In the dead of night, He Zhuchun was woken by a faint, furtive rustling.
He picked up his phone and checked the time.
Eleven o’clock, exactly.
His chest heaved twice, hard. He first lifted away the leg belonging to Great Immortal Lu that was draped across his upper body — with breathing restored at last, he paused a while before lifting away the second leg belonging to Great Immortal Lu, the one parked across his knees.
After laying the man out neatly beside him, He Zhuchun put on his shoes, got out of bed, and went hunting for the source of the sound.
The noise seemed to come from downstairs — dim and muffled, indistinct through the intervening stuff. He Zhuchun listened carefully for a while longer and felt that the direction of the sound was wrong from every angle. Deeply strange.
This rustling was very quiet. Anyone with ears less sharp than He Zhuchun’s would surely never have noticed it.
He listened with full attention, and decided it resembled the sound of fingernails scraping across something.
A dry, whispering, slightly hoarse scrape.
He tried to make it out more clearly, but the living room’s mechanical clock came seeping through the door panels with its raucous tick-tock, interfering without stop with his judgment of the sound.
Tick-tock, tick-tock—
Scratch-scratch—
Tick-tock, tick-tock—
Two sounds, one strong and one weak, drilled into his ears in alternating turns, and He Zhuchun felt a surge of irritation he couldn’t suppress — especially in the dead silence of night, when the clock’s voice seemed to amplify without limit, pricking at him until his whole body itched with discomfort.
The night was overcast; no moon had come out; not a single star could be seen. The sky beyond the window was hazy, thick.
He Zhuchun was shut inside the darkness, the eerie sound wrapping around him airtight, as if he’d been sealed under a glass dome — two clusters of sound rising and rebounding, over and over, within that small territory.
Illusion or not, He Zhuchun kept suspecting that both sounds were growing louder and louder — as if someone were carrying the source closer and closer, pouring the noise into his ears like liquid.
He held out a while longer, couldn’t help a “tch,” and — as though finally settling on a decision — climbed up and walked toward the door. He would go to the living room and pop the battery out of that mechanical clock.
The cold metal doorknob sat right beneath the talisman. He Zhuchun gripped it, expressionless — and at the very instant of pressing down, the talisman on his chest flared scalding hot. The next second, a wash of warmth settled over the back of his hand: someone had caught his wrist from behind and was drawing him back.
He turned — Lu You had woken at some point, brow faintly creased, staring hard at the door panel, thinking something over, saying nothing.
He Zhuchun moved to speak — and was stopped dead by a single look from Lu You. Lu You tipped his chin slightly: turn around. In the periphery of his vision, something seemed to flash golden — and then the talisman on the door blazed bright, a tongue of flame flickering twice along its foot before burning slowly upward.
Shock jolted through He Zhuchun; he understood at once that something outside had come to lure him out. Cold sweat seeped down his back, unbidden.
Even knowing that with Lu You’s talismans and Fate Chart protecting him, going out would likely cause no real harm — He Zhuchun still could not suppress the after-fear, appalled by the cunning of whatever waited outside the door.
The flame leisurely devoured a small half of the talisman, then abruptly died. The remainder — most of a Yellow Joss Paper sheet, along with a patch of scorched black ash — went on hanging quietly from the door.
The rustling sound stopped dead. He Zhuchun looked up at Lu You’s sleepy face, then picked up his phone and checked the time again.
Eleven-thirty, exactly.
— The very time Zhao Xiaochen had named, when that eerie noise began.
Indeed: after a brief lull following the scratching of nails, the room held only the swinging of the clock hands. He Zhuchun counted silently, and at the fourth tick — BANG. This one was far louder than the last. Even Lu You heard it clearly now; he traced the source a moment, and looked toward the floor.
The noise did come from downstairs — Zhao Xiaochen hadn’t lied to them.
The thumping never paused at their ears. It had no rhythm; it was simply knocking, now heavy, now light, and occasionally a single blow of extraordinary size — like someone spending the last of their strength kicking and struggling their way upward.
Lu You, thinking of something, pressed down gently along He Zhuchun’s hand.
Click—
The lock opened, the metal axis giving a faint creak as the door swung wide. He Zhuchun’s gaze dropped — and in the middle of the door he found a patch of scratch marks, dense and numerous.
When a person is startled, the muscles tighten by instinct. Lu You patted his shoulder in comfort and gazed out through the living room’s undissolving, syrup-thick darkness.
The living room’s light switch stood some distance from the bedroom. Lu You switched on his phone’s flashlight, swept the living room roughly once over, saw nothing else present, then stepped out and flipped on the lights.
He Zhuchun hovered behind him, expression strange, not daring to speak.
Only when Lu You had pocketed the flashlight did he speak to He Zhuchun: “Something came into the living room just now. It’s already fled.”
He Zhuchun followed close behind, startled: “It got past your talismans and made it inside? That takes some serious Dao Attainment.”
“Deep Grievance Qi, I’d guess,” said Lu You.
“Speaking of talismans…” He Zhuchun’s gaze rose instinctively to the two spots in the living room where talismans had been pasted — then he froze, pointing at the window for Lu You to see: “That one’s burnt half away too.”
Lu You looked where he pointed: the talisman on the living room window, once whole, now remained as only half a sheet — the other half having become black ash fallen onto the balcony floor.
A thought struck him; his gaze crossed the entryway and went to the front door.
The talisman there had been burned away entirely — a smear of ash drifting light in the entryway, and a faint black mark still printed on the door.
He Zhuchun gathered a pinch of the ash in his palm, crushed it, and blew it clean away. He asked Lu You, “What now?”
“It came in through the front door.” Lu You’s eyes were lowered, long dense lashes casting a faint layer of shadow beneath them. He deduced: “It should have been standing right here just now…” — he lifted a finger and pointed at the bedroom doorway — “It meant to lure you out, but it never expected the bedroom talisman to burn it. It should be badly burned by now, which is why it panicked and bolted without choosing its path, slammed into the window — and its Grievance Qi set that talisman alight too. In the end it had no choice left but to flee back out through the door.”
He Zhuchun nodded along: “So what you mean is…”
Lu You stood in the shadow of the entryway, lifted his head slightly, and breathed out one word: “Chase.”
He Zhuchun had never once opposed Lu You. He strode to the door in a few steps and said crisply, “Go.”
Outside the door, the first thing to meet their eyes was, again, the elevator-repair notice. Lu You closed his eyes, sensing briefly — then headed straight down the stairwell.
The impression from daytime was real: the two flights below the fifth floor really were a little longer. Lu You was halfway down the first flight when he sensed something, and turning his gaze, glimpsed a corner of fabric at the landing where the two flights met.
He didn’t even need to give an order. He Zhuchun moved impossibly fast — in an instant he’d lunged out, grabbed that piece of cloth, and flung man and all into the wall.
The man gave a pained “oof” as he hit. Lu You walked up to him, face icy, and slowly said his name:
“Zhang Yin.”
Zhang Yin slumped in the corner looking at the two of them, his face blank with confusion. He rubbed his bumped forehead and asked, “What — what are you doing, doing this for?”
“Shouldn’t we be the ones asking you that?” He Zhuchun pulled a smile, crouching down in front of him. “Middle of the night, not sleeping — what are you wandering around for?”
Zhang Yin had presumably been frightened; he stammered, “I — I’m going, going home.”
He Zhuchun’s voice curled around an “Oh?” — “And where is home?”
Zhang Yin answered, “Fourth floor. I live on the fourth floor.”
He Zhuchun: “Fourth floor, which unit?”
“No number, no number.” Zhang Yin seemed afraid of him; he curled into the corner, voice faint: “Fourth floor — just me, my family alone.”
Lu You stepped forward, gazing down at him from above: “Middle of the night, and instead of staying in your own home, you come out to wander. Why?”
Zhang Yin’s face shifted back into that supremely dull expression; he answered blankly, “I — I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Lu You asked. “You don’t know where your own home is?”
Zhang Yin nodded first, then shook his head, saying with enormous effort, “Sometimes — sometimes I can find it.”
“Sometimes means what?”
Zhang Yin answered, “I get driven out at night, for a little while, and can’t go home. After a while, I can go back. My home is on the fourth floor. It’s small inside, narrow, long. My home…”
Lu You cut him off: “And do you know when you can go home? The exact time.”
He Zhuchun rose to his feet beside Lu You. He’d noticed it by now: every time “home” came up, Zhang Yin turned into this dazed, gaping fool. Day or night, it made no difference.
“Time… time.” Zhang Yin seemed to detect some keyword; his head snapped up, eyes gaping huge, the sockets stretched as if split to their limit, bloodshot threads wound through the eyeballs as though they were about to drop from their orbits.
His mouth opened; the tongue inside writhed wildly; several attempts at sound were cut off mid-birth. With his features flying about at random for a while, under Lu You’s indifferent gaze, Zhang Yin finally managed: “Th-three. Three o’clock.”
The time Zhao Xiaochen had given: when the noises ended.
Lu You and He Zhuchun traded a look. He Zhuchun spoke first: “Need me to walk you back?”
“No! No!” Zhang Yin’s voice suddenly swelled. Some trigger had been hit — he seized the flesh of his own cheek and wrenched it, stretching the skin several full centimeters, then let go all at once. Only after the flesh snapped back against his face, flushing red and swollen, did he say weakly, “I’m not going back now. Not going back.”
Lu You crouched down close to him and said in a low voice, “Why can’t you go back?”
Zhang Yin glanced around neurotically, then studied Lu You’s face over and over — and seeming finally to set his mind at ease, leaned in close and whispered: “This building — it isn’t safe at night.”
Lu You asked him, “Why isn’t it safe?”
“Because there’s a ghost!” And then, huddling neurotically tighter, he told Lu You in a small voice: “Someone died in this building! A ghost!”
He didn’t speak loudly, but in the empty, unpeopled stairwell it carried with unusual clarity. He Zhuchun stood to one side listening, and thought: There sure is a ghost. Aren’t you it, though?
Lu You asked him, “If you don’t go back to your home — come back to mine instead. Would you be willing?”
Zhang Yin stared at him blankly, hesitated half a beat too long, and finally, reluctantly, nodded.
Lu You rose, tipped his head at He Zhuchun: “Take him back with us, then.”
“Ah?” He Zhuchun pointed at himself: “Me?”
