The Fox Lantern Shines on Bones - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ah Heng lived in White Water Village at the foot of Wupeng Mountain. By day, she gathered herbs and treated the living; by night, she guided the dead and stitched their mouths shut.

The villagers said she was born under an unlucky star, cursed with a malevolent aura. If Granny Liu hadn’t picked her up from the edge of the mass graves years ago, she likely wouldn’t have survived to this day.

Granny Liu had been dead for three years, but the long table in the house still held the medicine pestle, copper basin, and the half-volume of yellowed medical records she had left behind. Ah Heng made her living through these things, as well as the villagers’ mixed feelings of fear and necessity toward her.

When a child had night terrors, they would knock on her door; when an elder breathed their last, they would also knock on her door. Yet when the sun rose the next day and those same people saw her, they would turn their faces away, terrified of being tainted by her.

That evening, the Han Family’s maidservant came to her in tears, pleading for her help. She said their young daughter, Han Su’e, had suddenly developed such severe leg pain last night that she couldn’t walk. By this morning, her leg below the knee had turned a ghastly blue-white and felt like a block of ice. When Ah Heng entered the room with her medicine chest, Han Su’e was curled up on the bed. Only fifteen or sixteen years old, her face was terrifyingly pale, and a lingering, dissipating red hue floated in her eyes.

Ah Heng pulled back the covers to find a blue-white lump bulging from the inner side of the girl’s calf, resembling an unblossomed flower. The moment her fingertip touched it, the lump gave a slight quiver, as if something living were buried beneath it.

Someone in the room gasped.

“Is she possessed?” Madam Han asked, clutching her handkerchief.

“It’s not a spirit; something is growing inside the bone,” Ah Heng said coldly. “Boil some water. Fetch fine salt and wine. I have to scrape it out.”

No one dared to delay. She sterilized a small knife over a flame, washed it with strong spirits, held down Han Su’e’s leg, and slowly sliced open the blue-white flesh.

Very little blood flowed. Instead, an extremely faint, cold, yet sweet fragrance wafted out from the gap in the bone. Ah Heng paused; the scent made her vision blur, as if she were seeing white flowers sprouting out from the girl’s leg bone.

She heard a low chuckle from outside the window, the sound very light.

“Pick up the lamp and take it back. Don’t let it go out.”

Ah Heng whipped her head around. The window paper bulged as the wind blew against it. Outside was pitch black, save for the pale reflection of old snow beneath the eaves. When she turned back, the tip of her knife had already pried out a white petal as thin as a fingernail. As it fell into the copper basin, the thing actually trembled slightly.

The room immediately fell into chaos. Madam Han screamed and recoiled, while Master Han’s face turned ashen as he repeatedly urged her to find a way to get rid of the thing completely.

Ah Heng submerged the petal in the wine, and a layer of pale green oil immediately surfaced on the liquid.

Her heart sank.

Granny Liu’s medical records mentioned a disease called “Bone Flowers.” Fragrance would grow within a person’s bones, and when the scent reached its peak, flowers would burst forth from the bone, leaving the person hollowed out.

But that disease had only appeared once a hundred years ago and hadn’t been seen since.

Ah Heng applied medicine to Han Su’e and warned them not to open the windows tonight no matter what they heard, and more importantly, not to let the lamps go out. Master Han nodded frantically, but when he saw her out, he insisted on handing her the silver from half a step away, terrified of touching her hand.

Ah Heng didn’t bother with him and headed back with her medicine chest. The mountain wind grew increasingly fierce, making the poplars on both sides of the village road rustle.

As she reached the broken bridge at the village entrance, she suddenly spotted a flicker of ghostly green fire in the snow.

It was an old lamp.

The frame was carved from animal bone, intricately hollowed out, with blackened tassels hanging from the rim. Most peculiar of all, the lampshade wasn’t made of paper, but a layer of extremely thin skin. Through the ghostly green flame, one could see a faint fox pattern on it.

When Ah Heng knelt down, she smelled the same cold fragrance that had just emerged from Han Su’e’s bone.

She hadn’t intended to touch something of such unknown origin, but as her fingertip reached out, the flame suddenly flickered, as if something had moved.

As if possessed, Ah Heng picked up the lamp.

By the time she returned to the medicine hut, the snow was falling heavily. She placed the lamp on the table and turned to brew some medicine.

She had just added a spoonful of water when the sound of rustling fabric came from behind her.

A man was sitting on the long table where she usually prepared her medicines. His snow-white robes draped down, and his toes hovered above the floor as if he had no weight. He was strikingly handsome with narrow eyes, though his lips were pale.

However, there was a smile at the corners of his eyes that suggested he was not to be trifled with.

“Since you picked up my lamp,” he said, resting his chin on his hand as he looked at her, “you should at least ask who I am.”

Ah Heng’s medicinal ladle hit the pot with a loud clang.

“Are you a man or a ghost?”

“Neither.” He crinkled his eyes. “I am a fox.”

Ah Heng stared at him, her hand slowly gripping the peach wood staff behind the door. “Get off my table.”

“I can’t.” The man’s smile didn’t fade as he pointed to the Fox Lantern. “I’m locked inside. I can only come out for a breath of air by borrowing the fire in your room.”

Ah Heng followed his gaze to the Fox Lantern; the ghostly green flame flickered very slightly. She suddenly remembered Granny Liu saying that mountain spirits and wild charms were the best at deceiving people-the more beautiful they were, the less they could be trusted.

She raised the peach wood staff to strike. Unexpectedly, the wind of the staff passed right through the man’s shoulder, as if hitting a cloud of mist.

The man wasn’t angry, but his brow furrowed slightly, and his form grew a shade fainter.

“If you hit me again, I’ll dissipate tonight,” he said. “And if I dissipate, that Han girl won’t live past three days.”

Ah Heng’s movements stopped, her gaze finally turning cold. “Do the Bone Flowers have something to do with you?”

The man looked at her, and the playful glint in his eyes vanished bit by bit, as if blown away by the wind.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about the place where you found this lamp. Ah Heng, the blood debts White Water Village owes are starting to be reclaimed.”