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As far as ancient legends go, stories about cursed ancient artifacts are plenty in every country and culture. Artifacts that will bring misfortune to the unlucky, unaware people who happen to come accross them; artifacts that are said to have destroyed entire cities... Qi Xi was not unfamiliar with those legends, and having handled many of the supposedly cursed objects herself, she knows that some rumors are true while some are not. She had her own reasons for intentionally seeking such artifacts, and though she was intimately aware of the way misfortune tended to find people who handled those objects, she could not find it in her to be afraid.
Misfortune had never befallen her, personally, because of the cursed artifacts she often handled.
However, she was unfortunately familiar with the consequences of handling such things. She had seen misfortune being brought upon other people, her loved ones... a past she carried whitin her, which guided her every action and shaped her decisions, leading her down a path of direct confrontation rather than acceptance.
To summarize, Qi Xi was very familiar with the way the supernatural worked.
There were many legends associated with the umbrella she had recently acquired. Rumors claimed that the umbrella itself had been responsible for the deaths of an entire tripulation of a cargo ship. Surviving records of the ship's crew told her that people often talked about how they could see human shadows lingering around the umbrella in candlelight, that they could hear murmurs and sorrowful sighs deep into the night. The veracity of the rumors were debatable, but she would have to investigate it herself to be sure.
Usually, the more history an item had, the more expensive it would be for an antiquarian to purchase it.
She was delighted to find that it was being sold for a fairly cheap price, however. A Qing Dynasty umbrella as well preserved as it was should have been a lot more expensive, but with the circulation of rumors about it and how it could bring death and suffering to those who possessed it, people tended to want to get rid of it as soon as possible, and... well, that was something she could understand. At the first sign of something supernatural people were quick to sell it off.
Which was great for her! Qi Xi was content with her new acquisition. Despite its ancient origins, the umbrella was quite well preserved. Even the seals that (supposedly) kept the (supposedly) vengeful spirit sealed inside were kept in pristine condition, only yellowed by the passing of time; they didn't seem to have suffered with the harsh conditions of nature that the umbrella had been subjected to. Realistically, the paper should have melted away when the umbrella was lost in the sea with the rest of the ship's cargo, and yet... Qi Xi would have to analyze the composition of the paper, perhaps it was sealed with some type of wax...
Or perhaps it was indeed cursed.
For a cursed item, the umbrella was surprisingly quiet at first. Dismissing the warnings she had received, she decided to keep the umbrella in her house, in the room reserved for her antiques. Every antique she purchased needed to be analyzed, first for hints of supernatural activity, and then appraised in order to be put up for auction, if she did not find any traces of ghosts or spirits. The appraisal was meant to both find their monetary value and to know the conditions she would need to create in order to safely display the items. After all, she needed to keep up the appearances of a proper antiquarian, no? It would do her no good if people started asking questions.
So the first night was pleasantly warm, and upon waking up in the morning she found the umbrella exactly where she had left it. Nothing had happened, everything was normal.
On the second night Qi Xi sat at her table, her head bent over another artifact: an old ceremonial bell. It had been found in the ruins of the same ship as the umbrella, but the water had unfortunately deteriorated it quite a bit, much to her dismay. It did contain some hints of spiritual energy coursing through it, she could feel it upon touching it, but it was faint; weak. Not cursed, but definitely something that had been used as a spiritual tool at some point.
A soft thump made her look up from her work.
Outside a storm raged on, but the sound had definitely come from inside the house. Perhaps a stray cat had found shelter from the rain in her residence - it would not be the first or last time. Shaking her head, she decided to continue her work, bringing her attention back to the bell again.
That was until a familiar buzzing sound of electricity coursing through reached her ears. The lights flickered weakly. Once, twice, and as soon as she looked up to check, they went off. And after a moment in the dark, they on again. And then off. The lights began flickering without a pattern, buzzing with electricity each time.
It was impossible to do any work like this.
"The storm is affecting the lights again." She complained to no one in particular, before standing up and making her way to the window, and all the while the lights in the room kept flickering. But when she looked outside, none of the other residences seemed to have been affected by the storm. Well, this was an old house, needing maintenance was not unusual.
She pursed her lips, but there was nothing that could be done about the lights. Her work was over early, and that was it! She shut the window with a loud bang, marching out of the room and turning the light off on her way out. There was no point in fighting against nature, so she would continue tomorrow. The umbrella still rested easy on its display case.
On her third night with the umbrella, it was once again unusually warm for this time of the year.
How odd that the weather kept going through these dramatic changes. It could be the result of Ghost Festival approaching, but sometimes nature just did things like that. Who was her to question why storms came and went?
On that day, Qi Xi had gone straight to the kitchen as soon as she got home to whip out a meal as fast as she could. After an afternoon of martial training, she had come back tired and starving. Starving, but also too tired to make a meal more elaborate than noodles, though. As she waited for the water to boil, she began chopping the vegetables that would go along with her meal.
But the sound of a window breaking suddenly put her on high alert. She dropped the knife and picked up her flute immediately. Knowing exactly where the sound had come from, she rushed into the antiques room and kicked the door open, effortlessly falling into a familiar battle stance.
She had expected to catch someone mid-attempt to break into her house, but the windows were closed and undamaged. The only damaged thing in the room was the umbrella's display case: broken into millions of tiny pieces, all over the floor. Only the artifact itself was still intact.
Qi Xi had no choice but to believe that the rumors about the curses had some truth to them.
She approached the umbrella carefully, gracefully avoiding the broken glass as she stepped forward, bending at the waist to observe it close. It was still resting on its support, and the broken glass had not damaged it. There was not a single piece of glass on the item either, it was completely intact. She touched it with a careful hand. "Show yourself, if you dare." She spoke with the authority of someone who had done this a million times.
And she waited.
But the umbrella still rested easy, undisturbed by her summon.
"I know you want to." She said, her voice low and threatening. "And you will, eventually. But you may take your time."
With those parting words she left the room, closing the door behind herself.
On the next day, Qi Xi continued to study the bell she had acquired. Two broken, battered nametags had been found inside of it, though they were too damaged by time to read the writing on them. But removing what had been stuck inside of it meant that she could now ring the bell.
The sound was what one would expect from a bell, even though it oftentimes lingered a little too long. She blamed that on the damages time and natural conditions had caused to its metal exterior. It was unsettling, though, and as much as she tried to keep herself composed at all times the sound still sent a shiver down her spine the first time she heard it.
And apparently, whatever laid dormant in the umbrella was also disturbed by the sound. She felt the familiar coldness on her spine that indicated that she was not alone in the room, and had her eyes not been trained to see things that were not there, she would have missed the shadow that appeared on the wall as she rang the bell one more time. A tall figure, with broad shoulders, there in one second and gone in the next. She turned around, but there was nothing there.
"Familiar sound?" She looked at the umbrella, raising an eyebrow. "I don't like it either."
The umbrella did not move.
Nothing as impactful happened for the rest of the night, but she did not miss the quiet whispers coming from behind her. They were too low to understand, and a non-trained ear would likely mistake them for the wind howling through small cracks on her doors and windows, but Qi Xi knew what it was. Whatever resided in the umbrella did not seem hostile towards her for now, but she would have to keep her guard up now that the spirit seemed to be awakening - she was already deeply familiar with the misfortune those artifacts could bring, and this one seemed to have caused its fair share of it.
Her fifth night with the umbrella came and went without any remarkable occurences. The voice continued to whisper and sigh, but even lower than before. Not loud enough to bother her, but she still avoided the antiques room for the day. Clearly, something was happening to the spirit that resided inside the umbrella.
The sixth night saw another increase in the volume of the voice, though the words being spoken were still unintelligible. She spent some time with the umbrella on that night, a hand positioned in the middle of her chest as she murmured some incantations she had learned from her years of dealing with things like this. The spirit in the umbrella would sigh heavily sometimes, but it did not go anywhere, despite her incantations.
But as she entered the room on the seventh night, she was greeted by something new.
Standing near the umbrella was the tall figure of a man in black robes. His clothes and long hair were both soaking wet, water dripping all over the floor. Qi Xi gasped and pulled her flute from her waist, ready to fight.
But the spirit paid her no mind.
He had his back to her, and was looking at the umbrella.
And he was gone in the blink of an eye.
Qi Xi did no relax her stance, once again carefully approaching the artifact to study it after the ghost made its first appearance.
The floor around the umbrella was indeed wet, she noticed as her shoe made contact with the puddle left by the man. What was that...? The spirit had finally come out, and... he had done nothing? Where was all the death and misfortune she had been told about? Despite holding onto the umbrella for seven days, nothing harmful had come to her yet.
In her quest to seek and eliminate evil, she had never encountered such a passive aggressive spirit before.
But if he was not going to exit the umbrella and face her head on, she would have to force him out.
Qi Xi's father had always insisted on teaching her perseverance, insisted on teaching her that she must stay graceful and serene in the face of adversity; But even with all those teachings engraved into her brain, it was hard to not feel at least a spark of fear every time she had to face evil so intimately.
Those teachings were valuable and she kept them close to her heart, but she was also used to bending them to fit her own objectives, defying them for the sake of punishing evil, of fighting the pain that evil often brought with it.
Instead of being still like bamboo, Qi Xi prefered to compare herself to water: flowing along her own path, flowing past every obstacle that stood in her way, but still able to carry in her heart the things that were important to her. Water was, after all, something that also used for travels. She could flow along her path while carrying the things that mattered along.
And this was just another obstacle for her to overcome.
She needed to put an end to the deaths and pain caused by this umbrella.
Instead of luring evil out in her own house, she decided to prepar the ceremony in a secluded place: A bamboo forest, known for its density and how hard it was to navigate it. No one would bother her there, and so she would put no one at risk if it didn't work. She cut down the bamboo in her path until she reached a clearing, carrying the umbrella in her arms and her own artifacts in a bag.
It was not the first time she would have to lure spirits out like this, but it always made her slightly nervous.
Leaving the umbrella propped against a tree, Qi Xi set to work: She drew the necessary amulets, brought forth the necessary artifacts and arranged them in a neat formation for her spell, the way she had learned years ago. Luring spirits out was surprisingly easy, their yin energy would easily be brought out when in contact with yang energy, forcing them to either flee or fight the source of that yang energy, if they wanted to survive.
And this time she also had something that she knew would help lure the spirit out.
Once she was done with the preparations, she laid the umbrella in the middle of the circle she had drawn on the ground. Slowly, she removed the amulets attached to it one by one, removing with them the forces that were keeping the spirit sealed inside and replacing them with her own amulets, designed to expell him from its sealing place.
In one hand, she held an amulet for her own protection.
With a deep breath, Qi Xi picked up the ceremonial bell with her other hand and rang it. In between rings, she would chant the words that were designed to lure spirits out.
She was not surprised in the slightest when a loud wail of pain came from the umbrella, which began shaking violently where it laid on the ground. She could feel the forces around it getting stronger, the bamboo that framed the clearing were bending backwards with the force of the energy that emanated from the cursed artifact. She stood her ground, however, keeping her feet firmly planted on the ground and refusing to bend, as her father had taught her.
She shouted the incantations over the wailing, ringing the bell after each one until dark smoke shot out of the umbrella. Just as quick as it had shot out, the smoke solidified itself in the form of a man.
The protection amulet she held in her hand burned on its on, the unnaturally green flame distracting her for a brief second as it turned to ashes right in front of her eyes.
She had nothing to protect her anymore. The spirit was strong.
And looking away had been a bad decision: Qi Xi's eyes widened when the man leaped forward and tackled her to the ground before she could react. He moved faster than a normal human could, and though she had reached for her flute to defend herself, an inhuman entity would always be faster than her. The man on top of her was dressed in black, and she could feel the water dripping from his body and wetting her clothes. The hands around her throat were moist and cold, definitely not belonging to a living person, and he wore a fierce, angry expression on his face. However murderous he looked, he did ease his grip and furrowed his brows, leaning close to her own face as if studying her. Though it was getting harder to breathe, the man seemed more curious that intent on killing her.
Good.
He reached for the bell she still clutched in her hand, and she used that to her advantage. With an impulse from her legs, she twisted her body and managed to escape his grip, switching their positions until his back hit the ground. She stood up, reached for her flute and assumed a fighting stance, the bell still safely in her grip.
The man took his time standing up. As much as she wanted to, she did not attack him - instead, she studied him like he had done. Why had he hesitated? Why hadn't him done a quick job in disposing of her?
Why would an evil spirit hesitate, or not use his full strenght against the person who was trying to eliminate him?
He lunged towards her again, reaching for the bell once more. Qi Xi raised her flute, ready to fight him off.
"A-Jiu!"
An unfamiliar voice called out in the middle of the clearing, even though there was no one besides the two of them there.
The spirit stopped, his eyes widening in a split second before his corporeal form dissipated into black smoke again.
Qi Xi stood dumbfounded, until the now unmistakable sound of the umbrella shaking on the ground made her turn around again. The amulets she had placed on it were ripped by an invisible force in front of her very eyes, all at the same time, before they all went up in flames surrounded by the same green mist that had destroyed her protection amulet.
And then the umbrella fell quiet once more.
Qi Xi lowered her arms, a deep sigh making its way past her lips.
What had just happened?
She was not unfamiliar with spirits and curses, but this umbrella was proving to be more of an issue than she had initially thought it would be.
Surely this spirit in particular had a strong grudge and simply refused to move on or die, making her job very difficult. Most of the spirits she had dealt with in her life had not been that attached to their obsession to simply refuse to move on in any way, but it was not the first time she had to force an exorcism, and it likely wouldn't be the last.
Next time, she would be prepared for the aggressiveness that this spirit had shown.
After her ritual in the forest had failed, Qi Xi strenghtened the suppression amulets surrounding the umbrella and also made sure to bind it with blessed ropes, as she did not wish to be attacked again in the middle of the night or while she rested. Those two items seemed to prove themselves strong enough to keep the spirits contained at least, and so for three days, nothing happened; No sighs, no shadows, no whispers, and no attacks on her. The spirit was quiet, so either her suppression methods were working, or perhaps he had exerted too much of his energy in the attack.
Either way, it gave Qi Xi plenty of time to figure out what to do next.
On the fourth day after the ritual, the sighs coming from the umbrella resumed.
Unsurprising, she thought, that the spirit was regaining his strength now: It was the 15th day of the 7th month. Regardless of how ancient the spirit was, it was not uncommon for spirits to regain some of their strength when their families spent the day honoring the dead, burning incense and paper money for them. She had foreseen it coming, and so she had redone the bindings with the ropes and amulets, but clearly they had not been strong enough to keep him fully suppressed.
Still, sighs on their own were not a big concern, and she could stand them.
As the sun moved in the sky and twilight broke in the horizon, however, something else started to happen: Silently, and without the antiquarian noticing, green mist started leaking from the umbrella into the room, drowning the sight of the wooden floors as if flooded. Working with her back to the umbrella, Qi Xi only realized it after the mist had flown into the space where she sat. With a gasp, she knocked the chair down as she stood with a quick movement, immediately reaching for her flute.
The man standing next to the umbrella this time seemed different from the one who had attacked her; He stood calmly, with a smile, clutching something to his chest with one hand and making no move to run, walk, or even reach out to her entirely. His hair was white, and so were his clothes. His face too, was paler than a normal human's. As he made no move to harm her, Qi Xi also did not take on a fighting stance.
This man seemed more agreeable and less aggressive, so instead, she asked: "Who are you?"
The ropes she had used to bind the umbrella were on the floor, and the amulets had turned to ashes once more. The man took a step towards her, extending the hand he had been clutching to his chest. Tentatively, Qi Xi approached him and extended her hand as well, where the man dropped two twin tags, worn out by time but with the writing on them still visible.
He had... restored the tags found in the bell? But when...?
She looked at the tags, finally reading the name on one of them: "Fan Wujiu?"
The man shook his head.
"Xie Bi'an?"
He nodded. She nodded as well.
"I am looking for him." The man - Xie Bi'an - spoke, causing the antiquarian to take a step back. His voice was calm, quiet, but it echoed as if coming from a distant place.
"The drowned man?"
Xie Bi'an looked down at those words, his smile faltered for a second, before he put it back in place. The sadness in his eyes was much more palpable now, though. "Have you seen him?" She nodded. "Where?"
"You are the spirit in the umbrella?" She asked, eyeing him suspiciously. It was not uncommon for spirits to fool humans into doing their biddings, even if this one seemed genuinely sad, she could not allow herself to be manipulated by him. He seemed confused at the question, but nodded anyway. He narrowed her eyes. "You are not."
Xie Bi'an blinked. "He is in the umbrella?"
Qi Xi shrugged. "I don't know. Someone else attacked me, and it was not you. I--" She paused, remembering the voice she had heard on the clearing. 'A-Jiu', it had called out, and listening to this spirit speak, the tone and echo seemed very familiar. "You don't remember it? I heard... your voice."
The spirit stood in silence for a long, drawn out moment. She was about to open her mouth to speak again when he shook his head. "I remember nothing. I have just awakened. The last thing I remember is..." He trailed off, but she knew exactly what he was trying to say; his last memory was his death. Many spirits were traumatized by violent deaths, which was often the reason why they did not rejoin the cycle of reincarnation. Violent, unjust, and sudden deaths were hard to accept, turning them into obsessions that kept the spirits from moving on.
Some exorcists worked with solving these obsessions to help spirits move on peacefully, while others were more forceful and destroyed their souls instead, rendering them unable to reincarnate again.
Qi Xi had tried that with Fan Wujiu, apparently. She felt a pang of regret in her chest now that the other spirit was speaking so calmly to her, but kept her face carefully neutral.
She did not pry too much into their history, but this obsession in particular seemed quite easy to solve.
It was ghost festival, and since Xie Bi'an had regained his strength, it was likely that Fan Wujiu had as well. She knew how to lure him out now, so she stepped closer to the umbrella, drawing a talisman from her skirt. Xie Bi'an tensed.
"I will pull him out."
The spirit did not have any reasons to breathe anymore, but she saw his chest rising and falling in a deep breath anyway. He was suspicious of her methods, likely recognizing the talisman in her hand, but still, he stepped aside. Picking up the bell from her desk, she rang it a couple of times, chanting her spell and attaching the amulet to the umbrella.
After a moment of tense silence, the umbrella began its violent shaking again, falling from its display and on to the floor.
Thick, black mist seeped out of it this time, drowning out the green. Slowly, the mist gained form again: Legs, a torso, arms, and finally a head materialized from it, and when the man opened his eyes, he immediately shot towards Qi Xi.
This time she was ready. With her flute in hand, she raised it to defend herself from the blow, but it never came. Xie Bi'an had moved with inhuman speed too, stepping in front of her and blocking Fan Wujiu's attack.
The black ghost struggled in his grip, clearly out of it and hellbent on attacking whoever had disturbed him, but Xie Bi'an held onto him tightly, arms around his shoulders as he whispered quietly to him, words that Qi Xi could not make out entirely.
She did hear a few of them, faint whispers of 'A-Jiu', 'It's me', and 'Beloved'.
Slowly but surely, the black spirit started to calm down, his struggle slowly dying down in Xie Bi'an's arms, until he stood with his arms limp on his sides. Xie Bi'an started to stroke his hair with gentle fingers.
Qi Xi honestly felt like she was intruding in a very private moment, so she looked away from the two spirits.
She now understood what the two of them had been seeking all this time.
Fan Wujiu blinked, his eyes focusing on the face in front of him, Qi Xi (and his bell) completely forgotten. "You..." He whispered. "Why are you here?"
Xie Bi'an smiled. A genuine smile, unlike the one he had worn on his face during his entire exchange with Qi Xi. "I was looking for you."
It was impossible not to feel the weight of the many things left unsaid between the two men, but this was probably not the time nor the place to say them. Not in front of a stranger, not right after finding each other again. They stood in each other's arms, in silence, until Fan Wujiu's eyes moved from his beloved to Qi Xi. He narrowed his brows.
"You."
She raised her flute.
Xie Bi'an laughed softly. "Come now, A-Jiu. She helped us. If it were not for her we would still be sea--"
"She sealed us!"
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Xie Bi'an shook his head. "I was told you attacked her. Neither of you succeeded in killing the other. Is that not enough for revenge?"
From the look on Fan Wujiu's face it clearly was not, but he let it slide this time. No need to sour their long awaited reunion with more fighting. He sighed, and looked away from her. It seemed like he was going to pretend she was not there, which, to Qi Xi, was good enough. Moody spirits were the worse to deal with.
Xie Bi'an chuckled. "You must forgive him, he has always been a very combative person."
Qi Xi shrugged. "It's fine. Understandable."
The white spirit grinned. "Good."
Ever since she was young, Qi Xi had stood by good and swore to eliminate evil. Her family, the events of her past, everything that had happened to them had turned the elimination of evil into her life's purpose.
It was the first time Qi Xi had found evil that she did not want to eliminate.
The umbrella had caused many deaths, that was the undeniable truth. From the ship it had sunk, to the many appraisers and antiquarians such as herself that had perished and suffered from its curses, it was an undeniably evil item, housing undeniably evil ghosts inside of it.
Or so people said. In the past, Qi Xi would have agreed to those statements without thinking twice.
Not now, though.
The spirits in the umbrella had told her plenty of stories: Of how they were unjustly accused of a crime, of the persecution they faced, and, of course, of their deaths. She had learned Fan Wujiu had died to protect Xie Bi'an, and Xie Bi'an died merely a year later, on the exact date of the ghost festival that now marked their reunion. They had also told her stories of devotion, of living together and sharing their lives to the bitter end. For a few days, they would come out and talk to her sometimes, when she was not busy.
Until one day they didn't. They were gone, dissipating in mist just like they had appeared.
Talking to these spirits had changed her perspective on evil, so to speak. Could spirits truly be blamed for the deaths they caused, when those deaths were unconscious reactions to the grudge they took to their graves? If instead of eliminating them people took the time to understand them and help them solve their inner troubles, would so many people die at the hands of 'evil' and 'cursed' artifacts?
In the end, she was glad she had not eliminated them.
The umbrella had been silent for over a year, and no curses had befallen her or anyone who had come in contact with it during that period of time. She did not know what had become of Xie Bi'an and Fan Wujiu after the two men disappeared from her view, and it was not her place to pry, anyway. Their spirits were at peace, and she found herself surprised at the thought that this was enough for her.
Maybe her spirit too, would one day be at peace.
It was the eve of ghost festival again, a year later, when green mist started to seep out of the umbrella once again.