"You know, for all that you people say you're not trying to drown me, you make it kind of difficult to believe."  

Ma Qianle found himself staring, once again, at the lake.  'At least the location is different this time…' he thought.  A deserted beach stretched out to his left, nestling cozily into the gentle curve of a jetty that stuck out into the lake ahead of him.  A short signalling post, too small to be called a lighthouse, sat out at the end of the jetty, and large rocks formed uneven slopes into the water on either side of it.  The fading light of twilight illuminated the ghost standing on the walkway out to the signal with an eerie blue cast.

Wei Yaling lifted her hands in a gesture of denied responsibility.  "Hey don't blame me, I just got the assignment.  It's not like I could have planned this ahead of time.  Anyway, it's time to put that knowledge I spent the past two days stuffing into your head to use."  She gestured out at the ghost. "What is it?"

Ma Qianle looked at the ghost for a few moments, taking his time to discern the details in the rapidly dimming light.  Wei Yaling had cast a ward on them so that their presence wouldn't be detected until they wanted it, so he had the time for a closer inspection.  The ghost was no less gruesome than the lingering echo he had seen after opening his spiritual eye, though in a very different way.  Whereas that had been a mess of blood and viscera, this one was pale and bloated, clearly the victim of drowning.  Its eyes and nose had long since been eaten away by some aquatic creature, as had some of its toes.  The flesh had fallen away from the fingers and toes that remained, leaving claws of bare bone that varied in length where some of the phalanges had fallen off.  It was naked and genderless, and skin had sloughed off in places to reveal what lay underneath.

"It's a shuigui," he said finally.  "The ghost of a drowned person whose body was never recovered.  They bear a grudge against the living because they are unable to be properly laid to rest."

Wei Yaling nodded approvingly.  "So what should we do about it?"

Ma Qianle trawled through the vast repository of knowledge he'd acquired that afternoon from the jade slip before responding.  "Shuigui are lesser ghosts.  It should be enough to bind it, then seal it in a soul pot for judgement.

"Well done," Wei Yaling said with a grin.  Before Ma Qianle had a chance to react, she dropped the ward keeping them from detection and shoved him forward with a slap on the back.  "Get to it then!"

The shuigui immediately registered Ma Qianle's presence, honing in on his abundant yang energy like a hunting dog on its prey.  Ma Qianle scrambled to dodge its charge before shooting a glare back at Wei Yaling.

"Isn't this supposed to be your job?"  Ma Qianle was incredulous.  He had never even seen a vengeful ghost before, and now she was expecting him to defeat one singlehandedly?  She was mad, there was no way he could do it!

She waved a hand in dismissal.  "You can handle it.  Don't worry, Big Sis Wei Yaling will be right here if anything goes wrong!"

Ma Qianle stared at her in disbelief, only turning his attention back to the problem at hand when a set of bony claws swiped a set of deep scratches into his arm.  They burned, froze, with a deep chill that pierced far deeper than the cuts themselves, and his arm felt sluggish and heavy.  Thanks to his training, he recognized that this was yin contamination, but this yin was much harsher than what he had felt previously.

He dodged around the shuigui, passing it and heading further out onto the jetty.  Putting his enemy between himself and his route of escape wasn't the best idea, but Ma Qianle preferred that to leading it into the park where there could still be people enjoying their evenings.  Hastily, he cast the first barrier spell that came to his mind from the morass of information he'd been fed by the jade tablet, and started attempting to purge the contaminated yin from his wound.

The shuigui charged and the barrier instantly shattered.  Ma Qianle abandoned the cuts and barely avoided getting a matching set across his chest.  His arm could wait.  'Did I cast that wrong?  Why didn't it hold?' he thought in desperation. He racked his brain while dodging wildly, feeling helpless against the monster.  Finally, it came to him.  'It was the wrong spell!'  The one he had cast was effective against yin practitioners, but was too weak to stand up against the concentrated energy of a thing that was yin in its very substance.

Quickly, he spat out the correct spell, and this time his barrier held.  He could tell it wouldn't last long though, and rapidly cast another spell, this one offensive.  Yang energy coated his good hand, shining brightly in his spiritually enhanced vision.  He steeled his frazzled nerves to face the horror head on.

Once again, the shuigui charged, and once again the barrier shattered, but this time Ma Qianle was prepared. He swung his fist at his opponent as he stepped aside to let it barrel past him, striking it in the ribs.  The weakened, waterlogged skin tore, Ma Qianle's hand sliding across bare bone and slimy muscle, but the energy he'd channeled into the blow did its job.  The shuigui roared in pain as it retreated, its strength corroding away.

'It actually worked!' Ma Qianle thought, encouraged.  'Maybe I'm not so out of my depth after all…' 

The two circled each other, occasionally exchanging blows, but to little effect.  They had both been burned, and were both fighting more cautiously now.  Focused on his fight and the unfamiliar action of channeling his internal energies, Ma Qianle failed to pay attention to his footing as he moved. He stepped backwards off the walkway, his foot sliding unexpectedly down onto one of the rocks bordering it.  He rapidly regained his balance, but the moment of distraction was enough.

The shuigui lunged at him again, catching him in a tight grip.  Bony fingers dug into Ma Qianle's throat, piercing the skin on either side of his neck.  He choked and fought to breathe, recalling the uncomfortable tightness in his chest after he woke up in the hospital.

Sleet lashed against the men fighting on the deck to keep the ship afloat, the icy pellets like tiny wind-driven bullets against his bare face.  The storm had come up on them suddenly in the night, before they had time to prepare.  They hadn't been able to reef the sails in time, and they flapped in tatters where they hadn't brought the masts down entirely.

"A wave!  Hold fast!"  someone shouted.  He turned, but the wave was already upon them, towering high over the deck of the ship.  The ship heeled over sharply, and he was swept off the deck, helpless to resist.  The icy water surrounded him, churning, filling his lungs with knives.  He struggled fruitlessly to find the surface but his strength was failing.  He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe.  He was dying.

Wait.  It was still evening, not the depth of night, and there hadn't been a cloud in the sky.  He was safely on shore, not on the deck of a ship far out on the lake.  These weren't his memories.

Ma Qianle tore the shuigui's hand off of his neck, tearing bloody, icy gashes where the bones had pierced his flesh.  The ghost let out a horrible screech, clutching its head as the backlash from the failed possession hit it.  Fighting through the pain, Ma Qianle croaked out the words of the binding incantation.  For a sickening moment, he thought it wouldn't hold, but finally it took and the weakened ghost succumbed.

"Catch!" Wei Yaling shouted from behind him. Ma Qianle turned, and caught the small clay pot that she tossed to him.  He performed the sealing spell, but nothing happened.  He tried again. And again. Finally, he succeeded, and the shuigui was drawn into the pot.  Strange symbols of light streamed over the clay, coalescing into a bright mote over the mouth.  The light faded, Ma Qianle's power forming a solid stopper of something that looked like lead.  It was done.

Ma Qianle collapsed to his knees, exhausted from the drain the spellcasting put on his body.  He fought to catch his breath, touching his still bleeding neck gingerly.  'I won,' he thought. 'I beat the ghost!'  Two days ago he hadn't thought that ghosts were real, a day ago he hadn't known a single spell to counteract them, but here he was.

He had finally centered himself and was starting to drag himself up from where he was seated on the ground, but a sudden booming voice startled Ma Qianle so badly he almost threw the shuigui pot.

"What in heaven's name do you think you're doing?!"

Ma Qianle turned.  A tall man dressed similarly to Wei Yaling, though less colorfully, stood on the shore glaring at the woman furiously.

"Hey boss," she replied, grinning brightly.  "A notice came in just as I was wrapping up with Ma Qianle here, so I thought hey, let's try putting all this training to use."

"You reckless...You brought a barely trained, untested mortal to a capture mission and tossed him into the fight on his own!"  The man's face was red with anger.  "He was almost possessed! Do you remember what happened the last time a mortal agent was possessed? I remember what happened the last time a mortal agent was possessed.  I don't want to repeat it!"

"Relax boss," Wei Yaling said, the man's fury rolling off of her like water off a duck's back.  "He beat it, didn't he? It was a baby, hadn't even made a single kill yet!  And I was here keeping an eye on the fight the whole time, I would have stepped in if I thought he was in over his head."

The man shook an extended index finger at her, speechless, then brought his hand to his forehead.  "I...just...this discussion is not over!"  He turned to Ma Qianle, who had made his way back to the shore while the two were arguing.  "Are you alright?  How are you feeling?"

Ma Qianle thought about it for a moment.  He hadn't had the time to attend to his wounds during the fight and lacked the energy once it had ended, so the icy chill still burned in the deep scratches on his neck and arm, and he was exhausted, but he didn't feel like anything else was amiss.  "I should be fine?"

The man sighed as he looked Ma Qianle up and down, assessing his condition.  Finally, he nodded.  "Alright."  He gently took the sealed pot from where Ma Qianle was holding it tightly.  "I'll take this.  Typically, the one who seals a ghost is responsible for bringing it back to the hells and overseeing the judgement process, but considering the circumstances, Impermanent Wei" — with this he cast a glare at her out the side of his eyes — "will take care of it for you."  He handed Ma Qianle a shining vial.  "This will help dispel the yin influence on you, and the herbal cream Wei Yaling should have given you will help with the wounds.  Take the day off work tomorrow, and get some rest."

Ma Qianle nodded.  Even if he hadn't been told to, he didn't think he'd have the energy to spare to go to work in the morning.

"Good.  I'll be back to check in on you in the next few days.  Now, if you'll excuse us, I have a subordinate to discipline, so I'll bid you good night."  With this, he turned, grabbed Wei Yaling by the upper arm, and the two vanished.