Chapter 9
Dust and cobwebs rained over me as I dragged the door open. I swatted the air before my face, then crossed the threshold into a rectangular courtyard paved by ashy stone tiles. Ren followed closely, his hood removed.
The door swung shut behind us, locking into place with a definite thud. I nibbled the inside of my lip. The door could’ve closed due to its weight, or it could’ve been compelled by something more sinister. I chose not to dwell on it. Trapped or not, I would leave this mansion alive.
I led the way through another pair of roofed doors into the inner courtyard, pausing at the edge of the wide, open space to scan the area. The dimmed light of my lantern swept over the stone-paved residence, outlining the structures around us.
Jing Mansion was an ornately designed siheyuan shaped by gray brick walls.
The elaborate architecture featured wooden pillars and frames once vibrantly painted green, red, and yellow.
Now the colors were faded and cracked. Tasseled silk lanterns hung from the rafters like weary phantoms. At each corner of the yard stood drooping trees, rotten plums shrouding their roots.
Framing the three sides were walkways scattered with dirt and leaves.
Loss hung as heavily in the air as the dust blanketing every surface, weighing down on me. But the forlornness of the bleached paint, creaking wood, and empty windows stood second to the malevolent, furious aura that seeped through the grounds.
“Something feels … wrong,” said Ren, confirming my thoughts.
The air was too still. Not even the sound of crickets punctuated the night. A chill slithered around my heart.
I realized what was bothering me.
The man in town had told us that Yuyan murdered every member of the household, that no one had entered the mansion grounds. If that were the case, where were the bodies? Had the villagers buried them, despite their fear?
“Come,” I said, advancing toward the main house, which loomed directly ahead in towering levels.
At the top of the steps were geometric doors paned with yellowing silk.
I rested my palm against the wooden frame, nearly expecting it to be cold as ice.
But it was just wood, roughened by peeling paint.
Even so, I placed a purification talisman on the door, sending a silent prayer to the gods. Perhaps Yuyan’s spirit hadn’t noticed our presence yet. Perhaps this attempt was all I’d need to exorcise the evil and make a clean escape.
To my disappointment, nothing happened after I recited the incantation and rang my staff. The door remained cool and dark, the mansion eerily quiet.
I tore off the talisman and returned it to my pocket, thinking of likely places to check next.
“Maybe she isn’t bound to the house,” Ren whispered. “Maybe she’s bound to something more personal”—he waved his hand—“like a ring or a favorite pillow.”
I didn’t smile at his jokes, clasping the brass handle and yanking the door back. “I suppose we’ve no other option. The sooner we find the spirit, the sooner we can leave this forsaken place.”
The interior of Jing Mansion was a labyrinth of halls, chambers, and corridors both open and closed.
We walked past bedrooms and sitting rooms dressed in expensive furniture, crept through the narrow hallways of the servants’ quarters, and swept through overgrown, weed-infested gardens.
Even worn by time, the residence remained beautiful, like a memory trapped in glass.
But something sinister crawled underneath that beauty.
Certain rooms contained shattered porcelain on the floor and overturned chairs, as if their owners had been in a hurry to run out.
Blood stained tapestries and floors, and one room had broken furniture near the door, a failed attempt at a barricade.
But there were still no signs of the household’s bodies. I anticipated stumbling upon a decaying corpse each time we rounded a corner or walked into a room, only to find nothing. The mansion seemed entirely abandoned.
By humans, at least.
As we searched the estate, I felt eyes trailing our movement, making the back of my neck tingle. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw nothing, save for swaying drapes or twitching shadows I took as figments of my heightened imagination.
I nearly screamed when a spider landed on my cheek.
I’d carelessly walked into its web, its fine, cold legs crawling down my face.
I started at its touch and swiped it off me, thinking I could hear its fat body land on the floor with a thump.
Shuddering in disgust, I continued forward with a warier eye for hidden critters.
“Can you sense Yuyan’s spirit?” I asked, bringing us to what appeared to be a woman’s bedroom. It’d likely belonged to one of the Jings’ unmarried daughters, as we were in the secluded backside building where younger girls usually slept.
“I’m not sure,” Ren replied, his gaze tracing the intricately carved windows, which looked out upon a small garden. A deserted spiderweb covered one of the panes, the moonlight outside throwing diamonds across its threads. “I can feel her hatred, but it seems to be everywhere.”
That was how I felt too. I stood by a dusty vanity and ran my finger across a rounded hair comb with flowery pearl inlays. The teeth were sharp enough to break flesh.
“We should locate the place of her death,” I suggested, thinking of Liu Chunhua. “The ground marked by her dying blood.”
“But where would she have done the deed?” Ren scratched his forehead underneath the talisman. He looked around the room. “The chambers she shared with her husband?”
“Perhaps. Or another significant location in the mansion.”
“What kind of location?”
I studied my reflection in the dirtied copper mirror. My face stared back, hazy and pale. “Somewhere she could be alone and at peace.”
Ren pressed his lips together. “Do you think she had a reason for murdering the Jing clan?”
“Of course she had a reason,” I said. “But whatever it was, it doesn’t justify a mass killing.”
“I can’t tell if you sympathize with or disapprove of this spirit.”
“No?” I frowned at the combs and pins strewn across the table, exquisitely useless to their lost mistress. “The answer is both. However, the dead don’t care for sympathy. What they need is relief.”
Ren was silent for a moment. When I looked up, I found him watching me curiously. Like an itch, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What?”
He shook his head. “I assumed you saw the dead as merely a job to be taken care of, not as people worthy of consideration.”
Though he said it without judgment, my chest panged at the implication of his words.
My father had expressed similar thoughts not too long ago.
The dead we serve should be seen as sacred, not as products to be exploited, he’d said.
I knew this, but I also knew the risks of allowing my heart to grow too close to the people I helped.
Why walk such a line when it was safer to avoid it entirely?
And yet the more time I spent with Ren and evil spirits, the less careful I was about following my own rules.
At my silence, Ren quickly added, “I’m not criticizing you, Mistress Kang. Forgive me if I’ve offended. I’m merely admiring the warmth behind your usual cold facade.”
The ease with which he offered a heartfelt compliment caught me off guard.
“How do you know it’s a facade?” I folded my arms. “Perhaps I’m just cruel.”
He smiled crookedly. “I revoke my earlier comment. You are dishonest.”
“What does that mean?”
But he was stepping back onto the pathway outside, clearly uninterested in elaborating. I hurried after him, annoyed.
“Where in this mansion do you think Yuyan would seek solitude?” he asked as we walked in the direction of the eastern wing.
“Are you assuming I’d know because I’m a woman?”
“I assume you’d know because of your empathetic capabilities.”
I glanced at him sideways. A part of me wanted to nurse my irritation toward him, if only to distract myself from the unease permeating the mansion. But it was difficult to do when he spoke so honestly—and kindly. Which was a distraction all its own.
I cleared my throat. “In a mansion inhabited by a high-class family and their many servants, the only place Yuyan could rest undisturbed would be a private courtyard.”
“That makes sense. My mother had one in the royal palace, with a small pond and a garden. She’d embroider there by daylight and drink tea while viewing the moon.
No one, not even her handmaidens, could enter without her permission.
” Ren added mischievously, “Although she was never cross with me when I snuck in.”
“You must’ve loved her very much,” I said. How awful he must feel to know she’d been murdered.
“I did.” He spoke comfortably, which prompted me to relax too. This was the first time I’d spoken to a surviving family member without feeling the need to comfort or apologize for something I’d had no hand in.
“Since you’re familiar with the layout of upper-class residences,” I said, “why don’t you take the lead?”
His eyes widened in feigned shock. “You, of all people, would give me such power?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I can rescind my offer, if you prefer.”
“Let’s not be hasty.” He laughed, the sound as startling as a sunrise, and swept out his arm. “This way, esteemed mistress.”
We explored the bedrooms housed in the east wing, weaving in and out of each chamber until we came across one in which we both shivered upon entering. All traces of humor drained from Ren’s face as he led us through the suite to an enclosed courtyard in the back.