Rouge Studio was ordinarily no place for strangers.
Two white gauze lanterns hung by the door. When the wind blew, the flames inside swayed, making the red paint on the door look like blood running down it.
The room was dim. Several oil lamps stood beside finished paper figures and horses, their flames flickering now and then, stretching the figures' shadows across the floor.
Anyone faint of heart would have been frightened sick after fifteen minutes there.
But today, the paper effigies had failed to scare the living. Instead, the living had driven back their eerie chill.
On the large table normally used for pasting paper, the paste buckets and bamboo strips had been cleared aside. Several men sat around it.
They had gathered here to discuss business precisely because it was quiet and no one came by.
Li Tingyun held his sheathed goose-quill saber and rested with his eyes closed;
Qi Hongsheng spun two walnuts rapidly in his hand, clicking them together;
Zheng Tonghe bent over a ledger, checking some figures;
Lu Xingmin calmly worked on a paper boy whose eyes had not yet been painted.
Abacus Song kept serving tea, terrified out of his wits.
As for Cao Xiaoliu, he sat on the long bench as though nails had sprouted beneath him. However he shifted, he could not get comfortable. His face was flushed with pent-up anger.
"Third Uncle, I just don't understand!"
At last, Cao Xiaoliu slapped his thigh. "How did the world get this rotten? We went to Bell Mountain and risked our lives to save those kids, and after all that, what happened?"
"When I took Old Liu's child home on the east side, the boy's own father looked downright unhappy! The more I looked at him, the worse it felt."
"Then I asked around.