In the height of summer, there were no cicadas chirping, no frogs croaking.
The sky was a withered yellow, stiflingly hot. The study doors and windows stood open as a long-bearded man in official robes, his hair bound up, wrote swiftly.
"In the month of summer, a great plague has swept the entire county. Nine out of ten have died, and countless families have been wiped out. Cities and villages lie empty and desolate, with few survivors. The dead have no coffins or mournful funerals. Men and ghosts are mingled in confusion; sounds are heard, and shadows are chased."
"Though this lowly official has tears of concern for the people, one shoulder cannot bear the worries of ten thousand households..."
"This guilty minister's final words..."
He took out the Official Seal and pressed it heavily onto the memorial.
He folded it, tied it to a bird, then opened the cage and watched it spread its wings and fly away. As it vanished beyond his sight, it seemed to carry away all the official's vigor and spirit.
He dampened a cotton cloth and wiped the weariness from his face, then properly put on his official hat.
He stepped onto a stool and stood up.
He slipped a white silk rope around his neck.
With a clatter, the stool toppled over. He hanged himself from the beam.
The view pulled back from the official hanging in his study. Outside, yamen runners lay collapsed with faces gray as death. The view continued outward, revealing more and more plague victims scattered across the ground. Everyone in the County Yamen was dead. Beyond its gates, the streets and alleys held only corpses, not a single living person. The vast county city was silent as the grave.
Atop the Drum Tower's roof ridge.
The evil god