Chen Xuan's fingers remained suspended in midair, his eyes fixed on the crack in the rock. He did not move, only kept his breathing extremely low, as though afraid of disturbing something hidden in the darkness.
Chen Wuya followed his gaze. Another small chunk of wet mud collapsed from the edge of the crack, and the opening slowly widened, as if something inside were pushing against it. He made no sound, but his right hand had already slipped quietly behind his waist, his fingertips touching the wax seal on the slender bamboo tube at the bottom of the medicine basket. It had not been lit yet, but it could be at any moment.
The wind suddenly stilled.
The blue-gray glimmer on the stream's surface trembled. The three wolf demons drinking from it raised their heads at once, ears flattened against their skulls, green pupils narrowing to slits. The scarred one on the left abruptly turned around, its nostrils twitching. Black drool dripped from its mouth, scorching the ground and raising faint smoke.
Then a rotten, fishy stench surged from deep within the crack, mixed with the muffled rumble of wet earth being churned. A black shadow shot out close to the ground and landed without a sound. It was a full size larger than the other three, its back rising like a hill, its black fur gleaming with an oily sheen. Its forepaws pressed into the mud, five claws hooking deep into the earth. Its tailbone lifted slightly, and its stance resembled not a beast, but a humanoid that had stood upright for a long time.
Chen Wuya's pupils contracted.
It was that thing. The shadow that had crouched in the locust tree outside the courtyard wall several nights ago—the one that had scratched the edge of the woodpile and