Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 13: The Invisible Friend (Part 5)

Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 13: The Invisible Friend (Part 5)

“That day, Sun Yang seemed perfectly normal when he came home. I had no idea he hadn’t gone to tutoring, that he’d gone out with those other kids to swim in the wild.” Sun Bo made an effort to stay calm, recounting the events in a measured tone. “It was only later, when Jiang Hao’s parents posted in the group chat asking where their son had gone, that I found out something had happened.”

Chen Jiu sat in the passenger seat and rolled the window down a crack.

Sun Bo continued. “I was terrified Sun Yang might be involved. Before the police even came to the house, I asked him to tell me exactly what had happened and to be honest with me. But this kid just… he wouldn’t tell the truth, not once. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I really don’t understand children anymore.”

The more he talked, the more exhausted and hopeless he felt. He had truly had enough of these past months. He had never remarried, all for Sun Yang’s sake juggling work and family at the same time and now his son had come to this. He felt heartbroken, but also unable to suppress a slow-burning resentment. Some part of him still blamed Sun Yang for being so reckless and inconsiderate.

“He’s ten years old,” Chen Jiu said abruptly, her tone not especially gentle.

Sun Bo fell silent at once, a wave of helplessness washing over him. Right. He was ten years old. What could a ten-year-old possibly understand? Wasn’t this his own failure as a father?

Jiang Hao’s family lived in the eastern part of Qiu City. Sun Bo had been there once before; the navigation history was still saved on his phone.

“That’s the complex but how do we get in?” Sun Bo parked the car not far from the entrance and looked to Chen Jiu.

He was a headless fly at this point. Whatever Chen Jiu told him to do, he would do.

Chen Jiu took out her compass and swept it in the direction of the complex’s east gate. She stilled herself, focused and felt it immediately. A dense mass of pitch-black fog hovered above one of the buildings. She didn’t even need to look carefully, because that darkness was far heavier than the night sky around it.

With this kind of abnormality visible, she didn’t need to ask for a specific unit number. The resentment would guide her straight to where the malevolent force was at work.

“Wait here.” Chen Jiu grabbed her bag and stepped out of the car, then spun around and sent a talisman flying back with a flick of her hand. It slapped onto the car window with a crisp sound.

“Master Chen!” Sun Bo called after her in surprise. “Don’t you need me? Can’t I help somehow?”

“No need. Don’t get out of the car under any circumstances.” She gave the instruction without looking back and walked on.

Rounding a large tree that conveniently blocked the sightline, alone in the dead of night with no other witnesses, Chen Jiu summoned a flight talisman without hesitation, gripped her sword, and leaped into the air.

Building 3, Unit 5, Apartment 506. The room was utterly silent and dark, its only light source two white candles.

Their glow illuminated a small idol of peculiar design. It was meant to be a Buddha yet at first glance, it radiated something sinister: three heads, six arms, one of which had quietly split along a seam, as though it was about to break apart.

A woman’s voice rose from the darkness, carrying a thread of calm madness. “Almost there… just one breath more.”

“Let me, dear.” The man reached over and took the small knife from her hand. He rose and stepped toward the idol, drew the blade across his own palm, and watched as the blood dripped down and collected in the wine cup placed before the idol. After filling it partway, his face had gone even paler. Against the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave in days, he looked utterly spent.

The woman waited a moment, then came forward to bandage his hand. Together, husband and wife turned to face the idol, knelt with complete devotion, bowed their heads to the floor, and began chanting sutras in a language whose pronunciation was deeply strange.

In the center of the room sat a large chest freezer. Inside it lay Jiang Hao’s body complexion ashen, eyes sealed shut.

As the chanting rose, the idol seemed intent on proving its compassion: two drops of blood-tears trickled from the corners of its eyes. Then the blood in the wine cup began to slowly diminish, as black fog poured freely from the altar behind the idol, spreading without restraint.

A faint cracking sound came again. The woman’s movements paused. Her heartbeat lurched and then hammered with fierce joy.

Soon… Haohao… Mama is almost ready to avenge you.

But things did not unfold as she had anticipated. The cracking sound was not coming from the idol’s arm it was coming from the glass of the window on the far side of the room.

Before the couple had time to react, the glass shattered with a crash, and a figure forced its way in from outside.

“Stop bowing!” Chen Jiu hit the floor in a roll, sprang upright, and barked at the two of them: “If you don’t stop, you’ll lose your own lives!”

The words had barely left her mouth when the last drop of blood in the wine cup vanished entirely. The idol’s head rotated slightly — and broke into a faint, deeply unsettling smile.

“Who are you?!” the woman shrieked. “Don’t come any closer!”

The man snatched up a chair and held it in front of him, placing himself between Chen Jiu and both the idol and his wife, assuming a defensive stance.

“Do you even know what you’ve been worshipping?” Chen Jiu raised a talisman between her fingers, her voice cold. “Kong Xiang is not a Buddha it is a demon. You have fed it your own blood and life force. Not only will it not bring Jiang Hao back, it will drag you both into hell alongside him.”

“Ha… hell?” The woman broke into wild, unhinged laughter. “Haohao has been gone so long what do we have left to live for? Even if we die, I want those little monsters to come down to hell with us!”

“I don’t care who you are,” the man roared. “Mind your own business. Get out of our house!”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve been paid to deal with this.” Chen Jiu sent a talisman flying, her hand gestures shifting at blinding speed. “A demon dwells here, wearing the name of Buddha. By this talisman, be sealed and stricken never to wake again! Chì!“

The talisman blazed with golden light and shot toward the idol like an arrow. The radiant seal crashed down over the demon-idol’s head. The thing whatever it was, nothing resembling a living creature let out a hideous, grating screech. Blood-tears flooded from its eyes, spilling over the altar table and dripping to the floor, spreading slowly in all directions.

The woman screamed and threw herself to the ground in a frenzy, frantically scooping the blood back with her hands, her eyes full of despair.

“What are you doing?! What are you doing?!” she shrieked, her voice shredding itself. “Why are you doing this to my child?! Why are you doing this to my child?! My child… Haohao… my child…”

The man’s veins bulged with fury. With a howl of rage, he heaved the chair and hurled it straight at Chen Jiu with full force. “Die! Die! All of you — die!”

Chen Jiu leaned back slightly, redirected his force with a single push — using just enough strength to send him stumbling. Already drained of blood and vital energy, he crashed to the side along with the chair and could not get up for a long while, lying on the floor groaning.

The woman suddenly seemed to realize something. She clawed herself up from the floor, filthy from head to toe, and scrambled toward the altar on her knees, grabbing at the talisman that was still blazing with golden light.

“Stop!” Chen Jiu snapped.

But the woman let out a mad laugh and tore with every ounce of strength she had. With a sharp ripping sound, the talisman split in two and Kong Xiang’s screech cut off instantly.

A torrent of thick black fog erupted as though from a broken seal. One tendril of it shot out and plunged into the body inside the freezer. Jiang Hao’s eyes slowly opened and his irises had turned a deep, unnatural red.

Chen Jiu cursed under her breath, flung out a paralysis talisman to freeze the frenzied woman in place, then took up her peachwood sword and stepped back several wary paces into the black fog.

The sound of the freezer sliding open filled the room. Something climbed its way out and then there was a soft thud as it dropped to the floor.

The boy began to laugh softly. His voice was childlike, yet threaded through with a weight that had no business belonging to someone his age. Struggling to master the body it had taken over, it hauled itself upright in a grotesque and contorted posture.

The man lay close by, had seen everything, and felt equal measures of terror and desperate hope but he was no fool. Whatever was standing in front of him, it could not possibly be his son.

And yet the body was undeniably Jiang Hao’s.

“Haohao…” he managed, his voice breaking over his son’s name. Tears ran down his face.

These months had been unbearable. Every time the memory of his son’s voice and face surfaced, it was as though a blade was being turned in his chest, and sleep would not come.

“Jiang Hao” heard his voice. Its neck bent at a grotesque angle, and it looked down at the wretched man. In a low voice, it said: “All forms are illusion… life itself is the greatest illusion of all. Only in death does one see what is real.” It slowly raised one hand, fingers curved into a claw, and closed them around the man’s throat from across the room.

“Let me help you break free from illusion,” Kong Xiang said, with something like a smile.

The man’s mind went blank. The sensation of suffocation closed in.

He had thought he had long since made peace with death. But now that it was truly here, he found to his own surprise that he still didn’t want to go. It was the most primal thing: the will to live.

“I bind your form and soul cause harm no more. As the law commands, with urgency!”

The clear, sharp voice rang out and a beam of golden light split through the fog, severing Kong Xiang’s hand without mercy. Black blood erupted from the wound and splattered across the man’s face. The suffocation vanished at once. The man collapsed again, coughing as though his lungs were tearing apart, as though half his life had been ripped away with it.

“Found you.” Chen Jiu laughed coldly, burst through the black fog with her sword, and drove it straight at Kong Xiang.

The demon finally reacted, stumbling backward, retreating into the fog and from the severed wrist, a new and perfectly formed hand slowly grew back.

“Little girl,” came the childlike voice, “your cultivation is far too shallow.”

Chen Jiu’s ears twitched. Behind her, the thick fog had gathered itself into the shape of an enormous Buddha’s palm and came smashing down at her back. Chen Jiu dodged sideways in time to escape the full force of the blow but the inanimate objects in its path were not so fortunate. The strike sent the large chest freezer hurtling through the air, slamming into the wall with a thunderous crash.

The sound was enough to bring on lights in the neighboring units almost immediately, followed by a chorus of angry shouts.

“Some of us are trying to sleep!”

The sudden intrusion of yang energy from the living world made Kong Xiang falter for just a moment. Chen Jiu seized the opportunity: the blade flew in her grip as she pierced her index finger, summoned twelve talismans into the air, and smeared her blood across each one.

“Draw upon the vessel reveal the true form go!” Chen Jiu unleashed the most powerful strike in her arsenal. Twelve demon-sealing talismans launched themselves outward and surged toward Kong Xiang.

A blinding burst of golden light erupted outward with Kong Xiang at its center. In that instant, every person in the room squeezed their eyes shut. The neighbors who had been hollering in annoyance suddenly fell silent, vaguely convinced that dawn had broken for just a moment.

A soft thud and Jiang Hao’s body crumpled limply to the floor. Chen Jiu opened her eyes. The black fog let out a sound and vanished through the hole in the broken window, disappearing without a trace.