Three Needles to Send the King of Hell Packing

Kyoto, airport expressway. In the back of a taxi, Xu Mu sits by the window, his phone screen glowing. An anonymous message contains just one sentence: “Your father died the same way.” He stares at the words for a long time, then turns the phone facedown on his knee. His master, Liu Chengyuan, died on Kunlun Mountain. Su Tianheng had driven a golden needle engraved with the character for “death” into his chest with his own hands. That was three years ago. But this message says “your father.” Xu Mu was raised by his master and had never met his biological father. His master had told him only this: “Your father was murdered. Don’t ask by whom. I’ll tell you when you’ve mastered the eighth turn.” His master never lived to see that day. Outside the window, Kyoto’s skyline appears and disappears in the morning mist. The taxi stops in front of an old apartment building. Professor Zhao lives in western Kyoto. Several stacks of old books and two half-withered pots of asparagus fern crowd the entrance. Xu Mu knocks. Professor Zhao, wearing a gray sweater washed pale with age, lets him into the study. He pulls a tin box from the bottom shelf, unlatches it, and reveals neatly arranged yellowing document envelopes. “Your master left these with me forty years ago. I didn’t dare mail them or pass them on. He said I had to wait for you to come and collect them in person.” He takes out a kraft-paper envelope from the very bottom. Its seal is closed with wax, pressed with a faint fingerprint. Xu Mu breaks the seal and empties its contents onto the desk: several yellowed medical records, a map marked with the coordinates of a Kunlun outpost, and a black-and-white photograph. In the photo, his master is wearing a military uniform and standing in front of a sign reading “Kunlun Border Defense Outpost.” Beside him stands a man in a white coat,