Staring at the old, mottled booklet on the table, Zheng Que's thoughts were hazy and muddled. He simply sat there, dazed and confused.
A cold wind, wrapped in icy mist, poured in relentlessly through the breach. Visibility rapidly dwindled as darkness surged like a tide, howling and sweeping over everything, swallowing the surroundings bit by bit.
Gradually, the last traces of the main hall vanished. The Grandmaster Chair disappeared. The long table disappeared... Only the booklet bearing the words "Life and Death Book" remained, floating alone in the darkness.
In his bewilderment, Zheng Que felt that he ought to do something. But his thoughts were unbearably sluggish, each turn of his mind an immense struggle. All he could do was stare blankly at those three blood-red characters.
He had no idea how much time passed. Darkness crept over the booklet's cover like smoke and clouds, quickly soaking its yellowed pages until they turned black. Then it coiled layer upon layer toward the blood-red characters.
When the last character sank beneath the darkness, Zheng Que suddenly sat up in bed. Before him was a familiar room: a bed, a table, a chair, a cabinet. A bamboo clothes rack stood in the corner, with two outer robes draped over it. It was his bedroom.
There was no lamp lit in the room. Moonlight spilled in through the back window like water, and a silvery frost lay across the floor.
He gasped for breath, cold sweat streaming down his forehead. In the blink of an eye, it had soaked through his underclothes.
Looking around, Zheng Que furrowed his brow.
That dream again...
Ever since he had crossed into this world, he had often dreamed it.
Everything in the dream was extremely vague. Only that yellowed Life and Death Book remained vivid in his memory.
But in the dream, his mind was never clear. He was like a block of wood, unable to think of anything to do, just sitting blankly in front of the table until he woke.
Perhaps because of this dream, he had also been unusually sensitive to "death" since childhood.
He had been able to pick the right bowl out of the seven bowls of wine that day thanks to this extraordinary instinct for death...
As he was thinking, a sudden knock sounded at the door.
Knock, knock, knock!
"Disciple, hurry out! Come back to the mountain with your master!"
A familiar-sounding voice came from outside.
At the sound of it, Zheng Que immediately recognized the voice of the gray-robed old man who had taken him as a disciple that day.
He came to his senses and didn't dare delay. "Yes!" he answered at once.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Zheng Que suddenly felt his heart sink. It was as if an intense chill had descended from somewhere beyond sight, enveloping him from head to toe.
The movement of getting out of bed to put on his shoes froze instantly.
He knew this sudden, dreadful chill all too well.
It was the breath of death!
The next moment...
Creak.
The securely latched door was pushed open by something. Moonlight spilled in from outside, but there was no one in sight. Only a cold wind drifted and howled into the room.
Tap, tap, tap... Footsteps sounded clearly, drawing closer from afar, yet the packed-earth floor was plainly empty.
"Disciple, come with your master."
"Disciple, where are you?"
"Disciple, stop hiding. Come out!"
The familiar voice drew closer along with the footsteps. The room grew colder and colder, the chill like falling into an ice cellar almost surging to a boil.
Zheng Que sat on the bed, not daring to move. He stared at the cloth shoes placed one right-side up and one upside down in front of the bed, his pupils dilating as his heart pounded like a drum.
The thing that kept calling him "disciple" wasn't his master!
He shouldn't have answered!
"Disciple! Come out!"
"Quickly! There's not much time!"
"Disciple... disciple..."
The voice continued to urge him, growing more and more frantic, more and more irritable.
Zheng Que's scalp prickled. He slowly raised a hand and clamped it over his mouth. He had no idea what the thing that had entered the room was. But one thing was certain: if he answered again, he would die without a doubt!
Even if the shoes in front of his bed were placed one right-side up and one upside down, it would make no difference.
Time passed slowly. The familiar voice and footsteps circled the area around the bed again and again, as if they had found nothing. Gradually, they moved away, the footsteps growing fainter and fainter.
A while later, the door closed again. Utter silence settled over the room, as though the sounds from moments ago had never existed.
Outside the window, the moonlight was bleak and the room was empty. Everything seemed to have returned to normal.
But the deathly chill enveloping Zheng Que hadn't faded in the slightest.
The danger hadn't passed. The thing imitating his master's voice was still in the room!
Just as he thought!
Before long, a familiar voice edged with laughter suddenly sounded right beside his ear. "Disciple, I found you!"
The blood in Zheng Que's body froze instantly. His heart nearly stopped!
But he quickly forced down his fear and stifled the urge to flee the room.
A cold wind blew in through the window, setting his robe fluttering.
In the darkness, his entire body remained perfectly still. Even his breathing slowed to the barest minimum.
After a long stretch of silence, the familiar voice spoke again. "Disciple, your master is going to eat you now!"
This time, the voice came unmistakably from a spot about a foot from the foot of the bed, filled with undisguised fury.
Thud, thud, thud!
The footsteps in the room suddenly grew heavy, as if many people were running about in every direction.
The floor shuddered under the strain. Tables, chairs, and other furnishings began to tremble. Jars and pots crashed to the ground one after another, amid a clatter of smashing crockery and deep, dull booms—boom! Boom! Boom!
It sounded as though something was desperately hurling itself against the walls.
The sudden uproar was deafening. The entire room seemed ready to leap into the air, yet neither the bed nor the shoes in front of it—one right-side up, one upside down—were affected.
Tense with nerves, Zheng Que watched it all. Gradually, his mind began to clear.
As long as he didn't make a sound or get out of bed, it seemed the thing that had entered the room couldn't find him!
The moonlight outside was pale and white. There was still some time before dawn.
Zheng Que didn't dare close his eyes. He sat motionless on the bed, waiting patiently.
The cold wind twisted and turned through the not-so-spacious room, howling and roaring. At times, it swept up pots and bowls and smashed them to pieces; at times, it toppled the furniture and slammed it against the floor again and again; at times, it shook the doors and windows, making the whole house groan as though it might collapse at any moment... The scraping of claws against the wooden boards sounded incessantly, too.
Time seemed to stretch out unbearably long, each passing moment sluggish and slow.
Half-asleep and dazed, Zheng Que saw the moonlight fade and the darkness of night recede. A rooster crowed in the distance. He jolted back to his senses and immediately turned to look out the window. A sliver of fish-belly white showed in the east, dawn light wrapped in scattered clouds of rosy color. Day had broken!
He was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he realized that the palpable, bone-deep chill lingering around him still hadn't faded.
Zheng Que's brow furrowed at once. It was already light, and the sun was about to rise, yet the thing that had entered the room still hadn't left!
Now he was in trouble!
But just as the thought crossed his mind, he suddenly felt the foot of the bed sink slightly, as if something had climbed onto it...
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