In the last paper-making shop in the capital, 19-year-old Zhang Yan abides by the three rules left by her master: do not paint the paper figures with ink, do not accept customers at midnight, and when guests come, look at the soles of the feet first.
Late at night on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, a woman pushed the door open and came in. Wearing a plain white cheongsam and hairpins with white flowers, I ordered a paper figurine - it was tied like hers, with a grain of cinnabar dotted on the heart. After she left, Zhang Yan looked down at the ground. There are no footprints on the blue bricks. The woman's name is Lu Yuanzhi. She died in the moat three days ago. The murderer was her lover, the head of the Criminal Department. Before the first seven days, her soul had nowhere to go, so she crawled back from the mass grave to order a substitute. The paper man went to the underworld for her, while she stayed in the world and claimed her life with her own hands. Zhang Yan ordered cinnabar. The paper man's lips began to turn red. Slowly there was light in the eye sockets. A short gray mink velvet jacket was draped over it, and its chest rose and fell slightly, as if it was breathing. Zhang Yan pried open the camphor wood box that the master had locked for many years. There was a notebook in the box, which recorded a buried past event: When the master was young, he once burned cinnabar for a dead woman. Seven days later, the paper man and the original owner killed the same person on the same night. The master cut off two of his fingers and sealed the trade. The last page of the master's notes reads, "The paper man and the person he resembles will be separated within seven days."
Are the paper figures scattered, or Yuan Zhi?
Or - the person who ordered cinnabar?
