A: Boss, someone’s here to see you. Want to meet him?
B: Nay.
A: He’s here to return the car he borrowed last time. How much should we charge him?
B: None.
A: But he insists on leaving twenty thousand yuan.
B: Nope.
A: Fine. Besides that, he’s brought more goods. What did you think of the last batch?
B: Bad.
A: He says this batch is the purest of all.
Dear Alicia,
How are you? And how is our little Monica? Or perhaps little Ruben, of course. It cannot have turned to autumn in Sucre yet. Here, the waters of the Tagus have only just thawed. Lydia has been very well-behaved, and excellent at school too. She can even help me with simple work such as sorting reagents now. Do not worry. There is nothing dangerous in it.
I know you grow angry the moment I bring this up. Are you still angry with me over that? But look, Lydia has always been healthy. She is already eight years old, and not a single sign has shown itself. I promised you that “the thing” would do no harm, but you never trust what I say.
Vengeance. Li the Chancellor was a native of Cuo County, but ashamed of his family’s poverty, he changed his registration to the Western Capital. His sons prospered under the powerful, and he himself became a great frontier official. Before his old house in the Western Capital, governors and viceroys even set up a stele to flatter him. In the fourth month, a traveler came from the north, his whole body tattooed with scorpions. He split the stele apart with his bare hand. The ground of the house cracked open and water welled out, and from that day it could no longer be lived in. The Hundred Illustrations records that western tribesmen, when seeking vengeance, would tattoo themselves with scorpions.
Esports. A youth abandoned his studies and sank into esports. His parents could not dissuade him. On the summer solstice he played through the night, and by morning both legs had broken out in more than a dozen nameless swellings, each as large as a game piece, with pain that ran to the marrow when touched. He sought treatment from my teacher. The master pierced them with silver needles and drew out several keycaps, all keys commonly used in games. After that, his parents no longer dared indulge him, and the boy himself grew afraid.
Mountain Sprite Child. At the gate of the Air Force Hospital in Jincheng there was an abandoned infant. People took it in and examined it: tattooed face, pointed teeth, one leg, ankle turned to the front. All were terrified. After three days the infant died, refusing cow’s milk. Some said it was a mountain sprite child.
Weituo. A certain Cui and his confederates waited by the roadside on motorcycles to rob night travelers. At the hour of hai, a man came out. Cui’s accomplices drove up and snatched the bag, while Cui slashed at the man’s wrist with a knife. The sound rang out like a bell. He looked: the blade was chipped. Frightened, they fled. The next day, while repairing a vehicle, Cui’s right hand was crushed off, blood pouring like a waterfall. On the fifteenth he went to Wenshu Monastery with incense and saw on Weituo’s right wrist a knife-mark as fresh as new.
The ten li of the Qinhuai River in Jinling have long been praised as “a quarter of mist and moonlight from the Six Dynasties, a gathering place of beauty and luxury.” My friend Wu Xuan, a scholar from Jizhou, lived alone as a guest in Jinling and ran a teahouse on the left bank of the Qinhuai, specializing in all varieties of flower tea. Wu Xuan told me that not long after the teahouse opened, he often saw women worshipping beneath the willow tree before his door. From a distance he could make out under the tree a divine image more than a foot tall, with white eyebrows. But whenever he went forward to ask about it, the women worshipping there would grow nervous and immediately rise and leave. When he looked down again, the statue would be gone as well.
Not long after spring began, she left, crossing the ocean with very little luggage to that place that might sink at any moment. He asked why she would not go west with him. She squeezed his hand and said nothing. Mr. Su said she had gone there to fulfill a dream. Everyone has dreams of their own. Since the world itself was going to be gone, let her fulfill what she wished.
[Third Kaixinwang RPG Log]
Dark clouds pressed down on the city. No stars shone.
On the beach outside the castle stood dense ranks of fully armed, armored men. Endless black warhorses snorted, yet not a single clash of armor could be heard. Only the torches crackled and spat, the smell of pine resin mixed with sea brine pushing again and again into one’s nose.
A dozen or so sorcerers in gray hoods stood with arms crossed, surrounding a dozen slaves collapsed on the ground and covered in blood. Blue lightning flickered inside their sleeves, ready to be called forth. Most of the slaves had already been torn limb from limb, heads separated from bodies. Only the leader still struggled to sit upright. His ritual robe had long since been slashed open by the sharp rocks of the sea cliff, and on his shoulder the character “Ren,” embroidered in silver thread, could still be faintly made out in the firelight.
Second Kaixinwang RPG Log
Night black. Wind still. Moon bright.
The King nodded. The King’s younger sister shook the chu bell in her hand. The armored figures parted left and right, opening a path before the castle gate. A line of maidservants filed inward, heads bowed, and took their places below the steps of the throne.
“It’s the weekend today,” said the King. “The slave market has already closed. No one will disturb us anymore. The ritual may begin.” As he spoke, the King rose from the throne. The black cat curled at his feet stretched unwillingly, let out a “meowu,” and leapt to his arm. The King stroked the soft fur beneath its chin a few times and then lightly tossed it forward. The cat’s body streaked through the air like a flash of lightning and plunged into the silver basin placed in the center of the hall. At once a black flame sprang up with a whump, and faint blue-green sprites could be seen dancing within it.
Zuolun came out of a cafe on the left bank of the Thames and walked through the thick London drizzle toward the hotel where he was staying. He wore a leather jacket unsuited to the season, its surface shining heavily under the rain-soaked streetlamps. In his left hand he carried a large dark green suitcase that looked very heavy and from time to time struck the ground with a dull thud.