The Rebudian Chieftain

The Dzongben patted his big belly and said, "You're the Scholar Monk who took part in the Debate at the Dharma Assembly, aren't you? What was your debate topic?"

He was testing and probing him.

"A White Horse Is Not a Horse!" Qu Zan said.

"Then there's no question. He is that Scholar Monk." The Dzongben chuckled.

The Rebudian Chieftain frowned. "Lord Dzongben, this fellow looks suspicious to me. We shouldn't travel with him."

"Ah, Zuo Qian, don't say that. We've all suffered the same misfortune. We should help one another." The Dzongben smiled.

"Junior brother, what are you doing here too? Wonderful! With you here, we're safe." Doje smiled as he spoke.

Qu Zan shook his head with a wry smile.

"Junior brother, those eyes of yours were really imposing just now!"

Qu Zan asked, "Did you encounter any Vengeful Ghosts?"

"No. Did you?"

"I did. I suspect there were three," Qu Zan said.

Everyone drew in a sharp breath at this, looking Qu Zan up and down in disbelief. Zuo Qian sneered. "What a boast. If you really encountered three Vengeful Ghosts, would you have made it here alive?"

Qu Zan merely smiled faintly and ignored him.

Doje said unhappily, "My junior brother never deceives anyone. If he said he encountered three, then there were definitely three."

Zhunnie said, "Enough. Lord Dzongben is right here. Stop arguing and think about how we can get out of here."

Qu Zan bowed to Zuo Qian with his palms together and said, "Mr. Zuo Qian, I offended you when I used the power of my spell seal just now. Please forgive my discourtesy."

Zuo Qian said coldly, "The way you looked at me just now, you clearly wanted to kill me."

"That was Lion Eyes. It isn't specifically meant to harm people. Besides, this is our first meeting, and there's no grievance between us. Why would I want to kill you?"

"Perhaps you're a runaway slave," Zuo Qian said.

Doje said, "You really have a chicken's guts and a narrow little belly. My junior brother is a Scholar Monk from the temple. How could he be a runaway slave?

"They've all seen my junior brother Debate. What runaway slave has my junior brother's bearing?

"If you ask me, you're just afraid someone will snatch your chance to earn credit in front of an important person."

The Dzongben said, "Enough, enough. Stop arguing. We're all trapped in the same predicament and should work together with one heart. Zuo Qian, since this Little Lama has apologized to you, you should accept it."

When Zuo Qian heard the Dzongben call him "Little Lama," he knew the Dzongben looked favorably on the monk.

He therefore nodded to Qu Zan.

Qu Zan pulled Doje aside to talk.

"By the way, you came out through the wall."

Qu Zan shook his head and said, "I don't know either."

Dzongben Caiwang said, "We should be inside a Vengeful Ghost's Ghost Domain now. Many things here cannot be judged by common sense. Little Lama, since we're all here together, we should share all our information. Why are you whispering?"

Qu Zan smiled. "I was afraid of upsetting someone."

Zhunnie said, "You said you encountered three ghosts just now. What exactly did they look like?"

"I didn't see the true appearance of any of them. It was only an inference," Qu Zan said. Although he had seen the third one, these four were all outsiders, so there was no need for Qu Zan to tell them.

The little maid Zhuoma pouted. "What's this? Another fool."

"Hey, what do you mean by that?" Doje said, put off by what he heard.

Qu Zan said, "How did you get here?"

Doje said, "There was just a whoosh, and when I opened my eyes, I was here. You have no idea how pitch-black it was when I first arrived. It scared me to death..."

"I mean, what were you doing when you came here? I was drinking tea. What about you?"

Tuya said, "I saw Zhuoma being sucked into a bronze vessel, so I grabbed her. My father grabbed me, and then our steward grabbed my father. We came over in a bunch."

Qu Zan turned to Doje and asked, "Senior brother, what about you?"

"I was pissing at the foot of a wall." Doje scratched his head.

Qu Zan pondered for a moment, then looked at Zuo Qian. "Lord Zuo Qian, how did you get here?"

"What does that matter? We should be figuring out how to get out, not how we got here," Zuo Qian said coldly.

"We have to draw out the silk and peel away the cocoon to find clues. There are so many ghosts in this Ghost Domain. We should find the one that brought us here. Only then can we leave, I suspect," Qu Zan said gently.

Everyone else nodded unconsciously as they listened. Only Zuo Qian remained unconvinced.

Qu Zan looked at Zuo Qian and said, "I'm guessing you were wiping your saber, my lord."

Zuo Qian abruptly sat upright. "How did you know? Were you spying on me?!"

Qu Zan pointed at Zuo Qian's waist. "I noticed that the saber at your waist had only its scabbard, while you attacked with a short blade. That was why I guessed."

"That still doesn't mean I was wiping my saber!"

"We all came here for the same reason," Qu Zan said.

Doje said, "What reason? I was pissing, you were drinking tea, she was polishing a bronze vessel, and he was wiping his saber. Different actions, different places!"

"Reflections!" Qu Zan said. "I suspect it was because of reflections. A ghost's image appeared in the reflection, and so we were swept in here."

"...As long as a ghost's reflection appears on a reflective surface, it will drag you here through the reflection. Touching the reflection."

Zhuoma said, "Now that you mention it, when I was polishing the bronze vessel, I think I did feel there was something strange about the light and shadows on it. Touching the reflective surface!"

At that thought, the little maid Zhuoma and Tuya shifted a little farther away from Doje.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Doje huffed.

"Who knows whether you got any on you when you came through your piss?" Zhuoma said.

Doje said, "What rotten luck. Even taking a piss gets me tangled up with a ghost."

"No, ghosts and monsters roam throughout Mìdì. Encountering a ghost isn't unusual," Qu Zan said. "But for there to be effects even inside Corpse Camel Temple, something bad must have happened outside."

"What use are these guesses? Besides, even if it was reflections, what good does that do?" Zuo Qian sat back down.

Doje scoffed at him.

"It's a solid fact that my torches saved all of us," Zuo Qian said.

Qu Zan looked at the torches everyone held.

They were all human thighbones wrapped in strips of rag.

"These bones?!"

"They were taken from the bodies of people who had already died in the Ghost Domain," Doje said.

"This fellow was extremely practiced at taking bones out of people. The moment he set to work, he knew how to remove the thighbones from the corpses." Doje lowered his voice. "I bet he's killed plenty of people."

Zuo Qian snorted coldly. "The ones I killed were all runaway mongrels. Their masters fed them their fill, yet instead of thinking of repaying them, they wanted to escape. Tell me, do those things count as human?!"

Qu Zan still only smiled faintly. No anger could be seen, but in his bright eyes, the torches of burning human bone shone brilliantly, like great stars.