Chapter 2
The wisewoman of Ninghe lived not within the town gates but on the outskirts, in a modest hut cradled inside a bamboo forest. I’d met her a little over a year ago, shortly after my mother died from the fainting fever.
While carrying out a job in Wen during the most biting part of winter, I had, rather clumsily, slipped on ice and sprained my ankle.
Mistress Ming, as the residents called her, had discovered me limping pathetically through the forest with a swaying corpse at my heels.
Likely pitying my stupidity, Mistress Ming brought us back to her hut, where she tsked over my swollen ankle like the grandmother I didn’t have.
When I attempted to thank her, she brushed off my gratitude with a request that I bring her sweets from Sian the next time I came to Wen.
I was, of course, happy to oblige. After my first delivery, Mistress Ming insisted on paying me for additional requests—although she was never above haggling.
And that was how I began my side job as a smuggler, secretly growing my clientele to include wealthy buyers in both nations who were desperate for things they couldn’t find in their own land.
For the persuasive price of fifty silvers, I convinced a passing farmer to make room on his wagon for me and the dead soldier and bring us to Mistress Ming’s hut.
Our driver, obviously unnerved by the corpse behind him, spoke little as we rolled onto a path that wound into the bamboo forest. I didn’t mind the silence.
A late-afternoon breeze danced through the trees. Peach-soft sunlight illuminated the branches and leaves overhead, turning them a fiery red. I breathed in the earthy air, already feeling more relaxed, despite the soldier lying beside me on the cart bed.
My eyes flitted to his face, watching for signs of life.
He remained still and quiet. Had I imagined the whole thing?
I held a finger under his nostrils, then jerked my hand away.
No, I’d definitely felt breath against my skin, faint but warm.
Not a jiangshi, then; they had no need for air.
He was also no longer emitting any sort of emotion, strangely enough.
I leaned back against the wagon, staring at the soldier with a mixture of curiosity and caution.
The moment we pulled into the clearing of Mistress Ming’s home, the farmer motioned for me to drag myself and my cargo off his cart. Then he was gone, the clip-clop of his horse’s hooves fading into the forest.
I was considering how to move the soldier when he tilted over from his sideways position and landed face down in the dirt. With a startled gasp, I tried to flip him, but his bulky armor made it tricky. Besides, he hadn’t stirred.
“Bear with me for just a moment,” I whispered before grabbing the soldier by his wrists and tugging.
My muscles strained against his weight as I firmly but gently pulled him across the ground, careful to avoid sharp rocks.
He was much heavier than he looked. It must’ve been his cursed height.
My shoulders burned as I slowly lugged him past Mistress Ming’s garden, a small plot roped off with twine, and toward the wooden hut.
There, I hauled him up the low stoop onto the front porch and finally, with a huff, laid him down to knock on the door.
The wisewoman must’ve been especially busy not to have heard my heavy breathing or the soldier’s boots hitting the steps. For a moment, I worried she wasn’t home at all.
Then I detected shuffling from the other side of the door. It flew open to reveal Mistress Ming’s puffy-eyed red face.
“Dajie,” I greeted. I’d learned early on that the wisewoman preferred to be called older sister rather than aunt. In truth, I had no idea just how old she was. Sometimes she looked hardly ten years my senior. Other times she looked as old as my father.
Mistress Ming appeared more worn than usual, having clearly been disturbed from a nap. A loose knot hung at the end of her unraveling hair. The tunic of her pale-green ruqun was rumpled, and she made no move to straighten it.
But despite her tired appearance, her eyes were bright and intelligent as she scrutinized me. A smirk touched her lips. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite criminal priestess come to visit. I wasn’t expecting a delivery this week; I only saw you last month.”
“I apologize for showing up without warning,” I said, dipping my head in respect. “But I need your help.”
The wisewoman crossed her arms. “Do you have payment?”
“No,” I confessed. “But I’ll owe you—whatever you want.”
Mistress Ming pursed her lips, then spoke as if ordering items at a market. “I want an ounce of rose cuttings. I’d like to try adding flowers to my garden. Ah, but I only want breeds you can’t find in Wen. Also, I’d like a case of candied hawthorn and red bean jellies.”
I nodded eagerly. “It’s a deal.”
“And one last thing,” said Mistress Ming, smiling toothily. “I want a bag of star anise.”
“You can buy star anise from the Ninghe marketplace.”
“Yes, but I’d rather not have to buy my own.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and nodded again. “Very well. A bag of star anise. You’re a penny-pincher, dajie, you know that?”
“Takes one to know one.” Mistress Ming jutted out her chin. “Now, what do you need my help with?”
“Him.” I stepped aside to reveal the body on the ground.
Mistress Ming narrowed her eyes. “What’s the matter with him? Have you forgotten how to control corpses?”
I squeezed my staff and made a face. “No. I’ll explain everything in a moment. First, can you please help me carry him inside? I’d rather not leave him out for the world to see.”
“Is the world so bored as to come peek at my front yard?” But she crossed the threshold and gripped the soldier’s left arm while I held the other. Together, it was much easier to transport the body into the hut’s front room and place him across a handwoven bamboo mat.
I straightened, taking a moment to regain my breath.
Around us, shelves of jars, pots, and dried herbs lined the room.
A medicinal aroma hung heavy in the air, burning my nostrils.
Rusty sunlight filtered in through the blinds, catching motes of dust floating about and glancing off a small brass gong sitting beside the wall.
The characters for clarity and truth were carved into its rounded surface.
“Tell me the story behind this body,” said Mistress Ming, kneeling beside him. “A soldier, I presume, judging by his dress?”
“Yes, from Sian.” I remained standing on the soldier’s other side. “I’m to bring him back to the royal capital, Hulin. But something strange happened when I attempted to reanimate him. He … well, he seemed to come back to life.”
Mistress Ming grasped the soldier’s shoulder and started to turn him over onto his back. “What do you mean ‘back to—’”
Her question hung incomplete in the air as she stared at the soldier’s face. The color drained from her cheeks, the corners of her mouth going taut.
“What is it, dajie?” I asked, scanning the body for signs of movement. He didn’t so much as twitch.
Mistress Ming cleared her throat, leaning back on her heels. In an unusually grave voice, she said, “Start from the beginning, Kang Siying. How did you get involved with this soldier? And what exactly happened when you performed the reanimation ceremony?”
So I started by telling her about the mysterious official who’d sought me out back home and offered me forty thousand silvers to deliver this soldier, who I’d presumed was his son. With my father’s illness and expensive medical needs, I’d quickly agreed and set off for Wen.
I told Mistress Ming about finding the battlefield and locating Renshu.
Then I described the events following the reanimation ceremony, the jiangshi attack and the soldier’s interference.
When I finished, I said, “I think he might be breathing, but that doesn’t make sense because he was dead when I found him, I swear it. ”
“I believe you,” said Mistress Ming, studying the soldier’s still face. “And I have a theory on what happened, but I’ll need to examine him first.”
I bit my lip. “Will the examination involve cutting him open?”
I took pride in delivering the dead in as good condition as possible, out of respect for them and their loved ones.
In this case, I was doubly concerned for the soldier’s comfort, having grown dubious of his deceased state.
Though my brain told me he couldn’t possibly be alive—not after lying in that field, unmoving, for so long—it was much less convincing when the signs proved otherwise.
Mistress Ming smiled grimly, shoving up her sleeves. “Don’t worry. It’s a simple enough ritual. I’ll not harm him.” She pointed at the gong behind me. “Bring that over here, would you? I’ll also need a handful of incense sticks from that shelf there.”
When I’d given her all the tools she’d requested, Mistress Ming lit the incense and blew out the flame.
Thick trails of smoke drifted from the tips, filling the tiny space.
I knelt across from the wisewoman and blinked as the aroma, deep and spicy, flooded my senses.
But I reined in any complaints, familiar enough with the wisewoman’s rituals to know to observe in silence.
Moving slowly, deliberately, Mistress Ming swept the incense over the soldier’s head, chest, and legs.
The fumes poured over his body like mist from a waterfall, their phantasmal tendrils curling against the floor around him.
While chanting under her breath, Mistress Ming used her other hand to softly drum the gong with its attached mallet, the instrument’s low ring rippling through the smoke.
Like the iron chimes I used with my talismans, the gong’s reverberation amplified whatever spell the wisewoman was performing.