The motel room reeked of mildew and damp stone, as if the scent of the well had followed them home. Rain tapped against the grimy window, rhythmic, almost intentional—like fingers drumming on glass.
Yang Xiang sat at the edge of the narrow bed, hunched over, his shoulders stiff. He placed the jade token on the splintered wooden table between them. Its red glow had faded, but an unsettling warmth still radiated from it. It wasn't heat, not in the normal sense—it was something closer to presence.
Zhou Wenqing was at the desk by the wall, surrounded by a chaos of loose paper, scanned glyphs, notes scribbled in pencil, half-crumpled prints of temple murals. His glasses had slid low on his nose, and he hadn't blinked in minutes.
"The patterns don't match any standard Taoist warding system," he muttered. "They're... overlapped with a system I've never seen before. Look—see this segment?" He held up a page where two spiral sigils intersected. "They're layered intentionally. One to seal, one to anchor."
"Anchor what?" Yang asked, not taking his eyes off the token.
"The entity." Zhou turned slowly to look at him. "Or... perhaps the concept of the entity."
Yang frowned. "You're saying we didn't awaken something physical?"
Zhou hesitated. "Not entirely. Or not yet. Look, ancient Chinese belief systems often blurred the line between spirit and matter. The 'thing' in the well may be conceptual. Symbolic. But with the right medium—blood, memory, objects—it can manifest."
Yang exhaled sharply. "You're saying it could possess something. Someone."
Zhou nodded. "A host. Or hosts. The temples weren't just random ruins. They formed a pattern. A circle. Sealing points. But one point was missing. I've triangulated the other four." He grabbed a larger sheet—an ancient map overlaid with red lines, symbols, and handwritten coordinates.
Yang leaned closer. "This pentagon… what's in the center?"
"Luoyang," Zhou said, his voice almost reverent. "And every point corresponds with a historic mass disappearance. Entire villages gone. In one case, they built a dam over the ruins and never explained why."
Yang felt a chill crawl up his spine. "And the fifth point?"
Zhou traced his finger slowly across the page, past rivers and ridgelines, stopping on a mark in the southwest.
"Chongqing. In the Daba Mountains."
Neither spoke for a long moment.
Outside, the rain stopped. Silence pressed in.
Then, the jade token pulsed once. A heartbeat. Then again.
Not a glow—a throb.
Yang stood up. "We're going."
Zhou blinked. "To the fifth point?"
"No." Yang stared down at the table, jaw clenched. "To find out what the first four failed to contain."