The Search for the Tower

The boat at the bottom of the river kept my mother locked away for nineteen years.

The villagers say an eel monster is sealed beneath it. I went down and felt around. Nine iron chains bind the boat to the riverbed, and one of them is broken. The break is clean, and fresh. Someone got here before us.

My little sister isn't my sister either. She's a scale that fell from our mother's body. I'm twenty-one. She's nineteen. The year our mother sank beneath the water, I was two, standing on the riverbank and watching it happen with my own eyes.

But I don't remember a thing.

To save our mother, we have to find the Tower of Mortal Dust. It was built with our mother's bones in exchange for our father's soul. The tower shattered into nine pieces, scattered across different dynasties: Yungang, the Potala Palace, Longmen, Leifeng Pagoda, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Humen, and Dunhuang. The fragments only appear in the Gengzi year. If we miss our chance, we'll have to wait another sixty years.

The man guiding us is called Leng Xiu. He predicted every step I would take three days ago, saved our lives, then sold us out. The fragments only recognize blood relatives, so he can't touch them. He needs someone else to open the tower for him.

There is a tenth piece, beyond the nine.

My sister is nineteen this year.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.