Chapter Text
On the night of the Zhongyuan Festival, sometimes when people strolled, they might discover a road that had never existed before. Such a road should never be taken, because if wrongfully walked, they would enter the ghost realm and never return.
Xie Lian had only just arrived in the area and didn’t know which path was the right one to take. Then, he remembered the large bag of junk he collected. The miscellaneous items he purchased earlier in the day included a fortune shaker. So he thought, why not try and shake out a fortune to decide? Thus he fumbled for the fortune shaker and shook it in his hands with a clattering sound, mumbling as he shook.
“By the Heaven Official’s Blessing, No Paths are Bound! Every Road Leads to Heaven, May They All be Walked! The first stick left, the second stick right! We’ll go the path with the best fortune!”
Just as the words left his lips, clack, clack!, two sticks fell out of the shaker, but when he picked them up and looked, he fell silent.
The worst of bad luck.
Both sticks were the worst of bad luck; both roads were perilous, so didn’t this mean they were going to die no matter what?
Xie Lian felt a little exasperated and shook the shaker furiously once more with both hands. “Dear fortune shaker, this is our first meeting, why are you so heartless? I’m going to try again. Please give me some face this time.”
Clack, clack. Two sticks again this time, and when he picked them up, they were both still the worst of bad luck!
“Let me try?” San Lang spoke up suddenly.
It couldn’t end up worse than his, anyway, so Xie Lian passed the fortune shaker over. San Lang received it with a single hand and casually gave it a shake. Out fell two fortune sticks and he picked them up and handed them to Xie Lian without even so much as a glance.
The moment of the crime:
Xie Lian gave them a look. To the left, for the third time, it was the worst of bad luck, but to the right… under the youth’s hand, the fortune had changed completely!
“The best of good luck!” Xie Lian exclaimed. “To the right then!” He spurred the old ox forward. Mooing with fright, it jolted into a run, jerking the cart into motion. Xie Lian quickly glanced back to make sure his friend hadn’t been dislodged.
He needn’t have worried. With a casual hand on the cart’s wooden frame, San Lang was standing at ease, staring out into the forest with a strange expression on his face. His handsome mouth was twisted with uncertainty, his eyes shaded by some sort of inner conflict. It almost looked like… guilt.
Frowning, Xie Lian started to ask what was wrong, but before he could say anything, the youth looked up, caught his eye, and said—
“Gege, watch out.”
Xie Lian’s gaze snapped forward just in time to see a new crowd of ghosts run into the road.
“CAUGHT HIM! HE’S HERE!”
“EVERYONE COME HERE! THAT DAMN CULTIVATOR IS HERE!!!”
For all they’d tried, it seemed that the fortune shaker had led them astray.
“Ah, I can’t believe we still picked the wrong path.”
In the pandemonium that followed, he quickly forgot about San Lang’s momentarily odd expression.
The ghosts chased them relentlessly. Xie Lian tried everything he could think of to shake them off, but none of it worked. They closed in around the cart and they just wouldn’t leave.
In the end, he had no choice but to hop off the driver’s platform and run. Slapping a quick protection talisman on the berth, he darted down the road. Before he could call out and tell him to stay back, San Lang leapt out after him.
The crowd of ghosts followed, leaving the old ox and the unconscious cart driver alone. They hadn’t gotten far past the fork in the road. Once he drew the trouble away, with the help of his talisman, the cart would be all but invisible in the dark. The driver should wake up naturally with the morning sun, no worse for wear.
This was some relief, but his troubles weren’t over yet.
They ran for what felt like hours.
The red leaves of the maple trees glinted silver under the light of the full moon, winking down at them like stars as they flew by.
Thump thump thump, went the pounding steps of the ghosts behind them. None of their pursuers were stronger than Malice level; their deadened feet fell numb and heavy on the packed dirt road.
Li after li they covered, around bends, over hills, dipping through shallow creeks. The ghosts hounded them down the winding path, shouting out curses and threats, driving them deeper and deeper into the maple forest.
His young friend really was impressive. In addition to being remarkably well-read, San Lang’s neigong was no joke. At first, Xie Lian had been worried about what would happen when he ran out of breath and they had to slow down, but every time he glanced over, he found that he was keeping up effortlessly.
For a while, the ghosts kept up too, but their energy wasn’t infinite. One by one, they dropped off, falling behind and then disappearing altogether, until eventually, none were left.
The night went quiet.
This whole time, Xie Lian had hardly paid attention to where they were going. It was only now, as the country road curved around yet another dirt embankment and the trees finally cleared, that he remembered what the folk stories said about traveling carelessly on the night of Zhongyuan.
By wordless agreement, they slowed to a walk, then stopped.
The road had dropped them out into a large grassy plain. Tall stalks of wild wheat swayed under a faint evening breeze. Thick gray clouds hung low over most of the sky, covering the stars. They were no match, however, for the bright full moon, which pierced through the haze. Crickets chirped and flitted about, their dark little bodies glinting as they caught the light.
Ahead some thousand paces, an enormous mountain cut up from the earth. Its jagged, inhospitable cliffs towered above the plain. It might have been an impassable barrier, except where the road approached, it cleaved itself in two, opening up into a deep, misty canyon. From a distance, it looked like a vicious black wound on the rock face.
Xie Lian scanned this unfamiliar landscape uncertainly. He didn’t have the slightest idea where they were. What lay in front of them seemed a world away from Puqi village.
As he stood around considering what to do next, he registered a faint noise coming from somewhere far off. Focusing his ears, he realized it was music. An eerie song was drifting out of the canyon. It was hard to make out, but the longer he stared at the cliff face, the more certain he was.
He turned to San Lang and asked, “Do you know where we are?”
Solemnly, San Lang shook his head. He slowly turned, taking a good look around, then replied, “An unusual place with an unfamiliar landscape and unsettling music… since we took the road on the night of Zhongyuan festival, shouldn’t this be the ghost realm?”
The ghost realm!
Spinning on his heel, Xie Lian took in their surroundings with new eyes.
He had always assumed that the ghost realm would be cold, barren, and well… full of ghosts. Under the gray light of the shrouded full moon, the empty field before them had a bit of a spooky feel, but aside from that, nothing about it seemed particularly ghostly. It wasn’t at all what he would have expected. Still—
“If it’s as the legends say, then we may have some trouble leaving.” He thought out loud.
San Lang nodded seriously, lips pursed. They were both quiet for a moment as they thought through their situation.
“If we are in the ghost realm, then we should head towards Ghost City. I heard that as long as you’re not looking to cause trouble, the lord there will help those who have wandered in by accident.” San Lang suggested.
Brow furrowing, Xie Lian pressed his hand to his chin. “The lord of Ghost City should be a powerful ghost king. Would he really help us?”
San Lang shrugged. “Ghost City is home to a famous gambler’s den where anyone can bet against the house for any stakes. If we win our bet, we could make them take us back.”
With Xie Lian’s luck, rather than being taken back to Puqi village, it seemed more likely that he’d end up trapped in Ghost City forever….
Seeing his frown, San Lang continued: “If Gege has any better ideas, then naturally, we’ll do as he says. It’s just that, even if we turn around now, I don’t think we’ll be able to find our way back.”
They had run along one road this whole time, making no turns, but all the same, Xie Lian realized he was probably right. Since it was Zhongyuan and they had already come this far, there was no way they could rely on ordinary means of navigation to return.
“Alright,” he agreed at last, “but how do we get there?”
“Ghost City is at the crossroads of the mortal and ghost realms, so as long as we keep going, we should come across it eventually. As for the Gambler’s Den—”
“Hey! Who’s that over there?”
They both tensed at the sound of branches rustling and twigs snapping behind them — it was a new group of ghosts coming towards them from somewhere within the forest. Xie Lian stood poised on the balls of his feet, ready to jump back into a sprint when—
“Are you headed to Ghost City, too?”
Half a dozen well-dressed ladies strolled out from between the trees. They were all made up like they were going to a festival, but there were streaks of mud on their clothes and snags in their elaborate hairdos. Their skin was pallid: pale, gray, and scattered with molted bruises colored green, purple, and blue. Most of them held their bodies stiffly. At least one was walking with a limp.
Strangely, on seeing them, San Lang immediately relaxed.
“That’s right,” he replied smoothly. “We’re going to Ghost City. We’ve been walking for ages, do you know if we’re close yet?”
“Close?” One of the ladies giggled. “Why, it’s just over there!”
The whole group tittered, sweeping forward to crowd around them. Xie Lian half raised his hands, ready to block their attack, but it never came.
The ladies drew in close, looking them up and down curiously, but they didn’t try to touch them. When they got a proper look at San Lang’s face, they all blushed and giggled. Xie Lian got a couple of admiring looks himself, but none of them seemed so interested in him as they were in his roughish, well-dressed companion.
“Ah, what nice boots! I wish my family had buried me in anything half so nice.” One of the girls lamented.
“The fabric of his shirt has stood up very well, too. Say, Xiaoge, have you come very far? I’ve never seen you before.”
Up close, the girls’ skin looked even worse. They must have only recently climbed out of their graves… and they clearly thought that Xie Lian and San Lang had done the same!
All at once, Xie Lian understood why San Lang wasn’t worried. He relaxed his shoulders and let his hands drop down to his sides.
“It’s your first time visiting Ghost City? Why don’t you come with us! We’ll show you around, won’t we girls?”
“Show them around?” Another girl laughed. “But it’s our first time too!”
San Lang smiled, making his sharp features look even more handsome. Discreetly, he snuck a hand back and latched onto one corner of Xie Lian’s sleeve.
The ghost ladies started herding them down the path towards the mouth of the canyon. It was all very cordial, really.
What a strange picture they must make, Xie Lian thought — six ghosts in various stages of decay, orbiting around two, by all appearances, ordinary mortals.
As they walked, the girls chatted non-stop about the different things they wanted to buy in the market, the salons they wanted to visit, the snacks they wanted to eat, and so on. A couple of times, they tried to draw them into conversation.
“Where was it that you two said you were buried?"
Smiling, San Lang turned to Xie Lian and raised his eyebrows.
He cleared his throat. “Oh, um. It’s a little town called Puqi, a farming village up in the mountains.”
She looked them over skeptically. “A farming village? You two were farmers? But this little gege here is wearing such nice things…. You both come from the village?”
San Lang’s smile widened. “We do. Our two graves lie side by side.”
There was a playful gleam in his eyes when he glanced over at Xie Lian, who, for unknowable reasons, suddenly had to clear his throat.
Most of their questions, San Lang deflected with a few well-placed, elegant words. The whole time, he remained impeccably polite, so much so that the ghost ladies didn’t even seem to notice how little he was actually saying. Following his lead, Xie Lian kept the rest of his answers to smiles and shakes of the head.
The closer they got to the cliff, the louder the music became. The faint, eerie wail turned into a distant but recognizable trill of horns and cymbals. Gradually, the dewy, fresh smell of the evening breeze was snuffed out by heavy wafts of incense and sulfur. Simultaneously, visibility grew worse as they waded into the thick, freezing cold mist pouring out of the mouth of the canyon.
It was almost like walking into the ocean. With each step, Xie Lian’s feet broke the rolling current and kicked up little swirling eddies.
By the time they reached the cliff’s edge, the mist had topped over their heads and the air in front of them was as opaque as rice paper. It had grown so cold, it felt more like midwinter than late summer.
The tempo of the music picked up. They were now unmistakably in the midst of a funeral procession.
Without hesitation, the ghost ladies ushered them on. The shadow of the mountain closed over them with the finality of a jail cell door.
Several minutes passed. They kept walking, more of a trudge than a march now that they could hardly see where they were going. They were able to keep in step only by the sound of each other’s feet, but that too was getting harder and harder to track over the sound of the music.
San Lang’s hand, still firmly affixed to his sleeve, was the only thing Xie Lian could make out clearly through the fog. The rest of his arm and the line of his back were the faintest of shadows, and he couldn’t see so much as an outline of any of the ladies.
It didn’t look like San Lang was going to let go of him, but if he did, there was no guarantee that Xie Lian would be able to find him again in these conditions, he realized. Biting his lip, he twisted his hand around, reached out, and grabbed onto the edge of San Lang’s red sleeve in return.
For a moment, that pale hand tensed, fingers clenching tight around white fabric. Then it relaxed again. The two of them kept walking through the fog, San Lang half a step ahead, leading him into the unknown.
Every step deeper into the canyon brought them closer to the procession. The music grew ever faster, becoming even more raucous. There were easily two dozen players, very possibly more. It sounded like they boasted a full regiment of suona horns, at least four or five erhu, a couple of pipas, a dizi, and a minimum of half a dozen drummers. The sound was so clear, the players could have been walking right alongside them. For all Xie Lian knew, they were.
“What a welcome!” One of the ladies shouted over the enormous noise. By now, the white fog had grown so intense, even his own hands were hard to make out.
At the height of the frenzy — all of the instruments wailing in perfect, chaotic harmony — without warning, the mist parted, the music cut, and they all stumbled out onto a boisterous street market.
“…”
“...”
“...”
For a beat, the whole group stood in shock, blinking at each other.
Then a young errand boy, not looking where he was going, knocked shoulders with one of the ladies. She yelped in surprise, and as though a lever had been pulled and a stage curtain drawn back, the stillness released, and the noise of the market rushed in.
“Tanghulu! Fresh tanghulu!”
“You’re trying to sell that cabbage for how much? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Baozi, rou bao, fresh mantou! Come and get it!”
“Hey! Watch where you’re going!”
Xie Lian’s eyes flew wide at the bright onslaught of colors and smells. There was so much going on, he hardly knew where to look. The tall walls of the canyon, somehow, were nowhere to be seen.
A long row of market stalls lined each side of the street, packed together haphazardly like pieces of an enormous, intricate wooden puzzle block. The stalls came in a variety of shapes and sizes, most of them irregular, slapdash, and lopsided, as though they’d been thrown together in a hurry. In spite of this, they were all decorated to the nines with streamers, bold paint swatches, garlands of flowers, and ornamental knots.
Behind the stalls, boldly-painted three and four-story shophouses loomed tall. They flaunted a lawless mix of architectural styles spanning the last several centuries and all corners of the central plains. Balconies jutted out like crooked teeth, roof tiles melted into straw thatch, plaster abutted wood abutted packed earth abutted hammered sheets of metal.
Behind the shophouses, even taller buildings rose up, composing an immense, intimidating, somewhat crooked skyline.
Lanterns strung overhead lit up the street with a warm, enticing glow. Heady funeral incense drifted out of a small shrine tucked into a little alleyway off to one side. Xie Lian could hear the sizzle of frying oil, the clack of thousands of shoes hitting the stone pavement, the metallic chime of coins changing hands.
As for what was sold in the market, it seemed to be a little bit of everything. His eyes landed on a produce vendor set up next to a stall selling construction equipment. A toy merchant pressed her cart against a fish monger’s, which was adjacent to a man running what looked like a currency exchange.
There were shops selling gadgets, makeup, clothing, and fireworks. In between them, hawkers served up noodles, dumplings, stew, and porridge. Their patrons ate standing up or pressed into cramped little tables, bumping elbows with passersby. Taking a deep breath, he caught wafts of roasting meat, barbeque spices, stinky tofu, and vinegar.
From some indeterminable point overhead, a soft confetti of something was raining down over the street like snow. It couldn’t be snow, though, because the oppressive chill from the mist had been replaced by a near-tropical humidity.
Xie Lian stuck out his hand and caught one of the somethings. He held it up and discovered it was joss paper money, freshly burned from the mortal realm
Trying to orient himself, he glanced back, looking for any trace of the dark canyon they had come out of. Just as he’d suspected, there truly was no sign of it. Instead, the market lane extended endlessly out towards the horizon. It was just as crowded behind them as it was ahead, the stalls just as dense and the city just as built up.
The market goers didn’t seem thrilled by the sudden appearance of their little group. A man with strange, oversized bug eyes and the fuzzy antenna of a moth sneered at them as he pushed past.
“Watch it!” One of the ghost ladies cried at the moth spirit’s back, but he didn’t bother to glance back. “Is he serious?!” She complained to one of her friends.
An elderly lady, bent nearly in half, her hair piled high on her head and her face caked with a plaster-thick layer of makeup, swatted another girl out of her way as she made a beeline towards a towering pile of jujubes.
They all crowded closer together under the onslaught. To avoid brushing shoulders, Xie Lian ended up ducking fully behind San Lang, tucking himself close enough to his back that they were almost pressed together, their hands still twisted up in each other’s sleeves.
Appearances aside, the ghosts weren’t acting all that different from mortals, Xie Lian thought, scanning the crowd. There were clearly a wide variety of folks making their home in Ghost City, and most of them seemed to be going around completing ordinary, daily chores.
Some, like the old lady, had fully human forms, but many others had the heads or bodies of animals. Taking a little survey of the people around them, he picked out a bear, a goat, a monkey, a goose and a dog. There were plenty of ghosts hiding their bodies with masks or long cloaks. Others didn’t bother, their blob-like forms so vague that a baggy cloak would hardly have made a difference.
The ghost ladies, whose boisterous confidence had flagged somewhat in the face of this ungracious reception, started to rebound. They tilted their heads together, whispering and pointing at nearby stalls.
Distracted, Xie Lian didn’t notice that San Lang had turned towards him until he said, mouth nearly brushing his ear, “Gege, what are you thinking?”
Startled, Xie Lian’s first reaction was to flush. “I…”
“Outta the way!” A young man’s voice cut through. Their heads all snapped up. Barreling down the center of the street at full speed was a large wooden cart, its bed piled high with cargo.
The driver was sitting atop the cart’s wooden platform, holding the reins of two skeletal horses. They were pointed straight at them.
“Oh!” One of the ladies yelped. The horses were coming upon them so quickly and the market was so crowded, it was already too late to get out of the way.
Xie Lian’s body sprung into action before he could form a conscious thought.
In the span of one blink, he had torn free of San Lang’s grasp and hooked a hand around two of the girls’ arms. Spreading his arms out wide, he clotheslined a third, pushing them all back under the awning of the nearest market stall in one bounding step.
Glancing to his right, as expected, San Lang was standing safely out of the way with the other three ladies. They had both moved at the same time.
Behind them, the wooden cart rocketed by, the driver shouting curses left and right as he tried to get his horses under control.
Xie Lian straightened up, letting the girls go, but one of them stumbled and he was forced to wrap an arm around her shoulders to keep her from tumbling to the ground.
She blinked up at him for a long moment, dazed. Then, slowly, she glanced down at his hand where it clutched the bare skin of her arm. She frowned.
“It’s warm?”
Xie Lian’s expression froze. Ah. Right.
He quickly pulled her upright and let go.
Her pale face had turned ashen. “W-wait, if it’s warm, does that mean that you’re a… that y-y-you’re a…” she stuttered, but before she could finish, San Lang was there, his hand wrapped firmly around Xie Lian’s shoulder and his voice once again in his ear—
“Gege, it’s time to go.”
San Lang pulled him back, snagged a hand around his forearm, and tugged him into the crowd.
Xie Lian got the hint. Together, they sprinted down the street, ducking and weaving their way through the throngs of ghosts, until San Lang suddenly veered off, dragging Xie Lian into a nearby alley.
Their pace didn’t flag even as the path narrowed. Carefully stepping around puddles of dubious origin, San Lang hooked a left behind the row of shophouses and then a right, pulling Xie Lian into a maze of shady cobblestone lanes and residential courtyards.
Back here, Ghost City looked almost like a normal mortal town. Shoulder-height walls of brick and wood fenced off little yards filled with small gardens, wash basins, and laundry lines. Now that there were a couple of buildings between them and the bustling market, it was much quieter — peaceful, even. Without the heat radiating out from all of the lanterns and cooking stalls, the tropical weather felt less oppressive.
The sky overhead was pitch black — it was still deep night — but inside the houses, many windows were lit up. The streets weren’t empty either.
They jogged past a couple of old ghosts wearing masks, sitting in an open courtyard on short stools, smoking and gossiping. Whirling around a corner, they nearly collided with a mahjong group that had decided to set up right in the middle of the street. A couple of turns later, San Lang had to hop over a ball that had escaped from a group of children out playing as vivaciously at four in the morning as mortal kids would have at four in the afternoon. Xie Lian cheerfully kicked it back to them and they hollered a chorus of thank yous.
Still forging ahead, San Lang glanced back and caught his eye. He was biting his lower lip like he was trying to control his expression, but his eyes betrayed him. Xie Lian grinned back.
He had no idea where they were going, and it wasn’t clear that San Lang knew either. He paused for a half a breath each time they came to a crossroads and picked a new direction seemingly at random.
Xie Lian thought about taking over with the directions — even though it wasn’t quite his fault that they’d wound up in the ghost realm, he still felt responsible — but it wasn’t like he knew where to go any better than San Lang.
It was all going well until they turned down a narrow lane and Xie Lian’s luck caught up with them.
Some two dozen ghosts crouched around a long, low table all looked up. Between them lay a mess of herbs and powders. They were clearly in the middle of concocting something, and they were not pleased to have been interrupted.
Immediately, Xie Lian positioned himself a protective half-step in front of San Lang.
“Who are you?” The ghost nearest to them shot to his feet, a mean look in his eyes. Scanning Xie Lian up and down, he squinted at them in suspicion. “Cultivators?”
“Ah, apologies. It wasn’t our intent to disturb everyone. We must have made a wrong turn, we’ll just head back—“
“Hold on.” Another ghost stood up. “What are you doing back here?”
“Nothing, nothing, we were just looking for the way back to the market.” Xie Lian explained.
“A likely story! You two’d better not be trying to make trouble in our city!”
“We’re not,” He tried to assure them, waving a hand in front of himself. “If you’d just point us in the direction of the market, we’ll leave right away.”
This prompted a wave of whispers and grumbles amongst the ghosts.
“I don’t know, boss. What if they tell someone that they saw us here?” One of them said to the obvious leader — the ghost that had stood up first.
“CHE! Cultivators are always up to no good,” he replied, rubbing his knuckles.
“Really, we don’t mean trouble. Truth be told, I’m but a lowly scrap collector.”
“What kind of scrap collector looks like you!”
He took a menacing step forward and the rest of the group scrambled to their feet. Xie Lian shifted his weight, getting ready to fight if he had to, when all of a sudden, the ghosts stopped in their tracks. Their eyes went wide.
Ah? Xie Lian thought.
They were all staring at Xie Lian as though they’d seen something exceedingly terrifying. Their mouths were either wide open or clamped shut; some of them had even started quivering. There was a loud clatter when one of them dropped the stone pestle he was holding.
Xie Lian frowned. “Everyone, are you all…?”
But unexpectedly, before he could finish, the large crowd of ghosts ran away, leaving their table and all of the various bags of herbs and powders behind.
“…”
But what could have frightened them? Surely it wasn’t Xie Lian himself. He hadn’t even taken out the bundle of talismans in his sleeve yet. There was no way those ghosts were sharp enough to have noticed. Even if they had, it wasn’t like they were particularly powerful talismans….
Was it really him they were afraid of… or something behind him?
He turned around to look at San Lang. Standing there innocently with his hands in his pockets, his new friend smiled at him.
“Wow, Gege, you’re amazing! You scared off those ghosts so quickly.”
Xie Lian couldn’t help but laugh. “Really? Even I didn’t realize I was this amazing. Still, let’s get out of here before they come back.”
“Mmm.” He agreed. He reached out to reclaim Xie Lian’s wrist, and they turned around.
After another couple of turns, they burst through a narrow corridor onto what looked like the same endless shopping street that they’d started on. The crowd was just as dense here as it had been before. The ghost ladies they had come in with were nowhere to be seen.
Xie Lian half-expected San Lang to let go of him, but he kept his hand firmly clasped in place. They merged into traffic and wove to the other side of the street. San Lang pulled them right up to a small, tucked away booth selling masks.
“We stand out too much,” he explained, nodding towards the stall.
Xie Lian agreed, but the only problem was, “I’m afraid I don’t have any money.”
Without missing a beat, San Lang fished around in his pocket and pulled out a fistfull of paper ghost money.
“That’s—“ Xie Lian started.
“Not meant for us?” San Lang smiled. Once again, he’d guessed exactly what Xie Lian was thinking. “Don’t worry, Gege, it’s not much and we’ll be giving it right back to the ghosts. Besides, since it’s Zhongyuan, the temples are burning a lot of extra joss paper tonight. What was falling from the sky earlier probably wasn’t intended for anyone in particular, but instead meant to keep the peace in the ghost realm. If we buy masks and avoid starting another fight, wouldn’t that be considered keeping the peace?”
Xie Lian thought about it for a moment, but in the end could only smile and nod, “That makes sense.”
San Lang certainly had a cunning tongue. He seemed to be a true expert in matters of gods and ghosts. A dominating young talent, clearly from a well-off family, with decent martial abilities…. Once again, Xie Lian wondered, really, what on earth was he doing here?
Most families would sell an arm and a leg to give birth to a boy so clearly destined for greatness. Even if he was clearly a bit willful, it wasn’t like he had a bad personality. He should be holed up in a library somewhere, preparing for the imperial exams, not galavanting around the countryside, meeting strange cultivators and stumbling into the ghost realm!
Oblivious to this train of thought, San Lang gestured Xie Lian forward, and they both started perusing the mask shop’s contents. While the stall itself was small, its selection was surprisingly extensive. Xie Lian felt a bit overwhelmed, so he ended up looking away, reaching out and plucking one off the shelf at random. When he glanced down at his choice, he was holding the painted face of a smiling young maiden.
Next to him, San Lang was trying on a mask of a terrifying demon, rendered in blue, with large protruding fangs.
He wondered if he should trade his out, but before he could say anything, money was exchanging hands and San Lang was pulling him away from the booth. A little ways down the road, they tucked themselves off to the side and put on their masks.
“Where to now?” Xie Lian asked. He did feel a little better with the mask on. Already, they were getting fewer strange looks. “Should we try to find the lord of the city? We could look for the gambler’s den you mentioned.”
“Good idea.” San Lang agreed.
They both scanned their surroundings, the crowded market street and the dense, sprawling city behind it.
“If it's famous like you said, we’ll probably recognize it when we see it,” Xie Lian ventured.
San Lang nodded. “I doubt it’s far from here.”
So they set off and wandered around for a while.
Ghost City, they soon learned, was extremely large.
The market extended beyond the one, very long street; in fact, it seemed that street made up just an edge of what turned out to be an entire shopping district. As they meandered through the neighborhood, they encountered not only booths and shophouses, but restaurants, apothecaries, and extravagant tea parlors.
Just like in any mortal city, they passed buskers and prostitutes, merchants and errand boys, servants, laborers, and cart drivers. If it weren’t for the unusual appearance of all of them, and for the strange items being sold in the shops, it would be easy to mistake Ghost City for the large capital of some prosperous mortal kingdom.
“San Lang, the lord of a city like this must be a very powerful and famous individual. Do you happen to know his name—”
Before Xie Lian could finish asking his question, they came upon a gigantic red building — easily the most ostentatious and grandiose one they’d seen yet.
Every component of its architecture was exquisite, from its large wooden columns to the elaborate sloped roof. It stood several stories tall and occupied a wide swathe of the city block. Its walls were placed a respectful distance from the neighboring buildings — a clear mark of its distinguished status. Luscious trees and flowering bushes were planted all around the foundation.
The entire building was painted a magnificent vermillion, with bedazzling accents of bronze and gold, and thick, luxurious carpets that covered the front steps. Large crowds were passing through the massive front doors, and from the inside came a hail of loud, excited voices. Enormous lanterns lit up the scene, turning it into a beacon in the night.
It was obviously the famous Gambler’s Den. If it wasn’t, he couldn’t start to imagine what kind of place might supersede it. To make a comparison, this building was on par with the heavenly palaces.
They approached the front doors, and there, illuminated in gold leaf on black lacquered plaques, the entrance verses came into view. The left said, “Money Over Life”, the right, “Gains Over Shame”, and finally along the top horizontal beam, written simply: “HAHAHAHA”.
Xie Lian opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. He had wanted to say something but… really, what could be said?
To call these vulgar lines ‘entrance verses’ was truly stretching the meaning of the term. The quality of the calligraphy was even more difficult to speak of. The writer must have been out of his mind! Drunk! Possibly deranged!
To an expert like Xie Lian, who had been trained by the finest masters practicing during a golden age of art and culture, these characters were a real tragedy. They were so hellish in fact, the longer he looked at them, the more he started to think they were actually kind of funny. He shook his head, smiling faintly.
San Lang, standing at his side, leaned towards him a little and asked, “Gege?”
“This ought to be it, don’t you think?”
“Mm. Let’s go in.”
The decadent smell of jasmine flowers hit them as soon as they crossed the threshold. Inside the main hall, it was even more crowded than it had looked from the street.
An uncountable number of heads bobbed and weaved around each other on the main floor. The sounds of laughter, shouting, and crying all merged together into one big cacophonous wave. They had only descended a few steps, squeezing between the bodies coming up the stairs, when an anguished scream pierced through the noise. Xie Lian’s head snapped to its source.
A woman dressed in black, her long hair unbound and in disarray, was being carried out of the hall by two masked bouncers. As she was pulled away, her shoeless feet dragging on the floor, a trail of blood was left behind, spilling out from some unseen wound under her robes. A small ghost followed closely, greedily licking up the bloody trail with its long, dexterous tongue.
It was a terrifying sight, but no one in the Gambler’s Den so much as blinked. In the wake of the scream, the wave of shouting and cheering promptly welled back up. Clearly, what had just occurred was nothing out of the ordinary.
Ruoye tugged at his wrist, and Xie Lian looked down, then to his right, over at San Lang. Only, San Lang wasn’t there. In that brief moment of distraction, he had vanished into the crowd.
Xie Lian quickly scanned his surroundings, searching for a flash of black hair or a glimpse of his blue mask. There was nothing.
All the while, people continued pushing past him, rushing both in and out of the Gambler’s Den. The flow of patrons created a current that ended up pulling Xie Lian deeper into the hall.
Where might San Lang have gone? Had they been separated by the movement of the crowd, or had someone grabbed him and pulled him away? They had already gone through so much tonight and he had been so fastidious about staying together up to this point, surely he wouldn’t have carelessly run off.
This Gambler’s Den was clearly a dangerous place. San Lang was capable, but the dangers here weren’t trivial. Even though it had been happenstance that had led them to meet and brought them both this far, Xie Lian still felt responsible for his young friend. His stomach twisted as he scanned through the crowd, coming up with nothing. He promptly scanned through it again, paying careful attention to each bobbing head in the sea around him.
“Sir, are you here to play?”
A petite attendant wearing a white laughing mask approached him.
Swallowing down his worry, Xie Lian plastered on a smile, remembered he was wearing a mask too, let his smile drop, and replied, “I’m afraid I don’t have any money and I just lost my friend in the crowd. I need to find him first before I can gamble.”
Though her face was covered, from the way she was standing and the tilt of her head, the attendant gave the impression of smiling at him politely.
“If you’ve just come in together, then your friend has most likely gone to one of the tables. Why don’t you try looking around the main table?”
It wasn’t a bad idea. He asked, “The main table is that way?”
“Follow me,” she replied, and sashayed away. Xie Lian kept close, continuing to scan the hall as they went.
“What does your friend look like?” She asked, pushing effortlessly through a dense tangle of patrons.
“A little taller than me, wearing a blue mask and a red outer robe.” Xie Lian replied, slipping deftly through the small gap she left in her wake.
“Young or old? Male or female?”
“He’s a young man, a teenager. Maybe about 15 or 16 years old.”
The attendant nodded. “If you wait here, I’ll have someone bring him to you.” She deposited him at the edge of a dense ring of onlookers.
Behind them, a long table stretched out in front of a raised platform curtained off by a red gauze canopy. At the moment, the area behind the canopy was dark. Two attendants dressed just like the one Xie Lian was talking to stood in front of the platform. Together, they were deftly managing an unwieldy crowd of gamblers.
“Thank you for your help,” Xie Lian inclined his head, and the attendant bowed graciously in response before walking away. He stared after her until she disappeared behind another throng of ghosts.
This was a puzzling amount of courtesy to receive, to be honest. It was much more gracious than Xie Lian would have expected from this kind of an establishment, especially after he had just admitted that he didn’t have any money.
Had they somehow discovered who he was? Was it some sort of trap? Or perhaps San Lang was right about the Chengzhu of Ghost City, and he really was this generous to the mortals who wandered haplessly into the ghost realm…. It seemed a bit farfetched, to be honest.
After scanning through the crowd once more (still no sign of San Lang), with nothing else to do, he finally turned his attention to what was going on at the table.
The ring of gamblers appeared to be playing some sort of dice game.
It was certainly lively. All of the onlookers were chatting to each other or gauffing and jeering at the person positioned at one end, the presumptive gambler betting against the house.
Xie Lian stood back and watched a couple of rounds.
The game was a simple one: roll two dice and whoever comes out larger wins. One after another, members of the crowd came forward to try their luck. Curiously, none of their wagers were with money.
“I bet a pound of my own flesh against the secret recipe for Butcher Zhu’s skewer spice mix!”
“My sense of smell in exchange for twelve years of prosperous business!”
“The jade bracelet I was buried in for a curse to scatter my enemies’ souls!”
Not all of these bets were accepted, but with a bit of bartering, agreeable terms were quickly found.
Not all of the gamblers were ghosts, either. An old man, hobbling up to the table with the support of a cane, bet five years of his life on a cure for his polio-induced paralysis. He won the round and two bouncers came forward to politely escort him off to another room to receive his winnings.
Drawn in by the spectacle, Xie Lian pressed deeper into the throng of onlookers and squeezed his way into a spot where he could properly see what was happening.
A large, muscular person swaggered up to the table. He was another human, and just from the way he was standing, it was obvious that he was uproariously drunk.
“I bet my – hic – I bet my pillar of masculinity!” He cawed, and the crowd all but exploded with laughter and jeering. This only seemed to bolster the drunkard. “I bet my pillar of masculinity against a marriage to one of the emperor’s daughters!”
The reception of this bold wager was as to be expected.
One of the masked attendants raised their hand and the clamor quieted somewhat. It looked like the attendant was about to speak when a faint breeze stirred and several candles behind the red gauze curtain suddenly burst into life.
At once, everyone stopped talking.
“Tsch,” a man snickered. It was quiet, but the sound cut right through the room.
The hair on the back of Xie Lian’s neck stood on end.
A tall, distinguished silhouette stepped out of the shadows and sat down on a divan behind the curtain.
“Do you honestly think I have any use for that worthless part of your body?” The silhouette asked, coldly amused.
His voice was deep and sonorous, instantly demanding attention. It reminded Xie Lian of a general’s, or perhaps a king’s. His frame was unfamiliar, but there was something about that voice that sounded almost… familiar.
The two masked attendants turned around to face the man and bowed at the waist.
If the crowd could have been called energetic before, that was nothing compared to how they were vibrating in place now. The ghosts around Xie Lian were nearly falling over themselves in their excitement.
“Yeah! Not even the girls at the Red Lantern Inn want to see that shit, what do you think the lord is going to do with it?” Someone chimed in.
“You stupid dog, show some respect! Chengzhu is going to put you in your place!”
And then, somewhere off to one side, “The lord! The lord himself has come to play!”
Xie Lian’s heart jumped. So this really was the lord of Ghost City? It was his chance to make a wager and secure passage out of the ghost realm — but it was happening too soon! Where was San Lang?
“Young master, you’re very lucky today.”
The voice startled Xie Lian out of his thoughts. He turned to see that the smiling-masked ghost attendant had reappeared at his side.
“My friend,” he asked, “were you able to find him?”
She shook her head. “My apologies, but we’re still looking.”
“Is that person really—?” He asked, nodding to the platform.
“Our lord is here to play.” She confirmed. “It is not often that he comes to personally oversee the betting, so isn’t this good luck?”
It was clear from her tone that she had great respect for the lord sitting behind the red curtain.
The man standing up at the betting table was too drunk to form any real response, and amidst all of the chaos, he was pushed back into the crowd. A new gambler stepped up to take his place.
“Please name your bet.” The croupier by the platform called out.
“I– I would like to bet the remainder of my hair f-for seven days worth of rice.” A bedraggled little ghost stuttered out.
The croupier looked up at the lord, who gave a sharp nod. They brought out the dice.
“Can anyone make a bet?” Xie Lian asked the masked attendant at his side.
She nodded.
“And as for the terms, it seems that anything the lord might find valuable can be wagered?”
“That’s right. Young master, are you interested in gambling?”
Xie Lian nodded. He wished that San Lang was still with him, but he couldn’t let this chance slip out from between his fingers. Judging by the way everybody was reacting, It didn’t seem like the lord of Ghost City came to the gambler’s den very often. If he didn’t act now, who knew when the next opportunity would come.
At any rate, he could expand his bet to include help with finding San Lang first before escorting both of them back to the mortal realm. The only problem was… well. Xie Lian’s luck was very bad.
He chewed on his lower lip as he followed the masked attendant up to the end of the table.
Was it even worth trying to make a wager when he was almost certain to lose? The lord of Ghost City was obviously shrewd and dangerous. San Lang’s strategy was probably predicated on his own good luck. With Xie Lian performing in his stead, there was a chance that this would all horribly backfire.
The little bedraggled ghost was biting her fingernails as the dice cups were lifted. Underneath her cup lay two fours. Everyone’s heads swivelled to see what the croupier had rolled. The cup came up to reveal a two and a five.
“Hooray!” The little ghost shouted, jumping up and down for joy.
The lord of Ghost City made a light gesture and an attendant guided her away.
And then, before he had time to say anything, Xie Lian was pushed up through the crowd to take her place.
The chattering died down a little.
“Please name your bet.” The croupier by the platform said.
The red curtain made it impossible to tell exactly where the lord of Ghost City was looking or what his expression was like, but for some reason, Xie Lian felt like he was staring at him with particular intensity.
He cleared his throat. “Hello. I would like to make a bet for help with finding my friend who I got separated from, and for safe passage for both of us out of the ghost realm.”
The muttering started back up. Looking out from his new vantage at the end of the table, it seemed that the crowd of onlookers had grown three or four times as large since the lord had arrived.
“And what will you wager?” The croupier asked.
“Um…” Xie Lian hadn’t managed to think this far. “Is there anything on me that the lord would consider valuable enough?”
The masked attendant looked back at the platform. The lord stood up and took a step forward.
The crowd of onlookers really hadn’t anticipated a situation like this. Usually the gambler came with something to offer. Asking the house to choose the wager… was it genius, or pure foolishness?
The lord seemed to think for a while. Then he leaned down and whispered something to the croupier.
“Would the young master please remove the bandage around his neck?” She asked.
With those words, Xie Lian’s stomach sank.
“The bandages? What could they be hiding?” Members of the crowd whispered to each other.
“‘Young master’? But isn’t that a lady?” Others muttered, looking at his mask.
Left without much choice, Xie Lian reached up and carefully unbound Ruoye, revealing the dark, wicked-looking cursed shackle branded on his skin.
The crowd let out a gasp.
The lord whispered something else to the croupier, and she announced, “The lord says that if the young master loses, an equivalent wager would be for him to stay in Ghost City and allow the lord to study his cursed shackle.”
“A cursed shackle? What kind of curse is it? Have you ever seen that sort of mark before?”
“If the lord wants to study it, it must be some powerful and rare spell. Just who is that guy?!”
Xie Lian really hadn’t expected this outcome. Body parts, years off their lifespan, precious objects — all of these things had been wagered so far, and though he didn’t have much on him, he’d thought the lord of Ghost City might pick out something similar. Passage out of the ghost realm wasn’t that big of an ask, was it?
He had never expected that the lord might come up with a wager related to his cursed shackle. How had he even known about it? Did that mean he had recognized him, even through his mask?
That strange sense of familiarity, the nagging feeling that they had met before grew stronger.
“What exactly does studying my cursed shackle entail?” Xie Lian asked.
The lord said something to the croupier.
“The young master will be the lord's guest during the time he is studying the shackle. Once he has grasped the mechanism by which it works, he will show you the way out of the ghost realm himself.”
Xie Lian chewed on his bottom lip, thinking it over.
If he lost, which was likely, it was unclear just how long he would be stuck here. That wasn’t ideal, but then, the alternative was figuring out how to get out of the ghost realm and find San Lang on his own. He didn’t like those odds either.
“And what about my friend?” He asked.
“Is it even a wager if either way he gets both things he asked for?” Somebody in the crowd griped.
The croupier replied, “In the event you lose, the lord will still help you locate your friend.”
Xie Lian nodded. Ghost City’s lord seemed reasonable at least. In a situation like this, that was certainly the most he could ask for.
“Alright, I accept.”
The dice were brought out.
He wondered why the lord was interested in his cursed shackle. It was an ancient and powerful technique, sure, but simply observing the shackle was not enough to figure out how to apply one. Xie Lian would know.
Quite famously, Jun Wu was the only one who knew how to create a cursed shackle. He was also the only one who knew how to release one.
He wondered what this ghost king was thinking. There was often trouble brewing between the ghost realm and the heavens. Could he be trying to gain some sort of edge in that never-ending war?
He accepted the cup of dice that was offered to him, and at the croupier's instruction, shook it and rolled.
When he lifted the cup, the result was just as expected. Snake eyes.
The croupier lifted her cup to reveal double sixes.
“I’m afraid you’ve lost.” She announced. “Young master, if you would please come this way.”
Xie Lian allowed himself to be led towards the back of the hall, off to wherever they wanted to take him for study. He couldn’t help but glance back at the curtained-off platform.
The lord of Ghost City was still standing right at the edge of the curtain. It was too opaque to tell where he was looking, but this time Xie Lian knew that he was staring right at him.
“Are you ready, your highness?” The attendant asked, noticing that he’d stopped walking.
“I’m sorry, but before we go, could you tell me the lord’s name?” Xie Lian asked, still looking back.
“Ghost City’s chengzhu is named Hua Cheng, Crimson Rain Sought Flower.”
“Ah.”
He thought about those elegant boots draped with silver chains, and the pale hand that had gently led him from the bridal sedan on Mount Yujun. Then he thought about that brief, guilty expression that had crossed San Lang’s face earlier, back in the maple forest.
He couldn’t say he was particularly surprised.
“Thank you. Yes, okay, we can go now.”