“We mortals live in a world full of spirits and daemons—dangerous creatures they are indeed. Thus this guidebook was written, and its purpose is to help one respectfully share the same world with these beings.
Rule 1: When walking on a road at night, NEVER turn back and answer calls for your name. These are greedy ghosts ready to trick you and take your spirit fires to enhance their power. A normal person has one spirit fire on each shoulder. They encompass your soul and provide strength and stability for your inner balance. If you turn your head in search of the person who said your name, the ghosts will snatch one of your spirit fires on your shoulders. If you turn again, both of those spirit fires will be taken away along with your soul, and you will become a walking corpse with no thoughts or feelings. Remember, however familiar those voices may sound, DO NOT TURN TO ANSWER.
Rule 2: Do not EVER tamper with graves. They are the final home for deceased people and their spirits, and if they are disturbed, you may face grave consequences. Some ghosts are more lenient, but others? Not so much. Ghosts that do not have strong willpower/consciousness are possessed only by their most urgent needs before death and the emotions that accompanies that need. For example, if a woman killed herself due to her abandonment by her husband, she may turn into a ghost filled with resentment and hate. If you somehow disturb her grave and release her, she will manifest that blind hatred and come for you. She will (most likely) kill you in the way she killed herself.
Rule 3: Don’t stick your chopsticks upright in your rice. That’s the equivalent to offering rice to dead spirits, and bad luck will follow you. …”
“I’m just saying, whoever wrote this seems to actually know what they’re doing.” Xinghan closed the battered book that he was holding. Well, he can’t really “hold” anything, since he’s dead, but the book is in his hands. He had the form of a thin young man who probably was studying to be a teacher, judging by the perpetual ink stain on the side of his right hand and the lingering scent of rice paper that enveloped him wherever he went. A big scar tore across his face, stretching from the corner of his left eye all the way to his jawline on the right.
Chufeng looked gravely at the book with his snake eyes. He was a snake daemon with glowing yellow eyes and slits for pupils, and his scales were a shiny, saturated crimson. “But we’ve been running this shop for years and we’ve done none of the stuff listed on the book. Spirit fires do make a lot of money, but we’ve never had the guts to steal one or kill any mortals for it… God knows what those Taoist practitioners may do to us if those dumb humans find out their spirit fire’s stolen.”
Xinghan shrugged and opened his mouth to say something, but the wooden wind chimes started clicking softly and he had to answer the door.
“Otherworldly customer at this hour of the day? That’s new.” Chufeng muttered, transforming himself from a snake to a woman. Now he (or she) looked like a newly-wed young wife, with a very expensive-looking crimson hairpin penetrating her bun on top of her head and a dress that outlined her curvaceous waist and hips, “Let’s see if we can get that guy to spit out anything valuable.”
Xinghan ignored her and opened the door. Standing outside was a shrouded figure wrapped in a cloak so dirty that no color is distinguishable beneath the thick shell of grime and mud. He also wore an enormous wide-brimmed bamboo rain hat that hid his face in the shadows.
“A bowl of rice wine, warmed please.” The figure took off his cloak and his hat: under it was a face so mundane and forgettable that one would have forgot him the moment his face was out of sight. He pushed a couple coins over the counter to Chufeng, who examined them and turned to warm the man’s wine. The man sat down at one of the wooden tables and stared into the wall while rapidly tapping his foot on the ground. Xinghan glided over—literally—and set down a plate of fried peanuts.
Xinghan noticed the man’s nervousness and made a mental note. “Make yourself at home. Are you hoping to buy something or are you just thirsty from all the travelling?”
“Ah yes,” The man seemed delighted to get straight to the point, “I was hoping… I was hoping you guys could accept this and in return I would like a safe passage to the Underworld.”
He produced a small clay jar from the inside of his coat and put it very carefully on the table. Xinghan squinted at it. The thing made him feel cold and uncomfortable, and his ghost eyes could see the thin black fog swirling around it.
“That’s a lot of menace in one jar.” Xinghan observed, “I suppose it’s some sort of strong evil spirit who killed a bunch of others? And what do you expect us to do with it?”
Chufeng came over and handed the man the bowl of wine, “What’s- oh, I can literally feel the thing inside staring at me.”
The man, however, did not touch the wine, “It’s the spirit of a sword. It’s killed thousands and thousands of people and taken their resentment and made them its own. So now it can be only encased in the jar… I carved in incantations on the jar to seal it in, but I don’t think it can hold much longer.”
Chufeng frowned, “So you’re just giving us the problem and hoping we could fix it? You also want something in return for this hot potato? And why would you want to go to the Underworld in the first place?”
“No! It’s just… I meant that you could use it to make something even more powerful. This thing has its own consciousness, and maybe… Maybe you can infuse it into another inanimate object and make it do your bidding…” The man’s voice grew smaller as he recoiled under the menacing stares of Chufeng’s slanted eyes. Her eyes look very much like a snake’s, he thought involuntarily.
Xinghan peered at the incantations carved into the jar. “That’s actually a very strong sealing charm. Look at this. That thing must be really powerful, so he isn’t lying. It really is valuable.”
“But we have to find a way to get this thing to calm down before we try to make use of it in any way.” Chufeng turned her interest to the man and examined him, “You… look suspiciously normal. Too normal, in fact.”[1]
The man’s eyes flashed, “What?”
Xinghan immediately realized what Chufeng was talking about, “Oh yeah mister, you haven’t even touched your wine yet, it’s gone cold already.”
The man saw the two non-humans advancing slowly towards him and almost burst into tears, “No! Please don’t hurt me! I… I’m just an errand man! I really know nothing about this sword spirit other than what I’ve told you!”
“Errand man? Now that’s something.” Xinghan produced a long, thin block of ornate black ink and pointed it at the man, “So who are you running errands for?”
The man stuttered, but didn’t say a word. Chufeng hissed menacingly as she turned herself back to a shining crimson serpent, almost as tall as the man himself.
“I feel like we know all of the big ones down there, don’t we?” Chufeng now spoke in his own voice as he arched his body, ready to attack at any moment, “Or did we miss the rise of a new novice on the path of spirits and daemons?”
The man opened his mouth to say something, but just as he was about to speak, an arrow with such force and viciousness sailed through the tightly closed door without leaving a mark and penetrated his throat. Xinghan and Chufeng were temporarily blinded by the white light that accompanied the arrow. They instinctively staggered back, blocking their watering eyes.
“The fuck—” Chufeng roared, “Since when did deities get involved in this as well?”
Xinghan opened his eyes. True enough, the man was indeed just a skin used by ghosts to take a physical form. He – or it – dangled off the arrow, crumpled up into a small ball of skin-colored mess, and never said a word again.
Xinghan tried to reach for the arrow, but the heat and vice that the arrow emitted almost burned his hand. He was a ghost, after all, and he was naturally repelled by the makings and crafts of deities.
“Why would the deities want him dead? If they are also investigating this, wouldn’t more information be the better?” Chufeng could not get close to the arrow either, so he circled around it, trying to make out the shape and size beneath the blinding white light that still surrounded it.
Xinghan smacked the table, “No, you idiot! That would be the least of our worries! This means that the deities know where we are right now, and we need to leave!”
[1] “Rule 4: Spirits with evil intent may be hiding just among us, taking our forms. Tips to look out for them are: if someone refuses to drink or eat, they may be the skin that a spirit chose to take (skins do not have intestines so if they drink or eat, the sound of food/drink falling into their ‘stomach’ will inevitably give them away); if someone looks so unremarkably mundane, they may also be the skin that a spirit chose to take (a lot of spirits do not have the power to craft eloquent and unique faces).” – Chinese Superstition Book
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