The little ghost kowtowed ceaselessly.
“My lord, the Tiandu Guards have been roaming everywhere these past days, it’s hard to seize travellers. And now with this heavy snow sealing the mountains, there are scarcely any birds or beasts to be found. Might I beg your lordship to grant me a few days’ reprieve?”
The statue shuddered, pinched its fingers to calculate, then snorted two jets of white smoke from its nostrils.
Suddenly, the clay figure sprouted two blackened hands, each gripping a white bone whip, and roared: “You treacherous cur! Were there not two human sacrifices brought into Yinliu Village today? How dare you let one escape! When I was alive you defied me, and even in death you still dare to deceive me!”
The little ghost, already in rags, was lashed until his body fell to pieces. The rotten sores on him swelled to twice their size, each one splitting open into a snarling ghost-face that tore at his flesh while cursing him.
“Idiot! Fool!”
The wretch rolled on the ground, shrieking in agony, half his skull torn away, unable to live yet unable to die.
“My lord, my lord! Dad, Dad! Don’t hit me, don’t hit me!”
“Who’s your dad? You think you’re worthy? You’re nothing but the refuse I picked up, a pitiful beggar. I am half an immortal now, and you think yourself fit to call me Dad? Be off! Fetch those useless whelps at once!”
Xue Cuo narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t say which word it was that pricked him, but suddenly the sight of that pot-bellied statue made him thoroughly displeased.
Yet the thing bore the bearing of a righteous god, its form sheltered by the village’s qi-meridians. It was clearly not the work of common fiends.
Such evil shades, without a Dharma-body, can never achieve proper fruition, and delight most in squatting within human-shaped statues.
This is why travellers are warned never to casually offer incense at random shrines by the roadside.
Who can guarantee a true god abides there? In desolate places the Xianghuo-will long ago scattered, the gods departed, the temples left hollow.
If a blind mortal stirs up such squatters, the petty ones will slaughter, the lenient will still bring misfortune.
Therefore, no matter how you look at it, this thing was no righteous deity, but an evil ghost squatting in a borrowed body.
Xue Cuo thought to act, but feared stirring the snake in its lair. Before he left, Her Ladyship, who sometimes went a whole year without uttering a single word, had warned him. There was danger in this errand.
Danger? Where?
Suppressing the urge, he fixed his gaze on the little ghost.
The creature’s bones were almost pulverised, and quaking with fear he limped to the edge of the woods, gabbling incoherently.
At once, countless tiny footsteps pattered from all directions. From the shadows came a swarm of black shapes, mud-like, yet sprouting limbs and mouths and teeth. Although none resembled people in the least.
They shrieked like ghost-birds, clinging to the ragged spirit with their many hands and feet.
Look past their monstrous forms, and the scene might almost have seemed affectionate.
The tattered ghost stroked this one, patted that one, like some kindly old grandfather unwilling to part with any of them. At last he clenched his teeth, screwed his eyes shut, and drew two of the little ones out.
The pair squealed in delight, clinging to him, flailing their arms and legs in glee.
Then, instantly regretting it, he shoved one back.
The rejected child burst into howls, chasing after him until beaten back with a stick.
Limping along, clutching one small ghost, the ragged wretch crept into the grove. The statue had long grown impatient.
On seeing him, it bellowed furiously: “Why only one?”
The ghost hugged his head. “They scattered all over, so I couldn’t catch them. I only managed to seize one.”
The statue refused to relent. It whipped him until he howled, then hissed: “Can’t catch them? Then you’ll take their place.”
Its blackened hands seized the little ghost, one in each palm, and sucked. A pale vapour drifted from their mouths and noses. They writhed and screamed, shrinking, until they collapsed into nothing but putrid meat.
Having drained them, the statue’s eyes lit with hunger. It snatched the ragged ghost. “I loathe deceit above all. You dare to play tricks before me?”
Its grip cracked like breaking a bundle of sticks, folding the ghost in two and wringing him out like cloth.
Crack!—
The wretch screamed as his spine snapped, his chest splitting open to show bone, vomiting black water and slime as he begged for mercy.
Suddenly.
A green talisman fluttered lazily down, settling before the statue. With a whoosh, it froze in place.
Talisman Technique: Soul-Fixing.
This art binds the three hun and seven po. When a person dies, one soul guards the grave, one receives worship, one lingers in the underworld. Should a ghost or god be granted investiture, the three fuse into a true spirit, leaving only a single aperture at the crown known as the Fengxue Divine Dao.
Since Xue Cuo would often have dealings with Xianghuo gods, he had studied the fixing of this Fengxue most diligently.
The statue, just moments ago raging, felt a chill seep into its crown. Its form stiffened like the clay it was.
It thrashed in vain, the statue trembling, yet its true spirit was bound within and could not escape.
Panic-stricken, it howled, all menace gone: “Who! Who dares plot against this grandfather god!”
The green talisman’s strokes were fierce, like iron hooks and silver seals.
As the lines shifted, they seemed to sketch a little face, clutching its belly in laughter.
On the talisman were scrawled two lines:
The first line read: [Run, go on, run]
The bottom line read: [Leave, see if you can]
The statue shrieked curses: “Who dares! I am this village’s temple god, under the authority of the officials above! Release me, or I’ll report this to Heaven’s registry and they’ll cast the net wide and drag you to punishment!”
The ragged ghost lay collapsed upon the ground, broken to pieces, more breath leaving than entering.
He heard a cold sneer drift down from the air.
The statue’s tirade broke off at once.
The ragged little ghost raised his head. The statue’s face was full of dread, its voice trembling with horror: “You… you look awfully familiar.”
A streak of azure blue fell among the trees. White boots brighter than snow, robes billowing like clouds.
Xue Cuo crouched down. The little ghost’s body had been twisted into a knot, his waist whittled down to no more than the width of a leg, barely holding his upper and lower half together. “Can you still move?” he asked.
The ghost looked at the talisman, then back at Xue Cuo. Upon his deathly pale face appeared an expression of doubtful disbelief. He was fearful and felt it strange at the same time. Supporting himself, he edged backwards, stammering: “I… I’m fine.”
“Your waist is about to snap,” said Xue Cuo.
The ghost gave a wretched smile, pushing himself upright. “My lord, I’m no longer human. I don’t feel pain.”
At first he had underestimated this man’s strength. If he could bind even a god in place, why would he fear a mere heap of rotten flesh?
“I know who you are!”
The statue suddenly shrieked, trembling like one who had seen a ghost. Yet no matter how it struggled, it could not escape the clay effigy.
Considering himself a civil sort, Xue Cuo squatted and asked mildly: “What are you so afraid of? I haven’t done anything.”
The statue shuddered even harder. “Haven’t done anything?! You slew Nanshui, Wensi, Yuqi, the four righteous gods of Mount Eshan’s temples! You shattered their golden bodies! All Fangzhou is plastered with your warrants. The God of Civil and Martial Affairs is livid, and the little ghosts are out with lanterns, combing every household for you!”
Xue Cuo listened with relish, soon spotting a flaw. “The fellow at Mount Eshan, that I do recall. But the others you named? I’ve never met them.”
The statue jolted, staring at the faint, mocking curve of lips beneath the bamboo hat. At last it realised. This was indeed Fangzhou’s most wanted man. Capturing him would earn no small reward!
But its true spirit was trapped, unable to report.
“Fool! Get over here and help me! Halfwit! Halfwit!”
The ulcers on the child’s body split open, screaming along with him. Xue Cuo frowned, struck a candle alight, and stuffed it into the statue’s mouth. The clay god howled, the ulcers withered.
Xue Cuo turned to the little ghost. The boy’s expression eased slightly; fear still in his eyes, he crawled over, gathered the dead child into his arms, and kept silent.
Ghosts have no tears.
“You called him Dad just now. How is that?” asked Xue Cuo.
The little ghost cast a glance at the statue, fear plain upon his face. After a pause, he admitted: “He is my dad. He is also the temple god of this village.”
Xue Cuo: “Your real father?”
The ragged ghost hesitated. “We were all picked up by Dad.”
He straightened his twisted body, packed his belly with grass husks and rotted leaves, patched here and there, and soon had himself mended.
Xue Cuo thought, irrelevantly: this child truly is deft with his hands.
“How did you die?”
The little ghost’s face changed, lips quivering. “When he died, he said he’d take us with him, spare us suffering. He poisoned the food and tricked my didis and meimeis into eating it…”
Xue Cuo: “And you?”
The little ghost: “I didn’t eat. I came back that day to find my father and siblings all dead. Corpses everywhere. I was terrified, so I hid in the woods outside the village for a night. The next evening I saw him return as a ghost.”
“I ran and ran, until I crashed into a strange Daoist with a bell at his waist. He caught me. I only remember being bitten by something. When I woke, I had become like this.”
“Dad… he became the temple god.”
The more Xue Cuo heard, the less it sounded right. Yet he held his tongue. “And the original temple god? Did you ever see him?”
The little ghost shook his head. “Never once.”
Xue Cuo thought: that should not be. The village’s feng shui and veins of qi were well-suited to nurturing a deity; otherwise it would never have been altered into a land for raising corpses.
“Do you have a name?” Xue Cuo asked.
The boy ghost shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
That was common enough. Xue Cuo sighed inwardly, and let it be. He stepped up to the clay statue. It trembled, hopping back. “What do you want to do?”
Xue Cuo smiled faintly, drawing out a talisman. “Do you know that Daoist?”
“What Daoist? I don’t know, I don’t know!”
Xue Cuo thought a moment, then turned. “Cover your eyes. Best the younger ones not watch.”
The little ghost nodded.
Xue Cuo cast the talisman. “Duoh.”
Daoist Art: Mountains of Swords, Seas of Fire.
The talisman crumbled to ash. The Daoist image unfurled like a painted scroll, and within it the statue shrank, looking about in terror.
“Let me out! Save me!”
Arms folded, Xue Cuo watched. Then suddenly, he heard light footsteps. Turning, his body stiffened in spite of himself.
The ragged ghost was cradling three or four little ones, with seven or eight more trailing behind. They squatted by the ruined temple, silent, staring at the figure weeping within the mountains of swords and seas of fire.
The little ghost murmured: “Is there truly retribution in this world?”
