Leaden clouds massed, the wind rose, dull thunder rumbled.

Commander Yu flung open the door and strode from the hall.

“Go and drag out those two fake priests with their supernatural nonsense and keep a close eye on them. When I get back, we’ll hold a public execution right here! Remember, keep them gagged so they can’t spout any of their lies.”

The soldiers entered as instructed and found Zhang Ping and Wumei stretched out on the ground. They were still breathing, so the soldiers nimbly lifted them and carried them away.

Commander Yu leapt onto his horse and departed, leading a group of soldiers towards Bridgehead Village.

The soldiers left behind carried Zhang Ping and Wumei into a small tent. Six of them stood outside the tent, weapons in hand.

The sky grew darker and darker until the thick clouds seemed ready to plummet, yet not a drop of rain fell.

After a long spell, Wumei slowly opened his eyes and heard voices outside the tent.

More time passed, and the tent flap went up. A figure entered—the headman.

Beside Wumei, Zhang Ping sat up. The headman looked relieved. “You’re awake! Wonderful.” He removed the gags from their mouths and pulled out a dagger, with which he cut the cords binding their feet.

Blankly, Wumei began, “What are…”

The headman said quietly, “We can’t stay here. I’ll explain when we get out.” He motioned for Zhang Ping and Wumei to follow him, then lifted the tent flap.

Outside, it was deep twilight; they had been out for a whole day.

Six soldiers lay with overturned bowls beside them, soup spilled on them and the ground. The headman whispered, “The drugs won’t keep them unconscious long. Hurry.” 

Zhang Ping and Wumei carefully pried two pikes from the soldiers’ hands, picked up two helmets and put them on, straightened the uniforms they were wearing, and rushed after the headman.

They encountered patrolling soldiers at every step, but with the headman in front of the two of them, none of the soldiers took notice. As they approached the edge of the village, a distant call went up. The headman bolted towards a patch of empty fields with the two of them following and ducked behind a big tree.

“There’s a gully behind that stand of grass where you can hide. Commander Yu left for Bridgehead Village with some troops, so there aren’t so many left behind to keep watch here. While they’re gone, the two of you can sneak out of the village once it’s dark. Head southeast, there’s a track.”

Wumei bowed deeply. “Thank you for rescuing us.”

The headman raised him from his bow. “No need to be so polite, young Daozhang. The two of you have nothing to do with this. I can’t stand to see you get dragged in. To tell you the truth, it was Old Shi who lives by the edge of the village who asked me to help.” He removed a water skin and two cakes from his belt. “This is all I have with me. You’ll have to make do for the time being.”

Wumei thanked him repeatedly, took the cakes and water skin, removed the cork from the water skin, brought it to his mouth, and gulped two mouthfuls.

Zhang Ping took the water skin from him and also took a small drink. He wiped his mouth. “Mister Shi came to you to intercede for us?”

The headman nodded. “Old Shi came to me yesterday, but I didn’t have a chance before. Commander Yu wants to punish you under military law, so this risky move was my only choice. I’ve been gone a long time, Commander Yu’s subordinates might become suspicious, so I’ll go now.”

Wumei hesitated. “But you drugged those soldiers to rescue us, sir. Won’t you be in danger if you return to the village?”

A faint smile appeared on the headman’s face. “Don’t worry, young Daozhang, I have my ways. Anyway, as headman, Commander Yu can’t punish me out of hand.”

Zhang Ping saluted him. “No gratitude is sufficient for such great kindness. Might I ask you for your name, sir?”

“You’re welcome, young Daozhang,” said the headman. “My surname is Qiao, given name Xian.”

Wumei gave an exclamation. “You have the same family name as the deceased Xiaozhao?”

Zhang Ping said, “I heard that Xiao and Qiao are the main families in Bridgehead Village. Are you from there, sir?”

The headman’s expression was momentarily frozen. “Precisely.”

“Then was Xiaozhao related to you?” said Wumei.

The headman raised his sleeves. “It’s really getting late. I should get back to the village.”

Zhang Ping stepped into his path of retreat. “Would you like to know what we said to Commander Yu earlier?”

Another dull rumble of thunder came from the heavens. The headman frowned. “Oh, yes. What did the two of you say, after all?”

Zhang Ping said, “We only confirmed one thing with Commander Yu: that the plague years ago was caused by his late brother.”

Dim lightning flashed through the clouds, picking the headman’s face out of the obscurity of deep twilight.

Zhang Ping continued: “At the time, Commander Yu’s older brother Yu Shouji was living in a nearby villa to study. He often came to hunt on horseback in the vicinity of Stonybend and Bridgehead Village. From a group of traveling traders, he bought a hunting dog that had been brought from the frontier. But because of the heat, the dog had been kept in a cage during transit. It had contracted rabies. When Yu Shouji brought it out hunting, the dog went wild, bit him, and ran away. It died by the river. That was what caused many people and animals in the area to be infected with rabies and die.”

The headman stood silent in the darkness as Zhang Ping slowly went on.

“Yu Shouji also died of rabies. The Yu family thought that he had already expiated his sin with his life, and they feared the retribution of the villagers. Therefore, they concealed these facts. Outsiders thought that Young Master Yu had only been infected because he was living nearby.”

“Expiated?!” the headman burst out. “How many people died in that plague?! How could a single life make up for it?! And why should it? Even if his father was god himself, he could have died a hundred times, and it still wouldn’t have been enough!!”

Wumei was having difficulty swallowing.

Zhang Ping nodded slowly. “No, it couldn’t have been enough. So no one—not the Yu family or its servants, and not the merchants who sold the dog to Young Master Yu—none of them dared to mention these facts. It was only a few days ago, when those merchants came to town again to sell their wares, that presumably they started chatting while drunk and let it slip—and they were overheard.”

The headman put his hands in his sleeves. “Young Daozhang, do you suppose that Commander Yu’s subordinates overheard the merchants and were afraid that the Yu family’s conscienceless act would be exposed, so they killed those witnesses?”

“Of course not,” said Zhang Ping. "Had Commander Yu wished to kill the witnesses, why would he have done it here, and made it look as if a jiangshi had drunk their blood?”

At the word “blood,” a cold glint appeared in the headman’s hand. Wumei pulled Zhang Ping aside, and an arrow flew through the air and buried itself in the headman’s shoulder.

A group of soldiers emerged from the depths of the bushes, drawn bows in hand, arrow points trained on the headman.

The headman tottered, then just managed to stand firm.

Zhang Ping took two slow steps forward. “This is the place where the bodies of the three merchants and of Old Xiao ended up. You brought us here and gave us a water skin because you meant for my shixiong and me to end up the same way.”

A dazzling lightning flash streaked through the clouds, illuminating the headman’s savage expression.

One soldier looked fretfully at Zhang Ping and Wumei. “You two drank that water!”

Wumei grinned. “We were faking, we didn’t really drink it. Don’t worry.”

Deep booms of thunder began to roll over the sky. The headman pulled his lips back in a cold snarl. “When did you begin to suspect me?”

“With people in the village dying one after another, the greatest suspicion fell on outsiders,” said Zhang Ping. “Prior to Commander Yu’s arrival, the only outsiders in Stonybend were the two medical officials, the runners sent by the county yamen, and you. The killer was attempting to make the villagers suspect that rabies was being spread through the water, as well as the possibility of supernatural events. The two medical officials both thought there were points of suspicion about the bodies and couldn’t be certain that there was a disease. This was at odds with the killer’s motives, so they could be excluded.”

Only the runners and the headman remained.

“All along, you did everything you could to push the medical officials into confirming that there was a plague. Furthermore, I questioned the commander: the immediate report to the county asserting that there was another rabies outbreak and insisting that the county send soldiers at once to control the plague rather than send runners—that report came from you.”

The headman wore a cold, peculiar smile. “That’s right. I knew there was every chance they’d send the Yu family’s spawn, and sure enough, heaven answered my prayers!”

Wumei removed his stifling helmet. “Commander Yu’s late brother and those merchants were indeed at fault, but the people of Stonybend were also victims. Why would you want to kill them?”

The headman laughed scornfully. “Victims? Only a handful of them died! Why was Yu living nearby then? Because they wanted the highway to go by their village, so they gave the Yu family the villa! They asked Yu Baixiao to speak to the county yamen on their behalf! They lured that thrice-cursed Yu to their village, and he let a mad dog loose near their land. So why was it our water in Bridgehead that was polluted? Why was it Bridgehead where so many people died!!”

He staggered towards Zhang Ping and found his way barred by the soldiers’ blades.

“I had nine brothers and sisters! Do you know how many were left after that plague? Not a single one! Their sons, their daughters, their whole families, they all died! I was the only one left, because I lived in town with my family. The whole village was surrounded, there was no way in! I couldn’t even be with them at the end!!”

Another crack of thunder. He spun around and pointed towards Stonybend.

“When the sickness passed, they wept for all they were worth. There weren’t enough people left in Bridgehead, we couldn’t outcry them. Most of the disaster relief funds went to them. Oh, they were crafty. They burned down their houses, and the county yamen built new ones for them. Do you know what the yamen said to us in Bridgehead? There aren’t enough of you left, you have no use for so much money. Hahaha, there aren’t enough of you left! Haha—”

The headman fell to his knees, keening like a ghost.

“Oh, heaven, if you can hear us, then give us an answer. They should have died, shouldn’t they? Wasn’t I giving them what they deserved when I killed them?!”

As if in answer, an unusually bright flash of lightning snaked over the sky, and a deafening burst of thunder boomed.

The headman tugged at his disheveled hair and slowly arranged himself crosslegged and upright on the ground.

“I killed those people, I admit it. They deserved to die.”

“No.” Zhang Ping shook his head. “They didn’t deserve to die. And not all the victims were killed by you. You aren’t the only killer.”

The headman raised his head. Another flash of lightning glinted in his eyes.

—

“Commander, that’s the inn where the traveling merchants stayed.”

In Bridgehead Village, Commander Yu’s guide pointed up ahead to a small compound. The commander, on horseback, inclined his head. “Excellent. It’s late, and the rain is about to start. We’ll go in to investigate, and rest there while we’re at it.”

The owner of the inn came out to receive them solicitously, and Commander Yu led a number of soldiers inside. A waiter set a table and served wine. Just as Commander Yu had picked up his cup, a bolt of lightning pierced the sky outside, and a thunderclap shook the earth. The rain that had been waiting all day to fall at last came pattering down.

The soldiers standing guard outside suddenly opened their eyes wide.

In front of them, dark shapes had appeared as if they had been formed out of the pouring rain, or else as if they were jiangshi that had climbed out of a shallow grave. In silence they bore down upon the soldiers.

Commander Yu set down his wine cup. The owner, who was standing by to attend him, smiled. “Why aren’t you drinking, Commander?”

Calmly, Commander Yu said, “I may not imbibe alcohol during the course of an official mission.”

The owner smiled again, then drew a dagger from his sleeve. The waiters carrying the food and the odd-job man sweeping the corridors all pulled out weapons as well.

—

Rain fell, merging into a single curtain, harder and harder.

Wumei put the helmet back on his head. Zhang Ping still had not moved a muscle.

“What you just said was intended to protect the other killers. But from the time the coroner went missing to the time he died, you were in the village, and not alone. You couldn’t have killed him. Moreover, it is beyond the abilities of a single person to kill the three merchants, to fabricate rumors of ghosts and jiangshi, to move the bodies to the edge of Stonybend, and to escape detection by comprehensively laying blame elsewhere. There is more than one killer, and in fact more than two or three killers.”

—

The pooling rain turned bright red.

Commander Yu and his subordinates kicked aside the body of the last waiter who had attacked them. He opened the gate and heard a cry: “Look out, Commander!”

Countless stones flew towards him through the curtain of rain.

Outside the village as well were clustered rank upon rank of dark shapes, which swarmed towards the soldiers standing guard.

The dark shapes held hoes, hammers, shovels, drills; they were tall or short, fat or thin; some had bare chests under their open short jackets, while others had their hair in coils and wore skirts.

Another flash of lightning tore through the sky, flooding the world with a noontime brightness.

In the rain, the faces of all these people were exposed without a shred of concealment.

They were—

The people of Bridgehead Village.

—

“Everyone in Bridgehead Village is either a killer or an accomplice.”

The headman bared his teeth and went for Zhang Ping’s throat.

The soldiers swiftly forced him down into the pooled rain and gagged him.

The headman clawed at the earth.

That day, he and his fellow villagers had ripped into those three beasts like this.

Three beasts who had sold a mad dog, beasts who had caused the death and ruin of a whole village! They ought to gnaw their flesh, hack apart their bones, tear them to shreds, scrap from scrap!

He struggled to raise his head and look up into the sky. Blood leaked from his eyes.

Zhang Ping closed his eyes.

“A few days ago, people from Bridgehead Village went to the market in town and overheard those three traveling merchants say what really happened back then. When everyone in the village knew, you decided to get revenge. Some people got close to the merchants and lured them into staying the night at the inn in Bridgehead Village.”

Then the merchants were killed by the vengeful villagers.

“The whole village lied. The Xiao family’s elder hadn’t died earlier; he died from excessive exertion while killing the merchants. It must have been his idea, or his family’s, to make up the story about him rising from the dead and drinking blood. With this incredible narrative in place, you were able to move the corpses to Stonybend without any issue, and make the people of Stonybend believe that it was the work of a jiangshi, and that there was a fresh outbreak of rabies. Afterwards, you kept killing. The more people died, the more likely a plague would seem.”

Zhang Ping gazed down at the headman.

“Among the dead, in addition to Old Xiao, Qiao Xiaozhao also wasn’t killed. He willingly sacrificed himself for Bridgehead Village.”

The headman’s eyes moved to meet Zhang Ping’s.

Pity flashed through Zhang Ping’s eyes. “Qiao Xiaozhao had been gravely ill for a long time. The house he lived in opens north, which creates a chill indoors, and the door faces the gap between two other houses, while the rear windows face the empty hills. With the wind blowing through the house year round, it’s easy to catch a chill, which can turn into lung disease. At the head of his bed is a spot with clear signs of rubbing. That was where the cuspidor stood. Those with lung disease often cough at night and miss the cuspidor when spitting up. That was why that spot had been cleaned more than the rest.”

So, when Medical Official Li examined the body, he discovered that the lungs were damaged.

“Qiao Xiaozhao knew he didn’t have long to live, so he was willing to die for the sake of accomplishing this revenge plan. When the people of Stonybend had all gone to look at the bodies of the merchants and Old Xiao, someone snuck into their village, picked out a number of houses, and stole a chicken from each house. By the time the Stonybend villagers returned, it was afternoon. At most they would have let the chickens out of their coops to run around the yard, then shut them up again for the night. They wouldn’t have paid close attention or counted them.”

Qiao Xiaozhao, meanwhile, had been helping clean up Old Xiao’s body. Even if the villagers had noticed the stolen chickens, he wouldn’t have fallen under suspicion.

“The thief brought the dead chickens to Qiao Xiaozhao’s house, and that night, Qiao Xiaozhao went to the place where the other bodies had been found, dropping dead chickens and leaving bloodstains as he went, then killed himself there. But Qiao Xiaozhao overlooked two things. First, his house has no well, and there was no water in the water vat.”

During summer, each house usually kept a great deal of water in their water vats. And even in such hot weather, a couple of days wouldn’t have been enough to dry up all the water in the vat.

“It was because Qiao Xiaozhao had decided to kill himself and hadn’t fetched fresh water that day. Before leaving, he cleaned the house, using up what water remained. The second oversight, more than Qiao Xiaozhao’s, was yours.”

The headman stared intently at Zhang Ping.

“After Qiao Xiaozhao died, someone else went to clean his house. You are the only one who could have done so during that time. You mistakenly concluded that Qiao Xiaozhao had hidden the dead chickens inside, under his bed, so you cleaned that spot with particular care, and had the bed taken away and burned. But Qiao Xiaozhao had lung disease. The smell of a whole brace of dead chickens indoors would have been too much for him. He couldn’t take it, so he put the chickens in the woodshed, where I found chicken feathers.”

Zhang Ping took another two steps towards the headman.

“The coroner’s death was unintentional. He belonged neither to Stonybend nor to Bridgehead, and he had no connection with the plague of years ago. He must have accidentally discovered something he shouldn’t have known about and had to be killed to keep him silent. Da-Shuan and Sizhao’er’s deaths were your doing. After they and the others who carried the bodies woke up yesterday morning, they were all brought before you and the medical official to determine whether they were sick. You selected the two of them to kill because they were the only ones who had been near the river. You wanted to make the villagers believe that the curse or infection was connected to water, like the disease years ago, so they wouldn’t dare drink the water and would ask the county yamen to deliver water to them. You also kept advising Commander Yu to gather the villagers together. That would have made it more convenient for you to poison them.”

A wind blew, knocking the columns of rain aslant. The hair on the back of Wumei’s neck was plastered to his skin by the rain and couldn’t rise; all he could do was shudder.

The headman closed his eyes.

—

In Bridgehead Village, the dark figures hefted their weapons and rushed towards the soldiers.

A sudden trumpet blast sounded in the distance.

Commander Yu wiped the rain from his face and called out, “The reinforcements are here. They were only waiting for you to show yourselves!” He drew his sword. “Seize them all!”

To the accompaniment of thunder, the trumpet call spread on the wind.

The rain strengthened.

The soldiers returned to the village with the headman in custody, Wumei and Zhang Ping following.

It was midnight. The gates of the underworld were open.

But there would be no more ghosts in Stonybend.

After the rain would come clear skies.