Chapter 19: The Mischievous Paper Men

After leaving the county magistrate’s office, Li Chaosheng breathed a sigh of relief. The identity problem was settled. From now on, publicly he would still be the executioner here, so all condemned to be beheaded would be executed by him. At the same time, Li Chaosheng was also the magistrate’s friend, even his superior, so the magistrate would not dare make things difficult for him. On the surface he was just an executioner who benefited from every side.

Out the gate, Li Chaosheng headed toward the market. At the market he first went to the money shop to exchange his silver notes for actual silver coins. A 100 silver note was exchanged for one 50 silver ingot, four 10 silver ingots, and ten in loose silver. The money shop knew how to do business. Seeing him exchange so much silver, they even handed him a cloth bag to hold it.

With the silver exchanged, Li Chaosheng began shopping at the market. First, the household tables and chairs were too shabby, so he replaced them with a new set. The last time the female ghost caused trouble the teaware was all smashed, so now he drank from ladles. That was not very genteel.

Besides that, he bought an extra copper basin. Before there wasn’t room so he and Turtle Son shared one basin. Now that he had money, each could have their own.

Besides these, Li Chaosheng went to a nearby general store and bought a brass pair of scissors, paper for making paper men and paper horses used in funerals, and all kinds of paints and cinnabar. Reds, greens, every color. After buying everything he hired a cart to take it home, but the alley in Dead Street was too narrow for the cart to turn. The driver preferred to take less money than to go in, so Li Chaosheng had no choice but to spend more hiring a team of hunchback porters to help carry the furniture.

Such hunchback porters were the movers of this era, but they weren’t like modern day movers. They walked with their heads down their whole lives, never looking up at the sky, stooped and with their necks hunched, carrying a wooden board on top. They were immensely strong, so whether it was a tall cabinet or a water jar, they hoisted it up and carried it down three streets and two alleys as if it were nothing.

Entering Li Chaosheng’s home from the entrance of Dead Street’s alley was effortless for them since it was just a few tables and some cabinets. They carried everything and before long had everything arranged. They took his payment, offered many thanks, and left.

These days being a hunchback porter wasn’t easy either. It was hard to make a living. Who had time to even move house? Even for moving, people usually called on a few good buddies to lend a hand. Only big wealthy households or cases where widows or orphans couldn’t lift things would hire hunchback porters, so this line of work hardly fed well.

After sending the hunchback porters away, Li Chaosheng shut the courtyard gate again and went back inside, only to find Turtle Son still motionless on that rag, as if in a trance.

“Hey, Turtle Son,” he teased, “if you don’t understand, don’t stare so hard. Your brain isn’t that big to begin with, don’t look yourself silly.”

Li Chaosheng teased the turtle, but it remained motionless. Li Chaosheng didn’t worry and set the table on the bed, placing all the paper-cutting supplies on the table.

He then took the scissors and paper, and began snipping. Arms first, then legs, then the head, shaping a paper man.

When the paper men were cut and laid on the table, he ground cinnabar and painted the facial features: black eyes, green mouth, red cheeks, a ferocious countenance with fangs bared. He also drew a goose-feather saber at the waist. They were vivid, almost like living beings.

When everything was ready he recited the incantation: “Paper people, paper horses, under the moon’s radiance, a wisp of a ghost clings to the paper fiend! A breath of life spat upon the paper, paper men to bow before their master!”

Following the steps, Li Chaosheng first cut two small paper men, each the size of a palm, then painted them one black, one white, modeled after the two guardians of Hades from ancient Chinese mythology.

When the painting was done, the two little figures looked eerie. At the same time Li Chaosheng recited the incantation, blew a breath of living spirit onto the paper men, and a faint breeze sprang up in the room, causing the paper bodies to sway.

Clap!

Li Chaosheng lightly clapped his hands. With that impulse the two paper men actually hopped up and stood on the table, their expressions slightly dazed.

Clap!

He clapped again, and the two instantly came to their senses and turned to look at him. The sight was extremely uncanny.

Just as Li Chaosheng was about to do something, the stiff, ferocious faces of the paper men suddenly softened and then broke into laughter. “Tell us, Master, who do you intend to scare?”

The two paper men, out of nowhere, said that, and Li Chaosheng immediately laughed.

“I didn’t summon you to scare others!”

The two paper men were stunned by this and exchanged a glance. The white one said, “Master, we’re here to scare people. If we’re not scaring anyone, what are we here for?”

Li Chaosheng looked at the little white paper man and said, “I summoned you to have you check the surrounding area. See whether any bad people are approaching, whether any demons or ghosts are prowling about.”

“That’s so boring, Master.”

The little white man spoke again, and hearing it the little black man spoke up, “You shut up. If Master asks us to do something, we do it. Why do you keep protesting?”

The little white man pouted and fell silent. Seeing this, the little black man nodded and said, “Master, we’ll go have a look around right now.”

After speaking, the little black one led the little white one and they squeezed out through the window crack. For a moment Li Chaosheng was left staring dumbfounded. The two paper men he’d cut had run off?

Li Chaosheng sat waiting for the two to return while flipping through techniques of paper-cutting magic. It said that to make paper men explode one needed phosphorus powder. This phosphorus could be obtained from ancient bones in graveyards and refined by a special secret method. Indeed, the phosphorus was hard to procure because its autoignition point was very low and it would easily ignite at normal temperature, so the secret method had to raise its autoignition point.

“Oh, I see. Using phosphorus powder together with cinnabar to paint the nose and eyes on these paper men could cause them to explode at a crucial moment.”

Li Chaosheng pondered this deeply, while the two paper men were already out having a blast. First, the black and white paper men hopped along the wall onto the roof next door and slid into Old Lin the cobbler’s house. Old Lin was in his fifties, which was quite old in these times. He’d worked his whole life as a leatherworker, stitching countless people’s heads. And now he had grown old and alone, with no sons or daughters.

His only little pastime was to drink a bit after finishing his work. That day he’d just had a drink and was dozing on his bed when a cold draft blew through the room and two paper men slipped through the closed door crack.

After entering and glancing around, the little white paper man saw the snoring old cobbler on the bed and instantly grew mischievous. He reached out and pinched Old Lin’s nose.

Smack!

Just as the little white one was having fun, the little black one slapped his hand away, glared at him and said, “Stop fooling around. Master told us to patrol the area, so don’t cause trouble, don’t play with the living!”

The little white one looked so upset. The little black one sighed and said, “If we’re going to play, we’ll play with that!”

The little black one pointed toward a corpse lying in the outer room!