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“Do you know how much this cost?!” cried Jin Ling, staring in horror at his sleeve.
Despite the protection wards woven into the fabric, the red stain soaked in instantly, all up to his elbow.
“Oh, no, young mistress,” said Lan Jingyi, holding up both of his sleeves. His beautiful white Lan robes were completely soaked through. He looked a bit like he’d murdered someone. “Tell us.”
Jin Ling glared, as he wrung out the cloth. Red welled between his fingers, sticky and warm. “Fuck off.”
“You fuck off,” Lan Jingyi fired back, with the security of one who knew Lan Qiren was safely back at the Cloud Recesses and could not discipline him. “You’re the one who insisted we just go to the ghost shrine. Just go! Like it’s that simple! Some hero you make!”
“Who decided to come with me?”
“Because Sizhui didn’t want to see you get your stupid face killed!”
“Don’t you bring him into this--”
Of the three of them, only Lan Sizhui had reacted fast enough to escape the downpour unscathed. They now huddled together in a deep crevasse, a shallow cave in the side of the rocky pass. Outside the thick red rain continued to pelt the mountain road, staining the rockface and the path a dark crimson. Lan Sizhui sat down to better concentrate on the matter at hand, legs crossed and hands resting on his knees. It was a habit he’d picked up from Hanguang-jun: Breathe carefully and assess.
“So it starts whenever you attempt to take the pass,” he murmured. “Such range. It must be a powerful spirit.”
“Do you think it’s really just the one spirit?” asked Lan Jingyi, breaking off from his squabble. “This much blood, this must have been the site of a massacre.”
“I don’t think such an event happened here,” murmured Lan Sizhui. “Jin Ling. We are in Lanling. Do you know?”
“No, not here,” muttered Jin Ling, with enough confidence Lan Jingyi eyed him suspiciously. “What? I have to be up on this. My uncle -- not that uncle -- not that uncle either -- you know what nevermind. But no. Nothing happened here.”
“Besides the fact someone thought it’d be great to build a ghost shrine up in the mountain,” muttered Lan Jingyi. “Who prays to ghosts anyway?”
“The desperate,” said Lan Sizhui, softly. “Sometimes ghosts can be more reliable than gods.”
He had a distant, haunted expression. Lan Jingyi and Jin Ling both looked at him. Lan Jingyi reached for his arm, meaning to give him a reassuring squeeze -- then stopped himself as he remembered his hand was still dripping with blood, and scrubbed his hands together instead.
At the entrance of the crevasse, something gave a terrible groan.
All three boys looked up. Framed by the drip, drip, drip of blood down the stone wall, a huge raggedy figure tottered through the rocky overhang, dragging itself forward, leaving trails of blood behind it as it swayed and groaned again.
“Ghosts are empowered by fear,” Lan Jingyi recited, in a high-pitched voice.
Jin Ling elbowed him, stumbling to his feet. “Then it’s good I’m not afraid.”
Lan Sizhui stood up and walked past both of them, blocking Jin Ling’s line of sight. “Senior Wen,” he said. “Are you all right?”
In retrospect, those groans had sounded a bit whinier than the typical Fierce Corpse.
“A-Yuan! You’re safe!” husked Wen Ning. Covered from head to toe in blood, his hair hung in front of his face like a victim of drowning, his eyes particularly glassy and wild against the crimson that dripped off every inch of him. His expression was one of intense distress. “I’m so sorry. I found the shrine -- but then you were gone -- and the rain -- there was so much of it-- I thought I’d lost you!”
“I’m here. I’m fine,” Lan Sizhui assured him. He ushered him over to sit next to him. Shivering in place, Wen Ning was less a Fierce Corpse so much as a Deeply Uncomfortable One. Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi crouched nearby, though careful to arrange themselves slightly upwind of him. Jin Ling angled himself so that he was seated with his shoulder to them -- but his head tilted slightly so he could keep Lan Sizhui in his sights.
Lan Sizhui produced a delicate blue handkerchief from his sleeve and, ignoring Jingyi’s protests (“But didn’t Hanguang-jun give that to you--”) began to pat Wen Ning down. He scrubbed away most of the blood from his face -- it didn’t really do much to make him look less, well, dead and covered in gore -- but at least his hair no longer stuck in his face.
“Thank you, A-Yuan,” said Wen Ning. He couldn’t sigh, but his shoulders slumped in a fair approximation of one. Despite his mournful expression, he managed a thin-lipped smile. “This was once the other way around.”
“Was it?
“Yes, you used to -- in the turnip patch--” But he caught Jin Ling’s dead-eyed stare and cut himself off.
“Tell me later, all right?” murmured Lan Sizhui, folding his handkerchief and returning it to his pack.
Jin Ling scowled. “What took you so long, anyway?”
“I, um, found these. I thought maybe they might help--” Wen Ning lifted his arms stiffly. In synch, elbows locked, with his hands dangling, he resembled a hopping ghost more than a Fierce Corpse. Dangling over his arms, protected from the worst of the bloody storm outside, were a pile of...
“Flower wreaths?” Jin Ling almost lunged over Lan Jingyi’s head to get a better look. “Did you just stop and make these?!”
Wen Ning shrank away. “Ah, you see…”
“Leave him alone,” shouted Lan Jingyi. “Wen Ning is his own Fierce Corpse! He can do whatever he wants! ….though that is a little weird I guess.”
“They’re white,” said Lan Sizhui. “Even out in the rain?”
Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi fell silent. Wen Ning nodded. Lan Sizhui took the nearest off of his wrists, and held it up in thought.
“They grow around the shrine,” explained Wen Ning, hiding behind his blood-soaked bangs. He shot Jin Ling a sheepish, apologetic look. “The rain doesn’t touch them, no matter what. I thought, maybe, if you wore these on your heads --”
Jin Ling took one of the wreaths and squeezed his ruined sleeve out over it. The blood spattered on the cave floor but, somehow, it missed the petals of the flowers completely. The flowers remained perfect, white, and star-shaped -- if a little rumpled from Wen Ning’s nervous hands.
“Huh,” he said, “It really doesn’t.”
“That’s weird,” added Lan Jingyi. He took his own wreath and held it up over his face, giving the dangling flowers a very tentative sniff. “I don’t sense a particular high spiritual power off of these. I wonder what does it?”
“Blood rain,” murmured Lan Sizhui, to himself. “White flowers. Crimson. Flowers…” His head came up. “Oh.”
“Something wrong?” asked Jin Ling immediately.
“No, it’s just --” Lan Sizhui stood up, laying the wreath carefully over his headband. “It couldn’t possibly -- but -- I think -- yes. Thank you, Senior Wen. I think I know just what we need!”
They wove the flowers in their hair and stepped out of the crevasse. Sure enough, though the red rain still fell in driving sheets, not a drop of it touched them. They made their way back up the road to the town.
As the locals had noted, the rain tapered off as they reached the village -- it only seemed triggered by travelers moving through the pass: the source of the problem being that the pass was a vital trading route for regional traders. With the stone face so regularly splashed red like a murder, towns on both sides of the mountain had truly been hurting. Those who did brave the crossing came over only to meet suspicion from their would-be customers. The smell of death lingered on their bodies for days. On their goods? Seemingly forever. It was easy to assume such goods and the men who peddled them were cursed.
The spirit of the ghost shrine was not to be trifled with.
Life still went on in the mountain community, however, as best it could. As the three young men reentered the town, Wen Ning having opted to hide among the outskirts, they discovered men and women dumping fresh water across the stones in front of their homes, and street vendors cautiously setting out their wares under freshly changed tents. As was to be expected of a town with such a cursed reputation, many of these vendors were, in fact, charlatans -- peddling icons and charms for the travelers preparing to take on the bloody pass. They spotted the three young men in their cultivator robes, their flower crowns, and (in Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi’s cases) copious bloodstained and saw what they thought was an easy mark.
“Oh, shut up,” snapped Jin Ling, when one particularly audacious seller waved his papers in his face. “The Yiling Patriarch doesn’t even look like that!”
Lan Jingyi, surprisingly, agreed. “Yeah, Senior Wei is way more handsome than that.”
Jin Ling’s glare turned sideways. “What?!”
“What?!” Lan Jingyi puffed his cheeks defensively. “Hanguang-jun has good taste! That’s all I’m saying!”
Lan Sizhui didn’t seem to hear them. “No, that won’t do,” he said, absently, walking along the row of items. “That won’t either. Do you have any religious icons? More minor, maybe?”
It took four booths and 3.4 more random arguments on Jin Ling and Lan Jingyi’s part before Lan Sizhui found what he was looking for. A row of obscure carved wooden figures, mostly minor heavenly officials. Still he took great care perusing the options, shaking his head and muttering to himself as he went.
“No, no… that one’s not right. No, not kneeling. Mm. Too old--”
“You don’t think he’s possessed do you?” muttered Jin Ling.
“You’re possessed,” answered Lan Jingyi, automatically. And then, with a bit more concern: “I don’t think so. Sizhui’s really clear-headed.”
Lan Sizhui’s hand finally stopped on a little standing icon at the corner of the table.
“There we are,” he said, eyes shining as he looked up. “We’ll take this one.”
“Which one?” Lan Jingyi looked over Sizhui’s head. “Eh?”
Jin Ling peered over Jingyi’s head. “Isn’t that a martial god?”
Lan Jingyi elbowed Jin Ling away. “Isn’t that a god of misfortune?”
Lan Sizhui didn’t seem to have heard them. Absently, he paid for the figurine and, holding it delicately, wandered back to the edge of the town, where he handed it off to Wen Ning along with one of his knives.
“The face isn’t right,” he said, “Does Senior Wen think we can make it a little mm. Gentler. Maybe so it's smiling?”
“I can try,” promised Wen Ning. He hunched over and, with surprising delicacy, got to work on it.
They sat for a bit in the grasses beside the road, and watched Wen Ning work. Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi watched him work. Jin Ling grabbed the pommel of his sword and paced back and forth by the road, pretending he didn’t much care. Puddles of blood had formed all over the road, and few trees were still dripping, but not a single one of the intermittent white flowers that grew among the shrubs was the least bit stained.
Wen Ning tried to blow on the figurine but, remembering he didn’t have breath, he handed it over to Lan Sizhui to do it instead. Even Jin Ling had to admit the figurine looked much less dour.
“When did you pick up wood carving?” asked Jin Ling, who’d wandered over to have a look after all.
Wen Ning shuffled his feet. “In Yiling,” he said. “I learned from Master Wei. I wanted to help him make spiritual tools. And to make things for--um. Well. The children there.” He bowed his head an extra inch, hiding behind his hair. “I wasn’t a very good student.”
“I’m sure they loved them very much,” said Lan Sizhui, full of feeling. He held the little icon up, turning it over in his hands. It was still crudely carved -- it’d been a cheap street item after all, but somehow its face did look a bit brighter. “And this is perfect. It’s exactly what we need.”
Wen Ning shook all over. “A-Yuan…”
“Why do we need it though?” asked Jin Ling, dubiously.
“The ghost shrine is missing a god,” said Lan Sizhui. “So we should bring it one.”
It began to rain as they reached the crevasse. Fortunately with the flower crowns, they passed through mostly untouched, just the edges of their clothes catching outside of the circle of protection provided by the blossoms.
The ghost shrine was located off an overgrown side road, a single person track that took a sharp, steep down into a deeper recess within the mountain pass. It terminated on a cliff-face, where the blood rain pooled around the steps of a small, ill-tended shrine. The open area must have allowed some sunlight, and the rocks must have defended it from the wind, because the white flowers grew in clusters at the top of the steps. The rivers of red that flowed down from the shrine’s rooftop studiously ignored them.
It still looked like the scene of a mass sacrifice. An aura of resentment hovered over the structure. Its ragged doors barely stayed shut as the wind passed through them. Each beat of wind gave glimpses of a blackness beyond.
Jin Ling touched his sword instinctively. Lan Sizhui touched his wrist.
“No,” he said, softly.
The inside of the shrine was just as ragged as the exterior. The roof had collapsed in places, allowing the blood to seep in from outside. The floor was stained and sticky with it. A few well placed light talismans did nothing to improve the feel of seething malevolence -- it only illuminated all the broken statues, torn wall scrolls, and overall state of disrepair.
Lan Jingyi swallowed hard. “This place smells like raw meat.”
Only one statue seemed to have gone untouched. Near the back of the shrine, on an elevated dais, in place of whatever god should have occupied the shrine, sat instead a small statue of a twisted, one-eyed figure, grasping a scimitar. The dish in front of it was cracked. A few streaks laid on either side of it, as a set of bloodied fingers had been dragged away from it.
As they drew near, a wind kicked up in the shrine. They heard a rapid shifting from up above them, like thousands of wings. Wen Ning rushed ahead of them, shielding them from the blast of pure corruption and hate that radiated from the statuette. Jin Ling struck out with his sword on reflex, but his blade connected with something hard in the dark, and he went skidding across the filthy floor, splashing blood up the other side of his robe. Lan Jingyi quickly backstepped to join him, throwing out an arm to shield him from the next wave.
Lan Sizhui stepped forward from behind Wen Ning. He approached the dais. In the flickering of their failing talismans, the twisted statue seemed to grimace and glare at him with its one roiling eye.
“We’re here to pay our respects,” he announced, bowing.
“I’m not kneeling for that thing!” snarled Jin Ling. But no sooner did he get to his feet that another great wind swept through the shrine, and he was knocked backwards again. Outside the rain drummed harder against the roof of the shrine, pouring through the holes in the ceiling.
Wen Ning pressed his hand against Lan Sizhui’s back to hold him steady.
“It doesn’t care if we kneel,” said Lan Sizhui.
“Sizhui!” shouted Jin Ling, as the shrine began to heave around them like a ship tossed at sea.
The blood spattered everywhere now, and pooling around Lan Sizhui’s boots but, after taking a breath to steel himself, he pulled the icon of misfortune from his sleeve and placed it on the dais beside the first figure.
The wind stilled. The rain stopped. The last few drips combined into a single stream which fell from the ceiling beams. It struck the pool at Jin Ling’s feet, before the liquid began to roll, tumbling off the body of a spectral figure that appeared crouched in the pool. It solidified into the form of a young woman, one with skin as white as the snowy peaks of the mountain. The last of the blood poured down her shoulders and across her body, forming a crimson robe. Long wavy black hair tumbled over her back -- a slash of it hiding half her face. One eye opened, as red as her gown. Her lips formed into a smile like a curved blade, and she swung to her feet.
Her hair easily fell to her waist. She was extremely tall -- easily matching Hanguang-jun in height at the very least. Jin Ling laying at her feet, struck out instinctively-- but she caught him by his wrist and held him up, until his toes were only just barely on the ground.
Wen Ning launched himself. The woman’s red eye flicked in his direction, but his body passed through nothing. Jin Ling found himself stumbling backwards again. Wen Ning crashed into the opposite wall.
The woman reformed in front of Lan Sizhui, her arms crossed. She cocked her head to one side, quirked her eyebrow, and glanced pointedly at the dais. Her eye fell on the new icon. She knelt, and with surprising care, lifted it for inspection. Her pale fingers traced the statuettes face, her black-laqured nails playing with particular care across its mouth.
“I know it’s not the closest likeness,” said Lan Sizhui. “Senior Wen did his best to fix it. I thought you’d like it better if he were smiling.”
The woman’s smile, which until then had been wide but cold, thawed slightly in the middle. Her lips parted. She held the statue to her chest, as one might clutch a most cherished heirloom or a lover’s gift, before placing it back on the dais, beside the first figure. She held out her hand again, expectantly.
It took Lan Sizhui a moment to understand her meaning. He fumbled for the wreath around his head. She placed it in front of the paired statues, arranged so that each bloom faced upwards. She nodded, and, without kneeling, folded her hands in prayer. Lan Sizhui followed suit. From the sounds behind him, he could tell others were now doing the same.
When the red ghost opened her eye, she swung around to face them once more, eyebrow arched. She stuck out her hand, gesturing to the rest of the shrine, still in a disarray.
“Yeah, okay, fine we’ll renovate it,” said Jin Ling, who knew that particular look of almost avuncular disapproval all too well. A quick glance at Lan Sizhui’s hopeful face bolstered him. He continued with as lordly a tone as he could manage. “I’ll find some monk to take care of it. I’m the leader of the Lanling Jin. I can do that, you know. But can you stop bleeding all over this pass? It’s getting kind of excessive.”
She leaned down, her hair falling over her shoulders. Jin Ling wrinkled his nose, but raised his chin a little higher. Reading the earnesty in his face, the red ghost nodded and straightened up. Smirking, she snapped her fingers. Lan Jingyi and Jin Ling glanced down. Their robes were suddenly clean.
“Wait,” said Lan Jingyi, “Can’t you do that with the rest of the…”
He trailed off. The pools of blood were already gone. All that was left was a simple, dusty, wrecked shrine, with weak sunlight filtering through the holes in the rough, lighting the two figurines on the dais. Seemingly satisfied, the red ghost turned in a great slide of robes. Despite the slithery nature of her form, she had a stride like a soldier, like she ought to have a sword at her hip. She paused near the door, where Wen Ning waited, shifting uncomfortably.
“You…” he began, words failing him. “Are you….”
She reached up and tweaked his nose playfully, and dissolved. A cloud of silver butterflies held her shape for just a second more, before the light filtered in through the open doors, and carried them out into nothingness.
“The Crimson Rain Seeking Flower?” asked Lan Jingyi. “Really? That one’s real?”
“Since when does a cultivator not believe in ghosts?” asked Jin Ling. “That was a ghost, right?”
Wen Ning just stared quietly at the shrine, fiddling with one of the remaining flower chains. “An old high level spirit,” he murmured. “I didn’t think -- at first -- he usually looks like a… like a man. Master Wei once paid him tribute in Yiling. A long time ago.”
“Did he?” Lan Sizhui blinked. “I never knew about that.”
“Why would you have?” asked Wen Ning. Lan Sizhui fell into one of those long, mysterious silences he tended to when speaking with the Ghost General in others’ company. “Ask him. I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you.”
Lan Sizhui smiled softly at the thought.
Jin Ling cleared his throat: “Okay, but seriously, what was that? And how did you know it wanted the icon, anyway?”
“My father--” began Lan Sizhui, unthinkingly, because he’d been very small at the time, and he’d just been ‘father,’ then. Flushing, he started again: “Hanguang-jun once told me a story. About a god of misfortune, who was at the same time one of the most powerful martial gods in the heavens. And a crimson ghost king with an extreme personality, who nevertheless possessed extremely good luck. They only want to be worshipped together.”
“Why?” asked Jin Ling. “A ghost and a god. Isn’t that kind of--”
“It is a bit strange,” said Lan Sizhui, smiling easily as they walked back down the path to the main road, Lan Jingyi and Jin Ling beside him, Wen Ning idling behind, casting an uncertain look back the way they came. The stone pass was simply stone again. There was no sign of rain. “There are a lot of stories about why they insist on it. But the version Hanguang-jun told me was a love story.”
The townsfolk must have noticed the skies had cleared, because for the first time they passed another traveler on the road: a rogue cultivator in white robes, clutching a wide-brimmed bamboo hat as he hurried along the slope, like his life depended on it.
“Greetings, Daozhang,” called Lan Jingyi. “If you’re here to deal with the shrine, you needn’t trouble yourself. It’s taken care of.”
“We mustn't assume,” said Lan Sizhui, quickly bowing to the cultivator. “But you needn’t fear, Daozhang. The way is clear.”
“Is it?” said the rogue cultivator, fixing his hat. He had a pleasant, but vague face. There was something oddly familiar about it. “That’s very good to hear. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you.”
“Hmph,” said Jin Ling, and picked up some speed. He’d reached his limit for strange encounters that day.
“Not too much trouble at all,” assured Lan Sizhui. “It’s fine now.”
The rogue cultivator seemed to take this news as a matter of great personal relief. “Oh, good,” he said. “Thank you. I would offer you blessings for your journey -- but it seems you have plenty to spare!”
“I wish you good luck on yours,” said Lan Sizhui. “Wherever it may lead you.”
“Oh, I have it,” said the rogue cultivator, eyes shining. He pulled on his hat and hurried on in the opposite direction. He was so set on his destination, he marched straight past Wen Ning without even glancing twice at him. Wen Ning stared after him much in the way he’d stared at the red ghost in the shrine. He opened his mouth, as though to call after him, but then thought better of it.
“He took the path to the shrine,” muttered Lan Jingyi. “Should we stop him?”
“I doubt there’s any danger now,” said Lan Sizhui.
“Tourists,” muttered Jin Ling. He’d waited up ahead for them to catch up. “He better not knock anything over. But eh, what was the story? About the red ghost and the god of misfortune?”
“The young mistress likes love stories now,” laughed Lan Jingyi. “Well, you know, when a ghost and a god love each other very much--”
“Shut up! I want to hear Sizhui tell it.”
“It’s a little long,” admitted Lan Sizhui.
“Tell it when we get back to the inn,” said Lan Jingyi. “I’m starving.”
“All right. Though it may take all night…”
In the end, it did take all night -- but they were in too fine a spirit to mind.