Just as he did every other day, Qin Shu chose to trust Pei Zhao.
He closed his eyes and continued holding Pei Zhao, while out loud he began talking about something completely unrelated. “Zhaozhao, when we get home, I want another birthday cake. Ice-cream mousse filling, any flavor is fine. I want it from you.”
“You don’t want me to make it myself?”
“…Really?!”
“Mm. I watched a tutorial on the plane. I learned how.”
The gap beside the window grew wider and wider. A round black shadow, silhouetted against the moonlight, spilled across the empty floor of the bedroom, yet the two of them continued their casual conversation in perfect tacit understanding.
Of course, they were not only talking out loud. They were also talking in their heads.
The principle behind it was actually quite simple. They had never possessed only one means of communicating with each other.
Qin Shu had discovered a long time ago that Pei Zhao could understand Yuanbao, and evidently Yuanbao could also understand Pei Zhao’s wordless expressions.
Whenever Qin Shu spoke to Yuanbao inside his head, the ridiculously clever little centipede could accurately relay his words to Pei Zhao. Sometimes it could even do him small favors, interpreting a casual glance Pei Zhao sent his way, all within the span of an instant. In short, it was extremely convenient.
Precisely because it was so convenient, Qin Shu used it cautiously. Whenever he was away from home, he deliberately continued communicating aloud or through online messages, doing everything possible to make sure no one discovered this ability.
After all, he could not use magic to transmit his voice directly to another person. He could communicate through the soul only because of the bond between himself and his spirit pet.
Since that was the case, it was better to maintain the status quo and let everyone who knew him believe that he had no reliable method of secret communication.
At times like this, however, the arrangement was perfect. All he had to do was call Yuanbao out from beneath the pillow and let it lie in the narrow space between their embracing bodies, and their hidden relay was complete.
Multitasking was not difficult. For someone with a brain as good as Pei Zhao’s, it was practically effortless, while for Qin Shu—who had to study at high intensity yet still loved playing games and watching movies—it was something that could easily be trained.
Zhaozhao! I can feel it! Even with my eyes closed, I can feel someone staring at us!
Let me see… It’s an eyeball embedded in the head of a corpse. It has crushed all the facial features out of shape. The face has suffered comminuted facial fractures, and the skull is severely caved in. It looks a lot like Xu Qian, but it isn’t Xu Qian.
That’s terrifying. Zhaozhao, why are you describing it in so much detail… Sister Qian is sleeping in the drawer with Coalball. It’s fine. That isn’t her.
Don’t be afraid. Let me see whether I can eat it.
You can eat that too? Then can I sneak a look? Please, Zhaozhao. Pretty please.
I’m scarier than it is.
“Zhaozhao, how are you so smart? I want it, I want it! I want the one you make yourself!”
“Okay. I’ll show you the style I learned.”
Their spoken conversation abruptly stopped there. Pei Zhao pushed the quilt aside and sat up, then calmly reached through the darkness for the phone on the bedside table.
With a light tap, the screen lit up, illuminating his snow-pale face. Although even snow felt like a rather lazy comparison.
Under the white glow of the screen, his face seemed to possess no natural shadows at all, more like an ink painting spread across paper than a living person. His lips were soft in outline, his lashes dense, his features rendered with the flourish of a master brush, while his eyes seemed like autumn water touched with gold.
Apart from that deep, dark amber-gold, the entire painting appeared to consist only of beautiful contours drawn in black ink against a paper-thin layer of pallor that seemed almost translucent.
Qin Shu watched through a narrow gap in the quilt, yet his attention remained entirely fixed on Pei Zhao, completely disregarding the abnormality at the window.
He stared at Pei Zhao, and the feeling that rose inexplicably inside him was neither fear nor rejection, but something far stronger—an intense, almost overwhelming fascination.
At this moment, Pei Zhao did not look dead, nor did he look alive.
He seemed more like something nonhuman that was difficult to describe, a magnificent art form born of meticulous design.
And since this was art, naturally there was room for shadow to play its part. Dense cold wrapped itself in darkness deeper than the night and arrived without a sound, completely enclosing the bedroom and everything around it.
The silver-white moon, glowing gently overhead, suddenly flickered for a single instant—and yes, it truly flickered. In that moment, the enormous Jin’e Mountain turned as black as ink before returning immediately to normal, as though some vast and indistinct thing had blinked once in midair.
Crack!
Rumble, rumble—
After the moon flickered, the crisp sound of breaking bone came from beside the window. The corpse clinging outside the second-floor window was instantly decapitated.
Its body remained rigidly frozen in place, both hands still clawing tightly at the windowsill. Only its head fell, wrapped and dragged downward by the thick darkness as it retreated, rolling slowly toward Pei Zhao’s feet like a ball.
Qin Shu’s breathing caught slightly as he watched Pei Zhao place two fingers against the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist and draw them across it, opening a long, startling slit.
Yet what flowed from the opening was not bright red blood, but more and more soft, icy darkness.
It resembled a pool of freshly ground, viscous ink, rich and smooth in texture, glossy as lacquer. It dripped silently onto the bedsheet before continuing downward in slow, winding streams.
The eerie darkness reached Pei Zhao’s feet and spread wider and wider, becoming an endless, deathly silent net that enveloped and covered the enormous eyeball embedded inside the human head, then suddenly contracted into a point too small to see.
At that instant, Qin Shu suddenly heard—or rather, saw—a soundless and piercing scream.
He had no idea how anyone could see a scream with their eyes, but he truly did. His eyes seemed to suffer the pressure of an unbearable noise, watering involuntarily as a burning pain rapidly climbed through them.
Perhaps it was the agonized scream of a soul being chewed apart, filled with bewildered fear and despair, with the despair far outweighing everything else. Qin Shu gave a quiet hiss from the stimulation, but he forced himself not to close his eyes and made himself watch the entire process.
Fortunately, the room was cold as an ice cellar, the darkness was slowly withdrawing, and only the eyeball itself had been abnormal. The head that had already been crushed beyond recognition by that eyeball was certainly incapable of producing such a miserable scream. Once rotten, it was simply rotten; it had already become an ordinary chunk of corpse flesh.
Qin Shu gritted his teeth and endured for a moment before realizing that he did not actually feel all that bad. The stabbing pain in his eyes gradually eased under the cold, while the dangerous aura lingering in the air steadily dissipated.
Pei Zhao turned to look at him and leaned closer. His paper-pale face approached so quickly that Qin Shu’s heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively caught Pei Zhao by the wrist. “Does it hurt?”
“…Of course it doesn’t.”
Pei Zhao seemed a little helpless. With his other hand, he picked up the little centipede and tossed it onto the floor. Yuanbao excitedly burrowed into the mangled head, evidently intending to rummage around inside it, and before long the whole thing went rumble, rumble as it rolled away.
Pei Zhao took the opportunity to curl back into Qin Shu’s arms, pulling the quilt over himself again.
Even covering himself with the quilt was not for his own sake, but because Qin Shu was afraid of the cold.
“Why are you so cold? Would freezing me to death make you happy?”
Just as expected, Qin Shu immediately hugged him tighter and began grumbling. “You might not hurt, but I do. My eyes hurt… Mm!”
Pei Zhao suddenly kissed him. He kissed Qin Shu’s eye.
The cool, soft touch landed at the corner of his eye and lingered there, intentionally or otherwise, before slowly withdrawing.
Pei Zhao seemed to be comforting him, and he was taking it very seriously. “Do you want the other side kissed too?”
“…Yes.”
That soft coolness gently covered his other eye as well. Qin Shu did not close his eyes, and his hand tightened unconsciously around Pei Zhao’s waist as he realized that his breathing had quietly grown warmer.
In a situation like this, who would still complain that the bed was cold? Who would care whether their eyes hurt? Qin Shu cared about exactly one thing.
“Pei Zhao, you absolutely cannot comfort anyone else like this. Even if somebody desperately needs comforting, you still can’t.”
“I won’t.” Pei Zhao’s expression remained unchanged as he shifted slightly beneath the quilt, found a comfortable position on his side, and rested his face against Qin Shu’s shoulder. “I hate human children.”
“…And you absolutely cannot treat me like a child either.”
“I know. You became an adult today. You’re grown up.”
Qin Shu studied his eyes for a moment and confirmed that Pei Zhao had shown absolutely no reluctance when he said it. Only then did he give a satisfied little “hmph.” “That’s more like it. Give me your hand. I want to look at the wound on your wrist.”
“There isn’t a wound. It healed on its own after I finished eating.”
“Really?” Qin Shu gently held his wrist, rubbing his fingertips repeatedly over the cool, smooth skin on the inside to make certain.
“Really.” Pei Zhao lowered his voice and leaned closer to Qin Shu’s ear, as though about to share some private secret. “I don’t have to eat only with my mouth. If I cut a slit in my back and put a straw into it… then during class, I could hide milk tea inside my jacket and drink it through my back.”
Qin Shu: “…”
“Zhaozhao, even if you openly put your milk tea on the desk and drink it, no teacher is going to say anything to you.”
“Openly violating classroom discipline would be inappropriate. I’m the academic representative.” Pei Zhao objected with complete seriousness.
Caught between laughter and disbelief, Qin Shu experienced the rare sensation of being rendered speechless in front of Pei Zhao.
“…Fine. Then when you secretly drink it in the future, make sure nobody catches you. I’ll keep watch for you… Oh, right, Zhaozhao. You haven’t been possessed by an evil spirit, have you?”
His brain short-circuited, and the words came straight out of his mouth. Qin Shu startled himself with how blunt he had suddenly become, while Pei Zhao froze and looked equally incredulous. “…Me? Possessed by an evil spirit?”
“I’ve always suspected that a ghost possessed you. The way your pulse feels when I check it is pretty similar…”
When Pei Zhao sent him a faintly dissatisfied, accusing look, Qin Shu coughed lightly and pressed the back of Pei Zhao’s neck, guiding him back into his arms. “But actually… you’re much stronger than I imagined, aren’t you? That’s why you’ve never been afraid of all those demons and ghosts at No. 2 High School, and why you’ve never really been in danger, right?”
“Mm. Jiangcheng is peaceful and quiet. It’s an excellent place in terms of feng shui.”
Pei Zhao answered quickly. He neither denied Qin Shu’s words nor offered any deeper explanation.
After a moment of silence, he said, “Go to sleep. Leave the corpse to Yuanbao. Don’t let something this trivial disrupt your schedule. Yuanbao has lived in Phoenix Village longer than we have.”
A grotesque monster had silently climbed to the second floor and peered into their bedroom through the window. Not only had Pei Zhao eaten it, but in his eyes, it qualified as nothing more than “something this trivial.”
Qin Shu wanted to laugh, and a moment later he really did. “So, do you know who sent that thing? It looked so much like Xu Qian that there’s a chance they came from the same source. Don’t we need to go investigate?”
“It didn’t come during the day and only appeared under cover of darkness. It could be a trap or someone deliberately testing us, so there’s no need to pay attention to it. Letting Yuanbao take the remains outside is the best counterattack.”
Pei Zhao explained softly, “Yuanbao is the Cave God’s son. The chances of it encountering danger are much lower than ours. Now that the Cave God is dead, theoretically speaking, you could even start a war in its name.”
“…That’s right!”
Qin Shu suddenly understood, and the realization steadied him slightly. He truly had overlooked that crucial point.
To the people of Phoenix Village, Yuanbao’s identity was extremely special, and the deterrent effect it carried was anything but ordinary.
Having Yuanbao crawl outside to frighten people—or even frighten gods—would undoubtedly be very effective. As the genuine son of the Cave God, its combat strength was impressive as well; no matter how one looked at it, it could not possibly be inferior to those secret arts.
Still, Qin Shu had always treated it like a child. With the weather so cold lately, there were even times when he could not bear to let Yuanbao crawl along the ground by itself.
Rationally, he knew perfectly well that the little centipede was older than Granny A-Shu. Emotionally, however… Qin Shu had absolutely no resistance to something so pretty, tiny, clever, and well-behaved. All he felt was an overwhelming desire to raise and care for it, preferably by keeping the little thing tucked safely in his pocket.
But Pei Zhao was right. The child had long since become capable of going out and handling matters on its own. He could not keep it confined at his side forever; when it was time to let go, he had to let go.
More importantly, aside from Liu Yang Yang, Chen Shui, and Chen Li Chi, no fourth person in Phoenix Village knew that Yuanbao had changed “masters” and was now in Qin Shu’s possession.
That information gap was precisely what Pei Zhao intended to exploit, making Yuanbao’s appearance outside a counterattack as well as a test.
“I get it. Sleep, sleep.”
Qin Shu closed his eyes, wrapped Pei Zhao comfortably in his arms, and sighed as he relaxed enough to let drowsiness wash over him. Before falling asleep, he still remembered to murmur beside Pei Zhao’s ear, “Pei Zhao, you really are beautiful. Whenever you eat in the future, remember to call me over so I can watch. I don’t think it’s scary at all, and if I feel uncomfortable afterward, you’ll even kiss me. Is there a better bargain anywhere in the world?”
Pei Zhao: “…”
He tried to object that this was absolutely not a good thing, but after hesitating for a moment, he ultimately said nothing.
Because not long after Qin Shu finished speaking, he genuinely fell asleep. Even after having just witnessed the entire process of a monster being eaten, Qin Shu showed not the slightest difficulty drifting off.
It was hardly any different from usual.
Pei Zhao thought for a moment and did not leave the bedroom again. He closed his eyes and simply pretended that he could still sleep.
Not another sound disturbed the quiet bedroom. As for the screams deep underground, Qin Shu could not hear them, while Pei Zhao pretended that he could not either.
＊
The next day dawned bright and clear. The mountain mist dispersed, revealing lush green ridges.
A day chosen by Chen Li Chi would not be wrong, and the joint burial ceremony began as scheduled.
When Chen Shui came to pick them up, he had already dressed himself very formally. His hair and ears were wrapped in a dark-red cloth, and he wore an indigo base garment beneath a vividly colored silk vest embroidered with cloud patterns and feathers. Even his belt was covered in soft real feathers, though Qin Shu had no idea what kind of bird or beast they had come from.
A-Dou, standing beside him, wore a matching outfit. Only his head had not been wrapped in cloth, supposedly because “a corpse doesn’t need to worry about evil energy entering the body.”
Qin Shu found the whole thing fascinating. He deliberately switched his phone to the front-facing camera and handed it to A-Dou, then wrapped one arm around Pei Zhao and caught Chen Shui with the other, forcing an actual corpse to stand at the very front and press the shutter. Just like that, they took several four-“person” group photos.
They had finally come all this way on a trip, so naturally they needed a few souvenirs featuring the local ethnic clothing.
Qin Shu did not treat A-Dou like a dead person in the slightest, leaving Chen Shui with no real reason to object. For once, Chen Shui even showed a somewhat awkward smile in front of the camera.
After taking the commemorative photos, they immediately set off. They drove out through Phoenix Village’s main gate, wound down the mountain road loop after loop, and eventually stopped on a broad artificial platform.
Aside from Chen Shui’s car, several large trucks and vans carrying supplies and construction materials were parked nearby. Three or four muscular middle-aged men sat on top of the vehicles, eating and smoking.
Qin Shu tilted his head curiously and realized they were probably all corpse herders, and exceptionally strong ones at that. One of the men finished eating, jumped down from the roof of a truck, lifted the front of the truck with one hand, and physically dragged the entire vehicle several steps toward the edge of the platform, apparently because he wanted to adjust his parking position.
When trucks were parked side by side, maneuvering them was inconvenient and reversing was difficult, so apparently dragging one from the outside was quicker and easier… Qin Shu had certainly broadened his horizons when it came to methods of saving time.
If even middle-aged corpse herders possessed such terrifying strength, just how powerful were those “stubborn old fossils” who rarely showed themselves?
Qin Shu did not like his chances against them. He had a vague feeling that magical attacks would probably be more effective… He touched the little centipede wound around his cuff and said nothing for the moment.
Chen Shui seemed completely accustomed to the truck driver’s behavior and did not even bother looking over. After locking the car, he turned to Qin Shu. “This is the parking lot. We still have to walk another two kilometers uphill. The mountain path isn’t easy to walk, and to protect the ancestral graves, the road to the cave is only slightly wider than a coffin. Sorry to trouble you two.”
“No problem. I actually like hiking.” Qin Shu remembered what had happened in Living Water Village and raised his brows at Pei Zhao. “Want me to carry you this time?”
“…”
Qin Shu had not expected Pei Zhao to fall silent for a moment and then genuinely agree. Qin Shu did not even need to crouch down; Pei Zhao simply looped his arms around his neck, jumped lightly onto his back, his legs pressed snugly against Qin Shu’s waist with perfect stability.
“You’ve put on a little weight since last time.” Qin Shu bounced him slightly, sounding extremely satisfied. “Very good, very good. Keep eating more in the future. Keep it up.”
“Okay.”
The nature of the “food” they were talking about was different this time, so Pei Zhao agreed without hesitation. Qin Shu immediately began imagining how nice Pei Zhao would feel once he grew properly heavy in his arms, and the more he imagined it, the happier he became. He practically flew along the narrow mountain path.
Without any need to lead the way anymore, Chen Shui could only trudge after them with A-Dou. His gaze shifted subtly from Pei Zhao to Qin Shu, and after contemplating them for a while, he finally seemed to realize something.
He really had not noticed before that the two of them were this close.
Logically, he should have noticed, but his attention always drifted instinctively toward Qin Shu, causing him to overlook the quiet, beautiful boy beside him from time to time.
Why did he keep overlooking Pei Zhao? If anything, he should have been more wary of him.
The tragedy at Jiangcheng First Municipal Hospital should have been resolved by Qin Shu alone. Their reason for inviting Qin Shu here to help stabilize the situation had only mentioned his powerful yang energy in passing; when one traced the matter back to its roots, they had actually been afraid of Xu Qian.
Everyone was wary of the secret art Zhang Mei Jiang had obtained from the Cave God, which made the situation extremely difficult to handle.
Yet none of that seemed to have anything to do with Pei Zhao. Chen Shui had never understood why his uncle had agreed to let both boys come to Phoenix Village. This place was rich in spiritual energy and resources, and its rules differed from those of the outside world. For safety reasons, even members of the village who lacked enough strength to protect themselves were not qualified to leave the mountains whenever they pleased.
The fewer outsiders who knew Phoenix Village’s secrets, the better.
Chen Shui deliberately controlled his attention and forced his gaze back onto Pei Zhao, staring at him throughout the walk.
Yet as he watched, he had no idea how much time passed before his attention somehow drifted away again. Without realizing it, his eyes were drawn toward something more dazzling.
His uncle’s brilliant red crown.
“Ah, we’re here already…” Chen Shui abruptly returned to himself, having no idea how he had lost focus.
A chill ran through him. He hurriedly looked around for Pei Zhao.
Then something even more unnerving made cold sweat break out across his skin—Pei Zhao had been right in front of him all along, standing beside his uncle, yet Chen Shui had not noticed him at all.
Worse still, the two of them were standing frighteningly close together, while Pei Zhao was staring directly at Chen Li Chi with faint interest in his eyes.
Chen Li Chi was dressed more formally than anyone else. He wore a magnificent red-based five-person crown and a blood-red ceremonial outfit, with a Hundred-Bird Robe even more elaborate than Chen Shui’s layered over the top.
The hem had a particularly distinctive design. Fine translucent silk had been cut into long strips, their edges sewn with thick feathered trim that hung from his waist and fluttered like scattering plumage whenever the wind blew.
Clothes truly did make the man. Chen Li Chi himself was not attractive; he was a small, skinny old man whose body was hunched nearly to the point of deformity. Yet at this moment, everything from his head to his feet gleamed red shot through with gold, beautiful and solemn beneath the sunlight.
The deep bend in his spine actually made his imitation of a “phoenix bird” even more convincing. Rather than a human being, he resembled a strange crimson beast.
Qin Shu did not seem to find anything wrong with the sight. He naturally turned toward Chen Shui and asked, “That looks amazing, Mr. Chen. Does anyone here sell ethnic clothing? Send me their WeChat. Zhaozhao seems to like it.”
“Huh? Oh… yes, yes! There’s a girl named A-Ping who specializes in these things. She’s incredible. Even some parts of my uncle’s clothes have to be custom-made by her. Brother Qin, look at the gemstones on that crown—Sister Ping polished those herself!”
Chen Shui’s attention snapped straight back, and he immediately forgot what he had just been thinking about. Pulling out his phone, he began typing while enthusiastically promoting the local goods to Qin Shu. “The Grand Shaman’s clothes aren’t for sale, but you can look at the tie-dye and embroidery. The gemstones are all good stuff mined from the mountains, and the silver jewelry is high quality too. You can even take it outside and have an artifact refiner work on it. Forget the other clothes, though. You’d never find an occasion to wear them…”
“A-Shui!”
Before he could finish speaking, an authoritative shout made Chen Shui jump. “Village Chief! I’m here!”
“Is that where you’re supposed to be standing? The coffin procession is about to arrive! Get to the back and stay out of the way!”
“Coming, coming!”
After being yelled at by Liu Bai Long, Chen Shui immediately perked up. He abandoned Qin Shu without hesitation, grabbed A-Dou, and hurried obediently into the rear of the crowd.
Outside the entrance to the cave burial site was a broad clearing deliberately carved out of the mountainside, large enough to hold roughly a hundred people.
Those qualified to attend the joint burial ceremony had all dressed formally, wrapped their heads in red cloth, and almost without exception wore blood-red masks painted with phoenix totems. Even so, they stood silently at the furthest edge of the clearing.
Two large red-wood drums stood in front of them, each positioned over a blazing brazier. Flames curled upward without scorching the drums in the slightest; instead, they heated the wood until it gleamed blood-red and made the drumheads shine with an increasingly lustrous sheen.
Beside the drums stood a wooden table bearing several bowls of wine and glutinous rice, along with ritual objects Qin Shu did not recognize and even an expensive pair of tennis rackets. Xu Qian had been connected with tennis when she was alive, so these were evidently among the offerings prepared specifically to comfort her.
Qin Shu narrowed his eyes and discovered that neither Liu Yang Yang nor the village chief’s husband was standing among the crowd. Even Granny A-Shu was nowhere to be seen.
He had just been about to ask what was going on when two deafening blasts erupted from the mountain path, startling a huge flock of birds into the sky and sending them circling densely above the road.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Heavy footsteps approached from the distance. A black-and-red coffin emerged from the vegetation, lashed with bamboo strips onto a thick wooden carrying frame like the first glimpse of a massive beast revealing its fearsome horns.
So that was it. Liu Yang Yang and Liu Bai Long’s husband were the coffin bearers. Both were dressed entirely in white, carrying the heavy coffin between them as they slowly approached.
Granny A-Shu was the guide. Her empty eyes faced straight ahead, an oil lamp in one hand while she murmured continuously under her breath, halfway between singing and chanting.
“You stroll at leisure to the green grasslands, then climb the golden steps to King Yama’s Hall…”