“This… is that book?” I almost blurted it out. I slapped a hand over my own mouth, terrified one loud word might summon sothing we could never put back.
Hua, far steadier than I was, rely frowned and stepped closer. He lifted his folding fan and tapped the cover with its tip.
A chill rolled off the page.
My stomach dropped.
Hua opened to the first page. Blank.
He flipped another. Still blank.
“What?” I snatched it and rifled through the whole thing, front to back. Nothing.
Not a stroke of ink. Not even a water stain.
“Is this the damn book or not? What the hell is this supposed to an?” I nearly hurled it to the floor.
Juan spoke up timidly. “The man who gave it to … he didn’t say much.”
Hua turned, voice level. “That man. Anything distinct about him?”
“Just looked like an ordinary fellow…” Juan thought a mont. “Except… he had a mole under his eye.”
My chest tightened. Hua’s eyes narrowed, his fan slowly closing. “Then we should take this back to Senior An and ask again.”
“I’m not going back there!” I snapped. “We won’t get anything useful out of him.”
Hua stared at . “Then what do you propose?”
“I’m going back to the bookstore,” I growled.
Hua’s expression cooled. “Splitting up now is unwise. We go together. Juan—take Liu and Jiu and leave the city. Find sowhere safe to hide.”
Juan nodded quickly and gathered the children. We escorted them out of the ruined temple, watched them vanish into the night, then headed back toward the city.
When we stepped into the bookstore again, soone was already there.
Under the lamplight stood a middle-aged man in a green robe, back turned to us as he rummaged through a pile of books. A conspicuous black mole sat under his left eye.
I tugged Hua’s sleeve, whispering, “That’s got to be the one who gave Juan the book, right?”
Hua only inclined his head, eyes dark.
We approached and held out the blank book.
The man took one look and recoiled several steps, bowing over and over, face draining of color as though we’d handed him a corpse.
I grabbed a brush from the counter and pressed the tip down, letting the ink bleed across the paper. I wrote: “Explain.”
Hua stepped forward as well, snapping his fan shut with a sharp crack.
The shopkeeper broke instantly, sweat beading at his temples. After a long hesitation, he took the brush and scribbled a few crooked lines.
“My surna is Su. I am the owner of this shop.” The handwriting shook. “This book… it was not acquired by . One night, it simply appeared among the piles. I thought it abandoned trash and tossed it aside.”
His hand stalled. His eyes darted around, evasive.
Hua and I watched him silently, urging him to continue.
Su’s hand trembled harder, ink splattering. He wrote again:
“That night, I dread a foul dream. A woman stood before my bed—covered in blood. Her eyes wide, staring at . I woke in terror. My head split with pain, and my voice… was gone.”
He looked up as if wanting to defend himself, but guilt flickered unmistakably in his gaze.
My chest tightened. I dipped the brush and wrote: “Who was the woman?”
Su froze. Only after a long mont did he grit his teeth and write:
“Her surna was Lin. The villagers called her Madam Lin. Years ago, after her father died and her family fell to ruin, she was left with no one. Seeing her plight, I took pity and brought her into my ho, intending to make her my wife and give her stability.”
The words were noble enough on paper.
“Yet her fate was thin. She died within a year—difficult childbirth. I sought physicians everywhere, but could not save her.”
He ended with a sigh, shaking his head in false sorrow. But sothing in my gut twisted. Sothing was off.
Hua tapped the table with a knuckle, a cold little laugh under his breath. He rapped the fan against the paper—once, twice—demanding more.
Su’s forehead shone with sweat. His fingers clenched the brush. At last, he wrote:
“After Madam Lin’s passing, I dread of her every night. In the dreams, her gaze was cold and hollow, as though filled with resentnt. Ever since the book appeared in my shop, the dreams have grown clearer. I attempted several tis to burn it—yet whenever I approached the fire, my strength failed. Sothing tugged at my mind, and I could neither burn it nor destroy it. I could only set it aside.”
By this point, his handwriting had already fallen apart.
If one took his words at face value, it sounded almost like so tragic tale of rescuing a maiden and forging a destined bond.
But the mont you looked closer, the cracks were everywhere.
I stared at his self-righteous face and felt nothing but cold disgust. If he truly ant to “help,” he could’ve paid for her father’s burial and left it at that. Why drag her into his house? If it were really compassion, why did she remain trapped in misery until she died? And that talk about “fulfilling” her—what a joke. His every move was too precise, too calculated, as if he’d long expected her to fall straight into his hands.
Saving a life ought to be done openly, without sha. But here he was tiptoeing around every detail, terrified that one question might expose him.
The more I thought about it, the clearer it beca: this wasn’t rescue. It was entrapnt. That poor woman had likely had nowhere to run, and he had simply watched, step by step, until she walked into the cage he built.
I slamd the brush down and wrote one large character across the page:
“Lies.”
Shopkeeper Su’s face went sheet-white. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound ca out.
The candle flas in the shop flickered, shadows stretching and shrinking along the walls.
The “blank” book sat quietly on the table, and the eye on its cover seed to be watching each one of us.
Hua spoke then, voice calm and unhurried. “If your conscience is clear, Shopkeeper, why are you trembling?”
Su shuddered. He nearly dropped to his knees but held himself back, sweat trickling down his temples and soaking into the paper.
A strange illusion washed over —the characters he had written seed to writhe, as though about to crawl off the page.
I shook my head hard and forced myself to look away. There was only one certainty left in : this book was no ordinary object.
I was about to press further when Hua suddenly cut in. “Since that’s the case, why did you give the book to Juan?”
His voice wasn’t loud, but the question struck like an awl straight into Su’s chest.
The crafty old fox went pale and waved his hands frantically, looking exactly like a thief caught in the act.
Unfortunately for him, neither Hua nor I were easy to fool. Whatever evasive tricks he relied on in daily life were worthless under Hua’s cold stare.
I couldn’t help the cynical amusent rising in . Serves him right—should’ve thought of this sooner.
Shopkeeper Su finally broke. With a long sigh, he dipped the brush again. His hand was shaking so badly the tip quivered against the paper. He wrote a few lines, paused, then glanced up at us as though to confirm we wouldn’t stop him, and only then forced himself to continue:
“Beset by nightmares, I have not slept peacefully for three days. Madam Lin no longer appears. Instead, a bloody eye is staring at in my dreams. My mind feels as if pierced. Upon waking, I hear a faint voice calling to , urging toward this act.”
My scalp prickled.
I read the words and cursed under my breath.
Wonderful.
First he tiptoes around the truth, now suddenly the red eye shows up? If this was all just conscience, why the nightmares? Why the voices? This wasn’t the plight of so ordinary shopkeeper. This was soone with sothing vicious clamped around his soul.
“The bloody eye?” I muttered. That tied directly to what we’d encountered before.
Hua narrowed his gaze at the characters, expression growing colder, as though he were piecing together a pattern only he could see.
He closed his fan with a soft click. Sohow that single sound made Su flinch from head to toe.
By the end of the last sentence, the man could barely hold the brush. His sweat dripped freely, pooling at his sleeve. His lips trembled, like he wanted to add more, but nothing ca. After a mont, his whole body sagged sideways against the table, fingers curling weakly into his sleeve.
My heart seized. I reached out to steady him and found his face ashen, features stiff—another sudden attack of his so-called “head illness,” perhaps.
But knowing this old fox’s talent for theatrics, I couldn’t tell whether he was truly struck by it or simply dodging the question.
“Really? A few lines in and you’re already falling ill?” I couldn’t stop the cold laugh from slipping out. “Either Heaven’s sick of your lies—or the dead are eager to drag you down.”
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