Chapter 5:
Ghostfence
THE UNUSUAL SILENCE didn’t last long. In just a few blinks, the wind roared back to life. It moaned and wailed, now inexplicably mournful, quite unlike how it had been. As the wind howled back and forth, it grew louder and louder, like the spirits of the wild were crying in a spine-chilling chorus. Amid the ghostly wailing, a sudden droning filled the air, like the clash of metal on metal, but not quite the same.
Xue Xian went taut where he lay between Xuanmin’s fingers, for he knew that sound well. The object he was searching for made the exact same one.
To the northeast!
Xue Xian struggled to lift his head and peer in that direction. Hadn’t Xuanmin just asked who was living in the northeast building?
As Xue Xian pondered this, the strange drone melded into the wind’s wailing, soaring louder. In that instant, everyone felt as if they’d been struck hard on the back of their heads. Their ears rang, and their vision faded to black as they lost consciousness all at once.
When the droning subsided and the darkness dropped from his eyes like sesame seeds, Xue Xian realized that something was amiss. Beneath him was the ground, paved with dark stone tiles. When he moved, he could feel the clumps of dark green moss there. Clearly, he’d fallen to the ground, and the bald donkey that’d been holding him was nowhere to be found.
And not just that guy. He looked around only to see that Scribe Liu had also vanished. Behind Xue Xian was still a building, but this one had proper doors, complete with intricate carvings on the wooden doorframe. Clearly, it wasn’t Liu Chong’s house, so he didn’t expect that Jiang Shining and the others would be inside.
In fact, this new location was eerily quiet. There was no sign of human presence. Like an empty manor, vast yet soundless.
“What kind of accursed place is this?” muttered Xue Xian.
He was in a rather troubling situation. If someone else had been thrust into a location like this one, they could at least walk around to learn more. But as a paraplegic, Xue Xian couldn’t walk.
In lieu of that, he sprawled out, spreading his creased paper body. After bracing his hands on the ground, he propped himself up, face to the sky, his head swaying as he admired the scenery.
Other than the house behind him, there was some old ivy creeping along the wall to his left, as well as a tree that could be used for shade, its branches just barely stretching over the wall. To his right was a corridor and a courtyard wall. Through a narrow door, he could faintly make out a small garden within another part of the estate. From this angle, he could tell that it was a meticulously designed compound. Though, no matter how exquisite an estate was, it was still unsettling with no signs of life.
Fortunately, Xue Xian had once been a master of the heavens. Even the creepiest of scenes couldn’t frighten him. He just needed to be careful.
“Ahead of me is south, behind me is north…”
He hadn’t been aimlessly looking around. He’d studied his surroundings to use the growth of moss along the tiles, the course of the ivy, and the orientation of the house to establish a general sense of direction. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was in the northeast corner of the compound.
The northeast corner. Xue Xian sucked in a breath. “That sounds familiar.”
If this was still Scribe Liu’s residence, then the northeast corner was where Scribe Liu’s youngest son, Liu Jin—the boy who’d almost drowned—resided. The droning sound he’d heard had also come from this direction.
Was the object he sought here?!
Xue Xian jolted and sat straight up. Holding his breath, he listened intently for a moment, but heard nothing, including the distinct droning he was looking for.
Sweeping aside a clump of moss in front of him, he grimaced in disdain before pressing himself face-first to the ground. This time, he heard a small, faint noise.
Oddly enough, the noise seemed distant at times and close by at others, without a fixed source. Moreover, it was so faint that the moment his attention wavered, he would lose it. The sound flitted back and forth, back and forth, its manner almost teasing, and Xue Xian was soon deeply annoyed. Before long, his temper flared. He longed to rip up the entire ground, charge down there, and reduce everything to ashes. Alas, this flimsy paper body of his could not do any of that.
As his anger grew, a gust of wind blew in from the latticed window on the wall. It was winter, so the winds blew with quite some force. Xue Xian, used to seizing opportunities, did not let this one pass him by. He spread his paper body to catch the breeze and was instantly lifted into the air. He then took the chance to grab a curling tendril of ivy.
In a few quick moves, he had hoisted himself up into the shade-giving tree. The tree was tall and straight, with few branches. One stretched over the wall, so Xue Xian chose this as the stop for his windy ride.
His flimsy paper body draped over the branch. One wrong move would send him drifting to the ground, and his position didn’t offer much of a view, so Xue Xian decided he would transform, just as Jiang Shining had.
A soft rush of air whipped around Xue Xian as he returned to his human form. In the light of day, his handsome features were crisp and charming. His dark eyes shone like cold pools, and beneath their misty surfaces lay a sharp, unbridled spirit. With a hand on the trunk and his other hand braced on the branch, he steadied his body and seated himself firmly upon the wall.
After taking his spot, the first thing he did was look beyond the courtyard wall. He gave one glance before whipping his head back, his face blank as he stared into the courtyard. Then, he looked outside again. He did this several times, until a slight crack appeared in his expression, like porcelain that was about to shatter.
Why the hell do things look exactly the same both inside and outside of the wall?!
Now, this was quite the situation. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d encountered a ghostfence. To think someone dared to use a ghostfence on him. It was a first.
Of course, this phenomenon couldn’t have happened without reason; something must have caused it. After a moment’s thought, the only explanation that came to Xue Xian’s mind was the feng shui layout Xuanmin had mentioned earlier, “Drawing the River to the Sea.” Had something disrupted it, causing it to go haywire and trap them all inside? If that was the case, then why was this manor so eerily silent? Was that due to the ghostfence’s influence, or was he truly the only one here?
Although the view from the wall was superior to the one from the ground, it still wasn’t spectacular. The courtyard was full of fire-prevention walls of varying heights, blocking most of the view. All Xue Xian had seen amounted to white walls, dark roofs, gray tiles, and several doors that might or might not lead to dead ends. He studied the narrow doors around him, then glanced over the various walls, both high and low. Slowly, he began to grasp the situation.
When a closed-off courtyard like this one was laid with a ghostfence, the key to breaking free lay in the Eight Gates of the Qimen Dunjia3—Initiation, Repose, Life, Injury, Obstruction, Scenery, Fright, and Death. Each gate led to a different path. To choose the wrong path meant getting trapped at best, or meeting pain or death at worst. Plus, this courtyard had been constructed in layers of squares. This meant its Eight Gates would also be layered, complicating the solution further.
Xue Xian wasn’t an average person, so he refused to waste time figuring out such trivial details. He’d never imagined that he’d encounter a ghostfence while being unable to move. He’d rather someone just stab him than sit there and calculate where the Life and Death Gates were.
“I have to look for people while dragging around a pair of crippled legs?” He sneered. I don’t hate myself that much!
He’d always been proud. Even at the threat of death, he’d never humiliate himself thus, unless it was absolutely necessary. And if it was absolutely necessary…he’d rather someone kill him anyway.
This miserable manor barely saw any wind, and there was not much to lean on. Even if he did figure out where to go, how was he supposed to get there? By crawling? Or sliding on his ass? Just the image made him grind his teeth. Forget it. Others might choose to crawl, but never him!
Xue Xian leaned against the tree, his tongue pressed between his teeth as he thought. Eventually, he reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a sheet of yellow paper. The paper was wrinkled and creased, clearly having gone through some hard times. Xue Xian looked at it with disdain before pinching one edge and shaking it out.
On the paper was an ugly, almost illegible scrawl, but Xue Xian could read it.
He’d picked this up from a Daoist while passing through Raozhou Prefecture. The man grew a thin, crooked mustache, wore a ragged cloth cap, and had a bruise on his temple that was indistinguishable from a birthmark or the result of a beating. He spent his days near a bridge, selling the talismans he’d made himself. He was an odd fellow; as a seller of talismans, he should have ensured his calligraphy at least looked the part. Instead, he shamelessly hawked his stack of chicken-scratch talismans, seemingly unworried that they might not sell.
Xue Xian had spent a few days at his stall and examined the talismans he’d made. Most of them were mere decorative toys, but one or two had fluid brushstrokes that were decent for minor tasks.
Still, they were very minor tasks. For example, the evil-repelling talisman could ward off a few mosquitoes at best. The longevity talisman could, at most, alleviate some minor symptoms of illness.
As for the one Xue Xian held right now, he’d watched the Daoist write it out: I call upon the thunder of the Dragon Lord of the South.