Zhang Guozhong blinked up at the figure standing by his bed. She was plainly dressed, but her features were fine—by far prettier than most of the village girls he'd seen along the road. Even at his own school, she would have ranked above average.
Captain Li entered, smiling. "Awake at last? This here is Li Daming's daughter. Word got out you can treat zhuangke—possession. She rushed over first thing this morning."
Zhang's stomach sank. He had come to the countryside to disprove the Mao Mountain Gazetteer. Yet from the brigade leader down to the villagers, everyone had mistaken him for some spirit doctor, a ritual master sent from the city. They treated him like an honored guest. In truth, he had only skimmed the book twice, grasping the barest surface of its contents. Many passages in classical Chinese he hadn't even bothered to decipher. And now—he was their savior.
Yesterday, he had already eaten their "New Year's feast." How could he explain now that he was no healer, just a teacher with a satchel full of vinegar and pomelo leaves? To shatter their hopes would wound their simple hearts. So he clenched his teeth. Fine. Go through the motions. Ten masters have already failed. I'm young. If I fail too, no shame. And perhaps—perhaps I'll get lucky again, like last time.
And then there was the village girl, watching him with quiet hope.
The patient was Li Daming, kin of Captain Li. Two years earlier, while digging a river embankment, he had unearthed an old coffin. Since then, he had wasted away. He muttered constantly, claiming to be a scholar-official, reciting archaic lines of zhi hu zhe ye. He ate little more than pickled vegetables, grew thinner by the day, until he looked like a bundle of firewood. The family had spent everything on ritual masters. Nothing worked.
Now Zhang Guozhong sat by his bed, at a loss. He fell back on what he knew best—the harsh cadences of a struggle session.
"Name!" he barked.
Li Daming stirred. But the words that followed did not sound like his own.
"I am Cheng Mingke, courtesy name Xiangzhang, styled Master of the Winded Path. A jinshi of the Jiaqing year, talent as vast as the sea, erudition beyond measure. And you, little boy—what gives you the right to address me?"
Zhang almost laughed. Li Daming was an illiterate farmer. He couldn't even write his own name. Now here he was, claiming the rank of a Qing dynasty scholar.
Outside the door, his daughter Li Erya watched with growing awe. Other masters had quailed the moment they entered, cowering like whipped dogs. But this young man from the city sat unflinching, interrogating the ghost straight on. Surely his dao—his spiritual power—ran deep.
Zhang, for his part, thought grimly: Same as last time. Pomelo leaves, vinegar, forehead. Done. But first, some theater.
He leaned forward. "If you are truly a man of the Qing court, why have you come here? Speak!"
Li Daming's eyes blazed. His voice dropped, guttural.
"Little boy dares to question me? Today you will taste my power!"
In a sudden lunge, he sprang from the bed and clamped his skeletal hands around Zhang's throat.
The grip was monstrous—far beyond human. In seconds, Zhang's face flushed purple, his tongue forced out between his teeth. He couldn't breathe.
Captain Li's eyes went wide. "Again! Quick, help!"
Seven or eight strong young villagers rushed in, seizing Daming's arms. This was not the first time. Other masters had faced the same assault. Whenever he seized them, his wasted body grew preternaturally strong. It always took a crowd to pry his fingers loose. One elder master had nearly been strangled to death before the village doctor revived him with needles and mouth-to-mouth. Since then, no one had dared come.
Now Zhang Guozhong lay limp, gasping. Above him loomed a man in a white coat—the brigade's doctor.
"How many times must I tell you?" he scolded the villagers. "This is schizophrenia. Feudal superstition will kill someone! Li Tiesheng—how can you, the brigade captain, lead this nonsense? What if the boy had died? Who would answer to his family?"
The words barely reached Zhang. His mind reeled. He knew what he had felt. That force—no human skeleton, no withered muscle could produce it. It was like being caught in the jaws of a machine. Impossible to pry free.
The foundation of his disbelief crumbled. Raised on atheism, schooled in Marxist science, yet beneath it all, he was Chinese. Five thousand years of myth and folklore had always lingered in his blood. And now—he had seen, and felt. This was no sickness. This was something else.
Captain Li clapped him on the shoulder. "Young man, you lasted longer than anyone."
"Me?" Zhang croaked.
"Yes. The others were seized the moment they entered. But you—he sat with you. He spoke with you. You even exchanged questions and answers. That alone proves your strength."
Zhang could only laugh bitterly. Captain Li would never believe otherwise. To him, Zhang Guozhong was already a true exorcist.
Chapter Three —Bumping into Customers
"By family ties, Li Daming should be my cousin's son. You've already done your best this time, and I, on behalf of the broad peasant class, thank you!"
Zhang Guozhong nearly burst out laughing. On behalf of the broad peasant class—the line sounded like something straight out of Vice Chairman Lin's speeches. But looking at Captain Li's stern, earnest face, he didn't dare smile.
"Uh… I really didn't do much…"
"Don't be modest, young man. Keep cultivating yourself. You have a bright future ahead!"
Zhang's heart sank. A loyal Communist soldier of the proletariat—reduced, against his will, to some countryside exorcist.
But he wasn't ready to walk away just yet. He hadn't even tried the pomelo leaves and vinegar he'd brought. What if they really worked? For the sake of the villagers—and perhaps to ease his own conscience—Zhang resolved to risk it one more time.
That night he didn't sleep. Instead, he pored over his copy of the Mao Shan Gazetteer, flipping pages and muttering to himself. According to the book, this condition was known in the Mao Shan arts as "yang ni" or "living slurry." Three possible causes were listed:
The soul of a human taking possession.
An animal spirit borrowing a body in its cultivation.
The veins of the mountains and rivers seizing control.
The first two were yang ni; the last was living slurry.
There were dozens of countermeasures, most requiring materials or charms that Zhang had never heard of, much less believed existed. The pomelo leaf dipped in vinegar was the simplest method, and only effective against fresh, lingering human ghosts—and even then only during the hours of strongest daylight. Otherwise, whether it worked depended on the strength of the spirit. "If weak, it drives away; if strong, it worsens." The phrase "worsens"—what did that even mean? Could it make the possession stronger?
Other remedies called for things like peach embryos, rooster throats, child's eyebrows—names so bizarre Zhang wondered if they were even real.
Despite Captain Li's attempts to stop him, Zhang insisted on another attempt. Finally, Li relented. He rounded up ten sturdy young men and bound Li Daming tightly with hemp ropes, layer upon layer, then tied his neck to the great stone mill in the courtyard. Daming didn't resist. He just grinned, drooling, as the ropes tightened around him.
By now, word had spread through the village. Crowds gathered outside the courtyard gate, eager to witness the "city scholar" confront the possessed farmer.
When Daming saw Zhang approach, he grinned wider. "Little brat," he croaked, "this seat has spared you once already, for the sake of your youth. Do you truly wish to test my power?"
Captain Li barked at the villagers to disperse and stationed the young men, ropes in hand, ready for anything.
Zhang stopped pretending. He pulled the pomelo leaves from his pocket and slapped them against Daming's head. Nothing happened. No spasms, no signs of relief. Daming only laughed.
"This is the best you can do? You think you can cure me with this?"
It was as Zhang had feared. That hand strength yesterday—no leaf could stop it. Besides, the Gazetteer clearly said the remedy worked only on new spirits. Daming claimed to be a scholar from the Jiaqing era, dead for a century.
So Zhang pulled out his last resort: a talisman he had copied the night before. He had begged yellow paper from Li Liu the papermaker, drawn the pattern in cinnabar, and now pressed it to his lips with a smear of spit before slapping it to Daming's forehead.
The change was instant. Gone was the vacant grin. Daming's face twisted into a mask of fury. His eyes rolled back until only whites showed. His teeth bared, lips curling, tongue lolling out. A guttural rasp came from his nose, like an old man choking on phlegm. Smoke began to rise from the talisman—though no flame touched it.
The young men gasped. Some clutched their farm tools—pitchforks, hoes, whips—whatever could give their hands courage.
Zhang slipped his leather belt from his waist, heart pounding. He had felt Daming's power once before. If anything went wrong now, he might not live to tell the tale.
The talisman seemed to enrage Daming further. The yellow paper burned through the middle, dropped away. His eyes snapped down, glaring at Zhang with a hatred that froze the blood. With a howl, he surged forward.
The ropes snapped like twine.
The great hemp cords, thick as thumbs, burst apart as if cut by blades. Daming lunged so hard the millstone—four hundred pounds of solid rock anchored by a post as thick as a man's leg—lurched from its platform.
The villagers panicked. A dozen men threw themselves at Daming, only to be hurled aside like straw dolls. He stood upright, rigid, jerking like some cinematic zombie. With another heave, he broke the thick wooden stake and dragged the millstone across the courtyard.
Zhang's face drained of all color. The possessed man was coming straight for him. And the last rope—thick as a wrist—was fraying fast.