Chapter 5

Xiaochi didn’t know what had happened. Her strength gone, she sank to the ground, eyes empty, tears falling without end.

She was terrified.

In that instant, I felt regret.

Why had I needed to use her to prove something I’d proved a thousand times already?

I knelt on one knee before her and steadied her shoulders.

“It’s all right. It’s all right…”

Her eyes slowly focused on my face. Only then did I remember: she’d never seen my human form.

How could I explain? Say I was just a kind passerby?

But she slowly lifted her hand and touched my face. Blood from her fingers, cool and metallic-smelling, stained the corner of my eye.

Her face was pale. Sweat-soaked hair stuck to her forehead, making her terror all the more tangible.

The voice she’d only just recovered from that terrible fear trembled out through her bloodless lips.

“B-Blackie.”

Reflected in her eyes, my own pupils trembled.

How had she recognized me?

That was what I wanted to ask.

What I said instead was,

“I’ll take you home.”

Xiaochi fainted from exhaustion. I picked her up and carried her home.

All the way, I tried to work out how to explain before her grandmother misunderstood.

I’d say that, yes, she was unconscious in my arms, but I hadn’t knocked her out. I was just a good Samaritan, out for a walk after dinner, who’d found her by the roadside.

As for how I knew where she lived, never mind that.

The old woman would probably hit me with her stick.

I really worried she’d throw her back out.

Why had Xiaochi chosen this exact moment to faint? Wasn’t she afraid Blackie might be bad too?

I looked down at her unguarded sleeping face.

And felt that anyone with the slightest conscience couldn’t bear to hurt her.

We soon reached the alley entrance. Sure enough, the white-haired old woman was waiting.

Her face was grim. Not one word of my prepared explanation would come out. I couldn’t open my mouth.

Silence spread.

This was too eerie.

I wanted to call the police.

In the end, she asked nothing. Leaning on her stick, she headed home.

The stick struck the ground, its thump, thump, thump echoing through the dark alley. She turned to look at me. “Aren’t you coming home?”

I hurried after her.

The cheap fluorescent lamp in the courtyard swayed. The old bedroom door creaked.

The bed stood against the wall. The passage was so narrow I could barely turn around.

I laid Xiaochi on the bed and retreated to the doorway.

The old woman covered her with the quilt, then wrung out a towel to wipe her face and hands.

Once she’d finished, she pulled the bedroom door nearly closed and took me to sit in the living room. “I was the one who sent Xiaochi to invite you here,” she said calmly.

“What do you mean?”

“I cast a divination. It said Xiaochi’s benefactor was in that little-visited temple on West Mountain.”

Fine. Understood. She’d set me up.

I irritably took out a cigarette, but didn’t light it.

“You can tell fortunes, lure out a reaper from the underworld. With talents like that, even if you’re not rich and powerful up here, you shouldn’t be destitute.”

I made no effort to hide my mockery. The old woman chuckled good-naturedly. “Heaven follows its course. Our fates are already set. Money earned by defying fate—you may live to earn it, but not to spend it.”

“If you know the consequences, why bring me here?”

Her back was stooped. The dim yellow light cast shadows in her wrinkles.

She was very old.

“I’ll be dead soon,” she said. “And Xiaochi… she’s still so young.”