Chapter 42 — At Dead of Night a Wild Shadow Nears the Village Gate

lashing with the white banner without sound or sign, ever turning it back. Though these two uncanny things battled furiously about the room, trading blows left and right, not a sound ever escaped; eerie and hushed, they broke nothing at all. After a moment the shadow shuddered violently and spat a mouthful of blood from its shadowy mouth; the white banner rattled away in flight, and the black shadow flowed out of the house like water and was gone. The silver bead paused a moment, then returned to the inner room and vanished from sight. Only then did Shen Mu feel his limbs obey him again; he panted great rough breaths, unable to make out what had just happened—though the blood on the floor proved that all of it had been real. Outside, all was stillness. After a while came the strike of a gong: the village watchman sounding the night watches, lest the villagers rise early and be swallowed by the darkness beyond the village. The watchman struck the gong three times, put it away, and started for home. He had just come before his own door when he saw a blind old man passing along the roadside, leaning on a staff. "Old brother, find yourself a place and rest a while!" The watchman hurriedly barred his way, laughing: "It's very late—mind you don't walk out of the village and get eaten by some demon!" The blind man smiled; his bamboo staff tapped lightly upon the watchman's shadow. "My thanks for the warning," he said, and went on his way, staff tapping and prodding, slowly into the distance. Puh, puh—two bloody holes burst open in the watchman's chest, clean through from front to back. His body swayed, and he toppled to the ground. "What a fast spear—to think it could break through my sorcery! Cough, cough. I know you. You have gone blind—and grown stronger..." The watchman breathed out his last breath and died. A Netherworld Soul-Seizing Banner drifted down from the sky and covered his face.