Page 10 of The Scarlet Alchemist

“Your handwriting is atrocious,” he said, though his words had no bite. He kept his hand steady as he grabbed Yufei’s arm, painting the character forHeavenover the blue rivers of veins just beneath her skin:?

On my arm, he painted Earth:?

And on his own wrist, Man:?

We jolted at the sound of metal striking wood and turned toward the house.

“Yufei!”Auntie So called, probably banging a spoon against the window frame.“Come help me cut onions!”

“In a minute, Mama!” Yufei said. “I’m studying!”

“You should bestudyinghow to cook, or your husband will bring you back to us and ask for a refund!”

Wenshu scoffed, not managing to hide his smile before Yufei glared.

“Gohgo says he’ll come help you!” she shouted.

“Hey!” Wenshu said, shoving Yufei’s shoulder.

“I don’t want him in my kitchen!”Auntie So said.“He’ll faint trying to lift a pot of water.”

Yufei barked out a laugh, while Wenshu grimaced.

“Mama, we’ll all come help you in a minute!” I said.

Auntie So made a noise of acknowledgment and didn’t press further. Old man Gou coughed from outside the pen, an unsubtle sound of impatience.

I took a deep breath, then knelt before the body.

“I’m ready.”

Wenshu knelt on one side, ready with his needles, a dry palette of ink, and shallow bowl of water. Yufei knelt on the other side of the body, resting her hands on the back of his neck and the small of his back, the easiest way to hold him down on her own, because Wenshu and I would be too busy to help her once we got started.

I closed my eyes and placed my hands on his upper back, just above the heart meridian.

The sounds of pots and spoons clanging inside our house faded away and all I could hear was the slow bleeding river inside me, smoothing over rocks, carving canyons into the earth. The current soothed away the feeling of cracked dirt against my knees, the sweat on the back of my neck, the sweltering summer air that made breathing feel like drowning. The river inhaled my entire world until there was nothing but cold darkness and water whispering the secrets of the universe in my ear.

For simple alchemy, this was as close as I needed to go.

But this time, instead of just listening to the sounds of the river, I sank my feet into it.

Cold water bit into my ankles, the river suddenly made of teeth. The water was in me and all of me, and it knew my heart’s intentions. It latched its jaws into me like a tiger trap locking around my ankles.Stop, it whispered.You will go no farther.

But I only took orders from people who paid me.

I yanked my ankles out of the water, my skin peeling back as the river tried to tether me there, painting my feet with hot blood. I stepped up onto the riverbank that felt like it was made of glass instead of soil, a jagged surface that quickly grew slick with my blood. Behind me, the running waters fell silent, holding their breath. I walked forward into the darkness, my wet steps echoing a thousand times into the sky.

I couldn’t see anything at all, but it didn’t matter. This was not a place that you could navigate with a map. It was a place of endings—the last dead end in a winding, lightless labyrinth of caves. It was getting lost in the forest after dark, when the trees breathed you in and wouldn’t let you go. It was the heavy silence after a heart stops beating, when all you can hear is whatwas.

Footsteps wouldn’t take you anywhere in a place like this. Desire was what pulled you deeper into the dark, bit into you like tiny hooks and lured you forward on a clear fishing line cast far across an ocean of night.

Gou Jau Gam, I thought, over and over again in my mind, tracing the characters across the empty sky.

At last, the ground sloped downward and I stood in the withered canyons where a river used to be. Not the river of my own qi, but someone else’s, where now there was nothing but dry dirt. I followed the path across crooked roots and fish bones and loose rocks.

I knew I was getting close when I heard someone’s jagged breaths. I hurried down the riverbed until I came across a man dressed in white, curled up on his side as snakes writhed around him.

“Come on, get up,” I said, yanking him up by the arm. He was far lighter than he looked, easy to pull to his feet.

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