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Chapter Text

“Were you afraid?” the woman asks. She has straight black hair that falls to her chin and frames her face. She looks across the set with curious dark eyes, magnified by her thick, round glasses. She wears a light blue pantsuit and holds several white notecards in her lap.

“Oh, Hell yes,” the young man sitting across from her responds. There is a sound of amusement from their audience, a group of about fifty people gathered in the small studio to hear the tales of the famed Liyuan exorcist. The man is in his early twenties and has shoulder-length icy blue hair that falls into his pale blue eyes, even though it’s tied back with a white ribbon. He wears a white crop top hoodie with the sleeves ripped off, a black muscle shirt, and baggy white pants. His muscular arms are decorated with old scars.

“I was terrified,” he says with a smile and a shrug. “I mean, I’d never fought a demon before. I half-expected it would run away as soon as it sensed my presence.”

“Well, were you able to defeat it?”

“I mean, yeah, since I’m still standing,” he says. “That thing almost killed me.”

“I’m impressed,” the woman says, looking at him over her glasses. The man blushes slightly. “Me too, to be honest. I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” he says with an awkward smile.

“Well, I think it’s amazing that you survived, and went on to continue battling evil spirits across Teyvat,” the woman smiles. The producer behind the Kamera points at his watch, signaling that they’re about to go off the air. The woman turns in her seat towards the Kamera. “And of course, if you at home would like to know more about this incredible young man’s encounters with the spirit world, his new book, “Banisher of Evil,” is coming out next week! Find it in a store near you, or pre-order it from Yae Publishing House today! Up next, find out the winner of this week’s This Novel Is Amazing contest! Ladies and Gentlemen, Chongyun!”

With that, the woman’s smile fades and the Kameras cut off, while the blue-haired man is still waving awkwardly at them.

“Oh my Archons, I can’t believe she accredited my book to you ,” Xingqiu sighs melodramatically. They stand in the wings, smiling proudly at Chongyun as he approaches, despite their exhasperated words. “You shut up,” Chongyun rolls his eyes as he passes. “It’s our book anyway.”

“Yeah, well how come I did ninety percent of the work, but your name on the cover is twice as big?” Xingqiu asks, standing up straight and following Chongyun to the dressing room. On stage, Chongyun looks normal. Up close, they can tell that his face is plastered with a thick layer of makeup.

“I don’t know,” Chongyun sighs, wetting a washcloth at the dressing room sink and aggressively scrubbing at his cheeks. “Maybe because the book’s about me.”

“Well, I think I should get more credit for writing your biography.”

“Why don’t you take it up with my manager,” Chongyun sighs.

“But I am your manager,” Xingqiu says flatly.

“Exactly,” Chongyun says, turning around. His face is pink from scrubbing off layers of foundation and contour and powder.

“You missed a spot,” Xingqiu says, flustered. They take the washcloth and gently wipe away a smudge of concealer from Chongyun’s forehead, revealing a thin but jagged scar running from his hairline to his right temple. “That’s better. Now you look more like you, and less like someone threw a load of flour at you.”

Chongyun laughs. “That sounds like something you’d do,” he says.

“You dare accuse me of such a heinous crime,” Xingqiu says. “I am offended. But good idea.”

“Please don’t throw anything at me,” Chongyun sighs.

“I’ll consider it,” Xingqiu says, standing on tiptoe to kiss the scar on Chongyun’s forehead. His cheeks flush hot pink. “What was that for?”

“I’m not really mad about the book, just teasing you,” Xingqiu says.

“I know,” Chongyun says. It’s a boldfaced lie. Xingqiu has always been annoyingly good at miscommunication, and Chongyun is very bad at figuring out if they actually mean what they say.

Their hotel room at the foreign affairs agency in Ritou is small, but comfortable. A large bed dressed with half a dozen pillows and several layers of blankets sits to one side of the room, with a couch and coffee table on the other side. Xingqiu sits cross-legged on the bed, buried in blankets with their nose in a book. Their waist-length navy blue hair falls loosely into their face, hiding their mischievous golden eyes and lightly freckled cheeks.

Chongyun sits in his side of the bed, wondering if his interview went well. He feels certain that he had stuttered over some parts and smiled at the wrong places. Oh well, he’ll know as soon as he gets back home and Xiangling tells him everything that he did wrong over a bowl of chilled soup.

Xingqiu seems to sense his worries, and looks up from their book. “You did great,” they say seriously. “I promise.”

“I did?”

They nod. “I mean, for your first time on stage? That was pretty much perfect. It doesn’t get much better.”

“Thanks,” Chongyun says, smiling. He lies down on the small mountain of pillows underneath him and pulls the blanket up to his chin. It’s warm and soft, but not too warm.

“Goodnight,” he says, turning off the lamp beside his bed.

“Night,” Xingqiu responds, although they make no move to put away their book or turn off their light. Chongyun assumes that they plan to stay up reading until the wee hours of the morning.

Chongyun always struggled when doing things for the first time. During the interview, he spoke about his first time exorcising a demon. It was the most terrifying two days and nights of his life, nearly ten years ago when he and Xingqiu were teenagers. He had the scars to prove it, both physically and mentally.

He rolls over in bed, his back to Xingqiu, and closes his eyes, letting the darkness of sleep envelop him.

For ten years now, Chongyun and Xingqiu have been known as Teyvat’s most renowned paranormal investigators. Chongyun is a gifted exorcist, while Xingqiu is a talented scholar and researcher of demonic and spiritual history.

They have taken countless cases of hauntings, possessions, and other paranormal events over their lifetimes. But there is one case which neither of them have spoken about much until now. Their first-ever successful exorcism, and also the one that terrified them the most.

Based on The Conjuring series.

Chapter Text

Chongyun woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed. The tiny room inside Wangshu inn was ice cold despite it being early autumn, and the wind blew at the curtains in the windows.

He had been dreaming. At first, it was something stupid. He and Hu Tao were standing outside of Wanmin Restaurant eating popsicles that were supposedly made out of sand while watching the sunrise. Everyone else around them had turned into a cat, and the cat that he somehow knew was Yelan kept begging them for a bite of sand-sicle. But then the dream changed and he was suddenly standing inside an old house. He heard a deep voice, but he had already forgotten what it said.

He hugged his arms to his chest and glanced around. Xingqiu was still dead asleep in the bed beside him, arms and legs spread haphazardly across at least two-thirds of the bed. Their mouth lolled open and they were snoring loudly. The cold breeze couldn’t even try to disturb their slumber.

Chongyun sighed and slipped out of the third of the bed that Xingqiu had left for him. He made his way to the window and looked out over the expanse of Dihua Marsh. It was nearly three in the morning, and the sky was a black background for a million stars twinkling above Wuwang Hill. The moon was almost full.

Chongyun slammed the window shut, barring out the cold air, and went back to bed, curling up in the small amount of space that Xingqiu didn’t take up. He closed his eyes, trying his best to get back to sleep.

Suddenly, he remembered what the voice in his dream had said. Just the word “Almost,” whispered softly in his ear.

“You look tired,” Xingqiu said, handing Chongyun a plate of cold eggs and tofu.

“I am tired,” he replied. “I was woken up in the middle of the night by freezing cold wind. Not to mention you were taking up the entire bed.”

“I told you we should have gotten the bigger room,” Xingqiu rolled their eyes and took a sip of their tea. “And I was under the impression that you liked the cold.”

“I mean, I do, but this was a little too much,” Chongyun said. “Felt like winter in the middle of summer.”

“Fair enough,” Xingqiu shrugged. “Now eat, before your eggs get, well, even colder.”

They ate their breakfast in silence. Chongyun dreaded the long walk to Qingce village that would start as soon as they were finished, so he savored every bite.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t procrastinate forever, and they were soon finished eating. A dozen other guests at the inn were also preparing to leave; merchants gathered their wares and saddled their horses while vacationing families rounded up their children and counted suitcases. Three Adventurers at the table beside Chongyun and Xingqiu poured over maps of Liyue, arguing over where they should look for treasure today.

“I’d much rather be looking for treasure than hunting ghosts,” Xingqiu said, eyeing them jealously. Chongyun frowned. “These people called us,” he said. “They need our help, and maybe it’ll actually be something this time.”

“Yeah, just like the last hundred places we’ve been,” Xingqiu sighed. “The more we do this, the more I start to, well, not believe in ghosts.”

Chongyun snapped to attention, glaring at Xingqiu. “I don’t care” was written all over their face.

“Xingqiu, you know full well that ghosts are real,” he said.

“It’s not too late to go home,” Xingqiu said, trying to change the subject.

“Yes it is, we walked for like a whole day yesterday. Going back and forth because you kept forgetting stuff.” He glared at Xingqiu’s overstuffed bag, which sat on the chair next to them. It was stuffed with Archons knew how many books and outfits.

“No harm in being prepared,” Xingqiu said haughtily. Chongyun sighed and stood up. “Well, then, let's start moving. It’s going to take all day to get there, so we might as well start early.”

There is no convenient way to get to Qingce village from anywhere.

The pair slowly made their way North, walking through Dihua marsh. They had to be careful to stay on the path; Chongyun nearly lost a shoe to a deep mud puddle hidden under thick grass. The massive stone statue of Rex Lapis loomed over them, watching as they walked around it towards the small fort of Stone Gate that separated Liyue from Mondstadt.

Xingqiu wanted to buy some tea at Stone Gate, but Chongyun insisted that they carry on. They turned to the West, doing their best to avoid the hilichurls camped everywhere along their path. Xingqiu insisted on dragging Chongyun through the ruins at the base of Wuwang hill. They found a single chest hidden under the broken floor. It was empty except for a couple of mora and a lot of dust.

By the time they reached the edge of the bamboo forest to the Southwest of the village, it was well past noon. Xingqiu unpacked the mora meat they had prepared in advance, and they ate lunch under the shade of a small stone gazebo. As soon as they finished, they were on the road again, trekking North once again along the overgrown path. Xingqiu gathered some pieces of bamboo and stuffed them in their pockets as they went. They claimed they made good writing pens.

When they finally reached the village, it was evening. The sun had begun to sink over Jueyun Karst, covering the village with long, dark shadows. The teenagers slowed their pace as they climbed the dozens of stairs that wound their way up Wuwang Hill. Large, terraced fields surrounded them in between large cliff faces that walled the village off from the rest of Teyvat. A thin river flowed through the center of the canyon. Several forest boars stood at the edge of the river, drinking its cool water.

The pair arrived at the center of the town, a small cobblestone courtyard where several tables were laid out for the villagers to eat together. Several people busied themselves around the area, carrying dishes and setting the tables. Xingqiu caught the eye of a little girl carrying a tall stack of bowls.

“Where might we find the leader of your village?” Xingqiu asked. “Someone named Mrs. Ruoxin?”

“You mean Granny Ruoxin?” the girl asked.

“I suppose so.”

“She’s up at the big pavilion over there!” the girl said, shuffling her stack of bowls into one arm and pointing further up the hill.

“Thank you,” Xingqiu said, bowing their head. The little girl grinned and ran to help set the tables.

The large pavilion was brightly lit, and occupied by a single, elderly woman. She wore a dark green dress and a tan shawl, and her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She sat in a chair in the pavilion, reading over some documents.

“Good evening, ma’am,” Xingqiu said courteously. The woman looked up, and the teenagers bowed in respect.

“Hello, travelers. Welcome to Qingce Village,” she said, putting down her papers. “How may I help you?”

“We are the exorcists you asked for, from Liyue Harbor,” Xingqiu said.

“Well, I’m the exorcist,” Chongyun said. “They’re my assistant.”

“I’m his manager,” Xingqiu corrected. Chongyun tried very hard to not roll his eyes.

“I see,” the woman chuckled. “Well, then, you’re just in time. Please, join us for dinner, and you can meet the people you’ll be helping. Afterward, you can look at the house.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Ruoxin,” Xingqiu said.

“Oh, just call me Granny Ruoxin,” she smiled. “Which reminds me, I don’t think you ever told me your names.”

“Oh, apologies! My name is Xingqiu, of the feiyun commerce guild. This is my best friend, Chongyun.”

For some reason, it stung a little to be referred to as Xingqiu’s “best friend,” but Chongyun shrugged off the feeling and shook the old woman’s hand.

Fifteen minutes later, the pair were seated at a small bamboo table in the courtyard. The scent of something spicy filled the air, making Chongyun feel a little bit dizzy. He hoped they had something cold and not spicy that he could eat.

Granny Ruoxin appeared a moment later, followed by two young women. Neither appeared to be from Liyue; One had long, wavy auburn hair, green eyes, and a scattering of freckles; the other had short, curly blonde hair and icy blue eyes. All three women joined them at the table, and someone brought them platters laden with food. Chongyun was happy to see that his dinner was cold, and not covered in spices.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, before Granny Ruoxin introduced them. “Thalia, Paris. These are the exorcists from Liyue Harbor. They’ve come to check out your house and see what they can find.”

“Oh, thank the gods!” the blonde woman cried. She had a heavy Snezhnayan accent. “It’s been awful. I swear I’ve been hearing noises constantly, the doors open and close by themselves, things appear and disappear at random–it’s awful!”

“That sounds like a poltergeist,” Chongyun said. He could feel disappointment building up in his stomach. A poltergeist would leave the house as soon as he came within ten feet of it.

“A poltergeist?” the redhead woman asked.

“They’re spirits that remain in this life just to cause problems. Nicer ones are just irritating, they tend to just move things around or bang the doors in the middle of the night. Meaner ones will sometimes throw things or pull rugs out from under you, but they usually don’t mean any harm.”

“Oh,” the blonde woman frowned. The two of them exchanged a worried glance.

“What is it?” Xingqiu asked.

“Well, it’s just that, Thalia has been waking up with bruises on her body,” the redhead woman said nervously.

Thalia, the blonde woman, nodded. She pulled up her sleeve to show Chongyun a large, ugly blue-and-yellow bruise on her arm.

“And last night, I woke up to see this,” Thalia added. She pulled aside the neck of her shirt to reveal a thin, half-healed scar on her collarbone. “It wasn’t there the day before. Paris was taking pictures of me yesterday and it wasn’t there in any of them.”

Chongyun took a deep breath his disappointment quickly turning to worry. “Okay, then no, this is definitely worse than a poltergeist,” he said.

“What do you think it is?” Granny Ruoxin asked worriedly.

“I don’t know. I’d have to check it out for myself. If we’re lucky, though, it’ll sense me from far away and get spooked.”

“What do you mean, get spooked?” Paris asked nervously.

“I have a little condition called a pure-yang spirit. It scares off weaker spirits if I get too close to them,” he explained briefly.

“Oh, well then, that’s perfect!” Paris said. “Maybe this’ll be over and done with by tonight, and we can sleep peacefully!”

“Or not, if you want,” Thalia winked.

Now that their mood was lighter, Thalia and Paris introduced themselves.

“I’m a photographer from Fontaine,” Paris said. “I mostly specialize in portraits, but I came to Liyue to practice landscape photography. This village seemed perfect, it’s so beautiful and quiet.”

“We met here in Liyue, several years ago,” Thalia said. “I used to be an Adventurer and I met Paris while I was treasure hunting and she was photographing. We worked together for a few years; I would explore, and she would document every second of it. We got married last year.”

“We quit adventuring after Thalia was injured in an accident on Dragonspine,” Paris explained. “Now I work doing wedding pictures and special events, and she’s writing a book about her travels.”

“We hoped that Qingce village would be a nice place to stay and be creative,” Thalia sighed. “The house was cheap–less than a million mora. We hoped we could get something new made, maybe even start a family, but now these damn ghosts have to ruin it for everyone.”

“When did they first start bothering you?” Chongyun asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably been happening since we moved in, and we didn’t notice until it started to get bad,” Paris said.

“At first, it was small,” Thalia sighed. “We would put something down, only to find it would vanish and reappear someplace totally different. It would be horribly cold in the middle of summer, but only in one small area. Sometimes lanterns went out by themselves, and then reignited a moment later.”

“It got worse as it went on,” Paris said, rushing over her words. “I’d wake up to see nasty bruises on Thalia’s body. Sometimes the house would smell like rotting meat. Doors opened and closed by themselves and sometimes refused to open again. We haven’t been able to get into the basement for two weeks.”

“Then I had a dream, a week ago,” Thalia said, her voice almost a whisper. “I saw a little girl’s body and heard a man laughing. The next day I could have sworn I saw her sitting on a living room chair, but I blinked and she was gone.”

“Oh my gods,” Chongyun said quietly. Xingqiu sat beside him, brow furrowed, already racking their brains for a solution.

“Mrs. Ruoxin–I mean, Granny Ruoxin, sorry,” they said slowly, “do you know if the previous owners of the house experienced anything like this?”

Granny Ruoxin shook her head. “No, the house has been uninhabited for longer than I’ve lived here. I assume its previous owners moved away to work in Liyue Harbor.”

“Well, do you have some sort of documentation about the house?” Xingqiu asked. “Maybe we can find out who they were and where they went. Then we can hopefully ask them if they ever witnessed this.”

“Good idea,” Chongyun said. He couldn’t help but worry about this case. It seemed worse than anything he had done before. The worst ghost he had ever exorcized–or rather, scared away–was a poltergeist that enjoyed locking doors at random and pouring water on her victims’ heads.

“Do you mind if we stay at the house tonight?” Chongyun asked.

“Of course not!” Paris smiled. She sounded delighted at that suggestion.

“You guys will probably need to stay somewhere else in the village,” Chongyun suggested. “Just in case something bad happens, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh, that’s no problem,” Thalia said. “After the last few nights, we were planning on staying with someone else anyway.”

“Should I stay in the village too?” Xingqiu asked hopefully. Coward , Chongyun thought. “Nope, you’re coming with me. I’ll need backup in case I don’t scare the ghost off and end up just pissing him off.”

“Oh, lovely,” Xingqiu sighed overdramatically. “Tell my father I loved him,” they said, fake-swooning and almost falling off their bamboo stool. Chongyun took that as a sign to leave.

“Should we go look at the house?” he asked, standing up.

“Of course,” Thalia said, standing up quickly. “Right this way.”

The house was a small, old house, far away from the rest of the village. It was hidden behind several large trees and separated from the village by several layers of farmland and the river. The lights inside were put out, and the door was ajar.

“Oh, shit, I thought I locked it,” Thalia swore.

Chongyun pushed the door open. It creaked loudly on rusty hinges, sending a chill down Chongyun’s spine. He could feel a strange, cold energy around them, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

As soon as he was fully inside, he saw them. Five or six figures, pale and transparent, surrounded the door, staring at him with expressions of curiosity. Then the lantern above their heads flickered to life, bathing the foyer in light and startling their little party, and the spirits vanished.

“Okay, yeah, this is very haunted,” Chongyun said, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“Did you sense anything?” Xingqiu asked.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Chongyun nodded. “There’s a bunch of spirits here, but I don’t know if I scared them off.”

He felt vulnerable and uncertain. He was so used to spirits just running away as soon as they felt his presence. But this was different. They were close. Scared, but close. As if they wanted to flee but couldn’t.

As if they were trapped.

Chongyun shivered. Whatever was keeping the spirits here was certainly powerful, way more powerful than he was, if it was resisting his yang energy like this. Maybe they should call the adepti.

He shook his head. They had asked for him, so he was going to finish this. He could exorcize the house himself. He would get to the bottom of this, and then kick some ghost butt and free both the other spirits and the homeowners.

He steeled himself, ready to face whatever these ghosts would throw at him.

Literally, as a moment later he felt something large and heavy hit him in the face, knocking him onto his back, and his vision went black.

Chapter Text

A second later Chongyun opened his eyes to find himself lying on his back on the carpet, blood gushing from his nose and a gash on his cheek. He sat up, clamping a hand over his face and looking for whatever had hit him.

A large smashed vase lay on the carpet beside him. He barely had time to look it over when Xingqiu dropped beside him, tilting his face to see the cut. “Are you okay?” they asked, a note of panic in their voice. That was odd, Xingqiu rarely worried when Chongyun got hurt.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand. Thalia handed Xingqiu a towel, and they quickly mopped up the blood. Chongyun pressed the towel against his nose and Xingqiu began to pick up pieces of the broken vase.

“Well, I think whatever we’re dealing with here is mad now,” Xingqiu said. They stood up and helped Chongyun to his feet.

“Take him to the kitchen, there’s a first aid kit in there,” Paris said. Xingqiu tried to help Chongyun into the kitchen, but he could walk fine by himself and pulled his arm out of Xingqiu’s grasp.

He sat down at the table while Xingqiu and Thalia cleaned and bandaged the cut, still holding the towel against his nosebleed. He could feel fear and anger surging through the house. Whatever was in here wanted him to go away. If anything, that was a sign that he had to stay.

“You alright?” Xingqiu asked when Chongyun’s nose finally stopped bleeding and his wounded cheek was patched up.

“Yeah,” he said slowly.

“That never happened before,” Paris said nervously.

“What’s happening?” Xingqiu asked.

“The spirits are afraid,” Chongyun said. “They’re scared of my pure-yang spirit, but I don't they can’t run away. I think that was one trying to fend me off.”

“Then it’ll be dangerous for you to stay here,” Thalia said worriedly.

“It’s fine, I’m not scared,” Chongyun lied. “I can do it.”

“You’re a kid,” Paris pointed out. “I’d feel awful if you got hurt over something like this.”

“This is all part of being an exorcist,” Chongyun said. “It can be dangerous, but I knew that when I started studying thaumaturgy. I can handle myself just fine.”

“He can, I’ve seen him,” Xingqiu nodded. “You know Lumine, that traveler that keeps solving everyone’s problems? Chongyun’s fought alongside her and won countless times. She believes in him, and I believe in him.”

“Well…if you’re sure,” Paris said uncertainly.

“And it’s not like he’ll sue you if he does get hurt,” Xingqiu added. “He can’t afford a lawyer anyway.”

The house was very small, with only a few rooms on each level. Downstairs, there was a small foyer, with a combined kitchen and dining room to the left and a living room to the right. A staircase in the living room led upstairs, where there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. A locked door in the kitchen led to a basement, which had been inaccessible for a long time.

The kitchen had several shelves stocked with canned and dried food, a large stove, and a table with six chairs surrounding it. “We can’t keep perishable food here,” Thalia sighed. “If we leave it overnight, it goes bad. But you two can help yourselves to anything in here that you’d like.”

The countertops were bare, and although there were several hooks on the walls to hang pots and pans and utensils, there were none in sight. “We keep all the cooking supplies locked in the cupboards,” Paris explained, indicating the cupboards, which were sealed with chains and padlocks. “The ghosts liked to knock them down.”

“And they can’t open the locks?” Xingqiu asked hesitantly.

Paris shook her head. “It’s a combination lock. I guess they don’t know the code. We’ve never said it out loud, it’s just the date of our anniversary. Here, I’ll show you.” She demonstrated, turning the dials on the padlock while Chongyun watched and committed the code to memory. Zero-nine-five.

Thalia opened the cupboard door, revealing a jumbled mess of frying pans and small pots. “They do get in here sometimes,” she sighed. “This was organized this morning. It’s like they can get in, but they can’t take the stuff out.”

“Sometimes I hear a baby crying while I’m in here alone,” Paris said. “And one time I saw a baby sitting on the table. I even got a picture of it. I had to take a picture, I thought I was going crazy.”

“Look,” Thalia said, shoving the photograph under Chongyun’s nose. It was blurry, but he could still make out a translucent figure of a child, sitting in the center of the table with its thumb in its mouth.

“May I see that?” Xingqiu asked. Thalia handed it over, and they squinted down at it. “Look there, in the back corner,” he said. Chongyun took the photo and looked closely. In the background there was another figure, barely a shadow. It appeared to be a large woman, with her face buried in her hands. Chongyun and Xingqiu exchanged a nervous glance.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Chongyun asked.

“It’s yours,” Paris said.

The living room across the house was dark and furnished with a lot of squishy, fake velvet furniture. Two muted pink armchairs sat on either side of a small table. A short maroon couch laden with pillows sat adjacent to it. A desk and piano stood side-by-side against the back wall, which was decorated with beautiful photographs of landscapes and portraits from across Teyvat. A vase full of qingxin and violetgrass, identical to the smashed one on the foyer floor, stood on the windowsill. The staircase took up all of one wall, and bookshelves were built into the space underneath it.

“This feels like the least haunted room in the house,” Thalia said. “Sometimes the piano makes noise, or we hear footsteps, but that’s it.”

“And one time a photograph fell,” Paris said. “But the windows were open, so we didn’t know if it was a ghost or just the wind.”

“Which one?” Xingqiu asked.

“This one.” Paris pointed to a framed photograph of herself, wearing a light green sundress and sitting in a patch of glaze lilies. She had a beautiful smile, and her green eyes sparkled. Her ginger hair was loose, falling in waves around her shoulders. “Thalia took it when I was teaching her photography.”

Xingqiu went to look at the books on the bookshelves. “Were any of these here when you moved in?” they asked.

Thalia shook her head. “No, they’re all ours. Why do you ask?”

“I was hoping there might be something about the house’s history,” Xingqiu said. “Shall we go upstairs?”

“Of course!” Paris and Thalia led the way up the stairs, and Xingqiu held Chongyun back a moment. They were practically shaking with excitement.

“What is it?” Chongyun asked anxiously.

“They have A Legend of Sword !” Xingqiu whispered. “And it’s not dusty! It looks like they read it, and liked it!”

Chongyun rolled his eyes. “Calm down, you’re such a celebrity,” he said, before making his way up the stairs.

Upstairs there was a small hallway that connected to two bedrooms on one side and a small bathroom at the end of the hallway. The women led the teenagers into the first room, which was their bedroom. The walls were painted pale yellow, and there was a large double bed covered with a patchwork quilt in the center of the room. A large dresser and wardrobe stood opposite it. Two small tables stood on either side of the bed, topped with identical lamps. A rocking chair sat to one side, with a half-finished crochet project draped over it.

“Is this where you’ve been staying?” Chongyun asked.

Paris nodded. “Yes. This is where Thalia keeps waking up with strange injuries, and where we’ve both had creepy nightmares.”

“Can you explain those nightmares?”

“I saw a little girl, lying dead on the floor. And I heard a man laughing,” Thalia said with a shudder. “There was blood everywhere. I’ve also heard a man’s voice pleading, only to be suddenly silenced.”

“And I’ve seen a creepy guy standing in the corner,” Paris added. “I could’ve sworn I was awake and there was a real person there, it felt so real.”

“Are you sure I have to stay here with you?” Xingqiu whispered shakily, holding Chongyun's arm.

“Yes, you do,” Chongyun insisted. Xingqiu pouted, but Chongyun ignored them.

They finally made their way into the guest bedroom. It was small and dark, furnished with a pair of twin-sized beds and a tall wardrobe. The entire room smelled like rotten meat.

“The house was completely empty when we moved in, except for this room. This place was fully furnished,” Paris explained.

Chongyun walked forward to inspect the room. The sheets and quilts on the beds were black and worn down with age. Mildew stains covered the mattress. He tried to open the wardrobe, but it was locked.

“It always smells awful,” Thalia said. “We usually keep it locked.”

“Was the wardrobe locked up when you moved in?” Chongyun asked.

Paris nodded, and Chongyun frowned.

“Look at this,” Xingqiu said. They pointed at the foot of one of the beds. A half-rotted wooden plank hung from the foot of the bed, with the word “Li” carved on it in fancy, curly script.

“What about it?” Chongyun asked.

“When my brother and I were little, we shared a room,” Xingqiu said. “Each of our beds had a little nameplate on it.”

“So that’s like an old-timey nameplate,” Chongyun said slowly.

“Exactly,” Xingqiu nodded.

“But what does that have to do with anything?”

Xingqiu shrugged. “Just an observation. But it does give me a name for when I start researching this place tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Chongyun smiled.

They quickly toured the bathroom–which was perfectly ordinary, and apparently wasn’t the site of any hauntings–and then it was time for Chongyun and XIngqiu to settle in, and for the women to go to a neighbor’s house for the night.

“Goodnight, stay safe,” Paris urged.

“You too,” Chongyun said solemnly.

“And thank you. A million times over, thank you,” Thalia said.

“We’re just doing our jobs, ma’am,” Chongyun smiled.

“He’s doing his job, I’m just the manager,” Xingqiu said, trying to slip out the door with the women. Chongyun caught them by the back of their shirt. “Get your little butt back in here," he said, dragging them inside before the door slammed shut by itself, locking them in and the rest of the world out.

They stowed their bags on the floor of the master bedroom–the beds in the guest room were too old and rotten to try to sleep on–and got ready for bed. Xingqiu threw on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that went down to their knees and hurried to the bathroom to brush their teeth. As soon as they walked into the room and saw the reflection in the mirror, they froze.

A woman stood behind them, her hair tangled and her clothes stained with blood, gripping a small ax. Xingqiu spun around to look behind them, but no one was there. They looked back in the mirror.

The woman was still standing there, but now her head hung limply to the side, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. Her eyes rolled back, and Xingqiu saw that her ax was now buried in her chest. She slowly fell backward and Xingqiu whipped back around.

The hallway was still empty.

“It’s all in your head,” they whispered. “It’s not real. It’s just a ghost, it can’t hurt you.” They closed their eyes and turned around slowly, back towards the mirror. They slowly opened one eye, then stumbled backwards in horror. “YOU’RE NEXT” was written across the mirror in what looked like blood. Xingqiu leaned against the back wall, their heart pounding. This was very real. These ghosts could totally hurt them.

“CHONGYUN!” they screamed. Their vision had gone black around the edges, panic forcing them to focus on nothing but the bloody threat written on the mirror. Running footsteps approached and Chongyun appeared in front of them. “Are you okay?” he asked quickly, standing inches away from Xingqiu, gripping their shoulders and staring into their half-glazed-over eyes.

Chongyun hadn' t seen the mirror, or the figure that now stood behind him, her bloody ax raised to strike, her dead eyes sparkling.

The lanterns went out and Xingqiu heard the whoosh of the ax cutting through the air. They screamed and squeezed their eyes shut, tense and waiting for Chongyun’s body to collapse on top of them, waiting to hear the woman’s maniacal laughter-

“Xingqiu! What happened? look at me, it’s okay!”

They opened their eyes. Chongyun was still there, snakelike blue eyes staring into Xingqiu’s amber ones, panicked concern written all over his face. He wasn’t dead. There was no woman with an ax. Even the words on the mirror were gone.

Xingqiu went limp, sliding down the wall to the floor, trembling and on the verge of tears. Their heart pounded loud and fast, and their breath came short and shaky. Chongyun knelt down in front of them. “Are you alright?” he asked worriedly.

Xingqiu nodded, then decided that was a lie, and shook their head vigorously.

“What happened, what did you see?” Chongyun pressured. Xingqiu shook their head. They didn’t want to talk about it, not right now. Not when they could still see the mirror above them, now only reflecting the plain white ceiling.

“Come here, let’s go to bed,” Chongyun said. Xingqiu nodded and flung their arms around Chongyun's neck. They allowed Chongyun to pick them up bridal-style and carry them into the bedroom. They rested their head on his chest, eyes practically stuck open, terrified that Chongyun would vanish or the woman would reappear if they so much as blinked.

Chongyun gently set them down on the bed, then sat down beside them. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

Xingqiu took a deep breath and leaned against Chongyun, waiting until they were certain that he wasn’t going anywhere. “I saw a person,” they whispered. Their voice was raspy and shook violently and they bit their lip to try to control it.

“Mm-hm?”

“I saw her in the mirror. She was holding an ax and covered in blood. I looked back at the hallway, but no one was there. Then I looked back and she was dead, with the ax in her chest, and then when I looked at the mirror again, it, it-”

“Yes?” Chongyun encouraged.

“It said ‘you’re next’ on it,” Xingqiu whispered. “Then I screamed and you ran in, and then I saw her behind you, about to kill you-” They were shaking again, and tears were escaping onto their cheeks. Chongyun pulled them close. “It’s okay, I’m right here,” he said.

Xingqiu collapsed onto Chongyun’s shoulder, letting themself cry into his hoodie for a long time. Chongyun held onto them, awkwardly petting their hair. They stayed like that for a long time, while Xingqiu repeatedly told themself that it was only a vision and ghosts can’t kill people.

Then they realized that Chongyun was petting them and sat bolt upright, their cheeks bright red to match the splotchy skin around their eyes. “H-hey, stop it,” they said. Their face felt like it was on fire.

“Sorry,” Chongyun apologized. Xingqiu crawled over to their side of the bed and curled up, embarrassed that they had been reduced to crying in Chongyun’s arms. Chongyun’s arms! They were supposed to impress Chongyun, not curl up in his arms and cry like a baby.

Chongyun watched them tuck themself in, pulling the quilt up to their ears to hide their bright red face. He wasn’t quite sure what had caused this reaction, but it kind of hurt. Xingqiu was never this vulnerable. Whatever they had seen certainly shook them to the core.

Chongyun lay down and pulled the covers up to his chin. He turned off his lamp and rolled over with his back to Xingqiu.

He couldn’t help but notice that Xingqiu left the other lamp on.

Chapter Text

Chongyun stood in a dark hallway, holding a flickering candle that was the only source of light nearby. The darkness felt heavy, as if it was pressing in on him from all sides, making it difficult to breathe.

A gust of wind blew beside him, ruffling his hair and clothes, and he heard a voice. “Follow me,” it whispered, and he heard running footsteps. So he followed the sound of the footsteps, down the dark hallway, careful not to let his candle go out.

The footsteps led him to a room that looked a lot like the guest bedroom of the house, but worse. The furniture was all but destroyed and covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Moonlight shone through the window, illuminating every speck of dust that hung in the air. Chongyun exhaled and the dust flew away from his face.

“Hello, mister,” a little girl’s voice came from somewhere beside him. He whipped around, but no one was there.

“Don’t you want to play with us?” said another girl’s voice. He turned around again. Something was on one of the broken beds, something that wasn’t there a moment before, hidden under the moth-eaten patchwork quilt.

He walked up to it slowly, his hands shaking, and pulled the quilt off. It was the body of a young girl, her brown eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Her cheeks were sunken and her skin was discolored. She had thick brown hair held back in two braids and wore a plain yellow dress. A thin trickle of dried blood ran from the corner of her mouth.

Chongyun closed his eyes quickly and looked away. His heart pounded. She couldn’t really be there. This was impossible.

He opened his eyes again. The girl was gone, and in her place lay a ragdoll, staring at the ceiling with the same soulless expression on its painted face that the girl had had. It had brown yarn hair tied back in two braids and a yellow dress.

Chongyun backed away from the doll, not taking his eyes off of it, his heart racing. He felt himself bump into something and he froze.

“Look at me,” whispered the first girl’s voice behind him.

He turned around slowly. There was another body behind him, another little girl, her feet dangling at Chongyun’s eye level as she slowly spun around in circles from the rope tied around her neck.

Chongyun woke with a start, the mental image of the girl’s hanging body practically burned into his brain. He sat up, hastily taking in the room around him. He was back in the master bedroom, and early morning sunlight poured in through the windows. The light felt reassuring.

Xingqiu was asleep beside him, curled up tightly and snuggling with a pillow. Their lamp was still lit, but was nearly out of oil. Chongyun reached across the bed to turn it off.

His movement woke Xingqiu. Their eyelids flickered open and they sat up, looking around the room. They shivered and hugged their arms around their body. “Gods, it’s freezing in here,” they murmured.

Chongyun was used to feeling colder than most people, so he hadn’t felt the change in temperature until Xingqiu mentioned it. But now he realized how icy the room felt. Like winter, even though it was barely autumn. The cold brought back Chongyun’s feelings of uneasiness.

Chongyun got up and dressed quickly. Xingqiu stayed in bed, blankets wrapped around their shoulders, not moving.

“Are you okay?” Chongyun asked worriedly.

“Yeah,” they said, their voice sounding hollow.

“Bad dream?”

“…you could say that,” Xingqiu shrugged.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chongyun asked, sitting back down on the bed beside Xingqiu. “My mom used to say that it helps to talk about bad dreams.” The mental images of the dead girl on the bed and the doll and the hanging body flashed in his mind’s eye.

“I just heard a voice,” Xingqiu said. “I didn’t see anything, it was too dark. Just someone saying ‘you’re next, you’re next, you’re next' over and over again.”

“It’s just a dream,” Chongyun smiled, deciding it would be better to not worry Xingqiu with his own nightmare. The poor kid was stressed out enough as it was.

“I’ll go make us some breakfast,” Chongyun said, getting up and starting to leave the room. Xingqiu grabbed his wrist. “Wait! please wait for me,” they said. “I…I don’t want to be left alone in here…”

“Alright,” Chongyun nodded. He waited while Xingqiu got out of bed and threw on a sweater that was several sizes too big for them, and they went downstairs together.

Downstairs, everything was just as they had left it. Chongyun searched the shelf of canned food for something to make for breakfast, eventually finding some canned fruit. They ate quickly, then went back upstairs so that Xingqiu could get dressed and prepare for the day’s work.

“I’m meeting with Thalia and Paris back at the village today to look at old records,” Xingqiu said. “Study the house’s history. What are you up to?”

“I might try to get into the basement,” Chongyun said. “Or the locked wardrobe. I need to find out what’s trapping the spirits here.”

“Is that…safe?” Xingqiu held his face and tilted Chongyun’s head to look at the bandage on his cheek.

“No, but what else is there to do?” Chongyun shrugged. “I can’t just scare the spirits away like usual. They’re being held by something evil, and I need to find out what it is and how to get rid of it.”

“Chongyun, when I saw that person in the mirror, and when I heard all that in that dream…I feel like it’s a warning.”

“The spirits just want to scare us away,” Chongyun said reassuringly. “They don’t want us here. They’re afraid of me, so they’re trying to make me leave because they can’t. But they’re just spirits. I’ll be fine, I’m sure,” he lied.

“Alright…” Xingqiu said anxiously. “But promise me, if you get hurt again, we’re done.”

Chongyun hesitated, thinking about all the warnings they’d been given. So many people had died here. It felt more than likely that he could join them. But he could protect himself, he was sure of it.

“Alright, I promise,” he nodded.

He walked Xingqiu back to the front door. Xingqiu grabbed his hand in both of theirs. “Be careful,” they said. It felt strange for Xingqiu to be so worried when usually it was their fault if Chongyun got hurt while ghost-hunting. They must really be scared.

“I will, Chongyun smiled. Xingqiu squeezed his hand tightly, then hurried out of the door. They walked through the fields of flowers and grain, across a rickety bridge over the shallow creek, and up the path leading up to the rest of the village. They couldn’t shake the feeling of unease hanging over them, as if somebody was watching their every move.

Thalia and Paris were already waiting for them at the pavilion, seated at a table stacked with old files and paperwork.

“This is what Granny Ruoxin found for us,” Thalia said, yawning and stretching over the table.

“Did you sleep alright?” Paris asked worriedly. Xingqiu shrugged. “It was alright,” they lied. They didn’t want to think about the nightmare or the woman in the mirror.

“There’s coffee over there if you need some,” Thalia said through a yawn. Xingqiu got themself some coffee and then joined them at the table, looking over the messy piles of paper. This was what they were good at. Reading, not demon-slaying. Although they had to admit, reading old real estate records did not sound as interesting as fighting ghosts. But at least it was safe.

They pulled a thick, leather-bound folder of old papers towards themself and sighed. “Let’s get to it then.”

Chongyun stood in front of the wardrobe in the guest bedroom, lantern in one hand, his greatsword in the other. The wardrobe was made out of heavy mahogany wood, strong and sturdy, probably weighing at least twice as much as he did. The doors were decorated with an intricate carving of a tree with birds nesting in its branches, and a moose and dragon were carved on each of the sides. He recognized the animals as symbols of the Adepti.

He grasped the dull bronze doorknob in one hand and pulled. Nothing happened. Not that he had expected anything different.

He set the lantern down on the floor beside the wardrobe and cracked his knuckles. He was certain there were answers here. This was where the rancid smell was strongest, and his every instinct seemed to pull him towards the heavy wooden doors.

May the Adepti carved on the doors forgive him for what he was about to do. He raised his sword and struck the front of the cabinet with a heavy blow. The strike barely scratched the wood. He sighed. He would be at this for a long time.

He adjusted his stance, then struck the wood again. And again. And again. Gradually, it began to chip away at the thick wood. However, nearly an hour had passed by the time he made a hole big enough to reach through and open the lock.

Heart racing, he pulled the heavy doors open.

At first, he thought the wardrobe was empty except for the cobwebs strewn across the back. Then he saw a string hanging from the coat rack, the other end tied around a ragdoll’s neck.

He picked up the doll, not entirely certain that it was real. It was antique, probably a hundred years old, if now more. It had short brown hair made of yarn and wore a green dress tied with a blue ribbon. Its painted face was frozen in a blank smile.

Chongyun looked back at the wardrobe, his heart pounding in his chest. Another doll lay on the floor of the wardrobe, identical to the one he had seen in his dream.

He stooped to pick it up too and held the dolls next to each other. What did they mean? What were they doing in here? Why was one of them hanging from what he now recognized as a yarn noose?

Suddenly he heard a giggle somewhere in the distance and running footsteps. He hoped it was Xingqiu, already back with answers. He knew it wasn’t, but he could hope.

The footsteps came nearer, crashing up the stairs and down the hallway. “You can’t catch me!” a little girl laughed. He spun around in time to see the bedroom door crash open with enough noise to wake the dead. A girl of about eight or nine ran into the room. She had two brown pigtails and wore a yellow dress. She ran across the room, not noticing Chongyun, and jumped onto one of the beds. The furniture no longer looked old and broken, but brand-new.

“HA! I’m on base, you can’t catch me!” she taunted.

Another girl ran into the room after her, completely winded. She leaned against the wardrobe to catch her breath, inches away from Chongyun. He inched away from her, terrified of what would happen if the girls saw him.

This girl had short brown hair and wore a green dress tied with a blue sash.

“Li, that’s cheating! We said no base!” the girl in green said, annoyed.

“ You said no base, but I didn’t,” Li protested.

“You did too!” The girl in green folded her arms angrily. Chongyun felt something in the room shift. It was cold. Too cold. The air felt heavy, and he thought it had gotten darker.

“Well, I changed my mind,” Li said, sitting down cross legged on the bed.

“You little!’-” The other girl ran at Li, her hands flying towards the other girl’s throat. Chongyun jumped to his feet, running after her. He had to stop them, had to pull them apart before something awful happened, but he suddenly felt something grab him by the hood of his shirt. He screamed as he was yanked backwards into the wardrobe and the doors slammed shut, plunging him into darkness.

He instinctively curled up in a tight ball, fully expecting someone to kill him right then and there. He heard screaming.

Time seemed to freeze as he waited, frozen and tense but ready to attack at the slightest provocation. He waited for someone to stab him or bite him or lob his head off. But nothing happened. As his panic began to slowly subside, he realized to his embarrassment that he was the one screaming.

He opened his eyes and sat up. He was still stuck in the dark wardrobe, but light poured through the hole he had made earlier. He scooted towards it and pressed his eye against the hole, terrified of what he might see, but too curious to not look.

The bedroom looked just like it always had, with the rotten beds and moldy blankets. The girls were gone. Daylight streamed in through the window, shining on the dust that hung in the air. Chongyun breathed a sigh of relief, forcing himself to calm down. It was okay, it was over. It wasn’t real.

He pushed on the wardrobe door, and it creaked open. He stood up, looking anxiously around the room. He stooped to pick up his sword and lantern, not taking his eyes off of the bed where he had seen the girl’s body in his dream. It was empty.

Both ragdolls lay on the floor. Chongyun didn’t remember letting go of them or untying the one from the wardrobe, but he didn’t really care about that right then. He picked up the dolls and stuffed them in his pocket, then turned around to shut the wardrobe.

A dark figure stood in the center of the wardrobe. He only saw it long enough to register its existence before it lunged at him and he screamed and fell to the floor, throwing his arms up to protect himself and squeezing his eyes shut. He felt a freezing cold gust of air around him that sent chills up his spine and a sharp pain in his arm, before the feeling vanished as quickly as it appeared.

When he opened his eyes, the figure was gone and the wardrobe was shut tight. He scooped up his sword and lantern and hurried out of the room, his entire body shaking and his breath coming in short gasps. He speedwalked down the stairs into the living room – the least haunted room, they had said –  and collapsed onto a chair, dropping his sword on the floor and his lantern on the side table.

It was all his imagination. There was nothing in the wardrobe, he would have noticed it when he was shut in – oh my gods he was shut in with it! He felt himself starting to panic all over again, and forced himself to take a deep breath and focus. He would have noticed it. It wasn’t real. It was just his mind playing tricks on him because he was freaked out.

As he calmed down, he realized that his left arm was wet. Soaking wet. He glanced down, and the panic immediately returned as he saw three deep gashes in his inner forearm. Blood gushed from the wounds and pain surged through his arm and he realized with a brand-new horror that whatever he had seen in the wardrobe was very, very real.

“Oh my gods,” was all he could think to say.