Naming Names, Slaying Evil

After the bronze bell rang, the village entrance fell eerily quiet. Countless refugees and onlookers turned to look.

Standing beside the carriage, Xie An also looked toward the Sacrificial Platform at the village entrance.

Xie Yu, dressed in a black cloak, carried a sack of burial earth onto the Sacrificial Platform. She spread the earth across it, then planted five white banners in its center.

She hung a yellow lantern at each corner of the platform. On each lantern were the words "Dragon King's Blessing."

With the platform prepared, Xie Yu carried an Eight Immortals Table onto it and set out a coarse earthenware bowl, an incense burner, copper coins, old rice, hemp rope, and yellow paper.

Once that was done, Xie Yu removed her hairpin and let her hair fall loose. She tied hemp rope around her waist, placed a grain of rice on her forehead, and carried a three-foot statue covered in red cloth barefoot onto the platform.

Clack.

Xie Yu set the statue on the Eight Immortals Table and struck the bronze bell.

Dong!

The sonorous bell rang out again.

Then came Xie Yu's clear, ringing voice. "Open the altar! Purify the grounds!"

Barefoot, Xie Yu took nine steps across the platform, making exactly one circuit around the Eight Immortals Table. She chanted aloud, "The locust tree is the door, the earthen platform the hall. The Dragon Queen has lent me a mouth. Tonight, I only carry messages; I pass no judgment. Above and below the platform, humans and ghosts share a seat—those bearing grudges, stand ten feet back; those bearing words, step three paces forward."

The moment she finished speaking, the hundreds of farming households lined up to deliver grain at the village entrance set down their sacks and slowly gathered around the platform.

Xie An