good…

Ban Zhuomei suddenly felt her eyes aching terribly — as if she could see nothing at all.

A blinding white light was pouring through the crack of the door into Ban Zhuomei’s eyes — oh, such pain — as if her eyes were being burned away. Blurring shadows flickered in the shifting light, warped into contorted shapes, each like a snarling monster…

8

Ban Zhuomei’s eyes flew open. The first thing she saw was that bewildered little demon — and a window full of bright, clean sunlight. The cat was perched on the windowsill, sleeping.

“Oh! She’s awake, she’s awake!” The bewildered demon bounced on its little stumpy legs. “Master A’Zhu! She’s awake!”

“Oh, good.” A’Zhu’s face came into her line of sight; he smiled. “Good afternoon!”

Ban Zhuomei sat up on the bed and discovered that her shoulder was bound in a bandage. On the floor at the other side of the room, Uncle Duan lay in an unconscious heap, trussed up thoroughly.

“If the Thunder King hadn’t moved quickly, you’d have been struck in the heart. Fortunately, it only grazed your shoulder.” A’Zhu handed her a cup of hot water. “I didn’t think that coming home from an outing this time, I’d nearly come back to find my good neighbor gone.”

“Do you go out often?” Her lips were a little pale. “I thought you were a homebody.”

“I went out while you were still dreaming.” A’Zhu picked up a necklace from the table, clicking his tongue. “Look at this — broken again. Want me to repair it for you?”

Repair it again? Ban Zhuomei startled. Instinctively she reached for her neck, then looked at A’Zhu, and was stunned for a moment. Her gaze suddenly fell on A’Zhu’s arm — where a ring of round blue markings peeked out.

Blue circle markings. A repaired amethyst. A spider… Memories long blurred came flooding back like a tide, crashing against her nearly numbed thoughts. “You…”

“Recognized after all?” A’Zhu smiled. “I grew up — I can take human form now.” As he spoke, he brushed aside the fringe hanging over her forehead. “You’ve grown too. If not for this necklace, I wouldn’t have recognized you!”

“You already knew who I was!” Ban Zhuomei looked at his face and shook her head with a smile. “You creature — how did you end up here?”

“The air is wonderful here, and Chuyun Mountain is full of spiritual energy — a most suitable place for a demon to cultivate!” A’Zhu gazed at the mountains half-visible beyond the window, then turned back, his expression becoming deep and contemplative. “But you’re not a demon. You didn’t come here to cultivate, did you?”

“I said I came to wait for someone!” Ban Zhuomei looked at the unconscious Uncle Duan. “He’s not in serious danger, is he?”

“The Thunder King knocked him out — he might not wake up until tomorrow.” A’Zhu shrugged.

The bewildered demon nodded emphatically: “When I’ve had a full meal before hitting someone, they take a long time to wake up!”

Ban Zhuomei looked the bewildered little demon up and down. “Your name is the Thunder King?”

The little demon squirmed shyly: “Yes… Because besides eating fruit, the only thing I can do is create localized thunder and lightning. A Taoist priest once broke one of my arms, and Master A’Zhu helped reattach it. He moved into Yunlai Apartments, so I followed and moved in too. As long as he’s here, I won’t let anyone tear this building down.”

So that was it. She smiled. “You’re a kind-hearted little demon.”

“Master A’Zhu showed me great kindness — doing a small thing for him is nothing.” The bewildered demon’s face turned as red as a tomato.

Ban Zhuomei got down from the bed and looked around A’Zhu’s room. “This is my first time coming to your place.”

“Ha ha — look around freely.” A’Zhu headed toward the kitchen. “I’ll go make something to eat.”

It was better this way — no questions asked. What she had done, and what she was about to do, needed no one else to know.

The room really did look like a repairman’s — piled full of broken things of every description. Her gaze was quickly drawn to the wall opposite, which was covered, top to bottom, in photographs. An entire wall of photographs!

Carefully stepping over the clutter on the floor, she went to stand before the wall and looked closely. The photographs showed an extraordinary variety of subjects — scenery, people, all manner of animals. At a glance they looked no different from ordinary travel snapshots.

“How about dumplings?” A’Zhu came out kneading a ball of dough.

“What places are these?” She pointed to one photograph — a patch of ordinary wet mud, a few wild grasses just beginning to push through the soil. Not far from this patch, a stretch of dry, barren sand extended all the way to the horizon.

“That’s a place I repaired — although I could only manage this much. Before, it was a forest with lush water and vegetation, but after the trees were cut down, over time it became a wasteland. Land that has gone bad is the most difficult — nothing will grow. I spent a very long time and finally managed to restore one patch of wetland, planted new vegetation in it. I hope it will continue to grow over time.” He kneaded the dough with practiced ease.

“And this one?” She pointed to another photograph — a small shark gliding easily through vivid blue water. “This is also something you repaired?”

A’Zhu nodded. “I repaired its fins and tail.”

“Fins?”

“What you humans commonly call shark fins.” A’Zhu rapped her on the head. “In pursuit of large profits, they hunted on a vast scale. Professional fishermen, after catching sharks, would slice off their fins and tails, then throw the sharks back into the water while they were still alive. Without fin or tail they couldn’t swim — they died in agony. The ones I repaired were only a very small number. Even if you placed a thousand of me in the ocean, we couldn’t repair all the sharks waiting to die.” His expression grew grave for a moment, then quickly returned to its usual lightness. “What filling do you want? Chives? Cabbage?”

“What are these?” Ban Zhuomei had no mind for dumpling fillings. “A white wolf and a seal?”

“Both extinct.” A’Zhu looked at the photographs. “These were the last of their kind. I repaired the bullet holes humans had left in them — but couldn’t change the fate of their extinction.” He turned back toward the kitchen. “Many living things took tens of millions of years to evolve, yet were made extinct within a few decades. This world once had countless places of paradise, but because they hid gold and gemstones beneath them, they were dug until they were unrecognizable. We want to repair them, but we can never finish… Ah, do you want cabbage or chives?!”

Ban Zhuomei said nothing and stood alone before the wall of photographs for a long time.

“Do you know why I have a pair of eyes that can see demons?” After a long while, she asked, as if to no one.

“A natural gift!” A’Zhu’s voice came from the kitchen.

“On the night of my thirteenth birthday, I had a dream. In the dream, a luminous little figure led me by the hand to an unfamiliar cave.” The bright light in her eyes dimmed to a grey. “I saw my father, and Uncle Duan. They were rescued by these little figures…”

She recounted her dream slowly. The clock ticked steadily. After a long while, A’Zhu poked his head out of the kitchen. “Neighbor, that was only a dream.”

She shook her head. “Afterward, I secretly asked Uncle Duan. He was astounded — he confirmed that what I had seen in the dream was exactly what had happened to them thirty years ago, down to every last detail.”

A’Zhu was taken aback.

“Let the heart of the demon begin to beat. Let the eyes of the demon be forever watching — until they lead you into the deepest depths of hell!” She took a deep breath. “My brother and I — one with the demon’s beating heart, one with the demon’s open eyes. My brother has always been ruthless in all he does and has committed no small number of acts unfit for a human being. My eyes can see concealed demons… We are a scourge upon this world.”

A’Zhu walked to stand before her, and tapped her nose with one finger. “You are different from them. You can only see — how is that a scourge? Back then, if not for you, I might have already been destroyed.”

“These eyes of mine have implicated too many innocents.” Ban Zhuomei shook her head with a smile. “After my father returned from that cave, he had been studying everything relating to demons. Once he learned that I had the ability to see them, he was at first frightened — he had not forgotten the curse. So he brought in various Taoist practitioners, who secretly monitored my every move, then, without my knowledge, captured every demon in my vicinity. He imprisoned the captured demons in a secret chamber. It was also at this time that an organization called 4E approached him of its own accord, saying they were willing to pay high prices to purchase all manner of demons. By then, my father had already planned to have someone destroy all the demons in the chamber — but 4E made him change his mind. He sold every last demon and earned a staggering sum — more than the entire three years’ total revenue of Haibo Energy. From that point on, he forgot his initial fear, and made capturing demons the Chu family’s ‘pillar industry.'” Ban Zhuomei’s gaze drifted across the photographs, recalling the past piece by piece, her expression undisturbed by even a ripple. “Later he discovered that demons could be not only sold directly but also exploited for their innate qualities to help him locate mineral deposits. There is a demon called an Earth-Gold Apparition that feeds on gold buried underground — its blood can reveal the location of gold mines. Many of Haibo Energy’s mining projects came about through this method, and Chuyun Mountain is one of them. After discovering this, my father no longer sold every demon to 4E; he quietly kept back those he considered useful, reserving them as tools to be used as needed.”

“Did you help your father locate demons?” A’Zhu looked at her face.

“Since the day he learned about my eyes, he had already come to see me as a genuine demon.” Ban Zhuomei gave a bitter smile. “Later he even told me everything he was doing. He said he hoped his daughter would understand and help him — I was his only daughter, he said, and everything he worked so hard for was simply to ensure a secure future for me and my brother. He didn’t ask much of me — only that I would be willing to go to places where large demons were known to appear, use my eyes to locate them, speak to them, draw them close. Once that was done, the specialists he’d hired would have their methods of handling things.”

“What methods?” He asked.

“Using specially made firearms, with me at the center as they fired in all directions. The bullets inside only affected demons — if a human was hit, it would leave nothing more than small burn marks on the skin, which would disappear within a few hours. Painful, though.” She unconsciously touched the back of her own hand. “Every large demon we ever captured was hit by the bullets after drawing close to me, then imprisoned and taken away.” She paused. “I was the bait. Bait for demons.”

“Why didn’t you refuse?” A’Zhu asked calmly.

She smiled. “I didn’t want Father to dislike me. I didn’t want to be driven from that house. I have no skills of my own — without that place, I might not be able to survive.”

A breath of mild, warm wind lifted the curtain. The cat opened its eyes and jumped down to Ban Zhuomei’s feet, rubbing its head against her.

“My cowardice goes beyond what you can imagine, good neighbor.” She crouched down and gathered the cat into her arms. “Even the cat prefers you over me. Even it prefers the company of a creature that lives normally and openly — even if that creature is a demon.” She looked at the cat’s leg and smiled. “You ‘repaired’ its leg, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “A trivial thing.”

She settled into the chair beneath the window and asked, “Have you heard about the dispute between Chuyun County’s villagers and Haibo Energy?”

“The villagers say guarding the mountain is like guarding their lives. The legend of the mountain deity is no falsehood.” A’Zhu sat down across from her. “That’s why I settled in Chuyun County. Each of my kind will choose a place most at risk of destruction to make our home.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Destruction?”

“Beneath Chuyun Mountain sleeps a truly large demon — though it has been in slumber all this time. I don’t know much about this demon’s specific background; it is said to be a massive python of extraordinary power. If the mountain is mined, the disturbance would certainly wake it, and the moment it stirs, Chuyun Mountain will shatter into pieces — and then the village at the mountain’s foot, the county town included, will all be swallowed underground.” A’Zhu furrowed his brow.

She stroked the cat’s head and said slowly, “If that demon truly awakens, what could you do?”

“Honestly, I haven’t thought it through. Pin it down with a sewing needle?” He burst out laughing, then suddenly leapt to his feet. “Oh no — the dumplings are going to be overcooked!”

“A’Zhu,” she called after him. “You said there’s a kind of thing in this world that is the most difficult to repair. What is it?”

A’Zhu stopped, turned around, and smiled. “The human heart.”

She was struck speechless.

“Time to eat dumplings!” A’Zhu ran back into the kitchen.

A heart gone wrong — how does one repair it? She wanted to know too.

But perhaps she would not live to see the answer revealed. She should eat this meal well, then — and after that, say her farewells.

Sitting at the table, her appetite was surprisingly good. Between bites she asked, “Any news of your parents?”

A’Zhu shook his head. “Probably no chance of seeing them again. Though we are demons, compared with other demons, our lifespans are not particularly long.”

“You’ll see them again. Humans often say that a good heart brings good reward.” She spoke with her cheeks puffed out.

“Ha ha — all right, I trust you!” A’Zhu smiled until his eyes curved into arcs.

“Once Uncle Duan wakes up, just see him off — don’t make things difficult for him. And as for the cat — it’s yours now.”

“You’re speaking like someone leaving a final testament.”

“I only think you’d make a more suitable owner for the cat…”

9

December 31st. Early morning.

Ban Zhuomei was gone. So was A’Zhu.

The Thunder King searched the whole of Chuyun County and could find no trace of either of them. That day, A’Zhu had asked it to take the unconscious elderly man far away from Chuyun County. So it spent many, many days delivering the man to a place countless miles away — and when it returned, it found both Room 601 and Room 602 empty and abandoned.

The weather today was wretched — overcast and raining without end.

On the road leading up to Chuyun Mountain, the various obstacles the villagers had set up were still in place. Looking up, the high peaks rose like silent giants, gazing down at the world at their feet with something contemplative in their bearing.

In a stone building on the mountain’s slope — ancient, long abandoned — Chu Yayue held his gun and scanned his surroundings with caution.

“Brother…” Ban Zhuomei was bound to a pillar inside the building, utterly exhausted. After confirming there was no third person in the room, nor anything dangerous like explosives, he finally put the gun away and went to untie Ban Zhuomei.

“Where is it?” He asked quickly.

“Uncle Duan took it. He’s gone too.” She said, brow furrowed.

Two days earlier, Chu Yayue, far away in Vancouver, had suddenly received a multimedia message from Uncle Duan. The message read: “Ban Zhuomei and the Yan Niu are both with me. We need to talk again. Don’t bring anyone, or you will never learn Chuyun Mountain’s true secret.” Attached was a photograph of Ban Zhuomei bound up, along with the precise location of the stone building. He had had no choice but to come.

“That wretch!” Chu Yayue drove his fist into the pillar. “That old fool, ruining everything at a time like this!”

“Brother, let’s go back.” Ban Zhuomei looked at him. “Stop the Chuyun Mountain project.”

“Did that old man frighten you into stupidity?” Chu Yayue glared at her savagely. “Even without the Yan Niu, I have other methods. What Chu Yayue sets out to do, no one can stop! I gave them a wide-open road, and those stubborn people chose to court their own death — that has nothing to do with me!”

He shot abruptly to his feet and headed for the door.

“Brother, where are you going?” Ban Zhuomei suddenly rose. The air of exhaustion was swept entirely from her — her eyes cold and sharp as ice blades.

Chu Yayue turned around and looked at his sister, who was like a different person from moments before. He was taken aback. “Back to Vancouver, of course — I’ll turn the earth inside out if I have to until I find that old fool!”

“Nowhere to go back to, Brother.” Ban Zhuomei reached into her pocket and produced a porcelain jar no bigger than a thumb.

Chu Yayue was struck with shock. He blurted out, “The Yan Niu?!”

“Two years ago, when the avalanche came, I thought it was the end. But we survived — the demon’s heart still beats, the demon’s eyes are still open.” She spoke slowly. “I thought about it too. Perhaps it was a gift — a new life granted to us. I nursed some ridiculous hope, imagining that our lives would change. For two years, I thought we would not continue down Father’s path. I watched you work hard to manage the family’s business — though it was unsteady, my heart was calm. Until you came to me about the Chuyun Mountain gold mine, and only then did I understand: you had never once considered abandoning the old ‘trade.’ I pretended to go along with your arrangement and brought the demon here, because I still held on to the last scrap of hope — that in the final moment, you might return to being a true human being.”

Chu Yayue’s brow was tightly knit. He said nothing, his eyes fixed hard on the jar in her hand.

“I told myself: if in the end you chose to stop, then we would have the right to keep living. But you gave it up.” She had never smiled so lightly. “A demon’s place ought to be hell — not this world that should have been beautiful.”

“You…” Chu Yayue stepped back involuntarily, as if bitten by a venomous snake. “The avalanche — it wasn’t an accident?!”

“Neither is this.” Ban Zhuomei raised the jar. “What I placed inside is not the villagers’ hair. It is yours and mine. We have owed so many debts — if we don’t repay them now, it can’t go on any further.”

“Don’t.” Chu Yayue looked at her hand in terror.

The jar slipped from Ban Zhuomei’s fingertips, falling toward the ground.

In the instant before it landed, a wisp of fine white silken thread reached out from the empty air, wrapped around the jar, and drew it forward.

Ban Zhuomei and Chu Yayue’s gaze followed the jar as it moved through the air — A’Zhu caught it cleanly, drew a breath, and the thread coiled back into his mouth.

“This demon — I’ll handle it.” He smiled.

“You followed me?” Ban Zhuomei stared at him and said through gritted teeth. “You heard everything he said! Without the Yan Niu, he’ll still find other means to achieve his goal!”

Chu Yayue glanced at A’Zhu, then without warning launched himself into the air, attempting to grab A’Zhu and seize the jar. But before his hand could come within reach of A’Zhu’s trouser leg, he crashed back down hard to the floor. Countless threads of silk came flying from the air and wrapped him into a “silkworm cocoon” in two or three swift movements.

Before Ban Zhuomei could react in any way, the silken threads turned toward her too.

“What are you doing?!” Ban Zhuomei had no time to dodge, and was wound around in layers of mild, warm white silk.

A’Zhu’s fingers moved with nimble grace through the threads and said, “I was born a repairman. What I can do is repair.”

10

My parents told me that the most difficult thing in the world to repair is a broken and damaged human heart. As far as I know, every member of my kind who has ever repaired a human heart will spend the rest of their life enduring the immense side effects that follow. Our memory and intellect — our bodies included — will deteriorate rapidly. After completing the repairs for these two, I will likely forget who I am within twenty-four hours. My body will grow smaller and smaller; within three months it will have regressed to the form of an infant, and then revert to my original form. At some undetermined point after that, I will disappear.

I am no heroic savior, and I hold no lofty ideals. I am only a demon whose reason for existence is the act of repair. My decision to mend the hearts of Ban Zhuomei and her brother was not born of greatness on my part, nor of the bond I shared with her. I am not foolish — I know that once their hearts are repaired, many fewer things in this world will go wrong in the future. The more whole hearts there are, the less work there is for us.

After the repairs are complete, I believe Chuyun Mountain will be safe. And I will no longer need to linger here, leaving traces of my existence. I will leave — go wherever the road takes me. I have asked the Thunder King to keep staying at Yunlai Apartments and to keep watching over the building. If anyone comes looking for me with something to repair, tell them I have retired.

After today, I will not remember what happened in the past. I do not know what will happen to me — perhaps by instinct, I will continue to repair things along the way, until the day I can no longer do so.

I have sewn this USB drive containing this video into the hidden pocket of my clothes. If someone finds it one day, please treat me kindly. Ha ha.

Of course, if you happen to be one of my kind, and if you happen to encounter my parents — please pass along my greetings, and print out the table in the USB drive to give to them. It contains a record of every single thing I have repaired up to now. Tell them their son did not betray their charge — he was a diligent repairman. I miss them dearly. If there is any part of my life that itself needs repairing, I think it would be the stretch of family warmth that was missing in my youth.

All right. Lastly — if you truly see this video, please go and check on Chuyun Mountain, and go see the siblings, Chu Yayue and Ban Zhuomei. See how they are now.

My story is finished. Farewell — A’Zhu.

A’Zhu’s smiling face, frozen on the screen.

“You’ve watched it twenty times already.” Ao Chi was behind me, his voice low.

“You were watching too, every time!” I closed the video window. Every time I saw A’Zhu’s frozen smile, then turned to look at the little one running and playing through Bu Ting, Ao Chi and I would exchange a wordless glance — and then, each in our own hearts, quietly add a little more love for this creature.

But, as A’Zhu himself had said, his body was growing smaller and smaller, the deterioration quickening day by day. Three days ago he could still run around everywhere; this morning, he had already become a nursing infant who could only suck his fingers and wail.

From outside came Jiu Jue’s strange shout: “Ah! My clothes! My clothes! He urinated on my clothes again!” When we went to look, Jiu Jue’s head was trailing wisps of steam as he held A’Zhu, while the little creature in his arms kicked and waved his arms and giggled.

This old thing, ever since hearing there was a small child in Bu Ting, had been coming every single day to visit — and take advantage of meals while he was at it — frequently getting into disputes with Ao Chi over who got to play with the child. Everyone knew A’Zhu’s story, but no one brought it up. What the members of Bu Ting did each day was simply keep him company and play.

Jiu Jue said that A’Zhu belongs to a type among demons called a “Weaving Spider” — different from ordinary spider demons. The Weaving Spiders are gentle by nature and spend their entire lives repairing this world. Their numbers are not small, but their lifespan is only around a hundred years. After giving birth to a child, Weaving Spider parents will care for the young one for only a short time, then leave to devote themselves entirely to their work. They repair many things over a lifetime, but no one knows the details of their methods. Whatever stability this world enjoys owes some portion to the efforts of their kind. Only, as the world accumulates more and more that is broken, the Weaving Spiders have grown fewer and fewer — there is too much to repair, and many of them perish from exhausted strength before they can ever marry and have children.

In the time between when A’Zhu lost his memories and when he encountered us, no one knows what happened to him. I suspect this child, even during his period of deterioration, was instinctively repairing whatever he felt had gone wrong. Like the bear whose bile had been harvested.

I took him from Jiu Jue’s arms and stroked the patch of ashen-white hair on his head — the mark that signals a demon drawing near the threshold of death.

Every time Ao Chi caught sight of A’Zhu’s hair, he would unconsciously look away, and keep a mask of indifference on his face. But I knew that behind my back he had pored through many ancient texts, hoping to find a way to extend A’Zhu’s life.

Even so, two days later, A’Zhu still departed.

That morning, in Ao Chi’s arms, he shrank into a tiny luminous circle — and inside the circle, a small spider with blue ring markings lay curled. One of its little legs moved, as if waving a last goodbye.

The sunlight pouring through the window grew brighter and brighter. The spider’s body grew whiter and whiter, more and more transparent — and then, there was nothing at all. Ao Chi still held the baby bottle aloft, staring at the empty air, maintaining that absurdly tender posture for a long, long moment before lowering his arm. He turned his face toward the window.

“Even holding a baby bottle, you are a very handsome father.” I stood beside him and kissed him on the cheek.

Against my chest hangs a flower pendant carved from pure gold — Ao Chi’s Children’s Day gift, the one he hid in the shoe box. The black cord from which it hangs was braided by A’Zhu himself from silken thread — beautiful handiwork.

I remember when he threaded the cord through the flower and hung it around my neck, he whispered in my ear: “Mama, the cord I braided will never break, and the gift Papa gave you will never be lost. I love you both.”

We love you too.

11

Ao Chi and I went to two places — one was New Zealand, one was Chuyun County.

Three months prior, Chu Yayue and Ban Zhuomei had been found unconscious in Yunlai Apartments. After a month in the hospital, they finally regained consciousness.

According to those around him, Chu Yayue had undergone a “complete change in character” after waking — unrecognizable from the ruthless young master he had been before. Not long afterward, every one of Haibo Energy’s projects that had faced severe protest was terminated by him — including the Chuyun Mountain gold mine. This was no small blow to Haibo Energy, and the pre-existing debt situation erupted in full force; before long the company declared bankruptcy.

But the Chu siblings, who had lost their family enterprise, showed none of the despondency others had expected — quite the contrary, there was a relaxed and cheerful air about them. Before long, word came that an elderly retainer of the family surnamed Duan had found them, producing every last penny of his own savings, and together with the Chu siblings the household relocated to New Zealand, where they started a small company dealing in organic vegetables.

One afternoon, I disguised myself as a customer and visited their company. Ban Zhuomei received me and led me on an actual tour of their farm. I saw that the farm had been given the name “Red.”

“In Chinese, the color red can also be written with the character for Zhu,” I remarked.

“I know.” Ban Zhuomei nodded.

I added deliberately, “I have a friend named A’Zhu.”

“Is that so? What a lovely name.” Ban Zhuomei said sincerely. “Look — over there is our newly cultivated variety.” She introduced their products with great enthusiasm. It was clear her memory held no trace of A’Zhu.

In the distance, Chu Yayue came running over in a hurry, calling out to Ban Zhuomei: “Hurry, hurry! Annie’s in labor — the foal is coming!”

Ban Zhuomei let out a delighted cry and quickly explained to me: “I’m so sorry, Miss Sha — Annie is our horse! I’ll be right back!” And with that she raced off toward Chu Yayue.

I stood at the edge of the farm, where the air was fresh and full of the scent of vegetables, and thought: whatever did A’Zhu do to them in the end?

Is this what it looks like — a person whose heart has been repaired? I think I will never know the answer. The only thing I can say with certainty is that they are doing well now.

As for Chuyun County — I am very fond of it. I also went to A’Zhu’s former home, and there I found the Thunder King, still faithfully keeping watch.

It still loves fruit, but no longer litters peel everywhere. It keeps the hallway swept very clean. And every day at the appointed time, it goes to Room 601 to feed the cat. The cat has grown fat, and its greatest love is still to sit on the windowsill and bask in the sun — occasionally watching the people passing by below.

Epilogue

The weather grew warmer and warmer. The air inside Bu Ting became lazy and quiet again, just as it had in summers past.

Chi Pian’er, Bowl-Millennium, and I were all napping in the afternoon. Young Master Zhao was in the kitchen chopping green onions. Ao Chi sat in the main hall, holding his newest iPad, playing his ever-immortal Angry Birds.

In front of the gardenia bushes in the back garden, a small stone stele had been added. Buried beneath it were the clothes and toys we had bought for A’Zhu, and the USB drive. Carved on the stele, in large and slightly uneven strokes, were four characters: Beloved Son A’Zhu.

Beneath the large characters, smaller ones were carved densely: With love from your Fathers and Mothers: Ao Chi, Shaluo, Jiu Jue, Chi Pian’er, Young Master Zhao, Bowl-Millennium (listed in no particular order).

The thing A’Zhu had wanted most — we gave him double. No — we gave him N times over.

The broken parts of this world are indeed very many. But there is much that remains whole and undamaged, and it never disappoints.

I opened my eyes and stole a glance at Ao Chi. His iPad lay to one side. His head was turned toward the window. His fingers moved now and then, as if he were playing cat’s cradle. And every so often, a smile flickered across his face.

Lately he was often like this. When caught, he would immediately turn away and put on his usual surly expression: “Tired from playing — just resting my eyes! Hmph!”

No matter how resilient a heart is, there is always one soft and tender place within it. A heart like that will never break, I think.

I smiled quietly, turned over, drank a sip of cool Fu Sheng, and fell asleep.