The Bone Collector

The figures that had been hiding in the street corners all retreated back into their houses, their doors barred from the inside. The street emptied instantly.

The boy’s face changed color.

He gripped his short wooden club tighter and moved closer to Chen Guan.

“Teacher, they’re here.”

Chen Guan looked toward the end of the street.

A chime was coming from there.

The sound was hollow and thin, carrying an unsettling rhythm, like bones knocking together.

Guan Jinyue’s sword slid half an inch from her sleeve. It now looked like something out of a horror movie.

A group of people emerged from the street corner, led by a gaunt, tall man.

He wore a gray leather robe, and from his waist hung a string of yellowing bone plaques. With every step he took, the plaques clacked against each other.

Behind him followed six men. Some carried iron hooks; one pushed a wooden cart.

A tattered cloth covered the cart, but beneath it, long, thin shapes bulged upward, swaying gently as the wheels rolled over the dirt road.

The boy pressed the half-flatbread in his arms tighter. His shoulders hunched.

The gaunt man stopped a dozen paces away.

He first sized up Chen Guan. When his gaze fell on the old long robe, the expression he had forced into a smile grew slightly more restrained.

“Master, you’re at the city gate today as well?”

Chen Guan said nothing. From what he could see, he had guessed correctly—his current identity was indeed no ordinary one.

The gaunt man shifted his gaze to Guan Jinyue. His eyes lingered on her sword for a moment, then quickly moved away.

He finally looked at the boy.

“Seven-Button Kid, what are you hiding from?”

The boy remained silent.

The gaunt man raised a hand, making the plaques at his waist rattle loudly.

“New rule in town. For strays like you, the grain debt needs to be recalculated.”

Chen Guan’s hand moved within his sleeve.

The boy said quietly, “I don’t owe any grain.”

The gaunt man bared his teeth, his laugh a creepy sound. “You sleep under the city’s roofs, drink from the city’s wells. When the sandstorms come, the walls shield you. Why shouldn’t you pay for that?”

The boy looked up. “That roof is caved in. The well water came from Teacher.”

The gaunt man’s fake smile vanished completely.

The boy nervously took half a step back behind Chen Guan. Guan Jinyue’s sword tip slid all the way out of its sheath.

The gaunt man stared at her, a threat clear in his voice. “Outsider. The city has rules. Best you don’t meddle, or else your wandering days are over.”

Guan Jinyue lifted her eyes. “What rules?”

The gaunt man pointed to the dry, carved patterns on the city wall and decided to educate the outsiders. After all, she was a sword-wielding woman—her skills were no doubt extraordinary. If a conflict could be avoided, so much the better.

“This city of ours—you can come in, but you can’t go out. If anyone inside wants to leave, they must clear the path with bones.”

He pointed again at the boy.

“A young whelp no one’s raising? His bones are going to waste. Selling them to the Gate lets us pave the road for the entire city.”

The boy’s face turned white. Chen Guan glanced down at him and noticed the boy wasn’t crying. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

Chen Guan looked up at the gaunt man. Though he didn’t understand what “clearing the path with bones” meant exactly, he knew one thing: he couldn’t let these people take the boy.

He stepped forward, placing himself in front of the boy. “He’s got someone to raise him.”

The gaunt man forced another smile.

“Master jests. You’re a Word Teacher passing through. One day the Gate will open and you’ll be on your way. You can’t keep him forever, can you?”

Chen Guan could sense that every time he prepared to use the brute force befitting his identity, the door patterns on the city wall would give off a faint heat.

It seemed that inside this illusion, he couldn’t simply flip the table and resort to violence—unless his own power far surpassed what the illusion could suppress.

Guan Jinyue felt it too. Her hand on the sword didn’t raise any higher. Instead, she merely shielded the boy at her side.

Seeing Chen Guan’s silence, the gaunt man grew bolder.

“Master, the City Lord respects you for knowing the Old Script. That’s why He lets you live here in peace this long. But this one here—born with Seven Buttons, destiny as light as a feather, bone structure extraordinary. The Gate favors his kind.”

He took a step forward. “If you hadn’t stopped it, he should have been on the cart long ago.”

The boy looked up at Chen Guan. In that instant, the fear he could no longer suppress broke through.

“Teacher… will my bones really open the Gate?”

Chen Guan didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out and pushed the boy back behind him.

“There are plenty of things that can open a Gate. Why force it on a child?”

The gaunt man’s brow furrowed. “What does Master mean by that?”

Chen Guan raised his eyes. “A Gate that must feed on a child’s bones—even if it opened, it wouldn’t lead to any good path.”

Behind the cracks of the doors on both sides of the street, people held their breath.

The gaunt man’s face sank.

“Master, you teach the words, and we respect you for it. But if you break the city’s rule, don’t blame us for bringing the City Lord in.”

Chen Guan replied, “Go ahead.”

The gaunt man hadn’t expected that answer. His threat hung unfinished in the air.

The man carrying the iron hook behind him stepped forward.

“Why waste words with him? An outsider teaching words—does he think he’s the City Lord?”

The iron hook scraped across the ground, leaving a long gouge.

The boy’s hand, gripping his club, trembled.

Guan Jinyue’s silver spatial rift line slithered out from her cuff, circling her fingertip once—but the next moment, the patterns on the city wall suddenly flared a dark red.

The rift line was crushed back into her sleeve within an instant.

Guan Jinyue’s frown deepened. This place suppresses foreign powers. What a hassle.

Seeing this, the man with the hook burst into loud laughter.

“And here I thought they were some big shots. Just a couple of lowlifes.”

The iron hook swept up, aiming directly for the boy’s shoulder.

Guan Jinyue sidestepped and intercepted the hook with her sword. The sound of metal striking metal echoed through the gate arch.

Without using her spatial abilities, relying purely on sword technique, she had already sliced off a section of the hook.

The severed hook head fell to the ground and rolled to the gaunt man’s feet.

The man’s face twitched. What the hell—that’s one sharp sword!

Guan Jinyue shielded the boy behind her.

“You call that ‘knowing a bit’?”

The boy’s eyes went wide. He couldn’t believe that these people, who had always seemed invincible in his eyes, couldn’t even last a single round against this sister.

The gaunt man staggered half a step back, his expression ugly.

“Kill that outsider.”

He raised his hand. The bone plaques at his waist flipped outright, revealing the red symbols carved into their backs.

The ground beneath the street began to heat up.

Beneath the soil, lines of dark red emerged, connecting toward the door patterns on the city wall.

Chen Guan’s shadow stretched out, as though nailed to the spot.

Guan Jinyue also felt her sword grow slightly heavier.

The boy, however, was unaffected.

The red lines first bypassed him—then, as if catching the scent of blood, they turned and crept along the ground toward his ankles.

Chen Guan reached out, grabbed the boy by the scruff of his collar, and yanked him to safety.

The red lines missed their target, letting out faint hisses.

The gaunt man stared at this scene, his breath quickening.

“Indeed, a Living Door Bone.”

“Master, you’ve been keeping him for so long. Surely you know he’s no ordinary child?”

The boy’s face was blank.

“Teacher…”

He couldn’t understand what these people were talking about. He had known since he was young that his fate was cheap and worthless—that he was meant to die long ago.

On the day of the Bone Offering, he was stopped at the city gate by his Teacher, and Teacher had reached out a hand.

He lived.