Mao Mountain Mysteries: Hạnh Nhi the Ghost Exorcist
Chapter 4: The Gate to the Yin River
The red lantern went out with a snap.
The cellar sank into darkness.
The sound of rain was gone.
The sound of wind was gone.
Even the breathing of the people standing in the room disappeared.
Mạnh Ái only felt someone gripping her hand tightly.
Her voice trembled:
“Hạnh Nhi?”
There was no answer.
“Hạnh Nhi?”
Still, no answer.
Mạnh Ái swallowed.
The hand holding hers was ice-cold.
She tried to pull away.
She couldn’t.
“Hạnh Nhi, don’t scare me like that...”
A soft laugh sounded beside her ear.
“I’m not Hạnh Nhi.”
Mạnh Ái immediately screamed.
“Ah!”
She raised her hand and swung the piece of wood she was holding with all her strength.
Whack!
Something was hit.
A hiss rang out.
Mạnh Ái immediately ran.
She didn’t know where she was running. She only knew that something was chasing her from behind.
“Help!”
“There’s a ghost!”
“There are so many ghosts!”
“Help—”
Whack!
She ran straight into someone.
Mạnh Ái fell onto the floor.
“Ah!”
A familiar voice rang out:
“What are you doing?”
Mạnh Ái looked up.
Hạnh Nhi was standing in front of her.
There was a scratch on her forehead, and she was still holding her peachwood sword.
Mạnh Ái let out a sigh of relief.
“You’re still alive!”
“Yes.”
“Then who was holding my hand just now?”
Hạnh Nhi looked at her.
“I was.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was.”
“No, you weren’t!”
Mạnh Ái pointed into the darkness.
“That thing said it wasn’t you!”
Hạnh Nhi fell silent.
Then she lowered her head and looked at Mạnh Ái’s hand.
There was a black handprint on her wrist.
Five fingers.
Clear as if someone had just squeezed her tightly.
Hạnh Nhi’s expression changed immediately.
“Give me your hand.”
Mạnh Ái held it out.
Hạnh Nhi pinched her wrist between two fingers and chanted an incantation.
“By the decree of the Supreme One.”
“Yin energy, disperse.”
“Evil mark, vanish.”
A streak of golden light flashed.
The handprint on Mạnh Ái’s wrist immediately faded.
Mạnh Ái stared at it.
“What is this?”
“A Yin Seal.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“How dangerous?”
Hạnh Nhi raised her eyes to look at her.
“If you let it hold on for seven hours, it will consider you dead.”
Mạnh Ái: “...”
“Then can you erase it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still looking at me like that?”
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“Why it chose you.”
Mạnh Ái fell silent.
She didn’t know either.
At that moment, a sound came from behind them.
Clang!
The peachwood sword in Hạnh Nhi’s hand instantly rose.
“Back up.”
Mạnh Ái pressed close behind her.
A figure stepped out of the darkness.
It was Trần Minh.
But he was no longer the same man he had been before.
His eyes were wide open.
His pupils had turned completely black.
His mouth kept muttering:
“Ngọc Lan...”
“Ngọc Lan...”
“You’re home...”
Hạnh Nhi looked at him.
“You’re possessed.”
Mạnh Ái asked:
“Is it that ghost again?”
“No.”
Hạnh Nhi shook her head.
“Whatever’s possessing him is different from what was in the mirror.”
Trần Minh suddenly raised his head.
His neck gave a sharp crack.
Then he laughed.
“A Mao Mountain Daoist.”
Hạnh Nhi tightened her grip on the sword.
“Come out.”
“Do you think you can stop me?”
“I don’t need to stop you.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“Close the gate.”
The smile vanished from Trần Minh’s face.
“You know where the gate is?”
Hạnh Nhi looked down at the floor.
“I do.”
“Then do you also know what’s on the other side?”
“No.”
“What’s there isn’t a ghost.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t a demon.”
“I know.”
“And it isn’t a god.”
Hạnh Nhi looked him straight in the eye.
“I know.”
Trần Minh laughed loudly.
“And you still want to open it?”
“I’m not opening it.”
“You don’t understand!”
“I understand.”
Hạnh Nhi raised her sword.
“Someone wants to use seven lives as a key.”
“But the gate hasn’t fully opened yet.”
“Because it’s still missing something.”
Trần Minh stopped laughing.
Hạnh Nhi looked toward Mạnh Ái.
“The blood of the living.”
Mạnh Ái froze.
“What?”
Hạnh Nhi didn’t explain.
She only looked at the handprint on Mạnh Ái’s wrist.
The Yin Seal hadn’t disappeared completely.
It was slowly spreading upward.
From her wrist...
To her arm.
Mạnh Ái saw it, and her face immediately went pale.
“Hạnh Nhi.”
“Yes.”
“It’s spreading.”
“I know.”
“Do something.”
“I am.”
“Can you do it faster?”
“No.”
Mạnh Ái ground her teeth.
“This is the first time I’ve seen a Daoist who’s calm enough to be annoying.”
Hạnh Nhi didn’t answer.
She took a red string from her pocket.
She wrapped it around Mạnh Ái’s wrist.
Then, using her own blood, she drew a talisman on the string.
“Don’t take it off.”
“For how long?”
“Until sunrise.”
“And that’s enough?”
“No.”
“Not enough again?”
Hạnh Nhi looked at her.
“I need to know what’s using you as a key.”
Mạnh Ái was silent for a few seconds.
Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
Hạnh Nhi turned to Trần Minh.
“Listen carefully.”
“Three years ago, your wife didn’t die by suicide.”
Trần Minh trembled.
“I know.”
“She was murdered.”
“I know.”
“Her killer used her corpse to set up the ritual formation.”
“I know.”
“Then do you know who killed her?”
Trần Minh said nothing.
Hạnh Nhi took one step forward.
“Who was it?”
He clutched his head.
“I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“He’ll kill my entire family.”
“Three members of your family are already dead.”
“There’s one left.”
Hạnh Nhi stopped.
“Who?”
Trần Minh raised his head.
“My daughter.”
Mạnh Ái frowned.
“You have a daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Three years ago, after Ngọc Lan died, the girl disappeared.”
Hạnh Nhi looked at the six open coffins.
“How old?”
“Nine.”
She fell silent.
A nine-year-old child.
Holding a red lantern.
Standing beside a coffin.
The image she had just seen in the memory appeared again.
Hạnh Nhi suddenly understood.
“No.”
Mạnh Ái asked:
“What?”
“The child in the ritual formation.”
“She’s his daughter?”
Hạnh Nhi nodded.
“Possibly.”
Trần Minh shook his head frantically.
“No!”
“That’s not her!”
“My daughter is dead!”
“No.”
Hạnh Nhi looked at him.
“You never found her body.”
Trần Minh went rigid.
“Did you?”
He didn’t answer.
Hạnh Nhi continued:
“Then what makes you say she’s dead?”
“I...”
“Did you see her body?”
“No.”
“Who told you?”
Trần Minh trembled.
“That man.”
“Who?”
“The Daoist.”
Hạnh Nhi immediately asked:
“Which Daoist?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Black robes.”
“Did he have a silver ring on his hand?”
Trần Minh looked at her in horror.
“You know him?”
Hạnh Nhi didn’t answer.
Because she had seen that ring.
Not just once.
In Trần Ngọc Lan’s memories.
In the mirror.
And on the roof.
He was here.
Right here in Thanh Hà Town.
Hạnh Nhi turned and looked up the stairs.
“We have to leave.”
Mạnh Ái asked:
“What about the ritual formation?”
“It can’t be broken.”
“Why?”
“The seven coffins have absorbed enough Yin energy.”
“Then why not burn them all?”
“Because there’s something else underneath.”
Hạnh Nhi looked at the center of the ritual formation.
“This is only the outer layer.”
Mạnh Ái followed her gaze.
“What about the inner layer?”
“The gate.”
“Where does it lead?”
Hạnh Nhi answered softly:
“The Yin River.”
A chill swept through the room.
Mạnh Ái didn’t ask anything else.
The three of them quickly went upstairs.
But just as they stepped out of the cellar...
Hạnh Nhi stopped.
She looked at the seven talismans she had pasted around the house.
All of them were burning.
Not from the outside in.
They were burning from the center outward.
Hạnh Nhi approached the talisman near the gate.
There was a bloodstain on its surface.
She touched it with her finger.
An image immediately appeared in her mind.
A man stood beneath a tree.
His back was turned.
He wore black Daoist robes.
A voice rang out:
“You think I want to open the Yin River?”
“No.”
“I want to find what’s sealed beneath it.”
Hạnh Nhi opened her eyes.
The man was speaking to her.
Even though he wasn’t here.
“Mao Mountain Daoist.”
“Don’t interfere in this.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Hạnh Nhi looked at the bloodstain on the talisman.
She slowly clenched her hand.
“Unfortunately.”
“You’ve laid hands on one of mine.”
Mạnh Ái stood beside her.
“One of yours?”
Hạnh Nhi turned to her.
“Don’t get the wrong idea.”
“Oh.”
Mạnh Ái raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you’d just accepted me as one of yours.”
“You’re only the person paying me.”
“And a temporary assistant.”
“Ah.”
Mạnh Ái smiled.
“So I still have a title.”
Hạnh Nhi didn’t answer.
She turned to Trần Minh.
“Tomorrow, we’ll look for your daughter.”
He stared blankly.
“But she’s been missing for three years.”
“I know.”
“How will we find her?”
Hạnh Nhi looked toward the sky.
The rain had stopped.
In the east, a pale streak of light was slowly appearing.
“Someone wants to use her to open the gate.”
“Then she isn’t dead.”
Hạnh Nhi nodded.
“At least, not completely.”
Mạnh Ái immediately asked:
“Where are we going?”
“Bạch Vân Village.”
“What’s there?”
Hạnh Nhi looked at her.
“The last person who saw the Trần family’s daughter.”
“Who?”
“A lantern seller.”
Mạnh Ái nodded.
“Okay.”
As she walked, she said:
“But I’m warning you now.”
“What?”
“I’m not paying to fix the door this time.”
Hạnh Nhi looked at her.
“You don’t have to.”
“Really?”
“Because this time, we won’t break the door.”
Mạnh Ái let out a sigh of relief.
Hạnh Nhi continued:
“We’ll tear down the whole house.”
Mạnh Ái stopped dead.
She turned around.
“You’re joking, right?”
Hạnh Nhi walked on calmly.
“No.”
No one noticed that behind the Trần family home...
A small shadow stood beneath a tree.
A girl of about nine years old.
She held a red lantern in her hands.
The girl watched the three people leaving.
Her face was deathly pale.
Her eyes had no pupils.
She whispered:
“Father.”
“I’m still alive.”
Behind the girl, a man in black Daoist robes slowly appeared.
He placed a hand on the girl’s head.
“Don’t rush.”
“They’ll come looking.”
The girl raised her head.
“Can I see Mother?”
The man smiled.
“Yes.”
“Very soon.”
He looked toward Hạnh Nhi.
A cold glint appeared in his eyes.
“Because the final thing the ritual formation needs...”
“Has already walked in of her own accord.”
The red string around Mạnh Ái’s wrist suddenly trembled.
A drop of blood seeped out from beneath it.
Hạnh Nhi stopped.
She turned around.
At the end of the road...
The red lantern had vanished.
Only a tiny footprint remained.
One footprint.
Two.
Three.
Seven child-sized footprints stretched into the mist.
Then, all at once...
They disappeared.
Hạnh Nhi stared at them for a long time.
She knew.
This case...
Had only just begun.