Chapter Eleven: Descending to the Reservoir

Chen Aihua and Wang Dabao both nodded knowingly, glanced at us, and turned to leave. As he departed, Wang Dabao instructed the villagers to follow the arrangements made by the two of us.

It was just past eight o’clock, but the sky was already pitch black. The night was chilly as it was, and here it felt even colder—not just because of the hour, but because the place was steeped in a pervasive aura of yin and evil.

“Master Zhao, what did you bring us here for? And why are we holding banana leaves?”

“Yes, Master Zhao, I’ve finished all the sunflower seeds in my pocket. You should assign us some work—standing around like this, I’m freezing!”

“Exactly, exactly…” a few women echoed.

Grandpa Zhao chuckled and pointed to two towering ghost trees not far away. “Very well, since you’re eager for work, start by wrapping the bases of these two big trees with your banana leaves. The sturdier and higher, the better.”

Though these women may not have understood the purpose, each immediately got to work.

Meanwhile, Grandpa Zhao and I began arranging the peach-wood stakes we had prepared that afternoon. Once everything was in place, Grandpa Zhao gathered the women and had them stand in a somewhat irregular formation, dispersing them around the six small pools that surrounded the reservoir.

Following Grandpa Zhao’s earlier instructions, I quickly fashioned an effigy from unused yellow talisman paper. Using the long-haired female ghost I had subdued at the Jewelry Tower, I successfully created my first ever Yin Soul paper figure.

According to Grandpa Zhao, this Yin Soul paper figure could last for three hours—six hours in total. In that time, it would act as a second self.

Moonlight bathed the area, and with no room left for hesitation, I used a sharp knife to slice my finger, pressing a drop of blood onto the paper figure’s brow.

This was called opening the ghost eye, summoning the soul.

“Rise!”

Before my eyes, the paper effigy, once just a folded piece of yellow paper, obediently stood upright. It was no larger than my palm, but this feat thoroughly amazed the group of chattering women.

“Wow, look—look! The paper figure is moving! Incredible!”

“This young man is truly gifted!”

“Yes, too bad my daughter just got engaged to Doggie from Li Village…”

Listening to their chatter, I nearly lost my focus.

---

“Xiao Dong, go down. I’ll protect you from above. Rest assured, the corpse won’t change tonight. Go below and pierce her ghost gate and ghost veins with the peach-wood stakes. Even if she tries to turn, she’ll be nothing more than a powerless dead fiend.”

I nodded—there was no refusing now, and I certainly couldn’t ask Grandpa Zhao to go instead.

Bracing myself, I gripped the rope tied to the shore and began my descent, inch by inch. The process was agonizing, my heart lodged in my throat, afraid something might suddenly appear beneath my feet.

The Yin Soul paper figure clung to my foot, feeling its way along.

Strangely, my body felt nothing amiss when I was fully inside the cave. Occasionally I heard the sound of water trickling—clear and haunting.

Just as I began to relax, the paper figure clinging to my foot suddenly climbed up my thigh.

I looked down, and by the faint beam of my flashlight, my face paled.

There, beneath me, lay a woman in white robes, quietly stretched across a large round stone.

My heart was seized by terror. My only thought was to scramble back up.

“Xiao Dong, do you see it?”

I nodded quickly, my face expressionless.

Looking up, I saw moonlight spilling across my face.

“Good, now just do as we discussed—sever her ghost veins and ghost gate. Make it quick. Once this closed space is breached, the feng shui here will be ruined, and the transformation will accelerate.”

I nodded, setting aside all hesitation. With a swift kick, I sent the paper figure clinging to my leg flying, and shouted, “Swift!”

I reached out, and two peach-wood stakes shot from my hand. Having been enchanted beforehand, they flew straight toward the woman’s brow and chest lying on the massive stone.

By moonlight, I could almost see her features. My flashlight seemed less clear than the moon.

At that moment, the rope I held was suddenly yanked upward.

I felt the entire reservoir tremble, and the round stone before me began to sink, the woman in white gradually disappearing beneath the water.

---

“Xiao Dong, hurry up!”

Still startled, I saw the paper figure I’d kicked off clinging to my leg, scrambling upward faster than me.

Suddenly, I felt a huge whirlpool forming beneath my feet. The moonlight seemed especially bright, and my flashlight shuddered in fright and fell, buzzing, into the water.

Desperately climbing upward, I felt a bone-chilling cold at my ankle, as if shackled by an icy chain.

“Don’t look down—look at me!”

Zhao Fifteen grabbed my neck, his face grave.

A chill ran through me.

“Grandpa Zhao, this can’t be happening!”

“Those women are so useless—just because the three ghost trees collapsed, they all ran off, breaking the great Yin formation!”

I was in utter misery, desperate, near tears. In other words, the thing grasping my ankle was the woman in white I’d just seen.

Could I really be so unlucky, so quickly?

“Slowly—I’ll pull you up.”

I nodded, tears threatening to spill. This was too much.

I could clearly feel the icy grip at my ankle, the cold spreading up my leg, making me shiver, as if the ghost woman intended to crawl up my body bit by bit.

“Grandpa Zhao, can you hurry…”