The stench of the wet market—blood, fish scales, and wilted greens—clashed with funeral incense wafting from a mourning shop. Feng’s backpack bulged with dissonant relics: frozen black dog blood crystallizing in plastic bottles, a pig’s heart oozing crimson through shrink wrap, and a cheap peachwood sword whose tassel glittered with paper ingot dust.

  "Yin soil corrodes meridians. Only yang blood can purge the sha." Feng curled in the motel bathtub, Annals of Folk Mysteries splayed on anti-slip mats. His UV flashlight swept over his left arm—gray veins now crawled to his shoulder blade, subcutaneous fungal threads writhing like spiderwebs under the violet glow.

  He bit open the dog blood vial. The freezer-chilled liquid reeked of iron and rot as it splashed his arm. Fungal tendrils hissed like screeching infants. Seven yellow talismans, soaked in vermillion ink, adhered to his acupoints per ancient diagrams.

  Mugwort smoke coiled from smoldering herbs as Feng held them to his elbow. In the haze, Zhou Xiaofeng’s spectral fragment materialized—a woman in opera robes stuffing grave soil into a Nuo mask’s lining. When the pig’s heart touched the sigil on his palm, his left arm spasmed violently, clawing at his own throat.

  "Wrong…all wrong—" Feng kicked the tub over, retching black sludge. The bathroom mirror reflected a bruise shaped like the character 亥 (Hai) pulsing on his neck. The talismans had only seared his skin; the yin contamination had seeped into his bones.

  Nightmares came like blood-soaked film reels. Feng stood center-stage in his dream, Zhou Xiaofeng’s Nuo mask dripping corpse oil from the rafters. Boneless fingers gripped his left shoulder: "The replacements are ready…your grand finale…" He watched his own petrified arm pack grave soil into the mask’s hollow.

  As embroidered opera sleeves coiled around his neck, his vision flipped upside-down. Flaking vermillion paint on a nearby pillar revealed carved words: "BREAK SHA HERE."

  He awoke at 3:07 AM, sheets drenched in cold sweat. His right hand probed his left arm—the flesh felt like rotted timber. Outside, the moon drowned in ink-black clouds, yet the rhythmic boom…boom…boom of opera drums pulsed through the darkness, each strike syncing with the skipped beats of his heart.

  The peachwood sword lifted the motel curtain. In the distance, grave mounds glowed with corpse-light. Feng stuffed the pig’s heart with vermillion talismans, slathered his atrophied arm in dog blood, and followed the drumbeats back to the mountains.

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  The drums led him down a narrow path to a crumbling opera stage. Rotting pillars groaned in the night wind. Seven Nuo masks hung from the beams like hanged ghosts. As Feng stepped onto the sagging planks, the White Wuchang mask lunged—its lolling tongue a pale eel. He hurled the pig’s heart. The mask latched onto the bloody offering—and his sword pierced the 周 (Zhou) character etched on its forehead.

  Black ichor sprayed the Annals’ cover. Pages flipped madly as Feng dumped the remaining dog blood onto the beams. Fungal threads recoiled with sizzling screams. When Zhou Xiaofeng’s specter emerged from the central mask, he snapped the peachwood sword and hurled it at the pillar from his dream—the shengmen exit.

  The blade struck the crack. Every mask exploded simultaneously, Zhou’s phantom chest mirroring the fracture. A subterranean crunch shook the earth as coffins ruptured below. Her wail merged with the storm’s roar. Feng collapsed in the corner, watching fungal threads retreat from his withered arm—a charred sigil scar branding his palm.

  At dawn, the Annals flipped to its final page. Bloodstains sketched a new chapter: "Sha-Borrowing Mirror Technique," its diagram depicting a left-arm cripple. Feng ripped off his bandages with a bitter laugh. Outside, a hearse wailed as three white-shrouded bodies were loaded.

  The CT scanner roared like thunder. Feng stared at dendritic patterns—ash-gray roots twisting around his ulna. The rheumatologist adjusted his glasses, baffled: "Normal bone density…these markings resemble…carvings?"

  Three days later, Feng returned to Luotou Village. At the third doorstep, an old woman dropped her clay bowl. Millet congee splattered into a Nuo mask shape on stone slabs. A baby wailed inside.

  "Sinful business…" The tailor across the street pointed his pipe westward. "Granny Zhou’s guarded the clan shrine forty years. Ask her."

  Under the locust tree, the ninety-year-old woman stroked faded puppets: "Warlords came for《Mulian Rescues Mother》. The troupe needed a ‘soul-guide’…Xiaofeng had her face painted with charcoal, locked in a makeup box three nights." Her milky eyes glinted. "That box became our coffin. Seven of us carried it up the graves."

  She produced an 1891 edition of Nuo Opera Origins, its margins noting: "Zhou Troupe Oath: Never cross the Yangtze. Never touch cinnabar."

  Feng’s boot scuffed the charred stage ruins. A flash of lacquer revealed hollow beams—half a charred finger bone tangled with bronze bells. The Zhong Kui mask lay askew in broken mirrors, its 周 (Zhou) character scorched. UV light showed corpse oil inside, now hardened into amber. When touched, it whispered fragments of Zhong Kui Marries His Sister.

  In an internet café’s blue glow, Feng scrolled trending news: #DeliveryNightmare. A video showed takeout riders kneeling before unfinished buildings, burning spirit money. Their helmet visors reflected nameless graves. GPS trails snaked into the Annals’ page 77 Soul-Guiding Sigil.

  End of Soil-Eating Masks