The Faith and Salt

The air in the room shifted entirely.

Xiao Yan no longer spoke to Zheng Laosi, choosing instead to sit coldly to the side.

The low fire in the earthen stove crackled softly. All three adults sat in an exhausted, hefty silence.

Before long, Zheng Laosi and his wife slumped against the wall and drifted into a deep sleep.

In the next room, the bruised and battered children had finally cried themselves out.

Following a faint, hissing rustle, a soft knock came at the wooden door.

The iron talisman at Xiao Yan's waist immediately began to burn.

A sudden, unnatural wind rattled the mud walls, shaking loose small flakes of dried dirt and salt.

Rising from the stove, the gray smoke slowly twisted into the pained face of his dying mother.

Thin threads of smoke wrapped tightly around his snake-scale bracers, leaving red marks that looked exactly like bloody scratches.

A wild ghost.

Beside him, Zheng Laosi hung his head low, while his wife twitched violently in her sleep.

The dark traumas buried deep within their own memories were also being dragged to the surface.

Wild ghosts carried no physical malice; they only lived to torment the mind.

Sometimes, this mental torture drove people to suicide, simply because not everyone could face their own deep regrets and past failures.

Reaching into a nearby wicker basket, Xiao Yan grabbed a handful of dried mugwort and tossed it straight into the dying fire.

A thick, bitter smoke quickly rose from the stove, filling the room and seeping out through the cracks in the door.

The burning iron talisman at his waist slowly cooled back down to a dead chill.

He let out a long, heavy breath.

Zheng Laosi jolted awake with a violent shudder. His wife opened her glassy, unfocused eyes. Both looked exactly like they had just been pulled from a dark nightmare.

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"Must have dozed off..." Zheng mumbled.

Offering no reply, Xiao Yan just sat there, quietly watching the couple until they finally drifted back into a normal sleep.

The sharp crack of the wooden stick tearing through the air played on a continuous loop inside his head. The big sister didn’t cry; her face looked numb, colorless.

The wild ghost was gone, but sleep would not come for him tonight.

When dawn broke the next morning, no roosters crowed, nor did the morning watchman's wooden clapper sound out the time.

With heavy, red eyes, Xiao Yan covered a yawn and stood up from the doorframe.

Resting one hand on the hilt of his broken sword, he slowly pushed the door open.

The entire village felt like it had drowned in a pool of dead water. The only sound outside was the faint wind rustling through the trees.

Glancing back at Zheng Laosi's sleeping family, he blew a gentle breath into the handful of mugwort ash he held.

With a soft whoosh, the grey ash sparked with glowing orange patterns.

He scattered the glowing powder across the threshold before pulling the wooden door quietly shut.

Crossing over the low dirt mound, the morning fog crawled tightly along the cracked mud of the barren flats. At the far end of the wasteland, the willow grove looked especially grim, hidden within the thick mist.

The village ancestral hall soon filled with a dense crowd. Zheng Laosi's family had clearly not been invited. No one had beaten gongs to gather the people; it seemed everyone simply knew the meeting time in advance and arrived in complete silence.

Built entirely from dark, ash-grey stone, the hall felt cold. Inside, the dim oil lamps cast a gloomy light over the room. A bronze catfish hung directly from the corner of the roof eaves.

The walls were heavily coated with dried river mud and crushed fish scales, giving off a strange, foul smell.

There was nothing physically special about the main shrine. Yet, staring at those silent, tightly packed rows of wooden ancestral tablets always sent a cold chill down Xiao Yan's spine, despite his years of dealing with death.

Directly beneath the shrine sat a stone basin, positioned perfectly under the open-roofed courtyard to catch the rain. The trapped water inside was choked with a thick layer of green algae.

Xiao Yan had never liked ancestral halls. He could not explain exactly why.

As the crowd finally settled, the village elders sitting in the high-backed wooden chairs at the front looked completely lifeless.

Once the heavy main doors were pulled shut, the clan leader stood up. He did not hit a table or shout for order. He simply stood, and the low, messy murmurs of the crowd gradually died down into absolute silence.

Xiao Yan had initially blended into the dense crowd, but the clan leader immediately called him to the front.

"This empty chair was left just for you, my lord." The old man's tone carried a sharp, mocking edge.

Offering no excuses, Xiao Yan simply gave a brief bow, walked up the wooden steps, and sat down directly among the row of half-dead elders.

"Everyone here already knows why we called this meeting today."

The moment he finished speaking, absolute silence fell over the floor.

The villagers all wore dark, heavy expressions. No one showed a single sign of anger or resistance; they had completely accepted their fate.

A black wooden drawing tube was silently passed forward. Inside sat several thin wooden slips, each tied with a small piece of cloth bearing a name written in tiny strokes.

Taking the heavy tube, the clan leader pushed it deep into the green, algae-filled basin beneath the shrine.

One by one, a few wooden slips floated up to the water's surface.

A witnessing elder standing nearby reached in and pulled out three wet slips, reading the names aloud in a high, clear voice:

"Li Ge. Li San. Zheng Laosi—"

Zheng Laosi?