“We’re fine - we’re fine for now. Thank you for rushing back.” Gloria patted Sifu Tae Kuo on his shoulder: “And what do you wanna know? I did what the notes said, then went to the Kshiti Temple and met with Elder Mu…”

“You met Elder Mu?” Tae Kuo’s eyes opened wide: “What’d she say to you? Was she harsh? Did she give you a palm spanking?”

“Uhh - no?” Gloria thought for a moment then shrugged: “She seems very direct and - nice.”

“Ah, you were lucky.” Tae Kuo nodded, then he opened his briefcase and took out a small glass jar, in it was some kind of thick light yellow liquid: “Let’s begin.”

The liquid was a specially brewed sticky rice wine mixed with certain oils, the recipe to which still needed to be properly documented by Tae, who still kept putting it off.

“Now, Sue told me just about everything. But from what I heard, YOU handled things, so what did you see?” Tae Kuo ruffled through his briefcase to finally find a small pouch full of copper coins.

“Well, it all started with the body, and the three incense sticks, two short and one long.” Gloria proceeded to tell Tae Kuo everything she saw, and everything Elder Mu told her, including the elder’s theory about the 15 year cycle.

“... fuck.” Tae Kuo sighed, then shook his head: “I don’t know about the 15 year cycle, but this is definitely not normal - and dangerous. You got the talisman and blessed water right? Drink it down now before we go in. Not that I don’t have faith in the capability of Elder Mu, it’s just… just in case.”

“Alright.” Gloria let out a sigh, then handed the bag of rice wine, a cloth satchel of cinnabar, threads and talismans to Tae Kuo. She then proceeded to screw open a small bottle of blessed water she got from the Kshiti Temple, lit up a talisman and let the ash fall into the water.

Water with talisman ash tasted slightly bitter and salty. But she chugged it down. This was not that uncommon a practice, and usually reserved for cases where one was in danger of being possessed or cursed.

“Is this all?” Tae Kuo weighed the bag of sticky rice: “This would not be enough to cover the ground - we need more.”

“Should - should we go buy more now?” Gloria shrugged.

“I asked a few shops on my way here. Looks like many shops were out. I don’t know what happened, seems like we’re having a shortage right now.” Tae Kuo sighed: “Alright, I guess we just have to make do. If its scale is too big, we’d have to ask the Kshiti Temple for help.”

“Okay. Let’s do it then.” Gloria sighed.

They left the door to Fuman Coffin Home ajar when they came in. The air was filled with a light but still foul scent of decay and rot. It had only been a few hours, but somehow thick dust had been collected on the coffins, especially the two that were circled by sticky rice and rice wine. And to both Tae Kuo and Gloria’s horror, the grains of sticky rice in the inner ring were showing signs of being blackened.

“Bad, this is bad.” Tae Kuo shook his head, then twisted open his glass bottle of specially brewed wine with oil: “Pour the sticky rice on the ground, and lay an extra layer around these two.”

“On it.” Gloria tore open the sticky rice bag and started pouring it on the ground. The people at Kshiti Temple were quite generous and gave her a big bag of it, but it was still barely enough to cover most of the ground loosely. She left extra around the two coffins, and Tae Kuo poured some of his custom concoction on the new layer of sticky rice.

“Okay, watch this, this is not in the notes, but I figure you could learn, you’re here very often anyway.” Tae Kuo looked back at Gloria while standing straight in front of the sticky rice circle: “And your Qi is actually more Yin-oriented, so it could be easier for you. But you’d need to be extra careful as you’re more vulnerable during this ritual, you understand?”

“I see.” Gloria nodded without hesitation: “Please proceed.”

“Now, all you need right now is one of these.” Tae Kuo chose one paper talisman from his pouch, flattened it and showed it to Gloria: “I assume that you’re pretty familiar with some of the basic talismans right now. This is a kind of talisman we don’t let anyone touch lightly - you see the patterns here?”

“Yes.” Gloria nodded, she could vaguely read the old characters written on the talisman: “This means - clearing of the eye?”

“Exactly. We just call it ‘Ethereal Eye Talisman’. A bit complex to make, but not expensive.” Tae Kuo nodded back in approval: “And the reason I don’t let anyone touch this is - this is a revelation talisman, once activated, it could reveal the signs of paranormal activity within a small radius, and with well crafted ones like this, and activated with Qi, it could reveal quite a lot. You’ll learn to read the signs with experience, I’ll explain when we see them.”

“Okay.” Gloria took a deep breath, for some reason she had a lousy feeling about this.

“Now, activate your Qi to protect yourself, then slowly infuse this talisman with your Qi.” Tae Kuo raised the talisman right in front of his face using the index and middle fingers of his right hand, “And then, this is the spell you’d need to chant. Once you're experienced with the process you’ll no longer need to do it, but I’ll do it just so that you can memorize by heart.”

Gloria flexed her arms and shoulder, so that her Qi would flow more smoothly through her muscles and meridians.

“The Gods of Three and Nine, the Righteous Power of Two and Eight, heed my call, connect with me.” Tae Kuo chanted, enunciating each word: “Come to my aide, be my eyes and ears, lift the veil off the fog. Be it so!” After the last word, the talisman stood up straight in the air, the patterns and words written on it started to glow, then an orange flame arose. Before long, the talisman was completely consumed, and ashes of it were blown into the air.

An orange wave of energy swept through the entire room, and along its path, dark threads, fingerprints and even faces made of dark smoke were revealed.

Eight faces, seven of them were on the lids of their coffin. The face of the middle aged man, along with his body, on the other hand, remained where he was extinguished, melted, twisted and fractured. There was a shining object with the shape of a blade embedded in his chest, capturing the moment of his annihilation. There were footprints all over the ground, but judging from their sizes and trails, they seemed to be from one single person.

There was no face on or around the latest coffin. Instead, what was revealed on it was something else. Something that brought chills to Gloria, even as she was expecting the worst.

It was some kind of web with a giant, egg-shaped center cluster sitting right on top of the lid of the coffin. The web was convoluted and irregular like a spider web, while its threads were full of thorns. Some small strands from its many threads connected to all of the coffins, but the coffin of the middle aged man was covered with the most of it, for it was right next to the new coffin.

“Fuck me.” Tae Kuo cursed, looking around: “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“What is it?” Gloria stepped closer to the latest coffin, careful not to step on any vines and threads from the web.

“Some kind of foul energy, or the remainder of it, a remnant, it appears.” Tae Kuo showed Gloria his right hand, it seemed some of the webbings have attached to him as well: “And it is still active - you’re wise to send Sue to Kshiti Temple and go there yourself, it could have left marks on you, possibly making you more vulnerable, and attractive to malicious spirits. But what’s more troublesome to me is - ”

“No spirit in this coffin?” Gloria asked, with a heavy frown.

“No spirit in this coffin.” Tae Kuo acknowledged Gloria’s question: “And it’s an indication of - of some really heavy grudge or torment before death. Simple accidents would not cause this.”