CH 45

"Ugh!" Stone Zhang broke down into a coughing fit as the stench flooded his throat. Grimacing, he pinched his nose with one hand and fanned himself with the other, complaining, "What is that smell? It smells like medicine, but mixed in with something else... like mould."

"This is what it smells like when you mix fresh medicinal paste with the mouldy residue of old medicine," Jiang Shining said. He didn't need to hold his nose –– he was used to such smells.

In a room at the back of the Jiang compound had been a row of little stoves, which had gurgled every day with the sound of churning medicine, filling the whole compound with the thick stench of herbs. Every year, amid the fourth-month showers, the medicine residue that they stashed by the door in the mornings would, by evening, begin to emit a stark rotten smell. So the mixture of these two scents was not unfamiliar to Jiang Shining.

But how big was the Jiang compound, and how big was Qingping County? For such a strong stench to pour out as soon as the city gates opened, there had to be at least a dozen households nearby making fresh medicine and throwing out old residue. 

How could that many people be ill at the same time?

The group suddenly felt a sense of foreboding...

Jiang Shining's face hardened as he moved to step into the city. But in a series of slashes, the city guards all brandished their swords and gathered into formation in front of the gate, blocking the group's way.

"This xian cheng is not currently open for passage. Please return," a guard said harshly.

"If I may ask, officers, why is it not open for passage?" Jiang Shining asked nervously.

Still strict, the guard barked, "That is not for you to know. Please return!"

But as he said this, the guard’s eyes couldn't help but dart in Xuanmin's direction. The guard beside him, who had a square face, pointed his sword at the bundle in Xuanmin's arms and shouted, "Why are you bringing a dead person into the city? Are you trying to bring bad luck to us all?"

He reached out to push Xuanmin away, trying to herd the group farther from the gates.

“Pa––”

Just as the square-faced guard's hand was about to come into contact with Xuanmin, the black cloth on Xue Xian's face shifted and a white hand shot out to grip the man's wrist. Xue Xian turned to him darkly and said, "We're just talking here. Why are you trying to push us?"

"Ah––!" Stunned, the guard tried to yank his hand back, but found that he could not.

It really had not occurred to this guard that the person draped beneath that black cloth might still be alive, so Xue Xian's appearance had come as a nasty shock. His neck flushing red with embarrassment, the guard shouted, "How dare you! What are your intentions behind such trickery?"

He looked down at Xue Xian's thin white fingers and thought that they did not seem to be particularly strong. Roughly, he tried to yank his arm away again, but those fingers were like iron, and refused to let go.

"Let go!" the guard ordered, glaring at Xue Xian.

"Sure," Xue Xian said idly. "First tell us why the city is shut, and whether there might be room for a bending of the rules."

The zuzong’s tone was a casual and polite one, but with his tight grip on the guard's wrist, it made him seem all the more threatening.

Seeing the situation, the other guards began to shuffle forward, as though planning to surround the group. Still holding Xue Xian in his arms, Xuanmin lightly shut his eyes and muttered something inaudible, then tapped his right foot against the ground.

The guards felt a tremor in the ground that sent them all stumbling –– right back to where they'd been standing before.

Bewildered, the guards said, "Earthquake?"

It appeared that the previous earthquake in Anqing Prefecture had made a mark on them. That slight tremor had scared all the guards stiff –– they looked at each other with trepidation, afraid to make another move, as though waiting for the earth to shake again.

"Let go!" The square-faced guard was becoming desperate. He bent his knees and tried to pull his hand away once more, yelling, "It's not that we don't want to tell you. You can see for yourself that there have been troubles in Qingping County lately. Our homes keep shaking and the plague is spreading. When we ask you to leave, it's for your own good!"

"Plague?" Xue Xian asked. "There's plague in Qingping County?"

Seeing that the group wasn't going to go away anytime soon, the square-faced guard sighed and shook his head. "After the earthquake a few days ago, several cracks appeared along the ground and strange black bugs crawled out. The townspeople who were bitten by the bugs have all grown rashes, but they can't scratch the rashes no matter how much it hurts or itches, because if the rash bursts, it will soon start to rot with gangrene. It's a horrifying sight."

"What about the doctors?" Jiang Shining couldn't help but ask. "Could they not treat the illness in time?"

"At first, we had no idea that so many people had the illness. Some went to the doctor, but others saw it as a minor issue and tried to deal with it themselves. But then we discovered that it was contagious..." The guard lowered his voice, so that his tone now sounded ominous. "The spread has been unusually fast. Can't you smell the medicine all over town?"

"Stop wasting your breath on them!" The other guards had realised that another earthquake was not imminent, and were standing straight again, getting ready to chase the group away.

If you keep blocking me like this, then don't blame me for pulling out all the stops, Xue Xian thought.

This zuzong had always done what he wanted, acting without restraint. Although the guards weren't being illogical, Xue Xian really did need to get into the city, and would do so no matter what –– even if he had to turn back into a dragon and fly them in.

As the guards marched closer, seemingly ready to use force, a dark-skinned guard standing at the back of the group suddenly cried out and pointed at the square-faced guard's neck. "Li-ge, [a] your... the back of your neck!" 

"What is it?" Hearing his friend's tone of voice, the square-faced guard became anxious. His hand shot to his neck. That morning, as he'd put on his uniform, he'd felt something off in that part of his body, but had chalked it up to the friction of his collar –– he'd been in a hurry to get to his shift, and had not thought of it further. 

"You have a rash!" Another guard brought a lantern over to see, then backed away. "The size of two thumbs!"

The others had been inching forward to take a look for themselves, but as they heard this, they all scattered away like the breaking of a wave.

"Oh..." Xue Xian said. "So that's what those rashes look like. You have one between your thumb and forefinger too." He calmly pinched the guard's wrist, showing it to him. "Look, there it is."

The square-faced guard was stupefied.

As Xue Xian took another glance at the rash, he suddenly had an idea.

The zuzong’s idea was... highly unusual. He hissed with surprise and fixed his gaze on his own hand, which still gripped the guard's wrist. "It really is contagious. Look, I have it now."

The square-faced guard followed his gaze down to their hands, where he saw that an angry red rash was spreading across Xue Xian's hand at an incredible speed, from the tip of his thumb all the way to the back of his hand. In an instant, the whole of Xue Xian’s hand became red and swollen, a balloon held up by a skinny white wrist. 

The surrounding guards were speechless with shock, and the square-faced guard had stopped breathing, his face a frozen picture of terror. Xue Xian asked, "What else did you say the rashes did?"

One of the guards muttered, "Pain... painful and itchy, skin flipping inside out..."

"Oh, right," Xue Xian replied.

Then the guards watched, horrified, as the skin and flesh on Xue Xian’s hand loosened. He twitched his finger, and a piece of flesh fell away.

The guards: “...”

"How rotten does it get again?" Xue Xian asked.

None of the guards were able to speak.

Seeing that he'd received no response, Xue Xian decided he might as well go big –– 

Now, more and more bloody pieces of meat were falling from his hand, and the square-faced guard screamed. He tried to jerk his wrist away from Xue Xian's tight claw again with all his might. But the guard should have stayed still, because...

There was a pata noise as the entirety of Xue Xian's hand snapped off of his arm and slapped onto the floor.

The guards: “…………”

"Look, I have the plague too," Xue Xian said. "My hand's already rotten off. And I'm half-paralysed, so I can't walk and I've been slowing down my whole group. If you make us go back now, by the time we can get to the next xian cheng and have a doctor treat me, I would probably have already sprayed my rot all over this one’s body." Xue Xian’s bone was visible from his broken wrist, and he used it to point at Xuanmin, almost smearing his blood all over Xuanmin’s face.

“...”

Xuanmin closed his eyes before he had to see more of that wrist.

He feared that if he forced his eyeballs to look at that mess for even a second longer, he would throw the wearisome niezhang to the ground.

Xue Xian flashed a dazzling smile at the guards. "Shouldn't you let me in now so I can see a doctor?" he asked sweetly, then put on a faux serious voice. "Answer me. Stop standing there. If you keep standing there, then you'll start to rot too."

The square-faced guard trembled and moved out of their way.

"Many thanks," Xuanmin said mildly. He began to stride in big steps toward the city, and as he did, the guards in front of him automatically split themselves into two rows to make room for him. As he passed, they scurried to press themselves against the city wall, as though if they approached him even a little, they would end up just like Xue Xian's hand.

The guards watched the group walk away and continued to stand there, stunned. Finally, one of the guards happened to be glancing down when he suddenly shouted, "Look!"

As the others turned, they saw that the guard was pointing at the spot on the floor where Xue Xian's hand had fallen. "The hand from just now... the hand disappeared..." the guard said.

Indeed, there was no longer any sign of the hand, and in its place lay a forsaken twig from a white plum tree.

Shocked, the guards turned on their heels to chase after the group, but found that they, too, had disappeared without a trace. 

They thought of reporting the incident to their superior, but noticed that the square-faced guard was still standing there. They called out to him, "Li-ge! Li-ge! Get moving! Go find a doctor! And if the clinic is busy, then go to Fang's Pharmacy to get some medicine. There have been so many people ordering medicine from Fang that he must know the recipe by heart now! We'll cover your shift. You hurry, okay?"

"Mn," the square-faced guard finally managed to say. He leant his sword against the city wall and trudged into the city, headed for the clinic in the west. 

On the other side of town, in an alley to the east, Xuanmin and the others were on their way to Jiang Shining's sister's. Stone Zhang kept turning his head to look back behind them, afraid that the guards would catch up to them soon.

"Stop tiring your neck. No one's coming," Xue Xian said. He would be able to hear if anyone was approaching. "Why are you so paranoid?"

How could you say that? the rest of the group thought.

Every time they visited a new city, the zuzong had to do something crazy in public, as though if he didn't, they would've shown up for nothing.

Jiang Shining had been to Anqing before –– only a few times, but enough to familiarise himself with the route. Very soon, they arrived before a set of doors.

The doors were very small, and did not seem to be the front doors of the compound, but rather the back doors that opened into a narrow side alley. This door had two round stone sculptures on either side of it, and a set of stone steps leading up to it.

"The front doors are to the pharmacy. Because they're so busy, the members of the household usually use the back door, which leads into the living quarters and the back courtyard," Jiang Shining explained. 

"Bald donkey, put me down." Seeing that Jiang Shining had knocked on the door, Xue Xian had Xuanmin place him on top of one of the statues.

Xue Xian held up his gangrenous wrist and began to grow his hand back. "Please," he said to Xuanmin, "could you do a spell to clean my clothes? I got some gore on my sleeve earlier."

“...” Jiang Shining, Stone Zhang, and even Lu Nianqi –– who had been ignoring everything up to that point –– averted their eyes in disgust.

Xuanmin glanced at Xue Xian's wrist then quickly looked away again –– that was probably the extreme limit that he could bear, with his aversion to anything unclean. He seemed overwhelmed by horror at this niezhang’s behavior, and did not move to draw a cleaning talisman for Xue Xian, probably doubting that even the talisman would be able to clean up all that blood and dead flesh. Instead, still with that ice-cold expression, Xuanmin raised his finger and drew it across Xue Xian's sleeve, then gave it a tug.

As though it had been sliced by a knife, that part of the sleeve dropped away. 

Then, holding that gore-covered piece of cloth, Xuanmin lit a match and burned it all away.

“...” Xue Xian had never expected that anyone would dare to tear his clothes, nor that the first person to do so would be the bald donkey. He stared in shock at his forearm, where there was now only half a sleeve. Then, he looked down again and snatched up the bottom of Xuanmin's robe, rubbing his new-grown hand furiously against it. Then he held the part of Xuanmin's robe back up at him and said, "Burn this too. If I have to have bare arms, then you have to have bare legs. That's the only thing that will appease the rage inside me right now."

Jiang Shining glanced with pity at Xuanmin. He was about to say something when the narrow door was finally pulled open from the inside and a girl of around ten years old asked, "Who is it?" while sticking out her head.

A familiar face!

Seeing that he knew the girl, Jiang Shining smiled and saluted her. "Oh, it's Xing––"

Before he could go on, the girl screamed and slammed the door shut again.

---

The author has something to say: 

[Acknowledgments to those who gave money on JJWXC]

---

[a] Ge: see glossary.