Poison City

 

Marcus turned his head to his left, his exhales turned into puffs of fog. Pale, eyeless and lipless faces growled at him. Boney fingers with nary an intact piece of flesh on them held his clothes tighter and closer. Marcus felt a jolt of disgust in his stomach, the hairs on his back bristled and his skin crawled at the sight of moss, moldy leaves and fungi in these faces’ eye sockets and nostril holes.

 

With a heavy thud, Marcus launched himself from the ground and stood on his feet. The slender humanoid creatures that emerged from the ground were blasted away by a forceful burst of Qi originated from Marcus’ body, some even dissipated into dust and cinder just upon impact.

 

Tens if not hundreds of curses and screeches came from the general direction of the tree behind the house and the ground under it. More and more of these eyeless, seemingly incorporeal humanoid creatures burst out from the dirt and wooden floors. Their flesh was rotten, their bones were covered in mold and even fungi, and their spines and rib bones on their backs were tied up by some kind of dark ropes and chains, connecting them to something deeper underground.

 

Three of these creatures closest to Marcus lunged at him from the ground, but they were met with Marcus’ fist infused with his Ferocious Tiger Qi. A small crater appeared on the ground as the energy concentrated on the fist exploded. They were instantly obliterated with one hit. Marcus still felt that this strike had hit nothing but air, and even though the creatures were turned to ashes. More of them still flooded toward him like hungry ants out of their nest crawling towards him, howling, crying.

 

There was no other choice but to run towards the squad car and get ready to drive away. While he was running, more of these creatures appeared from the empty buildings and dark corners on both sides of the road and tried to overwhelm him from his flank. He had no talismans left, and his Qi was being expended in an absolutely unsustainable way. He needed to go to some place where he would be safe from them, and at the same time would not bring these creatures upon others.

 

When he got into the squad car, a humanoid creature leapt out with its arms extended forward from the passenger’s seat. It took a bite out of Marcus’ left forearm before he bashed its head into ash. The bite mark felt cold, the skin seemed to go dry and cracked up and quickly became itchy like many mosquito bites piled together.

 

Marcus tried to get the car started - luckily it worked, and immediately began driving towards the Temple of Forgetfulness. The creatures were many, but their speed was still lacking.

 

Marcus kept accelerating even though the horde of creatures were already quite far behind him. The lingering sense of danger told him that he was still not safe, not until he got to Master Liaoran.

 

He might have sped a little along the way, but luckily, there were no officers on the road watching for traffic, nor were there traffic cams or much traffic to be careful about. It did not take long before he reached the main road, where he could speed up even further.

 

The road ahead was wide and empty, he could finally relax a little. After letting out a long exhale, he took another look at the rearview mirror, just to make sure that the horde of humanoid creatures were far enough behind him.

 

It was a move he should not have made, one that almost caused him to swerve out of the road and crash - just with this quick peek, he saw that his back seats were somehow occupied. Four pale individuals were sitting there, without any hint of flesh and blood or any sign of them being breathing, living beings on their faces. Instead, spider web-like veins were crawling all over their faces and other areas of exposed skin. Aside from their raggedy clothes, there were dark branches and roots covering their skin.

 

Marcus immediately parked on the side of the road and jumped out of the car. The four individuals turned and followed him with their eyes at the same time, emotionless. But just as Marcus refocused his Qi and was ready to use force to either drive the four individuals away or annihilate them, their figures turned transparent and disappeared completely in mere seconds. Even as Marcus tried harder with the Qi technique he used before, he could not find them anywhere.

 

It was still quite a long way to get to the temple, and there was almost no traffic on the road right now. And knowing Poison City, no one would actually give him a lift at this time. So with extra caution and reluctance, he got back into the car and continued driving.

 

The four “passengers” did not come out again, but their one time appearance did get Marcus to be less hasty and drive at a safer speed.

 

“Master Liaoran! Wuzui! Please open the door!” Marcus banged on the wooden door of the temple: “Please wake up! I need help!”

 

The night air seemed to become warmer around the temple even though it was in a higher up place than where he parked the squad car. And the presence of the temple itself seemed to have some kind of calming and mind clearing effect.

 

“Did something happen?” Wuzui opened the door to the temple.

 

“Let him in, my child.” Master Liaoran’s voice came from behind Wuzui.

 

“Wuzui, Master, I need help.” Marcus came into the temple, exhaustion and stress finally caught up to him and he had to sit on the ground.

 

Master Liaoran took a look at the wound on Marcus’ shoulder, his face and the top of his head, then he turned to Wuzui: “Go get the medicine kits, a bucket of warm water, and bring me the beads as well.”

 

“Yes, master.” Wuzui took a quick look at Marcus, bowed towards Master Liaoran and rushed to one of the inner rooms of the temple.

 

“Tell me what happened.” Master Liaoran helped Marcus up and put him on a soft cushion: “You just came into contact with something really unclean, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes.” Marcus panted, shaking his head: “It’s kinda hard to explain. But - I had a sudden inspiration earlier, and I went to check out Wuzui, I mean Bai Gu’s old territory - ”

 

“And? What have you found?” Master Liaoran nodded: “What attacked you like this? And you’ve brought some of them back - do you know them?”

 

“What - no!” Marcus immediately shook his head: “If you’re talking about the four, well, spirits that followed me here somehow, I don’t know them at all. They just appeared in my car.”

 

“Okay, since this is Wuzui’s old territory you’re talking about, let’s wait for him to come back, and tell us everything.”

 

It did not take Wuzui long - he brought over two medicine kits, one was made of metal and had a very modern design, the same kind one could find in police precincts and fire departments; the other was made of oiled red peachwood. The bucket with steaming water inside was also made of red peachwood. The same with the twelve wooden beads chained together with a red circular thread.

 

“Wuzui, help the detective clean his wound. I think you have some experience addressing wounds, right?” Master Liaoran asked as he opened up the peachwood medicine kit to find some dried leaves and flower petals to put into the bucket.

 

Marcus took off his jacket and tore the left sleeve on his shirt. The gashes left by the monster had stopped bleeding, but his shoulder was still swollen and his skin showed a shade of purple when examined under sufficient light. And Wuzui immediately turned to Master Liaoran the moment he saw it: “Master - I don’t think this is normal, looks like poison.”

 

“Indeed it is. But no matter.” Master Liaoran placed his fingers on the top of Marcus’ left shoulder and let loose a little bit of his gentle Qi into Marcus’ skin and muscle: “You Qi is already fighting it, it just needed a little push. ”

 

“Well, I think I pushed most of it out. But it still kinda burns.” Marcus shook his head.

 

“Fight fire with fire.” Master Liaoran picked some dried leaves and tree barks from the peachwood medicine kit, crushed them with his right hand then blew the powder right upon the gashes. His Qi ignited the powder in mid air, and when it hit the gashes it was already red hot cinder.

 

The contact between the exposed wound and the burning powder made Marcus gasp, his arm twitched and trembled as his muscles spasmed. Some more darkened blood seeped from his wound, and Wuzui immediately wiped the wound clean using medical gauze.

 

“Now, before we start.” Master Liaoran smiled, his right hand lit up in a faint golden light, and swung it at the top of Marcus’ head with the middle and index fingers extended out like a sword.

 

“Shoop” Marcus felt something above the top of his head cut loose, making a sound not unlike a rubber tube being sliced. And with this single change, half of the stress, anxiety, panic and fear that he was feeling earlier was instantly swept away.

 

“Looks like you have found the way to see them.” Master Liaoran pointed his right middle and index fingers at the bucket on the ground, and stirred the water sprinkled with dried leaves and flower petals using only a beam of his Qi, a move that made both Wuzui and Marcus open their eyes wide and in awe.

 

“Okay. First, put your head in.” After stirring for a while, more steam rose from the water, along with a special fragrance that could have only come from a well mixed medicinal concoction.