A ghostly calamity, or a human atrocity?

Night draped over the barren land like a heavy sheet of black silk. Zhang Xuan and Monk looked especially lonely in the ink-dark night, as though they were the only two people left between heaven and earth.

All around them was silence, broken only by the dry grass rustling in the night wind along the road. Now and then, clusters of green fireflies flickered among the weeds, like countless hidden eyes peering out of the darkness.

In the distance, the outlines of mountains loomed faintly in the dark, like enormous beasts lying dormant, inspiring dread at a glance. Moonlight struggled through layer upon layer of black clouds, spilling a few pale rays that barely traced the road ahead.

After they had walked for nearly an hour, darkness had fallen completely. Monk, walking in front, suddenly stopped. Caught unaware, Zhang Xuan walked straight into his back.

"What is it?" Zhang Xuan rubbed his groggy head and asked with a frown.

Monk turned and steadied him, looking behind them with a grave expression. "Someone is following us."

That woke Zhang Xuan up a little. He turned to look at Falcon perched on his left shoulder. Falcon had curled into a ball with its eyes tightly shut; there was no telling whether it was really asleep or merely pretending.

A trace of disgust crossed Zhang Xuan's face. He pointed at Falcon. "Monk, this fellow retreats whenever trouble comes and sleeps whenever danger strikes. What good is keeping it around? We might as well burn it for firewood and warm ourselves."

Monk gave Zhang Xuan a peculiar look and did not take up the subject...

"Isn't that look of yours a little presumptuous?" Zhang Xuan bristled.

"Amitabha!"

With a sigh, Zhang Xuan returned to the matter at hand. "Were they following us before we left the village, or only afterward?"

Monk considered for a moment before answering, "Thinking back carefully, we must have been marked after we left the village."

"To follow us this long without you noticing—this little brat has some tricks!" Zhang Xuan muttered. Then he saw Monk take the bundle off his back and reach inside for something, apparently preparing to face their pursuer.

He hurriedly waved a hand, stopping Monk from pulling out his brick. "No need..."

Without offering an explanation, he looked in the direction Monk had been watching and shouted, "Brat, come out!"

His voice startled the night owls, and flapping black shadows swept across the waning moon. Only after half an incense stick's worth of time did a thin figure emerge from the waves of grass.

The boy staggered toward them, leaning on a pointed wooden stick stained with blood. Crusted blood flaked from his ragged clothes. A fresh wound on the right side of his forehead was still bleeding, the blood mingling with grit to form dark red tear tracks. Most horrifying were his eyes—blood vessels wove cobwebs across the whites, and an obsession flickered in his pupils like ghost fire.

"It wasn't a Demon Ghost that killed my mother. It was the Yandang Mountain Wolf Bandits, eighty li from here. Please, my lord, give me justice!" His voice rasped like a blunt knife scraping stone as he suddenly dropped hard to his knees. The dull crack of his knees striking the gravel made Monk's brow twitch.

Beneath his black hair, his eyes were thickly webbed with blood vessels. From a distance, it looked as though fire were burning within them...

Zhang Xuan idly played with the tassel of the jade pendant at his waist. "What Yandang Mountain Wolf Bandits? I slew that demon myself, and the whole village saw it. In consideration of your recent bereavement, I won't hold this against you—now get lost."

The boy did not argue. He merely began kowtowing over and over on the gravel-strewn road, as though his head were not his own. Every heavy impact left a mottled red mark on the ground, blood-red plum blossoms blooming among the stones.

Monk tried to help the boy up, but the moment he reached out, the boy slapped his hand away. His scarlet eyes held nothing but resolve.

Knowing he could not persuade him, Monk sighed.

Suddenly, Monk stopped dead, his bell-like eyes widening. "My lord, could it be..." His Adam's apple bobbed, and his voice turned dry. "Could this boy be telling the truth? Were the killings in Zhao Village not the work of a Demon Ghost?"

Zhang Xuan suddenly felt a tightness in his chest. He removed the Azure Dragon Crown and let the night wind lift his medium-length hair. Only after the breeze washed over him did that oppressive feeling ease a little.

Under the moonlight, his pale face looked colder still. "It wasn't a ghostly calamity. It was a human atrocity."

Seeing how certain Zhang Xuan was, Monk could not understand. "But Zhao Dafu..."

"That 'Painted Skin' just happened to cross our path." Zhang Xuan casually tied his hair back with a red cord. "This village was its granary. It came every few months to feast. But this time—" He paused, looking toward the rolling silhouettes of the distant mountains. "Someone was slaughtering villagers under the guise of a Demon Ghost."

Seeing Monk's confusion, Zhang Xuan continued, "The corpse had been mutilated beyond recognition, but think carefully: nothing was actually missing. Don't forget, Demon Ghosts eat people just as you and I eat our meals. Would you tear a steamed bun into pieces and scatter them everywhere without taking a single bite?"

Understanding dawned on Monk. When he had seen the corpse, he had vaguely sensed something was wrong, but however carefully he thought about it, he could not pinpoint the problem. Now, with a single reminder from Zhang Xuan, everything became clear.

The corpse they had seen that day had been torn apart, its organs dragged out and scattered across the ground. If a Demon Ghost had done it, why would it have left those "delicacies" behind?

At that thought, Monk glanced at Zhang Xuan...

He had noticed those details too, but amid such a bloody scene, who could have stayed calm enough to think them through?

Besides, Zhang Xuan had then identified the "Painted Skin" hiding among the villagers, so Monk had unconsciously overlooked those details.

His sandbag-sized fists clenched with a crackle of knuckles. Monk simply could not imagine how anyone could commit something so despicable!

"Please give me justice, my lord!" The boy suddenly kowtowed hard, the dull impact of his forehead against the gravel making their hearts jump. "I'm willing to serve you as an ox or a horse!"

Zhang Xuan's expression was cold. "I have no shortage of oxen or horses. We're neither kin nor friends. Why should I risk my life to avenge you?"

"My lord, aren't you a Hundred-Man Commander of the imperial court? Aren't you an official? You should uphold justice for the common people..." The boy's trembling, furious voice sounded jarringly out of place in the desolate wilderness.

As he spoke, Zhang Xuan swept aside his crimson cloak, revealing the Azure Phoenix Jade Pendant at his waist, engraved with the words "Demon Suppression Bureau." "Look closely. The Demon Suppression Bureau only deals with demonic calamities. Human atrocities—"

He deliberately drew out his words. "Take those to the county magistrate's office."

The boy clutched the stones on the ground with both hands, his entire body trembling. He let their sharp edges slice into his palms, and bright blood mixed with grit trickled between his fingers...

"Four taxes a year! The officials who forced my whole family to leave our home wouldn't help!"

"Winter sealed off the mountains! The villagers who forced my father to go hunting there, who coveted my mother's beauty, wouldn't help!"

"And now—you won't help either!"

"Then who will help us? Huh? Who will do anything for us?"

"Why? Why is it so hard to stay alive? Father worked harder than anyone. Mother was kinder than anyone..."

"The villagers knew it wasn't a Demon Ghost!" The boy dug all ten fingers deep into the earth, blood mixed with grit seeping between them. "There were only three of them! Only three of those beasts! Why did no one come to save her? Why?"

Blood seeped from the wound on the boy's forehead, mingling with the grit picked up during his kowtows, and ran down like a dark red tear of blood, slowly dripping along his cheek...

His screams echoed across the wilderness, startling the night owls roosting in the distance.