Page 77 of The Blood Orchid

I tore away from him, drawing back against the wall. His words played again and again in my mind until I realized what was wrong, and all my blood pooled in my feet. “What did you call me?” I said.

“Zilan,” he said again, frowning.

I shook my head, taking another step back. “You never call me that,” I said. To Zheng Sili, I was alwayshùnxieorpeasant girl. I swallowed, looking between them, my heartbeat loud in my ears. Wenshu had forgotten about Durian, and Zheng Sili had forgotten to insult me.

She has many types of ghosts trapped here, the female ghost had said. I knew from Auntie So that there were ghosts who could cause blinding light or cavernous darkness, dry winds or noxious gas. There were even some ghosts who could transform into objects, animals... orpeople.

I’d let both Wenshu and Zheng Sili out of my sight, and we hadn’t walked around any spirit screens since being reunited.

Except for this one door, which they wanted me to go through first.

“Where are they?” I said, drawing firestones from my bag.

Zheng Sili seized my wrist before I could activate them, bending it back painfully until the firestones clattered to the ground. “Come on, Zilan,” he said, tugging me close to him. “You wouldn’t hurt us, would you?”

I pulled back my other hand and punched him in the face.

“Ow, what the hell?” he said, stumbling back into Wenshu. “You would punch your friends in the face?”

“The real Zheng Sili knows that I already stabbed him and knocked his tooth out,” I said, swiping my firestones from the ground. “You really thought using his face would deter me? That only makes it easier.”

Zheng Sili sighed, then both he and Wenshu trembled as white light rippled across their bodies. Their familiar faces faded away, melting into faces I had never seen before—men slightly older than them, shoulders broader and expressions more stern and lined with age, hair tied up with headscarves tight across their foreheads. Like the immortals, their skin was transparent, the sunlight cutting through them.

“Women these days really have no class,” said the one who used to be Wenshu.

“I’ll say,” I said, rolling my eyes and tucking my firestonesinto my other pocket, reaching for woodstones. The two stepped toward me, but I slammed three woodstones into the ground, and a new yingbì burst from the floor between us, halting them in their tracks.

I turned around, determined to search through every room of the house until I found the others, but a cold hand seized my throat.

The Silver Alchemist stood in front of me, crushing me back against the yingbì I’d just built. At her touch, a stabbing pain all over my body forced me to the ground. It felt like knives had been slipped between each of my ribs, my bones splintering apart, my veins full of thorns.

“Do you know how I healed you?” the Silver Alchemist whispered. Sound hurt, breathing hurt, light hurt, as if my whole body was nothing but a feral scream. My knees shook, and I slid down the wall, but she followed me to the ground, refusing to let go. “Silver is a waterstone,” she said. “It has amazing healing properties, but inevitably, some of it ends up in your bloodstream. It filters out of your body in a few days, but for now, you’re full of metal. Myfavoritemetal. It practically sings to me.”

I scratched at the screen behind me, the only thing keeping me from falling all the way to the floor and never getting up again. It felt like the Silver Alchemist was unmaking me.

With a suddensplash, the pain lifted all at once. I collapsed back against the wall, hot liquid at my feet.

I looked up at the Silver Alchemist, who was now soaking wet and steaming, glaring over her shoulder. Wenshu stood a few feet behind her, clutching an empty teapot. Zheng Sili stood behind him, grimacing as he peeled cobwebs from his hair.

“I told you toget out of here!” I shouted, hauling myself to my feet even though my knees trembled.

“You’re mispronouncingthank you!” Wenshu said, tossing the teapot at the Silver Alchemist and disappearing back into another room. Zheng Sili took a step forward, but hesitated as a shadow crossed the doorway before us. All of us turned to the servant boy, clutching a plate of chopped worms in trembling hands.

“Ma’am, where would you like these?” he said.

Zheng Sili grabbed the plate and hurled it at the Silver Alchemist, who struck it down from the air, sending chopped worms raining down over us.

“Leave!” Zheng Sili said to the servant, who bowed and rushed into another room.

The Silver Alchemist grimaced as she wiped bits of worm from her face. “You know why I wanted to feed that abomination of a duck?” she said. “So he can get nice and fat before I eat him.”

“Over my dead body!” Zheng Sili said, slamming three woodstones into the ground. The wood panels rose up and opened like a jaw ready to devour the Silver Alchemist in its splintered teeth, but she slid behind my spirit screen and dodged the bite. I heard thepopof another jar opening and wasted no time running down the hall, Zheng Sili close behind me.

“Where the hell did you go?” I said.

“Some ghost shoved me into a disgusting basement,” Zheng Sili said, taking a sudden left turn. “Then one of the immortals let me out a minute later. They’re not a very cohesive group, are they?”

I laughed, skidding to a stop in front of a room without a spirit screen, sunlight bleeding through the windows across the kitchen table. I hurried inside, but the room darkened as shadows eclipsed the windows. Gray fingers stabbed through the paper and writhed through the lattice like hundreds of maggots.

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