UCS Chapter 128

The man lying before him was drenched in blood. His entire body was covered in small fissures, like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and put imperfectly back together.

And yet the man was strikingly beautiful. He held his own easily against the likes of Li Mochen and the others. His nose was high-bridged, his features exceptional, and he carried about him an air of vague, melancholic brooding. The cracks across his skin did nothing to diminish his looks. If anything, they lent him a strangely unsettling beauty.

What was someone like this doing here?

Gao Gusheng approached with caution and reached out to check his breathing. The man’s eyes snapped open. He shot out a hand and grabbed for Gao Gusheng’s wrist.

He missed.

Laughable. Gao Gusheng was a martial arts tournament champion. With the state this man was in, catching him would have been nothing short of remarkable.

The attempt had clearly taken considerable effort regardless, and the failure made him cough up a mouthful of blood.

Gao Gusheng watched him warily and pulled out his phone.

The man strained to force out a broken string of words from his throat. “Not… the hospital…”

Received.

Gao Gusheng gave a nod, and amenably dialled the police.

Half an hour later, to the man’s expression of complete disbelief, he was helped onto a police vehicle by two officers.

Gao Gusheng’s friendly reminder: When you encounter a suspicious stranger, do remember to seek the help of the police without delay.

Satisfied that he had done a good deed, Gao Gusheng dusted off his hands cheerfully and headed home.

What he didn’t know was that after he arrived home, Gao Shi, who was still in a meeting with Ying Bujie, was suddenly struck by a sharp, piercing pain.

…

At the conference.

With Ying Bujie’s soul restored to its rightful place, and with the revival of spiritual energy causing more and more souls to linger in the mortal realm, Ying Bujie had reached out to the senior leadership of the Anomaly Management Bureau, explained the problems arising from the situation, and indicated that he was able to facilitate the reincarnation of souls.

However, Ying Bujie’s power had its limits. Having him channel his energy around the clock to send souls into reincarnation was not only deeply unreasonable, but the spiritual energy of the mortal world could not sustain it.

The solution was to draw on the resources of the state, to guide the wandering souls of the world toward the cycle of rebirth.

In other words, a mortal-world equivalent of the underworld needed to be established, and soul envoys needed to be recruited.

The equivalent of the ancient black-and-white impermanence officers.

However, since the underworld of this realm no longer existed, and the boundaries between the living and dead worlds had merged, this had given rise to the Anomaly Management Bureau’s spirit officers. Spirit officers could apprehend souls directly using their own abilities and specialised tools, without needing to die to take up their duties as soul envoys and come back to life afterward.

In other words, the Anomaly Management Bureau, with some additional training, could function as a provisional underworld.

That said, the specifics still needed to be worked out.

Ying Bujie and Gao Shi had come to this meeting precisely to resolve these matters.

“What about setting the reincarnation window between ten o’clock at night and two o’clock in the morning?”

Gao Shi glanced at Ying Bujie. Ying Bujie shook his head. Gao Shi spoke. “Spirits conceal themselves during the day and move at night. Sunlight weakens a spirit’s power and yin energy. We can schedule the soul collection according to the strength of the spirits being targeted. A better window might be five o’clock to seven o’clock in the morning. At that hour, the morning sun is rising, spirit power is at its peak, but most spirits have already begun seeking out heavily yin-saturated places to rest. Tracking efficiency would be low.”

The representative from the research institute said, “We think that works. Our institute has recently developed a new marking instrument.”

He produced a metal device that bore a striking resemblance to a landmine detector. “This can capture the trace energy of spirits. If a spirit encountered at night is too powerful to apprehend, we can record its trace and pursue it during the day.”

The representative from the scientific development division stroked his chin. “Sunlight dissolves yin energy and weakens traces. Ideally we should add a trace amplifier. Leave that to us. What does Daoist Ying think?”

Ying Bujie nodded. “Very good.”

A pity that the soul-snaring rope and the soul-summoning banner were in the hands of the black-and-white impermanence officers, and the Book of Life and Death was with the King of Hell. None of them knew where the cycle of reincarnation had dispersed to, otherwise there would have been useful references to draw on.

The meeting was a productive and efficient one. The broad framework was settled in short order, and what remained was refining the finer details.

Gao Shi was attending as the Anomaly Management Bureau’s representative. The bureau’s remit had not changed substantially — it would continue to play a supporting role to the spirit management infrastructure — though with the revival of spiritual energy and the increase in wandering souls, the bureau’s workload would likely grow in proportion to the spirit management bureau’s caseload.

Fortunately, as spiritual energy revived, people with unusual abilities were also gradually increasing in number. A considerable number of new recruits would doubtless be forthcoming.

With his part concluded, Gao Shi propped his cheek against his fist and watched the representatives from the research institute and scientific development division argue themselves red in the face over the spiritual energy amplification instruments, thinking that the devices sounded useful and worth requisitioning a few for the Anomaly Management Bureau.

His phone buzzed in quick succession. Gao Shi looked down to find Gao Gusheng recounting the strange events of recent days.

With each message, his frown deepened. The moment the messages finally stopped coming, Gao Shi was already struggling to stay in his seat.

He did not for a moment believe that his son, who had no shortage of people pursuing him, would suddenly begin experiencing a racing heartbeat and similar responses toward someone comparatively unremarkable and riddled with suspicious inconsistencies.

It was almost as though… he was being lured.

But Gao Gusheng, as a spirit flower, possessed an innate quality that drew all things toward him while remaining immune to enticement himself. Who could possibly lure Gao Gusheng?

The phone buzzed twice more. Whatever new message Gao Gusheng had sent, Gao Shi did not get to read it, because his temples began to throb. A dull, suffocating ache crept in, the kind that comes before a storm.

Since meeting Ying Bujie, Gao Shi’s headaches had largely subsided. Eventually he had reached the point where visions of the future no longer even required him to enter a dream state. But this time, before he could respond to the dull ache, a sharp and savage pain struck without warning, as though a power drill had been plunged directly into his skull. Gao Shi didn’t make a sound. He simply and cleanly lost consciousness.

At the sight of Gao Shi suddenly losing consciousness, the heated discussion in the conference room fell silent for one moment, then erupted into noise.

“Captain Gao!”

“Quickly! Get a medic!”

“Move, move, make way!”

…

Gao Shi’s consciousness settled back into place.

It was a very small room, but kept with great tidiness.

On the narrow single bed lay a man.

Strange. Wasn’t this supposed to follow Lele’s perspective?

Gao Shi had barely finished the thought when the door creaked open and Gao Gusheng walked in carrying medicine and a bowl of congee.

From the dull grey cast over one of his eyes and the slight limp in his left leg, Gao Shi deduced that this took place after the Gui Yan incident.

A rainy night…

Could this be the night Lele found that man?

Then the man lying on the bed was “Celestial Master Zhang”?

Murderous intent radiated from Gao Shi in waves. A pity it was only a vision. Otherwise he would have reduced the man to pieces.

Gao Gusheng walked over to the side of the bed. The man was highly alert. The instant Gao Gusheng stepped through the door, his eyes opened.

“You’re awake?”

Gao Gusheng exhaled in relief. Seeing the wariness in the man’s expression, he set the medicine and congee on the table. “Can you manage on your own?”

After a long pause, the man spoke. “Yes.”

His voice was hoarse, as though he had not had water in a long time.

Gao Gusheng looked a little worried, but withdrew from the room regardless.

However, a few minutes later came the sound of things breaking inside. Gao Gusheng pushed the door open and rushed in to find the man had fallen to the floor. The cup and the bowl of congee lay shattered around him, the white rice porridge soaking into a puddle of water across the floor.

Gao Gusheng hurried over and helped the man back onto the bed. The fall had left a bruise already forming on his forehead.

Gao Gusheng sighed, poured a fresh cup of water, helped him take his medicine, put more congee on to simmer, and began cleaning up the mess on the floor.

Gao Shi drifted into the kitchen and looked in silence at the nearly empty rice sack.

If he remembered correctly, this was a period when Gao Gusheng was being tormented by Bai Mingyue and Tianlin.

He had no way of holding down a steady job anywhere and could only take odd work here and there, which meant he barely had enough to get by, sometimes going through whole days of eating too little or nothing at all.

From the looks of things, Gao Gusheng had run short of money, and the ghost king had finally left, giving him a window to go out and work.

So just now, the rice he had measured out had been barely enough for two people, and with that bowl of congee spilled, he had no choice but to make a fresh one.

Gao Shi watched as Gao Gusheng swept the spilt congee from the floor. Gao Gusheng looked faintly crestfallen at the waste. He stared at the rice porridge and gave a quiet sigh.

But when he walked back into the room, his face carried none of that heaviness. He scooped up a spoonful of congee and brought it to the man’s lips. The man said nothing and opened his mouth and ate.

In the silence, one fed and one ate, until the bowl was empty.

Gao Gusheng set the bowl and chopsticks aside.

“Is there anyone you can contact? It’s dangerous here. You can’t stay.”

The man’s gaze drifted, unfocused. He pressed a hand to his temple with a furrowed brow. “I… don’t remember.”

What?

Gao Gusheng thought of the wound on the man’s head and the slightly unfocused look in his eyes when they had first met. He had clearly lost clarity of mind after hitting his head.

So he had lost his memory.

“Outside…”

Gao Gusheng had not yet worked out what to do with the man, when the man’s words cut across his thoughts. He instinctively followed the man’s gaze out the window, and the colour drained from his face.

What pressed darkly against the window outside was not stormclouds. It was a mass of twisted, contorted ghostly faces.

Gao Gusheng reached out with trembling arms to lift the man, trying to carry him to somewhere safe.

“There’s an old abandoned phone booth out the back. I’ll put you there. Stay away from me. They’re coming for me.”

His home, this small and humble shelter, had become a haunted house, thick with heavy yin energy. The moment the ghost king Tianlin departed, the countless spirits held at bay by his presence would come flooding in without hesitation. The thin blanket offered no protection. They knew every corner of this place intimately.

It was their playground.

Gao Gusheng was far too weak. His slender arms made two attempts to lift the man and failed both times.

The man felt his trembling arms. Something shifted briefly in his expression.

He looked again at the mass of twisted ghostly faces pressed against the window. A sphere of pale blue light gathered in his palm, and in the same moment that Gao Gusheng stared on in bewilderment, he released it.

The light passed through the glass and struck the swarm of spirits. In an instant, like sunlight breaking open a bank of clouds, every one of them dissolved into nothing.

The black mist cleared, and the cold light of the moon fell in through the window.

The rain had stopped at some point without either of them noticing.

The man looked down at his palm, his eyes carrying the wet, earnest appeal of a young dog.

“Don’t send me away. I’m useful. I can protect you.”

***

 (advanced chapters available on kofi)