Chapter Text
“I promise, Chongyun, this one is worth checking out!”
Chongyun frowned. “Are you sure? It doesn’t sound very likely.”
“I know, but doesn’t that make it all the more likely to be real? Just think about it. If you were making up a story about a haunted building, you would make it sound ominous, right? Gloomy skies, a cold wind, a barren hillside with dead grass and trees bare of leaves, that sort of thing. A dark, moonless night, the howling of wind. A few withered leaves skittering along the barren earth. Chills run up and down the spine of the intrepid adventurer as he approaches the ominous ruins.”
Chongyun shivered. “That…does sound about right.”
“Then why would someone make up a ghost story about a sunlit house on a grassy hill?”
“That’s a good point. But ghosts can’t live in sunny houses. The yang energy would overwhelm them. They seek out dark places. That’s why the descriptions are always so similar.”
Xingqiu thought about it. “Maybe this ghost is different,” he suggested. “And if it can handle the yang energy from the sunlight, then maybe it can handle yours, too. You could finally meet a ghost.”
“Or maybe it’s a wild goose chase,” Chongyun pointed out.
“Something is going on in that old house,” Xingqiu objected. “Three different people have reported incidents there.”
“Three? I only saw two on the notice.”
“The first one was more than a year ago. I had a note about it in my collection, but it didn’t seem serious at the time. A merchant from Mondstadt was tired and went into a dilapidated old house in Nantianmen to nap. He had the worst nightmares he had ever experienced, and woke up feeling more tired than he had been when he went to sleep. Then, four months ago, a collector—well, probably a Treasure Hoarder, but it says she was a collector—was out in the same area looking for Cor Lapis, and found a sunlit house on the hill, went in, and came out in tears. She couldn’t say what had happened, just that she had gone in happy and come out miserable. And now, last week, a couple out for a picnic were drawn into the same house. By all accounts, they were both happy people, enjoying their new relationship, but now they are both being treated for severe depression. That’s not normal. And it’s escalating.”
“That does sound like something,” Chongyun admitted. “But what if it isn’t a ghost? It could be dangerous.”
“None of the people were harmed physically. And none of them had Visions. You know how to handle yourself. Come on, don’t you want to see a ghost?”
“Yyyes,” he agreed slowly. “Fine. I’ll go. But I hope it isn’t a waste of time.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Chongyun approached the house slowly. He was reluctant to admit it, but he was starting to think Xingqiu was right about the house.
He wouldn’t have noticed anything if he hadn’t been warned. The house looked innocuous enough, just another one of the hundreds of dilapidated old buildings abandoned out in the countryside. Many of them had been there since the Cataclysm. This one looked more recent, true, its walls and roof still mostly intact. The windows were all broken, of course, and the tiled roof had gaps, but all in all, it looked like an ordinary house, abandoned maybe ten or twenty years ago. Greenery clung to the walls, softening the hard edges, basking in the warm sunlight.
It was only Xingqiu’s warning that had him think a little more carefully about the place. It was a little too pleasant. All around, the weather was cool, summer’s warmth having not yet completely dispelled the chill of winter. As he neared the house, he felt the air grow warmer. Almost imperceptibly warmer, just enough to bring the temperature over the edge from slightly cool to pleasantly warm, as though the year had advanced a week or two further into spring. The sky was nearly cloudless, but here, the light seemed just a little bit brighter. Just a little bit more cheerful. The grass was turning green all around, but here, it was just a little greener, as though the snow had melted here before anywhere else. And yet there was no birdsong. Normally, birds were attracted to warm, sunny places, especially now, when the migratory summer species returned from their winter haunts. Here, not a single sparrow twittered in the branches.
It didn’t make sense. If it were a ghost, it ought to flee. Ghosts hated yang energy—the energy that was clearly abundant here. That was the reason he had never actually seen one. Ghosts fled from him.
It was probably something else. Some artifact, maybe, filled with adeptal energy, or even a natural imbalance in the ley lines. Of course, neither would explain the stories of people having bad dreams here. If it was just an inanimate object leaking yang energy, their dreams should have been just as pleasant as the rest of the experience. Neither one explained the lack of birds, either.
He hesitated, for a moment, before entering the place. If this was something adeptal, then he probably shouldn’t meddle with it. Maybe he should ask his Aunt Shenhe to come with him. She knew more about adeptal things than he did. But what kind of an exorcist would he be if he turned back from a strange place without at least attempting to cleanse it? None of the people who had entered had been harmed—not physically, at least. He would be in no danger.
The door swung open easily. The hinges didn’t even creak. It wasn’t until he pulled the door shut behind him that it occurred to him how odd that was, for an abandoned house.
Inside, the house was pleasant. It was dusty, of course, but there were none of the dank moldy smells that were so common in abandoned buildings. A table still stood intact against one wall, though all of the chairs save one had been removed. The walls were bare of hangings, but the walls themselves were barely crumbling. The effect was more artistic than eerie, evoking nostalgia rather than sadness. If the family that had lived here had left a ghost behind, it was a happy ghost.
Obviously, Chongyun knew it didn’t work that way. A happy family didn’t mean a happy ghost, and those who had died peacefully seldom left spirits behind. But he couldn’t help but imagine the ghost of a young woman who had died young, her spirit remaining behind to help look after the family she had loved.
He started to set up his equipment, but found himself growing tired. There was a bed in the side room of the house. No blanket, of course, but a window just above the bed let warm sunlight in. It would probably be just as warm as a blanket.
He shook his head to clear it of fatigue. This was a bad idea. You should never sleep when ghosts were around.
But at the same time, he had looked through the whole house, and found nothing. Maybe it was just like usual. Any ghosts would have fled at his presence. Having a nap would give some time for his yang energy to finish cleansing the house. He could return to Xingqiu and tell him the place was clear.
He felt his head nodding. He hadn’t been sleeping well, the last few nights. Nothing dramatic, just a few nights of going to bed too late and getting up early. He could really use a nap. Besides, the stories told about this house suggested that the individuals’ yang energy had been sapped. He had more than enough to spare.
With a shrug, he lay down on the bed, curling up in the sunbeam. What was the worst that could happen?