The mirror's fissures exhaled frost that crystallized on the floor. Tan Jinxuan's knuckles whitened around the Vermilion Bird Lamp. The peachwood doll[1] in its hidden compartment blinked open eyes with lotus-pupils[2] painted in cinnabar—blood droplets seeped into golden needles threaded with crimson silk. Su'e gripped his wrist: "Do you recall the herb-gatherer you saved on Ghost Festival[3] three years past?"
The mirror's copper-framed cracks spiderwebbed. Tan's vision fractured—memory shards surfaced: a drenched girl in a rain-lashed temple, faded silk peach blossoms[4] in her hair. That night, he'd used the Turtle Breathing Technique[5] to purge miasma from her unconscious body—Su'e's current earlobe mole aligned perfectly with the girl's floral hairpin.
"That silk flower...was it a soul-anchoring charm?" Tan's question drowned in bloodcurdling silk—the mirror's crimson skirt tendrils lashed Su'e's ankles. The bronze lamp screeched, ejecting a yellowed silk scroll: the missing volume of Demon Subjugation Notes[6]. Su'e spat blood onto the parchment; ink characters glowed: Mirror-medicine seekers must use heart-blood as guide.
Tan snatched a needle and stabbed his chest. The charcoal peach brand bloomed upon contact, but the blood hung mid-air, congealing into a crimson mirror reflecting century-old scenes: a young alchemist[7] feeding a screaming girl into a furnace, her peach blossoms incinerating—the exact origin of the mirror-demon's wails.
"So it was you..." Tan's eyes crimsoned—the alchemist bore his face. The lamp scorched his palms, its oil now putrid peach-scented blood. Su'e tore her robe open, revealing a cinnabar seal[8] containing a charred petal: "Your ancestors' sin demands your reckoning."
The mirror exploded. Bronze shards hovered, each reflecting alternate Tans—some slashing peach branches, others skeletal with ear-sprouted trees. Su'e cast seven coins[9] into the fragments. Ripples revealed an apothecary's well[10] in their wake.
"Jump!" She dragged Tan into the largest shard. Falling, he heard the peach demon's sobs: "You vowed shared enlightenment...why burn me?" Their descent ended in an ink abyss cradling a crystal coffin[11]—within lay the mirror-woman, a vermilion bird hairpin[12] piercing her heart.
Su'e's medicine chest reassembled into a Bagua compass[13]. The angelica needle[14] quivered toward a floating bronze mirror reflecting reality: another "Su'e" force-feeding peach resin[15] to Tan's comatose body.
"She's stealing fates!" Blood sprayed from real Su'e's lips as white peony[16] buds bloomed on the compass. Peach roots erupted from Tan's ear, guzzling abyssal resentment. He yanked the coffin's hairpin free—microscopic inscriptions read: Moonlit Ascension demands demon-fed souls.
The ink sea boiled. Pale arms breached the surface. Su'e flung the scroll skyward—the silk became a bridge. Tan fled across it as the demon's laments merged with the girl's screams: "You said my essence aided ascension...why lie?"
When the hairpin touched the mirror, reality ruptured. Tan saw nightly truths: the peach demon emerging from his ear to alter protection charms[17] with hair-strand strokes. His "purification" mantras had long been inverted into soul-summoning arrays.
"Beware!" Su'e's cry echoed. The abyss birthed the demon's true form—rotten peach branches entwining seven skeletons[18], each ribcage bearing tarnished vermilion pins. Tan understood: these were his ancestors, sacrificial kindling for the demon's resurrection.
The mirror began devouring light. Su'e's sleeve frayed into the void. Tan rammed the hairpin into his cinnabar mole. The demon shrieked. The ink realm shattered—reality revealed a peachwood cage[19], every grain etched with screaming visages.
The medicine bowl shattered at the roots of the peachwood cage, its brown liquid seeping into fissures that bloomed monstrous blossoms. Su'e collapsed in a blood pool, her wrist-bound red threads[20] snapping strand by strand—each severed end still tethered to Tan's heart-brand. Outside, the reversed rainfall normalized, droplets sizzling into sweet-rot mist through peach branches.
The demon's voice permeated the air: "Did you know, the golden elixir[21] you fed me..." Rotten wood suddenly sprouted fresh buds, each cradling a pupil-like pill[22], "...was forged from three hundred children's brow-blood?"
Tan's eyes reflected the swirling pills—their blood-iris gaze locked onto him. Su'e ripped her robe open, her cinnabar seal[23] splitting to reveal a charred petal mirroring the coffin relic. She pressed it against the vermilion hairpin in Tan's ear. Smoke coiled as the pin's tip glowed—visions surfaced: a cellar beneath the ancient alchemist's furnace, chains binding a girl whose heart-blood was being siphoned by the vermilion pin.
Peach branches lashed the bronze mirror shards, each fracture bleeding tar. The Demon Subjugation Notes scroll[24] flew from Tan's grip, its pages coiling around his lignifying[25] arm. Sigils swam through his veins, imprinting a blood-Bagua[26] on his palm. When he touched the demon's trunk, bark peeled away to expose seven soul-lamps[27]—flickering wills of his ancestors trapped within.
"So we were mere fuel..." Tan's finger brushed the newest lamp, its flame birthing his own spectral twin. The apparition wailed, pointing through the storm where endless funeral processions[28] materialized—each pallbearer a different-aged Tan. Su'e bit his wrist, smearing blood on the bronze lamp. Sparks ignited the pupil-pills, their flames coalescing into a Moonlit Ascension Array[29].
The demon's shriek fractured into weeping: "Have you finally remembered? You personally..." Tan's possessed hand throttled Su'e, nails piercing her heart-brand.
Yet Su'e laughed. She severed the red threads[30] binding Tan's wrist—their frayed ends connected to the coffin's vermilion pin. As the last thread snapped, the realm imploded. Ink tides devoured peach forests. Tan gasped through collapsing dimensions, twin voices echoing:
"I used my remnant soul to suppress her for a century, awaiting this day..."
"Husband, do you recall our wedding wine infused with peach nectar..."
The real study quaked. Ritual implements[31] levitated around the peachwood doll—now a towering tree with Su'e's face engraved. Roots from Tan's ear reversed course, burrowing into his temples. Agony unveiled truth: each root-tip bore faded marriage contracts[32] signed with his and the demon's past-life names.
Su'e's body turned spectral. Her charred petal fused into the doll-tree, carving sealing incantations[33]. Tan vomited black blood—a bronze key[34] surfacing in the pool. As he inserted it into the trunk, three hundred infant-sighs whispered:
"Moonlit Ascension refines only the caster's conscience."
The demon's wails ceased. Peach scent curdled into char. Withered branches exposed seven soul-lamps. Su'e's fading form pointed beyond the window—the real Liuxi Town faded, every cobblestone crack weeping rouge mist.
Dawn revealed Tan kneeling in talisman ashes. The mirror showed no cinnabar mole. Amidst shattered pottery, peach resin[35] coagulated around a bloodied silk blossom.
Cultural Notes:
1.Peachwood doll: Taoist ritual effigy for trapping malicious spirits.
2.Lotus-pupils: Symbol of spiritual purity in Buddhism/Taoism, here corrupted.
3.Ghost Festival: Zhongyuan Festival when spirits roam the mortal realm.
4.Silk peach blossoms: Artificial flowers used in funerary rites to appease restless souls.
5.Turtle Breathing Technique: Taoist meditative method to slow vital signs.
6.Demon Subjugation Notes: Fictional exorcism manual containing forbidden rituals.
7.Alchemist: Practitioner of Taoist waidan (external elixir) techniques.
8.Cinnabar seal: Mercury-based pigment used in potent Taoist talismans.
9.Seven coins: Represent the Big Dipper constellation, used to anchor souls.
10.Apothecary's well: Symbolic portal between yin (spirit) and yang (mortal) realms.
11.Crystal coffin: Taoist metaphor for a soul trapped in material desires.
12.Vermilion bird hairpin: Phoenix-shaped pin representing fiery destruction/rebirth.
13.Bagua compass: Divination tool mapping cosmic energy flows.
14.Angelica needle: Herb root used in acupuncture to restore spiritual balance.
15.Peach resin: Symbolizes corrupted immortality in this context.
16.White peony: Flower representing healing in Chinese medicine, here subverted.
17.Protection charms: Paper talismans inscribed with sacred texts for warding off evil.
18.Seven skeletons: Represent seven generations bearing ancestral karma.
19.Peachwood cage: Peach tree's demon-quelling properties inverted into a prison.
20.Red threads: Symbol of fate-binding in Chinese mythology, often cut to sever karmic ties.
21.Golden elixir (Jindan): Taoist concept of immortality pill, here corrupted into dark alchemy.
22.Pupil-like pill: Reference to "eye of the dao" metaphor, perverted into a soul-capturing device.
23.Cinnabar seal: Taoist mercury-based talisman for sealing spiritual entities.
24.Demon Subjugation Notes: Fictional manual detailing counter-rituals against dark magic.
25.Lignifying: Process of turning plant-like, here symbolizing demonic assimilation.
26.Blood-Bagua: Forbidden ritual using life essence to manipulate cosmic forces.
27.Soul-lamps: Taoist ritual lamps containing fragments of one's primordial spirit (hun).
28.Funeral processions: Represent cyclical karmic retribution across generations.
29.Moonlit Ascension Array: Forbidden formation sacrificing souls for false immortality.
30.Red threads: In this context, threads represent ancestral karma rather than romantic fate.
31.Ritual implements: Includes bronze mirrors, peachwood swords, and talismanic bells.
32.Marriage contracts (Hetong): Traditional documents binding couples, here symbolizing soul pacts.
33.Sealing incantations: Esoteric verses from The Jade Pivot Scriptures (Yushu Jing).
34.Bronze key: Symbolic "key to truth" in Taoist parables about unlocking spiritual prisons.
35.Peach resin: Historically used in immortality elixirs, here representing corrupted spiritual bonds.
