Chapter 282: Severing Ties

The shadow finished speaking in Lu Yuan's voice, and the stone chamber fell silent.

So quiet that even the water in the inverted well sounded muffled, as if something had smothered it.

Xu Erxiao was the first to turn his head, glancing at Lu Yuan behind him, then up at the figure on the stone path that matched Lu Yuan's height.

"Brother Lu, when did you slip over there?"

"I didn't move."

Lu Yuan stared at the shadow, his voice very low.

Wang Cheng'an held the broken abacus frame across his chest and swallowed.

"It even copies the way you talk."

"It doesn't copy."

"It's speaking through my shadow."

When the shadow heard that, it suddenly raised its hand.

Its motion was exactly the same as Lu Yuan's.

The blade tip tilted down slightly, the wrist angling outward by half an inch.

That was a habit Lu Yuan had developed from years of wielding a blade.

Not a bystander's posture could mimic that.

Lin Zhaoxuan's face went pale at the sight.

"It can mirror what you do?"

"A shadow normally follows a person," Lu Yuan said, "but once a shadow moves before the person, it stops being a shadow."

"What is it then?"

Song Qinghe asked.

"A shadow-soul."

Lu Yuan took a match from his waist and held it between two fingers without lighting it.

"A person's shadow is revealed by sun and lamp, it belongs to form. A shadow-soul is bound by a name, origin, and thought, it belongs to soul."

"In the mountains they peel shadows from beneath people's feet and stuff in a bit of yin energy, and those things are what grow."

Xu Erxiao lowered his voice:

"Then is it your shadow?"

"No."

Lu Yuan looked at that blank face.

"It only uses my form."

The shadow suddenly split its mouth in a grin.

Although there were no features on the face, a black seam opened where a mouth would be.

"You're right."

"You have no parents, no ancestral grave, no siblings, and no hometown."

"You died, and no one burned paper for you."

"You went missing, and no one searched for you."

"You won't even tell where you came from."

"Shadows like that are the easiest to peel."

Xu Erxiao swiveled his head violently.

"Brother Lu..."

Lu Yuan raised his hand to signal him to be silent.

The shadow continued:

"They left you a name, but they didn't leave you a root."

"Where did you come from?"

"Where will you go after you die?"

"Lu Yuan, you and the child in the well are the same, both without a home to return to."

The oil lamps in the stone chamber flickered gently.

Wang Cheng'an didn't grasp all the meaning behind the shadow's words but tightened his hold on the abacus frame by reflex.

"Brother Lu, don't listen to its nonsense."

"I know."

Lu Yuan answered.

He had been in this world many years now.

Long ago, he had been an ordinary person on Earth.

That sudden transmigration did not bring family letters, ancestral tablets, or old possessions, nor did it leave behind any origin this land would recognize.

Beyond the Great Wall he had no ancestral tombs, no clan records, no one who truly knew where he had come from.

All his roots had been clawed out later on—step by step in snow, mud, and piles of corpses.

His master, his junior brothers, and the companions here were what he was willing to protect now.

But none of that explained itself to the evil puppets.

The evil puppets excelled at turning a person's lack into destiny.

"My origin is none of your business."

Lu Yuan said.

The shadow stepped forward.

No shadow sat beneath its feet.

"Then leave behind your place to return to."

As the words fell, many dark-red footprints suddenly lit up around the chamber.

Those prints extended from the depths of the stone path outward, varying in size—adult and child—each sole wet, like someone had just crawled out of a well.

The last pair of prints stopped beside Lu Yuan's feet.

His shadow suddenly sank.

The black silhouette cast by the lamp looked as if an invisible hand had tugged up from the soles, its edge growing fuzzy.

Lu Yuan glanced down.

The shadow's right foot had already come loose from his shoe sole and was sliding slowly toward the depths of the path.

"Brother Lu!"

Xu Erxiao flung the red cloth, trying to wrap the shadow.

The cloth fell but passed through the shadow and struck the stone slab hard.

Wang Cheng'an cried out urgently:

"This thing isn't in front of our eyes!"

"It's in the lamp."

Lu Yuan said abruptly.

Song Qinghe blinked in surprise.

"In the lamp?"

"Not the oil lamp itself, but the surface the light casts."

Lu Yuan crouched and placed the unlit match horizontally on the ground, the match head facing north, the wood stem facing south.

"Shadows follow light, when the light dies the shadow scatters. It borrows the illumination, not the fire."

Lin Zhaoxuan understood immediately.

"Put out the lamp?"

"Not entirely."

Lu Yuan looked at the shadow that was gradually slipping away.

"If we put them all out, all our shadows belong to it."

"We need to change the light."

He took a pinch of incense ash from his pouch and produced a yellowed paper that had gone brittle.

It was a blank page torn from the offering ledger in the outer den.

Lu Yuan spread the yellow paper on the ground and dipped his index finger in the ash, writing three characters on the paper:

"Lock Shadow Gate."

When he finished, he bit his fingertip and pressed on the last stroke of the final character.

The blood did not drop onto the paper; instead it seeped along the strokes as if ink were flowing backward.

Lu Yuan sat cross-legged, his left hand forming the Ziwu seal.

Thumb pressing the base of the middle finger, index and middle finger extended together, ring and little fingers folded inward, palm facing down.

His right hand formed a sword seal.

Index and middle fingers straight, ring and little fingers bent, thumb pressing down on the roots of the two fingers.

He held the right-hand sword seal before his brow and intoned in a deep voice:

"The sun is the yang essence, the moon the yin soul, the lamp reveals man, the shadow accompanies man. Now with rootless fire, illuminate that which has a named master."

"Now with ownerless paper, close the formless road."

"Light before, barrier behind, do not greet on the left, do not follow on the right, shadow return to its place, soul guard its gate."

When he spoke the word "gate," the sword seal abruptly dropped downward.

The yellowed paper combusted without flame.

The blaze did not leap up but burned horizontally along the ground, just passing over the shadow by Lu Yuan's foot that was sliding away.

The shadow retracted suddenly.

From deep in the stone path came a sharp, thin wail.

The figure resembling Lu Yuan retreated for the first time.

"You're not a Daoist."

Its voice changed.

No longer like Lu Yuan's, it sounded like many people whispering blended together.

"You have no sectal origins."

"No ancestral altar incense."

"On what basis can your rites stand?"

Lu Yuan rose and pinched the burnt paper ash between his fingers.

"Rites do not rely on ancestral graves to take root."

"They rely on human hearts."

"My master taught me, when Daoists cast rites they first straighten themselves."

"If the person is not upright, the signs are sloppy; if the heart is unsettled, the incantations are empty noise."

"Whether I have an ancestral altar is my matter."

"Whether you can take things from beneath my feet is your skill."

The shadow was silent for a moment.

Then it spread both arms wide.

Red footprints from all directions slid forward at once.

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

The nine stone steles in the chamber all issued a low trembling sound together.

"The shadow stele isn't one single tablet," Lin Zhaoxuan said suddenly, "Asheng was right, it watches under everyone's feet."

"It's not hidden behind the stone," Lu Yuan said, looking at his feet, "it hides in our own shadows."

Before he finished, the shadow by Song Qinghe's foot twisted, as if a snake slithered from her skirt and struck at her throat.

Zhou Heng yanked her back with a strong pull.

The black wraith brushed past her ear and hit the stone wall, and a half woman's face formed out of the stone.

The woman's face was caked with mud and water, her mouth lacking a tongue, yet she screamed desperately:

"Return my shadow..."

The oil lamp in Song Qinghe's hand nearly fell.

Zhou Heng drew his short blade and stepped in front of her.

"Who are you?"

The woman's face turned to him, eyes slowly swiveling to look at his feet.

In Zhou Heng's shadow, a young man in school uniform appeared.

A pen stuck in his chest, face pressed down in the snow.

"This is..."

Zhou Heng's expression changed.

Lu Yuan glanced at him.

"Do you know him?"

Zhou Heng did not answer.

The figure in the shadow slowly lifted its head, revealing a face somewhat like Zhou Heng's.

"Brother."

At that single word Zhou Heng's short blade dropped from his hand.

"Don't answer!" Song Qinghe urged.

Zhou Heng seemed not to hear and took half a step forward.

"Second brother?"

The shadow-man reached out to him.

"Brother, the snow inside the pass was too heavy."

"You said you'd take me with you."

"Why did you leave me on the road?"

Zhou Heng froze.

Lin Zhaoxuan suddenly raised his hand, forming a vajra finger seal—thumb pressing down ring and little fingers, index and middle fingers joined—and gestured toward Zhou Heng's feet.

"Depart form!"

No effect.

The shadow figure had already grabbed Zhou Heng's ankle.

Zhou Heng's face flushed darkly; the shadow climbed from the foot up, past the instep and toward the knee.

Lu Yuan stepped forward, seized Zhou Heng by the collar, and pulled him back.

At the same time his left hand changed seals.

Thumb pressed the first phalanx of the index finger, index curved like a hook, middle finger straight, fingertip pointed to the earth.

This was the common Daoist "Earth Gate Close Sign."

Folk called it "closing the yin gate."

Lu Yuan fixed his gaze on Zhou Heng's feet and chanted:

"The earth gate is at the foot, the yin gate at the heel."

"People leave traces, souls return to a master."

"Borrow three parts of earth, seven parts of fire, lend me one breath of true qi, close your wicked gate. Close!"

He did not shout the final word; instead he pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and forced a short, muffled sound out through his nose.

"Seal!"

The finger seal dropped.

Zhou Heng's shadow abruptly turned pitch black as if nailed into a crack in the stone.

The student- uniform youth in the shadow let out a wail; his fingers snapped apart and withdrew back into the ground.

Zhou Heng staggered back on his knees, his face grisly.

"That was my brother."

"Your brother died on the flight from the disaster?" Lu Yuan asked.

Zhou Heng bit his teeth and nodded.

"When the disaster struck inside the pass, my mother led us toward the outer pass," he said.

"On the road bandits robbed travelers, my brother fell into a ditch."

"I went back to look for him, couldn't find him. Later people said he froze to death at the bottom of a snowbank."

"You saw the body yourself?"

Zhou Heng shook his head.

"No."

"Then that's not your brother."

Lu Yuan's tone was hard.

"It borrows your sense of guilt."

Zhou Heng clenched his fists, veins popping on the back of his hands.

"But that face..."

"If you remember his face, it can press that memory into a mask."

Lu Yuan looked at the blank figure in the stone path.

"Shadow-souls don't steal someone's appearance, they steal the piece of the heart the person most refuses to admit."

Zhou Heng took a deep breath and picked up his short blade again.

"Then when I see it again, I'll cut it down first."

"You can't strike it," Lu Yuan said, "but you can refuse to recognize it."

He turned to the group.

"The shadow stele demands that we acknowledge its right to stand under our feet."

"Whoever mentally acknowledges it, it can borrow that person's shadow."

"From now on, whoever sees a familiar face—kin, old friend—shut your mouth first, then step on the shadow."

"Do not call out the name, do not turn back, do not say 'it's you.'"

Xu Erxiao asked softly:

"What if I see my mother?"

Lu Yuan glanced at him.

"Your mother is still alive."

Xu Erxiao froze.

"Right."

"So if you see her, you don't need to be afraid."

"If she truly stands here, there would be footprints, and she wouldn't be standing in your shadow."

Wang Cheng'an suddenly asked:

"What if we see the Iron Abacus?"

"Don't answer either."

"Whether it's dead or alive is no longer for us to recognize."

Lu Yuan picked up the match from the ground.

A drop of black water had condensed on its head at some point.

He cupped the match in his palm and formed a fire seal with his right hand.

Thumb pressing at the base of the ring finger, index and middle fingers together, lightly stroking the match stem.

"Fire dwells in the south and illuminates the center."

"One wisp of paper-fire, lead the shadow home."

When he finished, he rubbed the match head with his left thumb.

"Click!"

The match flared to life.

The flame was an eerie blue.

It did not light the chamber broadly, but it brought out everyone's shadows.

Lu Yuan's shadow under his feet.

Xu Erxiao's shadow lacking a piece of the left shoulder.

Wang Cheng'an's shadow with an abacus behind it.

Lin Zhaoxuan's shadow clad in an old-style long robe.

Song Qinghe's shadow without a head.

Zhou Heng's shadow with the schoolboy beside its feet.

And the figure similar to Lu Yuan—under it there was no shadow.

"The stele is on it."

Song Qinghe whispered.

Not on it.

Lu Yuan looked at the blank figure's chest.

A fine black line ran there, like a spider thread descending from the roof of the stone chamber.

That line stretched all the way to the mountain crevice deep below.

"It's only the stele's projection."

"The real shadow stele sits above the mountain fissure."

"We have to draw it out."

"How?" Wang Cheng'an asked.

Lu Yuan glanced at the nine stone steles, then took the black wood tablet out and placed it before the "life" stele.

The crack on the black tablet slowly opened, revealing a ring of fine white patterns within—

not wood grain.

Letters worn away.

Lu Yuan put the broken abacus frame beside the black wood tablet and set the shattered mirror upright in the mountain crevice.

"What the Iron Abacus left are gaps after accounts were cut."

"When there are many empty places, the Malevolent Deity assumes someone will reopen the ledger."

"It fears someone rewriting the old names back in."

"So it will send shadow-souls to intercept."

Lu Yuan took out cinnabar and drew a simplified Douwang chart on the ground.

He first marked the seven Big Dipper points, then connected them with three horizontal and two vertical strokes to make a small gate.

When he reached the final stroke he paused.

"Lin Zhaoxuan."

"Present."

"Did you bring your sect's ink-line when you left the inner pass?"

Lin Zhaoxuan confirmed, then took an old wooden ink line from his bundle.

The ink line had darkened with age; traces of dried cinnabar clung to the thread.

"This was left by my master."

"Also the ink thread?"

"Yes."

"Pull it out."

Lin Zhaoxuan obeyed.

Lu Yuan stretched the ink thread across the stone chamber threshold, weighing each end under two stones.

Then he had Song Qinghe place the oil lamp at the center of the ink line, the wick turned to its smallest.

"This is the folk house-sealing ink line," Song Qinghe said, "can it block yin things?"

"An ordinary ink line only seals a doorway gap."

Lu Yuan sprinkled a black ash on the ink thread.

"But this thread has seen the blood of refugees from inside the pass and the ink of coffin planks; it once sealed the dead entering a home."

"Now we borrow its rule to keep a shadow from entering the door."

Lu Yuan formed hand seals.

Left thumb pinching the middle finger, right thumb pinching the ring finger, hands joined, each index finger extended and touching at the tips.

This was the "two gates joined" seal.

He closed his eyes and chanted slowly:

"Wood is bone, ink is blood, thread is boundary, the door is absolute."

"The living who cross leave footprints, the dead who cross leave names."

"Those without a name may not enter; those with a shadow may not be borrowed."

"Today we seal the mountain fissure, lock the lamp gate, let three inches of firelight shine the old road, one ink line sever the evil soul."

When he reached the end he suddenly opened his eyes.

"By thread as boundary, all shadows obey."

"Set!"

The flame in Song Qinghe's lamp straightened abruptly.

The blank figure was flung backward.

It did not smash into the stone wall but was driven into the mountain crevice.

Boom!

A muffled crash came from the chamber roof.

The whole mountain seemed to toss in slumber.

Chunks of stone rained down.

The chest of the blank figure split open and a palm-sized black stone fell out.

When the black stone hit the ground it made no sound; instead it flowed forward across the floor like a pool of ink.

Lu Yuan had prepared for this and stepped on the edge of the black stone.

A biting cold shot through his sole.

His shadow immediately split outward.

A character surfaced on the black stone.

"Shadow."

The strokes of the character weren't carved; they looked like many people's hair twisted together.

From the depths of the stone path rose a woman's cry:

"Return my shadow..."

Followed by a man's voice:

"I have no name..."

A child's voice:

"I want to go home..."

Voices multiplied, as if everyone hidden in the mountain spoke at once.

The blank figure rose again from the fissure.

Facial features began to form.

First Lu Yuan's brows and eyes.

Then Wang Cheng'an's mouth.

Then Xu Erxiao's nose.

Finally, an unfamiliar young man's face assembled.

The youth was dressed in clothing that did not belong to this era, standing in a blinding white light.

Lu Yuan's chest jolted.

It was the last scene he had seen before transmigration.

The station sign.

Glass doors.

Crowds.

And a car racing toward them.

The vision flashed only for an instant before he suppressed it.

But the shadow-soul had seized that instant.

"You want to go back."

It looked at him with the unfamiliar young man's face.

"You don't belong here."

"No one here knows who you truly are."

"Come with me, I will send you back."

Xu Erxiao's heart raced.

"Brother Lu, don't trust it!"

Lu Yuan did not answer.

The shadow-soul stood in the white light and stretched out its hand.

"You still have family over there."

"You have nothing here."

Lu Yuan stared at that hand and suddenly asked:

"Do you know what they called me over there?"

The shadow-soul did not speak.

"Do you know which city I came from?"

The shadow-soul's features began to blur.

"Do you know what I'm most afraid of?"

The shadow-soul took a step backward.

Lu Yuan lifted his blade.

"You only know I want to return."

"But you cannot even fully borrow my name, yet you would take my place of return?"

With that he stabbed the blade tip into the ground, pressing it over the "shadow" stele.

The blade sang a clear note.

He formed the thunder sign with his left hand.

Index and middle fingers together, thumb pressing ring and little fingers, palm facing outward.

Right hand aligned like a sword—first to the brow, then the heart, finally pointed at the ground.

"Heaven has thunder, earth has roots, man has shadow, soul has gate."

"Shadow is not stolen goods, soul is not an orphaned spirit."

"Borrow me three, unite my seven souls."

"Reject fake kin, reject fake homeland."

"My name stands by itself, my body will stand for itself."

These lines were not words of destruction.

They were a "name-establishing" formula.

In Daoist practice, before breaking evil you first set your true name.

If a person cannot hold onto their name, they are like an ownerless house open to everything.

Lu Yuan stepped on the black stone.

"Lu Yuan stands here."

"This body has a master."

"This shadow has a master."

"Withdraw!"

The shadow-soul was struck by an invisible heavy hammer; its face caved inward.

It did not vanish immediately but thrust out a dozen black arms toward Lu Yuan's feet.

Xu Erxiao shouted and flung the red cloth.

This time the cloth did not ensnare the shadow-soul but wrapped around Lu Yuan's ankle.

Wang Cheng'an stared in alarm.

"Erxiao, what are you doing?"

"Brother Lu said red cloth returns the road!"

Xu Erxiao bit his lip and smeared blood on the cloth.

"Brother Lu, don't let it take you away!"

Wang Cheng'an reacted and pressed one end of the abacus frame onto the red cloth and hooked the other end around the stele.

"Brother Lu, the account's not settled yet!"

Lin Zhaoxuan pulled out the ink line and stretched it behind Lu Yuan.

"Senior Brother Lu, come back!"

Song Qinghe lifted the lamp so its light shone on Lu Yuan's back.

The lamp was small and not bright, but under the blue flame Lu Yuan's shadow clarified again.

His shadow was no longer solitary.

Within Lu Yuan's silhouette stood Xu Erxiao, Wang Cheng'an, Lin Zhaoxuan, Song Qinghe, and Zhou Heng.

Five shadows extended from different directions like five ropes, nailing Lu Yuan to the stone chamber.

The blank figure shrieked:

"You have no root!"

Lu Yuan looked at it.

"I do."

"My root was not given by you."

"It was walked out by myself."

"It was acknowledged by the people beside me."

"You can disassemble the dead, but you cannot tear apart the bonds between the living."

The character "shadow" on the black stone split suddenly.

A plume of black smoke shot up and struck the chamber ceiling.

A tremendous echo came from the mountain fissure.

At once, everyone's shadows trembled.

Wang Cheng'an's extra abacus shadow shattered.

Xu Erxiao's missing left shoulder filled back in.

The schoolboy shadow at Zhou Heng's foot vanished.

Song Qinghe's shadow grew a head.

Only Lu Yuan's shadow was not wholly restored.

Its edge still bore a small gap, as if something had torn a piece away from very far off.

Lu Yuan glanced down.

From the well, Asheng's voice spoke softly:

"Your shadow hasn't fully returned."

"Which part is missing?" Lu Yuan asked.

"The place to return to."

Asheng said.

Lu Yuan said nothing.

He knew Asheng spoke the truth.

A person's shadow was not only determined by lamp and light.

Where the shadow falls, the soul knows where to return.

But he came from Earth and possessed no ancestral tomb, no home in this world, no summons from kin.

That missing piece was not something the Malevolent Deity had taken out of thin air.

It was a piece he had never had.

"Then keep it for now."

Lu Yuan lifted his head.

"A missing piece doesn't mean it can take the rest."

The black smoke from the stone still writhed.

Lu Yuan pried the black stone up with his blade and stood it before the "shadow" stele.

"The shadow stele cannot be destroyed."

He told them.

"But if the shadows return to their owners, the words on the stele grow empty."

He folded a blank offering paper into a triangle and stuffed it into the crack of the black stone.

"This paper isn't to restore Asheng's shadow."

"It's to leave an empty account for the Malevolent Deity."

"If the ledger contains an empty entry, it will hesitate to put this piece directly into the mountain's root."

Song Qinghe looked at that paper.

"But the empty account will be filled."

"That's why we must be quick."

Lu Yuan looked up at the chamber roof.

With the shadow stele manifesting, the other stele-guards in the mountain would soon awaken.

The black water in the inverted well sank faster.

The red glow on the ninth "life" stele had already dimmed by half.

Asheng's face in the water mirror grew clearer; even his wet hair showed.

He raised a hand and pointed to a narrow crack at the rear of the chamber that had never been there.

"Father stele is in the north ravine."

"Mother stele is in the Birch Forest."

"Home stele is in the old village."

"Surname stele is behind the Mountain God Temple."

"Voice stele is at the ruined opera stage."

"Wish stele is at the dead mound."

Asheng's voice trembled as he went on:

"But they already know you are coming."

"They will replace the stele guardians."

"Replace them with whom?"

"With yourselves."

The water mirror in the inverted well shattered with a slap.

All the black water dropped back to the well bottom.

At the same time, the sound of horse bells came from outside the chamber.

Tinkle.

The ring grew nearer, mixed with the creak of wooden wheels grinding frozen earth.

Such sounds weren't uncommon in the border hills of the Republican era.

Pack carts, medicine wagons, coal carts might pass a hamlet at night.

But this place was deep in the Malevolent Deity's feeding ground.

There were no roads in these mountains, no horse-drawn carts.

Wang Cheng'an slowly turned around.

At the end of the stone path an old wooden cart rolled forward slowly.

Sacks were piled on it, and a driver wearing a felt hat sat on the bench.

The driver faced away from them, his neck stiffly crooked to one side.

A faded white cloth flag hung at the back of the cart.

Four characters were painted on the flag:

"Return Home for Burial."

Xu Erxiao's face went pale.

"I've seen that cart at the mountain mouth."

"Were there three coffins on it?" Lin Zhaoxuan looked at the cart and nodded slowly.

"When we fled, we met a funeral procession on the road."

"The cart had no bodies, only three empty coffins."

Song Qinghe asked:

"Did you get on the cart?"

"No," Lin Zhaoxuan said, "but the driver offered to take us a stretch because of the heavy snow inside the pass."

Zhou Heng gripped his short blade.

"That was our first night entering the mountains."

Lu Yuan stared at the white flag and understood at last.

"Home stele."

"It uses 'home' to lure first."

The driver turned his head slowly.

A layer of white paper covered his face, and two eyes were painted on the paper with a brush.

"Gentlemen,"

"Get on the cart and go home."

"The road inside the pass is still open."

"Your family rides with us."

The sacks in the carriage stirred.

One.

Two.

Three.

Black water seeped from the mouths of the three sacks at once.

Song Qinghe stepped back half a pace.

"We can't let it come in."

"It already has," Lu Yuan said.

The cart wheels stopped outside the ink line.

The driver did not cross it.

But the three sacks rolled down from the cart and inched along the ground toward the chamber.

Lu Yuan took out three copper coins.

They were folk talisman coins used to pin down evil—old but imbued with human qi from long burial, funeral rites and ground burial.

He placed three coins at north, east, and south positions, leaving the western side empty.

"Cheng'an, guard the east."

"Erxiao, guard the south."

"Zhou Heng, guard the north."

"What about west?" Wang Cheng'an asked.

"I'll take it."

"What about Zhaoxuan and Qinghe?"

"Zhaoxuan watch the thread, Qinghe watch the lamp."

Lu Yuan drew a shallow cut on his palm and let the bead of blood form.

He did not wipe it; he pressed his palm to the ground.

"The cart comes from beyond the pass; the road opens from the yin gate."

"No soil underfoot, no home; no kin aboard, no name."

"With money we press the road, with blood we claim the body, with lamp we reveal the true."

"All who borrow a home lack a home; all who borrow kin lack a name."

"Back the cart!"

At the last two words the white cloth flag abruptly unfurled.

There was no wind behind it, yet faces appeared across the flag's surface.

An old woman, a young wife, a man cradling a child, several refugees with frostbitten faces.

All those faces turned toward the stone chamber.

One of the faces was Zhou Heng's brother.

"Brother."

The youth in the flag called again.

Zhou Heng trembled.

Lu Yuan did not look at him; he said only:

"Hold the ground."

Zhou Heng closed his eyes.

"He's not him."

"Zhou Heng."

"Not him."

"Look again."

Cold sweat beaded on Zhou Heng's brow, his lips went white, but he did not open his eyes.

"Not him."

The face leaned close to the white flag and its cries turned to sobbing.

"Brother, you said you'd take me."

"You said you wouldn't leave me."

Zhou Heng's shadow shook violently.

Lu Yuan flicked a copper coin to land at his feet.

The coin hit the ground heads-up.

"If your brother truly wanted you to take him, he wouldn't only cry inside your shadow."

"He would call your baby name."

"What he said, only you two brothers know."

Zhou Heng opened his eyes with a start.

The youth on the flag reached for him.

Zhou Heng stared a long moment, then said:

"My brother has a black mole behind his left ear."

The youth on the flag froze.

"You do not."

"When my brother was a child he feared dogs."

"You do not."

"Before he died he had half a sorghum cake in his hand."

Zhou Heng raised his blade, his voice at last steady.

"You know nothing."

Then he slashed the ground beside his foot.

As the blade fell, the shadow-boy's arm snapped clean off.

All the faces on the cloth flag turned toward Zhou Heng and opened their mouths in unison.

But no sound came from them.

The three sacks in the carriage exploded at once.

Black water splashed across the stone path.

Three wooden plaques floated up out of the water.

One carved with "Home."

One with "Father."

One with "Mother."

"They put three steles on one cart!" Lin Zhaoxuan shouted.

Lu Yuan did not hesitate.

"Break the home first."

He pointed his blade at the "Home" plaque, then folded his hands and intertwined the index and middle fingers, pressing the thumbs onto the adjacent knuckles.

"The home gate has a threshold, the household has a stove."

"No cooking, no home; no return, no household."

"Those who borrow a house return the house, those who borrow a door return the door."

"A home not offering to the eye, a household not offering to the mountain, those who return return, those who do not return rest in peace."

After the formula he pressed a copper coin onto the "Home" character.

The coin was instantly enveloped by the black water.

A shriek came from the carriage.

The driver stood up abruptly, and the two painted eyes on the paper face split open to reveal densely packed red threads beneath.

He reached to seize the cart's shaft.

"Home is in the mountains!"

"Your homes are in the mountains!"

"Stay and give the mountain a household!"

Lu Yuan sneered.

"Home is not merely a house."

"Home is people waiting for you to come back."

"A vacant house with no one waiting is merely an empty room."

He kicked the cart wheel.

It did not move.

Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an rushed forward together; one grabbed the shaft and the other lifted the broken abacus frame to smash the axle.

Crack!

The axle snapped.

The cart toppled.

The "Home" plaque flew out of the black water and struck the ink line.

The thread snapped taut, and the cinnabar on it burned into a beam of red light.

The "Home" plaque split in two on the spot.

Outside the chamber, from somewhere in the mountain, a long sigh came—

as if someone at last returned to the roofless old village.

At once the "Father" and "Mother" plaques on the carriage lit up.

Behind the paper-faced driver two towering black silhouettes rose.

A man and a woman.

Both wore old-style clothes from inside the pass, shoulders dusted with snow.

The man held a clay tobacco pipe.

The woman cradled an empty swaddled bundle.

The two black shadows pressed left and right toward Lu Yuan.

But Lu Yuan did not step back.

"Father and mother steles cannot be destroyed here."

He looked to Lin Zhaoxuan and Song Qinghe.

"You each guard one."

Lin Zhaoxuan confirmed.

"We?"

"You two fled from inside the pass and still carry old belongings left by your parents."

"The father stele recognizes bloodline, the mother stele recognizes baby names. You touching them is more appropriate than us."

Lin Zhaoxuan produced a shiny brass button from his chest.

"This was my father's."

Song Qinghe unfolded an old handkerchief.

"My mother gave this to me before she left."

Lu Yuan nodded.

"Place the items in front of the plaques; don't speak your kin's names."

"Only state they are released from this ledger."

"Understood."

They approached the black shadows.

Lin Zhaoxuan set the brass button before the "Father" plaque, made a sword seal, and intoned:

"Father gave me form, father protects my name; the nurture is returned, the favor owed no more."

"Today the son crosses the outer pass; father does not follow into the yin, does not enter the mountain's ledger. Old object returns to me, old soul returns to earth."

Song Qinghe spread her handkerchief over the "Mother" plaque.

Her hands trembled but her voice remained steady:

"Mother raised my body, mother guards my soul; my baby name not made into sacrifice, my bloodline not made into a lock."

"Today I cross the snow road, mother does not follow into the yin, does not enter the mountain ledger, old object returns to me, old soul returns to earth."

Both black shadows halted.

The pipe dropped from the man's hand.

The bundle in the woman's arms emptied gradually.

The two shadows seemed to look at the living people in front of them, then as if across years, at a child on another snowy night.

The paper-faced driver cried hoarsely:

"How dare you sever kin?"

Lin Zhaoxuan looked up.

"It is not severing kin."

"It is letting the dead rest and letting the living go on."

Song Qinghe said:

"You who take the dead's names and trap the living's feet—that is severing kin."

The dark qi on the two wooden plaques retreated quickly.

"Father" and "Mother" turned ashy white and then cracked apart.

The wooden cart collapsed utterly.

The driver remained standing by the shaft.

It lowered its head and looked at its hands; the two painted eyes on the paper face dimmed.

"There is no home."

"There are no father and mother."

"What do you have left?"

It asked.

Lu Yuan replied:

"You have yourself left."

The driver laughed suddenly.

"Then we'll see whether you can walk out of this mountain yourselves."

It tore the paper face away.

Behind the paper was not a face but a black road rising up the mountain.

Seven stone steles stood along the road's sides.

Each stele bore a blood-red character.

"Surname."

"Voice."

"Wish."

...the other characters were obscured by black mist and could not be read clearly.

At the black road's end a ramshackle Mountain God Temple stood quietly in the snow.

A broken signboard hung above the gate; one could just make out the characters for "Protect the land and bring peace to the people."

But the temple's offering was not the mountain god.

It was an upside-down black bowl.

The bowl's bottom was plastered with dense human names.

From the inverted well Asheng's voice came again:

"Surname stele is behind the Mountain God Temple."

"It will come looking for you first."

"Because you have no surname."

Lu Yuan looked at the black road.

Behind him, among the nine steles only the "life" character still glowed.

"Move."

He pocketed the match, drew his blade from the ground.

Xu Erxiao gripped one end of the red cloth, Wang Cheng'an slung the broken abacus frame on his back, Lin Zhaoxuan and Song Qinghe each stowed their parents' belongings.

Zhou Heng glanced once more at where the cart had crumpled.

There was no household bone, no driver.

Only a line of wet footprints leading toward the Mountain God Temple.

Zhou Heng fell silent for a moment and stepped through those prints.

"Let's go."

They all followed the black road upward.

No one saw that the missing piece of Lu Yuan's shadow under his foot, after they left the chamber, slowly extended in the direction of the Mountain God Temple.

As if some portion of himself had gone ahead.

And behind the ruined temple, beneath the black bowl, a name without a surname was slowly forming.

The first stroke of that name was the character "Lu."