The Rotting Sunset
The sun set over Inverted Yang Village like a moldy piece of copper. The air was heavy with the scent of rotting lotus flowers and burnt cane sugar. Children played between straw huts, but their shadows didn't follow them—they danced apart on the walls like malfunctioning puppet strings.
On a hill outside the village, Lin Xiu sat on the trunk of a petrified tree. His olive eyes stared into the horizon, where clouds like shredded entrails swallowed the last light. With his right hand, he brushed invisible dust from his tattered wooden broom. With his left, he spoke to an ant crawling on his knee:
"You know, my little friend? Stupidity isn't a flaw... it's liberation. Those who build towers of wisdom become prisoners inside them."
The ant said nothing, but turned its head as if it understood.
The Curse of Crying Laughter
Lin Xiu entered the village as night fell. The alleys were empty, but house windows flickered with candlelight. Suddenly, a hut door flew open and a man in torn nightclothes collapsed out. It was Zhou the grocer, his face stretched into a mad grin, tears streaming from his eyes:
"Hahaha! They stole my liver! Haha... ah!"
Behind him stood his wife—banging her head against the wall in a fit of laughter mixed with moans.
They weren't alone. From every house came twisted sounds: laughter like rusted hinges, crying like starving wolves.
The Crying Laughter Curse had devoured the village for three months. Anyone who slept would wake up laughing until their eyes bled and crying until their throat cracked.
Lin Xiu stood in the village square, broom on his shoulder like a knight with a lance.
"How boring... same delusions, just in different wrapping."
A Conversation with the Broom
He entered the abandoned hut of the village diviner. The room was filled with shattered Taoist statues, and on one wall was an ancient engraving: "Laughter is purification; tears are cleansing."
He squatted down and spun his broom between his palms as if inspecting a sacred artifact:
"Old wooden hag… don't you ever get tired of sweeping? All this dust comes back anyway."
He tapped the broom's head gently on the floor three times — tap... tap... tap — then tilted his ear toward it, as if listening.
Suddenly, the room trembled. The broom's shadow on the ground began to stretch, not like a shadow, but like a pool of black oil swallowing the light. From it came a voice like gurgling sewage:
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Lin Xiu didn't flinch. He just raised an eyebrow:
"Hungry, are you? I get that. But eating dirt doesn't nourish you."
He placed a finger into the black puddle. Smoke rose from his skin as if he touched embers, but he smiled:
"See? Even darkness needs light to be seen."
The Mad Sweeping Ritual
At midnight, the villagers gathered in the square — bodies trembling, eyes red from laughter and tears. Lin Xiu stood on a rickety wooden platform, broom in hand like a conductor's baton.
"Now, I shall teach you the true art of sweeping!"
He raised the broom high — and began to sing in a raspy voice:
"Oh annoying dust of existence,
Clinging to corners of the soul,
Come, let us sweep you with a brush of madness,
And throw you into the winds of meaninglessness!"
And then he danced. Not a graceful Taoist dance, but erratic movements — hopping like a frog, spinning like a pot on fire, swaying like a drunk.
The people hesitated… then began to imitate him, first with reluctance, then with rising mania. An old woman slapped her face while jumping. A young man bit his neighbor's arm while spinning…
But something was happening. With every movement, their shadows detached more and more — melting into the ground like ink in water.
The Ancient Seal
After two hours, everyone collapsed in exhaustion. At that moment, Lin Xiu raised his broom — and snapped it across his knee!
"See? Even a broom gets tired and wants freedom!"
From within the broken broom, a small brass cylinder rolled out — engraved with the Seal of a Heavenly Demon: a circle surrounded by three fire tongues devouring their own tails.
He pressed the seal to his forehead — not like someone placing a talisman, but like someone smearing paint. Then he walked toward the village well, where the black puddle had widened like an open wound.
"Come here, little darknesses!"
he shouted — and leapt into the well!
There was no water below — only a black void where deformed human shapes slithered. The souls of the crying laughter swarmed around him like sharks smelling blood.
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Lin Xiu closed his eyes… and began to laugh. Not hysterical laughter, but deep — like drums echoing in a cave. With each laugh, the seal on his forehead glowed, and the darkness shrank like cloth burning in fire.
The spirits screamed:
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He opened his eyes, madness gleaming in them:
"Who said I'm banishing you? I'm inviting you to dance!"
He raised the brass seal — not to attack, but to draw in the air a smiling face with three eyes.
The darkness exploded like a balloon.
The True Pleasure Is in Nonsense
At dawn, the villagers woke on the square floor — clean, their shadows normal once more. Zhou the grocer felt his belly:
"My liver! It's back!"
His wife no longer hit her head. She hugged him, stunned.
They looked for Lin Xiu and found him sitting on the well's rim, patting the back of a blind cat. The broken broom lay beside him.
They approached with gifts: rice, dried fruit, even a green jade pendant.
"Wise one! Please accept these as tokens of thanks!"
He looked at them as if they had offered him a box of dung. Then he leapt up and shouted in a voice as shrill as a rooster's crow:
"Stop! You think I saved you? I was just playing!"
He grabbed a pomegranate from among the offerings and held it high:
"Look! This fruit — if you plant it, it becomes a tree. But you give it as a gift? That's nonsense!"
He bit into it viciously, seeds dripping from his chin like blood.
"True pleasure isn't in gratitude or salvation… it's in nonsense! In breaking expectations! In being the stone that's thrown into a still pond!"
He turned his back and walked away, singing an incomprehensible song.
Eyes in the Clouds
On a mountaintop overlooking the village, two priests stood in white robes bearing the emblem of the Cold Cloud Clan. One held a crystal board showing scenes from the previous night.
The younger priest shook his head:
"This man… used no Qi, no Taoist rites. How did he destroy such a powerful curse?"
The elder priest, his eyes like frozen coins, focused on the image of the brass seal at the moment it appeared:
"That's no madman… that's a walking bomb. Inform the clan: the Silent Dog Tao has appeared."
And on the horizon, Lin Xiu climbed a rocky slope, shouting at a turtle-shaped cloud:
"Hey Mr. Shell! Do you know the difference between wisdom and herbal soup? Both give you stomach cramps!"
The wind carried his mad laughter — and with it, the beginning of a chase that would never end…