“I appreciate Your Highness’s kindness, but I’m no longer Lady Ming.”
“Nonsense. You’ll always be Lady Ming to me. You may not know it, but you were one of the few people who brought me joy in the palace. For that, I’ll forever be grateful.”
Mistress Ming bowed lower, flustered by the praise. Then her eyes flitted up and caught mine. Seeming to remember the business at hand, she cleared her throat and said more authoritatively, “Well, you two had best be on your way. Time is precious.”
Ren nodded, stepping in my direction.
“Thank you again, dajie,” I said, dipping my head politely.
The wisewoman pulled her shawl tighter around her chest. In a more casual tone than she’d used with Ren, she said, “Thank me when you’ve successfully completed the mission. And don’t forget to bring what I asked for the next time you visit.”
“Yes, yes.” I passed the lantern, a collapsible paper barrel dangling from a short stick, to Ren, my feet already turning toward the path out of the bamboo forest. Over my shoulder, I said, “Now hurry back inside before you catch a cold.”
Mistress Ming didn’t need to be told twice, though I suspected she watched our departure from the window. For all her sharp edges, the wisewoman had a gold heart hidden inside. I was sad to leave so soon. But I’d visit Mistress Ming another time and learn more about her mysterious past.
“We’re traveling on foot?” Ren asked when he realized I intended to walk the entire way home.
“Did you expect a royal carriage?” I led the way through the bamboo forest, the faint moonlight softening the lines of the leaves above and the earth below. “Unfortunately for you, Your Highness, I don’t care to spend money on such frivolities. And besides, I prefer to walk.”
“You prefer,” he said, taking two long strides to catch up with my pace. “Just as you seem to prefer traveling in the dead of night, the hour of robbers and ghosts. Why is that?”
I nearly flinched at his closeness. I’d grown accustomed to being the lone leader at the head of silent companions, with only the grass and trees on either side of me. Ren’s nearness unnerved me, and his voice, substantial and colored with life, felt jarring to my ears.
Not that I’d let him see it.
“Truly, you must’ve lived a lavish life,” I said, “for you to know so little of corpse-driving.”
Instead of being offended, he shrugged and said, “I’ll admit I was sheltered. Cure me of my ignorance, Mistress Kang.”
I paused before responding. “It’s cooler at night, better for preserving a corpse’s condition with the talisman’s magic. And, as you say, it’s a time of robbers and ghosts, meaning one is less likely to cross paths with an innocent living human.”
“Bad luck to see the reanimated dead?” Ren guessed.
“Quite.”
We’d been speaking as if it were some other poor soul who’d been unfortunate enough to become a corpse needing to be transported. But then we seemed to remember at the same time why we were there, trekking through the shadows toward an even darker destination. Though Ren was an unconventional client, my position hadn’t changed. I remained a ganshi priestess guiding my reanimated dead. Or, in this case, my reanimated almost-dead.
“Will I really die that quickly if I don’t gather enough qi?” Ren said, as if he didn’t want to ask but couldn’t help doing so.
“Yes,” I replied. “Which is why we should talk less and walk faster.”
My tone shut down any response, not that he seemed as eager to chat as before. Worry deepened the lines of his face, a tension I was accustomed to seeing in the mirror. We said nothing more as we broke from the bamboo forest and followed the main road east, in the direction of Sian.
The chime of my staff accompanied our progress, filling the nighttime quiet. Though Ren was not quite dead, he still wore a Fu talisman, which would be enough to terrify any passerby. Most people didn’t want to test their luck with the supernatural.
It’d be several days before we reached the border. First, we had to cut through quilted farmsteads, bypassing local villages, and walk within the far-reaching shadows of mountains lush and untouched by human hands.
Fortunately, I’d traveled the meandering roads enough that my feet remembered the rhythm of the land, could force sense into the forks and turns and timeworn road signs. I also knew when to deviate from the path as the sky lightened from blackto blue. It didn’t take long to locate a cave where we could wait out the daylight.
Ren was more than happy to make up for the sleep he’d lost. Through the night, I’d caught him dozing off on several occasions, my iron bells the only thing compelling him to follow. Now he fell quickly asleep with his cloak rolled up and propped beneath his head.
I sat with my back against the cold, dewy wall, watching the rise and fall of his chest—still an unnerving sight to behold on a boy with a Fu talisman shielding his face. He slept as if his worries were nothing but lashes brushed off his cheeks.
I, on the other hand, had never been able to fall asleep quickly. I was the most alert when my body was worn, all my energy gathering within my skull and flitting about like birds in flight. Sitting there, thoughts of my family, my father, flew in familiar old circles.
When I could no longer bear the weight of my own helplessness, I turned my attention to something I could control—my plans for nightfall.
Our first destination was the village of Fuzhou, or rather the forest beside it, which was said to be haunted by a woman who’d committed suicide. Back at the hut, as Mistress Ming and I examined the map she’d given me, I’d decided to make no more than three stops, excepting Baimu, on the way to Hulin—Fuzhou, Guangli, and Xiatang. Each claimed to suffer from the greatest evil.
