Chapter Two (Continued)
Masterlist of posts and character list
Note from Kathryn: I’ll be updating every other week to make for larger posts and fewer emails. Also, I invested a bit in my site to get ads removed, so you shouldn’t have to see weird weight-loss ad if you choose to read at the site itself. My thanks to folks who are reading along!
Bai Jiu and this big black coffin that emerged out of nowhere stared blankly at one another for several seconds. Was it haunted? Nothing to fear, ghosts won’t hurt an unconscious human, Bai Jiu decided. His two eyes spun and closed, his two legs slowly bent, and he collapsed carefully to the ground so as not to hurt himself.
Wen Xiao looked at the boy on the floor and shook her head. His acting hadn’t gotten any better.
Suddenly, the coffin lid opened. At the same moment, Pei Sijing nimbly notched an arrow and pulled the bowstring all the way back.
Behind the coffin lid, Zhao Yuanzhou smiled with narrowed eyes and raised his head. “Good afternoon.”
He felt a sudden sharp pain and looked down to see an arrow sticking out of his thigh. As expected of a sharpshooter, he thought. She’s incredibly fast…
Pei Sijing put away her arrow. It was his fault for pranking them, but she still felt a bit guilty and stepped away.
“Chongwu Camp destroyed all the corpses in evidence. Fortunately, I possess remarkable abilities. From their hands, I stole a most valuable body…” Zhao Yuanzhou gave a strained exhale and yanked out Pei Sijing’s arrow to return to her. In an instant, the place he’d been pierced was already healed.
But Wen Xiao noticed that he had another arrow wound in his leg, and not only was it not healed, but it was also beginning to fester. “Your remarkable abilities don’t work on arrows, too?” she asked. “What’s going on with that wound? Can’t you heal yourself?”
Pei Sijing looked at Zhao Yuanzhou’s wound. At a glance, she recognized it was caused by Chongwu Camp’s Demon-Killing Arrow. “Chongwu Camp dips their arrow tips in a poison formulated for demon beasts. It makes the wounds fester continuously, unable to heal.”
From his fainting position on the floor Bai Jiu raised his hand. “I can!”
At once, the others all turned toward him.
Bai Jiu sat up, but he didn’t forget to finish the performance by making a show of rubbing his head.
Zhao Yuanzhou raised an eyebrow. “Worthy of being called Tiandu’s miracle doctor and you can heal all, then…you can also do an autopsy, right?” He reached out his “devil’s claws” to grab Bai Jiu like a predator seizing a rabbit. “Gotcha.” He stuffed Bai Jiu into the coffin he’d stolen.
So then, one person did an autopsy while three watched on, bullying a child!
Irritated, Bai Jiu gritted his teeth and finishing examining a corpse just pulled from its coffin. He let out a big breath. “She doesn’t have any wounds on her body, and a dead person has no pulse to check. I tried my best, but I can’t find anything…but looking at the bride’s expression…” He glanced back at the body and shivered. “It looks like she died of fright…” Even more frightening was that there existed in this world a demon who could scare demons to death, that some demon beast looked so horrifying. Bia Jiu’s face wrinkled tight as if he’d eaten a lemon.
Wen Xiao leaned closer to the coffin and carefully traced a finger along the body, searching, until she paused at a red-painted fingernail. She pinched a small splinter between her fingertips and pulled it out from beneath the bride’s fingernail. It had a patterned grain and resembled a fish scale. Its black-black shine was stained with blood. She lifted it to her nose and her brow furrowed at the scent. It smelled just like the dirt, that same foul fish odor.
Zhao Yuanzhou moved close and took the black fish scale from Wen Xiao. He crushed it between his fingers, smelled it, and looked relieved. Watching him, Wen Xiao was 100 percent certain now that he was a freak.
Zhao Yuanzhou smiled. “So that’s the despicable thing that did it[1]. Case solved.”
Just as they were all waiting for him to continue, he said he was hungry and suggested they grab a bite to eat while they talked. Such a shameless, ravenous demon.
A crowded restaurant would mean ears everywhere, so the four of them chose a lonely, desolate food stall. They gathered around an old-fashioned wooden table to sit.
With such an early task, Wen Xiao was already starving, but she’d been so focused on the case that she’d not even had a sip of water. Now, she was fully focused on eating pastries and drinking tea. She glanced at Zhao Yuanzhou. For all he’d whined about his empty stomach, now he only drank water and didn’t even touch the food. If he wasn’t hungry, then why did he whine about it?
When Zhao Yuanzhou finally noticed Wen Xiao’s gaze, he turned to meet her eyes. She quickly looked away.
Bai Jiu ate ravenously, not yet sated. He ate and grumbled at the same time. “You are all too much! Treating me, the famous doctor of Tiandu, as a coroner, forcing me to do an autopsy! That body… after looking at it, I wouldn’t be able to eat for three days. … Shopkeeper, bring me another bowl of mutton broth, six pastries, and a dish of braised pork with soy sauce. And I’ll trouble you to fix a small bowl of vinegar and hot pepper for me, too!”
Pei Sijing didn’t bat an eyelid as she handed him the chicken legs.
Bai Jiu giggled. “Thank you, jiejie.” He took a chicken leg and opened his mouth to take a bite, only to pause. “Wait a minute, Pei jiejie, you’re being so nice to me. This must be a trap, right? My mother taught me, ‘he who eats another’s food is bound to do their bidding.’ Jie, do you want me to do some other scary thing?”
“Ah, the little white rabbit[2] is getting smarter,” Zhao Yuanzhou teased.
Pei Sijing remained silent, pointedly putting out a hand to take back the chicken legs. Bai Jiu turned his body away from her to protect the bowl and took a big bite. So be it. To be conned was fate. He could at least eat his full first.
Zhao Yuanzhou waited until Wen Xiao finished eating and put down her chopsticks before he brought up business. “There are no wounds on the bodies, but they all have ghastly appearances, as if they were scared to death. In our Wilderness, there are demons who can frighten humans to death and not a small number by any means—”
“Say something we don’t know,” Wen Xiao interrupted.
“It’s called Ranyi.” Wen Xiao was dumbfounded, and Zhao Yuanzhou laughed as if he’d pulled off a great prank. “Ha, you didn’t expect I would be so direct, did you?”
[1] The show’s subtitles wrote this line as “So that dumbass has run wild,” so perhaps there’s context to “despicable thing” that I don’t know. Ha!
[2] “little white rabbit” is slang for a “naïve person.” Zhao Yuanzhou uses it as a nickname for Bai Jiu, whose family name—Bai 白—is also the color white.
Idioms that appear in this section:
面面相觑 (miànmiàn-xiāngqù) – look at each other in blank dismay; gaze at each other helplessly
装神弄鬼 (zhuāngshén-nòngguǐ) – purposefully making a mystery of simple things; to play tricks to deceive others
神通广大 (shéntōng-guǎngdà) – to possess great magical power; to possess remarkable abilities
不动声色 (bùdòng-shēngsè) – maintain one’s composure; stay calm and collected; not turn a hair; not bat an eyelid
面目狰狞 (miànmù-zhēngníng) – ferocious features; vile (or hideous) visage; ghastly appearance; repulsive
