Beyond the high walls, the cold moon hung in the sky, its fine light reflecting on the Peach River flowing beneath Jade Water Bay.
The Peach River is one of Qin Prefecture's three major waterways. Gubei Town is situated on its upper reaches, so the river is not wide here. Pristine water cascades from Suspended Kettle Waterfall, nourishing fields and green mountains before, downstream, racing eastward for over a thousand kilometers to join the Yangtze River.
"Beautiful scenery," remarked a middle-aged man in a gray tracksuit, leaning against a marble railing carved with clivia lilies, admiring the surging Peach River from a shaded path outside Jade Water Bay Manor.
Behind him stood a man in overalls and a sun-shielding baseball cap, who did not join in admiring the river. Instead, his deep gaze was fixed on Jade Water Bay Manor beyond the wall.
Had Feng Yushu been present, she would have recognized at a glance that the man in casual clothes was her husband, Bai Fugui, the majority shareholder and CEO of New Home Group. The man in work clothes was a laborer responsible for moving supplies for the manor's interior renovations.
"You're sure 'Zhàoyòu' is in there?" the laborer rasped, his deep, husky voice more mechanical than human, his face as emotionless as if his body was merely housing a dull, unfeeling speech device.
"I'm sure. Zhàoyòu is inside the manor," Bai Fugui replied in a low voice. "Tàisù noticed its arrival."
"Tàisù…" the laborer murmured, accepting this. "Can you find out who released Zhàoyòu?"
"No," Bai Fugui shook his head. "I know you need Zhàoyòu—for its fortune-telling and disaster-avoiding ability… but this is something you can't rush."
"Zhàoyòu has existed here for many, many years. You know, its condition was always considered stable—among all known 'ghosts,' one of the most stable. But in recent years, for some unknown reason, Zhàoyòu's state has steadily worsened, to the brink of madness. The 'door' linking this region to the world has also grown unstable."
"My original plan was to use scenic area construction as a cover, mask a series of deaths as accidents, then try to find the 'door' and bring Zhàoyòu back out. But…"
But Zhàoyòu's mind deteriorated far faster than expected—so fast, his plan was derailed before it began. Zhàoyòu was released.
And the world Zhàoyòu inhabited fractured and collapsed with it.
"Maybe the unstable door accidentally drew in several people from this world," the laborer mused. "It's been confirmed for three—each one dead."
"Corpses are worthless," Bai Fugui said. "We need the living—the one who broke Zhàoyòu's rules and brought it back out alive from the shadow world."
"He's right there, in the manor," Bai Fugui emphasized.
"Any way to identify exactly who?" the laborer pressed.
Bai Fugui shook his head.
"Fine," the laborer said flatly. "Tell Túyù to seal the manor. I'm about to release 'Tèràng'… Be sure to handle clean-up."
"I will." Bai Fugui nodded.
The laborer turned and mounted the steps to Jade Water Bay Manor's main entrance. He fished a red wax candle and a match from his overalls, lit the candle, and set it down in front of the door.
The faint flame shivered under the bright moonlight. Without expression, the laborer stared at the burning candle, then seized his own head with both hands and twisted sharply—
Crack—a cervical vertebra snapped.
He twisted off his own neck and died at the manor's front door.
The candle's feeble light illuminated the still-warm corpse, and a guttural hiss rose from the laborer's dead throat. A mass of shadow, thick as ink, crept out from beneath the corpse, as if fleeing the candle's glow, and shot into the manor.
After the "shadow" entered, Bai Fugui made his way to the base of the high wall, pressing his palm slowly onto the white marble.
The next instant, the moon within the manor blinked out.
Staring at the workman's corpse, Bai Fugui sighed and shook his head. "To think you'd even unleash 'Tèràng'… Your condition must be dire."
Otherwise, you wouldn't act so desperately—so eager for Zhàoyòu to prolong your existence.
"Now the question: can this lucky person who broke Zhàoyòu's rules survive 'Tèràng' until Túyù's seal lifts?"
Bai Fugui stooped to grasp the corpse by the ankle and dragged it away from Jade Water Bay Manor.
He cared nothing for leaving his wife and daughter inside. If a family member died to Tèràng, it would only lower the risk of anyone suspecting him.
What's more, Bai Zhi… she simply cannot die.
Even if she wished to.
After Bai Fugui's departure, the now-isolated manor immediately plunged into darkness and chaos.
"Ghosts are everywhere." In this moment, Bai Zhi's first high school diary entry seemed piercingly significant to Ning Zhe.
The brilliantly-lit manor blared with shouts and screams—"It's haunted!," "There's been a death!"—a frenzy that echoed through the night, noisy and confused.
In the chaos, Ning Zhe saw a surge of people fleeing the manor in a mad scramble, racing for the main gate. Yet he never glimpsed what—or who—was behind them.
A panicked crowd rushed across the grand avenue facing the manor, the avenue's pomelo trees whispering in the night wind.
Suddenly, a man at the very front fell dead on the spot, without warning, collapsing instantly and ceasing to breathe.
The crowd shrieked and scattered. Then another fell, dying without warning.
As if an invisible, untouchable ghost, patient and methodical, was hunting everyone in the manor—one by one.
"Ghosts…" Feng Yushu's face went deathly pale, eyes sick with terror. "Ning Zhe? Why are there ghosts here?"
"How should I know?" Ning Zhe shook his head, handed the iPad back to Feng Yushu, and turned into a nimble magpie. "I'll check—just don't move from here."
This ghost in Jade Water Bay Manor seemed even more ferocious than the Snake God Zhàoyòu or the wandering ghost Tàiyì, killing with much higher efficiency. In just minutes, over a dozen gardeners and cleaners lay dead across the avenue outside the manor's gates.
"It's not like Tàiyì or Zhàoyòu… What rule does this ghost follow?"
Ning Zhe beat his wings and skimmed low across the avenue, settling on a pomelo branch to observe the corpses.
Before he could investigate further, an ink-black shadow flickered past. Ning Zhe's vision went black, and he toppled from the tree.
—The magpie was dead.
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/Thaniel_a_goodchild
Reference Glossary
Yangtze River – The longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world, flowing east across China and into the East China Sea.