Chapter 124: Side Story Five: The Iron Hook 2

Jin Ling said, ‘The chair was set right at the head of my bed, very close. At first it was empty, but after a little while someone in black was suddenly sitting in it.’

Jin Ling wanted to see the face clearly, but the figure kept its head bowed, half its loosened hair falling forward to curtain the face, so that all that showed of the whole body was a pair of snow-white hands resting on the armrests.

He quietly shifted the angle of the mirror, but the moment his wrist moved, as if sensing something, the woman slowly lifted her head.

That face was a ruin of dozens of blood-streaming knife-cuts.

Wei Wuxian was not in the least surprised; the younger ones, however, sat there stunned.

‘Wait?’ Lan Jingyi set a bowl of congee down in front of Jin Ling. ‘A woman's ghost? How could it be a woman's ghost? Are you sure you weren't so frightened you saw it wrong—’

Jin Ling's palm came down. ‘I'll hear it from anyone but you that I'm dim. It's true that with blood here and hair there I couldn't really make out the features, but the coiled hair and the dress were a young woman's style, no mistake. We were looking in the wrong direction.’ He went on, ‘There may indeed be unspent resentment on the Iron Hook, but what's haunting the White Room is, I fear, not Hook Hand.’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘You couldn't have spent a little longer looking carefully, getting a clear view of the face? Maybe from some feature, a mole or a birthmark or something, we could trace who she was.’

Jin Ling said sourly, ‘You think I didn't want to. I meant to. But the moment that spirit caught the moonlight bouncing off the mirror, she snapped her head up to look this way, the mirror caught her eyes, and before I could help it I'd met her gaze.’

When you are spying and an Evil Spirit notices you, you must on no account go on looking; you must put the mirror down at once, close your eyes, and feign deep sleep. Otherwise you risk rousing the creature's ferocity and sharpening its will to kill. Lan Jingyi said, ‘Close, that was close…’

Around the table the voices broke out all at once. ‘But there was no woman in that flying thief's eyes.’

‘Not seeing one doesn't mean there wasn't one. Maybe the thief was just at the wrong angle—’

‘No, this woman's ghost, why a woman, who is she?’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘This woman's face was cut dozens of times, so she may well have been one of Hook Hand's many victims. What Jin Ling saw must have been her Resentful Energy Echo.’

A Resentful Energy Echo is the endless replaying of some scene in which an Evil Spirit's resentment runs deepest, usually the moment just before death, or the one event that fed its hatred most.

Jin Ling said, ‘Mm. The White Room I saw in the mirror last night was furnished completely differently from now, more like an inn. Probably before Bai Manor was built there was an inn standing here, and the woman was killed in that inn.’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘Oh, oh, come to think of it, that fits. Someone in the things we turned up mentioned that Hook Hand could pick an inn's lock with ease; he often slipped in by night and went after women travelling alone.’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘And the very room where this young woman, or lady, was killed stands in exactly the same spot as the White Room they later built in Bai Manor.’

No wonder the Master of Bai Manor had insisted that Bai Manor held no old buried case and that no one had ever died there by violence; he was not deliberately covering anything up. They truly were innocent, and it truly had nothing to do with them.

Jin Ling picked up the congee, took a sip, and said with affected ease, ‘I knew long ago it wouldn't be that simple. Just as well. It all has to be dealt with anyway.’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Jin Ling, get some sleep later. There's work again tonight.’

Lan Jingyi glanced at his bowl and said, ‘Senior Wei, you didn't finish. Don't leave leftovers.’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘I'm done. You eat more, Jingyi. Tonight you're taking the lead.’

Lan Jingyi started so badly he nearly dropped the bowl. ‘Huh? Me? Lead, lead what?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Jin Ling didn't see it through last night, did he? Tonight we'll watch the whole thing together and have a proper look. You go first.’

Lan Jingyi went pale. ‘Senior Wei, have you got something mixed up? How could it be me?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Nothing's mixed up. It's training, everyone gets a turn, everyone gets a chance, everyone goes up. Sizhui and Jin Ling have both had theirs, so the next one decided is you.’

‘Why is the next one decided to be me…’

Wei Wuxian naturally was not about to admit that, apart from Lan Sizhui and Jin Ling, Lan Jingyi was the only one of these youngsters whose name he could remember. He merely clapped him on the shoulder and said, encouraging, ‘This is a good thing! Look at the others, how they're all itching to go.’

‘What others, haven't they all long since cleared off!’

However Lan Jingyi protested, at the hour of midnight he was still pushed to the very front of the White Room.

Outside the White Room several long benches had been ranged in rows, packed end to end with onlookers; one man poked a hole clean through the paper pane, and in a heartbeat the window was riddled through like the Hundred Holes Curse itself, a sight too wretched to bear.

Lan Sizhui poked his own peephole and thought to himself, ‘I can't help feeling… this can hardly be called spying any more. Poked through like this, we might as well have just taken the paper window down…’

Lan Jingyi had indeed been moved by Wei Wuxian to the foremost position, from where he could see the most, the fullest, and the clearest. If this were a play, it was the front-row seat that a thousand in gold could not buy. A pity that Lan Jingyi wanted not the least part of such a seat.

Wedged between Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui, he said, trembling, ‘Could I sit somewhere else…’

Wei Wuxian, who had been pacing back and forth at the side, said, ‘No.’

Hearing it, the others all felt that those two words carried something of Lan Wangji's true transmission in their tone, and a few stifled a laugh. Wei Wuxian said, ‘Good frame of mind, so relaxed, very good, very good.’

Lan Sizhui, who a moment ago had not quite held it in, hastily composed himself. Wei Wuxian said again to Lan Jingyi, ‘See, I don't even have a seat. Don't sit in blessing and fail to know your luck.’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘Senior, can I give you my seat instead…’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘No.’

Lan Jingyi: ‘Then what can I do.’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘You can ask questions.’

Lan Jingyi, helpless, could only say to Lan Sizhui, ‘Sizhui, if I pass out later, you, you have to let me copy your notes.’

Lan Sizhui, caught between laughter and tears, said, ‘All right.’

Lan Jingyi let out a breath. ‘Then I can rest easy.’

Lan Sizhui said encouragingly, ‘Don't worry, Jingyi, you'll certainly be able to hold out.’

Lan Jingyi had only just shown a grateful look when Jin Ling clapped him on the shoulder, wearing an air of great reliability, and said, ‘That's right, don't worry. If you pass out, I'll wake you up right away.’

Lan Jingyi took fright and knocked his hand away. ‘Off, off with you, who knows what means you'd use to wake me.’

In the midst of this muttering, a faint bloody halo of light seeped through the paper window, as though someone had suddenly lit a red lamp in the pitch-black room.

At once the whole company fell silent, holding their breath.

The red light came through one small window-hole after another, casting each spying eye as if it were veined over with blood.

Lan Jingyi raised a quaking hand and said, ‘Senior… why, why does this room look so red? I, I've never seen this kind, a blood-red echo. Could it be that back then a red lamp was lit in the room?’

Lan Sizhui said in a low voice, ‘It isn't a blood-red lamp. It's because this person…’

Jin Ling said, ‘It's because this person's eyes have filled with blood.’

In the red light, something new appeared abruptly in the room.

A chair, and a ‘person’ sitting in it.

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Jin Ling, is this what you saw last night?’

Jin Ling nodded. ‘But I didn't look closely last night. She isn't sitting in the chair… she's tied to it.’

And so it was: the woman's hands resting on the armrests were bound fast with hemp rope.

The company was still straining to look when, all at once, a black shape flashed by, and another figure appeared in the room.

There was, it turned out, a second ‘person’.

And on this second figure the eyelids and both lips had been cut away, so that it could neither blink nor close its mouth, its blood-veined eyeballs and scarlet gums laid bare, a thousand, ten thousand times more horrifying than the legend told.

Lan Jingyi cried out, ‘Hook Hand!’

‘What's going on, wasn't the Iron Hook already melted down? How can Hook Hand still be here?’

‘There are actually two Evil Spirits in this room?’

Hearing this, Wei Wuxian said, ‘Two? Just how many Evil Spirits are in this room, one or two? Can anyone say for certain?’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘One.’

Jin Ling said too, ‘One. The Hook Hand in this White Room is no true Fierce Spirit, only an echo within the deathbed scene this woman has restored out of her resentment.’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘Echo or not, the dread of it isn't diminished by one hair!’

As they spoke, the face drifted slowly toward the wooden door. Nearer and nearer it came, clearer and clearer, more and more savage. Though everyone knew full well this was only an echo, that the Iron Hook bearing Hook Hand's residual resentment had been smelted away, that the echo could never truly pass through the door, still one hair-raising thought would not be shaken off:

He's seen us!

If, peering into the White Room at midnight, that luckless flying thief had glimpsed exactly this scene, small wonder his heart had failed him from fright.

The face pressed to within less than a foot of the paper window, hung there a long moment, then turned and strode toward the chair.

Only then, as one, did the company begin to breathe again.

Inside, Hook Hand paced about the room, the old floorboards creaking under his feet. Outside, Jin Ling had grown suddenly puzzled.

He said, ‘Ever since just now there's been one thing nagging at me.’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘What thing?’

Jin Ling said, ‘The Resentful Energy Echo must be the scene just before this woman's death, no doubt of that. But would an ordinary person, faced with a murderous madman, be this calm, never making a sound? Put another way—’

He said, ‘This woman is plainly conscious, so why doesn't she scream for help?’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘Frightened witless?’

Jin Ling said, ‘Even so, not a single sound, not even a sob? When an ordinary woman is terrified past all bearing, shouldn't she at least weep?’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘Is her tongue still there?’

Jin Ling said, ‘No blood at the corners of the mouth, so it should be. And even with the tongue gone and her speech slurred, she still wouldn't be unable to make any sound at all.’

Lan Jingyi, wedged between the two of them, looked about to expire on the spot. ‘Could the two of you please not discuss something this terrifying in such calm tones right by my ear…’

One of the youths said, ‘Could it be that this inn was abandoned, or that no one else was around, and she knew shouting was useless, so she simply didn't?’

Lan Jingyi, who from here had the clearest view, now had something to say. ‘No, look at the echo. None of the furnishings have a speck of dust, plainly in constant use, so there couldn't have been no one else around, or she wouldn't have lodged here in the first place.’

Jin Ling said, ‘Credit you with not being hopelessly dim. Besides, whether others are present is one thing, and whether you'd cry out is another. Say you're being hunted down in some lonely wilderness; even knowing no third person can come to save you, wouldn't you still scream for help, help, out of sheer terror?’

Wei Wuxian, off to the side, clapped softly and murmured, ‘Heavens, truly worthy of Sect Leader Jin.’

Jin Ling flushed and snapped, ‘What are you doing, can you not throw me off like that!’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘If that's all it takes to throw you off, your focus needs more training. Look, look, Hook Hand seems about to make his move!’

Everyone hurriedly turned to look. Hook Hand had taken out a coil of hemp rope, looped it about the woman's neck, and was slowly drawing it tight.

The sound of a hemp rope twisting taut!

So this was the source of the eerie creaking the Master of Bai Manor had spoken of, the sound the White Room made every night.

The dozens of wounds on the woman's face streamed blood under the squeezing, yet she made not a sound. The company watched with hearts clenching tight, and someone could not help urging under their breath, ‘Scream, call for someone!’

But contrary to their hopes, it was not the victim who moved; the murderer moved instead. The hemp rope suddenly slackened, and Hook Hand drew from behind him an iron hook worn to a gleam.

Outside the door the band of youths went cold to the marrow with helpless dread, wishing they could leap in themselves in the woman's place and roar loud enough to rouse the whole city awake. Hook Hand's back blocked their view as one hand reached forward. From where they stood, they could see only the back of a hand laid on the armrest, and on that hand the veins suddenly stood out, blue and stark.

Even now, at this point, the woman still did not make a single sound!

Jin Ling could not help beginning to wonder. ‘Is she perhaps not right in the mind?’

‘What do you mean, not right in the mind?’

‘Roughly… simple-minded.’

‘…’

Calling someone simple-minded sounded rather unkind, yet from the look of things this really did seem the likeliest case; otherwise, if she were of sound mind, how could she still show no reaction at such a moment as this?

Lan Jingyi's head ached from watching, and he turned his face away. Wei Wuxian, however, said in a low voice, ‘Watch closely.’

Lan Jingyi's face showed his anguish. ‘Senior, I… I really can't go on watching.’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘There are things in this world a hundred, a thousand times more brutal than this. If you don't even dare to face it head-on, there's no point discussing the rest.’

At that, Lan Jingyi steadied himself, turned back, gritted his teeth, and went on watching with a stricken face. Who could have known that at that very instant, a sudden turn—

The woman abruptly opened her mouth and bit down on the iron hook!

That bite startled the row of youths outside the door clean off their seats.

And the Hook Hand inside seemed to leap with fright as well, snatching his hand back at once; but for all his pulling he could not wrench the iron hook free of the woman's teeth, and instead she lunged, chair and all, and the iron hook that had meant to take another's tongue somehow gashed open his own lower belly!

The crowd of youths cried out ‘Ah, ah’ in helpless disorder, nearly clawing their way onto the door, every one of them wishing they could shove their eyeballs through the holes and into the White Room to see it close. Hook Hand, wounded and in pain, froze, as if remembering something, and his right hand grabbed straight at the woman's heart, as if to claw it out of her alive; she rolled aside again, chair and all, dodging the heart-rending blow, and with a ‘rrip’ the cloth over her chest was torn away.

At a sight like this, the crowd of youths had no thought to spare for whether they ought to be looking.

But what struck them dumb was this: the ‘woman's’ chest was a level plain, flat and unbroken.

This was no ‘woman’ at all—the person was a man dressed as a woman!

Hook Hand flung himself forward and throttled him bare-handed, forgetting the hook was still in the other's mouth. The man wrenched his head sharply to one side, and the iron hook bit instantly into Hook Hand's wrist. One strove with all his might to twist the other's neck, the other strove with all his might to bleed his foe dry, and in that moment the two of them fell into a deadlock…

Not until the cock crowed and day broke, the red light vanished from the room, did the echo at last fade and recede away.

And the ring of youths gathered at the White Room's door were already stunned to stillness.

A long while passed before Lan Jingyi stammered out, ‘Th-this, this, these two…’

In every heart was a single thought:

These two, in the end, neither of them could have survived, surely…

Who could have guessed that the Evil Spirit which had robbed Bai Manor of peace for decades was not Hook Hand at all, but the very hero who had done away with him.

The discussion among the company ran hot.

‘Who'd have thought, who'd have thought Hook Hand was subdued this way…’

‘Think it through, though, was there any other way? Hook Hand came and went like a ghost; no one knew where he was. Without dressing as a woman to lure him out, there'd have been no catching him at all.’

‘But how dangerous!’

‘Very dangerous indeed. Look, this gallant fell for his trick and got tied up, which is why he was at a disadvantage from the start. Otherwise, in a head-on duel between the two, how could he have come off so badly!’

‘That's right, and he couldn't call anyone for help. Hook Hand had killed countless people and was cruel to the bone; even if ordinary folk had come, they'd most likely just have gone to their deaths…’

‘Which is why he refused, no matter what, to cry out for help!’

‘They perished together…’

‘The legend doesn't even mention this gallant's noble deed! Truly baffling.’

‘That's only natural. Set beside heroes and gallants, people still find the legend of a murderous madman more interesting.’

Jin Ling analysed, ‘The dead refuse to pass on for no reason other than some unfinished wish or matter. And the dead with incomplete bodies refuse to pass on most often because they have not recovered the part of themselves that was lost. Why he haunts, the crux lies just there.’

Even a useless growth, carried on the body for decades, is hard to part with, let alone a piece of flesh from one's own mouth.

Lan Jingyi had long since listened with rising reverence. ‘Then we must find the tongue and burn it for him as soon as we can, so that he can pass on!’

The company rolled up their sleeves and sprang to their feet as one. ‘Just so. How can we let a hero like this lie without his whole body!’

‘Search, search, search, start from the West City Graveyard, the burial ground, all of Bai Manor, and the old house where Hook Hand once lived, don't miss a single one.’

The band of youths, full of vigour, surged out the door. But before leaving, Jin Ling glanced back at Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian said, ‘What is it?’

Throughout the discussion just now Wei Wuxian had withheld judgement, not putting in a single word, which left Jin Ling vaguely uneasy, suspecting some link had gone wrong somewhere. But after turning it over carefully, he felt nothing essential had been overlooked, and so he said, ‘It's nothing.’

Wei Wuxian said with a smile, ‘If it's nothing, then go and search. Be patient.’

And so Jin Ling marched out the door, head high and full of spirit.

It was several days later before he learned what Wei Wuxian had meant by ‘be patient’.

The Iron Hook before had been found by Wei Wuxian with Lan Sizhui along, and had taken only half a watch in all. This time, with the tongue, Wei Wuxian kept his hands off, leaving them to fumble through it slowly on their own, and it took a full five days.

By the time Lan Jingyi sprang up holding a certain object aloft, the others were nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

Yet though they had grubbed through wild burial mounds until they were filthy all over, their clothes in disarray and a strange smell about them, the company was tremendously happy. For after they told him, Wei Wuxian had earnestly let them know the truth: that for them, on their own, to have found it in five days was already remarkable. There were, after all, no shortage of cultivators who, after ten days or half a month without finding it, had simply given up.

The group was beside themselves, circling round that dead man's tongue. They say a thing carrying killing-aura turns green; this thing was not merely green, it was green to the point of blackness, hard enough to bruise the hand, exuding a baleful air, with nothing left to show it had once been a piece of human flesh. Had it been otherwise, it would long since have rotted away.

A round of rites, the tongue burned, and it seemed a great matter was at last laid to rest.

Carried to this point, it ought by every reckoning to have been laid to rest.

And so, with this Night Hunt, Jin Ling was on the whole fairly satisfied.

Who could have known that he had been satisfied only a few days before the Master of Bai Manor came up to Koi Tower again.

It turned out that after the gallant's tongue was burned, things truly had quieted for two days. But only two days.

On the third night, the eerie sounds came from the White Room once more, and grew more rampant by the day, until by the fifth night all of Bai Manor had been driven utterly past sleeping.

This time it came on fierce, more frightening than any time before. The eerie sound was neither the twist of hemp rope nor the slicing of flesh—it had become a human voice!

By the Master of Bai Manor's account, the voice was very hoarse, as though heavily working a tongue unused for many years, the words indistinct, yet beyond all doubt a man screaming in agony.

Having screamed, he wept too, wretched and pitiful, faint and feeble at first, then louder and louder, until at the last it was all but hysterical, terribly piteous and terribly dreadful. Never mind Bai Manor; even three streets away one could hear it, until passers-by stood with their hair on end and their souls scattered to the winds.

Jin Ling was much vexed too. With the year's end near and matters pressing, he had no time to attend to it in person, so he sent several disciples to look into it. They reported on return that, apart from the screaming being genuinely most piteous, there was no other harm.

Disturbing the peace did not count.

When handing in his Night Hunt notes, Lan Sizhui recounted the matter to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian. Having heard him out, Wei Wuxian took a piece of pastry from Lan Wangji's desk, ate it, and said, ‘Oh, then there's nothing to worry about.’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘Screaming like that, and there's nothing to worry about… is there? By rights, once an obsession is resolved, the departed soul should be delivered.’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘That resolving an obsession can deliver a soul is true enough. But have you considered that perhaps the gallant's true obsession was never to recover his tongue and be reborn?’

Lan Jingyi, who had this time finally earned top marks and, at the thought of no more lines to copy, was off to the side shedding secret tears of joy, could not help saying, ‘Then what was it? Could it be just to howl every night and keep everyone else from sleeping?’

To his surprise, Wei Wuxian actually nodded. ‘Just so.’

Lan Sizhui was astonished. ‘Senior Wei, how is this to be understood?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Didn't you reason earlier that this gallant, unwilling to let innocent bystanders' lives be endangered, endured with all his might while Hook Hand tormented him, refusing to cry out?’

Lan Sizhui sat up straight and said, ‘Just so. Is there something wrong with it?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Not wrong, but let me ask you all a question. If a murderous madman were waving a knife about in front of you, bleeding you, slashing your face, throttling your neck, hooking out your tongue, would it be frightening or not? Would you be afraid or not? Would you want to cry or not?’

Lan Jingyi thought it over and said, his face white, ‘Help!’

Lan Sizhui said gravely, ‘The family precepts hold that even in the face of peril…’

Wei Wuxian: ‘Sizhui, don't spin me anything else. What I asked is whether you'd be afraid. Just say it straight.’

Lan Sizhui's face reddened, his back went straighter still, and he said, ‘Sizhui would not—’

Wei Wuxian: ‘Not?’

Lan Sizhui, all honesty: ‘Cannot say he would not be afraid. Ahem.’

That said, he stole an uneasy glance at Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian could hardly contain his glee. ‘What are you embarrassed about? When a person is in pain and terror, they feel fear, they long for someone to save them, they want to scream and shout, to weep and wail. Isn't this simple human nature? You tell me. Hanguang-jun, look at your Sizhui, afraid you'll punish him, stealing glances at you. Go on, say yes. If you say yes, it means you agree with my view too, and you won't punish him.’

He gave a few light pokes with his elbow into the lower belly of Lan Wangji, who was sitting upright marking notes; Lan Wangji said without a flicker, ‘Yes.’

That said, he swept an arm around Wei Wuxian's waist and locked it fast, holding him still against fidgeting, and went on marking the notes that had been handed in.

Lan Sizhui's face went redder still.

Wei Wuxian struggled twice and could not break free, so he kept the position and went on, in earnest, to Lan Sizhui, ‘So, to grit one's teeth and not cry out is indeed the spine of a hero, but it goes against human nature and ordinary human feeling. That's the truth of it too.’

Lan Sizhui tried to ignore the position, thought it over, and felt a touch of sympathy for the gallant.

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Is Jin Ling still fretting over this?’

Lan Jingyi said, ‘Yes, the young mas— uh, Young Master Jin doesn't know where exactly the problem lies either.’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘Then, that being so, how is an Evil Spirit like this to be dealt with at all?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Let him scream.’

‘…’

Lan Sizhui said, ‘Just, let him scream?’

Wei Wuxian said, ‘Yes. Once he's screamed his fill, he'll naturally go.’

Lan Sizhui's sympathy at once split half its share to the people of Bai Manor.

Luckily, though the gallant carried grievance and wrong, he bore no will to harm. The uncanny sounds from the White Room went on for several months before gradually subsiding. The gallant, no doubt, having at last after death screamed his fill of all he had left unscreamed in life, went off content to be reborn.

It was only the people of Bai Manor who suffered, tossing in misery for a long while, unable to sleep at night. And the White Room once again rose to great notoriety.