As the bloody moisture on the flesh body's forehead deepened, Jì Yé stopped Tán Píng’er, singing out, “Tán, my girl, that’s enough… Ya hey!”

Tán Píng’er didn't immediately rise. Instead, she looked down at the flesh body for a long moment, sighed softly, and pressed her lips, still damp with blood, against the forehead, kissing it deeply. She looked up, gazing at the flesh body one last time with dazed eyes, then slowly stood up to wait aside, her two pitch-black eyes fixed intently on the body wrapped in straw, completely ignoring the strangely behaving Jì Yé and the peeking, curious Mǎn Niǎo Niao.

I, seeing from behind that layer of 'paper,' noticed Tán Píng’er’s face grow even paler, her lips pressed tighter, her body utterly still. Though I couldn't discern clear joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness on her face, I knew deep in my heart that she must be consumed with worry and trepidation for my life or death at this moment. I let out a long breath; even if I could never merge with the flesh body again, Tán Píng’er's devotion alone was enough to bring me immense comfort and contentment.

From her conversation with Jì Yé, I had gathered that Jì Yé must have told her that my physical body and soul were separated, and Jì Yé’s current bizarre actions were all part of his attempt to "summon my soul." Originally, I had always been skeptical about whether a so-called 'soul' truly existed in humans, but my own experience was now telling me that too many incomprehensible things were happening in this world at every moment.

Seeing Tán Píng’er move aside, Jì Yé walked slowly to the feet of my flesh body. He tilted his head up slightly, closed his eyes, muttered something towards the sky, then turned and pulled out a bundle of incense—about twenty or thirty sticks—from the snakeskin sack. He lit them with the torch held by Mǎn Niǎo Niao, and amidst the rising white smoke, a ball of white light appeared with a noticeable trailing shadow. I observed that the patterns Jì Yé drew in the air with the burning tips of the incense vaguely resembled the Tujia White Tiger totem.

This drew my attention away from Tán Píng’er and towards the great new-generation Tí Mǎ—Jì Yé. I was eager to see just how this Tujia man, born the son of a farmer, intended to call my wandering soul back into the flesh body.

Jì Yé waved the incense tips back and forth in the air seven times; seven fleeting images of the Tujia tiger pattern flashed and vanished.

Jì Yé glanced deliberately, yet casually, in the direction where I stood. My heart leaped. Could Jì Yé see me, the one behind the 'paper'? Were Jì Yé's inscrutable, dark eyes signaling me to prepare for 'soul re-entry'?

Jì Yé gestured for Mǎn Niǎo Niao to stand farther back. Mǎn Niǎo Niao jumped back three meters, adopting the standard posture for a hundred-meter sprint—body slightly leaning forward, head turned about ninety degrees, his eyes, mostly black with specks of white, fixed rigidly on the flesh body on the ground. Seeing that Tán Píng’er paid no attention to his gestures, Jì Yé sang, “Tán, my girl, move farther away now, yo, hey…” Tán Píng’er snapped her head up, saw Jì Yé’s hand signal, hesitated, and then moved to the side, standing silently.

With the area cleared, Jì Yé raised the incense high above his head, knelt down, and lit a pile of paper money he had prepared earlier. Amidst the raging flames, Jì Yé lowered his head and continued to mutter. I only heard his voice growing more frantic, creating a feeling of brewing storm, and the darkness in the space seemed to deepen. The figures of Jì Yé, Tán Píng’er, and Mǎn Niǎo Niao began to waver, and the black and white tones of their forms started to alternate and shift.

Jì Yé’s muttering accelerated until it almost merged into a single thread. He was already standing now, pacing back and forth in front of my flesh body… Suddenly, Jì Yé stopped dead and let out a piercing shriek, a sound like tearing silk. Before the cry had even faded, the incense tip still glowing faintly in his hand shot like lightning toward the chest area of my flesh body. With a dull thud, the tip, which had been burning fiercely, instantly extinguished, and from the forehead of the flesh body, a mass of black energy spurted toward me in a flash of sparks…

Before I could react, a strange, white-glowing saber flashed and whirled toward me, bringing with it a wave of searing heat. I felt as if my entire body was instantly engulfed in raging fire, a sensation like being stripped naked and plunged into boiling water. My consciousness instantly blurred, yet I distinctly heard a rapid series of metallic dinging sounds in my ears. In the last fleeting moment before consciousness vanished, two mythical words unexpectedly sprang to mind: Phoenix Nirvana, Rebirth by Fire.

...

“Yīng Yīng… Yīng Yīng…” Faintly, sharp, heart-rending cries called out to me repeatedly. I desperately wanted to answer freely, but the sound raged wildly within my mind, refusing to be forced out of my mouth. My eyelids felt weighted down, impossible to lift no matter how hard I strained, and the pain in my forehead slowly spread along my nerves like creeping tendrils.

“Uncle Ān… He’s not going to be alright, is he?” I heard Tán Píng’er’s voice, clearly laced with tears.

No one answered; Jì Yé’s strange singing cadence did not sound out again.

“You bastard, if you’re going to die, at least give a warning ahead of time… Damn it, if you die, I’ll be left a bare scale, and that’s no fun at all… I’m not ‘cutting off’ you now, you ‘weight’—you’re like a widow sighing over her son… Useless as a broken toy, you’ve hardly enjoyed this colorful world and you’re ‘fizzling out’… If you have the guts, jump up and bite me once, huh?” This voice was so familiar, this cadence so intimate, this language… utterly unique. —Who else but Mǎn Niǎo Niao?

This voice carried an infinite magic. Just as a sliver of pain managed to 'root' itself in my heart, I snapped my eyes open and saw two faces, one ugly and one beautiful, suspended directly above my nose.

“Niǎo… Niǎo, are… are you itchy there?” I managed weakly.

The lower half of the beautiful face erupted in a shriek, “Ah—He’s back! Uncle Ān… I love your house so much!” The beautiful face immediately vanished from my sight as if swept away by a sudden gale. I felt a little depressed. Had Tán Píng’er mistaken the person? She should be loving me, and I should be the one receiving the embrace, so why did she rush to love that bearded, aged, and eccentric “Uncle Ān”?

The ugly face, however, remained quite composed, swaying slightly, still hanging right above my nose. But from the inky black eyes and the pale white muscles visible on the face, it was clear that this 'composure' was forced.

Wait, inky black eyes? Pale white muscles? Am I still seeing the world in black and white? Am I 'the essential self' or 'the spectral self' right now? —The long-absent pain told me clearly that I had indeed returned; the 'soul' and the flesh body were one again, because as I struggled to sit up, I distinctly smelled the fragrance of rice emanating from my body, even though that scent was nearly choked out by the heavy mold and rot clinging to me.

However, I had to accept the reality with sorrow: my eyes, blurred by tears, could still only perceive the environment in shades of black and white. The giant black mouth below the ugly face, which had once made my soul depart and my hatred burn endlessly, proved this point sufficiently. The second proof was the patch of brilliant white torchlight a foot away from the ugly face.

The giant mouth began to exercise its specialty. “You dog! You couldn’t leave me after all, could you? I told you, without my ‘scale’ to measure you, your ‘weight’ is nothing but scrap iron, worth maybe two bits and five a jin at best, and selling it bundled wouldn’t buy a cup of wine…” Hearing this discordant note laced with a hint of relief, I was so angry I almost saw blue smoke puffing from my nostrils…

The pain intensified, forcing me to want to stand up and shake off the piercing agony in my forehead like chaff.

This wish could not be fulfilled, because I was still bound by a pile of black straw, with several half-burnt incense sticks stuck in it—the dim white light of the tips was dazzling.

Just as I gathered my strength to shout at Mǎn Niǎo Niao to untie me, the familiar singing tone sounded from afar: “Tán, my girl, take this set of clothes and put them on him, yo, hey…” Before the song finished, a