The sun was sinking, and the sky was shifting from orange-red to gray-purple. Against the darkening sky, that plume of smoke stood out even more, like a gray-white thread thrusting straight into the heavens from behind the ridge.
His fingers twitched at his side, their tips brushing the edge of the Four Yang God-Sealing Banner.
The banner was smooth and cold, like a little coffin lid.
He pinched a corner of it, rubbing his fingertips over its patterns. They were fine and sharp, like rows of teeth carved into bone.
He turned and walked toward the old well.
Beside the well, Huang Santainai's Fuwa body had finished drawing the final stroke of the array patterns.
She stood and brushed the dirt from her hands, her little face taut and the corners of her mouth turned down, as though enduring something.
Yang Yong walked over to her and looked down at the ground.
The lines of the array patterns covered the entire threshing ground, spreading outward from the old well in concentric circles. The outermost lines ran right along the edge of the village.
"Fixed?"
"Fixed." Huang Santainai's voice came from the Fuwa's mouth with a strange dissonance, like an old person speaking from inside a child's shell. "But there's something."
"Tell me."
"This array guards against what's inside, not what's outside." Huang Santainai raised her head, the Fuwa's round eyes staring straight at Yang Yong. "It can suppress the things inside the village and keep them from getting out. But if something outside wants to come in, it can't stop it."
Yang Yong's expression did not change.
Huang Santainai continued, lowering her voice a little as she tapped a node in the array patterns with a branch.
"When you asked me to repair the array, I already thought something was