Chapter 8: The Night of the Unknown

That evening, the middle-aged man did not come out for dinner.

The innkeeper of Fulu Inn naturally wouldn’t call him. Merchants who traveled this route mostly brought their own food to save money. Eating in their rooms was normal.

Weiyuan Fort Post Station was too remote. Restocking supplies was troublesome, so prices were much higher.

The innkeeper didn’t expect to make money from meals. Room fees were enough.

However, this night was destined to be unforgettable.

After nightfall, the girl went to find the middle-aged man. She knocked for a long time, but no one answered.

She went downstairs. No one was there.

She checked the yard. The cart was still there, and the horse was eating fodder.

She left the inn and walked outside. The area enclosed by the wall was too small. She reached the end quickly.

There was only this inn and a post station. No medical hall as mentioned in the books. No restaurant either.

Back inside, the girl went to the counter, where the innkeeper was dozing. She woke him up and pointed upstairs.

The innkeeper understood. “Him? He didn’t come down. He’s not in his room?”

The girl took out her own key and pointed again.

He caught on immediately. “He’s in trouble?”

He pulled another key from under the counter. He was starting to panic. Remembering how the man looked during the day, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d dropped dead suddenly.

They went upstairs together.

The innkeeper knocked. No response.

The noise woke up the woman in another room. She came into the hallway and asked what was happening.

The innkeeper asked her if she’d seen the middle-aged man.

She briefly recounted the afternoon. The last she’d seen him was then.

Everyone had a bad feeling.

With the others as witnesses, the innkeeper used the spare key to open the man’s room.

It was pitch black inside. No lamp lit.

Just as the innkeeper was about to enter, the girl suddenly grabbed his sleeve and shook her head.

Something wrong in there?

The innkeeper hurried downstairs to get an oil lamp.

The woman went back to her room to get one too.

They were both flustered.

The girl didn’t dare enter. She didn’t know what to do.

Ning Su had taught her spells, but she couldn’t use them. A fatal flaw meant that the boy back then had no affinity with any spell. It was the same now. The girl couldn’t use magic.

She wanted to help this man, but her power wouldn’t allow it. If she could defeat an enemy, that enemy would already be dead. Whether it was the enemy she hated most or the one before her now.

She hated her own weakness.

By the time the innkeeper and the woman returned with lamps, illuminating the room from the doorway, she still hadn’t thought of a way.

The middle-aged man was lying face down on the floor, facing the door. Before collapsing, he must have tried to crawl out for help.

The woman’s lamp dropped. She was terrified by what she saw.

But the innkeeper was more experienced and kept his hands steady. They saw not only the man on the floor but also an almost transparent humanoid outline in the room.

It was the size of an adult, right on the man’s shoulder, motionless.

The outline vanished in a blink, as if it had been an illusion.

The innkeeper realized that when the girl had stopped him, she might have saved his life. If he’d gone in, he might have ended up the same way.

“Is he still alive?” the innkeeper asked dully.

The girl nodded. The man was alive for now, but hanging by a thread.

“Did I see it right? That thing… was it that kind of thing?” He didn’t dare say ‘dirty thing’ or ‘ghost’, afraid of angering whatever was invisible.

The girl didn’t react, taking it as confirmation.

The innkeeper figured she was a professional. He hid behind her instead of running.

The woman also stayed, hiding behind the innkeeper.

The commotion woke up another merchant. He came to the hallway and saw the big scene.

The innkeeper asked him for a favor. The merchant rushed out of the inn to the next door post station and brought back a soldier.

The soldier came, but what could he do? He was scared. He didn’t dare enter the room.

They couldn’t see the thing on the man’s neck anymore, but the innkeeper and the woman kept describing what they’d seen, scaring everyone else stiff.

Last month, the man had been healthy. Now he was like this. Clearly, he’d picked up something unclean.

The soldier wasn’t stupid. Why would he go in?

“Miss Taoist… what should we do?” the soldier asked, deferring to the girl.

Then the man inside stirred. He lifted his head slightly and reached out toward the door. Then he slumped back down, unable to move.

A feeble voice escaped his lips: “Taoist… save… save me.”

The four people outside looked at her. The man inside looked at her too.

The girl gripped her axe tighter. Her gaze turned sharp. She made a decision.

She pointed at their oil lamps.

The innkeeper said, “You want the lamps? No? Oh, I get it. That thing is afraid of fire? You want to light up the room?”

When she nodded, they all got busy.

They opened every guest room. The soldier, the merchant, the woman, and the innkeeper gathered more than twenty oil lamps and placed them all along the hallway.

As two people partly responsible for this area, the innkeeper and the soldier showed courage. They walked into the room, hugging the walls, careful to place the lamps in every corner, making the room bright.

It seemed to help. The man regained some awareness. He opened his eyes and asked, “Miss Taoist… am I… going to die?”

This time, the girl neither nodded nor shook her head.

Everyone suddenly noticed that her face had turned pale. She looked drained.

It seemed that while they were arranging the lamps, she had done something.

She gripped her axe and walked into the room. She stopped two steps from the fallen man.

She raised the axe.

The strange phenomenon reappeared. A breeze blew inside the room, even though the windows were closed.

The innkeeper and the soldier rushed to protect the lamps, shielding them with their bodies.

Even the woman and the merchant came, along with a young man who had just arrived. They also entered, using hands or bodies to guard the lamps, keeping the room bright.

The girl held the axe high above her head, aiming at the man’s shoulder.

She brought it down.

The blade traced a beautiful arc.

Instead of hitting the floor, the axe stopped in midair, as if it had struck something invisible.

A faint light flashed. Their ears went dull, as if something had gripped them.

Then a piercing shriek filled the room. It made their heads ache. They had to cover their ears to dull the noise.

The axe in the girl’s hand shattered into thousands of fragments.

She leaned against the wall, exhausted.

A strong wind swept through the room, extinguishing most of the lamps in an instant. Only the lamp held by the young man remained.

Seeing this, everyone ran out of the room.

It was a while before they relit the lamps.

The room fell quiet again, as if nothing had happened.

But the shattered axe pieces proved otherwise.

The middle-aged man regained consciousness. He was weak but managed to crawl back onto his bed.

The innkeeper made him some porridge.

The woman helped him sit up and fed him.

Seeing the tired girl, the man seemed to understand. He said, “Thank you for saving my life, Miss Taoist. Is it… not over yet?”

The girl nodded. Then she looked at his shoulder, then up at the ceiling.

The man swallowed a spoonful of porridge and asked, “How long do I have? A year?”

She shook her head.

“A month?”

Still no.

He pushed away the spoon the woman offered. “Seven days?”

The girl shook her head again.

He let out a trembling sigh. “One day?”

The girl didn’t react, which was answer enough.

Everyone understood now. His current state was just a brief rally before the end.

The man tried to straighten his neck but couldn’t. He could only tilt it as far as possible. “That filth is still here, isn’t it? Even you couldn’t kill it, Miss Taoist?”

The girl nodded.

No one doubted her effort. They had seen it. Even the axe had broken unnaturally.

The woman and the innkeeper retreated to the doorway. Only the girl stayed inside.

The man struggled. He dragged his dying body off the bed, knelt, and kowtowed to her a few times.

“No matter what, thank you for saving me. I have nothing to repay.” That was all he could do.

He went back to bed, picked up the porridge, and started drinking it himself. As if trying to prove he could hold on through sheer will.

But it was no use.

The next day, when they went to see him, he could barely move. He had wet the bed.

The woman changed his clothes and cleaned him up.

That night, sounds came from his room again. The girl, who had been keeping watch outside, opened the door. The innkeeper and the woman also woke up and came to check.

The man had fallen off the bed and was unconscious. His breath was very faint.

The girl tried to lift him back onto the bed, but she couldn’t do it alone. The woman hesitated, then came over. Together, they hoisted him onto the bed.

Gasping for air, the man pointed at the innkeeper.

The innkeeper steeled himself and came over.

“I’m… sorry… for… dirtying your inn,” the man whispered.

The innkeeper didn’t say anything. He turned away and wiped his eyes.

Watching the man, whose eyes were now just slits, struggling to inhale but unable to get any air in, the girl opened her mouth and began to hum in rhythm. It was “Guangling San,” the song she had heard on the road a few days ago.

The five notes of the scale formed the most basic pentatonic of this era. In a certain order, they became beautiful music.

When the girl hummed it, it was much more beautiful than when the man had hummed it before. Like heavenly music. Even though none of them had ever heard celestial music, that was the only word they could think of. Such music should only exist in heaven; how often could it be heard in the mortal world?

At some point, the man’s eyes had closed.

A semi-transparent shadow emerged from his body. It lingered for a long time.

When the girl finished humming, the shadow gradually turned into specks of light, passed through the ceiling, flew into the sky, and disappeared.

The room became quiet again.

The girl reached out, cradled the man’s head, and gently straightened it. There was no resistance this time.

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