The Priest Kept a Ghost in His Gourd and Let Him Out Every Night novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Drowned Bell
On the willow bank a hanging thing begs the ghost for help, and when it walks into him he remembers the ferry bell. Shaking afterward, he learns the priest's body with his mouth in the boat shed, and at dawn a Bureau boat docks with a smiling inspector who has hunted the gourd for eleven years.
"That's not me," Zhuoran said.
His voice was flat, and he was already on his feet.
"It sounds like you."
"I know what I sound like. Priest, your brush."
Pingan grabbed the case.
The ink on Zhuoran's arm was fading from red to rust.
Pingan painted a fresh line across the back of his wrist, with a hand still unsteady from the hay.
The ghost's whole body filled in, solid again.
The Rain Needle slid into his hand.
"Stay behind me."
"No."
"Pingan."
"I'll stay beside you. That's the best I can do."
Zhuoran gave him a look of pure exasperation.
Then he went out of the window headfirst, and Pingan took the ladder.
The willow bank ran below the ferry for a quarter mile, a line of old trees leaning over black water.
The bell was louder here.
It rang from the middle of the river, slow and wet, and each stroke made the water shiver in rings.
Between the third tree and the fourth, something hung from a low branch by its sleeves.
It wore scorched black and crimson cloth.
Its feet dangled over the river, and it was shaking so hard the branch creaked.
"Zhuoran," it whispered.
It had his voice.
It was thin and high and frightened, and Pingan had never heard him afraid.
"Zhuoran, please. Take me with you. Don't leave me here in the dark again."
Zhuoran stopped three paces away.
His sword hand did not move.
"It's begging," Pingan said quietly.
"Yes."
"You don't have to."
"It killed a woman last week. I can smell her on it."
"Then I'll do it. Give me a paper."
"No." Zhuoran's voice was rough. "It knows my name. It wants me."
He stepped forward and put the needle through its heart.
The thing went still.
For a moment its face was nearly a man's face, young and wet, with its mouth open in relief.
Then it smiled with Zhuoran's smile and slid into smoke, and the smoke ran up the blade and into his arm.
Zhuoran dropped to his knees in the mud.
The bell stopped.
It did not fade out.
It stopped mid-stroke.
"Zhuoran?"
"I heard it," he said, without lifting his head. "At dusk, from the ferry post. The bell they rang to call the boats home."
His shoulders were shaking.
"I was standing under it. I had my hand on the rope. I don't know why."
Pingan knelt in the mud and put an arm around him.
The ghost was solid, and cold, and trembling.
"I remembered that," Zhuoran said. "I have not remembered anything about that place in a hundred years. And I do not like it."
"You're allowed not to like it."
"I know what I'm allowed."
"Come on."
Pingan got him up and walked him down the bank to the boat shed.
It was a long, low shed with two flat boats drawn up inside it and nets hung from the rafters.
The air smelled of tar and river weed.
He pulled his own patched robe off his shoulders and wrapped it around Zhuoran, who permitted it with a look of deep humiliation.
"I'm not cold," said Zhuoran.
"Your teeth are chattering."
"They're ghost teeth."
"Zhuoran."
"I need something to do with my hands."
His voice cracked on the last word.
Pingan said nothing.
He looked at the proud, pale, frightened man in his borrowed robe, and he understood that nothing he could say would help.
He sat down in the bottom of the nearest boat and held out his arms.
Zhuoran came to him fast, like a man who had made a decision before he could argue with it.
His mouth was cold and urgent, and it tasted of river.
Pingan kissed him back with both hands in the ash-grey hair.
"I've read about this," Zhuoran said against his jaw. "My senior brother had books under his bed. They were very detailed."
"Were they?"
"I'm a quick student."
He slid down, slowly, off the bench and onto his knees in the bottom of the boat.
Pingan's heart began to pound.
"Zhuoran, you don't have to."
"I know." He looked up through the grey hair, dark eyes steady, the red ring almost gone. "I want to. Let me."
Pingan let his head fall back against the boat's ribs.
Zhuoran's hands were sure on his thighs as he tugged Pingan's trousers open and freed his hard cock.
His mouth was a dozen different surprises when he licked the slick head and took Pingan in.
It was warm where Pingan had written, sucking him deep, clumsy at first and then not clumsy at all.
Pingan had to bite his own sleeve to keep from shouting the roof down.
"Quiet," Zhuoran murmured, "or the village will come."
"Then stop doing that."
"No."
Pingan made a sound into the cloth.
His fingers shook in the ash-grey hair.
Every slow, deliberate turn of that clever mouth drew him tighter, until the whole boat shed seemed to tilt.
He came with a gasp and a curse, spilling hot into Zhuoran's mouth, and Zhuoran swallowed and held him through it with his eyes closed.
Pingan would remember the look on his face for the rest of his life.
It was not triumph.
It was relief.
When it was over Zhuoran rested his forehead against Pingan's knee.
"I'm still here," he said, to nobody.
"I know."
"Memories stay. Even the bad ones."
"Yes." Pingan stroked his hair. "And so do I."
They stayed like that until the sky outside the shed door turned the color of a pearl.
Somewhere in the village a rooster cleared its throat.
Zhuoran lifted his head.
"Cockcrow," he said. "I have to go back in."
"I know."
"Don't look so tragic. It's very dull in there. I can sulk undisturbed."
He kissed Pingan once, fast, then went to smoke and slid into the gourd.
The stopper dropped into place on its own.
Pingan sat in the bottom of the boat for a long minute with his heart still too loud.
Then he fixed his hair, put on his robe and went out to the dock to wash his face.
The river was grey and quiet.
A boat was coming down it.
It was long and white and gold, with six oars and a square banner snapping at the stern.
It carried a dozen men in matching robes.
Pingan's stomach dropped.
He knew that banner.
His master had spat on it twice.
The boat bumped the dock, and a tall man stepped off before the ropes were tied.
He wore white and gold, with a neat grey-streaked beard and a jade seal at his belt.
His smile reached all the way to his eyes and stopped there.
"Priest Gu," he said warmly, as if greeting an old friend. "Inspector Shao Zhengtang, Bureau of Hallowed Places."
He looked at the red gourd on Pingan's belt.
"Eleven years your master hid him from me," he said. "I'm so glad you brought him home."
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