Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
The Legend of Chan Zhi Sha
墨書 Inktalez
In the autumn of the twenty-third year of Guangxu, the Bagua Mirror that protected Shen Garden shattered suddenly as the young master returned home. The Gramophone played a mournful wedding tune every night, and the copper bells at the eaves rang without wind. When the Western light illuminated the dark room of the ancestral hall, a pair of entwined coffins revealed a blood-soaked Heavenly Marriage Contract seeping with corpse oil—thirty years ago, a bride buried alive opened her maggot-ridden eyes within the coffin.
As Shen Mo Bai stood before the entrance of Shen Garden with a leather suitcase in hand, the copper bells at the eaves suddenly rang out. In that moment, three crows soared from the rooftop, crashing into the hanging Bagua Mirror, which shattered into three pieces and fell into the moss, each fragment reflecting his short-cropped Western hairstyle.
"Young Master, be careful!" Fu Bo's bony hand suddenly grasped his suit sleeve. The old butler's neck was slick with cold sweat, and his drooping eyelids twitched violently. "This mirror... was crafted from a hundred-year-old thunder-struck wood by Master Zhang, the Celestial Teacher..."
Shen Mo Bai bent down to pick up a shard of the mirror; just as his fingertips touched the cold copper surface, he was suddenly knocked to the ground by an unseen force. Dark red liquid seeped from the broken shards, winding its way through the moss in the stone crevices, spelling out a crooked "Happiness" character on the blue bricks.
"Quickly step over the fire basin!" Fu Bo trembled as he lit mugwort, orange flames licking at the glutinous rice soaking in the copper basin. As white smoke rose, Shen Mo Bai caught a whiff of burnt flesh—the glutinous rice was mixed with blackened fingernails.
The bamboo curtains in the flower hall fluttered without wind, and thirty-six copper bells shrieked in unison. As Shen Mo Bai crossed the threshold, he saw his father, Shen Zuyin, curled up on a zitan couch wrapped in fox fur. Beside him, a spittoon floated with several soaked Sophora tree leaves.
"Father, Dr. Parker from Provincial Capital said..." Shen Mo Bai retrieved a stethoscope from his suitcase; its metal gleamed coldly in the dusk.
"Unworthy child!" Shen Zuyin suddenly erupted, his gnarled hand gripping Shen Mo Bai's wrist. The old man's face was covered in age spots, with veins bulging like live centipedes beneath his skin. "Your mother should have taken you away back then... cough cough..."
Blood splattered onto Shen Mo Bai's pale blue shirt, instantly blooming into a shape resembling peach blossoms. Fu Bo rushed in with a bowl of medicine; brown soup floated with paper ash on its surface while vermilion powder settled at the bottom, slowly swirling into a vortex-like talisman.
"Master should take his ginseng soup now." Fu Bo stirred the medicinal concoction with a silver spoon; the incantation carved on its handle flickered under candlelight.
Shen Zuyin suddenly seized Fu Bo's wrist, his murky eyes bulging from their sockets. "Coffin Shop... that wretched woman's store..."
Before he could finish speaking, the sound of a suona echoed from outside. The melody was reminiscent of the mournful "Crying to Heaven" as well as the celebratory "Hundred Birds Worship the Phoenix," swirling around Shen Garden, now distant and now near. Shen Mo Bai pushed open the intricately carved wooden window and caught sight of a spirit banner dancing wildly under the eaves of the Coffin Shop at the end of the street, its faded white silk splattered with specks of brown.
"Young Master, don't look!" Fu Bo rushed over to close the window, his frail back pressed against the paper as he trembled. "That’s Miss Liu’s shop... it has been haunted every night for thirty years..."
Suddenly, memories flooded back to Shen Mo Bai. When he was seven, he had sneaked into the Coffin Shop and often saw a girl in a moon-white dress sitting under the Sophora Tree, crafting Paper Men. She wore a silver bracelet engraved with lotus blossoms, her hair pinned up with a tortoiseshell comb, and her sewing basket was filled with blood-stained vermilion threads.
Once, he had touched her cool fingers, and she had laughed as she stuffed a piece of Fu Ling Cake into his mouth, its filling tangy with Chen Pi.
"Fu Bo, where did Miss Liu marry off to later?" Shen Mo Bai asked, fiddling with a bloodstain on his shirt, noticing that the peach blossom-shaped mark was spreading.
Suddenly, the medicine bowl in the old steward's hand shattered, porcelain shards embedding deeply into the cracks of the blue bricks. Thick black medicinal liquid oozed across the floor, forming the outline of a disheveled woman.
Shen Zuyin let out a beast-like howl, drawing out a Peach Wood Sword from beneath his pillow and slashing wildly. The blade tore through the gauze curtain, revealing countless talismans behind it—each yellow paper inscribed with Maiden's Menstrual Blood forming Locking Soul Patterns.
"The master is trapped in a nightmare!" Fu Bo shouted as he grabbed a copper bell from the bedside and shook it violently, its clapper striking out a soul-chilling rhythm.
Shen Mo Bai suddenly noticed a purple-black mark around his father's neck, dotted with seven needle holes from which dark green pus was slowly seeping.
As the Night Watchman struck the first hour of midnight, Shen Mo Bai followed Fu Bo through the corridor. The lantern illuminated a brick carving of a dragon that had been gouged out of its eyes; beneath its claws lay talismans glistening with corpse oil.
The old steward suddenly halted in front of the ancestral hall, his pale face illuminated by the oil lamp. "Young Master, do you know why we never keep cats at home?"
"Isn't it because Grandmother fears they disturb the dead?"
"It’s because they might see things they shouldn’t." Fu Bo's bony finger traced over the taotie pattern on the door ring, copper dust falling like rain. "Just like that frost-laden night thirty years ago when that tortoiseshell cat stumbled upon the master and Miss Liu..."
His words were abruptly cut off. A scratching sound echoed from within the hall, mingled with a woman's soft weeping.
The eternal lamp on the offering table suddenly blazed to life, flames leaping three feet high and casting a blood-red glow on "The Position of Snow E in the Liu Family of the Shen Sect" spirit tablet.
"Is this Second Concubine's tablet?" Shen Mo Bai reached out to touch it but was firmly held back by Fu Bo.
The old steward's nails dug into his flesh as he spoke in a voice that seemed to emerge from a coffin: "It is a life tablet set up for living people by the master..."
A thunderous roar erupted as torrential rain began to pour down.
Through the window, Shen Mo Bai saw the Centennial Sophora Tree in front of the Coffin Shop dancing wildly in the lightning, the seven iron chains tied to its branches clanging loudly.
A bolt of Pili fell, and he clearly saw a pale hand stretching out from the tree hollow, blood seeping from the Lotus Blossom Silver Bracelet around its wrist.
Comment 0 Comment Count