A faint, persistent scent of sulfur always clung to the air in Cai Qingluan's accounting room.
It was a cramped space, hemmed in on all sides by towering stacks of ledgers, like a maze built of paper. The single, narrow window let in only a sliver of daylight, yet it was enough to illuminate the strange Miao Dao she held.
This was no ordinary blade. It was a reverse-edged dao, the cutting edge facing inward, the spine outward—the opposite of most weapons. About two feet long, its spine was thick and heavy, but the edge was impossibly thin, like a cicada's wing. Wrapped around the hilt was a length of faded, yellowed hemp rope, and tied at the knot was a small, copper-cash-sized tag engraved with two characters: "Lian Xiao" – Saltpeter Refining.
Her left pinky braced against the handguard, Cai Qingluan held a clean silk cloth in her right hand, gently wiping down the blade. This was her daily ritual, no matter how busy she became.
"Accounts must be as clean as a blade's edge." She often reminded herself.
Just then, as her focus narrowed on the polished steel, a faint line of tiny characters shimmered into existence on the blade's spine. They weren't Han characters but strange, archaic symbols, like some ancient, secret script. Cai Qingluan's hand froze. Her breath hitched.
"It finally appeared..." she murmured, a complex mix of emotions flickering in her eyes.
This Miao Dao was an heirloom, passed down for over three hundred years. Family legend claimed that whenever great disaster loomed, these mysterious symbols would manifest on the blade. The last time they had appeared... was the day before her father threw himself into the saltpeter caves to his death.
Carefully, reverently, she placed the dao on the desk and retrieved a worn, small booklet from a drawer. The cover bore three characters: "Miao Script Translation." Her grandmother had left it to her. She opened the fragile pages, matching the symbols on the blade, translating word by agonizing word.
"Purple... Miasma... Revives. Three... Sacrifices... Will... Proceed. Bloodlines... Bound. Fate... Sealed."
Cai Qingluan's face turned deathly pale. At that exact moment, a soft knock sounded at the door.
"Come in." She quickly sheathed the Miao Dao, hiding it beneath a stack of ledgers.
The door opened, and the tall, silent figure of Hong Jiu entered. Around thirty, gaunt-faced, with unnervingly sharp eyes, he still wore the thick scarf around his neck despite the mild weather. This was Hong Jiu, the Fulong Pawnshop's handyman, a man who never spoke. A mute.
His fingers began to move, fluid and precise, weaving a rapid sequence of signs.
Cai Qingluan understood his silent language. "How is Meng Xuanye's eye?"
Hong Jiu shook his head, then signed again.
"Zhang Feidie's medicine didn't work either?" Cai Qingluan frowned. "What about the Miasma Mother Diagram?"
Hong Jiu's signing grew more urgent, a raw fear surfacing in his eyes. He pointed first to his own eye, then made a grasping motion, finally jabbing a finger towards the floor.
"You're saying... you saw something in the cellar?" Cai Qingluan pressed.
Hong Jiu nodded curtly, then made a chillingly graphic gesture. He first outlined a human shape, then made a sharp, slicing motion across the neck. Finally, he pointed to his own chest and signed the character for "wax."
"Corpse wax? There's corpse wax in the cellar?" Cai Qingluan's voice climbed involuntarily.
Hong Jiu nodded again, the fear in his eyes deepening. He signed several more times, and Cai Qingluan's expression grew even more disturbed.
"Republican Era? You're certain?"
Hong Jiu gave a definitive nod, then produced a folded piece of cloth from within his tunic, carefully unfolding it. The cloth was stained with dark, brownish patches and emitted a strange odor, somewhere between rot and medicinal herbs.
Cai Qingluan took the cloth, examining the stains closely. "This... it's corpse wax, alright. But why would it be in the pawnshop cellar?"
Hong Jiu's fingers danced again. He signed the number "three," pointed at Cai Qingluan, then gestured outside towards the miasma-shrouded town, and finally mimed flipping through the pages of a book.
"The Three Families' Genealogy? You're saying this is connected to the Three Families?" Cai Qingluan murmured, thinking aloud, "Meng, Cai, Zhang...?"
Hong Jiu nodded, then made a sharp, deliberate throat-slitting gesture, his eyes filled with warning.
"You're warning me to be careful?" Cai Qingluan asked. "But why? What does any of this have to do with the purple miasma?"
Hong Jiu didn't answer directly. Instead, he pulled a yellowed, brittle sheet of paper from his tunic and handed it to Cai Qingluan. It was a torn fragment of a genealogy record, detailing certain connections between the three families. The paper was damaged, only fragments legible, but what she could read sent a jolt of shock through her.
"This... this is impossible!" she gasped. "Our three families actually..."
Hong Jiu's fingers moved once more, signing two things: "River Heart Island" and "Refinery."
"The abandoned refinery on River Heart Island? What's there?" Cai Qingluan demanded.
Again, no direct answer. Hong Jiu pointed to his own neck, then slowly, deliberately, began to unwind the thick scarf. Cai Qingluan sucked in a sharp breath. Exposed was a hideous, jagged scar across his throat, as if drawn by a vicious blade. But strangest of all was its color – an unnatural, deep blackness, like ink seeping just beneath the skin.
"Your throat... What happened?" Cai Qingluan whispered, horrified.
Hong Jiu rewound the scarf, profound sorrow filling his eyes. His fingers moved slowly, deliberately signing: "Guardian... of the... Stele... Fate."
Just then, frantic footsteps pounded outside, followed by Zhang Feidie's panicked voice: "Sister Cai! Bad news! Meng Xuanye's left eye—it's completely calcified! Turned into purple stone! And... and my Spirit Vexongrass, it's all mutated! The veins... they've all turned into faces!"
Cai Qingluan exchanged a look with Hong Jiu. Deep apprehension mirrored in both their eyes. She quickly retrieved the Miao Dao from under the ledgers, securing it at her waist.
"We need to go to River Heart Island," she said grimly. "The refinery might hold the truth."
In Zhang Feidie's herb room, rows of Spirit Vexongrass sat quietly in their special ceramic pots. These plants should have been vibrant green, their veins forming neat, regular patterns. But now, every single leaf bore a miniature, distorted human face. Male, female, old, young—their features varied, but the agony etched upon them was universal.
More unsettling still, the faces seemed to shift constantly, writhing in silent screams.
Zhang Feidie stood before the shelves, holding a freshly picked leaf. The face on this one was clearer than the others, and—this was the part that terrified her most—it bore a disturbing resemblance to her own.
"This can't be..." she whispered. "Unless..."
She put the leaf down and walked to an old bronze mirror in the corner. Undoing her collar, she revealed the birthmark on her left shoulder. It was unique, shaped perfectly like a butterfly poised for flight.
Under the lamplight, the butterfly mark seemed to pulse faintly, twitching as if it might tear itself free from her skin at any moment. Staring at her reflection, Zhang Feidie's eyes filled with terror and confusion.
"Could this be the 'Living Gu' Father warned me about before he died?"
Just then, Cai Qingluan's voice called from outside: "Hong Gu! Get ready, we're going to River Heart Island."
Zhang Feidie quickly fastened her collar, took a deep breath, forcing herself calm.
"Alright, I'm coming!" she replied, carefully placing the leaf bearing her own face into a small jade box.
Deep within the Fulong Pawnshop's cellar, Meng Xuanye stood alone before a waxy, preserved corpse. The body was intact, like a statue cast in wax, but the rictus of terror on its face was chillingly real.
A bronze tag hung from the corpse's chest, engraved: "Republic Year 12, Saltpeter Artisan Zhang Shourén."
"Zhang Shourén... Zhang Feidie's grandfather?" Meng Xuanye muttered to himself. His left eye was completely petrified stone, but his right remained unnervingly sharp.
He pulled the Miasma Mother Diagram from his robe, comparing a strange mark on the corpse's chest—a chiwen dragon motif—to a specific symbol on the diagram. They matched perfectly.
"So that's how it is... The three-hundred-year cycle finally comes to an end," A strange, unsettling smile twisted Meng Xuanye's lips. "But first... one final step..."
He drew a small vial from the corpse's pocket. Inside, a purple liquid pulsed with a faint luminescence.
"Thousand Day Drunk... It's time for a Headless Feast."
Outside, the purple miasma thickened, pressing in like a shroud, enveloping Tingjiang Town. And out on River Heart Island, the long-abandoned refinery began to glow faintly in the darkness, like a slumbering beast slowly stirring awake.