Gao Yang had hoped to use the steward's power to destroy the spirit in the well.
But the steward refused to intervene.
It seemed Gao Yang would have to handle it himself.
He placed both hands on the heavy slab sealing the well and tried to lift. The scratching stopped. Silence. Then, faintly, a voice drifted up—soft, distant, and wrong.
It wasn't the moaning of the drowned corpse. It was a woman's voice, gentle and familiar, like a memory from another life.
"Senior… brother?"
"Is that you?"
"Oh, thank heavens, you've come back. You said you'd return in three days—it's been a month! We thought you were gone, like Senior Liu…"
"Senior brother, do you remember me?"
The voice was faint but clear, drifting from deep within the well. Each word sank into Gao Yang's bones like cold water. The corpse below was male—but the voice was unmistakably female.
Gao Yang felt the chill climb up his spine. His breath turned shallow.
He called out cautiously, "You… know me?"
There was a pause. Then a soft, sorrowful sigh. "You really don't remember, do you? When Senior Liu came back, he was the same. He'd forgotten everything—who he was, who we were. Perhaps we shouldn't have possessed the living. Dead bodies are safer. Like this one I inhabit—no memories lost. But living flesh rejects us, and the cultivators of this world destroy us on sight. Tell me, Senior Brother… have you joined their sects? Have you become one of them?"
Gao Yang's mouth went dry. He didn't answer.
The voice grew distant, like a whisper fading into mist. "Until you remember who you are, I won't come to you again. If you do, find us. We'll keep trying—inhabiting the dead if we must—to survive here. If you meet us again… please, Senior Brother, spare us."
The well fell silent.
"Are you still there?" Gao Yang asked.
No reply—only the faint scrape of nails against stone.
Then, once again, that guttural voice returned—the hoarse, broken muttering of the male corpse. "Hurts… it hurts…"
Gao Yang hesitated, then made up his mind.
He gathered his qi, braced his arms, and heaved the stone aside. A rush of fetid air burst upward, carrying the stench of decay. A cold wind howled through the village. Something black surged up from the well.
Gao Yang swung the slab down like a hammer.
The impact echoed with a wet crack. The shadow crashed to the ground, rolling twice before lying still. Its head, half-severed, dangled against its chest.
He hadn't learned any true exorcism arts, and even Seven Fiends Night Prowl had no effect on this kind of wraith. So Gao Yang relied on brute strength. He raised the slab again and brought it down—once, twice, until the head split like rotten fruit.
When the thing stopped moving, he stepped back, breathing hard. The corpse's aura had faded, its malice reduced to faint wisps of yin energy.
Carefully, Gao Yang peered into the well.
The stench was overwhelming. The water was slick with oil and streaked with decomposing flesh. He grimaced, hesitated, then jumped in.
The icy water swallowed him whole.
Pain bit into his limbs; they went numb almost instantly. The water wasn't normal—it was thick with yin energy. Gao Yang focused, channeling qi through his meridians, igniting the Seven Fiends Tattoo to keep himself moving.
He sank deeper and deeper, until his feet brushed the muddy bottom. His hands searched blindly through the muck until his fingers caught on something solid. He pulled.
His lungs burned. He kicked upward, dragging the object with him.
He burst through the surface with a gasp, raising the object high. Moonlight gleamed off its shape—a circular disc, glassy at the center, with three delicate hands ticking faintly. Two small metal chains hung from its sides.
In his mind, words he didn't recognize surfaced on their own.
Watch.
The sound of that word split his skull like lightning. Pain flared behind his eyes. He stopped thinking, clinging to the edge of the well, forcing himself to climb out.
Just as his fingers gripped the rim, another hand seized his wrist.
He looked up—and found himself staring into Seventh Senior Sister's black, fur-covered face.
She hauled him up with ease, smirking. "I knew you couldn't stay away. You look a mess. All this just to kill one spirit?"
Gao Yang turned slightly, hiding the strange object behind his back, hooking it to his belt. "My technique's still crude."
"Exorcism isn't about brute force," she said, forming a seal with one hand. "Watch closely."
Her face flushed red. She chanted softly, lips parting. A moment later, she spat forth a burst of bright red flame.
It spread with a whoosh, engulfing the shattered remains of the wraith. The air filled with the stench of burning meat as the creature shrieked, writhing within the flames until it was reduced to blackened ash.
"This," she said proudly, wiping her mouth, "is called Yang Fire. A technique that channels one's qi into pure yang energy to burn away evil."
Gao Yang frowned. "Wraiths can cultivate?"
She rolled her eyes. "Of course. Humans refine qi into yang energy; wraiths cultivate yin and sha energy. Some rare arts can even let humans wield yin and wraiths wield yang—though the cost is… unpleasant. Your Seven Fiends Tattoo, for instance."
She gestured idly toward his arm. "Yin and yang define us. To a spirit, yang energy is boiling oil. To humans, yin is poison. That's why most Daoist arts use yang as the base—to kill them before they kill you."
Gao Yang bowed slightly. "Please, Senior Sister—teach me this art."
Her smirk widened. Ever since they'd come to Chai Village, he'd overshadowed her in everything. Finally, she could enjoy his deference.
"Well, I suppose I could," she said coyly. "I heard you swallowed the Immortal Pill?"
Without hesitation, Gao Yang rolled up his sleeve and drew a line across his wrist with a thin thread of qi. Blood welled up in a small, crimson bead.
Seventh Senior Sister gasped. "Such a waste!"
She grabbed his arm, tongue flicking out to lap up the blood. The wound sealed almost instantly.
Expression unreadable, Gao Yang pulled his hand back. "Will this suffice, Senior Sister?"
Her lips curved. "Mmm. I'll show you once. Watch carefully."
Moving slowly and deliberately, she formed the hand seals again, whispering the incantation, her voice low and resonant as heat shimmered in the air between them.