The Republic's Last Occult Wanderer

"The Republic's Last Occult Wanderer" by Liu Agou

Synopsis:

Unofficial histories recorded that a hundred years ago, amid the chaos of the late Qing and early Republic, demons, monsters, and ghosts roamed the land.

Eight hundred li east of the Taihang Mountains, the Cui Family of Jisi produced two peerless wandering occultists in succession.

These two traveled the land, slaying demons and banishing evil, leaving countless legends behind.

One was my great-grandfather, now buried in the ancestral graveyard. The other was... me, a hundred years ago.

Volume One: A Century Shrouded in Fog

Opening verse:

A century was but a drop from the eaves; past and present, mere sand in the palm.

Ask where the road home might lie, and white bones in the mist would point the way.

Chapter 1: Dense Fog

He woke before daylight had fully broken.

Since returning to the countryside, Cui Jiuyang had enjoyed... who knew how many good nights' sleep.

Worn down by the working world in the big city, he had let his stubborn streak take over, quit in a fit of anger, and returned home.

Sleeping on the old bed in the old house, Cui Jiuyang, once tormented by nervous exhaustion, had never suffered insomnia again.

He stretched, feeling refreshed, and checked the time on his phone.

Eight forty-five in the morning.

Huh?

It's the middle of summer. How could it still be this dark at this hour?

He got up and pulled back the curtains...

Everything outside the window was hazy.

A thick fog had rolled in.

The fog seemed almost solid, obscuring everything outside.

It hid the sky, too.

He watched for a while, but could see nothing through the billowing mist.

He rubbed his stomach and decided to cook some noodles, only to discover that the gas stove would not light.

"Out of gas. What a pain." Cui Jiuyang scratched his bird's-nest hair and called the gas delivery man on his phone.

Living conditions were good these days. Even the remote countryside had services like gas-cylinder depots. One phone call, and a fresh, full cylinder would be delivered.

But the call would not go through.

Two beeps, and it disconnected automatically.

He tried several times, with the same result.

He took a closer look...

No signal.

It's only fog, and even the signal's gone? Is this stuff made of lead?

Maybe the cell tower at the village entrance is broken...

His stomach began to growl. With no other choice, Cui Jiuyang pulled on a T-shirt and board shorts, then went to get his little electric scooter.

"With fog this thick... will the breakfast shops on the main street in town even be open? I'm getting hungry." He muttered as he rode toward town.

The fog was so dense that visibility was less than a meter.

He rode for quite a while. Though he was clearly on the road, he could not see the fields or crops on either side.

"Flowers through the mist, the moon upon the water, can you make sense of this ever-changing world..."

Five minutes later, Cui Jiuyang hummed to himself as he stopped outside a familiar courtyard.

He stared in bewilderment at his own vermilion front gate and cursed. "Fuck, I must still be half asleep. How did I circle back here?"

He twisted the throttle and shot off again.

Though it was summer, sunlight could not penetrate the fog, and it seemed the sun's warmth had failed to reach the ground as well.

After circling around and riding for a while longer, he began to feel cold. A chill crept along the back of his neck, making even his humming go off-key.

"Lend me, lend me eyes that see, let me see through all this confusion clearly, clearly..."

Ten minutes later, he was staring at his own familiar front gate again.

The Spring Festival couplets had come unstuck and drooped from the wall. Half the fortune character had torn away, leaving the other half barely clinging to the gate.

Cui Jiuyang broke into a cold sweat.

He was absolutely certain he had not taken a wrong turn. He had followed the same concrete road he always took into town.

A ghost loop, in broad daylight?

He did not dare twist the throttle and leave again, but he was a little afraid to go home, too.

If this really is a ghost loop, who the hell knows whose front gate this is?

Cui Jiuyang took out a pack of White General cigarettes and picked one out. It took two flicks of his lighter to get it lit.

After taking a drag, he parked his scooter.

Instead of entering his house, he followed the wall to Widow Wang's gate next door.

"Sister Wang! Are you home?" he called over the wall.

Everything was silent. No one answered.

When he finished his cigarette, he ground the butt hard against the wall, then stepped forward and knocked on the gate.

"Sister Wang! It's me, Jiuyang! I'm out of gas. Do you have the gas delivery man's number?"

The pounding on the gate and his shouts carried far through the fog, faint echoes trailing behind them.

The longer Cui Jiuyang knocked, the more unnerved he became. His blows lost their strength, and his voice gradually faded.

The villagers always joked that Widow Wang's gate opened with a single push. Now it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

Sweat densely covered Cui Jiuyang's forehead, gathering into soybean-sized beads that began to trickle down.

He swallowed.

Why is it so quiet?

There were no birds calling.

It was midsummer, yet there was not even a cicada's chirp.

Even the barking of dogs, the most common sound in the village, was absent.

Come to think of it, he had heard no other sounds during either of his two rides.

Not a single living thing in the village made a sound.

Am I dreaming?

Cui Jiuyang pinched himself...

"Hiss..."

Ow!

The pain went straight through him.

He furtively opened his right eye a sliver.

No good. The thick fog was still everywhere.

Should I walk a little farther and check next door to Widow Wang's?

Old Li the shepherd lived there, and his sheep were unusually quiet today, too.

With fog this thick, there'll be dew on the grass. Eating it would make the sheep sick. He probably hasn't taken them out to graze...

Following the wall, not daring to stray even half a step from it, Cui Jiuyang reached Old Li's gate.

The gate stood wide open.

As though welcoming someone, or waiting for someone.

Should I go in?

Cui Jiuyang craned his neck to peer through the gate, shouting as he looked. "Uncle Li! Are you home?"

No one answered. The sheep did not bleat, either.

"Uncle Li, your sheep have got out!"

Normally, a shout like that would have brought Old Li running out with his little leather whip to chase the sheep.

But today, there was no Uncle Li, and no sheep.

Cui Jiuyang steeled himself and stepped through the gate.

Normally, he found Old Li's sheep so smelly that he turned his head away even when passing the entrance.

The stench was still there today. Though mixed with the chilly fog, it gave him a sliver of comfort.

Cui Jiuyang had heard that the smell of shit could put people at ease, because their genes told them that places where they could shit were generally safe.

But wasn't that supposed to mean human shit? Did sheep droppings count, too?

With all sorts of wild thoughts swirling through his head, Cui Jiuyang stood in Old Li's courtyard.