Little Morning Light, Many Sick

The sky was shrouded in thick fog, and everything was dim.

On the land, there was only thick, dark green wild grass and a rippling river.

A man was washing his face by the river, his head bowed so low that only the thick black hair on top was visible.

Whenever he wiped his hands down his face, they came away bloody. He would scoop up water to rinse them, then wipe his face again, only to find them streaked with blood once more.

The rippling water reflected a young face, indistinct but clear enough to show that his eyes and nostrils were bleeding continuously.

Drops of blood fell into the river and spread with the ripples, like the markings on a venomous snake.

Splash!!!

An enormous venomous snake suddenly burst from the water and bit the man in the face.

His scream was muffled inside the snake's mouth. Its gaping, bloody maw swallowed his entire face, bringing a sensation of suffocation.

"Ring, ring, ring..."

Chu Tianshu's eyes flew open, his pupils trembling. He sat bolt upright in bed and reached for his face. The suffocating pain from his dream seemed to linger.

Both alarm clocks on the bedside table were ringing, and the phone on the tea table beside the bed was vibrating noisily too.

After a night of nightmares, he had broken out in a cold sweat again. The back of his pajamas was soaked, and his messy hair looked as though it had just been rinsed. Beads of sweat clung to his eyelids, and his lips were dry, cracked, and pale.

But what Chu Tianshu found harder to bear than his thirst was his heartbeat.

It was so loud that it made the depths of his ears ache.

He hooked a finger around a red cord and pulled a pendant out from inside his collar.

The pendant was only the size of a thumb. On its front were two ancient characters that were hard to make out; on the back was an unfamiliar beast-face pattern. It looked a little like an ancient taotie pattern, yet also like a lion or a qilin. It was hard to say.

"Still the heart and sever the water; the water severed, the heart is still. The mind is pure and tranquil, undisturbed by waves..."

Chu Tianshu folded his hands together, feeling the familiar outline against his palms. His eyes were fixed on his hands as he chanted an incantation.

"Walk to where the water ends, sit and watch the clouds rise. Heaven's light shines clear and pure, dyed in rosy clouds to shield the body..."

A profound sense of peace and steadiness spread from the pendant in his palms, while the repeated incantation mingled with the ringing alarms.

The curtains had not been drawn. The faint light of dawn came through the window, seeming to drape him in a soft glow, and his expression gradually calmed.

The phone alarm had already stopped on its own, and he switched off the two alarm clocks.

Chu Tianshu got out of bed and took his cup to the window. The greenish tint of the aged glass reflected a young man whose features held a hint of agitation and gloom.

He stared at himself in the glass and drank two mouthfuls of hot water. His warm breath misted the pane, blurring the eyes and brows of his reflection.

There was no point in directing his anger at a nightmare.

"The medicine's getting less effective again. This is the seventh nightmare I've had in the past half month or so, isn't it?"

In the land of the Mystic Kingdom, inheritor of Yan and Huang, cultivation had been divided into two types since ancient times: spirit communication and martial arts. Each had countless schools and branches.

Chu Tianshu was a spirit communicator, but he had never formally joined a school. His art had been passed down in his family.

When his grandfather was young, he had a fortuitous encounter and obtained a secret manual and a magical artifact, eventually cultivating some genuine skills.

His grandfather had been somewhat ambitious then, but unfortunately his own cultivation had reached a bottleneck. Few of the friends he had recruited or the disciples he had taught could truly cross the threshold into spirit communication. His ambitions faded, and he confined his activities to his own little patch of land back home.

His son and daughter-in-law had not mastered spirit communication, but they had drive. In the last decade of the previous century, they heard that gold could be found everywhere outside and that many people had grown rich. The couple left their child in the old man's care and went away to make their own fortune, only to vanish without a trace.

His grandfather called in a few favors but failed to find his son and daughter-in-law. He raised the child himself and spoiled him somewhat, letting him grow up mischievous and active, free to leaf through the family's books and play with its artifacts.

Who could have expected that Chu Tianshu would awaken his abilities and cross the threshold into spirit communication at just five years old?

His grandfather had not received formal instruction himself and was only delighted at the time. He learned later that awakening to spirit communication too early was no good thing at all for a child.

Many of a young child's bones had yet to fuse, and though their Qi and blood were incomplete, they were also pure. Awakening to spirit communication overnight made them especially susceptible to external yin and evil influences.

Even without a fully formed evil entity, an unusual environment that ordinary people need not worry about, or abnormal weather, could leave a child plagued by nightmares, heart palpitations, and shortness of breath.

In ancient times, someone in that situation would almost certainly not have lived to adulthood.

Chu Tianshu cultivated diligently to strengthen his self-control and ability to protect himself. He chanted incantations to nurture his mind, wore a magical artifact, and, most importantly, found a highly effective medicine. Somehow, he had managed to defy that diagnosis of "not living to adulthood," and was now in his twenties.

His grandfather had died of illness a few years ago. Between the family's savings and his own income, Chu Tianshu could afford his medicine and lived reasonably well.

But over the past two years, the highly effective medicine that had done so much for him had shown increasing signs that it could no longer hold his condition at bay.

The seller had nothing better to recommend and could only tell him to increase the dose.

He had originally taken one pill three times a day, but had now increased it to six at a time. Considering the effects of the medicine and its side effects on his organs, this was already the maximum dose.

Yet... he still had nightmares.

Worse still, the older he got and the deeper his mind became, the more readily the effects of his dreams manifested in his body.

Every time he woke from a nightmare, his heart would be agitated, his hands would shake, and his vision would blur.

When he was a child, he might have lasted several years even without the medicine.

Now, if it stopped working, he probably would not last six months before wasting away to skin and bones and dying suddenly of depression.

Chu Tianshu looked at the pendant on his chest.

There was no new word about the medicine, so his greatest hope could only rest on this pendant.

His grandfather had obtained it along with the secret manual all those years ago. According to the book, the pendant was a token passed down through their lineage.

Viewed normally, it was a small, weighty piece of metal. But viewed through the secret art of spirit communication, the pendant looked like a small vessel, with a soft red glow swaying inside it.

It was only a tiny bit short of being filled with red light.

The secret manual claimed that once the pendant was full, a great opportunity would appear, but it was vague on the details. Presumably, even their predecessors through the generations had never actually seen what that great opportunity was.

Nor could anyone say exactly how to fill it.

Grandpa Chu had been full of drive in his youth. He had often poured his mental power into it and had even risked his life fighting and killing several formidable evil entities. Yet the red light in the pendant had remained only about sixty or seventy percent full, with little change.

In the past few years, seemingly after the start of the new century, the red light inside the pendant had noticeably increased on its own, even though Chu Tianshu had done nothing in particular.

At this rate, perhaps it really could fill up within six months.

"It can already help me calm my heart and steady my spirit in its normal state. Once it's full, I'm not asking for any great opportunity. If it can just unleash that red light and help me get rid of the root of this illness, that would be best!"

Chu Tianshu silently prayed twice, sighed inwardly, and tucked the pendant back inside his collar. As usual, he tried to adjust his state of mind, so he would not dwell on negative emotions for too long.

After another two mouthfuls of water, he took his morning pills, turned to take a shower, and changed his clothes.

The townships around Hailing City were fairly well developed, and many farming families had built two-and-a-half-story houses. His grandfather's had been among the first, but in the town today, it no longer looked particularly grand.

Yet Chu Tianshu lived alone in the second-floor bedroom of that two-and-a-half-story house, and sometimes it still felt a little empty.

As he carried his dirty clothes through the second-floor living room, his old friends stood quietly there as always.

They were nine wooden figures.

Eight were acupuncture-point models, shaped to represent people of different heights and builds, male and female, young and old. They had meridian channels and openings inside and were used for practice and learning the locations of acupuncture points. Four leaned against the wall on the left, and four on the right.

In the open space between them, a square rug had been laid down especially for a solid hardwood figure that stood on it.

"Good morning."

Chu Tianshu greeted everyone. As he passed the hardwood figure, he pulled a silver needle from its head and casually inserted it into its shoulder.

The silver needle was as fine as an ox hair and easily bent, yet in Chu Tianshu's hand it slid three or four centimeters into the hardwood with ease.

This point could stimulate blood flow to the shoulders and neck, giving the brain a better supply of oxygen. Simply put, it could ease the weariness of someone who had just woken up in the morning.

The morning sunlight shone into the living room.

The unfeeling wooden figure held its usual standing pose, unable to respond to its old friend. Only the silver needle in its shoulder still trembled, reflecting a glint of light.

Chu Tianshu had already gone downstairs, intending to open the refrigerator and find something to make for breakfast.

Suddenly, the sound of an approaching motorcycle came from outside.

"Chu Tianshu, Chu Tianshu! Are you home?"

Chu Tianshu recognized the visitor's voice and quickened his pace to open the door.

"Teacher Qiao, what brings you to my house so early? Come in and have some tea first."

Outside stood a sturdy man in his forties, about 1.7 meters tall, with somewhat thinning hair and a brown jacket. He was holding a boy in a school uniform by his side.

Teacher Qiao had been Chu Tianshu's homeroom teacher in middle school.

As it happened, when Chu Tianshu moved on to high school, Teacher Qiao had also moved up to teach there, so they knew each other well.

Teacher Qiao led the boy inside, looking anxious. As soon as he opened his mouth, he could not stop sighing.

"Ah, this is my student, Li Xu. Please take a look at him."

Chu Tianshu studied the boy. His complexion was sallow, there were dark circles under his eyes, and his short hair was noticeably oily.

Clearly, his sleep and eating habits were irregular, and he was anxious. That was normal enough; many high school students were like that.

But from the moment he appeared, the boy had stared blankly ahead without saying a word.

When Teacher Qiao had first pulled him along, he had clearly had to use considerable effort. But once he took him by the hand and got him moving, the boy followed automatically.

Those things were clearly not normal.

Chu Tianshu took Li Xu's wrist and felt his pulse, casually asking, "What's wrong with him? If something's the matter, why bring him to me instead of a hospital? Do you suspect he's possessed?"

Teacher Qiao had dealt with Chu Tianshu's grandfather before and had actually seen unclean things, though as a teacher, he rarely mentioned them.

"No."

Teacher Qiao shook his head. "This kid comes from a well-off family and gets good grades. He used to be pretty cheerful in class."

"But as he got closer to his final year of high school, the schoolwork was already putting him under a lot of pressure, and it seems his family only piled on more tutoring. He often zoned out and dozed off at school."

"When teachers talked to him, he was quicker than anyone to admit he was wrong. He'd cry easily, even kneel. The way he was... don't even get me started. I wondered if there was domestic violence at home, but he's a boy, strong and healthy, and he didn't have any injuries on him."

"I talked to his mom at a parent-teacher meeting. He went to the hospital, but that came to nothing too. I suspect he has a mental illness, but his mom won't accept it."

"This morning, I found him in the bathroom holding scissors up to his own neck. Fuck!"

Teacher Qiao swore. "With his family being the way they are, if I took him to the hospital again, there'd definitely be even more trouble. I had no choice but to ask you for help."

This had been a little rash, but judging by Teacher Qiao's expression, he had been driven to the point of losing his head.

Chu Tianshu compared what he had heard with the boy's pulse and had a sense of the situation.

What he had studied was Annotations on Ghost Gate Witch Medicine. Though he could not cure the difficult root cause of his own illness, treating ordinary people's miscellaneous ailments, such as insomnia and excessive dreams, palpitations and weakness from cold, or a dazed state of mind, was no trouble.

Aside from occasionally exorcising evil and dispelling spirits, most of his income came from using the connections his grandfather had left him to help those clients regulate their minds and spirits.

"His mind and spirit are indeed out of balance, and his sleep is restless."

Chu Tianshu said, "This is more than just psychological pressure now. It's close to causing a physical illness. Hypnosis and counseling won't be enough; I need to give him acupuncture."

Seeing that Li Xu did not react,

Chu Tianshu took a handful of sweets from his pocket and arranged them on the table.

"Toffee, chocolate, cooling pills, peppermint powder, watermelon frost lozenges. Pick one to eat?"

Chu Tianshu had been watching Li Xu's eyes the whole time. Seeing no change, he did not wait for an answer. He unwrapped a watermelon frost lozenge, put it in the boy's mouth, and pressed him down into a seat at the table.

There were some bottles and jars on the table, along with several stainless-steel cases. Chu Tianshu flicked their lids open with a fingernail, revealing alcohol swabs and silver needles.

Li Xu was very quiet.

Chu Tianshu did not like to be disturbed while performing acupuncture, either.

So Teacher Qiao went outside for a walk. His phone vibrated, and he answered a call, only for the other person to hang up after he had said a few words.

In less than half an hour, a car arrived.

The village was laid out clearly: a wide stretch of farmland lay in front, with a concrete road running across beyond the fields.

On this side of the concrete road was a river. Every household had a bridge across it, leading to its residence.

The car stopped right on the concrete road. The moment a middle-aged woman with chestnut curls set foot on the bridge, she began speaking loudly, her words coming like a volley of arrows.

"Teacher Qiao, it's school time. Why did you bring Xuxu out here?"

"I told you there's nothing wrong with him. Everyone who says he's under too much pressure or has a mental illness is just trying to cheat us out of money. They're irresponsible."

The woman hurried across the bridge and into the courtyard.

Li Xu shuddered and tried to turn his head.

Chu Tianshu said, "Don't move!"

Teacher Qiao went over to stop Li Xu's mother, but she kept trying to come closer, her voice growing louder.

"His father and I used to live in the mountains. We'd go out to gather pig fodder before it was light, then walk mountain paths to school, a little road with eighteen bends, with only the stars for company. We had chores inside and out. If you want to talk about pressure, that was pressure. How come we didn't have this illness back then?"

"He eats well and dresses well now. We've never let him go without anything. All we ask is that he study a little, and he doesn't have the slightest spirit to endure hardship..."

Li Xu's mother had nearly reached the door and was within five meters of Chu Tianshu.

Chu Tianshu frowned. A silver needle in his hand suddenly changed direction, bent under a flick of his finger, and flashed away.

Mrs. Li's voice cut off abruptly. Her expression went blank for a moment, then turned fearful. She reached for her throat, making faint "ah-bah, ah-bah" sounds.

Teacher Qiao hurriedly took hold of her and led her toward the gate.

"Don't make noise, don't make noise. Master Chu is giving your son acupuncture, and he can't be disturbed. You're fine; you'll be all right once the needle is removed."

Teacher Qiao pulled a needle from Mrs. Li's neck.

"Ah!!"

Mrs. Li covered her mouth halfway through the cry. She stared at the needle in Teacher Qiao's hand, her face full of disbelief.

When had a needle appeared in her neck? She had not even gone near the person holding the needles.

Only then did Mrs. Li begin to notice the furnishings of the house before her.

She had assumed this was the home of a doctor Teacher Qiao knew well, and that they had come to his house because he had not yet gone to work at the hospital.

Now it seemed that was not the case.

A small bagua hung above the front door. Looking through the doorway, she could see a wooden stand in a corner of the living room.

Several writing brushes of different styles and two antique-looking copper wind chimes hung from the stand.

Beside it were glass jars of the sort commonly found in traditional Chinese medicine shops. They contained something red; she did not know whether it was cinnabar or something else.

"This, this..."

Mrs. Li looked around for several minutes, her expression changing repeatedly. She tugged at Teacher Qiao's sleeve and asked fearfully, "Teacher, has our Xuxu been possessed?"

"Did you notice something, and that's why you brought him to the master?"

Teacher Qiao froze for a moment and looked at the woman with a complicated expression.

He could hear deep worry in Mrs. Li's words, all of it concern for her son.

You wouldn't believe a word about mental illness, but the moment someone mentions possession, you believe it?

"Li Xu, he..."

Teacher Qiao stared at the mother in front of him, held himself back, and sighed. "He really has run into something evil."

In any case, psychological and mental problems could sometimes be quite hard to distinguish from the symptoms of possession. He would go with whichever was better for Li Xu.

Chu Tianshu should be able to hear what was being said over here, and could help make the story hold together later.

As expected, Mrs. Li grew even more nervous when she heard that. She watched what was happening inside the house with great care, muttering under her breath.

"There were people in our village who got possessed before. They all ended up losing their minds, filthy and unkempt, sleeping beside garbage, not even knowing they had to look after their old mothers at home. Our Xuxu mustn't lose his mind..."

Another car drove down the concrete road. Teacher Qiao turned to look; the car seemed unfamiliar in the village.

But Li Xu's mother recognized it at once and hurried over. "What brings you here? Weren't you negotiating a deal?"

"It fell through!!"

A burly man got out of the car. He had a bit of a beer belly and a full beard, and his face was full of irritation.

"I came to see what was going on and asked for directions at the school. What is it? Is he pretending to be sick again?!"

The man shouted, "Li Xu, you've really got some nerve now, skipping school! You..."

Li Xu's mother quickly gave him a hard tug and leaned close to speak in his ear.

The man's expression turned doubtful. He stopped shouting and followed her into the courtyard.

Li Xu's mother introduced him to Teacher Qiao. "This is my husband."

Teacher Qiao nodded to him. "Boss Li, hello."

Boss Li came over and offered Teacher Qiao a cigarette. His expression was troubled as he hesitated. "Is it really an evil spirit? Teacher, could a child be faking the symptoms of an evil spirit too? There aren't many days left until the college entrance exam. He can't miss classes."

Boss Li glared toward Li Xu, his eyes heavily bloodshot.

"If he misses classes, falling behind for a moment means falling behind for life. Even if an evil spirit really has gotten to him, he can still tough it out. He can get proper treatment after the college entrance exam!"

Push him any faster, and your son will be racing ahead to the finish line of his life.

Teacher Qiao grumbled inwardly, then made perfunctory conversation with him for a while.

Boss Li seemed to be in bad shape. He smoked his cigarette rapidly, his face covered in greasy sweat, and kept tapping his neck.

After less than ten minutes, he could no longer restrain himself and headed for the house.

"I won't speak loudly. I'll just take a look."

A business deal had fallen through for Boss Li that morning, and he was already upset. He didn't know why, but after arriving here, he felt worse and worse, a little dizzy and nauseated, as though his brain and his head were no longer in the same place.

But his mind was still full of the thought of dragging his son back to class.

Gradually, he couldn't remember anything else. Only that thought remained. As he walked forward, his eyes were wide and round, eager to spot his son, and the blood vessels in them stood out even more clearly.

"Let me see whether this little bastard is really faking it. Even if something has happened to him, why can't he tough it out..."

Boss Li muttered under his breath. The wider his eyes grew, the lower his voice sank, as though a lump of foul-smelling, sickly sweet muck were muffling his throat.

Teacher Qiao was distracted for a moment and failed to stop him, watching as he strode forward and planted one foot stiffly over the threshold.

Buzz!!

The Bagua mirror hanging above the door gave a faint tremor, and a glimmer of brass flashed across it.

The wind chimes on a stand inside the house stirred without wind, jangling wildly.

Chu Tianshu abruptly raised his head and fixed his gaze on the bloodshot eyes at the doorway.