Chapter 13 - Golden Incense

"The spirit world is a place that overlaps our world. It is home to many spiritual creatures that live off of spiritual energy. Humans intrinsically have a spiritual body, but most people never develop their connection to it." Edwin explained. He glanced over to Char Char, who was listening intently, then quickly looked away and racked his brain to come up with more things to share.

"I-In the spirit world, thoughts and intent have a much bigger impact than they do in the physical world. So it is really important to cultivate one's spirit before taking on the step towards candidate, since rash thoughts can have dangerous consequences in the spirit world."

Char Char's lips pressed together cutely as she thought about Edwin's description. "What does the spirit world look like? Is it similar to the real- I mean the physical world?"

"I'm told it looks like a place filled with living colours, where everything is constantly shifting and changing. It’s both similar to the physical world, but also different, like sometimes if there’s a house in the physical world, it will also be there in the spirit world, but maybe it will actually be a mansion, or a swamp, or..." Edwin glanced over again to see Char Char’s skeptical, confused expression and he shrugged helplessly, "I haven't actually, you know, seen it myself. I’m just repeating what the elders have told me. Like I said, becoming a candidate is really the first step towards connecting to the spirit world."

Char Char looked a bit deflated. "I see. It sounds really interesting.. But there's no hope for a regular person to see something like that, huh."

"Well, that's not totally true." Edwin rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as if he was stroking an imaginary beard. "Sometimes regular people can see ghosts and spirits in the physical world. With the right items you can even attract spirits to you if they’re around. You can do things like burn citronwood or amber incense, or offer certain foods like fresh meat, ginkgo biloba fruit, or persimmon. Especially in places high in spirituality like graveyards, temples, shrines-"

"Wait, there's a shrine nearby!" Char Char suddenly exclaimed. “It’s kind of hidden away too! I bet that’s the perfect place to look!”

Edwin instinctively leaned away from the enthusiastic girl as he stammered a reply, “Yes, well, uh- I suppose so. Spirits generally don’t come out just because you call them, though.”

Char Char was already on her feet, “It’s fine! I bet you’ll be able to tell if there really are spirits around. Wouldn’t such a place be the perfect place to meditate too?”

“Well, if it’s high in spiritual energy, I guess. But Mr. Fang told me to wait here for a detective.“

“It’s not like he said you couldn’t leave though. And they probably won’t visit right away, otherwise they’d have come in the morning. Do you really want to just sit around doing nothing all day? The maids can take down their contact information if we’re not back.” Char Char was speaking at a non stop pace as she grabbed her slippers and kicked the pillow she had been sitting on back onto the couch it belonged to.

“I guess you’re right, but I’d still rather wait- for... them...“ Edwin trailed off as she swiftly departed the room while calling for the maids to help her pack for a day trip. Her footsteps could be heard bounding up the stairs.

He sighed, and slowly brought himself up to his feet, straightening his robes underneath the thick cord belt around his waist.

“I should really stay.” Edwin said firmly to himself. “Even if the detective takes three days, no, even if he takes a week to show up, I shouldn’t leave this manor. It’s probably my best chance to find my master at this point.”

This was doubly true since the very reason he had come across Sansen Zhao was from a chance meeting with the man as he was struggling in his search for his master. Mr. Zhao was a wealthy businessman with old ties to the Cloud Peak Monastery, and many connections throughout the city. He was currently Edwin’s best hope to solving this issue.

He faced towards the large windows of the sun room that looked out onto a balcony. On the horizon, the tall white peaks of the Yonge mountains glimmered in the early afternoon sun. They reminded him of his home in ZhongShan, which was many weeks of travel away.

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“Yes. I have no choice but to stay.” He nodded firmly to himself.

The sound of footsteps running across the house approached, and he turned to see Char Char pop back into the doorway.

She was wearing a loose, short sleeved white cardigan and a youthful pastel yellow spring dress that swayed lightly just above her knees. On her head sat a wide brimmed sun hat with an arrangement of bright flowers tucked into a lavender ribbon. Her long black hair had been tied into a ponytail with a yellow ribbon. Edwin found his eyes being drawn to her bust and the curves of her waist and calves as the thoughts in his mind instantly vanished. He swallowed hard.

“Are you ready to go?” Char Char asked, her eyes bright.

A smile beamed on Edwin’s face reflexively.

“Sure!”

~

Yuzu sat on her bed in her room with the curtains drawn. Her knees were tucked into her chest as she sat with her back to the wall. Only a sliver of light shone out through the gap between the curtains, illuminating a line of hardwood floor across her darkened room.

Along the floor, an illusory golden thread weaved back and forth, so faint that it was almost like the light was playing tricks on her. She watched it intensely with a blank expression on her face. Her heart was beating so quickly she could feel it reverberating through her body. As she observed it, she came to realize that while it had a golden ‘core’, the thread wasn’t strongly defined. Instead, it was more like a wisp of golden smoke, ebbing and flowing across the floor of her room.

Was she hallucinating? Perhaps she had fallen ill. Perhaps she was actually asleep on her bed, and was having a dream. Half of her attention was spent trying to explain what she was seeing in a rational way. The other half was intently trying to dismiss the idea that it could be something magical or mystical in nature.

The smoky thread did not seem to have a life of its own. It wasn’t connected to her or anything. It simply ebbed and flowed across the floor, sometimes vanishing in portions, or growing more solid at times. Sometimes dissipating, sometimes reigniting. At times it looked like there may even be multiple threads.

It had all begun with the chest that the traveller had brought. The first golden thread she had seen in the storage room had originated from the chest, and attached itself to her. When she left the room the golden string around her had faded, but now here she was ten minutes later with illusory strings floating around her floor.

Her mind recalled the words that the traveller had said when he’d left. If anything strange happens, light some ... incense. Yuzu racked her brain. What kind of incense did he say? Did he even say the word incense? She wasn’t even listening at the time, so it was a small miracle that she even remembered that he’d given a warning at all.

Yuzu glanced over to her desk, which was on the opposite side of her room from the bed. Inside the drawer she had some incense sticks that she had thrown in months ago. She slowly crawled over to the edge of her bed, never taking her eyes off the smoke wisps on the floor. They didn’t look or feel dangerous to her, per say, but the cautious part of her kept her wary.

Using the windowsill as a support, she carefully reached as far as she could across the room towards the wooden chair at the desk, without touching the floor. Her fingers stretched out as she just barely couldn’t reach the back of the chair. She stayed in that awkward position for several seconds as she kept inching further, the tip of her toes nearly slipping off her bed in the process.

Got it! She managed to take hold of the rest of the chair, forming a triangle between her feet on the bed, her left hand on the windowsill and her right hand on the chair. Her hair had fallen over her eyes and was getting in her mouth. Shaking her head didn’t seem to help the situation. She also quickly realized that she couldn’t easily pull the chair back towards her in her current position, since she had distributed some of her weight onto the chair for balance.

She huffed, and prayed to Lord Noga that Xiang wouldn’t suddenly open the door and see her in this ridiculously awkward position.

With a little bit of rocking back and forth, the wooden chair began scraping its way towards her bit by bit, until she finally managed to shorten the triangle enough that it was no longer awkward to reach the chair. With the chair at the halfway point in the room Yuzu was able to step onto it and from there lean across and reach her desk. She sighed briefly at the reprieve, rubbing her tired arms and hands.

After a brief rest Yuzu reached over and opened the top drawer of her desk, pulling out the small package of incense. It was a set of half a dozen or so light brown sticks about twenty centimetres long, with thinner five centimetre long red ends. She also pulled out a matchbox from the drawer and brought her winnings back with her onto the bed.

Yuzu glanced at the paper packaging as she stuck one of the incense sticks into the dirt of a flower pot on her windowsill. Amber Incense, it read. Yuzu frowned. It didn’t sound quite right in her memory, but chances were that the exact incense type didn’t really matter, right? Even if the effect wasn’t one hundred percent potent, it would probably be better than nothing.

Yuzu took a match out of the box and held it in her hand, glancing over to the golden smoke that was still faintly twisting along the ground.

Here goes nothing. She muttered to herself silently, then struck the match and lit the incense.