The Priest Kept a Ghost in His Gourd and Let Him Out Every Night novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Brush

Zhuoran walked out into the inn yard in his bare feet at sunrise and stood in the middle of the cobbles with his arms out.

He had no ink on him anywhere.

Nobody was holding his wrist.

The sun came over the roofs and fell full on his face, and he did not fade, or flicker, or turn the colour of glass.

He stood there, solid, warm, a little pink about the ears, breathing in the smell of bread and river.

"Well?" Pingan called from the doorway, with a towel round his neck.

"I am standing in the light."

"You are."

"Nobody is writing on me."

"Not a soul."

Zhuoran tipped his head back and laughed.

It was a long, loud, rusty laugh, and it echoed off the stable wall.

Auntie Xu put her head out of the kitchen to see what had broken.

"Go on," she said, when she had looked. "Eat something. You're the colour of milk."

"I'm the colour of a living man!"

"A milk-coloured one."

He ate on the doorstep, with his bowl in his lap and a crowd of children sitting round his feet to watch him do it.

He let the smallest of them touch the scar on his neck.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not any more."

Pingan stood in the doorway and watched, and had to go and wash his face in the pump.

By midday the ferry was busy.

By evening Pingan's ribs had stopped hurting altogether.

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