The Heir of the Zhu Clan Has Returned

1978. The Start of Spring.

The Spring River came roaring out of distant mountains, its clear green waters cutting through gorges, leaping over boulders, until at last it reached the gentler terrain of Zhenshan County and slowed to an unhurried glide.

A fine rain fell at a slant. Though today marked the Start of Spring, winter had not yet loosened its grip — the damp cold was the kind that kept hands balled inside sleeves. Along the old county street, a scattering of figures in bamboo hats and straw capes moved hunched and hurried, hands tucked against their chests, vanishing like drifting haystacks into the mist-heavy corners of the lane.

Watching all this, Zhu Shi'an felt as though a thousand years had passed in the blink of an eye — and yet the mountain folk, shut away in their valleys, seemed to be living the same life they had always lived, unchanged across the centuries.

'Hey! What a fat fish!'

'Strong one too!'

Zhu Shi'an looked over. A grass carp weighing seven or eight jin gave a great thrashing leap, slick and slippery, nearly launching itself out of the bucket and back into the river, before the fisherman caught it by the gills and threaded a straw rope through to bind it.

Zhenshan County sat right beside the Spring River, so fish was easier to come by here than in the city. Around the New Year, production brigades from the villages nearby would come in groups to sell their catch at the county market — a way for each household to earn a little extra when the year-end accounts were settled.

It was an unspoken custom, long permitted by tacit agreement.

New Year's Eve was two days away, and the fishermen had rowed their boats in again.

Wooden stalls lined the riverside dock. Wanting something good on the New Year's Eve table, buyers braved the cold rain and bitter wind, queuing in a long line along the waterfront.

Zhu Shi'an had come with Auntie Feng to buy fish. She held the umbrella over both of them and tilted her head to look at the great mountain faintly visible in the west. 'Auntie Feng,' she asked idly, 'what's that mountain called? I heard there's a temple up there?'

The fisherman's clothes were half-soaked from the cold rain, his exposed hands red raw, trembling faintly as he scooped fish from the wooden bucket. Before Auntie Feng could answer, he called out with a grin while weighing the catch: 'Not a local, are you? That's Wangyun Mountain — Wangyun Temple's been up there since the Republic. Who in these parts doesn't know it?'

The people at the back of the queue craned their necks to peer forward, and someone picked up on the fisherman's words and called out: 'Locals should buy first. Outsiders go to the back.'

Auntie Feng's eyes went sharp, and her voice shot up an octave. In a thick local accent she fired back: 'What do you mean not a local? Who dares say my child isn't from here?'

'And which street, which household? I work at the Street Office — I walk these lanes every single day. How come I've never seen either of you?' A woman in a half-worn blue cadre's jacket eyed the two of them with suspicion.

After the Gaokao in December, quite a few young people who had gone down to the countryside had come back to spend the New Year. Those who hadn't been admitted to school, or whose circumstances didn't qualify them to return, would have to go back after the holiday and continue supporting rural construction.

Fearing these sent-down youth would linger and refuse to leave, the Street Office staff had been keeping a close eye on every young person who came back these days — it was shaping up to be a thorny piece of work for the new year.

Seeing that Zhu Shi'an was young and unfamiliar, with the look of someone freshly returned from the countryside, the woman cadre immediately took notice and stepped forward to question her.

Auntie Feng said loudly: 'I told you we're locals and you still don't believe me. Go and ask around — my name is Zhu Fengqin, and my family home is just across the river.'

Auntie Feng briskly handed over the money, picked up the straw rope strung with fish, and tugged Zhu Shi'an toward home.

'Don't be in such a hurry — this young woman, whose family does she belong to? That needs to be made clear.' The woman cadre caught Zhu Fengqin by the arm.

'Sanqing Lane. The Zhu Clan.'

'What clan?' She hadn't caught it.

Zhu Shi'an smiled and repeated herself: 'The northeast corner of the county, Sanqing Lane — Zhu's Medical Hall. The Medical Hall closed ten years ago, but the building's still there. I'm from the Sanqing Lane Zhu Clan. My name is Zhu Shi'an.'

Zhu Fengqin shot the woman cadre a glare, then pulled Zhu Shi'an away at a near-trot, scolding her as they walked: 'You're a young girl — why go telling a stranger your name? You'll only invite ridicule.'

'Auntie Feng, what era do we live in? You're still afraid of someone knowing your name? You're such an old fossil.'

Zhu Fengqin was still displeased: 'People around here have no manners. Back in the village, nobody ever called you by your name — they all called you 'big girl.''

Zhu Fengqin wasn't really an old fossil, and it wasn't that she thought it improper for outsiders to know the girl's name. The truth was that Zhu Shi'an had been sickly as a child — there had been real fear she might not survive — and the family had long been superstitious that if little ghosts heard her name, they might come to claim her. So from the very beginning, there had been a taboo against outsiders calling Zhu Shi'an by her given name.

Zhu Shi'an had grown up now, taller than Zhu Fengqin, though she carried almost no flesh on her bones — thin as a bamboo pole. Zhu Fengqin still worried about her health and kept to the old custom, not liking anyone to call her by name.

'Auntie Feng, I'll be eighteen after the New Year.'

'Even if you were eighty, strangers still shouldn't go around calling you by name.' Zhu Fengqin paused and thought for a moment: 'Are we still not celebrating your birthday this year?'

'No, we're not.'

The date wasn't certain anyway, so there was nothing much to celebrate. Besides, a family like the Zhu Clan, with its hereditary traditions, would never readily disclose the exact hour of a child's birth — let alone make a great occasion of a birthday.

The Sanqing Lane Zhu Clan!

The woman cadre from the Street Office felt a small jolt in her chest. The heir of the Zhu Clan had come back.

The moment the two of them left, the crowd of people who had been too cold to open their mouths suddenly found every reason to talk, and broke into eager chatter.

Sanqing Lane was going to liven up.

For as long as Zhenshan County had kept written records, the Zhu Clan had been named in those records.

The old people said that the northeast corner of Zhenshan County backed up against Yuntai Mountain — a place with no river access and no main road, quite out of the way. Yet the Zhu Clan's founding ancestor had taken a liking to that land, bought it, and built a residence there.

The residence was laid out with a shop front and a rear courtyard. Over the generations, the Zhu Clan had gradually built up a trade in medicine — running apothecaries, buying and selling medicinal herbs. Passed down from one generation to the next, the Zhu Clan had never been fabulously wealthy in every generation, but they had always been one of the most well-established families in the county. Everyone knew that.

'The Zhu Clan used to be the great household of our Zhenshan County. In their heyday, the magistrates who came to govern this county would send gifts to the Zhu Clan at every festival and come to pay their respects.'

'The Zhu Clan had their hereditary medical arts, and generations of connections built up over the years. What was a newly arrived magistrate to them? Even a mighty dragon can't suppress the local serpent.'

'However mighty they were, that's all in the past. The Zhu Clan is the same as the rest of us now — nothing.' A young man said dismissively.

'Still not the same.'

'How are they different?'

'Even fallen on hard times, the Zhu Clan has more houses than they know what to do with. Is that anything like your family?'

Someone said with envy: 'Sanqing Lane is something else — over twenty properties, large and small, all belonging to the Zhu Clan.'

A person who had known old Zhu Furu sighed: 'When old Master Zhu Furu was still alive, I used to go to Sanqing Lane whenever I had a headache or a fever. After his son and daughter-in-law were gone, the Medical Hall closed, and we stopped going to Sanqing Lane as often.'

'I heard old Master Zhu Furu passed away a few years back and was buried on the hill behind Zhu Clan Village. The houses in Sanqing Lane have been sitting empty with no one to tend them. I thought this branch of the Zhu Clan had died out — I never expected an heir to come back.'

'Died out? There are one or two hundred Zhu Clan households over in Zhu Clan Village.'

'Those are the collateral branches. They can't inherit what old Master Zhu Furu's line knew.' Someone said, choosing their words carefully.

The young man had no patience for this kind of old-story talk. The moment he heard the Zhu Clan had more houses than they could use, he asked eagerly: 'What do you mean by that — there are empty rooms in Sanqing Lane?'

'There are.' Someone who knew the Zhu Clan's affairs said: 'During the War of Resistance, many of the Zhu Clan's young men went off to fight and never came back — they died out there. The old people left at home had no one to care for them, so the Zhu Clan Village kinsmen took them back to the village to see out their days. More than half the houses in Sanqing Lane were left empty.'

'That's right — all fine old houses passed down from the Zhu Clan's ancestors, just sitting there locked up and shuttered. What a waste.' Someone agreed.

A quick-minded person pressed further: 'Every family is short on living space. There's been a policy allowing empty rooms to be rented out for over ten years now. How is it that no one's managing the Zhu Clan's empty houses? No one's asked about them? No one's reported them?'

An old woman with white-streaked hair gave a cold laugh: 'Ha! Those are the Zhu Clan's houses. If they don't want you there, do you dare move in? Move in at night and you'd likely be carried out in a coffin by morning.'

'Now where does that come from?'

The old woman could tell from their accents that the two asking about the Zhu Clan's houses were outsiders. She said nothing more, bought her fish, and left.

'Hey, auntie, don't go — let's keep talking.'

The old woman was gone. The others still waiting in line refused to engage either, every mouth clamped shut as if afraid to let out even a breath of warmth.

With no one willing to talk to them, the two young men went to the woman cadre from the Street Office to ask about the Zhu Clan's houses, mentioning which work unit they were from and so on. The woman cadre said nothing either.

Sanqing Lane was not an ordinary place.

Ten years ago, when things were at their most turbulent, several people had gone mad or died there — and not a single cause could be found. After that episode, who would dare try to seize the Zhu Clan's houses?

The Street Office was well-informed. This woman cadre had only been in Zhenshan County a few years, but she knew something of the Zhu Clan's affairs.

A sensible person knows which words must never be spoken aloud.

The fish on the boats sold out. The buyers dispersed. The fishermen pushed off and rowed home.

'Ten years on, the newcomers don't know what the Sanqing Lane Zhu Clan is capable of. They're going to run into something unpleasant.'

'Ha, as long as they don't run into a river ghost. Getting dragged under in this cold — that'd be a miserable way to go.'

'Enough of that. It's nearly New Year and you're not afraid of tempting fate? This wretched weather is cold enough to kill a man — get the boats home already!'

From the bow of the fishing boat, the Daduizhang let loose a torrent of scolding, and the laughing young men dared not idle any longer.

'Uncle Wang, don't take it to heart.' The Daduizhang turned to Wang Fugui.

His weathered face flushed red from the cold, Wang Fugui showed no fear of the chill — he washed his hands in the bone-cold river water and sighed: 'It's all in the past. After so many years, my Erzhu has probably gone on to Reincarnation by now.'

The young men who had been laughing moments before went pale. They knew they had said the wrong thing. They wanted to take it back but couldn't find the words, and after a long, stifled silence, one of them managed: 'Erzhu-ge must have been reborn into a good family.'

Wang Fugui gazed at the eastward-flowing Spring River. Many years ago, on another bitter winter's day just like this one, the cold river water had taken his youngest son's life.

As the old saying goes: they lived by the Spring River, and the same water that gave them life could, in a moment's carelessness, take it away.

A person's span of years is fixed by heaven. Could people like them, mud on their boots, ever hope to fight against fate?

Look at the Zhu Clan, who had dealt with ghosts and spirits for generations — when their time came, they died all the same.

The fishing boat docked at the village landing. Everyone scattered quickly to go warm themselves at home. Wang Fugui was walking away with his head down when the Daduizhang called after him.

'Uncle Wang, now that the Zhu Clan people are back — if there's something weighing on your heart, go to the Zhu Clan and ask. See if there's anything to be done.'

Wang Fugui shook his head: 'Let it go. No point stirring things up and unsettling the whole family.'

Years ago, his eldest grandson had been playing by the river and fallen in. Wang Erzhu had jumped in and pulled the boy out, but couldn't climb back to shore himself. By the time the other children ran back to the village crying for help, it was already too late — no one even knew where the current had carried him.

'Does Dashan still think about it?'

Wang Fugui nodded. He thought about it all the time.

Wang Erzhu had died saving his eldest grandson. How could Dashan, as a father, ever let go of a brother who had died at barely twenty? Even in those years when the atmosphere was so severe, Dashan had never forgotten — he would slip away from the others and go to the riverbank at night to burn paper offerings for Wang Erzhu.

The Daduizhang glanced around. Seeing that only the two of them remained by the river, he lowered his voice: 'Uncle Wang, I'm not trying to make trouble. But ever since your Erzhu passed, every year when our brigade comes to the county to sell fish, no one does better than you. There must be something behind that.'

Wang Fugui's expression darkened at once. He couldn't help looking around, terrified someone else might overhear.

The Daduizhang gave his shoulder a reassuring pat: 'Going back to before the Guangxu reign, the magistrates of this county all made offerings to the river. Even now, we don't say it aloud, but everyone knows it in their hearts. We live by the water — how could we not hold it in some reverence?'

Wang Fugui said nothing.

'Uncle Wang, our brigade isn't like the Zhu Clan Village where everyone shares a surname. Our families have known each other for generations — we're not strangers. I would never use something like this against you.'

'Then what are you getting at?'

The Daduizhang pointed toward the riverbank: 'In years past, even in winter, you'd see women lined up along there washing vegetables, chatting idly. Why haven't I seen anyone there lately?'

'It's cold and raining. Who'd stand by the river in this weather?' Wang Fugui played dumb.

'Uncle Wang, there's no point pretending. Everyone's been patient with you — you should be patient with everyone in return.' The Daduizhang decided to be plain about it: 'Have a word with Erzhu. Tell him to stop dragging people into the water. If this keeps up, people will go up Wangyun Mountain and bring the monks down.'

The money from selling fish was shared across the whole brigade — everyone benefited. No one wanted things to reach a point of no return if it could be helped.

Ah.

The Daduizhang left. Wang Fugui stood alone, staring at the flowing Spring River, lost in thought in the cold wind for a long while before slowly making his way home.

From ancient times to the present, Zhenshan County had always been a place with its own particular character.

This southwestern region was full of mountains and rivers. Waterways poured out of gorges, green peaks rising on either bank — a landscape common enough to the area.

But beyond these obvious features, Zhenshan County had something else: the position between Wangyun Mountain and Yuntai Mountain to the west and southwest corresponded to the Kun trigram in the Qimen Dunjia system — the Death Gate. Combined with the terrain being shadowed on all four sides, the Mountain Valley had formed a Sweeping Wind Through Acupoint Sha, making it a natural ground for the preservation of the dead.

It was said that the Zhu Clan had lived and multiplied in Zhenshan County since time immemorial, their genealogy as old as the county's own records. In truth, the first settlers of this place were neither the Zhu Clan nor refugees fleeing famine — they were tomb-keepers, guarding the graves of their masters.

Later, had it not been for Li Qingfeng, the head of Yuntai Temple and Zhu Shi'an's own master, passing through and breaking the death sha — making it possible for ordinary people to set foot here — this place would never have become what it is today.

The death sha could be broken, but the natural feng shui configuration was not so easily changed. The lingering consequence was that this place was more prone than others to the phenomenon of spirits remaining behind. Ghosts like Wang Erzhu, who clung to the mortal world and refused to move on, had appeared here before.

Fortunately, there had once been the Zhu Clan, and after the Zhu Clan's descendants lost their gifts, Wangyun Temple had stood watch. For many years nothing truly serious had occurred, and the people living here had grown accustomed to it.

Wangyun Temple held a place of great reverence in the hearts of the local people. Even during the most turbulent years of the campaign against the Four Olds, when smashing and destruction ran rampant through the county, parents would still keep a firm hand on their half-grown sons and forbid them from going up to Wangyun Temple to cause trouble.

Every place has its own customs. Slogans might hold sway in the city, but in remote little corners with their own deep-rooted folk ways, such things worked only sometimes.

As the saying goes, good words are wasted on a ghost that's set on dying. There were always some who simply wouldn't listen — and before anyone even got as far as charging up Wangyun Mountain, they'd already been laid flat in Sanqing Lane.

Wang Fugui went home and talked it over with his wife. They made up their minds: after the New Year, they would ask someone to go to the Sanqing Lane Zhu Clan and inquire whether Wang Erzhu could be properly sent on his way.

The cold rain that had fallen all morning stopped.

In the mid-afternoon, the wind scattered the mist, and Wangyun Mountain emerged in full in the distance. Zhu Shi'an sat with a few of the women from the clan around a fire.

Zhu Shi'an asked: 'Is the monk up on Wangyun Mountain quite capable?'

Zhu Changfang, who had once apprenticed under Zhu Furu and learned medicine from him, held her young daughter in her arms. Though she was reluctant to speak well of another family, she said with some unwillingness: 'Grand Master Mingjue is quite capable — in that regard, about on a level with your grandfather.'

'Who said so?'

'The old master himself. He said that if not for Grand Master Mingjue holding things steady here, he wouldn't have been able to take you away to weather that calamity.'

Zhu Shi'an laughed at that. On a level with her grandfather, was he.

She knew exactly how much her grandfather had been capable of.

By that measure, she was still the more formidable one.

While Zhu Shi'an was quietly probing into Wangyun Temple's depths, the young monks inside Wangyun Temple were discussing her in turn — discussing what this generation's sole Xuan Sect heir of the Zhu Clan was truly made of.

'A family tradition is always narrower than a school's lineage. One or two generations without a gifted heir and the tradition breaks. The Zhu Clan managed to pass it down for dozens of generations — they came through even the fires of war. What a pity.'

'Ah, it's too early to say. Wait a couple more days and see.'

Up to this point, the Zhu Clan's transmission had remained more or less orderly across the generations. By Zhu Clan custom, when each new head of the family took over, they were required to ring the Soul-Suppressing Bell at the turn of the old year into the new, as a declaration of dominion over all directions.

The Soul-Suppressing Bell was a Dharma Implement passed down from the Zhu Clan's founding ancestor. The greater the heir's gift, the louder the bell would ring. Those without the gift could strike it however they liked — it would not sound.

New Year's Eve was two days away.