Chapter Two: Voicing the Death – Mirror Corpse

The "Dali Temple Minister" in the mirror had no head.
From the stump of his neck, instead of spurting blood, dozens of tangled, snake-like tongues writhed. They were a sickly dark purple, each tip hanging a small, green-rusted bronze coin. As he jerked violently, the coins clinked together – a harsh, rapid metallic scraping, like countless fingernails clawing at an iron plate.
Shen Zhui stood by the window, his left hand clamping the yellow paper that had crumbled to ash. A burning pain seared his fingertips. His right palm pressed down on the Soul-Calming Bell; the bell shuddered violently, sensing the extreme resentment, vibrating so fast it nearly flew from his grip.
"Officer, once you enter the Place of Return, seeing is not always believing. Do you see a Wraith, or the ghost in your own heart?"
Ajiao's eerie voice drifted from behind. The green lantern in her hand swayed, casting a sickly light onto the mirror outside the window, making the headless Minister look even more grotesque. In the reflection, the Minister slowly raised his hand – mottled with corpse spots – and pointed a stiff index finger at Shen Zhui's chest, as if about to pierce the glass and dig out his heart.
Shen Zhui didn't turn around. His voice was cold as prison iron.
"Mirrors are vessels for spirits, and they hoard filth. You placed a mirror outside the window, facing north – to drain the living's yang energy to feed this building, or to trap the vengeful souls inside, keeping them from reincarnation?"
"The Place of Return doesn't raise ghosts. We only shelter those with nowhere to go… and secrets with nowhere to hide."
Ajiao covered her mouth with a titter, her body swaying. Under the green light, her bright red ru dress turned a nauseating dark brown – like a long-dried bloodstain.
"Officer, since you opened the window, you've accepted the curse of this room. The person in the mirror has a request for you – that's the rule of the Place of Return: once the road toll is paid, you must do the ghost's bidding. If you fail… even your official robe might stay here as a stepping stone."
Shen Zhui's eyes sharpened. The copper bell at his waist gave a sharp ding.
This was no ordinary ring – it was the "Prison-Shaking Tone," a secret technique of the Dali Temple Death Row, used to shatter prisoners' minds and dispel evil. The sound waves rippled through the cramped room, and the mirror outside let out a piercing wail. The headless Minister's image twisted violently, dissolving into a thick black smoke that clung stubbornly to the window frame.
"The Dali Temple follows no rules – only the law. Whether human or ghost, if you break the law, you come into my prison."
Shen Zhui spun around, his right hand flinging the Corpse-Press Coin – now burning with green flame – straight at Ajiao's face.
Her expression twisted. Her once-beautiful features shriveled in an instant, and she slid along the wall like a thin sheet of paper, dodging with eerie grace. The coin struck a red pillar in the corridor, hissing as it corroded the wood, leaving a charred hole and a stench of burning flesh.
"You have quite the killing intent, Officer." Ajiao re-formed in the shadows of the hallway, half her face hidden, her voice turning shrill and unhinged. "But don't forget – that coin you hold was coughed up by that very Minister before he died. He staked his life on it. Don't you want to hear what he had to say?"
Shen Zhui paused. He remembered the Minister's wide eyes in the main hall, his finger pointing north. The old man had been cautious his whole life, yet before death he left such a sinister clue – meaning the truth of the case was far darker than this inn.
He lowered his hand, his gaze sweeping the room coldly. "What is this inn? And what are those shadows?"
He meant the figures flickering at the end of the hallway – formless, but unnervingly fast. Every time they passed, the temperature dropped sharply.
Ajiao sighed and stepped closer. The green light illuminated the floorboards, and Shen Zhui saw them – tiny, ant-like runes carved into the wood. Not carved, but etched with a corrosive liquid: a mix of black dog's blood and aged corpse oil, used to suppress whatever lay beneath.
"Beneath this place run the hundred-year-old sewers of the capital. Above, peace and prosperity; below, filth and darkness." Ajiao lowered her voice, almost reverent. "The wrongly executed palace maids, the silenced assassins, the beggars who died in prison with no one to claim them – they all end up in these sunless drains. Their resentment builds, and becomes earth fiends. Our master built this inn on top – ostensibly as a shelter, but really as a seal."
"And that Minister…" she pointed to the black ash in Shen Zhui's palm, "he dug up something he shouldn't have. They cut out his tongue, but our master saved half his soul and sealed it into that coin. What he wanted to say – it's all in the coin's flame."
Shen Zhui's heart tightened. The Minister had been investigating a salt smuggling case involving several top officials and the Grand Canal. Could it be that behind that case lay demonic practices using resentment and manipulating souls?
"Who is your master?"
"Officer, when the time comes, you'll meet him. But first, you have to survive tonight." Ajiao gave him a small bow, her figure growing blurry. "Now, you should listen to the Minister's 'last words.' Remember – before the coin's flame burns out, you have only one chance to ask a question. Ask wrong, and you'll never speak again."
With that, she dissolved into the darkness like a drop of water – silent, seamless.
Shen Zhui didn't hesitate. He returned to the round table.
The green flame on the coin had burned down to its core. Inside the flicker, he could faintly hear a pained roar. He took a deep breath and placed the last remnant of the Corpse-Press Coin under his tongue.
An indescribable cold – like a hundred-year-old ice block from the deepest hell – instantly froze his sense of taste. Then a chill, heavy with the smell of blood, tunneled down his throat into his lungs. His heartbeat seemed to skip.
He closed his eyes.
The world collapsed, then rebuilt.
No longer the shabby north room, but the grand, sandalwood-scented main hall of the Dali Temple.
The Minister sat high on the bench, wearing a deep crimson robe, his face ruddy as ever. But his eyes overflowed with despair, his fingers clawing the edge of the desk, blood under his nails.
"Shen Zhui…" The old man's voice didn't come through the air – it vibrated directly in Shen Zhui's soul. "Death Row Magistrate Shen Zhui, hear my command."
"Your subordinate is here!" Shen Zhui knelt on one knee in the vision.
"The salt case… is just a cover. They're not after wealth – they're after immortality." The old man's voice twisted, urgent. "What the canal boats carried wasn't salt – it was 'living stakes' from the south. They dug a pit under the capital's sewers, buried men alive, and harvested their extreme resentment to refine a single 'longevity pill.' Each pill cost ten healthy men's lives."
"The list… the list is hidden…"
The old man's image shuddered violently. Tiny black insects poured from his seven orifices – the sign that the voice-exchange spell was failing.
"The list is in the inn's… Qian Room… inside the window crevice… Shen Zhui! The roots of our Great Jing… have rotted… Run! They're coming…"
His form exploded into bloody fragments. Shen Zhui's eyes snapped open. The coin in his mouth had already turned into foul, black ash.
BAM!!
The wooden door of the room burst open with an unstoppable force. The screech of splintering hinges thundered in the silent night.
Standing in the doorway wasn't Ajiao. It was a man in a faded night-watchman's uniform. He kept his head lowered, holding a jagged-edged bronze gong. His neck was twisted at a grotesque ninety-degree angle – something no normal person could survive.
"The hour of the Rat has come. Dry weather, beware of fire—"
His voice was raspy, stiff – like two rusted iron plates scraping together. He raised his head. Shen Zhui saw his face – or rather, what couldn't be called a face.
It was a patchwork of skin from countless sources, sewn together with coarse hemp rope. One eye dangled outside its socket, connected by a few bloody nerves, twitching violently as it fixed on Shen Zhui's bell.
"Death Row people… know too much… all must die… go into the pit… become living stakes…"
The watchman raised his hammer – made of white bone – and struck the rusty gong.
DONG—!!
That gong sound was no longer a warning – it was a funeral knell. The sound wave turned into a visible gray-black ripple, blasting Shen Zhui's eardrums until they bled, his mind blank for an instant.
Then came the footsteps – dense, like a tide, from the corridor outside. Countless cold, bluish, mud-caked hands clawed through the broken door and window, reaching for Shen Zhui.
Their scratching merged with the Minister's dying wails, turning the "north room" into a living hell.
Shen Zhui seized the Soul-Calming Bell from the table, dragged his finger across his long knife's blade, and let his blood drip onto the bell.
"Want to bury me as a stake? Let's see if your pit can hold a blade of the Dali Temple!"
The knife slid from its sheath, cold as snow. Shen Zhui lunged like a tiger into the swarm of shadows.