Chapter 39

At three that morning, once everyone was asleep, Gouwa crept along to Ning Shu's room.

Ning Shu had her things ready and was waiting for him.

The demon-subduing staff and the Heavenly Master's seal. Those two she had to carry. The rest was paper charms she had drawn herself. She put those in Gouwa's bag. They might not hold anything truly vicious, but ordinary ghosts were still afraid of them.

Before they went out, Ning Shu opened her streaming app as usual, and the moment she went live several hundred people came in.

Ningning's streaming at last!

Yes! I've missed you so much. Have a depth charge.

Ningning, where are we exploring? Are there ghosts?

Is Gouwa there? I've missed Gouwa.

Ning Shu turned the camera on Gouwa so he could say hello. Three years of ghost-hunting streams had won the good-looking, cowardly Gouwa a devoted following of his own.

Gouwa cleared his throat. "Hello everyone, it's your Gouwa. Tonight my sister and I are exploring a haunted basement."

Get on with it!

I can't wait.

Ning Shu went out of the room. The house was dead quiet and the night was deep.

Gouwa came down the stairs at her heels to the little wooden door of the basement. It was locked.

"Come with me."

Gouwa took her round to the southeast corner of the house, where there was a square vent in the wall. He lifted the cover off. The space was just big enough for a grown person.

"This goes straight down to the basement."

"Not bad. Fancy you finding that."

"How would I find it? It isn't my house." Gouwa dropped his voice. "It was in the dream. That little girl who was frightening me, she climbed out of this vent."

"That's grim."

"Come on, in we go."

"After you."

Neither of them moved.

Gouwa said, "You're the elder. You first."

Inside the vent was a long narrow shaft running downwards. Ning Shu got along it easily enough, but Gouwa was a big lad and it was a great deal harder for him.

Ning Shu warned him, "Don't get stuck. I can't get you out if you do."

She had barely finished before Gouwa called out in despair, "Sis."

He's stuck.

He's stuck +1

He's stuck +10086

He's stuck +2333333

Nobody told you to get that big, Gouwa!

Gouwa was wedged where he could go neither forward nor back.

Ning Shu got her bag off and threw it to him. "There's a jar of chilli oil in there. Pour the oil out and rub it on."

"Sis, you came equipped. Chilli oil and all. Is that a present for your grandmother?"

"Say one more thing."

Gouwa shut up at once, worked the oil onto the part of him that was stuck, pushed hard, and came loose a good deal.

Ning Shu had him take hold of her feet, and she crawled forward and towed him along.

The shaft ran downhill anyway, so it was not hard going, and once Gouwa was free he let go of her.

They crawled for about a quarter of an hour and got to the end.

Ning Shu opened the little hatch and put her head through. The room beyond was black and she could see nothing.

Gouwa came out and announced, "I swear I am never getting into one of those again."

Ning Shu made a sign at him to be quiet.

She got out the torch and looked round, and found the basement was large, with a number of rooms. This one was a storeroom, with cabinets along the wall.

Gouwa went over and pulled one open, and although he had been expecting it he still swore. Ning Shu came over. Inside were several black jars, the kind funeral homes use, with the numbers still on them.

What was in them did not need saying.

Ning Shu kept her stomach down and was reaching for the next cabinet when she heard something behind her, and turned, and the old woman was standing there in the dark without a sound, watching them.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was like timber dead a thousand years and crumbling, and there was no telling any more whether it was a man's or a woman's.

She was skin over bone and bent over, and she looked like something dried out in a tomb.

And then the mark between Ning Shu's brows went scarlet.

What she saw was no longer the old woman at all. It was a dark red centipede half the height of a person, its hundreds of legs working, hissing.

The gooseflesh came up on Ning Shu, and she remembered what Fu Nansheng had said. Those dead girls are no use to a person, but a foul thing can use them to build a yin body and push its cultivation on.

So this grandmother had had her body taken by a hundred-footed centipede.

And Gouwa was still filming the old woman with his phone and had not understood that there was any danger.

"What are you doing?"

Ning Shu's grip tightened on the staff and a smile came onto her face. "We were worried about you, Grandma. We came down to see how you were."

"Get out."

"We'll go. And I'm taking these with me." Ning Shu pointed at the urns. She had the staff in her hand and she was not afraid of it.

"You don't know how high the sky is, girl. You won't drink when it's offered politely." The old woman changed on the instant into the great centipede and came at Ning Shu with everything out.

Gouwa shrieked. "Mother of God. What is that?"

AAAAH!

Ningning, look out!

This is better than Hollywood. The effects are incredible.

That centipede's as tall as a person. That thing's a thousand years old.

Ning Shu swung the staff hard at it and the centipede ducked back out of the way, and while the two of them were in the thick of it there was a click and the basement door was opened from outside, and Ning Hengtao's voice came down. "Mother? What are you doing?"

At the sound of him the centipede turned straight back into the old woman, dropped on the floor and began to howl. "They've turned on me! Raising their hands to an elder! Is there no heaven left and no law?"

Ning Hengtao and Ye Furong came down, and her uncle and the rest after them, and her uncle said, "Ningning, Gouwa, what are you doing down here?"

"They were going to kill me." The old woman got behind Ning Hengtao and pointed at Ning Shu. "She was hitting me with a great stick."

Ning Hengtao caught sight of the staff in Ning Shu's hand and his face changed. "Ningning, you."

Ning Shu said calmly, "She isn't a person. She's a demon."

"Ningning, what are you saying?" Her aunt did not understand. "Are you confused? That's your grandmother."

"If she really were my grandmother, why did she sit through Ning Xiaohu beating on that wooden door and crying his heart out, and never move? There's nobody she dotes on like that precious grandson of hers."

At that Ye Furong edged sideways and got as far from the old woman as she could. The doubts had been in her for a long time, and growing up in the country with her mother she had seen a good many strange things.

"Ningning, are you ill?" Ning Hengtao still would not have it. "That's your grandmother."

"If none of you believe me, come over to the cabinet and look." Ning Shu gave the old woman a cold glance. "Come and see what she's been doing."

Ning Hengtao came hesitantly towards the cabinet, and the old woman saw how it was going and changed again, into the great centipede, and went for the person nearest to her, who was Ning Shu's aunt.

"Mum!" Gouwa screamed and ran to put himself in front of her.

Her aunt went down under Gouwa, and when she opened her eyes again Ning Shu was standing in front of the pair of them with the demon-subduing staff driven into the body of the dark red centipede.

The centipede screamed with the pain of it and went backwards, and turned into the old woman again and dropped to the floor, and in a man's voice it shouted, "Kill me and the old woman dies with me."

It was in her body. Hurt one and you hurt both. Kill one and you kill both.

Ning Hengtao was out of his wits. "Mother! What's happened to you?"

"She isn't your mother any more." Ye Furong ran and got him up, and with a shaking hand reached for the phone to call the police. "That's a demon."

"Don't call anyone." Ning Hengtao's mind had not caught up. "She's my mother."

Nothing could move. The centipede held the old woman's body, and to deal with it they would have to take her life first, and whoever struck first would be a murderer. Ning Shu had no intention of spending the rest of her life in prison.

The old woman's face was a horror, and she watched the lot of them, guarding herself.

Ning Shu checked the time. Four in the morning.

Four in the morning.

Something came to her and her head came round to Gouwa.

"What are you looking at me for?"

"Gouwa. Crow like a cock."

Gouwa did not follow. "Do what?"

Ning Shu said, "Haven't you loved chicken necks since you were small? Crow. Crow like a cock, twice."

Gouwa could make nothing of it, but it was urgent, and Ning Shu had her reasons for what she did, so he opened his throat and crowed.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo."

"Cock-a-doodle-doo."

Each one higher than the last, and each one with more in it.

By the end, even her uncle and aunt, who had lived in the country all their lives, had to admit that Gouwa did a remarkable cock. You could very nearly not tell whether it was Gouwa or a real bird.

The body was too big to hide anywhere, and in the end the centipede came flying out of the old woman.

"Mother of God!" Ning Hengtao shrieked. "That's an enormous insect!"

Ning Shu was quick. In the split second it came out she was across the floor and brought the staff down on the top of its head.

The centipede dropped at once and could not move. It was a dead thing.

And it shrank fast, until it was a dead centipede the size of a palm.

Gouwa went over and picked it up by one end. "Huh. You're only a centipede. As if I couldn't deal with you."

Gouwa had played with insects since he was small, and the ones that had died in his hands ran to hundreds. It had never occurred to Ning Shu that this counted for anything. All those years of chicken necks, and ordinary insects were afraid of him, and so, it turned out, was a centipede that had made itself into a demon.

"Don't crow about it," Ning Shu said. "By the look of it that centipede has been at this a hundred years at least. Take it home and let Grandma steep it in yellow wine. It'll do as a present from a dutiful grandson."

"Right!"

And the old woman's whole body went tight, and her back came up straight, and she stared at the doorway.

Ning Shu followed where she was looking. At the door of the basement, without anyone seeing them arrive, stood two underworld officers in black.

The old woman's years were up.

Both officers knew Ning Shu by now. She had taken people out of their hands more than once, and she was not somebody they wanted to cross.

One of them drew the words out, neither warm nor cold. "We carry a warrant out of the city of the dead, and we do not take souls loosely."

The other came straight in on it. "If the King of Hell says you die at the third watch, who dares wait for the fourth?"

Ning Shu waved a hand. "All right, you can stop. It's the same performance every time. Take her. I shan't stand in the way tonight."