“Linh Châu! Thank you!” Giang Bắc Châu grabbed my hand, pulled me into a tight hug, and buried his face against my neck.
I wasn’t used to being so close to strange men, so I awkwardly patted his back.
Seeing that, Tống Phỉ Phỉ rushed over and hugged me too. “Linh Châu! I want to thank you, too! Meeting you has made my life so much more exciting!!!”
I was like the filling in a sandwich, trapped between the two of them.
Bách Linh floated nearby, watching in amazement.
By the time we got back to the hotel to rest, it was already midnight. I texted my junior disciple, then fell asleep.
I woke up the next day at noon. As soon as I stepped into the lobby, a girl came barreling toward me and hugged me like a cannonball.
“Junior Grand-Aunt!!! You heartless thing!!! It’s been forever since you came to see us!”
“Junior Grand-Aunt, we’re here!”
A young man stood there too, smiling and showing off his dimples.
“Thanh Huyền, Thanh Vũ.”
I excitedly threw an arm around Thanh Vũ’s shoulders.
“Senior Brother, ahem, how’s Senior Brother doing these days? Is he still making pills?”
“Oh, yes. He blew up two rooms just a few days ago. My senior brother and I came down from the mountain to raise money and repair the temple.”
Lục Thanh Huyền and Lục Thanh Vũ were orphans my senior brother had taken in. They were one generation below me, though only two years younger.
The three of us grew up together, as close as sisters.
With Thanh Huyền and Thanh Vũ to help, everything went more smoothly.
We brought our diving gear and returned to the mountain. Before long, we’d recovered three skeletons.
“Just as I thought. Soul-subduing nails.”
I felt the tops of the skulls. Each one had a nail driven into it, its end dark and gleaming.
“Thanh Huyền, Thanh Vũ, prepare the soul-calming and demon-binding formation. We’ll begin tonight at midnight.”
Since it was daytime, I’d already stored Bách Linh in a gourd.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ and Giang Bắc Châu helped, too. Phỉ Phỉ was so excited she nearly fainted.
She really was obsessed with ghost hunting: strong, brave, and enthusiastic.
Most importantly, she had money.
I glanced at Tống Phỉ Phỉ, thinking she really was cut out to study the Dao.
Giang Bắc Châu knelt on the ground, eyes red, carefully placing the three skeletons at the three points of the formation. Everything was ready.
A large circle had been drawn on the ground in cinnabar. The three skeletons lay in the middle, with talismanic characters all around them.
An ancient incense burner sat in the center of the circle.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ and Giang Bắc Châu stood outside the circle, watching us with solemn, tense expressions.
The sky was pitch-black, thick clouds blotting out the moon.
I formed a hand seal, and the talismans flew toward the burner. The incense tips glowed red.
A strong wind rose. The air turned eerie and tense.
Suddenly, the dark mountain blazed with light, as bright as day.
I sighed and turned to Tống Phỉ Phỉ, who was holding a flashlight. “Phỉ Phỉ, is your flashlight too bright?”
Tống Phỉ Phỉ scratched her head and smiled sheepishly. “I can’t see very well. Go ahead and keep going. I’ll switch to a dimmer one.”
She switched to a little flashlight. Its weak yellow glow fell across Lục Thanh Huyền’s face, illuminating half of it and leaving the other half in shadow. She looked like a ghost. Great—now the already creepy atmosphere was even more ominous.
I gathered myself and said, “Thanh Huyền, Thanh Vũ, heed my command!”
“Yes!”
The loudest shout came from the excited Tống Phỉ Phỉ.
I took a deep breath, released the three ghosts from the gourd, chanted an incantation, formed a hand seal, and sent golden light into the bones.
As the last beam of golden light entered, the bones shuddered violently, sucking the ghosts inside like magnets.
With the ghosts inside them, all three skeletons stood up at once, like an army of movie monsters.
“Whoa! That’s incredible!!!” Tống Phỉ Phỉ clenched her fists and bounced around. So excited, she punched Giang Bắc Châu twice, making him cough and sputter.
“The cloud seal of the Great Void, the beginning of calamity; I command the primordial chaos, sinking and rising! By the law, obey! Rise!”
As soon as I finished the incantation, three streams of black vapor shot from the skulls. The skeletons clutched their heads and screamed in agony.
I leaped up and grabbed a black nail hovering in the air. Thanh Huyền and Thanh Vũ each caught one as well.
“Trần Lôi! I hope you rot in hell!”
“Trần Lôi, spare me! I still have a wife and child—please!”
“Honey, don’t hit me! I was wrong. I know I was wrong!”
The three skeletons vaguely took on the shapes they’d had in life. Their faces were filled with terror, hatred, fear, and despair.
“Thanh Huyền, Thanh Vũ, form the formation!”
I gave the order, and the three of us sat down. Wind and clouds swirled inside the circle, dust and rocks filling the air until nothing was visible.
Then the clouds parted, and moonlight illuminated the mountains and forest.
The formation had fallen quiet. The three skeletons lay still, with three hazy ghosts beside them.
“Châu Châu!”
Hà Tỷ stared at Giang Bắc Châu, covering her mouth as she sobbed. Giang Bắc Châu’s father comforted her, while Trần Văn’s mother looked at him with tears in her eyes.
Hà Tỷ and the others regained their memories, and the truth came to light.
It turned out that Trần Lôi, Trần Văn’s father, often beat his wife when he was drunk. Giang Bắc Châu’s father couldn’t stand it and often stepped in to help.
Trần Văn’s mother was grateful to the Giang family and would sometimes cook something to bring over. As time went on, Trần Lôi grew resentful. He thought his wife had fallen for Giang Bắc Châu’s father, “that pretty-boy.”
One day, Giang Bắc Châu’s mother took him to visit her parents. Giang Bắc Châu’s father was home alone. Trần Lôi was drunk and beating his wife when Giang Bắc Châu’s father heard her cries and knocked on the door.
Consumed by jealousy, Trần Lôi stabbed Giang Bắc Châu’s father and his own wife to death.
He was the village carpenter and knew a little of Lu Ban’s craft. After killing them, he panicked and used black magic: he gouged out their eyes, cut out their tongues, drove in soul-subduing nails, and then sank their bodies in an abandoned reservoir.
He lied, saying his wife and Giang Bắc Châu’s father had run off together. There were no security cameras back then, and he’d often gotten drunk and spread rumors that his wife was in love with Giang Bắc Châu’s father, so no one suspected him.
Later, he saw his wife and Giang Bắc Châu’s father “carrying on” and felt cheated, so he was always looking for a chance to harm Giang Bắc Châu’s mother. He planned to rape her.
One day, while Giang Bắc Châu was at school, Trần Lôi tricked his mother into coming to his house, intending to assault her. She fought back fiercely, and he killed her.
After killing her, he did what he had before and sank her body in the reservoir.
Sometimes, people are scarier than ghosts.
Everyone sat in silence, listening to the Giang family speak of how much they missed their loved ones. Tống Phỉ Phỉ looked at Giang Bắc Châu with sympathy.
Just because he’d lived beside an evil spirit, Giang Bắc Châu had become an orphan.
Worse still, Trần Văn knew everything. She’d seen her father kill her mother with her own eyes, but had hidden in her room, too afraid to come out.
Trần Văn’s mother floated in the air, then knelt and bowed her head three times to the Giang family. “Brother Giang, Sister Giang, I wronged your family. I’ll deal with this father and daughter myself.”
After speaking, she let out a long scream and flew down the mountain.
“This is bad! She’s killed someone. The underworld enforcers will come for her, and she won’t be able to reincarnate!”
Worried, I jumped to my feet. The scene was chaotic; no one had time to gather their things before we hurried down the mountain.
“Giang Bắc Châu, stay here and watch over your parents. Thanh Huyền, you stay here too!”
I took Tống Phỉ Phỉ and Thanh Vũ and ran downhill. A ghost who shed human blood would be pursued by the underworld enforcers. Trần Văn’s mother had suffered too much and meant to take everyone down with her.
It was late at night, and the mountain road was dark. We couldn’t move very fast. By the time the three of us reached Giang Bắc Châu’s neighborhood, the whole place was in an uproar.
Seeing Trần Văn’s house engulfed in flames, I sighed. One tragedy, five lives.
The fire truck arrived in time and put out the fire. Only Trần Văn’s house burned; the flames didn’t spread to the neighbors’ homes.
Trần Văn and her father also died in the fire.
Watching the underworld enforcers lead away the family of three, my heart felt heavy.
I found a scenic spot, and Giang Bắc Châu gathered his parents’ bones and held a simple funeral.
Once Thanh Huyền and Thanh Vũ had finished, they left reluctantly. The sect had rules: disciples who went down the mountain had to train on their own.
There was so much injustice in the world, and so many demons and ghosts. Only by splitting up could we help more people.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ clasped Thanh Vũ’s hand and sobbed, “Thanh Vũ, boo-hoo, you have to boo-hoo too, or I’ll boo-hoo!”
The two of them got along so well, they might as well have sworn themselves sisters.
“All right, let’s go home. I still have a haunted house to run!”
I tugged at Tống Phỉ Phỉ, and Giang Bắc Châu patted her on the shoulder.
Losing his parents still hurt, but the wicked had been punished and his parents’ souls could be reincarnated. With that burden lifted from his heart, Giang Bắc Châu became more open, too.
Like him, after all these years, I’d still had the chance to say goodbye to my parents. That was already a blessing.
Tống Phỉ Phỉ wiped away her tears and raised her hand to swear an oath. “I, Tống Phỉ Phỉ, will carry on the sect’s legacy! I’ll vanquish demons, exterminate evil, and wipe out every last villain!!!”
“Hey, since when did you become part of my sect? I haven’t even taken you as my disciple!”
I tugged Tống Phỉ Phỉ along, playfully running ahead.
Our story had only just begun.
-THE END-