Chapter 6
I returned to Fuzhou Forest with newfound purpose. This time, I knew exactly what to do. I only hoped my mistakes hadn’t already cost me this second chance.
In my hand was a warmly lit lantern, a gift from the Lius to guide my way. They’d given me an old coat too, the worn cotton comforting around my shoulders.
My throat still felt tender where my collar brushed it. But the cuts and bruises on my face quickly numbed against the cold, dulling into a near-imperceptible ache. My temple, blessedly, only smarted when I touched it.
The forest’s crooked branches and brambly, rough paths seemed less intimidating now that I’d walked through them once. Now that I’d learned the spirit’s name and met her parents and knew the human she’d been.
Even so, the deeper I went, the more strongly I sensed the spirit’s anger pulsing toward me. It pierced through my sense of self-preservation, tempting me to run away. But I gritted my teeth and pushed onward.
The blood-chilling sensation grew so overwhelming, I nearly walked past the oak from which Chunhua had hanged herself—the oak where she’d nearly hanged me. The sound of a ragged exhale reached my ears, and I felt frozen fingers trace across my throat.
I spun, my own hand flying to my neck in self-defense. When I lifted my lantern to cast its light across the cramped clearing, I saw no one. But I felt far from alone.
“Where are you?” I demanded, my tone carrying the slightest of tremors.
A soft—living—moan came from near the roots of the looming oak. I approached the tree warily. The grooves in the bark resembled a sneer, the branches’ outstretched claws poised to sweep down and snatch me if I wasn’t careful.
As I drew closer, expecting to be startled by the gaping face of Liu Chunhua, I recognized Ren nestled between the roots.
His chest rose faintly with his failing breaths.
Purple contusions marred his neck. His limbs appeared tossed haphazardly around his body.
The Fu talisman on his forehead had been partially ripped.
I lifted the paper and saw that his eyes were shut, the shadows beneath bruising his ashen complexion.
“Your Highness,” I whispered, forgetting Chunhua. I set down the lantern so that I could gently pat his cheek. “Ren, wake up.”
He groaned again, his eyes cracking open with great effort. Already, his dark-brown irises looked flat and lifeless. He spoke in a sigh. “Mistress … Kang. You … returned.”
The surprise in his tone stung. I cleared my throat and said, “Don’t make me regret it. Can you stand?”
I immediately rued the thoughtlessness of my question, my eyes tracing his dislocated joints. But he didn’t seem to be listening.
He closed his eyes. “I feel so … tired.”
“Don’t fall asleep,” I said, reaching into my coat. “I’ll prepare a new talisman for you. It should be enough to—”
“No.” A low whine rose from his throat as he tried to move his hand. “The spirit … first. You’ll need … staff.”
My gaze fell to the peach staff lying beside him, its wooden rod blending in with the tree roots.
Somehow, he’d kept it safe. I wrapped my hand around it, relieved to have it back.
But when I looked at Ren, fear wrung my stomach.
How could I leave him dying? What if his qi ran out before I could purify Liu Chunhua’s spirit? Should I prepare a new talisman—
Icy tendrils crawled over my body and wrenched me backward.
Yelping, I hugged the peach staff to my chest, and the pressure vanished—but not before dropping me roughly to the ground.
I pushed myself onto my elbow, wincing, strands of undone hair streaking my vision. The staff’s iron bells chimed cheerily.
From my periphery, I detected a pale shape hovering nearby.
Its hatred was as sharp as an ax swinging at my head.
I turned to see the spirit moving toward me, dark liquid—like tree sap or mud—bleeding from her hollow eyes and mouth.
Her form twitched violently, as if her bones were replaying the way they’d snapped when she dropped from the tree with a rope around her neck.
Worse than her unnatural movements, though, was the vile aura she emitted. It slid down my throat like oil, coating the lining of my stomach and making me want to vomit.
I flung out the hand not gripping the holy weapon. “Wait!”
The spirit ignored me, moving closer.
“Liu Chunhua! I beg of you, stop!”
At the sound of her name, the spirit froze.
Then she disappeared.
I shoved the hair from my face and clambered to my feet, scanning the clearing, which was lit dimly by the lantern still resting next to Ren. I resisted the urge to study him for signs of breathing. If I wanted to help Ren, I needed to help the spirit first.
“Liu Chunhua,” I said quietly. “Please, I know you can hear me. I don’t want to fight you.”
I jolted as a breeze whisked past my ear, carrying with it a voice stained with disdain. Then why are you here?
“I’m here to untether you from this world, so you can go on to the next. I’m a priestess. I can help you find peace.”
Another sharp wind. I don’t want it.
“But your parents do. Your mother, your father—”
Chunhua didn’t seem to care. Her wail ricocheted through the trees. They wronged me, wronged me, wronged me. I won’t leave until I’ve seen them suffer as I have.
I pressed my lips together, knowing who Chunhua meant. I’d heard the story and lived through her memories. Her hatred toward her husband’s family was not unjustified.
But I couldn’t touch the living. I was neither king nor officer nor judge, and I couldn’t guarantee punishment for those who’d driven Chunhua to her death. No matter how unfair that seemed. Because the unalterable truth was that Liu Chunhua was already dead, whereas Ren and my father were not.
“Listen to me,” I said, facing the oak. Since our last encounter, I’d suspected Chunhua’s spirit was bound to the tree from which she’d died.
I echoed Mistress Liu’s words to her husband as I continued, “Vengeance belongs to the heavens, Liu Chunhua. You must trust that the gods will carry out due punishment on your husband and his kin.”
No, no, no. They wronged me. They made me a monster because I didn’t give them a son.
I shivered against the iciness of Chunhua’s voice. “I know. I know what they did to you.”
No, you don’t. You don’t understand. No one understands—
“So tell me,” I cut in. “Help me understand.”
My irritation vanished when she materialized in front of me, flickering madly. Her face just a breath away, she wrapped her hand around my throat, and I was dragged again into another memory—
An older woman setting a cup of tea beside me as I lay curled on my sleeping mat. Her unusually gentle voice saying, Here, Chunhua. You must recover your strength.
The cup empty in my pale hands, the earthy taste of leaves on my lips.
The room blurring around me, then turning to black.
A cool breeze rippling the fabric of my ruqun as something rough and unrelenting tightened around my neck. The last gasp of air sucked in before the ground dropped away from my body, my cries choked by the cord braiding my throat.
I didn’t kill myself.
My eyes flew open, and I stared into the fractured face of Chunhua’s ghost.
“You didn’t kill yourself,” I whispered.
Her in-laws had taken advantage of her loss to rid their family of her. They’d spread the lie that Chunhua had hanged herself when it’d been them all along. That servant who’d disappeared—she was probably well paid for her loose lips.
Chunhua’s form scattered into the breeze. Now you know why I must stay.
“I— No.” I shook my head. “No, Chunhua. You must let justice do its own work. If you continue down this path, you’ll never obtain peace.”
I don’t care.
Well, I care! I wanted to yell. Ren lay helpless and broken nearby. My father was far away in Baimu, growing weaker by the day. Chunhua’s own parents mourned at home for their daughter’s trapped spirit. If I didn’t purify her now, I’d never be able to help anyone.
What could possibly matter to Chunhua more than revenge, more than peace—
And then it struck me, the memory of the warm babe in my arms. The desperation burning my mind as I dug in the garden, searching.
“Chunhua, what was your daughter like?” I asked, changing tactics.
The wind didn’t come immediately, as if startled by the question. After a moment, a current cut past my neck. She was beautiful, so good and quiet in my arms. But she wasn’t enough, like me.
I sensed the anger and remorse in her tone. “Did you give her a name?”
This time, the answer was immediate. Chenguang. I called her Chenguang.
“Morning light,” I murmured, feeling the presence of heaven in those two words. Certainly, Chunhua had been inspired. “You gave her a joyous name.”
The spirit went silent.
I gazed up at the oak’s dark canopy. “Don’t you miss her, Chunhua? Don’t you ache to see her again?”
Grief permeated the air, blanketing my lungs.
She’s dead, dead, dead.
“But she’s not gone,” I said. “You can see her again, in another life.”
No. I won’t. I can’t.
“Why can’t you?”
Because I let her die.
And there was the painful fact buried beneath her resentment toward another: resentment toward herself.
But Liu Chunhua wasn’t a villain. She’d been a human girl with human desires and fears, vulnerable to the overwhelming pressures of others. And though her actions could’ve been different, she’d suffered more than enough.
“Your guilt ties you to this tree,” I said. “But your daughter’s spirit has no such tie. I don’t sense her on this earth. Wouldn’t you like to join her? Make up for your time apart and be the mother you wanted to be?”