Before leaving the City God Temple, Ding Peichen tucked Immortal Wang's soul-suppressing talisman securely into the inner pocket over his chest, then wandered out of Nancheng.
It was only palm-sized, cinnabar writing seeping into its coarse paper.
He still didn't know how to be rid of this wandering ghost for good, but he needed some protection, if only to avoid being choked again in the middle of the night.
Before leaving his rented room the next morning, he deliberately pressed his chest to check that the paper was still there. Only then did he put on his coat and go out.
Walking along the street behind the school, he passed the doll shop and saw A-Cheng watering flowers outside.
Ding Peichen went by expressionlessly, but A-Cheng approached with the watering can and patted his shoulder. “That model you took—working all right?”
Ding Peichen stopped and gave a casual, perfunctory answer. “Fine.”
Even after he'd moved on, A-Cheng called after him. “Oh, right! The little model and the big doll use the same batch of stuffing. There's a special ingredient in it that senses temperature.”
“If anything seems off, bring it over and I'll take a look.”
Ding Peichen didn't answer. He left the back street. It was just a little cotton model. What could it do to him?
In the classroom, he chose a seat against the wall and opened his book.
He hadn't slept well. More precisely, he hadn't slept at all. Though that vicious ghost Yu Chong hadn't reappeared, he'd held the new doll and kept his eyes open until dawn. Dark circles weighed beneath them, leaving him so drained he looked ill.
His blue eye had burned all night. He could distinctly feel something watching from the corner.
But the gaze held no malice—or, at least, no desire to attack. It simply rested on him quietly, never moving away all night.
The ghost wasn't behaving itself, Ding Peichen thought. The talisman was working.
Immortal Wang's words kept echoing in his head. Yu Chong, that life-claiming ghost, had accumulated resentment for four years—the equivalent of four years of cultivation.
The talisman couldn't block every attack. He had to discover what grievance lay between the living and the dead.
Otherwise, once it broke, the ghost would torment him even more savagely.
Ding Peichen wasn't in a hurry, however. At least it could suppress Yu Chong for now.
The elderly professor at the front was discussing modern Chinese literature, something about narrative rupture in the avant-garde.
Ding Peichen couldn't absorb a word. Propping up his chin, he stared at the slides, his eyelids growing heavier.
Partway through the lecture, amid his drowsiness, he suddenly felt a powerful force clutch his abdomen without warning.
He tightened his grip on his pen, assuming sleep deprivation had caused a false sensation.
Then, a second later—
Another pinch at his abdomen. The force gripped his flesh and squeezed inward. Cold sweat broke across his forehead from the pain, but he couldn't make a sound.
A boy in glasses opposite him was fast asleep. Two girls to his left were whispering about something.
He gripped the edge of the desk, suppressing every reaction the pain provoked. He didn't want anyone nearby to notice.
He knew who was doing it. Knew perfectly well.
The wandering ghost had returned. It was nearby, not far from him.
Immortal Wang's talisman seemed useless. Silently, he cursed the man. Half-Immortal Wang should rename himself Half-Ghost Wang.
Another squeeze. Pain climbed from his abdomen into his chest. His heart jolted under the pressure, and his body jerked forward.
His forehead nearly struck the desk's corner. Only a quick reaction let him brace himself. He didn't want those around him to see him humiliated.
Gritting his teeth, Ding Peichen muttered, “Fine. That's how you want to play?”
Someone called from beside him. “Hey?”
“Are you all right?”
Ding Peichen raised his head, his face deathly pale, his blue left eye burning fiercely.
After several seconds, he answered, “I'm fine.”
The girl beside him leaned over too, concern in her voice. “You look awful. Do you need to go to the infirmary—”
“No.”
The pressure on his abdomen remained. He stood and headed toward the back door, his legs so weak that he stumbled several times.
Enduring pain and humiliation, he reached the innermost toilet stall, locked the door, and crouched curled on the floor.
At last, the pressure released.
Ding Peichen drew several gasping breaths. Looking down at his uncontrollably trembling hand, he clenched it into a fist.
“Come out,” he said quietly. “Stop hiding.”
Silence. Not the faintest response.
He called again into the empty restroom, unable to contain his anger. “What are you hiding for?”
“A turtle with its head in its shell? You're dead and still such a coward—”
A hand viciously pinched the spot over the talisman. “Ugh—”
Ding Peichen frowned and looked up. There was nothing above the stall, but the cold presence overhead made his blue eye burn.
“You think sticking on a talisman will help?” An icy hand hovered over his neck in a restraining grip. A powerful sense of suffocation pressed down, as though one squeeze would twist his neck apart and separate his head from his body.
Ding Peichen began trembling involuntarily. For an instant, the contact from that hand slightly relieved his touch starvation.
His body wavered between fear and instinctive longing. But he couldn't reveal that need.
He gave a low laugh. “What the fuck are you doing in broad daylight?”
Yu Chong's tone was flat as his hand tightened around his neck. “Tormenting you.”
“I told you I'd make you wish you were dead.”
Yu Chong moved around in front of him.
The midday sun fell on him. His outline wavered indistinctly, like a human reflection on a lake.
He wore an old-style school uniform with the Simiao Secondary School crest on its chest, his wolf-cut hair falling to one side of his shoulder.
Yet his face was especially clear: a broken eyebrow, deep-set eyes. Ghostly as he was, even fear couldn't quite make a person look away.
“Pinching my stomach through shared sensation counts as torment?”
Yu Chong snorted coldly. “Where should I pinch, then? Your Adam's apple? Your navel? Your dick?”
Ding Peichen had no answer.
The sensation of contact returned. Icy fingers gripped his lower back and twisted mercilessly.
He sucked in a breath, bit his lip to swallow a groan, and curled against the floor. “Go on, if you've got the guts.”
Yu Chong gave another cold snort. “I'll give you this. You can take quite a lot.”
Forehead against his knees, Ding Peichen panted softly. “No shit. I've been on my own since I was eight. What haven't I seen?”
“This little crap you're throwing at me is nothing.”
Yu Chong thought the man in front of him was stubbornly defiant.
He crouched and tipped up Ding Peichen's chin, black eyes meeting blue.
His cold hand passed over Ding Peichen's chest through the sweatshirt and touched the hidden talisman. “If it's nothing, why go looking for a Taoist?”
“And how long do you think this thing can keep me out? Didn't he tell you it expires?”
Ding Peichen was silenced. He'd thought the ghost knew nothing after disappearing for days.
Yu Chong's finger traced upward across his chest, over his collarbone, and stopped above his Adam's apple.
Ding Peichen's breathing had already stalled. The suffocation left by nearly drowning at the river four years earlier surged wildly through his nervous system. Still, he feigned composure.
“And didn't he tell you—” Yu Chong closed his hand into a fist and suddenly drove it against Ding Peichen's chest. “Wherever you put this kind of talisman, that becomes the point of entry.”
Pain pulsed through his chest, electrifying every sense and magnifying his touch starvation again.
He clenched his teeth and gave a cold scoff. “You know a lot. That interested in my business?”
Yu Chong ignored the question and kept pressing. “Apart from what I just said, what else did Immortal Wang tell you?”
The ghost's chill seeped into Ding Peichen's skin until it tingled. His desire to be rid of him had reached its peak, yet he had no means to do it.
He spat at him bitterly. “None of your fucking business.”
Yu Chong curved his lips and leaned closer. “Did he say my resentment is too strong for you to suppress?”
“And that—you can only feed me your blood?”
Ding Peichen's pupils contracted sharply. His breath stopped.
Plainly pleased by that reaction, Yu Chong smiled, looking entirely in control. “That old man's only got a few tricks. Soul-suppressing talismans, blood lures, resolving resentment through cause and consequence. Did he also tell you to uncover the grievance between us?”
Gritting his teeth, Ding Peichen fixed his mismatched eyes on him. “What exactly do you want?”
Through his blue left eye, the ghost was clearer than ever.
Yu Chong spoke his name, softly and slowly, like a torment, like a provocation. “Ding Peichen.”
The damp, fishy river smell around him threatened to drown Ding Peichen. “I've been dead four years. You've been alive four years. In all that time, you haven't had a girlfriend or a boyfriend. You hardly even have friends. Every night, you pathetically curl up with a doll to sleep.”
“I don't need to torment you. You've already spent four years tormenting yourself.”
As he spoke, Yu Chong reached out and pinched Ding Peichen's cheek.
His fingertips were icy. Ding Peichen shivered and instinctively wanted to pull away, then found himself craving the soothing effect that sharp sensation had on his skin. But he couldn't expose that hunger.
Yu Chong's few words struck precisely where it hurt. The contempt of his relatives around Yucheng hadn't been enough; he'd made a mess of his own life too. As though drawing another breath and seeing tomorrow's sun were all he needed.
As for grand ambitions, he had none. He couldn't. A wreck tormented every day by nightmares and touch starvation, unable even to sleep through the night—how could he hope to devote himself to anything else?
Ding Peichen opened his mouth to curse, but Yu Chong pressed the little mole at the peak of his Adam's apple.
The pressure left him unable to speak. Even his whimpers remained trapped in his throat.
Yu Chong's figure gradually became backlit.
Unable to see his face, Ding Peichen heard his low voice beside his ear. “Listen carefully.”
“Buy talismans, burn incense, ask a Taoist to perform whatever ritual you like. I won't stop you. Go ahead and try.”
Yu Chong paused. “But every time you try, I'll take another part of you—”
An icy finger touched Ding Peichen's lower back. “Your waist.”
It moved to his calf. “Your legs.”
“Your spine.”
For the final touch, a cold knuckle flicked the back of Ding Peichen's head. “Your head.”
“And last of all—your life.”
Ding Peichen's breath caught, his heart racing. He couldn't stop his whole body from trembling.