Eastern Oddities: The Legend of Lin Xiao

Lin Xiao stood before the old mansion slated for demolition, his suitcase wheel wedged in a gap between the flagstones. The July cicadas blared like a relentless roar, and sweat streamed down his spine into his waistband. This three-courtyard residence from the Republican era now resembled a caged beast with its gaping mouth.

"Five hundred a month, utilities on you," the landlord drawled, a toothpick dangling from his lips as he kicked open the decaying wooden door. "If it weren't for your grandfather—"

His words faded into the musty draft that swept through the hall. Lin Xiao lifted his gaze to the coffered ceiling, where spiderwebs shimmered like silver in the sunlight. This was his last refuge—a niche in a third-rate university's ancient text restoration program, a field rarer in the job market than dinosaur fossils.

His phone buzzed suddenly. The nineteenth rejection email flashed on screen:

"After evaluation, your specialty does not match our company's needs."

As his finger swept across the screen, a drop of dark red liquid splattered onto the home button.

"Roof leaking?" he muttered, wiping away the scarlet stain—only to find the landlord had vanished.

After nightfall, faint footsteps echoed from the attic. Clutching his flashlight, Lin Xiao climbed the creaking wooden ladder. Its beam swept over the camphorwood book chest left by his grandfather. An aging copy of the Yingzao Fashi lay open on the floor, its yellowed pages interleaved with a withered ginkgo leaf—the very one he had tucked inside last Qingming.

"Ding—"

A crisp clink of a copper coin falling echoed from the beam overhead. Bending down to retrieve it, he noticed a dusty trail, as if dragged along the ground, winding toward the intricately carved wooden door of the west wing.

The door hinge creaked in protest, startling an owl in the darkness. Moonlight filtered through an ornate lattice window, casting eerie grids onto the wall. Lin Xiao's breath caught in his throat—the termite-eaten mold stains were coalescing into the vague outline of a human face.

In the dim light of Renjitang's glass counter, a pale, ghostly daylight shimmered. The balding shop owner, peering through a magnifying glass, jabbed at a sheep‐fat jade pendant. "Republic-era imitation—at most eight thousand," he declared.

"But this is from the Ming Dynasty…" Lin Xiao murmured, his eyes lingering on the chī-lóng motifs etched into the jade. In that instant, memories of his mother's emaciated wrist during chemotherapy surged forth—the sharp scent of disinfectant mingling with the bitter aroma of Angelica drifting from the herbal cabinet.

"Take it or leave it," the owner said, casually tossing the pendant back onto the velvet cloth. "I only got three hundred for Mrs. Wang's jade bracelet next door."

Outside, on the gauze window, cicada molts trembled in the breeze. Lin Xiao's gaze drifted to a copper incense burner tucked in the counter's corner. Three incense sticks sent slender ribbons of bluish smoke straight upward—only for the smoke to bizarrely bend into a right angle upon touching the ceiling. On the owner's ring finger shone a signet ring of black jade, its surface etched with veins that resembled threads of blood.

The moment the jade pendant tumbled into a small ticket box, the sound of chains dragging on the floor echoed from the rear hall. When Lin Xiao turned, he caught a glimpse of a blue-gray ankle slipping past a gap in the curtain.

On his way home, a torrential downpour beat against the pavement. Clutching a dossier bag stuffed with cash, Lin Xiao nearly collided with an elderly man holding a bamboo-framed oil-paper umbrella painted with Zhong Kui capturing ghosts. The man's weathered, age-spotted hand pressed a small sachet into his palm. "The night's treacherous, young friend. Take this with you."

Before Lin Xiao could protest, the sachet was already in his hand. The fragrance of chen shui incense—mingled with the sharp tang of mugwort—filled his nostrils, overpowering the faint reek of decay wafting from the alley.

In the relentless plum rain, the old mansion's mold spread wildly. While sanding the window lattice, Lin Xiao discovered a piece of talisman paper hidden within an insect-eaten grid. The cinnabar inscriptions had faded to a dull brown, and touching them sent a subtle, stinging prick into his skin.

Up in the attic, the footsteps grew ever clearer. One night, roused from uneasy sleep, he heard a regular "rustle" coming from the floorboards—as if someone were brushing calligraphy onto rice paper. In the instant his flashlight pierced the darkness, the pages of the Jinshi Lu on the book chest began to turn on their own.

Between the yellowed pages, blood-red annotations appeared—handwriting utterly unlike his grandfather's elegant, floral script:

"On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the year of Gengchen, a nine-star alignment appeared at the chaotic burial mound on the western outskirts—portending the emergence of a flying corpse."

On a night when the torrential rain drummed relentlessly against the windows, Lin Xiao finally summoned the courage to explore the west wing. In his hand, a copper lock disintegrated into a fine green powder. As he pushed open the door, the musty odor was suddenly intermingled with the sweet scent of incense. On an Eight Immortals table sat a bronze oil lamp, its oil still fresh and glistening.

On the wall hung a tattered painting of Zhong Kui on Night Patrol, where the little demons' eyes seemed to track his every movement. Just as he reached out to touch the scroll, a child's laughter rang out from behind him.

"Big brother, you dropped your coin."

There, standing on the threshold, was Tongtong—a six-year-old from next door. His eyes gleamed with an eerie blue in the moonlight. Spreading out his hand, he revealed five Hongwu Tongbao coins arranged in the pattern of the Big Dipper—the last one smeared with fresh blood.

When the owner of the herbal medicine shop knocked at his door once more, Lin Xiao was busy restoring his grandfather's Yin Fu Jing. The crisp tap of a black jade signet ring against the doorbell announced the visitor's arrival. "Little Lin, I hear you've come across some fine stuff?"

A shadow of agarwood fragrance enveloped the study desk. Through his spectacles, the owner's pupils narrowed into slits, and scales-like patterns seemed to ripple along his neck. As Lin Xiao stumbled backward, he knocked over an inkstone; the cinnabar on the Yingzao Fashi smudged, and, astonishingly, began to trace out the contours of a household-protecting talisman.

That very stormy night, Lin Xiao trailed the owner to a suburban breeding farm. From within an iron cage came the sound of ripping and tearing; the eyes of twenty black pigs glowed red beneath a searchlight. When the owner withdrew his black jade signet ring, the pigs suddenly reared upright like men, their tusked mouths oozing drops of black blood.

A piercing scream from Tongtong shattered the night. The child—who had mysteriously appeared outside the fence—clutched a rag doll that was inexplicably melting away. As Lin Xiao scooped the child into his arms and bolted, a chorus of barking rose behind him—the pounding hoofbeats of those black pigs now striking the pavement with the lithe, predatory gait of a wolf pack.

At that moment, the sachet in his hand grew unbearably hot. The chen shui incense's fragrance flared into blue flames, instantly reducing the first lunging corpse pig to char. Lin Xiao's sleeve was singed through, revealing on his wrist a mysterious blue talisman—a pattern identical to that formed by the mold stains in the west wing.

Lin Xiao clutched the scalding chenxiang pouch as he backed into a corner of the wall, while the tusks of a rotting, corpse‐pig scraped sparks across the concrete floor. Tongtong's cloth doll was still melting; its plastic eyes had rolled to his feet, reflecting nine streaks of blood‑red light.

"Close your eyes!"

Shen Tong's voice rang down from the rooftop. The sound of shattering tiles—mingled with the tinkling of silver bells—accompanied the fall of twenty copper coins like shooting stars, weaving a golden web amid the mass of corpses. As Lin Xiao looked up, he saw moonlight trace the delicate silhouette of a young girl; a "Five Emperors Coin" tied in a ponytail was oozing blood.

"Southeast corner!"

Shen Tong lashed out a line of ink-drawn cord that coiled around Lin Xiao's wrist. "Use your copper coin sword to stab the Shanzhong acupoint!"

In that moment, the chī-lóng motif on the sword's hilt seemed to come alive—the scales scraping against his palm until his skin went numb. Stumbling forward, Lin Xiao lunged at the nearest black pig. The instant his copper coin sword plunged in, blue‑green phosphorescent fire burst from the decaying flesh. A fetid, bloody fluid splattered onto the cover of the Yingzao Fashi, and golden talismanic characters suddenly shimmered between its pages.

A wail, eerily reminiscent of a newborn's cry, rose from the mass of corpses. Shen Tong hauled Lin Xiao up onto the wall, and somewhere in the chaos Tongtong had clambered onto Lin Xiao's back. The child's cold little hands clamped over his face. "Brother, don't breathe—they can smell your vitality."

Outside, the floodlight at the breeding farm flared to life. Atop the iron cage, the herbal medicine shop owner stood with his black jade signet ring refracting an uncanny purple glow. "Mr. Xiao, didn't your grandfather teach you—" he began, snapping his fingers to shatter a nearby streetlamp. "—that possessing treasure brings its own curse?"

In the west wing of the old mansion, the Zhong Kui Night Patrol painting was bleeding. Lin Xiao retrieved the rhinoceros-horn comb left by his grandfather and carefully cleared the painting's core; as he scraped away the mold with a bovine bone knife, the wood shavings emitted a series of faint, sorrowful whimpers.

"This is a soul-quelling silk scroll by one of the corpse-herders from Xiangxi," Shen Tong suddenly declared from the doorway, the silver bells at his wrist chiming on their own. "Painted with corpse oil mixed with cinnabar, it can imprison a vengeful spirit a hundred years old."

Lin Xiao's fingertips grazed a brushstroke depicting a judge in the painting. "Last night… those black pigs…"

"They are corpse pigs refined by the Nine Nether Alliance," Shen Tong replied, tossing a jade button toward him. "The jade pendant you pawned is embedded with this—they're tracking the chī-lóng pattern."

In the moonlight, the jade button revealed vein-like markings that mirrored perfectly the lines of Lin Xiao's palm. Meanwhile, Tongtong—crouched under the Eight Immortals table while playing with copper coins—suddenly looked up and whispered, "There's something crying in the cellar."

The moment Lin Xiao pried open a blue brick, a stench of decay intermingled with the rich aroma of ink flooded his senses. Thirty-six earthen urns were arranged in a ring, each mouth adorned with a faded yellow talisman. He peeled back the red cloth sealing the nearest urn, and a half‑transparent page drifted out—the missing seventh volume of the Yin Fu Jing.

Overhead, the incandescent lamp on the restoration table hissed quietly. As Lin Xiao mended the tattered page with fish bladder glue, he noticed that the trails of beetle damage formed the outlines of mountains and rivers. When he shone his purple light upon it, blood‑colored incantations emerged from the paper fibers:

"Tian Gang subdues the Big Dipper, Di Sha locks Fengdu."

"This is the general outline of corpse alchemy," Shen Tong murmured, his silver bell chain winding around Lin Xiao's wrist. "Your grandfather dispersed the Xuan Xiao Lu among ancient texts."

Without warning, Tongtong stuffed a copper coin into one of the urns—and thirty-six Hongwu Tongbao coins began to levitate in unison. The copper coin sword shuddered violently; the chī-lóng motif on its hilt flared into a shaft of blue light that plunged into Lin Xiao's brow. Fragments of memory crashed over him: his grandfather, in his final moments, inscribing a talisman in cinnabar upon his back, and, in a stormy night outside, a shadowy figure in black darting by.

"The fifteenth of July is nearly here," Shen Tong said as he lit a stick of rhino horn incense. "The Nine Nether Alliance requires the chī-lóng bloodline to open the Fengdu Gate."

Outside the courtyard wall, the roar of excavators shook the night. The demolition crew's steel picks pounded against the gate's foundation, and suddenly the left eye of a stone lion tumbled free—revealing inside the shriveled corpse of a gecko. Tongtong pointed upward and screamed; the position of the Big Dipper was slowly shifting.

Kneeling at the center of the demolition site, Lin Xiao watched as the magnetic needle of a compass spun erratically. A tattered page from his grandfather's notebook—the Han Long Jing—began to heat up, its raised lead type forming embossed ridges like mountain ranges.

"They're digging to sever the dragon's neck," Shen Tong announced, sprinkling multicolored earth into the foundation pit. "This is the final nexus of life in the remnant veins of Qingcheng Mountain."

Suddenly, Tongtong dashed toward a concrete mixer, where a fragment of bronze floated amidst the cement slurry. As Lin Xiao brushed away mysterious markings with a small paintbrush, the roars of the corpse pigs reverberated from all sides. On the tower crane's summit, members of the Nine Nether Alliance stood, their black jade signet rings refracting the eerie glow of a blood moon.

"With your blood," intoned a man in black as he raised his hand in a ritual gesture, "to sacrifice to me…"

Before Lin Xiao could react, the copper coin sword slipped from his grasp and flew out, its tip embedding into a stone stele deep within the foundation pit. The chī-lóng pattern writhed along the stele's surface, and a tremendous clamor of snapping iron chains echoed up from below. Pain seared through the talisman etched into Lin Xiao's palm, and in his haze he saw his grandfather standing within a fissure in the earth, extending a half‑rolled Xuan Xiao Lu toward the void.