SES Chapter 31

Chapter 31

It felt like they had waited forever. Drowsiness hit Mu Dai like a wave, and she dozed off against the sofa. In her haze, she thought she heard a faint tearing sound—like paper being ripped.

Then she vaguely heard Luo Ren ask, “What happened?”

Yi Wansan replied, “Messed it up.”

Even in her sleep, Mu Dai couldn’t resist dissing him in her mind: Blind drawing, huh? Acting like you’re some grand master.

Then, suddenly, the whole room lit up.

Mu Dai shot upright, her head buzzing, disoriented like she had no idea where—or when—she was. Across from her, Cao Yanhua blinked groggily, squinting as the bright light stung his eyes.

Mu Dai felt a wave of shame. She was supposed to be on night watch. What a disgrace to her entire sect.

She checked her phone—4 a.m.

There was the crisp sound of paper being handled. Yi Wansan had already sat up and was now massaging his neck. Luo Ren stood beside him, eyes focused on a freshly torn sheet of drawing paper.

Wait, he finished it already?

Mu Dai’s memory from before she had nodded off finally kicked back in, and she quickly moved in to look.

Yi Wansan’s overnight masterpiece? If she had to describe it in four words: chewed up by a dog.

He spent nearly four or five hours on that? Seriously?

Yawning, Yi Wansan muttered with a trace of annoyance, “Come on, Boss Lady. It’s good enough. It was pitch black. I was drawing blind. What do you expect? I’m not some divine brush spirit. I already scrapped a bunch of pages.”

Subtext: Quit complaining.

Luo Ren offered a more patient explanation. “Yi Wansan said that after a while, the water’s reflections started repeating. In other words, all those scattered flickers combined to form one complete picture.”

A single picture? This?

Mu Dai didn’t even know where to begin describing it. In the distance, a few casual strokes hinted at mountains—anyone familiar with ink wash paintings would recognize the suggestion of a mountain range. The foreground was a sweeping, horizontal brushstroke—probably meant to be a river.

Between the mountains and the river, the scene is split into left and right halves. On the left…

Mu Dai squinted. “Is that… a wolf?”

Luo Ren glanced at her. “Maybe. I thought it looked like a dog.”

Cao Yanhua leaned in and offered his profound take: “A wolf-dog, maybe.”

Wolf or dog—same family either way.

Then on the right, there was a rolled bamboo scroll, like the kind ministers used to submit memorials to emperors in ancient times. But what stood out weren’t the scrolls—it was the three birds perched on top, spaced across the top, middle, and bottom.

The top two looked similar—despite Yi Wansan’s artistic limitations, you could tell they had long tails. Maybe peacocks? But the heads didn’t match. After some debate, they decided they were likely phoenixes.

But the third bird at the bottom? It looked like a chicken.

Luo Ren asked the group, “So, you’ve seen it now. Thoughts?”

Mu Dai replied matter-of-factly, “So there’s this wolf—or dog—squatting by the river like it’s about to throw itself in. Then you’ve got two phoenixes and a chicken perched on a scroll. That’s it.”

That was it? Luo Ren’s temple twitched. “You don’t pull any punches.”

He turned to Cao Yanhua. “How about you?”

Cao Yanhua, a guy who didn’t know much but liked to sound like he did, cleared his throat and attempted to sound deep: “I think… you can’t just look at the surface. There’s a deeper meaning.”

“Oh?” Luo Ren humored him.

“See, that wolf or dog could represent an evil force. In ancient times, insults often involved wolves or dogs, like ‘heart of a wolf, lungs of a dog’ or ‘you beast.’ So it’s probably some evil force. And over here, you’ve got the phoenixes and the chicken. That chicken is on the bottom scroll, and that scroll looks like a wooden rack. Reminds me of the saying ‘a fallen phoenix is worse than a chicken.’”

Wow. That was some serious reaching—like reading an allegory into a doodle. So someone got framed by evil forces, fell from grace, and is now beneath a chicken?

Yi Wansan didn’t weigh in. He just weakly waved his hand. “Don’t ask me. All I see are thousands of brushstrokes. To me, it’s just lines.”

Mu Dai and Cao Yanhua both looked to Luo Ren: Okay, your turn—what do you think?

Luo Ren shrugged. “I don’t get it either. Let’s wait a bit, then call the spirit medium.”

Mu Dai felt an odd surge of pride.

After all, she was the one who first found that guy. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud.

From four to five, then to six o’clock—Yi Wansan passed out snoring. Cao Yanhua wandered in circles around the water basin, occasionally sticking his head over to peek.

Mu Dai scoffed. “Keep staring. It’ll jump out and latch onto your face.”

Cao Yanhua recoiled in horror, his neck shrinking so far that it disappeared.

Around 7 a.m., Uncle Zheng called. He was swinging by to grab some of Pingting’s hospital stuff. Luo Ren asked him to bring breakfast—rice porridge, sesame flatbreads, pan-fried dumplings, and tea eggs. The table was full. As they set out bowls and chopsticks, it almost felt… domestic.

Mu Dai hid in the corner to call the spirit medium, trying to arrange a good time to talk. She worried he might still be asleep—but to her surprise, he picked up right away, cheerful and wide awake. “I’m out doing my morning workout.”

Workout? The guy was living a balanced, healthy life?

“My friend told me—if you’re always running around the country, you’ve got to take care of your body.”

Mu Dai was genuinely impressed. “Sounds like your friend cares about you.”

The truth? The friend’s original words were: “I’ve got a wife and kid now. I don’t have time to babysit you. If you catch a cold and bother me again, I swear I’ll kill you.”

Still, the spirit medium took it as tough love. Her compliment made him even happier. “Of course! He’s my best friend.”

After the small talk, Mu Dai got straight to the point. Luo Ren guessed who she was calling and motioned for her to put the phone on speaker while signaling the others to quiet down.

The breakfast clatter died down. Even Cao Yanhua slowed his chewing.

“Afraid of water? But not fire? Never heard of that…” the spirit medium mused.

Disappointed, Mu Dai tried again, bringing up the drawing—the mountains, the river, the wolf-dog, the two phoenixes and the one… chicken.

The spirit medium suddenly got excited. “Hold on, hold on—what did you just say? Two phoenixes, one chicken, arranged top to bottom, sitting on a bamboo scroll?”

Mu Dai’s heart pounded. Everyone at the table stopped. Luo Ren gave her a nod—go on.

“How many bamboo slats?” the spirit medium asked.

Mu Dai mouthed to Luo Ren, “Where’s the drawing?”

Before he could answer, Yi Wansan chimed in, “Seven. I drew it. I remember where the lines stopped—there were seven.”

The spirit medium audibly sucked in a breath.

Mu Dai didn’t dare rush him. A moment later, she heard his voice, filled with awe: “Seven slats… it really exists…”

What did that mean? If he could say that, he knew something. Mu Dai’s heart raced. “So what does it mean?”

The spirit medium laughed. “Little Airhead, your brain’s like an empty pocket. That’s not a chicken. That’s a luan bird. Luan—red, multicolored, shaped like a chicken. Never heard of it?”

He just called her an empty pocket? What the heck? Nobody taught that in school. Blame Yi Wansan—he didn’t even color the drawing! If he had, she wouldn’t have mistaken it for a chicken.

Mu Dai shot Yi Wansan a glare, as if she’d recognize a luan if he’d just colored it in. Realistically, even if it was brightly painted, she’d still call it a fancy rooster.

“The two birds up top weren’t phoenixes either. One’s a feng, the other a huang. Feng, huang, luan—top, middle, bottom. Those are three sacred birds from ancient Chinese mythology. What you saw was a set of seven cursed bamboo slips sealed with phoenix spirits.”

Seven cursed slips?

And then, completely unbothered, the spirit medium said, “Hang on, I gotta check my notes.”

Check his notes? Mu Dai felt like a cat scratching at a wall. She wanted to reach through the phone and yank him out by the collar.

Luo Ren, more composed, said calmly, “We’ve waited this long. What’s another hour or two?”

His voice was carefully controlled, but Mu Dai could tell how much this mattered to him. She nodded, genuinely happy for him.

Then Yi Wansan grumbled, “Phoenixes and luans sealing bamboo slips or whatever—can one of you give me the background here? I spent all night drawing that thing.”

After scarfing down breakfast, they relocated to Luo Ren’s room. Cao Yanhua carried the basin like it was a live bomb, arms stretched to the limit, cursing his short limbs.

Luo Ren’s room had the perfect wall to use as a display. Three past cases, the fishing-line doll, all laid out. Cao Yanhua stared, stunned, while Yi Wansan looked increasingly confused.

“So what do these slips have to do with anything?”

Mu Dai plugged in her phone, prepping for what might be a long call. “That’s something only the spirit medium can answer.”

It wasn’t until the afternoon that he called back. The sun was already sinking, casting red light across the wall and lending the room an otherworldly glow.

Finally. The moment they’d been waiting for. Mu Dai thought, if she had to buy a ticket to hear this, she would.

The rustling of paper came through the phone. Wan Fenghuo once said the spirit medium wrote everything by hand—twenty-plus years’ worth of notes stored in sacks. Which year was this notebook from? Must’ve been old.

“This… yeah, I heard about this a long time ago. Near Hangu Pass. Only there. An old man told me—like a legend.”

Hangu Pass?

The whole thing felt like a giant puzzle, missing so many pieces. But now, Mu Dai felt another one just clicked into place.

“Where to begin? Do you believe that everything in this world has a ‘first’? The first person to eat an apple. The first to eat a crab. The first to learn to swim.”

Of course. A long time ago, sure—but someone had to be first. Like how historians say primitive people once ate raw meat until lightning struck a forest, cooked the animals, and the scent of meat drew them in. The bravest one said, “Let me try it.”

And thus began the age of cooked food.

“They say, long ago, there were seven crimes—the first seven ever recorded in writing. Not tied-up-knot-style memory records—those don’t count. No one could understand those. But written records, maybe on oracle bones or turtle shells, those seven cases were said to carry a kind of corrupting power. Anyone who came in contact with them would have their personality twisted, and end up committing similar crimes. People feared them. Called them cursed.”

Luo Ren asked, “Why seven?”

The spirit medium sighed. “I don’t know exactly. I did some digging—‘seven’ shows up a lot. In the Book of Han, it says: ‘Seven marks the beginning of man, the world, and the seasons.’ One week has seven days. In Buddhism, you’ve got seven treasures, seven sufferings. Even funerals are marked every seven days—like the first week, second week…”

“Even in the West, seven holds meaning. In the Bible, God created the world in seven days. In Catholic doctrine, there are the Seven Deadly Sins.”

Mu Dai didn’t care about the number. She cared about something else: “Why do people change after touching them? Is it… possession?”

Just saying it gave her goosebumps.

Luo Ren considered it. “Like Japanese… character spirits?”

He was referring to Jibakurei, or in this case, the story from Onmyoji by Yumemakura Baku—about a Tang monk copying sutras, only to find a spirit appearing because he wrote one character wrong. A woman with no mouth appeared—because he left the “mouth” radical off the word “如” in Vairocana.

Spirit of the written word.

The spirit medium thought about it. “No, not quite. That’s just a ghost story. What I’m talking about can’t be seen or touched—it’s more like a curse. Like the curse of the pharaohs—something that brings misfortune just by existing.”

“People feared it. They prayed to the gods, sacrificed to spirits. Legend says the oracle revealed that someday, a virtuous man would be born to end the curse.”

The spirit medium’s tone suddenly lifted. “And this man—he existed. He lived during the late Spring and Autumn Period. Famous in Chinese cultural history. A world-class name. Guess who?”

Cao Yanhua shouted, “Confucius!”

Luo Ren corrected him, “Laozi.”

The spirit medium laughed. “Point to Little Radish. Who answered just now?”

Cao Yanhua had been warned by Mu Dai to be extra respectful: “Hello, sir. My surname is Cao. You can call me Fatty Cao.”

“Fatty Cao” was bad enough. He didn’t want a second nickname. “Little Radish”? How did Luo Ren live with it?

The spirit medium explained, “Confucius was important, sure. But earlier, I mentioned Hangu Pass. That’s deeply connected to Laozi. He’s the founder of Daoism, revered as Taishang Laojun—he’s far more mystical than Confucius.”

He continued, “The story of the seven cursed slips starts with Laozi passing through Hangu Pass.”

Legend says, when the Zhou dynasty declined, the virtuous Laozi decided to withdraw from society. He rode a green ox to the pass. The gatekeeper, Yin Xi, had a sense of celestial signs. He saw purple air rising in the east and knew a great sage was coming. He stopped Laozi at the gate and begged him to leave something behind.

History says Laozi stayed three months and wrote the 5,000-word Dao De Jing.

But the version the spirit medium heard goes further.

In that version, Laozi wanted to rid the world of a great evil. He transferred seven malicious spirits from oracle bones onto seven bamboo slips. Then he sealed them using three bronze clasps shaped like the phoenix, huang, and luan—sacred birds.

He told Yin Xi that the world was made of five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Each could suppress the curse temporarily, but not permanently.

The bamboo slips were wood, born of earth and nourished by water—thus containing wood, earth, and water. The bronze clasps were metal. The phoenix, huang, and luan were divine birds associated with fire. Together, they encompassed all five elements.

He used the auspicious energy of the sacred birds to seal the seven cursed slips.

Yin Xi respectfully accepted them and asked, “Why not just destroy them?”

Laozi sighed. “Even if they are wicked, they are part of human history. Erasing them would not undo what has already happened.”

Yin Xi asked again, “But what if one day the seals are broken and the slips are released?”

Laozi laughed, twirled his whisk, and rode off on his green ox, saying, “Don’t worry. No one on this earth can break the Phoenix Seals.”