鬼迷心窍 (guǐmíxīnqiào) – literally, ghost enthusiast heart opening. To be possessed by a ghost, i.e. act completely irrationally.

----------------------------------------

The large eyes squinted against the light of the pearl. The figure sniffed the air, as though smelling for the intruders. A dry and purple tongue flickered momentarily between the cracked lips like a gecko.

Gong Lau Yan bristled, scales blooming across her face as her antlers sprang forth. Her eyes glowed.

The figure took a few, hesitant steps forwards, tapping with the stick.

“Have you… come back for us?”

The words were spoken in simple Dzue. Looking carefully, Zeyi could see the figure was wearing many layers of clothing to keep warm in this subterranean city, some of which resembled old-fashioned fishing garb. Sensing the frozen state that Gong Lau Yan was falling into, she spoke first, in basic Dzue.

“Who are you waiting for?”

The figure continued to squint, their eyes watering painfully. Their voice was mournful. “Our queen.”

Recklessly, Zeyi threw her arms around Gong Lau Yan as the loong emitted a tiny, animal wail, her human skin splitting like a crushed grape and her dragon’s body attempting to escape from within it. Zeyi was strong, but against a loong, this meant nothing.

But against Lau Yan?

The loong’s shape writhed, grew larger and shrank. Gong Lau Yan snuffled and panted, struggling for air. The darkness grew closer, and Zeyi felt her own breathing begin to labour.

“Gong Dze? Gong Dze, are you doing this? I can’t breathe properly.”

No discernible response came from the loong.

“Gong Dze, I’m going to die if I can’t breathe,” Zeyi said harshly, matter-of-factly, in spite of the feeling that her lungs were being strangled. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Gong Lau Yan gasped, and the air rushed back into Zeyi’s lungs. Before the loong could speak, Zeyi turned to the figure at the edge of the light, too far away to have been significantly impacted by the vacuum Gong Lau Yan had inadvertently created. “Who are you? Are you a human?”

“Gou Gin Gam, Lady. I am human, certainly. Are you?”

“Gou…?” Gong Lau Yan whispered.

“As in ‘lofty’. Yes, I’m a proud descendant of the Sek’seun Gou Family.”

“Master Yuan Mu…?” Zeyi murmured, catching most of Gou Gin Gam’s words. Gong Lau Yan nodded.

Letting go of the loong, Zeyi bowed, although she wasn’t sure if the person could see her. “Greetings, Master Gou. I am…” She fumbled for a name. How many people knew of her existence in Dzue? How would they respond to a Xiang name?

“… Mui Gwai,” Gong Lau Yan supplied, pulling herself upright. “And I’m Miss Fan. Master Gou… are there many of you down here?”

Despite his alarming appearance, Gou Gin Gam chuckled good-naturedly, the sound like a hidden brook bubbling over rocks. “I may be from a noble family, Ladies, but I’ve been down here all my life. No need to call me ‘Master’. As for the others, yes, there are many. Please, come with me. I’m sure there are many who will want to hear where you…”

“Can you hear that?” Gong Lau Yan stared intently into the darkness, in the direction that Gou Gin Gam had emerged from. It took a moment before Zeyi could hear it too, whispery voices that sounded odd somehow.

When Gou Gin Gam finally heard the voices too, he began to retreat away from them. “Keep quiet! Keep quiet!” he whispered urgently. As Gong Lau Yan extinguished the light of the luminescent pearl, they saw him duck into one of the rooms. Zeyi seized the loong’s hand, feeling the thin sheen of condensation over the bricks and using it to lead them to a hiding place, what felt like a broken cabinet. They listened in silence as the voices grew louder.

“I don’t know why we keep doing this. There’s nothing here anymore. Anything that’s left would be in the Dry Levels.”

“Where did Old Gou disappear to?”

“Hiding, probably. Let’s fish him out.”

Their laughter was like the wind through dry reeds.

Zeyi saw the faint green phosphorescence of Gong Lau Yan’s eyes drift in the direction of the voices. She put her lips to the loong’s ear to whisper and felt Gong Lau Yan’s arm wrap around her waist. “Gong Dze, those voices sound strange.”

She felt the loong nod, and together they left their hiding spot. Peering around the doorframe, Zeyi couldn’t see anything, even with her heightened senses. She tried to distribute her internal energy through the dregs of moisture on the walls and floor, but felt nothing.

A faint tremor ran shook Gong Lau Yan, a shudder as though she had seen something unpleasant. Zeyi felt her reach for one of the pouches on her belt.

“Gong Dze?”

“Ghosts.”

Simultaneously unsurprised and faintly disturbed, Zeyi considered the situation. As a student of the Still Heart School with a strong Water element, she was more susceptible to the damaging Yin energy of ghosts than disciples of any other cultivation practice.

Gong Lau Yan was clearly aware of this too; her arm moved in front of Zeyi and pushed her back a little, speaking so quietly that Zeyi had to strain to hear her. “Stay there, A Yi.”

“I can-”

“I know you can, but it’s safer if I go. Don’t forget, I’m the great Demon Hunter, Miss Fen, right?”

She stepped out into the corridor and lit the luminescent pearl.

Zeyi had never seen a real ghost before. She took the briefest of glimpses before pulling back again.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

There were three ghosts, floating at the doorway where Gou Gin Gam had rushed to hide, and they turned as Gong Lau Yan approached.

It was impossible, from appearance, to tell what they had looked like in life. All was made equal, in death. They had long, brittle grey hair, untied and lank around their faces, which were reduced to skulls with pale grey skin stretched tightly across them. They had no eyes, no noses, and under that thatch of dry hair, probably no external ear parts. Each wore long ragged robes that did not touch the ground. Their lower halves seemed less corporeal than the rest of them.

What they did have were long, gruesome tongues, desiccated and almost as long as their robes.

Is that what I looked like, when I left the lake? Zeyi thought.

The ghosts drew themselves up, growing larger, looming over Gong Lau Yan.

“What have we here?”

“A nice amount of Wood yang energy. Pity there isn’t more. But then that Water energy…”

“Will you give us some of your energies, handsome girl?”

Their words were somewhat muffled and lisping. Gong Lau Yan bowed respectfully. “Dai dzes, my name is Miss Fan. You seem thirsty.”

Out of sight, Zeyi twitched. Why did everything sound so flirtatious?

“So thirsty.”

“Very thirsty.”

“Can you help us?”

Honestly, if it were not for the hair-raising sight of three skull-faced, long-tongued ghosts circling Gong Lau Yan, one might have thought they were listening to three young girls blushing over a cool beauty at a marketplace.

“I can help you, but I need your help in return.”

“Our help?”

“How so?”

“You’re very cheeky, sai mui.”

Sai mui? You might be dead but she’s still a thousand years older than you! Zeyi tried to ignore the vinegary taste in her mouth and bit her tongue.

Gong Lau Yan looked uneasy. “Well, you see…”

The three ghosts edged closer.

“I’m afraid I might seem… disrespectful.”

“Then you’ll just have to give us more energy in return.”

“If that’s so… could you tell me more about yourselves, lovely dai dzes?”

Zeyi closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, and repeated the precepts of the Still Heart School in her mind.

Throw some salt at them, Fan Bi’an’s voice said to her.

Are you, a demon, seriously suggesting that?

Remember I’m just a voice in your head, da jie.

The ghosts wavered.

“If you were anyone else, we would have sucked all the energy from you in an instant.”

“Asking a wandering ghost about their life? Are you looking for death?”

“Perhaps that’s what you really want?”

Gong Lau Yan held her hands up placatingly. “Dai dzes, I sincerely promise that I will help you. I’ll ease your thirst, if only you’ll assist me. I know I’m asking a great deal, but I swear that you will not regret it.”

There was no sound in those dark corridors.

“We are wandering ghosts,” one of them said, hollow. “We are made of regret.”

“Haven’t you had enough?” asked Gong Lau Yan, softly.

A shiver ran through the spirits.

“I… I think my name… had a bird in it,” said one ghost, stumbling over the words. “I remember I lived on the fifth level.”

“Down here?” Gong Lau Yan asked quickly.

“Of course down here. We couldn’t afford to live in the city above. Besides… I think we were… happy… in Bak San.”

“Bak San? Eight Mountains?”

The ghosts flickered.

“Down here. This place is called Bak San. Didn’t you know that?”

“I’ll explain later,” Gong Lau Yan said, deflecting with a winning smile. “Please don’t let me interrupt you, dai dze.”

“I remember nothing else,” the ghost deferred abruptly.

“I remember a red room,” said another ghost. “Perfume. Silk… I believe I worked at a pleasure palace. I think, overall, it was a good place. I was generally treated well.”

“Sugar,” said the third ghost. “I remember the smell of sugar. It was hot too…”

“A sweets stall?” Gong Lau Yan suggested.

“Yes, I think you’re right. We had a big sign over the door with gold-painted letters.”

The ghosts seemed more solid, their tongues shorter, and colour seemed to have bled a little into their clothes and skin and hair. They clutched their bony hands.

“It… it hurts…”

“I remember… I remember…”

“Why dd I have to die like that? It’s not fair!”

They began to writhe. Gong Lau Yan planted her feet firmly. “Was it the dryness, dai dzes?”

“Dry… So thirsty…”

“The upper levels are cursed…”

“Go down… Go lower… Get away…”

One of the ghosts lunged at Gong Lau Yan. “How could you!”

Throwing the luminescent pearl upwards, the loong side-stepped, and flicked her own earlobes with her fingers. Two pearl earrings on each ear glowed suddenly golden in the darkness, like four fierce eyes.

The ghosts shrank back and tried to flee, but Gong Lau Yan rapidly pulled four flat wooden discs from a pouch and with a flick of her wrist, threw them to surround the spirits.

“Peachwood!”

“Four gold eyes…”

“Exorcist!”

Huddling together, the ghosts cursed and spat at Gong Lau Yan, but they couldn’t cross the barrier made by the peachwood discs.

“It’s safe to come out now,” Gong Lau Yan said over her shoulder. Zeyi stepped out immediately, and a few moments later, Gou Gin Gam popped out too.

“Stay back,” Gong Lau Yan cautioned, as Zeyi approached. “They’re contained for now but your strong Yin energy will be a big temptation for them. Let’s not have you get possessed.”

The ghosts became quiet, turning their skeletal faces towards Zeyi. Gou Gin Gam looked at the scene with fascination. “Amazing! You’re an exorcist?”

“I have some knowledge of ghosts and demons.”

“Demons too? Maybe you can help us out. We generally all get along well, but sometimes ghosts and demons cause trouble that we humans can’t do anything about.”

Hey, Fan Bi’an’s voice said to Zeyi. Take one of those discs.

What? Why?

Teach Gong Lau Yan a lesson for flirting with those ghosts.

What am I, five years old? No!

“Dai dzes, please forgive me for restricting you like this. I hope you understand.”

“You were never going to give us your energy, were you?”

“You lied.”

“Liar!”

“I never said I would give you my energy,” Gong Lau Yan said. “I said I would help you. And I will. What is holding you here, dai dzes?”

One ghost, the one who thought her name had a bird in it, whose grey clothes were now faintly dyed with green, said immediately, “Let me see the sky.”

The sky? Gong Lau Yan looked troubled. “Is that so…? I’m not sure that you would be safe travelling through the cursed zone to reach the sky, dai dze.”

“You did it.”

“That’s because we have high cultivation levels,” Zeyi interrupted. “Even so, it was difficult for us too.”

“I’m not leaving,” said another ghost. There were blue shades to her rags. “The young ones need me down here.”

The last ghost merely shook her head.

“I can’t give you my energy,” Gong Lau Yan sighed. “But one day you will be able to leave here. We’ll lift the curse.”

“Who are you to promise such things?”

“Cultivators? Since when did cultivators care about Bak San?”

“We’ve existed happily enough down here by ourselves. Let nobles and cultivators mind their own business.”

Gong Lau Yan shrugged. “I’ll continue to try anyway. I’m going to let you go now.”

“You break our hearts and then expect us to just pick up the pieces like young wives?” he third ghost mocked. Her clothing was faintly pink. “You’re worse than a man.”

“My apologies.”

The third ghost, who had spoken of silks and perfumes, turned away, covering her grotesque face and tongue with a hand like a woman hiding behind a fan. Zeyi felt like their gazes met as she turned, despite the ghost’s lack of eyes.

Take the disc.

How bad could it be?

“Take this.” Gong Lau Yan held out a palm-sized talisman. Made of red coral, it was a round disc carved with the face of a snarling shi zi, with a luxurious yellow tassel. When the loong slipped the hanging cord over Zeyi’s wrist, it felt surprisingly heavy.

Zeyi watched distantly as Gong Lau Yan turned to Gou Gin Gam with a paper talisman, the yellow sheaf marked with red writing. Then she looked at the pink ghost.

Gong Lau Yan felt a prickle on the back of her neck.

“Well. How delightful.”

The red coral talisman lay on the cracked rock of the floor. Two of the peachwood discs had been stacked on top of each other, breaking the barrier around the ghosts.

The blue and green ghosts were still there, huddled together, staring at the woman who was gently patting herself down, delicately touching her face, running a thumb over her own lips.

“It seems like you have helped me after all,” said the ghost with Zeyi’s face.