The Priest Kept a Ghost in His Gourd and Let Him Out Every Night novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Whole
The Ferry King walked into him.
It did not fight.
It put its arms around Zhuoran.
The black water slid down off its shoulders and ran into the river, and the scorched cloth went to ash on the wind.
Then there was only the tall man, standing alone on the water with his head thrown back.
He made a sound Pingan would hear in his sleep for years.
He fell.
Pingan went over the side of the skiff before he had thought about it.
The river was cold enough to stop his heart.
He caught the ghost under the arms and kicked for the boat.
Hands reached down from the landing.
Auntie Xu's hands, and a ferryman's, and the clerk's.
They hauled the two of them out between them, streaming, and carried Zhuoran up the stone steps.
By nightfall the cold had come back to the loft.
It rose off the mat in sheets.
The frost crept along the edges of the quilts, and the lantern the girl had left was a blue bead of flame.
Zhuoran lay on his back with his eyes open and saw nothing.
His whole body bucked, hard, and settled, and bucked again.
He said a name, and then a stream of other names.
He said, "I told you to stay behind me."
He said it forty times.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Priest Kept a Ghost in His Gourd and Let Him Out Every Night are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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