Poison City

“You guys sure this is a good idea?” Mick tucked his hoodie tighter as he followed Kevin and Keryn into the small, open area in front of the temple with red brick exterior walls. Oiled and red ropes with paper talismans tied on them hung horizontally from different pillars on the walls. He had been here only once, when he was very young on a family trip to experience the culture of the South-Eastern District. He could only remember what it was inside: colorful tile floors, religious local folks holding batches of incense sticks, and large incense burners emitting smoke. It was somewhat of a cultural landmark, but he had not considered the functional significance of it until recently.

“It is, at least to prove a theory.” Kevin nodded, his facial expression was serious, much more serious than most of the times he had shown: “Now, let’s just take a look at the ropes and talismans first, then maybe we should check out if there’s anyone watching the entire temple.”

“What are you expecting to find here, Kevin?” Keryn asked.

“First of all is the unnatural corruption of the temple’s protection.” Kevin whispered as they were closer to the walls: “Then, if we’re lucky, we can maybe get something from the temple.”

“You mean steal something.” Keryn narrowed her eyes.

“Yeah, well, desperate times, Keryn.” Kevin shrugged: “And if the scholars are really missing, and what those fuckers told Chef Tang is true, then they’d have much more pressing concerns than a few missing items.”

“But to be honest, I don’t know how those people could pull things off like that.” Mick sighed: “I mean - they just go ahead and kidnap young children on that massive scale? This is unthinkable! You’d think we would have heard something about it by now.”

“Probably due to their targets, and probably due to the people behind it having a lot of power.” Keryn shook his head.

“But - how long have you guys been investigating this? We haven’t really seen anything from the official pressure from higher up, right?” Mick asked: “I mean - even the people questioning the city’s investigation of the cruise ship accident, the city had really put A LOT of pressure on everyone - ”

“Could be Captain Ko.” Keryn shrugged: “Hell, from all we know he took most of the pressure from above. I don’t know what kind of leverage he had over them - ”

“Shhh! Quiet!” Kevin whispered as he snuck up to a corner of the temple’s outer wall. He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures of the talismans, the red ropes and the walls. They were hung higher up on the walls so he had to zoom in closer to see different angles for the same talisman.

Keryn hopped up and took a quick peek of what was behind the walls: “Don’t fret, looks like no one is inside. So - what do the talismans tell you?”

“I’ll need a minute.” Kevin enlarged the picture so that he could see the talismans, while at the same time pulled out his notebook and began checking the symbols. 

“Do you want me to pick one down?” Keryn asked: “But - that’s bad luck, right?”

“Yes, don’t do it.” Kevin shook his head as he zeroed in on a few of the symbols: “Um - this is a protection and scapegoating talisman - and with the red rope up there, it’s definitely a guarding array - ”

“We can kinda see that, what’s special about this one?” Keryn asked again: “Do you want me to go in and peek around?”

“Wait - wait - don’t do it yet. It might not be safe.” Kevin raised his hand and stopped Keryn, before showing her and Mick the picture: “This - this is a redirection ward symbol. So - if I’m guessing correctly, everything they had out here is to protect the temple and redirect whatever thing elsewhere.”

“But - what is all this protecting the temple from?” Mick asked, frowning: “This is a very crowded area right? So I guess they wouldn’t normally see a lot of paranormal phenomena? Or - are you thinking about Blood Rainbows?”

“The temples should already have protection against the effects of Blood Rainbows. Especially for a big temple like Kshiti Temple.” Keryn shook her head: “And from what I’ve learned, most of the time Blood Rainbows can’t even manifest around temple areas.”

“Unless something changed, like the corruption of Qiyun and ‘the curse’.” Kevin sighed: “Let’s go around and check what’s inside the temple and see if anyone’s in there. It’s - it’s not really normal that no one is watching.”

“I can give you a boost and you can see for yourself.” Keryn shrugged.

“Give me a second.” Kevin raised his phone again to take a few more pictures of other talismans on a different wall.

The talismans were the same as the ones on the first wall. The rope was hung the same way. And just as Kevin took a step back to examine the three walls in their sight, each wall had one rope near its top, and each rope had five talismans on it. The talismans were symmetrical in placement as well: from left to right, the first and second one were identical to the fifth and forth one.

“Keryn, can you do me a favor and check on top of the wall in the middle? In similar positions to the talisman in the middle.” Kevin frowned: “Still be careful, don’t touch any of them.”

“Sure.” Keryn hopped up again, this time closer to the top of the wall. She did not touch anything. Just to be sure, she hopped again. Only slightly lower this time.

“What’d you see?” Mick and Kevin asked at the same time.

“There’s a very thin thread - or chain, connecting some kind of metal nail attached to the talisman in the middle. It’s this thin - ” Keryn held her right hand index finger and thumb together to show Kevin and Mick how thin the chain actually was: “If you hadn’t mentioned, I wouldn’t have noticed. Do you know what it means?”

“It’s some kind of ‘lightning rod’, only for unclean energy.” Kevin sighed: “At least that’s all I could tell. The talismans on both sides are warding and cleansing talismans, like a funnel with filters in the mouth. But the energy would still be redirected into the walls.”

“But for what?” Mick asked: “Something needs to absorb or neutralize the energy anyway, right?”

“Right, which means it’s a temporary measure. If done for too long it’s going to be terrible.” Kevin sighed.