by Peter Fang
If there were any complaints about her, it would be the healthy amount of free advice she doled out to the residents; she would encourage them to achieve a happier and more fulfilling life by following the feng sui principles. Those that were cornered by her would nod and smile and would listen, but no one was truly interested in her advice.
Gretchen took the information she received from her Chinese assistants to a friend of hers. The friend’s name was Shao Ling—a Dao devotee whom she knew from the local temple. Shao greeted her near a Japanese garden while he was practicing his cleansing of the mind. It was a quiet garden with a large fish pond teeming with koi. The fish were so tame that they followed Gretchen when her footsteps ascended the stairs of an arched bridge. She followed Shao to a guest room next to the koi pond.
Shao was reclusive and lived on a farm. The farm was a far distance away from the city; the closest store was an hour away. There was no broadband internet, and it had minimum modern utility conveniences. However, the priest told Gretchen that having electricity was really a necessity to help with his research.
Gretchen took out the material she had carefully wrapped inside a large plastic bag, then covered it with tape and secured it inside a large backpack. Shao looked at the article Gretchen brought with her and examined it with infinite care. For the first fifteen minutes, Shao didn't say a single word except an occasional “Mmm” as he followed the pictures in front of him.
Shao devoted much of his life to building a library of ancient Chinese theology and mythology. He was very intrigued by the story that Gretchen told him. He took the pictures and examined them under a magnifying glass. There were several paragraphs in Chinese characters that especially gave him pause. He took out a jeweler’s eyepiece and studied the script next to the light. The inscription was barely legible; by his estimation, it was created back in the Three Kingdoms period of China. After consulting his library of ancient history, he roughly translated the meaning of the words. In one of the pictures, a pictograph showed the short phrase 巫蠱 (wū gǔ)—sorcery and its deadly spells. There was also a drawing of two warring parties on the battlefield; the conflict was fierce, with bodies strewn across the field; bloody swords and broken lances cried upwards into the sky. One party in blue was in an apparent retreat and being chased by a dark cloud of insects. The chasing party had their men behind the dark veil in the sky, killing any enemy soldiers who fell behind. The witch’s spirit was held back by the warlord and trapped in a golden box. The warlord had an amulet tied to his waist to prevent the spirit from turning against him. The amulet was a Chinese 八卦 (Bāguà)—a ceremonial sign to deter evil spirit.
“What is the meaning? Is it something unlucky?” Gretchen held the picture out clearly for him to see.
“That’s a very old scroll—perhaps thousands of years old. I'm surprised that it had survived this long. Where did you find this?”
“My assistant in China.” Gretchen never liked to share her source with anyone, even her closest friends.
Shao chuckled. “Indeed, your secret is safest with you.” His face then turned dark as he read more into the scroll. “Where did you find this? This is very bad luck. This spirit will follow you like a virus, and it will take over your body and soul. There is a warning that says the spirit should be eternally punished, and someone long ago managed to tame it with an ancient spell. The spirit was hungry to reconstitute itself, so it did the master’s bidding and became a war machine. But over time, it found ways to regain its strength. Its roots grew stronger and spread its influence wide. This spirit had achieved immortality, but it was used by the warlords for their greed and addiction to power. It had been kept in a state of imprisonment for so long that it only knew hatred and revenge. Look at this sign here.” He pointed at a small round engraving near the bottom of the picture. It was intricate, and when you stared at it too long, the design seemed to move.
“What is the meaning of that symbol?” Gretchen squinted.
“I can’t see it that well, either. Something like this needs a closer examination under the microscope; my jeweler’s eyepiece just doesn’t cut it.” Shao looked as curious as ever as he stepped away and retreated into this study room. Moments later, he brought a lab microscope and laid it on the table. He took the picture from Gretchen and carefully set it under the microscope lens. He moved his fingers and adjusted the scope to bring the image into focus. The sign was a bit fuzzy at first, then it became remarkably clear.
“Take a look at this.” The Dao master stepped away to let Gretchen lean in and take a look.
“Wait, I see it. What is that? What are those patterns around the circle?” Gretchen ran her fingers along the bottom part of the photo where there was a small symbol.
“I believe that’s a sign of the word, Gu (蠱).”
“Gu?”
“Yes, Gu.” Shao paced slowly around the room, deep in thought. Minutes later, his pace slowed and suddenly stopped in the middle of the room. His lips moved as if reading something in his mind. “According to the ancient practice, Gu is to seal venomous creatures such as scorpion, snake, toad, and centipede inside a closed container; they would devour one another until a single survivor emerges; witches and shamans would use it for black magic.”
“What does this mean to my apartment? I think one of our residents possesses one of the relics you just described.”
“Really? How do you know?” Shao arched his eyebrows. “If that is true, then this can only be explained by fate.”
Gretchen felt a cold, tingling sensation run down her back. “I’m very certain that the symbol we have here is the same one on the antique I saw. It was brought in by one of the tenants. Ever since that thing came into our building, I sensed something chilling in my room, and it was also in the hallway. There is definitely something menacing lurking in our building.”
Shao glared alarmingly at Gretchen. “If that ever happens, you need to get away from the building. This spirit can be regaining its power from the people around it. I believe that this demon is probably infecting people to do its bidding. To regain its strength, it needs human flesh and their souls.”
“Human souls?” Gretchen fought to suppress her fear—now spreading like wildfire thanks to her imagination. She felt a sense of relief that someone finally validated her fear. But now what? How am I going to deal with this awful thing that is breathing negative energy in our building?
Shao continued, “It has to gain energy from somewhere; it needs to find sources of dark energy through its victims. It gains the most regeneration energy from its enemies.”
Gretchen found herself shaking suddenly. “You think something this ancient would still be alive now? Perhaps this is all my superstition; it can’t be really happening in our building, right?”
“Please wait here.” Shao pointed to a seat next to a meticulously crafted bonsai tree. The tree’s branches spread out downward in an arch over the table, like it was gesturing Gretchen to sit down. “I need to go find something I came across a long while ago.” When Shao came back into the room, he found Gretchen staring at the bonsai tree.
“Gretchen? Are you still with me?” Shao whispered as he walked up to her.
Gretchen turned and blinked at Shao, her eyes haunting. “This tree reminded me of my life—the incredible journey surviving through wars and poverty. Then there was a period of happiness and growth. But now I’m old and dying. I am facing a demon that may soon consume my soul. No one would remember me.”
“Think of it this way, Gretchen; you are the root of your apartment. If you want to help yourself and your neighbors, you need to be strong. I strongly suggest you leave that place and get far away, but if you can’t leave your home, then you have to fight to survive.”
“I have nowhere to go; I am staying. I’m not backing away and abandoning my neighbors.” Gretchen’s eyes brightened with a glimmer. “Now, please show me what you found.”
“Where is your family?”
“Family?”
She lowered her voice. “They don’t want to see me anymore. All of my friends and acquaintances have either passed away or are no longer in touch. I am truly alone.” She stared past the tiles on the ground like they were not there. The room fell into a deafening silence.
Shao collapsed his hands and said, “I’m sorry to hear that. Each person’s fate in this life is connected with your previous one; we can only hope the good deeds we do in this life will make a positive difference in our next. Your children will understand this one day.” With a sigh, Shao carefully lifted the case using the two leather handles on the side and carefully set it on top of the large drafting table. He flicked the latches, and the case unlocked with a satisfying click. He wedged his fingers between the case’s clamshell cover and lifted the top open. The smell of animal leather permeated the room. Inside, there was a long parchment rolled up into a cylinder and tied up with a red silk strap. He carefully pulled the leather scroll out and laid it next to the wooden box. His movements were calculated and ceremonial in style. His laid his left hand beneath the scroll as his right hand unfurled the massive skin.
“What is this?” Gretchen’s eyes gradually came back to life at the sight.
Shao nodded at the leather scroll. “I received this many years ago as a gift from a dying elderly Chinese man. His name was...Abbott. I was doing volunteer work at a nursing home when I met him. It was the weirdest thing, because on my first day at the nursing home, Abbott sought me out in the cafeteria; he said he had been waiting for me for many years.”
"Waiting? Are you related to him?” asked Gretchen.
Shao shook his head. “I thought he had me mixed up with one of his relatives, but he was lucid and showed no signs of memory loss. We soon hit it off. When he learned that I was practicing Dao, he insisted that I take this parchment from him. He said it was passed down to him from his family, and that it was always passed down to the oldest son of the family, but since he did not get married and have any children, he chose me to inherit the legacy.”
"Sickness and death? So this thing is cursed—“ Gretchen felt her breath becoming shallow.
Shao continued, “We learned that the scroll was an account of a lost war in ancient China thousands of years ago. I first thought it was something made up by him to whet my fancy, but I later had the material tested in a lab, and it seemed to be authentic, well––at least it is ancient. I found no reference of this storyline anywhere in the library, nor from any scholars I knew. All I had to go by was the writings on the skin, so I did some research and got a reference regarding a witch that helped a local warlord defeat his enemies, and the witch was using some black magic that was derived from Gu (蠱). The drawing gave me shivers when I first saw it. There was a lot of bad energy around the whole thing, but it soon disappeared. I love history, especially the less well-known stories, so I was very intrigued by this scroll. I studied it, but I soon fell sick, and I had bad dreams every night and saw people in my nightmares getting slaughtered. Some of the faces resembled the people in this drawing. The sickness did not get better until I practiced Daoism, and I had to stop looking at the map.”
“This is over a thousand years old? How could it be in such great shape?” Gretchen couldn’t help but touch the skin with her hands.
“I don’t know. I had some part of this leather tested by a university lab. The lab result showed the leather is from cow hide, but it also contains unidentified organic compound.”
“Unidentified organic compound?” Gretchen was a bit startled by the notion of handling something more than a thousand years old with some unknown chemical on it. To her, that meant unknown bacteria.
“Don’t worry. The unknown compound is not harmful according to the lab.”
“Oh…thanks.” Gretchen nodded at Shao with an apologetic smile, but she still kept her distance from the leather skin.
“Did you ever find out where Abbott was from? Maybe if we could find his family tree, it would give us more clues to where this scroll came from.” Gretchen stared at Shao’s withdrawn face and hoped to find out more about the origin of this mysterious scroll. She wondered if everything was related in a strange way.
Shao thought deeply. “Your question reminded me of something very odd. About a month after he and I became friends, Abbott disappeared from the nursing home. When I asked the nurses about Abbott’s whereabouts, no one knew who he was...I originally thought the name ‘Abbott’ may have been a nickname, but due to privacy concerns, the nursing home could not share that info with me. I never saw him again.”
"He simply vanished? How is that possible unless Abbott never was a resident there...” Gretchen wondered.
Shao nodded. “That is certainly a possibility, but I was certain that he was always with a nurse in the facility due to his hip issues. Anyway, that is not important now. Let's look at this scroll again.”
The leather scroll had very intricate drawings depicting an ancient war that was long lost. It showed a general near one corner of the map overlooking his army against a massive group of soldiers. Scores of the enemies had fallen to the ground by some form of a black cloud. Clusters of soldiers were in hand-to-hand combat. When one looked closer, there were two types of soldiers—one type was compromised of normal humans, but the other grinned with sharp teeth and ran barefoot with bulging tendons covering their bodies. Most of the opposing forces were losing the battle, and the drawings were not kind to their fate. Clusters of armies were retreating, but some were still fighting to the bitter end.
“What are those…? They look like zombies.” Gretchen pointed at a large group of demonic-looking soldiers.
“I believe the witch already spellbound those armies. They felt no pain and were probably already dead. The spell kept them fighting the enemy, and they would keep killing until someone destroyed them. They are essentially zombies.” Shao pointed his finger near the other side of the map and lightly tapped an area of the map. “Here, you can see that they put up a wall of fire. That was the only way they could stop the undead.”
“That’s great, but how is this related to my photo?” Gretchen recognized the pictures in the scroll bore an uncanny resemblance to the pictures she received from her agent.
Shao lay Gretchen’s photo on the map and searched for clues. “When you first brought this picture to me, I realized the style was very unique, and it reminded me of something I saw on this map. I have not looked at this piece for over fifteen years, so the details of the map are fuzzy to me now. I remembered that sign of Gu vividly; the symbol has a very unique and delicate design. I believe it looked exactly like the picture you showed me.” Shao’s hand slowly traced over the large leather surface as if looking for something on a city grid. Then finally, after about five minutes, his finger stopped near the center of the map. He lightly tapped with his thumb and smiled. “There it is!” Shao placed the photo next to the sign, and the two drawings looked nearly identical except in size.
Gretchen leaned over to get a better view of the map from the other side. In the center of the map, there was a small sign the size of a quarter in faded red ink. Gretchen drew a short breath. “Oh, yes. It looks exactly the same, but what does this all mean?”
Shao stood up and paced slowly around the map, his finger pressed tightly against his lips as he slipped into deep thoughts. After a while, Shao turned to her and smiled. “You know, this is all very exciting research, but it could mean really nothing. If you are concerned with the antique bringing you bad luck, there are ways to remedy it. My best advice is not to disturb it.”
“What is this little pouch here?” Gretchen pointed to a small opening near the edge of the leather map. It was hardly visible, but the edge of the map’s sewing had come loose and there was a small pouch hidden between the leather skins.
Shao reached in with his fingers and searched inside the pouch. He slowly worked his fingers in and then pulled out a piece of folded parchment the size of a man’s hand. He unfolded it and saw there were more drawings a
nd writings on the inside. The picture showed six different boxes being carried off by six horsemen. The shape of the small parchment resembled a human hand. On the other side, a small section of the leather was seared with Chinese characters. It roughly translated into the following:
Carry the left arm to the west,
Right arm heads east,
Head belongs to north,
Left leg due southwest,
Right leg due southeast,
The remaining stays central;
Then her power is diffused.
“What do you suppose it means?” asked Gretchen.
Shao carefully scrutinized the writings and looked increasingly worried and perplexed. “It appears that each box was given to a different horseman to disperse into different corners of China. You see, the drawings showing warriors on their horses facing away from the sun symbol. I’m guessing that each box harbored the witch’s torso’s ashes; by doing so, each one diffuses parts of the witch’s spell power.”
“What type of power?”
Shao shook his head and said, “I can’t be sure. There was no writing here with any hints.”
In the center of the drawing, there was a small paragraph that roughly translated into a spell to suppress the spirit within. There was a faded golden inscription next to the spell that was quoted in the words “Monk’s hand.”
“Maybe this spell was created to suppress the spirit.”
“So, I can use this spell in my apartment, yes?”
Shao nodded deeply. “Yes, but we don’t know the real effect of this spell. If not used correctly, it could harm you or everyone in the building.”
“But you are the expert—can’t you create something for me?”
Shao shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. This spell’s full strength needs to be given orally, sometimes in a song fashion. You really need to know how the spell is delivered to ensure its full effect; otherwise, it is just like reciting the lyrics of a song without the notes. There is nothing here that shows you how the spell should be cast.”