The town of Pingyang basked in the prosperous glow of the late Southern Song era. Situated along a minor tributary of the Grand Canal, its cobbled streets bustled with trade, its teahouses echoed with laughter and gossip, and its wealthiest resident, Squire Zhao, was the very picture of contented success. His silk trade flourished, his family was respected, and his generosity, though calculated, was well-known. Pingyang was orderly, predictable, comfortable. Until it wasn't.

  The change in Squire Zhao was insidious, a creeping vine strangling the familiar oak. It began subtly. A forgotten appointment here, an uncharacteristic sharpness in his tone there. His wife, Madam Lian, first dismissed it as the stress of a new trade negotiation. His son, Zhao Wei, a studious young man preparing for the provincial exams, thought his father merely preoccupied. But the strangeness grew, coalescing like morning mist into something tangible and cold.

  One evening, during dinner, Squire Zhao recounted a tale of his youth, a boating trip on West Lake. He spoke with relish, detailing the willow-lined banks and the painted pleasure barges. Madam Lian listened, a frown slowly gathering between her brows. "Husband," she interrupted gently, "that wasn't you. That was Cousin Minghao's story. You were terribly seasick that summer, remember? You refused to even cross the local ferry."

  Squire Zhao paused, his chopsticks hovering over a piece of braised pork. He looked at her, his eyes oddly vacant for a moment. Then, a smile spread across his face, too wide, too quick. "Ah, yes, silly me. Minghao's tale, of course. My memory plays tricks." But the certainty with which he'd told the story, the appropriation of another's memory, sent a chill down Madam Lian's spine.

  More incidents followed. He'd address old family retainers by the wrong names, display baffling ignorance about long-standing business arrangements, or hum tunes he’d previously despised. The most disturbing element, however, was something far more ephemeral: his face. It wasn't that it looked different, not exactly. The features were the same – the strong jaw, the slightly hooked nose, the mole beside his left eye. Yet, increasingly, when people looked at him, the details seemed to… slip. Like trying to grasp smoke. Long-time neighbours would greet him, then walk away perplexed, unable to quite recall the exact shade of his eyes or the precise curve of his smile. His son, Wei, found himself staring, trying to fix his father's image in his mind, only for it to blur the moment he looked away. It was like remembering a dream – the feeling remained, but the specifics dissolved upon waking.

  Fear, sharp and metallic, began to coil in Madam Lian's heart. This man who shared her bed, who sat at the head of her table, felt like an imposter wearing her husband's skin. His gestures were almost right, his voice almost familiar, but the soul behind the eyes felt alien, hollow. Wei, too, felt the wrongness, a dissonance that set his teeth on edge. They spoke in hushed tones late at night, their shared fear a fragile bond against the creeping dread.

  "He isn't Father," Wei whispered, the words tasting like sacrilege on his tongue.

  "I know," Madam Lian breathed, clutching a silk handkerchief. "But who… what is he? And where is your father?"

  Desperation led them down a path previously unthinkable. Whispers circulated in the Jiangnan region about a travelling Taoist priest, Xuanzhen, known for dealing with matters beyond the mundane – hauntings, curses, unnatural afflictions. He wasn't a flamboyant exorcist of popular tales but a quiet, observant man whose reputation stemmed from resolving inexplicable troubles. Through discreet inquiries and a hefty donation relayed via a trusted merchant, they sent a plea for help.

  Xuanzhen arrived in Pingyang not with clanging cymbals or dramatic pronouncements, but with the quiet tread of a scholar. He was unassuming in his simple grey robes, his features weathered by travel and contemplation, his eyes holding a depth that seemed to absorb the world without judgment. He accepted the Zhao family's hospitality, presenting himself as a distant relative paying a courtesy call to avoid alerting the Squire – or whatever resided within him.

  His initial observations took place over shared meals and polite conversations. Xuanzhen noted the Squire's affable, yet slightly off-key, performance of familial duty. He saw the forced heartiness, the moments of vacant stillness behind the eyes, the way Madam Lian and Wei flinched almost imperceptibly at his touch. He also noted the peculiar effect the Squire had – a subtle blurring in his own perception, a difficulty in holding the man's exact features steady in his mind's eye. It was like looking at a watercolour painting left out in the rain.

  "Tell me about the changes," Xuanzhen asked Madam Lian and Wei during a private moment in the garden, away from the main house.

  They recounted the incidents – the borrowed memories, the shifting mannerisms, the unsettling facial ambiguity. "It's as if he's… hollowed out," Madam Lian wept softly. "And something else is looking through his eyes."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Xuanzhen listened patiently, his fingers tracing the patterns on a weathered wooden bead from his bracelet. "Identity," he murmured, more to himself than to them. "Memory. Appearance. These are the anchors of the self in the world. When they loosen…" He didn't finish the sentence, but the implication hung heavy in the air.

  His investigation became more focused, though outwardly he remained the placid houseguest. He subtly employed Taoist observational techniques. Seated in meditation in his guest quarters, he extended his senses, seeking discordant flows of qi, the vital life energy. Around the Squire, the qi felt… smudged. Not violently chaotic like a typical demonic presence, nor stagnant like a place of death, but strangely diluted, as if the Squire's own life force was being overlaid or cancelled out by something formless and parasitic.

  He prepared a special tea, infused with herbs meant to clarify the senses and reveal illusions, serving it courteously to the Squire one afternoon. The Squire drank it readily, complimenting the flavour. For a fleeting second, as the tea took effect, Xuanzhen saw it – a flicker behind the man's eyes, a momentary lapse in the careful facade. The face seemed to momentarily lose all definition, becoming a terrifyingly smooth, blank canvas before snapping back into the familiar features of Squire Zhao. It was a glimpse so brief, so horrifying, that Xuanzhen had to master his own composure.

  "An entity that consumes or borrows identity," Xuanzhen concluded later, pacing his room. "Not merely wearing a skin, like a Huapi, but integrating, replacing… blurring the original. Inspired, perhaps, by the formless terrors mentioned in the ancient Classics, yet adapted to the intricate tapestry of human society."

  He realized direct confrontation might be dangerous, potentially harming the true Squire Zhao, if any part of him remained. He needed to expose the entity, to force it to reveal its nature, without destroying the vessel. He decided on a subtle test, rooted in the power of true names and essential identity.

  During the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration held in the family courtyard, under the bright full moon, Xuanzhen brought out a gift – an old, burnished bronze mirror. It wasn't a mystical "monster-revealing mirror" of legend, but something grounded in simpler principles: pure reflection, symbolic truth.

  "Squire Zhao," Xuanzhen said, his voice calm but carrying a quiet authority that cut through the festive chatter. "Allow this humble Taoist to offer a small token for your esteemed household. May this mirror always reflect the truth and prosperity within these walls."

  He held the mirror up, angling it so it caught the Squire's face. The Squire smiled, a polite, socially appropriate expression. But as his gaze met his own reflection in the polished bronze, something faltered. The reflected image wavered, shimmered. For a horrifying instant, the face in the mirror became indistinct, a blur of flesh-tone with no discernible features – no eyes, no nose, no mouth. Just a smooth, terrifying oval.

  A collective gasp went through the family members and servants who witnessed it. The Squire himself recoiled, a strangled noise escaping his throat. The mask had slipped. The reflection didn’t lie.

  "What… what sorcery is this?" the Squire stammered, his voice losing its familiar timbre, becoming thinner, flatter.

  "It is no sorcery, Squire," Xuanzhen replied, his eyes fixed on the being before him. "Only truth. The mirror reflects what is, not what pretends to be. What are you, that fears its own true face?"

  The entity wearing the Squire's form seemed to shrink under the steady gaze and the weight of the revelation. The carefully constructed persona fractured. Its movements became jerky, unnatural. The borrowed mannerisms fell away, leaving something hesitant and undefined.

  "We… we are becoming," it whispered, the voice now a strange chorus, hinting at multiple presences within the single form. "We blend. We adapt. It is… survival."

  Xuanzhen felt a different kind of chill. Not a single entity, but perhaps a collective? Or a process? Was this thing spreading, moving from host to host, subtly replacing individuals within the fabric of society? The implications were staggering – a hidden invasion, not of monsters, but of absences, replacing people with hollow copies.

  The resolution wasn't a fiery exorcism. The entity, or perhaps the nascent stage of this particular 'infection', seemed weakened by the exposure, its hold on the Squire's identity disrupted. It wasn't inherently malevolent in a destructive sense, more like a terrifying form of psychic mould, spreading and consuming individuality. Using a combination of stabilizing talismans placed discreetly around the Zhao residence to reinforce the existing qi fields and a series of focused meditative sessions guiding the true Squire Zhao's consciousness (what little remained) to reassert itself, Xuanzhen began the slow process of separating the host from the parasite.

  He couldn't promise a full recovery. The Squire Zhao who eventually emerged was quieter, more introspective, forever changed by the violation. Gaps remained in his memory, and the unsettling feeling of having been 'hollowed out' never entirely left him. The townsfolk noted his subdued nature, attributing it to a bout of severe illness. The terrifying truth remained confined within the Zhao family and the quiet Taoist's knowledge.

  As Xuanzhen departed Pingyang, leaving behind a fragile peace, he carried a heavy burden. The Faceless Gentry – was it an isolated incident, or the first sign of something far more pervasive? He looked at the faces of the people in the next town, the merchants, the scholars, the children laughing in the streets, and for the first time, he wondered with a profound sense of unease: How many were truly themselves? The world felt thinner, more terrifyingly fragile, its familiar facade potentially masking an unknowable, identity-dissolving void. The horror wasn't just in the monster; it was in the realization that the everyday order could be so easily, so subtly, undone.