Gou Jau Gam fell still in the dirt, his lungs expanding with rattling breaths. I finally dared to lift my hands, which trembled even though I could no longer feel them. My arms had a pale purple tinge, hair standing up and bones shuddering with cold. I had to remind myself how to breathe, my heartbeat punching against my chest like it wanted to break me open from the inside.
Old man Gou burst into the pen, apparently taking the sudden silence as confirmation that we’d finished.
“Is he back?” he said, bending down and grabbing the dead man’s shoulder.
I tensed. “Don’t—”
But Gou Jau Gam’s skin tore like wet paper, splitting at the base of his neck, syrupy black blood oozing out. Old man Gou froze, but his brother only winced and sat up. His eyes were still pale and blue, his complexion still like old porridge. He coughed and brown purge fluid spilled past his lips, down his bare chest.
But old man Gou hugged him anyway, squeezing out more of the black blood, like his brother was nothing but a rotten soup dumpling. Over his shoulder, Gou Jau Gam’s eyes met mine. They widened, as if remembering, but he would only know me as a hazy character in a bad dream.
“Dinner!” Auntie So yelled from beyond the window.
Me and my cousins flinched from the sound. It was hard to think about things like food after dragging a man back from death.
Wenshu raised the sheet over Gou Jau Gam’s shoulders. “You need to leave now,” he said.
Old man Gou nodded, helping his brother to his feet. Gou Jau Gam listed to the side, but his brother held him steady. His limbs would still be stiff for a while, his qi just beginning to circulate once more.
“He’ll be all right now?” old man Gou asked.
“Eventually,” I said. “Besides the skin, which I warned you about.”
Old man Gou nodded. “If he... I mean, can he die again?”
“Yes,” I said, frowning. “Of course. He’s alive again. Anything alive can die. He shouldn’t be out looking like that anyway, so it shouldn’t be hard to keep him from dying in your house.”
Old man Gou nodded. “And are there any long-term side effects?”
I glanced at his brother, his milky eyes staring past me as if seeing into another world.
You cannot create good without also creating evil.
That was alchemy’s key truth. Surely new life came at a great cost. Surely a soul couldn’t simply be dropped to the bottom of the dark sea and then resurface as if nothing had happened, especially if their body had decayed.
But my hands didn’t even hurt after the transformation. I felt a bit tired as my heartbeat slowed down and warmth crept back into my bones after my journey through the river, but that seemed too cheap a price for raising the dead.
It had been years since my first resurrection, and I still hadn’t figured out the true cost. There was no one for me to ask. My father had been the one to do the research, and he was gone.
“No,” I said, because that answer was better for business. I didn’t feel too bad about lying, because I knew that no possible side effect would have changed his mind. If I turned out to be wrong, it wasn’t as if he could report me to the market commandant to get his money back.
“He should cough up the rest of the purge fluid in a few days,” I said. “Just stitch him back up if his skin slips.”
“Dinner!” Auntie So called again.
Yufei held the door open for the men as they shuffled outside, the sheet pulled higher to hide Gou Jau Gam’s face. Wenshu sighed at his bloody palms, fingers twitching.
“Go wash up and distract Mama,” I said. “I’ll clean up here.”
Wenshu whispered his thanks and hurried into the house. We needed to wash down the floor, or else the smell of purge fluid would waft inside. Uncle Fan and Auntie So didn’t have a very strong sense of smell anymore, but we didn’t want them to have a reason to investigate the pen and find our supplies.
“I’ll get water,” I said, hitching a bucket over my shoulder.
Yufei nodded and watched me go. She knew I always wanted time to myself after big alchemical transformations. Jumping back and forth between planes felt a bit like splitting myself in half. There was the Zilan who lived in the dark, and the Zilan who lived aboveground, jolted from a vivid dream.
Time passed differently by the river—I felt like I’d been there for hours, but the sun was only just sinking into the dusty horizon as I headed down the street to the public well. Wenshu liked to keep his own water that he would reuse for washing throughout the day, but we had to trek to the well if we wanted water for any other purpose. The shops had already closed for the day because no one traveled on the Road to Hell after dark, so for once, I walked the street alone.
My hands moved on their own, hooking the bucket and drawing water up from the well as my thoughts wandered. When I turned around, clutching the bucket in both hands, a man stood before me.
I wondered for a moment if I was still caught between planes, because this man didn’t look like he belonged on our street.
He wore the purple robes of the highest class and shoes so clean that surely he’d never walked a step in his life. His eyes were dark and round, like the water deer that ate flowers at the edge of the city, ready to lope off if startled. He looked about my age, but his skin sparkled with gold flecks, so he might have been my age for a very long time.
He took a small step closer and I nearly dropped the bucket. Handsome men only ever looked at Yufei, not at me.
“You’re a hùnxiě, right?” he said.
I nearly bit down on my tongue, the breathless feeling of his attention withering inside me. I’m just a spectacle, I thought. He’s just never seen anyone like me before.
But the young man spoke in a crisp Chang’an dialect, and we didn’t get many Northerners in these parts. What was someone like him doing on the Road to Hell, gawking at me?
“Do you understand me?” he said, misreading my hesitation. “Oh no, I’m not good at dialects. Umm...nei si bat si wan hyut—”
“Stop,” I said in his dialect, grimacing. I’d been told that southern dialects were harder for Northerners to learn than vice versa, and his upside-down pronunciation only confirmed it. I should have just pretended not to understand, but he was too painful to listen to. “I need to go,” I said, turning away. I wouldn’t stand here and be a spectacle for him when dinner was waiting.
“Wait, wait!” he said. I stopped, only because the water was so heavy and my palm hurt from being cut open. “What’s your name?”
“Hùnxiě,” I said, “since that’s apparently all you care about.”
He winced. “I’m sorry, I just...” He jammed a hand into his pocket and pulled out a thin brown stem and crumpled purple petals. It unfolded in his palm, five delicate petals spreading out. My breath caught in my throat.
A purple orchid. Zǐlán.
“In Chang’an, they speak of a hùnxiě in Guangzhou who is a great alchemist,” he said. “They say that you can find her name in the fields at the border of the city. I went to the border and this is what I found.” He held up the flower. “I asked around for Zǐlán, and everyone told me to find the street covered in blood.”
I looked between the crumpled flower and his wide brown eyes. People speak of me in Chang’an? Many of the revived dead tended to leave Guangzhou rather than explain how they’d come back to life, but I hadn’t thought they’d ever mention me again.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” the man said, lowering the flower.
For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. Unlike everyone in Guangzhou with sharp teeth and jagged edges, this man felt like the world after a rainstorm, a morning when the earth was fresh and untilled.
“Chang’an is full of royal alchemists,” I said, rather than answer his question. “If you wanted an alchemist, why come all the way to Guangzhou?”
The man dropped his gaze to the red road. “I have a reputation in Chang’an,” he said, “and the alchemists there can’t do what I need.”
“Which is?”
He looked around, then took a step closer. “They say you can raise the dead.”
The winds died down around us, as if the whole world was listening. I glanced back at the house, where Yufei had left a light burning for me.
When people in Guangzhou came to me for help, I knew who they were, who their families were, where they lived. I never feared them turning me in because no one would cross a skilled alchemist who knew where their children slept.
But I knew nothing of this man. Not even his name.
“You’ve got the wrong person,” I said, turning toward the house. “Good night.”
“I’ll pay you one hundred thousand gold.”
I froze. Slowly, I looked over my shoulder. For a hundred thousand gold, we wouldn’t have to worry about the míngqì shop for the next year, maybe two, if we were careful. Our taro soup would have pork again. We could find a better healer for Uncle and Auntie.
I carefully smoothed out my facial expression. I didn’t want this man to see just how much that money would mean to me. I felt like one of the painted míngqì in the shop, waiting to be bought.
“This dead person must be very important to you,” I said at last.
He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, you could say that. Will that be enough for you?”
I pretended to deliberate for a moment before nodding and setting down the bucket.
“Where is the body?” I said at last. Then an awful thought crossed my mind. “Please tell me you didn’t bring it all the way from Chang’an.” I imagined the smell of dead flesh after a hot carriage ride and my stomach clenched.
The man looked away, blinking quickly again, like something was in his eye.
“What is it?” I said. “Is it in bad condition?”
His silence only made my stomach clench even harder.
“Is it in pieces?” I said. “Did someone fall off a tall building? Get mauled by a leopard? I can’t help you if—”
“No, no.” The man shook his head. “Nothing like that.”
“Then take me to it,” I said. “I need to see what I’m working with.”
The man sighed, then spread his palms out as if offering me something. “It’s...it’s me.”
I blinked. Perhaps I wasn’t as good at Northern dialects as I’d thought.
“Do you even understand what resurrection means?” I said.
He glanced around the street, taking a step closer to me. He smelled like cloves and frankincense and travel. “I don’t think I’m going to be alive for much longer,” he whispered.
I took a quick step back, one hand on the knife in my belt. “Are you a criminal?”
He shook his head. “No, I just... I just know.”
“Okay...” I said, frowning. “How?”
“I can’t explain right now,” he said. “I’ll give you one thousand more if you don’t ask questions.”
I closed my mouth, hating the fact that this man thought he could buy anything he wanted, and that I needed the money so badly I was proving him right.
“I need you in one piece,” I said, crossing my arms. “Minor damage is fine, but it won’t work if your head isn’t attached to your neck, got it? The sooner I get your body, the better. If it’s been more than a week, you don’t want me to wake you up again. Trust me.” I grimaced, thinking about the half-melted corpse I’d just revived, but old man Gou hadn’t cared about the risks.
He nodded quickly, shoulders relaxing. “Yes, yes, that’s fine. Thank you.”
I waved a hand to dismiss his words. “How will I know when you’re dead, and where do I find your body?”
“You’ll come with me to Chang’an, of course,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him.
My feet stayed rooted in the dirt. “Now?”
“Yes.” He turned around. “I need to return immediately.”
“I can’t just leave,” I said, frowning. “I’m taking the imperial alchemy exam in two weeks. I have to be in my home province for that. And my family is here.”
One hundred thousand gold was a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a family of five to live off of for the rest of our lives. Especially with the value of gold dropping by the day. It certainly wasn’t enough for me to give up my plans of working in Chang’an and slide into early retirement. Besides, if I wasn’t an alchemist, I would have to become a bride. And a bride like me would not have her choice of men. I grimaced at the prospect of marriage, and how someone like the man in front of me probably thought I had more in common with pond scum than a potential bride.
His eyes went wide. “You don’t want to be a royal alchemist,” he said. “Trust me.”
“It’s not about wanting,” I said, rubbing my bruised forehead. Of course someone like him would never understand. Alchemy was the only thing I was good at, the only thing I could get paid for. As much as I loathed the idea of helping the rich spin more gold for their breakfast, there was no such thing as an impoverished royal alchemist, and I wouldn’t let my family starve just so my morals could thrive.
“I know the royal alchemists,” the man said. “They would tell you the same thing.”
“They don’t know me,” I said. “And neither do you.”
“Do you want more money?” he said. “Two hundred thousand?”
“I am not a cow that you can purchase!” I said, raising my voice more than I probably should have on a quiet street at night, but the neighbors wouldn’t understand this dialect anyway. “Unless you intend to support my family for the rest of our lives, you cannot pay me to miss my alchemy exam!”
“Zilan, please—”
“Zilan?” I echoed, my eyes narrowing.
“Xiǎojiě,” he said quickly, “please—”
“When I pass my exams in two weeks’ time,” I said, my jaw clenched, “then, and only then, will I go to Chang’an. I will go there to be a royal alchemist, not as your purchase.”
His shoulders drooped. “I worry I may not have that long—”
“Then die in Guangzhou,” I said, “or find someone else.”
I grabbed the bucket, ignoring the twinge in my palm, and brushed past him down the street. He called out for me, but I did not turn back, locking the gate behind me.