Chapter 71

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The orange candy was very sweet. Chao Musheng couldn't help laughing at Xu Chenzhu's words.

"Mr. Xu — I know you'd rather defend your employee, but..."

What kind of reasonable person picked a grievance with a small animal?

"It was a very pitiful little creature. When I pulled it out of the water, it was covered in wounds — both eyes so swollen it couldn't open them." It had been winter and cold. When Chao Musheng had seen it drifting on the surface, he'd assumed it was dead. He'd been about to fish it out and find a patch of earth to bury it in — to keep it from contaminating the water.

But the moment he pulled it out, its paw moved.

He had never seen any animal in such a state. The fur was almost entirely gone; the flesh had gone soft and pale from the water. Two bloody holes in its abdomen, the whole thing so small and so ruined that he couldn't even tell if it was a cat or a dog.

His classmates had said something like that — clearly worked over by someone who hurt animals for pleasure — almost certainly wouldn't survive even if it had breath left in it.

But Chao Musheng had seen its bloody paw reach out and hook into his sweater.

He felt it didn't want to die.

So he ended the class outing early that day and took the small thing to a veterinary clinic.

"At the time my parents had heard there were kids in the neighborhood using their pocket money for things they shouldn't, so they'd cut off my access to cash. The money for its treatment — I had to secretly ask my grandparents for it." He looked back on those days of going to the clinic every day. "The doctor said it wouldn't eat, but every time I came to see it, it would finish its nutrition meals."

"It was ugly, but well-behaved." He looked down at Ink Blob in his arms. "But while I was away for a competition, it disappeared."

Xu Chenzhu looked at him. "Are you disappointed in it?"

Chao Musheng shook his head. "When it left, its eyes still hadn't healed. It would have been bullied by other animals."

"It was so small — its fur hadn't even properly grown in. The winter was so cold." He looked down, his voice full of regret. "If I'd had enough time to be there with it, maybe it wouldn't have slipped away from the clinic on its own."

"Without you, it would have been dead long before." In the darkness, Xu Chenzhu's voice was lower than usual. "Zhaozhao — you did everything right."

"Perhaps you weren't even the first person to see it floating on the water. Everyone else saw something dirty and foul-smelling and turned away. You were the one who pulled it out when it had already given up on this world." He looked toward a dark red lantern in the distance, lifted his silver-chained glasses off, and gave a quiet sound that was almost a laugh. "If that filthy, ragged little creature was the universe's final test of humanity — Zhaozhao, you didn't just save it. You saved the world."

Mr. Xu is working very hard to comfort me.

Chao Musheng went along with it obligingly. "Right, right — maybe that poor little thing fought some great evil for three days and three nights to save the world, and at the end appeared before humanity in its most bedraggled state, and if someone was willing to save it, the world would get another chance, and if no one did, it would die with the world."

Xu Chenzhu continued building the story with perfect sincerity: "Perhaps not three days and three nights — perhaps much longer. So long that it could no longer hold its form, and could only appear before humans as what they'd understand as an ordinary animal."

"Mr. Xu — if you keep going, I'm going to turn into the savior of the story." Chao Musheng laughed. It was remarkable, watching someone as genuinely serious as Mr. Xu invent something this preposterous with a straight face. "If it really were some kind of spirit or creature — at least then it would still be alive somewhere."

The capital's winters were so cold. How would something that small have managed?

"Maybe, before the person who hurt it found it, it already had a very good owner." Chao Musheng looked at the glasses in Xu Chenzhu's hand. "Maybe it's reunited with them by now. Maybe its owner is right there with it."

There were no gods or monsters or saviors. That ugly little creature had had a broken tail and ruined eyes. He only hoped it was still alive somewhere.

Xu Chenzhu laughed softly.

"You're right, Zhaozhao." His eyes were clear and bright, as though something gold moved in them. "You're exactly right."

He knew that Chao Musheng had searched for a long time that winter. There had been notices posted at the clinic entrance, looking for him. But he'd had no choice but to leave.

"I still don't know, to this day, whether it was a cat or a dog." Chao Musheng sighed. "But it was so bedraggled then — I hope, when it reunites with its owner, they won't find it disappointing."

The smile at the corner of Xu Chenzhu's mouth went still.

He looked down at Ink Blob, who was busy making itself comfortable in Chao Musheng's arms.

He flicked it on the forehead.

"Meow!"

How dare you. Insolent creature. This is rank insubordination.

*

"Either of you idles tonight and I will personally make you regret it." The steward herded You Jiu and Xiao He to their posts outside the wooden building. "The moment there's any movement — any sound, any shadow — you contact me immediately. And nobody goes inside."

"Steward." Xiao He pointed past the steward's shoulder, where two servants were carrying a large wooden crate into the building. "Are they allowed in?"

"Are you soft in the head?!" The steward lost his composure for a moment. "I brought them. Use your brain."

Xiao He said quietly: "But you just said nobody was allowed in..."

You Jiu looked away from the steward's furious pale face and said nothing.

There were reasons he had no patience for stupidity.

The steward and the two crate-carrying servants were inside for about half an hour before emerging empty-handed. The large wooden crate had not come back out.

"Stand watch properly. I'll come check on you at midnight, and if either of you has vanished from your post, you'll understand what regret feels like." He gave them both a warning look and swept away.

You Jiu and Xiao He looked at each other. Xiao He pulled a folded newspaper from his pocket, tore it in half, and held out one piece. "The steps are dusty. Put this down to sit on — won't ruin your trousers."

You Jiu: "..."

Tomorrow night this instance would be over and he'd be gone. What did clean trousers matter?

"Thank you." He took the half sheet. "We'll each take one side."

"Fine." Xiao He agreed immediately. As long as they weren't crowded together, he'd find an opportunity to get inside.

*

At one in the morning the steward made his check, found both of them dutifully at their posts, and went back to bed satisfied.

You Jiu glanced at Xiao He's back, placed a puppet replica of his own silhouette in the corner, deployed his Capture Claw tool, and swung himself up to the second floor.

The right-hand room on the second floor was ordinary. The left was large and spacious, housing three memorial tablets — all female names, by the looks of them.

Every wall was hung with bagua mirrors and strange paper charms. The windows and doors were all sealed, and the room held a thick smell of damp and mold. The offering table hadn't been cleaned in some time — You Jiu ran a fingertip across it and came away with a thick layer of dust.

He looked up at the three tablets. Black lacquer base, gold lettering, faded red cloth hanging from each.

What struck him as odd: no incense burner. No offerings of any kind.

The Chen family was obsessive about these things. Why were they not making offerings to their own ancestors?

He moved closer to examine them, and noticed then what the dark had hidden — the names written in gold had each been outlined with a circle of red cinnabar. Difficult to see without getting close.

Beneath the three tablets, three iron chains secured them to the offering table. He reached out and gave them a careful shake. They didn't move at all.

The tablets were cold. He pulled his hand back quickly and went up to the third floor.

The single room on the third floor was locked from the outside. He bypassed the door, used a tool on the window, and crawled in like an inverted bat.

Thud.

He hit the bed, not the floor. No pain.

Faint breathing in the room. Someone else was here.

He slipped off the bed and looked. The person lying there was Chen Fang.

Chen Fang was dressed in a white robe, a strange red marking drawn on his forehead, laid out with precise symmetry in the center of the bed — nothing like the natural sprawl of ordinary sleep.

You Jiu thought of the large wooden crate the steward had brought in earlier. He searched the room and found it in a corner: empty.

Chen Fang had been inside the crate.

He looked at the strange icons and effigies around the walls, and felt something close to pity for the young man on the bed who had no awareness of any of this.

Master Chen had turned his own grandson into an offering for summoning a malevolent god.

The secret of Chen Garden: the old man used blood relatives as sacrifices, in exchange for having a god grant his wishes.

This magnificent estate — its false mountains and lotus ponds a beautiful skin over the ugliest of hungers.

You Jiu was about to leave when sounds came from outside. He ducked under the bed.

Something pressed against his stomach. He reached for it: an unremarkable bronze-colored mirror.

No — it was a plastic imitation-bronze mirror. And something was inside it.

A listening device?

There was no time to think further. The door was opening.

The person who came in found Chen Fang on the bed.

"Central, I have an unconscious individual. Preliminary identification: Chen Fang, Chen family grandson. Vital signs present. No response to stimulus."

That voice — Xiao He?

You Jiu was astonished. This apparently simple-minded Xiao He was reporting to someone?

A competitor of the Chen family's? One of the other guests?

"Reporting to the unit leader — I cannot transfer the endangered civilian alone. Requesting backup."

Unit leader.

Civilian.

You Jiu felt his scalp prickle.

Xiao He was a police officer?

Why was there an undercover police officer inside a supernatural instance? What kind of direction was this?

What was the Main God thinking?

*

"Sir — we have insufficient evidence and no search warrant with authorization from above. We can't forcibly enter a family like the Chen's." The colleague on the line with Xiao He was anxious. "But if we don't back Xiao He up immediately, he'll be at risk of discovery."

A family with the Chen's resources, against one person alone — the outcome wasn't difficult to calculate.

"The only option now is to call in outside support."

"What outside support?"

"Someone with more standing than the Chen family."

Chao Musheng had just finished talking with Xu Chenzhu when his phone rang. The display showed a number he hadn't saved — his carrier had auto-labeled it with the name of a local police substation.

"We're very sorry to trouble you this late, Mr. Chao."

Xu Chenzhu, who had been moving toward his room, stopped and turned. "Zhaozhao — what is it?"

"We sincerely hope to ask for Mr. Chao's help with something." The officers were still working out exactly how to phrase the request when Chao Musheng cut through it.

"Yes." A clean, direct answer. "What can I do?"

The unit leader and his colleague were both silent for a second.

"Mr. Chao. Thank you."

Chao Musheng ended the call and looked at Xu Chenzhu.

"Mr. Xu — have you heard the expression: the fox borrows the tiger's authority?"

Right now he needed to be the fox. And Mr. Xu was the tiger whose presence he needed to borrow.