Dawn broke gray and heavy over the valley. Feng Kuan had barely slept. The baby stirred against his chest, her small fists clutching his torn robe as if she already sensed the shift in the air. He fed her the last of the mashed millet from the night before, his movements mechanical. The wound on his arm felt tighter, the herbal paste having drawn some of the heat from it, but the deeper ache remained. Not in flesh. In bone. In memory.
Master Wei found him near the well as the monks began their morning chants. The old man moved with the quiet grace of one who had long ago made peace with the universe. His white beard caught the weak sunlight like threads of silk.
"Black Maiden," Master Wei said softly, using the name again as if it were a title of honor. "The qi around you darkens with every hour. You cling to the child like a man drowning in the Yellow River. Let go. The jiangshi are not monsters born of evil. They are Heaven's broom. In the old tales, a Taoist master once bound a corpse with talismans to walk it home for proper burial. But when the qi turns fully sour, as it has now, the dead rise to sweep away the rotten empire so the cycle may begin anew. Famine, rebellion, plague, all signs that the Mandate has been lifted. We help the cleansing by gathering souls. More people mean a fuller harvest for the next world. It is not death. It is rebirth."
Feng Kuan listened, jaw tight. The monk's words carried the weight of centuries of scripture, of yin and yang forever turning, of karma balancing the scales. Part of him wanted to believe it. To lay down the dao, set the little ghost on the ground, and walk into the arms of the dead with open eyes. No more running. No more failing. Just surrender.
But the rest of him, the soldier who had watched his men die screaming, the drunk who had crawled through shame for years recoiled. "You speak pretty words for a man planning to feed children to corpses," he growled. "I have seen the jiangshi. They do not carry souls gently. They tear and rot and leave nothing but hunger."
Master Wei smiled with genuine pity. "That is the illusion of the clinging mind. The boy you spoke with yesterday, Little Sparrow, he asked me last night if his parents were already in the Western Paradise. I told him yes. Soon he will join them. And you, Black Maiden, with your dark force, will draw even more lost souls here before the end. Stay. Help us gather. Your strength is a gift to the cleansing."
Feng Kuan turned away without answering. The monk's wisdom settled like poison in his gut. It sounded so reasonable. So peaceful. In a world already burning, why fight the inevitable? Why carry this tiny, crying burden that slowed every step and betrayed every hiding place?
He spent the morning pretending normalcy. Little Sparrow found him again near the courtyard gate. The boy carried a small wooden practice sword carved from scrap pine.
"Teach me a move," Little Sparrow begged, eyes shining with the same fire Feng Kuan once had. "My father said real soldiers never run. They stand until the end."
Feng Kuan took the toy sword. His hands, scarred and callused, looked monstrous around the child's toy. He showed the boy a simple block and cut, the kind taught to new recruits. Little Sparrow copied it eagerly, laughing when he overbalanced and fell. For a few minutes the weight on Feng Kuan's soul lifted. The boy reminded him of his younger self, before the campaigns, before the flogging, before he became the man who drowned guilt in baijiu. A boy who still believed honor and duty could shape the world.
"You are strong," Little Sparrow said, panting. "Like the heroes in the old stories. Will you stay and protect us when the dead come?"
Feng Kuan's throat tightened. He wanted to lie. To say yes. To give the boy one more day of innocence. Instead he handed back the sword. "The monks say the dead are coming to take everyone to heaven. But I do not believe it. If you can, run when the time comes."
The boy looked confused but nodded solemnly.
By midday the trap tightened. Master Wei gathered several monks near the main hall. They spoke in low voices, glancing toward Feng Kuan. He caught fragments "the dark one grows restless," "the child must be released first," "his qi will bring many more before nightfall." They had let him rest a full day, fed him, let the boy remind him of lost innocence, all so he would lower his guard. Now they saw he was catching on.
Feng Kuan felt the shift like a blade at his back. He returned to his small room, wrapped the baby more securely against his chest, and checked the dao. The steel was cold and nicked, no fire left to aid it. He would have to fight with muscle and rage alone.
As the sun began to dip, two younger monks entered his room without knocking. Their faces were calm, almost kind.
"Black Maiden," one said. "Master Wei asks that you bring the child to the altar. It is time for her to be prepared for the cleansing. She will go first, gently. Then you may follow."
Feng Kuan rose slowly. "I will not."
The second monk stepped closer. "Resistance only increases suffering. The child's cries already call the jiangshi. Let us take her. It is mercy."
They reached for the baby.
The old soldier inside Feng Kuan snapped. He drove his fist into the first monk's face, feeling cartilage crunch. The man staggered back. The second lunged with surprising speed, trying to pin Feng Kuan's arms. Feng Kuan headbutted him, then slammed him against the wall. The baby woke and began to cry, sharp, piercing wails that echoed through the monastery.
Outside, voices rose in alarm. Families stirred. Little Sparrow appeared at the doorway, eyes wide. "What is happening?"
"Run!" Feng Kuan shouted at the boy. "Get out now!"
But it was too late for warnings. Master Wei appeared in the courtyard, the large conch shell raised to his lips. He blew a long, resonant note that rolled across the valley like the call of judgment. The sound vibrated in Feng Kuan's bones. It was not a warning. It was an invitation.
Distant moans answered immediately. Thump. Thump. Thump. Many of them. The jiangshi had been waiting just beyond the ridges, drawn by the earlier chants or the scent of gathered life.
Chaos erupted. Families screamed. Some tried to flee toward the gate. Others froze, still trusting the monks' words of heaven. Monks stood with arms open, faces serene, ready to embrace the dead as deliverers.
Feng Kuan burst into the courtyard with the crying baby strapped to him. He swung the dao in wide arcs, clearing a path. A monk grabbed at his robe. Feng Kuan slashed without hesitation, the blade biting into shoulder and drawing blood. He felt no guilt. Only the black rage of a man who had been offered false peace and had it ripped away.
Little Sparrow ran toward him through the panic, wooden sword still in hand. "Do not slow down, keep on running!" Feng Kuan told the boy.
A jiangshi hopped over the low wall, a former peasant, arms outstretched, nails black and long. It moved straight for the loudest cries, which was the baby's wails. Little Sparrow shocked, froze in its path, small body trembling.
Feng Kuan saw the boy. Saw the wide, terrified eyes. Saw the innocent spark that mirrored his own lost youth. For one frozen heartbeat, the Berserk weight crushed him. The same helplessness he had felt watching his troop die. The same failure. The same voice whispering that everything he touched turned to ash. He could try to save the boy. Charge forward, hack the jiangshi apart with raw strength, risk the baby's life and his own in the process.
But there was no time.
The baby's cries grew louder, pulling more moans from the hills. Another jiangshi appeared. Then two more. The monks continued chanting, opening their arms as the dead closed in.
Feng Kuan looked at Little Sparrow, really looked. The boy's lips moved in a silent plea.
Some people who did not believe in the Old monks word tried their best to set the jiangshi ablaze, in the process burning half of the settlement, structures fell, which separated the path to the old drunk and Little sparrow.
With no more choice the Feng Kuan looked the boy deep into his eyes and he muttered "I hope the monk wasn't lying about heaven, Don't cry little soldier". Then he ran.
He crashed through the gate and into the gathering dark, the baby's screams vibrating against his heart like accusations. Behind him came the boy's short, cut-off cry, swallowed by the wet sounds of nails tearing flesh and the serene chanting of monks welcoming their cleansing.
Tears burned Feng Kuan's eyes as he ran. Not soft tears of grief. Hot, ugly tears of a man breaking again. "I left him," he gasped between ragged breaths. "Just like I left my men. Just like I always do. Black Maiden. Bearer of death. Everything I touch rots."
The resentment toward the little ghost surged hotter than ever. She had cried. She had drawn them. Yet he could not hate her fully. She was the only chain left keeping him from lying down in the dirt and letting the jiangshi take him too. The Berserk spiral pulled him under the knowledge that he was a failure, a coward, a drunk who survived while innocents died. Little Sparrow's face would join the others in his nightmares now. The boy who reminded him of hope, abandoned because there was no time.
He ran until his legs shook and his lungs burned. The valley emptied behind him into open country. Moans followed, but he did not stop. The baby's cries eventually weakened into exhausted hiccups against his chest.
When he finally slowed to a staggering walk under the rising moon, Feng Kuan spoke to her in a broken whisper.
"Damn you, little ghost. The monks offered heaven. I chose hell again. And I left that boy to it."
The night swallowed them. No shelter. No fire. No more false mercy.
Only the endless road, the weight of new ghosts, and the stubborn refusal to surrender.
Feng Kuan kept walking because stopping would mean admitting the darkness had already won.
And in that moment, the darkness felt more closer than ever.