装蒜 (zhuāngsuàn) – to pretend to be garlic; i.e. feign ignorance, play dumb.

  “… A Yi?” Gong Lau Yan spoke cautiously. “Are you still there?”

  “Don’t worry, darling, she’s still here.” The ghost with Zeyi’s face fluttered her eyelashes. “Don’t try to get rid of me so quickly, now. Good heavens, it’s busy in here. Who’s this young man?”

  Covering her face with one hand, Gong Lau Yan took a deep breath. “Can you explain why this has happened?”

  “Oh no, I think not.” The ghost tilted Zeyi’s head to one side. “I’m sure you’re as smart as you are good-looking, you’ll work it out.”

  “You give me too much credit, dai dze.”

  Zeyi was not particularly well-endowed, but the ghost possessing her pressed up against Gong Lau Yan with a smile. The loong’s eyebrow twitched.

  “Hm… I see. You’re one of those.”

  “Those what?”

  “I saw a few of them. They would come by the Incense Quarters, wondering if there was something broken in them, ask for our most popular friends. They’d try the girls and boys, the intersex cutie who was with us for a while. Some would leave with acceptance, others with even more fear and desperation… So which one are you, handsome girl?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re not interested in sex,” the ghost said bluntly.

  “No, I’m not,” Gong Lau Yan agreed immediately.

  “Oh my, that’s very disappointing, and confusing, to your girlfriend here…” The ghost somehow managed to create a foxy expression on Zeyi’s gentle features.

  “Is it?” Gong Lau Yan looked deeply unconvinced.

  The ghost tried to keep a serious expression but dissolved into laughter almost immediately. “Yes and no. She doesn’t seem particularly disappointed…” She raised Zeyi’s eyes with a listening air. “What sweet little scenarios she has of the two of you in her head. You think that’s embarrassing, girl? Shall I show you some of the things I’ve seen and done?”

  “Stop that.”

  “The confusion though… She can’t understand how such a person could be so flirty with ghosts all the time. Oh, the little sweetheart.”

  “Stop teasing her. What is it that you want?”

  “Walk with me a little.” The ghost’s voice was as wistful as an autumn afternoon. Gong Lau Yan looked around at Gou Gin Gam and the two other ghosts.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Gou Gin Gam said, waving his hand. “The ghosts have calmed down, and I know my way around here well. Come and find me later. I live on the third level of the Dog District. If you ask around, someone will be able to direct you.”

  After farewells were made, Gong Lau Yan turned back to the ghost. “Lead on.”

  “Won’t you offer me your arm, at least?”

  With a frown, the loong did so.

  “Can’t you look a little more cheerful, sweetie?”

  “I’m not exactly happy with this situation.”

  Disappointment was evident on Zeyi’s face, and Gong Lau Yan felt her heart twist a little at the sight. She sighed, and gently squeezed the arm hooked into hers. “How’s this?”

  “Thank you.”

  Who was it that said that? Zeyi or the ghost?

  And so, Gong Lau Yan said to them both, “I’ve wanted to take you on a date for a long time, you know?”

  “Is that so?” said the ghost, and Zeyi said, “Really?”

  “Sure have. Where should we go, Ghost Sister?”

  The ghost smiled brilliantly and tugged on Gong Lau Yan’s arm. “Come with me. Let’s go to the market.”

  They strolled along the dark corridors as if they were arm-in-arm on a broad street in Qianban, a spring breeze tugging their clothes and tossing their hair.

  “I didn’t expect your first date with her would be like this,” Fan Bi’an said to Zeyi.

  “This isn’t for me,” she replied bitterly.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Further down and down they went, until the stifling corridors opened into the widest tunnel yet; the walls were lined with stalls, colourful scraps of fabric adorning the ceiling, bright murals rampant with green dragons and yellow guardian lions.

  All of it decaying and slipping away. Less than half of the stalls were in use, the rest falling into rotting piles. The colours of the fabric scraps were weak and faded in the remaining light of the luminescent pearls, and the painted creatures barely clung to the walls, flaking away into dust. Gong Lau Yan could have counted the number of people at the market with one hand.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “This one! They make great dumplings!”

  The ghost ran eagerly up to one of the few functioning stalls. “Owner! Six dumplings!”

  “Hm? Do I know you, Mistress?” The person at the stall began to ladle mushroom dumplings into a bowl, peering at Zeyi’s face. “You don’t look familiar.”

  “Ah, I’m just borrowing this face. I come and get dumplings from you every month, you know.”

  “Oh, it’s you!”

  “What do you think, owner? Does this body suit me?” She posed.

  “Very cute, very cute. And who’s your friend?”

  “We’re on a date! Don’t you think she’s handsome?”

  “A rare sight. It’s nice to see two healthy youngsters.”

  The ghost smiled. “How shall I pay you?”

  “Pay… I don’t know.” The owner scratched their cheek. “I keep getting up, not knowing if it’s day or night, and making dumplings… Every day is the same. How much longer do we have here? I’m not sure…”

  “It’s not much,” said Zeyi, “but maybe I could dance for you? At least it’s something different.”

  The owner brightened a little. “I didn’t know you could dance, Mui-mui.”

  “Not me, the owner of this body. Let’s see…”

  Zeyi felt her consciousness float to the surface, the ghost sinking down to join the strange existence that was the amalgamation of Fan Bi’an and her brother and something else in the depths of her inner world. She closed her eyes and let the sensation of the floor beneath her feet transform; she stood on a bamboo pole in the centre of a river, and she danced.

  With perfect balance, Zeyi dipped and swayed, leaning forwards on one leg with the other straight out behind her. Her hands drew currents through the air. She crouched and skimmed the water’s surface with her fingertips, she flung her arms upwards and let the bright drops sing through the air like fresh rain.

  When she stopped, and the river was once more a dark corridor in a dying city far below the earth’s surface, she met Gong Lau Yan’s eyes and saw the shining river still there, looking back at her.

  The stall owner sighed, deeply. “I’ll remember this. I don’t know what you showed me, but I think I saw a vast channel of water… Thank you.”

  Gong Lau Yan retrieved the plate of dumplings, crystal wrappers speckled dark with wooden ear mushrooms and held out her hand to Zeyi. The ghost took it.

  “Try a dumpling, darling. Here!” The ghost lifted one to Gong Lau Yan’s face. As the loong obediently opened her mouth, Zeyi’s fingertips barely brushed her lips.

  “Delicious.”

  The ghost opened Zeyi’s mouth, and Gong Lau Yan fed her too. “I haven’t been able to properly taste food in so long. It’s so good!”

  Once the food was finished, she pulled Gong Lau Yan further down the markets. Ghost fires glowed small and green in places, huddling together where the light of the luminescent pearls was weak. The ghost stopped abruptly at a fountain.

  Or what had once been a fountain. It was rectangular in shape, lined with dark red tiles that were all cracked or fallen or simply gone. There was no telling what the fountain head had originally looked like, not now that it had crumbled and was overgrown with slippery algae that had already died and was disintegrating into brownness. The only water in evidence was the continuous trickle of seepage through the walls.

  “Did you want to catch goldfish?” Gong Lau Yan asked gently. “That’s always fun.”

  They crouched down together. “There’s a bronze-coloured one there, darling. It reminds me of you.”

  “Would you like that one then? I’ll catch it for you.”

  “Yes please!”

  Gong Lau Yan concentrated hard to catch the bronze goldfish. After much dodging by the fish, she successfully scooped it up and handed it to the ghost. “That was difficult! The lotuses got in the way. Who cheats at goldfish-scooping by growing waterplants in the pond?”

  “So that’s what she sees,” Fan Bi’an said. “No doubt they’re white.”

  The ghost said, “Catching goldfish was my brother’s favourite game at the market. We ended up with so many in the end… When we had to eat them, he cried.”

  “You won’t have to eat this one. Is there anything else you would like to eat?”

  A little further along, another vendor was selling cavefish soup.

  “Let me pay this time,” Gong Lau Yan said. She lifted her hand to the dim, barely glowing luminescent pearl on the wall behind the vendor. When she withdrew her hand, the pearl was glowing once more.

  “Amazing, darling! Of course, you’re a spiritual cultivator. Such a thing is easy for you!”

  “Are you alright?” Zeyi asked, pushing her consciousness forth. “Isn’t that too much?”

  “I’m alright. It’s not too much.” Their hands met easily. For a moment, Zeyi felt her fingers on Gong Lau Yan’s wrist, and Gong Lau Yan’s fingers on her wrist.

  “Let’s eat, darling,” the ghost said. They took turns drinking the fish broth. Gong Lau Yan insisted that the ghost drink the last mouthful of the savoury soup.

  “It’s been a long time since I had cavefish soup,” the loong said. “It still tastes the same as I remember.”

  “For me too. It’s still the same.”

  There was a bench nearby, miraculously still possessing of four legs. An old woman sat on it, her breathing slow and definite. She looked up as the pair approached, but her eyes were filmed with white. “New faces… How unusual.”

  “The face might be new, but you know me, Grandmother. I used to ask you for stories all the time. My favourite was the Seven Sisters.”

  “Oh, it’s you. Well, what other young one would be strange enough to like that story.” The old woman shook her head. Her greyed hair was tied in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, and her clothing, while worn and patched, was clean and neat.

  “We’ll have to hear the story then,” Gong Lau Yan said. “Please, Grandmother, would you tell us.”

  “No!” the old woman huffed. “I’m not going to fill your minds with nonsense. One silly girl is enough!”

  “Please, Grandmother, you’re such a good storyteller. Here, I’ll massage your shoulders.” The ghost cajoled the old woman until she reluctantly agreed.

  “Alright, but it’s a ghost story, you hear? I don’t want to find out you’ve run into bad ghosts after this!”

  “Grandmother, I’m already a bad ghost.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a sweet girl, and it’s a shame what happened to you.”

  “There are only bad ghosts,” said the ghost in Zeyi, and laughed.

  The story of the Seven Sisters was:

  Seven girls who were childhood friends, so close as to be blood sisters, swore to never marry and to dedicate their lives to each other. But when they grew up, two families in their hometown arrange a marriage between the son of one family, and the third eldest of the seven girls.

  Unable to convince the families to change their minds, the third girl decided that she would kill herself. The six other girls who had sworn their lives to each other came with her to the cliff edge, and holding hands, they all jumped into the ocean together.

  When their bodies finally floated to the surface, they were still tightly holding hands. Not even the ocean could separate them.

  “You understand now?” the old woman grumbled to Gong Lau Yan. “A gruesome and ghostly story. Not the sort of story a young girl should enjoy.”

  “That is a bit strange,” Zeyi said to Fan Bi’an. “I wonder why she likes it so much. It seems like such a desperate and unnecessary story.”

  “Isn’t that just this whole situation? Desperate and unnecessary.”

  The walls were coated in dead algae. Even the kind of creatures one would usually find in subterranean spaces were mostly long gone, no scuttling of rats or insects to keep the darkness company.

  “We’ve never seen the sun,” the ghost said, “and the lights are going out down here. One day, soon, we’ll be left utterly in the darkness. Shouldn’t we prepare our hearts?”

  Zeyi glanced at Gong Lau Yan, but in these shadowy depths, it was hard to tell what expression she wore. The ghost took the loong’s hand.

  “And so, darling, will you stay with me a little longer?”