But I wouldn’t suffer their fate.
I gripped the heavy iron rings of the main doors, shoulders squared. “Shall we?”
“I didn’t have any other plans tonight.” Ren smiled tightly. “Why not stroll through a cursed mansion?”
CHAPTER 9
Dust and cobwebs rained over me as I dragged the door open. I swatted the air before my face, then crossed the threshold into a rectangular courtyard paved by ashy stone tiles. Ren followed closely, his hood removed.
The door swung shut behind us, locking into place with a definite thud. I nibbled the inside of my lip. The door could’ve closed due to its weight, or it could’ve been compelled by something more sinister. I chose not to dwell on it. Trapped or not, I would leave this mansion alive.
I led the way through another pair of roofed doors into the inner courtyard, pausing at the edge of the wide, open space to scan the area. The dimmed light of my lantern swept over the stone-paved residence, outlining the structures around us.
Jing Mansion was an ornately designed siheyuan shaped by gray brick walls. The elaborate architecture featured wooden pillars and frames once vibrantly painted green, red, and yellow. Now the colors were faded and cracked. Tasseled silk lanterns hung from the rafters like weary phantoms. At eachcorner of the yard stood drooping trees, rotten plums shrouding their roots. Framing the three sides were walkways scattered with dirt and leaves.
Loss hung as heavily in the air as the dust blanketing every surface, weighing down on me. But the forlornness of the bleached paint, creaking wood, and empty windows stood second to the malevolent, furious aura that seeped through the grounds.
“Something feels… wrong,” said Ren, confirming my thoughts.
The air was too still. Not even the sound of crickets punctuated the night. A chill slithered around my heart.
I realized what was bothering me.
The man in town had told us that Yuyan murdered every member of the household, that no one had entered the mansion grounds. If that were the case, where were the bodies? Had the villagers buried them, despite their fear?
“Come,” I said, advancing toward the main house, which loomed directly ahead in towering levels. At the top of the steps were geometric doors paned with yellowing silk. I rested my palm against the wooden frame, nearly expecting it to be cold as ice. But it was just wood, roughened by peeling paint.
Even so, I placed a purification talisman on the door, sending a silent prayer to the gods. Perhaps Yuyan’s spirit hadn’t noticed our presence yet. Perhaps this attempt was all I’d need to exorcise the evil and make a clean escape.
To my disappointment, nothing happened after I recited the incantation and rang my staff. The door remained cool and dark, the mansion eerily quiet.
I tore off the talisman and returned it to my pocket, thinking of likely places to check next.
“Maybe she isn’t bound to the house,” Ren whispered. “Maybe she’s bound to something more personal”—he waved his hand—“like a ring or a favorite pillow.”
I didn’t smile at his jokes, clasping the brass handle and yanking the door back. “I suppose we’ve no other option. The sooner we find the spirit, the sooner we can leave this forsaken place.”
The interior of Jing Mansion was a labyrinth of halls, chambers, and corridors both open and closed. We walked past bedrooms and sitting rooms dressed in expensive furniture, crept through the narrow hallways of the servants’ quarters, and swept through overgrown, weed-infested gardens. Even worn by time, the residence remained beautiful, like a memory trapped in glass.
But something sinister crawled underneath that beauty. Certain rooms contained shattered porcelain on the floor and overturned chairs, as if their owners had been in a hurry to run out. Blood stained tapestries and floors, and one room had broken furniture near the door, a failed attempt at a barricade.
But there were still no signs of the household’s bodies. I anticipated stumbling upon a decaying corpse each time we rounded a corner or walked into a room, only to find nothing. The mansion seemed entirely abandoned.
By humans, at least.
As we searched the estate, I felt eyes trailing our movement, making the back of my neck tingle. But when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw nothing, save for swaying drapes or twitching shadows I took as figments of my heightened imagination.
I nearly screamed when a spider landed on my cheek. I’d carelessly walked into its web, its fine, cold legs crawling down my face. I started at its touch and swiped it off me, thinkingI could hear its fat body land on the floor with a thump. Shuddering in disgust, I continued forward with a warier eye for hidden critters.
“Can you sense Yuyan’s spirit?” I asked, bringing us to what appeared to be a woman’s bedroom. It’d likely belonged to one of the Jings’ unmarried daughters, as we were in the secluded backside building where younger girls usually slept.
“I’m not sure,” Ren replied, his gaze tracing the intricately carved windows, which looked out upon a small garden. A deserted spiderweb covered one of the panes, the moonlight outside throwing diamonds across its threads. “I can feel her hatred, but it seems to be everywhere.”
That was how I felt too. I stood by a dusty vanity and ran my finger across a rounded hair comb with flowery pearl inlays. The teeth were sharp enough to break flesh.
“We should locate the place of her death,” I suggested, thinking of Liu Chunhua. “The ground marked by her dying blood.”
“But where would she have done the deed?” Ren scratched his forehead underneath the talisman. He looked around the room. “The chambers she shared with her husband?”
