Chapter 12:
Island Tomb
“MASTER, WHAT’S WRONG?” asked Jiang Shining.
Being a ghost, he possessed a natural advantage over Lu Nianqi. Other than some dizziness and a headache, he hadn’t suffered any real injuries from the fall and thus recovered first. When he straightened from his ugly sprawl on the ground, he saw Xuanmin holding a flame and staring at the ground. He was motionless and looked like he’d been stunned.
During their limited time together, Xuanmin had always remained calm and unruffled, as if neither fear nor anger could touch him. It was the first time Jiang Shining had seen him stupefied. Something that could leave even Xuanmin speechless… What kind of horrific situation could that be?! Jiang Shining’s heart thumped hard and apprehension welled up inside him.
At Xuanmin’s lack of reaction, Jiang Shining’s anxiety only grew. He shot to his feet to take a closer look, but he only managed one step before tripping.
“Ah! Look where you’re going!” Lu Nianqi cried out in pain as he jerked his foot back.
“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” As Jiang Shining apologized repeatedly, he turned to see Lu Nianqi huddled with his hands over his head, messy and unkempt, his movements stilted.
“Um, I stepped on your foot, so why’re you holding your head?” Jiang Shining asked.
Lu Nianqi kept quiet for a while before saying in a muffled voice, “I didn’t brace myself properly and landed face-first. My forehead’s all scraped.”
Jiang Shining sighed. His doctor’s instinct, momentarily interrupted by the fall, reared its head once more. “Can you stand? Did you hurt anything else?”
“I hit my injured hand. It’s probably bleeding again.” Lu Nianqi shook his hand, but he accepted Jiang Shining’s support to stand up. “I’m fine otherwise. Did that monk—uh, did he find anything? Why isn’t he speaking?”
As he’d lost his parents and older relatives at such a young age, Lu Nianqi’s manners were lacking. If not for Xuanmin’s small display of ability earlier, he probably wouldn’t have rescinded his words and just addressed him as “monk.”
The two injured boys hobbled over to Xuanmin. Xuanmin’s unapproachable nature made them afraid to get close, so they stayed half a step away, their necks craned forward like meerkats as they stared at the ground.
Xuanmin’s talisman must have been enchanted because, despite having burned for quite some time, the paper had not yet been consumed. A small flicker of flame remained at his fingertips. Although dim, it was enough to illuminate the face he was staring at.
Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi were both shocked into silence.
A dying flame, a situation with no way out, and now their companion’s severed head was lying in front of them. They might just snap from terror! Moreover, Xue Xian’s head was face up, the paint still reminiscent of a wide-eyed corpse bleeding from every orifice. It should have added to the sheer horror. However…
A thought immediately tumbled into Jiang Shining’s mind: What is this wise one doing now?
But then his brain buzzed back to life and reality sank in. His limbs turned cold, and he understood why Xuanmin had stood there, stupefied, for such a long time.
“His head’s gone! Is he really…dead?” Jiang Shining asked hesitantly.
This was a truly unprecedented situation. Xue Xian had been chattering nonstop just a moment ago. Who could have imagined that he’d end up decapitating himself?
“Wh-where’s the body?” Jiang Shining continued, stammering.
Lu Nianqi hadn’t recovered yet. He swiveled his wide-eyed stare toward Xuanmin.
Xuanmin didn’t speak, nor did his expression flicker. He simply reached into his pouch and pulled out the doll’s headless paper body. The once-lively doll was motionless in his palm, much like an ordinary sheet of flimsy paper, silent and lifeless.
Jiang Shining opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say.
Lu Nianqi ended up speaking first. “I-is he human or a ghost? Can he still survive like this?”
“He should…” Jiang Shining muttered automatically, but he found himself unable to finish. After hesitating for a moment, he picked up the flimsy paper head from the ground and tentatively called out, “Xue…Xue-xiong5? Are you awake? If you are, please respond.”
Silence.
He held his breath for a moment but still heard no reply. His hand holding Xue Xian’s head trembled, and he quickly placed the head in Xuanmin’s palm.
“Can we glue him back together?” Lu Nianqi asked stiffly.
Like that will work? Have you ever seen anyone reattach their head with glue? Why don’t you try it and show me?
Jiang Shining was about to blurt all of that out, but he recalled Lu Nianqi’s age and swallowed his words, turning his troubled, distressed gaze back to Xue Xian’s decapitated body and head.
Only for Xuanmin, who’d been staring at his palm, to finally speak. “He’s beyond saving. Let’s burn him.”
“What?!” Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi exclaimed together.
Xuanmin’s expression didn’t so much as flicker, remaining cold and stern. Seeing that, Jiang Shining became convinced he was serious, and his legs buckled slightly. “Master, you can’t mean that?”
“I don’t perform rites for paper dolls,” said Xuanmin, and his other hand brought the still-burning talisman closer to Xue Xian’s paper body.
Just as the flame was about to brush the paper, a faint voice chimed next to Xuanmin’s ear. “Stop right there. You dare?!”
The voice didn’t come from the paper doll. Rather, it emanated from the empty void next to Xuanmin’s ear.
The fretting Jiang Shining jerked his head up. Staring at Xuanmin, Jiang Shining circled him several times, too afraid to speak a word—because he couldn’t see Xue Xian anywhere.
In truth, at the moment the paper body tore in two, Xue Xian’s soul had fought his way out of the doll, unwilling to go through that kind of pain again. His soul had no form. Like wind or air, it was wholly invisible, which suited him just fine. Of all the things he could have done, he’d ripped off his own head. The humiliation was too great! He didn’t want to see anyone just then, so he’d gathered himself behind Xuanmin and turned into a trailing shadow.
Xue Xian thought that if he floated over and whispered ominously in Xuanmin’s ear, he could startle the monk and rattle his composure.
Against expectations, Xuanmin didn’t even turn his head. His tone was unsurprised as he asked, “Not playing dead anymore?”
Xue Xian couldn’t believe it. As the saying went, everything had its match. Ever since he’d met Xuanmin, Xue Xian felt like he was perpetually on the verge of hacking up all the hypothetical blood in his hypothetical body.
“How did you know I was playing dead?” Displeased that he’d failed, Xue Xian forced the words out through gritted teeth.
Xuanmin didn’t bat an eyelid as he flipped his palm over and put away the doll he’d been ready to burn. “Scourges last for a thousand years, while the good die young.”
Xue Xian longed to send Xuanmin on a nice trip to the underworld. However, remembering his situation, Xue Xian tamped down his temper and softened his attitude. “Fine. Someone like me shouldn’t lower myself to your level. Say whatever you like.”
At these words, Xuanmin cocked his head a little and glanced at the emptiness by his ear. It seemed he found Xue Xian’s new docility rather strange.
Xue Xian cleared his throat. His next words would be rather embarrassing, so he paused to muster his courage. He glanced at Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi, who had turned to look in the direction he was speaking from, and decided to lower his voice even further.
Spirits had no physical form, much like the wind, so Xue Xian’s size and shape didn’t matter. Shrinking himself down, he drifted around Xuanmin’s ear and spoke in a barely audible whisper.
“Bald donkey, I have a proposal.”
Xuanmin didn’t speak, but he also didn’t move, clearly waiting for what he had to say next.
“I want to borrow your body for a bit,” Xue Xian said.
Xuanmin remained utterly silent.
Xue Xian thought about it and decided his statement came off wrong, so he quickly rephrased it. “I don’t mean I want to take over your body. I mean, I need a place to stay, preferably right up against your hip.”
Xuanmin still said nothing.
Ugh, why is talking this hard?! Xue Xian thought.
The reason for his struggle was because spirits couldn’t float around aimlessly for too long. He needed to find a physical object to anchor himself to, or he would dissipate. The longer his soul drifted like this, the more it’d damage his vitality. He’d worked hard to nurse his body back to health and had no wish to return to being a quadriplegic, but now that the paper doll had ripped into two, he couldn’t possess it.
As for why he wanted to stay close to Xuanmin’s hip…
Ever since the marble had ended up in Xuanmin’s pouch, Xue Xian had grown increasingly aware of Xuanmin’s unique constitution. The dragon couldn’t help but think about the bell tolls he’d heard coming from Xuanmin’s hip and how they’d left him dizzy and disoriented.
Without a doubt, those sounds were connected to the golden marble’s transformation. He even began to entertain some flights of fancy—if both he and the marble stayed close to Xuanmin’s hip, might he be able to return to his dragon form? Although his dragon form had been stripped of its bones and tendons, with proper nurturing, it might be possible to grow new ones.
He wanted to return to his original form as soon as he could, to regrow his bones again. Once that was the case, he would no longer need to haggle and compromise with others the way he was doing now.
“Forget it. I just need to find something to stay in. Doesn’t have to be your hip—your pouch will do.” Xuanmin hadn’t even said a word, yet Xue Xian was making concessions without any prompting.
Xuanmin glanced at the emptiness. “After all your wailing earlier, you’re now asking to go into the pouch?”