Chapter Text
Yin Yu exhales, rounding his breath so that the frost cloud that blooms into the chilled air is large and rounded at the edges. He sucks his breath back in, but the cloud remains before him, slowly dissipating back into nothing. He breathes out and wonders if his breath can fill the small shed as though it were a dense fog curling off of melting snow. The plywood of the cabin digs into his back, small splinters sticking out and pricking away at him like the uncertain hands of an amateur acupuncturist. It is damp, leaving his clothes to stick wetly against him before freezing upon his skin. His toes are numb, and when he tries to curl them within his canvas shoes, they creak slowly and ultimately do not move.
The wind batters against the walls of the shed, terrible sobs as it begs to be let in. Its wails grow in pitch, a hysterical fear clipping at the edges before it settles and, having been scorned, begins shouting in anger and rattling the walls once more. Everything within the shed is wood and rusted metal, all too heavy to be stirred by the wind’s tantrums from where it slips inside from between the cracks of the warped panelling. The loose strands of Yin Yu’s hair from where they are not tightly threaded within his braid swat across his face, but he makes no move to tuck them behind his ears.
He grips his wrist, short and unevenly cut nails digging into his skin enough to leave behind red crescents but still absently enough that the crescents fade back to nothing after a few seconds have passed. His sleeve is rolled up to his elbow, and the hairs on his arms stand on edge. The cursed shackle is heavy on his wrist, seeming to tighten and tighten until the circulation is cut off and his hand tingles numbly like thousands of bees buzzing beneath the skin. He is distantly aware that this is just a consequence of the cold, but it feels more satisfying to blame his discomfort upon the shackle.
Jian Yu lies perpendicular to him. A ratty brown cloth that is more holes than fabric is placed over his legs and torso and tucked partially beneath him so that the wind does not simply whisk it away. No blood remains in his lips, leaving them disturbingly pale in contrast against his tanned skin. The sunken and purple smudges beneath his eyes make his face appear as though it is slowly collapsing in on itself. Yin Yu has not bothered to close Jian Yu’s eyes, and tiny snowflakes now crystalize along the bottom rim.
There is no beauty in a corpse.
It had begun as a cough, a sniffle. Yin Yu did not know exactly how it had begun because it was something so ordinarily mundane that neither had paid it any much attention. Then the cough had worsened, minutes after minutes of awful hacking noises while Jian Yu held one of his arms out in front of him, perhaps telling Yin Yu to stay away or to ask for support. The fever was predictable and while inconvenient, still neither thought much of it. It was the winter. People fell ill often. Jian Yu was sick and then delirious then wracked with pain then dead, each step following the next always with the assumption that he would recover quickly and be back on his feet. When the fever only rose, Yin Yu took it as a good sign that the fever must break soon. There were no herbal remedies to scavenge for, all being killed by the winter chill, and he could not waste their meager water supply on making a hot compress to lay upon Jian Yu’s forehead. They sheltered themselves within this shed out on the edge of some rich family’s estate. The lights to the servant quarters were just barely visible from where they lay, keeping the night unnaturally bright. One of the servants had seen them once, come to retrieve an iron lantern from one of the shelves. She stared at them in silence, and Yin Yu stared back. Then she left and was not seen again, choosing to keep their secret quiet. Maybe Yin Yu could have asked if the family she served could spare some medicine, if she could slip out a single small vial hidden within the pleats of her skirt. But Yin Yu had not asked this of her, and she did not offer it herself. And so Jian Yu had died at some point while Yin Yu was asleep, burdened and killed by the mundane and cureable.
Yin Yu grasps his wrist tighter, twisting the skin and feeling the edges of his bones bite back. The skin shifts back slowly when he releases it, ill from dehydration. It distorts the design of the shackle slightly like water trickling over a canvas, but eventually the design too restores itself. His head feels dizzy, thoughts dissipated so only a tight emptiness pressing in upon his skull remains. He stares down at his feet, and the shape of what is before him blurs out of focus. He is too tired to will his eyes to see properly. He tries to curl his toes again.
At first, they do not move. Then slowly, slowly as though each toe was composed of thousands of joints, they curl down. The rough canvas of his shoes chafes over the knuckles. He uncurls them and wiggles his ankle. He curls them again. Then he curls his finger, bends his neck from side to side, scrunches his face. Tiny movements until his body parts feel as though they are a part of him rather than him and his body existing as two separate concepts, drifting distinct from one another.
He stands, and it feels less like a climax than it should after all the effort that went behind being able to stand. Now that he has stood, it feels like something easy, and there is a disappointment in that. Yin Yu walks the few paces that separate him from Jian Yu, and this feels easy too. He bends his knees slowly and leans forward, grabbing Jian Yu’s waist and arm to sling him over his back. Even with his knees braced, Yin Yu still stumbles slightly beneath the weight. Jian Yu, after a day, has already begun to stiffen, lying like a plank over Yin Yu’s shoulder rather than relaxing down against him.
Yin Yu tries to budge the door open with his hip, and when this does not work, he kicks it once then twice before it swings open. He manages to slip his foot into the doorway before the wind can slam the door shut once more.
The afternoon light is jarring. The blue of the sky is warm and full, absent of even the wisps of clouds. Sunlight reflects off the frozen dew drops that cling to the grass, and the world sparkles so brilliantly that even the halls of the emperor would be embarrassed to be held in comparison to it. Yin Yu does not see it as he walks, grass crunching beneath his steps. The dirt sinks into mud beneath his weight and tries to drag him down, clinging desperately to the soles of his shoes. With Jian Yu lying heavy over his shoulders, he sinks further.
They reach the edge of the treeline, what must be the end of the estate’s property, and the ground here is more soil rather than mud. The thick branches and dense overhang of pine needles also helps to obscure him from any watchful eyes peering out from the manor.
Yin Yu lets go of Jian Yu who proceeds to slam against the ground with a dull thud, limbs twisted unnaturally while his torso remains rigid. Yin Yu kicks slightly at his limbs to try and settle them into something more comfortable, but ultimately it does not matter. A line of dirt is smeared over Jian Yu’s cheek from where it is pressed against the ground. Yin Yu swallows, blinks, and then walks back to the shed. He returns with a shovel in hand, rusted so that flakes of metal fleck off and stick to the palm of his hands. After a few minutes of walking along the edge of the forest and nudging at the dirt to test for the denseness of the soil, he swings the shovel up and buries the head into the dirt. It creaks, and for a moment he thinks that it will simply snap in half beneath the force of digging, but then he pries it out and swings again. The ground is partially frozen, and the deeper he tries to dig, the more it feels that he is hitting uselessly against stone. The metal of the handle being pressed into his grasp is blisteringly cold, and the skin around his nails crack until small droplets of blood bead like precious jewels.
It is dark by the time Yin Yu finishes digging, or at least by the time he gives up on continuing. Not too long has truly passed since he first began, but daylight during the long months of winter lingers like a startled intake of breath. Orange had rushed over the landscape before retreating quickly to be replaced with a smoky blue and now black. His fingers shiver against the shovel, and he drops it with more force against the ground than he intended. He walks back over to where he left Jian Yu and picks him up. Yin Yu tries to lower Jian Yu into the hole with the somber ceremony a burial calls for, but his grip slips since he can no longer feel his hands, and Jian Yu slumps into the hole, head hitting against the edge. Yin Yu kneels beside him, carefully rearranging his limbs to make him fit, but in the end, the hole is not quite long enough for Jian Yu to lie straight out. He is curled partially on his side, knees and arms tucked in toward his chest, chin pressed down. It is like a child as it falls asleep, perhaps clutching a favorite toy against its chest. The first shovelful of dirt hits against Jian Yu’s shoulder and tumbles down to either side. Only after Jian Yu has been mostly covered, only some of his hair still visible, does Yin Yu wonder if he should have stripped Jian Yu before burying him in order to not waste his clothing. Yin Yu swallows down the thought and tosses another pile of dirt into the grave. When it has been filled, it doesn’t quite sit level with the ground around it, sunken by a few centimeters. The turned soil also is a stark contrast to the packed, frozen earth beside it. Yin Yu hits it with the back of the shovel a few times in an attempt to pack it, but it does not seem to have any visible effect.
Yin Yu wanders along the treeline once more until he comes across a medium-sized stone. One side of it has already been shorn smooth. He takes it back with him to kneel beside the grave and, using another smaller stone he found, begins scratching into the surface. The characters slowly emerge against the stone as unsteady white lines, some scratched more deeply than others while some were barely visible and cramped together. His wrist aches, but the repetitive motions keep blood flowing to his hands. The knees of his pants have become soaked through from where they are pressed into the soil.
When the name is finished, Yin Yu presses his thumb against each character, first Jian then Yu. He swallows, staring at the stone as Yu seems to stare back at him. Jade. The same character that is in his own name. He looks down at his hands, pale enough and with blue veins clearly visible through it that the description of jade would certainly apply to him, yet he sees no beauty in it, only someone who cannot embrace death for all that it trails beside him. Yin Yu would fit comfortably in the grave, just slightly shorter than Jian Yu is. Was. He sets the stone on the soil above Jian Yu’s head.
There is no incense for him to light, so he can only bow his head. No prayers come to him. He does not know to whom he would even offer his prayers, so he simply goes through the motions of pressing his forehead to the ground all the while his mind remains empty. It is easier like this.
He sleeps that evening in the same spot Jian Yu had lain beneath the same blanket. His sleep is not peaceful, not free from plaguing memories and recollections, but it is calm. He holds still, breaths nearly even, silent. He learned soon after his banishment that Jian Yu was a light sleeper. He never made any complaint or even comment when night after night he was kept awake by Yin Yu’s screaming and choked sobs. But Yin Yu noticed his blood-shot eyes and poorly concealed yawns, so Yin Yu learned to be silent.
Morning breaks across the landscape, and it is too piercingly bright. It slips within the shed between the wooden panelling and cuts at Yin Yu’s face like a fine knife until he is forced to open his eyes. There are not many personal items that remain, but he packs away the blanket and the meager supply of food into his bag. He has to shield his face when he finally pries the door open, the early sun reflecting off a fine sheet of snow that must have fallen some time during the night. It leaves the world to appear incomplete, a painting a flighty artist forgot to even begin. His steps do not sink too deeply into the snow, but it does leave behind distinct footprints so that anyone who bothers to check will know that there had been someone hiding away in the shed.
The grave, distinct from the surrounding earth the night before, has now disappeared beneath the snow. Yin Yu wanders slowly in the general direction he remembers it to have been, eyes trailing to catch upon anything that may reveal its location. There, a stone sticks partially above the snow, the peak of the temporary headstone. Yin Yu approaches faster, though he does not know why he does not take his time. Some snow is dusted on top of the headstone, and he bends over to brush it away, hand pausing just a few centimeters above it when he notices a flickering light behind the stone. He reaches and grasps it in his hand, lifting it up so that it is at eye level with him. It is a cyan flame, dancing lightly in his palm as the wind tugs at it. No warmth radiates from it. It is a ghost fire.
Yin Yu’s hand begins to shake as though the fire was too heavy for him to hold onto. Tears slip down his face, the first time he has cried since Jian Yu’s death. There is no release in death, even now, Jian Yu’s resentment tethers him here.
“I’m sorry.”
Tendrils from the flame curl around his fingers as though desperately seeking to burn him. Yin Yu clenches his hand into a loose fist around it. His cultivation is weak, but he has enough spiritual energy to put out the flame and allow Jian Yu to finally find peace.
Flame still in hand, he returns to the shed where he retrieves an old oil lantern. He slips the ghost fire inside, and after a minute of watching how its light spills through the metal slats, he ties it to his belt so that it sits against his waist. The tattered blanket, he picks up from the ground and shakes half-heartedly to rid it of the dirt it has accumulated. He covers his head with it and wraps the loose ends around the lower half of his face and neck until only his eyes and the slightest fringes of his hair remain visible. When he steps back outside, it does little to protect him from the biting wind that whisks low over the snow, but it is better than nothing. He breathes slowly through his mouth, letting the warm air accumulate and prickle a fine sweat over his chin.
Each step he takes through the snow is like tripping into a rabbit’s hole. The snow caves beneath him, splitting apart and at times sinking him down to his knees. His hands fan out in front of him, trying to keep himself upright as he takes another step forward then another and another. A trail tracks out from behind him, appearing to have been traced by a wounded animal stumbling ever closer to its own death. The snow splits apart once more, and pain lances through Yin Yu’s ankle. His shoes are soaked through, toes that would be numb if they were not so unbearably cold. His ankle feels like a fresh knife wound each time he tries to shift weight onto it, but the pain itself is a welcome alternative to the numbness that pervades the rest of his body.
Yin Yu’s muscles ache as the snow drags against him. His hips and knees strain as he moves forward, revealing an age that he bares that his youthful features hide. Muscles in the small of his back burn with each twitch of his torso. He clenches his abs and tries to keep his breaths shallow. It helps. The path he takes goes along the outskirts of the town, never quite entering into it fully, but close enough that he can see the silhouettes of bodies moving and the muffled sounds of crunching footsteps as people hurry to and fro.
Sunset falls across the landscape, and everything stretches with orange shadows as though fire had come to melt everything away. The world is reduced to a limited palette of only blues and oranges, and Yin Yu himself is blurred to become only a shadow against the snow. As day settles once more into night, he feels hollow to realize that he has only made it to the other edge of the town. Not that it ultimately matters how much he travels each day. He has no destination in mind, no place he has to reach. Still, it feels better to be in a hurry to get somewhere, even if he is not certain of where that somewhere is.
The path continues on past the village, distantly trailing off and disappearing over the arching horizon. There is no certainty that he will reach another village if he continues his slow trek through the night, no guarantee that there will be anywhere for him to sleep aside from curled upon the snow and exposed to the open sky overhead. Instead of continuing forward, he walks closer toward the town, brushing his way between the thin alleys formed from old buildings sinking in toward one another. He comes to a stop in one alley, wide enough that he is not especially cramped on either side but still narrow enough that the wind, for the most part, sweeps past it.
Yin Yu kneels and begins digging into the snow with his bare hands, shuddering as his fingers begin to turn a shiny pink. The lantern at his waist swings with each movement, casting its green light in shifting patterns against the opposite wall. When the hole he has dug is large enough to at least partially fit him inside, he stops digging and curls himself as best he can within it. After several minutes, uncontrollable shivers wrack endlessly through his body so he appears like a maiden overcome with grief. Though unable to die, there is no pleasantry to be found when left upon death’s doorstep. He will not freeze to death should he remain in the snow as he is now, but he will certainly suffer as though he had.
Minutes creep slowly past, clustered with too many seconds that make them heavy and drag. He is tired and cold and cannot fall asleep. He blinks his eyes open after what feels like hours have passed, but the world remains just as dark as when he first closed his eyes, and he feels a certainty aching in the swollen knuckles of his hands that the night will be a long one. The door to an inn swings open, and muted yellow light floods across the snow before being quickly snapped away as the door is shut once more. Yin Yu tries to settle his breathing, matching it against the first few snowflakes that begin to drift down from the sky, but it only makes his breath come out as short gasps. He waits for the door to the inn to open again, but it does not.
His legs nearly collapse beneath him as he climbs out of his hole and stands. He holds still, letting the moment bleed by until his body feels solid beneath him. The door to the inn swings outward easily, and a gust of cold air slams against his back, sending him to stumble inside. A few eyes are cast his way, disgruntled that the warmth brought by the stove in the corner was temporarily mitigated, but the attention turns from him quickly.
For the most part, the inn is empty, most of the residents likely having already retired to their beds for the evening. All that remains are a group of men huddled in the corner together, wine jars cluttered on the table between them, and two women on the other side of the room, one seemingly asleep with her head in her arms while the other slowly runs her fingers through her hair. There is some clattering coming from behind a screen partition, perhaps the innkeeper or a chef tidying up for the evening. Yin Yu settles himself close to the group of men, body angled so a passing observer might believe him to be a part of their group. He unwraps the blanket from around his head and lets the warmed air sweep over his face, a flush settling itself over his cheeks.
“I don’t care! It’s a bad idea!” one of the men at the table snaps loudly.
“It’s not a bad idea, just a risky one. But there’s no other way, we have to--”
“We don’t have to do anything!” He slams his hand against the table, one of the jars of wine tipping over and rolling across the wood. No wine spills from it, having already been drunk dry. “It’s just not worth the risk, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll even be able to get what you went to the gambling den for.”
“The Lord of Ghost City, that Crimson Rain Seeking Flowers, he honors the deals he makes. If he promises you a lifetime of good fortune if you win against him and you win, then it’s a lifetime of good fortune. No loopholes, no twisting your meaning, no sudden take-backs.”
“And if you lose?”
“Like I said, it’s a risky idea. You ask for something big, you have to offer something big. High risk, high reward. That’s just how things are.”
“What if he can’t even do it? What if A-Li is too sick for him to help? None of any of the doctors can do anything for her, so what can a ghost do?”
“You’re thinking about this wrong. The Supremes, they’re basically gods. Hell, more than gods because they don’t have to chase after the good favor of their worshippers. The gods are all worthless at this point. I’d rather have my fun while alive rather than trying to ascend. But the point is that the Lord can do anything, grant anything. There’s no wish outside of his power.”
A woman full of scowls and clad in a stained apron rounds around the screen partition and sends a glare toward the men.
“Keep your voices down!” she barks, doing little to modulate the volume of her own voice. “There are people sleeping upstairs!” The men grumble but nod, turning their faces into their cups. “You!” she says, pointing a crooked finger, the sort that seems to have been broken several times over the years, at Yin Yu. “Are you going to buy anything?”
He considers lying. It is warm in the inn, and he is just now starting to be able to feel his fingers again. “I don’t have any money.”
She scoffs. “Out! Out! If you’re not gone by the time I get back then I’ll throw you out myself!” And then she disappears back around the screen partition.
When Yin Yu exits the inn, the shock from the sudden drop in temperature goes for a moment unnoticed, the memory of the warmth still clinging to him. The dissonance passes quickly, and the soft whine that slips from him is like that of an animal gnawing its own limb bloody. The sound is buried beneath the high pitched wails of the wind. Snowflakes begin to flurry and fleck against what little skin of his face is bare. They cling to the tips of his lashes and obscure his vision in white.
Stumbling, he returns to his alley. The hole he dug has been partially filled once more by the falling snow, and he kneels before it, withdrawing handful after handful as the snow continues to fall and tries to erase his work. When it is deep enough, he crawls within the hole once more and allows the snow to blanket itself over him. He unloops the lantern from his belt and draws it to be held tightly against his chest. No heat radiates from it. If anything, where the metal presses against his wet clothes, it seems to almost be colder than it was before. He curls tighter around it to ensure that the wind will not come to snuff the flame out.
The night is deep, and the world is cold. Yin Yu drifts to sleep like the last drops of molasses slipping from a bottle. Buried in snow with a fire licking at his chest, Yin Yu freezes to death.
Ice cracks from his limbs like bones in a fire, sliding from him in sheets as he slowly rises. The morning is nearly as dark as the night that came before it, all the people and buildings existing as mere suggestions of dark smudges against a darker sky. Yin Yu walks toward where the sun will rise, destination now held in his heart. Ghost City is not necessarily in the east, nor is it necessarily in any direction. Since it is only arguably a part of the mortal realm, its relationship with existing in any one permanent space is tentative at best. Its gates simply drift haphazardly through the realm, though they inevitably will always be found by those who seek them. More often, they are found by those who do not know where the gates lead and by the time they realize where they have found themselves, it is too late to leave.
As the sun begins to rise over the horizon, its light catches upon the snow and blinds Yin Yu, so he is forced to walk with his eyes nearly shut. Hours pass with the sun slowly trailing overhead to mark them. There are no trees or mountains before him, and any fields that may have run alongside the path are buried, leaving it to appear that he has remained in place despite how much he has been walking. It is only once night begins to fall again does the silhouette of a city shimmer in the distance.
People, or more likely ghosts, sweep past him, chattering and laughing as though they were spending a careless night among friends. One ghost, humanoid if not for how its eyes were much too large for its face, stares at Yin Yu as it passes. It cranes its neck nearly one hundred and eighty degrees to continue watching him. It blinks slowly. Yin Yu does not blink back. He is aware suddenly of his own identity. Within a city of ghosts, chaotic and malignant as the antithesis to the heavenly realm, certainly a heavenly official would not be welcomed. Even rejected from heaven as he was, there must be something that lingers upon him that will tell all the ghosts that he does not belong. He grabs at his wrist, pressing down as though he can feel the cursed shackle through his sleeve.
He will become someone else while inside the city. A servant forced to gamble at his master’s behest. A scholar seeking a rare scroll that he has been told can be haggled for in one of the back alleys. A young man looking for a bit of adventure before he has to settle and take over his father’s business. Someone lost, someone who did not mean to be here. Someone who is desperate and willing to gamble anything in exchange for what he needs. These excuses sit on his tongue as he passes through the gates to the city, tensed and fully expecting some sort of guard to suddenly manifest and drag him to the side, demanding to know what his business here is. He passes through without anything out of the ordinary occurring, simply another part of the bustling crowd. Seen as nothing more than another desperate mortal come to make a desperate gamble.
Despite the crowds swarming against one another like a festering insect mound and the pathways within the main market seeming to twist and change shape every few minutes, the gambling den is not that difficult to find. It is as though the den is part of the heart of the city, everything pulsing so that all the things within, the blood, inevitably find their way there. It is imposingly tall and garishly bright red. The walls glisten beneath the lights of the city, appearing to be freshly painted. There are roughly hewn plaques to either side and above the doorway, but no matter how long Yin Yu stares at them for, he cannot make out what the calligraphy is meant to say. Perhaps it is some sort of ghost language. Ghosts stream in and out of the doors, so the doors are never given a chance to fully swing shut. More ghosts linger just outside, knocking against one another as they try to peer within. Yin Yu moves through them easily, in some instances literally as they do not make room for him, and he walks straight through their incorporeal bodies.
The inside of the gambler’s den is just as chaotic as it is outside. Tables are set up throughout with ghosts crowded tightly around shouting bets at one another so that all the voices overlay until nothing is distinguishable save for that it is loud, loud, loud and beats against Yin Yu’s ears. He can feel the noise as a pulse behind his eyes. People knock against him, and someone to his side lets out what sounds to be a shrill laugh but could just as easily be a scream. There is a second floor above the first, balcony exposed if he were to look up, but the floating lights overhead force him to shield his eyes and look away.
There is soft carpeting beneath his feet that is red, and he tries to not contemplate for too long whether that is the color it was originally. Large curtains hang down from the ceiling, and pillars the berth of old trees tower up past the second floor. They too are red, but just slightly off from the same shade that it manages to be even more clashing and garish. A ghost brushes past him, holding a platter above its head. Yin Yu catches its arm before it can disappear back into the crowd, jolting it so a few gambling chips slide from its platter and to the ground where they are quickly trodden under foot.
“Where is the Lord of the city?”
One would think that beaks are not capable of sneering, but the ghost still makes a remarkable job of displaying its displeasure. It lets its long tongue hang from its mouth, showing off the jagged teeth that run along the edges.
“Hua Chengzhu isn’t at the Gambler’s Den this evening.” Then it yanks its arm free and stalks off before Yin Yu can ask more.
Yin Yu hesitates in place, glancing around the den again quickly as though the Lord will suddenly manifest before him. When he does not, Yin Yu feels his shoulders go tense, and he flees from the building back out to the street. There is no point of being in the gambling den if the Lord is not there. No one else can grant him what he wants. No one else is powerful enough to. Except perhaps… But that has not been an option since the day of his banishment. Yin Yu resigns himself to wait another day.
There is nowhere to sleep in Ghost City. None of the ghosts themselves require sleep, so where there would normally be inns or other places to rest for the night, there is instead an abundance of pleasure houses. The alleyways are also rarely empty, some unscrupulous deal being haggled in the shadows. Other times, even when the alleys appear to be empty, there is a pressure, a presence that hovers on all sides and dissuades even the most weary of travellers from shutting their eyes. Even if one were to find a dark corner somewhere to rest their head, the market remains in full swing no matter the time of day, and the racket clatters in tired heads like a rusty bucket down stairs. So Yin Yu does not sleep. He does not particularly need it, but there is something humanizing to it. It is certainly steadying as it allows him to better track the passage of time. Perhaps, more than anything, it allows him relief from having to be present.
He does not sleep. Instead, he wanders through the city, allowing himself to become lost within it. Then he finds his way and then he becomes lost again. He wanders all of that first night and the ensuing day. He returns to the Gambler’s Den in the evening and is told once more that Hua Chengzhu is not there, so he leaves and goes wandering. The pattern continues for a week with the Lord of Ghost City never seeing fit to grant the den his presence. Yin Yu almost does not mind the wait. There is no snow within the city walls, and the tight press of bodies keeps the air persistently warm. He is beginning to lose his way less often, so perhaps even the city is coming to not mind him.
On the ninth evening, before Yin Yu has a chance to corner one of the gambling hall attendants and ask them if Hua Chengzhu is there that evening, an attendant that he recognizes from several nights before catches his eye and gestures to the far left wall. There, a crowd is loosely circled around a middle-aged man and a young woman. The man is dressed in yellow silks with nearly every square-inch covered with intricate embroidery. He leans forward, hands not quite pressed against the table but hovering above it. His back is to Yin Yu, expression hidden, but the line of his figure appears tense. The woman holds no such tenseness in her body, being draped leisurely in an almost throne-like chair and letting one of her legs kick over the armrest while she rests her head in one of her hands. In her other hand, she idly spins a saber.
The man reaches forward to one of the three cups, hand trembling. He pauses for a moment, then with a sudden decisiveness, flips it over.
“Bad luck,” says the woman.
“Please, Hua Chengzhu, Oh Venerable One. Let me try again. I can offer an even bigger gamble, just let me try again!” The man knocks the cups over, and Hua Chengzhu frowns, her expression bordering between reproachful and angry. A hiss passes through the crowd.
“No.”
He opens his mouth to continue pleading, but two attendants sweep in and seize his arms. Even as they drag him away, the crowd parting around them, he continues yelling, desperation clawing at him until blood begins to seep from his eyes. Once he is no longer in the hall, the crowd stirs excitedly then settles after a minute.
“Who’s next?” She seems to not even pay attention as she speaks, more focused on brushing her hair to the other side. A small braid with a red pearl at the end falls across her face, and she tucks it behind her ear.
Yin Yu pushes through the crowd, nearly stumbling when he finally breaks through and into the open space surrounding Hua Chengzhu. She does not look at him until he has settled in the chair across from her, but even then, it is little more than a glance.
“What did he gamble away?”
“The fortune of his eldest daughter’s marriage.” Using her saber, she begins cutting her long nails into points.
“And what did he want?”
“Twenty more years of successful business deals. How boring.” She looks at Yin Yu now, really looks rather than just the short glance she cast toward him before. Her eyes are dark, irises and pupils indistinguishable from one another. “Are you going to gamble something, or do you intend to continue to waste my time?”
“If I win, you will restore my former place within the heavenly realm and I will have all my worshippers returned to me.”
He has thought over these words, what it would be like to say them. Whether he would feel powerful, invoking himself as a god. It feels only like any other sentence he might say. Neutral. Flat. Unimportant.
“And what will I get if you lose?”
This, too, he has thought over, wondering what could be equivalent to a place in the heavens. “You may have all of my memories.”
“No.” She sits up, rearranging her billowing red robes to lie elegantly around her. Everything about her is red. Her robes, her lips, her cheeks, smudged beneath her eyes, the pearl in her hair, the huadian on her forehead. “That’s an unbalanced deal. No matter the outcome, you would benefit.”
“You think I would be happy to lose all my memories?”
“Yes.”
Yin Yu holds his hands still, careful to not allow himself even the slightest amount of fidgeting. The crowd shifts behind him, swaying in interest to see how the gamble will turn out. Hua Chengzhu traces a swirling pattern across her neck while she waits for him.
He reaches to his waist, untying the lantern from his belt. He settles it gently on the table between them, keeping his fingers between the wood and metal to reduce the sound of them hitting against one another. The light inside dances, patterns swirled onto the wooden table, inscribing upon it an illegible story. The cyan light appears out of place against all the red.
“If I lose, I will give this ghost fire to you.”
She reaches out and balances her index finger upon the top of the lantern, slowly tilting it from side to side to watch how it stretches the light. Her gaze is lowered, expression passive.
“So, if you lose, this ghost fire will be mine to do with whatever I want?”
“Yes.”
“That could be fun. Perhaps I could eat it as a snack. I’ve heard ghost fires are good palate cleansers. But that would waste it too quickly I think. I could torture it for quite a while. Ghost fires are rather resilient, and I have some new techniques I’ve learned about recently. Or if I gave it a bit of spiritual energy to boost its power, it could serve as my eternal slave. And if I ever get bored, I could simply destroy it. Whatever unfortunate soul you found in this lantern would never be able to reenter the reincarnation cycle if I did that.” She stops tilting the lantern and pauses to stare at Yin Yu. He is not certain that he has seen her blink at any point during their interchange. “How does that sound?”
Jian Yu would have wanted for Yin Yu’s status as a god to be restored. He tried all those years ago to sacrifice himself in place of Yin Yu, surely it is only befitting for him to do so again. Yin Yu swallows and does not look down at the lantern, maintaining his gaze focused upon Hua Chengzhu’s face. He thinks of what he should say. She is waiting for a response. He cannot open his mouth, cannot look down at the lantern.
Hua Chengzhu lets another minute pass before she leans back in her seat, leaving the lantern standing between them.
“I can’t accept your gamble.”
Yin Yu accepts the statement passively, then repeats it in his head again and again and again until it rings like the aftershocks of a gong in the early morning. Tears begin to stream down his cheeks, his hands shake.
“Is it not enough then? Jian Yu’s soul is not worth godhood? What more could you want? What more is there to give? Is it my soul? My soul is not worth any more than his. Is it a hundred souls? I do not have that many to give. What is it? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me!”
He is standing, hands braced against the table. His teeth are bared, revealing him to be a cruel beast, frightened into lashing out when confronted with something stronger than it. Tears fall, and is only fair that his eyes should be red to match everything else within the gambling den.
Hua Chengzhu waves off the attendants when they step forward to subdue him. Instead, she rises and leans over the table. She takes his hand in her own, lightly placing a handkerchief in his palm.
“I can’t accept your gamble because I cannot grant what you have requested of me should you win. I cannot restore someone to godhood. I cannot return his worshippers. It is not within my power.”
If Yin Yu did not know better, he would think that she sounded sad.