Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Clay Doll and Primal Yin

After kneading the mixture until her hands ached, Gu Shi Yi rolled the mud into a lump and began to shape it with her fingers. As a child she’d been lonely and used to playing by herself—digging up yellow clay, adding water, pinching little figures into shape. Her hands remembered the work.

Before long, a tiny clay doll stood on the offering table, complete with nose and eyes, unnervingly lifelike.

Gu Shi Yi lifted the mirror again. Yan Er stared out from it, nervous enough to shake.

“Shi Yi… y-you… are you really sure?”

Gu Shi Yi stood in her ritual robe and Daoist crown, solemn as stone. Moonlight painted her face in cold silver, giving her an odd, commanding dignity.

“Yan Er, stop.” Her voice softened, but only a little. “This disaster happened because I meddled. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be like this. Tonight, I’m pulling you out. No matter what.”

She wiped a smear of blood across the mirror’s surface, then raised it toward the moon.

The clear sky above them twisted.

A sudden gale roared in, as if the mountain itself had exhaled. Dark clouds poured across the heavens and swallowed the moonlight in a single breath. The courtyard vanished into ink-black darkness—so thick Gu Shi Yi couldn’t see her own fingers.

Only the two altar candles remained, their flames trembling wildly, throwing a weak circle of light across the table.

Gu Shi Yi didn’t flinch. She held the mirror with both hands and chanted toward the sky, voice steady, unwavering. When she reached the end of the incantation, she pressed two fingers together like a sword and stabbed them toward the mirror.

A deep thunderclap rolled overhead.

Then the darkness split.

A seam opened in the sky, and moonlight poured down like a blade of silver silk, striking straight onto the bronze mirror.

“Aaah—!”

Yan Er screamed. Her face twisted in agony, her image shaking as if the mirror had turned into a storm. Gu Shi Yi’s chanting rose again, faster, sharper. A moment later, a pale, withered hand slowly pushed out of the mirror’s surface.

Gu Shi Yi’s heart leapt.

She reached for it.

Their fingers touched.

Ice bit into Gu Shi Yi’s hand. The cold crawled up her arm, numbing her fingers in a heartbeat. She didn’t have time—if she stiffened up, both of them would be dragged into disaster.

She gritted her teeth and shouted, “Out!”

She pulled.

The arm came, inch by inch, fighting her the whole way, as if something on the other side had locked it in chains. Gu Shi Yi dragged harder until the shoulder broke through. Then the mirror’s pull deepened—heavy, heavier—like she was hauling a mountain by its roots.

By the time half of Yan Er’s body showed, the suction surged so violently it nearly yanked Gu Shi Yi forward. It felt as if the mirror meant to swallow them both.

Gu Shi Yi’s breath came sharp. Her power wasn’t enough. She couldn’t control a treasure like this or smash through the barrier between worlds.

But she’d planned for that.

She snatched up the peachwood sword and slashed hard across her left forearm.

It looked like dull wood—no edge, no shine—yet her skin split instantly. Blood sprayed out in a thick arc, splattering across the mirror and turning the bronze surface red.

The mirror thrummed.

It shuddered.

Yan Er’s body lurched forward another stretch, until only her knees remained inside.

But below the knees—just that last stubborn length—nothing moved, no matter how Gu Shi Yi strained. Yan Er fought too, trembling and tugging like she was trying to tear free of mud that clung to her feet. Still, the pull from the other world tightened, inexorable.

Heaven and earth had their rules. They didn’t let people break them for free.

Yan Er began to sink.

“Shi Yi…” Blood tears spilled down her pale cheeks. Her voice cracked. “Forget it. Don’t ruin yourself for me. Let go!”

Gu Shi Yi’s eyes went vicious. She bit her lower lip until she tasted blood.

“No.” Her voice came out like a snarl. “We’re already here. If I let go now, it’s all for nothing. Tonight… I’m going to risk it all!”

She slammed her palm against her lower belly.

A dim, greenish light rose from within her, sliding up through her torso and into her throat.

She spat.

A ball of green light struck the mirror’s surface.

The bronze screamed—an ugly, unnatural shriek—and Yan Er’s form jerked free all at once, like a newborn tearing loose from the womb. Her legs flicked, her body turned into a rushing shadow, and she shot into the air.

Gu Shi Yi spun, fast as lightning, and guided the shadow straight into the clay doll waiting on the altar.

Bang!

The shadow slammed into the clay doll with a solid, physical thud. Then it vanished.

The mirror’s glow died instantly. It clattered to the ground like dead metal.

Gu Shi Yi dropped to her knees, all strength drained. She pressed a shaking hand to her bleeding arm and sucked in air in ragged gulps. Cold sweat ran down her temples. Her vision swam—black, white, black again—and her body tilted as if the world had turned sideways.

She bit her tongue hard.

Pain snapped her back into focus.

The clouds above scattered. Moonlight returned as if nothing had happened. The night grew calm again—wind whispering through leaves, insects chirping, a faint scent of mountain flowers drifting in.

Only the blood on her arm proved it had been real.

“Hiss—”

Gu Shi Yi staggered upright and hurried to the altar. She lifted the clay doll with both hands.

The doll’s features—nose, eyes, mouth—were Yan Er’s. Not approximate. Not similar.

Exact.

Gu Shi Yi’s face broke into a fierce grin. “Yan Er! We did it! We did it!”

The clay doll blinked. It moved its hands, lifted its legs, then stared down at itself in disbelief.

“I… I’m really in your world?”

Gu Shi Yi nodded so hard her hair nearly fell loose. She turned in place, holding the doll up as if showing her a grand estate.

“Look around. This is where I live—this ruined Daoist temple in the mountains.”

Yan Er looked at the broken eaves and brackets, the peeling red lacquer, the battered walls. It was nothing like the steel-and-concrete world she remembered. Then she looked up at the moon—a huge, luminous disc, bright enough to feel close.

“Our moon isn’t this big,” she breathed.

It was so big it looked like someone could stand on the mountaintop and leap straight into Guanghan Palace.

The clay doll moved under the moonlight, flexing its little limbs, marveling at the strange comfort of the glow on its body. Gu Shi Yi watched, relief trembling through her chest. It could speak. It could move. The ritual had worked.

“Absorb the moonlight properly,” Gu Shi Yi said, voice hoarse. “I need to sit and recover.”

Tonight had been a knife-edge. She’d lost far too much blood essence. Her power was completely spent. And worst of all, at the final moment she’d forced out all her primal yin essence—damage that cut deep into her roots. Without three to five months of recovery, she wouldn’t be whole again.

Yan Er nodded and wandered the courtyard on tiny feet, looking around like a child discovering the world for the first time.

“A minute ago I was in pond mud as a female ghost,” she muttered. “Now I’m in another world. This place… doesn’t even seem that different. The moon’s just bigger…”

They passed the night that way—one restless and curious, the other still as stone, recovering breath by breath—until the jade rabbit slipped behind the mountain and the world reached that last, heavy moment of darkness before dawn.

Gu Shi Yi opened her eyes and checked the horizon.

“Yan Er. Come here,” she said quickly. “You’re a new soul in a new body. This clay has my pure yin blood in it, but it won’t protect you in daylight. You can’t take the sun. Hurry.”

Yan Er jogged over. After a full night of moving around, she’d already adapted to the clay body—her little legs were quick, almost effortless.

Gu Shi Yi scooped her up and tucked her inside her robe, against her chest. Under the loose Daoist layers, Gu Shi Yi’s figure was far from childish—mature, full, and undeniably feminine. She looked down at the clay doll nestled there and grinned.

“I’m not squishing you, am I?”

She even lifted her chest slightly with obnoxious pride.

Yan Er made a face that, on a clay doll, somehow still managed to look like a hard eye-roll.

Gu Shi Yi burst into laughter. “My future husband hasn’t gotten this privilege, and you got it first!”

Yan Er sighed. “Can’t you sew a cloth pouch and carry me in that?”

Even if she couldn’t feel heat or cold anymore, the idea of lying against her best friend’s chest made her feel strangely uncomfortable.

“It’s… weird,” she said grudgingly. “I feel weird about it.”

Gu Shi Yi snorted. “Ungrateful.”

She wasn’t doing it to tease—well, not only to tease. She was a pure yin body, and keeping Yan Er close would nourish the yin soul inside the clay. Dawn was coming fast. Gu Shi Yi packed everything away with efficient hands, returned the borrowed items to their exact places, and smoothed the courtyard as if nothing had happened.

When she finally finished, she patted her chest lightly.

“Please don’t let the old Daoist priest notice.”

He was muddle-headed most days. The only thing he remembered clearly was the schedule for sneaking down to see Widow Zhang. Everything else? A fog.

Gu Shi Yi had thought she’d calculated it perfectly.

What she didn’t expect was that the old Daoist priest slept all the way to noon.

When he finally rolled over and sat up, he smacked his lips and groaned like a dying man.

“Shi Yi! You dead maidservant—get your Daoist Master a bowl of water!”

“Coming!”

Gu Shi Yi brought him water from outside. The old Daoist priest blinked his sleepy eyes open, glanced at her… and froze so completely it was as if someone had nailed him to the bed.

His hand went slack.

The bowl tipped.

Water spilled all over his clothes, soaking half his body.

He didn’t even notice.

“You… you… you-you-you…”

His eyes went wide. His finger trembled as he pointed at her, shaking so hard it looked like it might snap right off.

Gu Shi Yi’s heart sank.

Had he seen it? Had he sensed something?

Before she could say a word, the old Daoist priest sprang up with a speed that would’ve embarrassed a mountain monkey. He grabbed her arm in his bony grip, clutching like a vice.

“You stinking maidservant!” he hissed. “Did you take advantage of me being drunk last night and sneak out to steal a man? Didn’t I tell you? Once you turn thirty, you can do whatever you want and I won’t stop you—but you absolutely cannot break your primal yin body at this time!”

Gu Shi Yi stared at him. “Steal a man? When did I steal a man? Old bastard, don’t slander me. Stealing people is your specialty, not mine!”

The old Daoist priest jabbed a finger at her like he was about to stab her with it.

“Then explain this! Why has the primal yin aura on you vanished completely?”

Gu Shi Yi’s throat tightened.

She hadn’t expected him to notice.

Still, her mouth ran ahead of her brain, stubborn as ever. “Nonsense! I’m perfectly intact—pure as a maiden. Don’t you dare ruin my reputation!”

“Reputation?” the old Daoist priest barked. “What use is reputation in a wilderness like this? So the mountain spirits can clap for you? Confess! What did you do last night? Did a wild man crawl up the mountain, or did you run down to town? Or…”

He narrowed his eyes, and his voice took on a nasty little note of revelation.

“Every time you see the house guards at the Wang family estate, you start drooling. Did you go play the flower-plucking bandit and pluck them?”

Flower-plucking bandit?

Pluck them?

Gu Shi Yi’s jaw dropped. Then her face went red with rage.

“What nonsense are you spewing? I look—so what? Who said I’d actually go sleep with that bunch?”

“If not them,” the old Daoist priest said, leaning in with scandalous enthusiasm, “then was it Young Master Wang San?”

Young Master Wang San was famous in town for his pretty face. Women from ten li around would go to market and make excuses just to stroll past the Wang family gate. Had Gu Shi Yi set her sights on him?

“Even more nonsense!” Gu Shi Yi snapped. “That pretty boy is all skin and bones. I like men with muscles.”

She lifted her chin, utterly unashamed.

“I’m a pure yin body. I need someone with blazing yang energy. If I took someone like Young Master Wang San, he’d be sucked dry in three years!”

That was the old Daoist priest’s own verdict, and Gu Shi Yi had memorized it. She might be starving for a husband, but she wasn’t the kind to kill a man just to warm her bed.

The old Daoist priest studied her expression, and her fury didn’t look fake.

He frowned.

“Then why did you lose your primal yin body?”

Gu Shi Yi opened her mouth.

Closed it.

She stalled, stammered, and tried to find the least horrible lie in the universe.

The old Daoist priest’s face darkened. He dropped back onto the wet bed and began counting on his fingers, muttering as he calculated.

His face shifted—dark to pale, pale to red, red back to dark again.

Then he stopped.

He stared at Gu Shi Yi as if she’d turned into a thunder tribulation in human form.

His lips moved for a long time.

No sound came out.

Gu Shi Yi had followed him for twenty-five years and had never, ever seen him look like that.

Suddenly afraid, she rushed to steady him.

“Master… Master, are you all right?”

Before the last word finished leaving her mouth, the old Daoist priest made a thick, wet sound in his throat. His eyes rolled back.

And he toppled.

“Master! Master!”

Gu Shi Yi nearly tore her own hair out. She pinched his philtrum, forced cold water down his throat, slapped his cheek—anything to bring him back. At last he sputtered and woke, gasping like a fish thrown onto land.

But instead of shouting, instead of cursing, the old Daoist priest turned his head and stared at the Founding Patriarch’s statue in the hall.

He stared and stared, eyes unfocused, expression blank.

Gu Shi Yi’s voice shook. “Master! What’s wrong with you? Say something!”

She swallowed hard, panic rising.

“Master, I… I really didn’t steal a man. I’m still… I’m still intact. I remembered what you told me. I didn’t mess around!”

The old Daoist priest didn’t even blink.

Gu Shi Yi’s eyes went red. “Master… what is it? Please—just say something…”