chapter 3

My breath caught. I tightened my grip on the phone.

Lingfengzi: [You don’t need to panic. For you, killing the water monkey will be simple.]

Me: [Why?]

Lingfengzi: [The water monkey will begin peeling off her skin between 11:58 p.m. and midnight. Those two minutes are when she’s weakest.]

[I read your face just now. Your eyebrows are thick but neatly grained, your eyelids are double-folded, and your ears have a clear yellow cast. Those are the features of City Wall Earth. People with this face are usually born in the Wuyin month, with an Eight Characters chart aligned to Earth. You possess an exceptionally strong Earth fate.]

[Of the Five Elements, Earth subdues Water. All you need is one fistful of dry earth. Add one drop of your blood. When the time comes, throw it at her, and the water monkey will disintegrate.]

Me: [That’s really all?]

Lingfengzi: [Yes.]

I let out a long breath.

[Good. I have a cactus on my windowsill. There’s about a fistful of dry soil in the pot.]

As I typed, my eyes happened to land on the cactus. My heart sank.

[Wait. I got bored while waiting for the bathroom and watered it.]

Lingfengzi: [??? What? Then hurry and find some dry earth!]

My mind raced. With the rain pouring outside, finding dry soil anywhere else would take too long. I had to find some inside the apartment.

When I bought my cactus, I had purchased four pots at once and given one to each of my roommates.

I still could not tell whether Dayao or Xiaomei was the water monkey, so I decided to try Zheng Rou’s room first.

I muted my microphone and slipped the phone into my pocket. If anything strange happened, I could pull it out and resume filming. At least the viewers would be witnesses.

When I opened my bedroom door, water was still roaring in the bathroom. Zheng Rou was still showering.

Her bedroom light was off, and her door stood wide open.

From the living room, I could see the cactus on her windowsill. I glanced at the twins’ rooms. Both doors were shut tight.

I could reach Zheng Rou’s cactus and be back out in twenty seconds.

Even if I was trying to stop a water ghost, taking something from another person’s room was still stealing. I struggled with my conscience, then went in.

It was an emergency. I would apologize properly afterward.

I had made it halfway to the windowsill when two bright notification chimes rang from my pocket.

Ding. Ding.

Guilty as a thief, I pulled out my phone to silence it. Face ID unlocked the screen, revealing several messages that made my fear deepen with every line.

They were from Dayao.

[Qingqing, let me treat you to hot pot tomorrow. Invite Zheng Rou too! Xiaomei and I each showered seven times today and hogged the bathroom forever. I feel awful about it.]

[Tomorrow is the day our people in Shuili offer worship to the gods, so we’re required to bathe seven times tonight as a sign of reverence. Even though we’re away from home, Mom still told us to observe the custom.]

I immediately searched for information on Shuili County. Result after result appeared.

Dayao had told the truth. The county really did have that custom. It had even been covered by local television.

While I searched, two more messages arrived.

[Zheng Rou is from Jiangcheng, like you, right?]

[Neither of you worships our gods tomorrow, so why did she take so many showers today? You have no idea how fierce the fight for the bathroom got.]

I silenced the phone and typed back.

[How many times did she shower?]

Dayao: [I saw her shower five times after I got home. Then Xiaomei kept using the bathroom, so Zheng Rou waited outside. I told her about our custom and said we might be a while. She ran outside without even taking an umbrella, even though the rain was pouring.]

Me: [The storm had already started when she went out?]

Dayao: [Yes.]

In other words, Zheng Rou had deliberately gone out to be drenched. If the rain counted as a sixth bath and the shower she was taking now was the seventh, then Zheng Rou had also bathed seven times.

The twins had a ritual to observe. Why had Zheng Rou done it?

Looking at an entire wall of her diving photographs, I suddenly realized that Zheng Rou might be the water monkey.

I turned and headed for the door at once.

Click.

The bathroom door opened. Zheng Rou’s faint footsteps followed.

My heart plummeted.

There was no time to think. I grabbed the cactus and hid inside Zheng Rou’s wardrobe.

It was 11:45.

According to Lingfengzi, the water monkey would start shedding her skin at 11:58. I only had to stay hidden for thirteen minutes. Then, when she began to peel, I could catch her off guard.