“Take Zhou Jiming to the White House at eight tomorrow morning.”
Two months after being tricked into a border compound, appliance repairman Zhou Jiming finally realized he wouldn't live to see the morning.
In the water dungeon, a female ghost killed Old Meng, then crawled into Zhou's body. As he hovered at death's door, he remembered the Taiyin True Method his grandfather had left behind, the book they'd once used to prop up a table leg.
Close the apertures. Guard the soul. Feign death.
When he opened his eyes again, he was in a mass grave, with corpses piled on top of him. Outside, he could hear a bulldozer's treads. The ghost was still inside his left hand. It couldn't understand human speech, or tell who deserved to die.
Zhou Jiming had no gun. All he knew was how to fix machines. If he wanted to claw his way out alive, first he had to figure out how to move the ghost inside him into someone else's body.
Later, a man carrying a black banner appeared on the border: Master Zhou.
Some said he collected debts on behalf of the dead. Others said he practiced his arts on the living.
Zhou Jiming offered no explanation. Home lay to the north, but carrying a box of human bones, he continued south.
