The snow was a shroud, pressed against Qiao Mian’s eyelids, heavy and insistent. Each shallow breath rasped, a tiny saw against her frost-laced lungs. She lay amidst the drifts, a skeletal hand reaching out from the rough-hewn pine box, numb, then searing with a pain that ripped through the lethargy. She wasn’t dead. Not yet. The muffled wails reached her first, thin and reedy, like a starving animal’s cry. They pulled her, agonizing inch by inch, from the deep, icy stupor. Her eyes, crusted with flakes, finally flickered open, pupils dilating against the harsh glare of the winter sun reflecting off the pristine, endless white. She was in a casket—a crude pine box resting on a makeshift bier, surrounded by a handful of shivering neighbors in threadbare coats. A single, smoldering stick of incense wafted a sickly sweet scent into the frigid air, quickly swallowed by the biting wind. The wails grew louder, sharper, cutting through the drone of the wind. A small, trembling figure, no older than ten, was pressed against the unplaned boards, his face streaked with tears and snot, thin shoulders convulsing under a frayed cotton coat. Qiao An. The boy flapped like a scarecrow in the gale. “She’s not here anymore, you little ghost!” a gruff voice bellowed, heavy with false grief and genuine impatience. A large, calloused boot swung out, connecting with Qiao An’s ribs with a sickening thud. The boy cried out, a sharp gasp of pain, and crumpled into the snow. Ding Dafu, the father-in-law who had staged this burial to steal her papers for his daughter, stood over Qiao An with a bare snarl. His breath plumed white in the air, a phantom of the cold malice radiating from him. The gathered mourners shifted uncomfortably, their gazes dropping to the snow. Rage prickled beneath her paper-thin skin like boiling lye. Her blood, sluggish moments before, now pulsed with a molten heat. Watching the boy take that boot struck harder than any frostbite. She tried to move, to speak, but her throat was a frozen knot. Her body, ravaged by famine and illness, refused to obey. Only her right hand, numb from the cold, twitched. Her fingers, skeletal and tipped with purple nails, scraped against the splintered lid edge, then brushed against the carved jade pendant hidden beneath her tattered collar. A faint, shimmering light, imperceptible to anyone else, bloomed around her fingertips. Warmth surged outward, followed by a resonant hum vibrating through her marrow. Her vision blurred, not from weakness, but from an impossible shift in perception. The snow drifts vanished, replaced by an expanse of absolute, pitch-black soil under a starless dark. The Spring-Scroll Realm opened before her, ancient and silent. She stood on an endless plain of rich, dark soil, impossibly fertile and vast. No sky, no horizon, just the infinite void above and the promise of growth below. The air hung damp and mild, devoid of the biting north wind. A peculiar energy thrummed around her, invigorating, almost hungry. Her hand, still clasping the jade pendant, felt strangely solid. In her other palm lay a single, shriveled brassica seed filched from the brigade storehouse days before. Instinct, sharp and sudden, guided her. She knelt, her fingers sinking into the cool, dark earth. She pressed the seed into the soil, covering it gently. The hum intensified, vibrating through the ground. A green shoot pierced the loam, unfurling split leaves in rapid jerks. It thickened, elongated, and a pale taproot swelled outward beneath the surface. Within three minutes, a massive white root the size of a grown man’s forearm thrust itself out of the loam, broad greens drinking in the gloom. It pulsed with a vibrant, vital energy. She ripped it from the ground, its weight substantial, real. She was back. The bitter wind whipped her thin clothes. The scent of pine and dying incense filled her nostrils. Ding Dafu was still shouting, still looming over Qiao An, who lay whimpering in the snow. But now, Qiao Mian held power. A tangible, life-giving force in her hand. She wedged the heavy root beneath her cotton tunic, its skin cool against her ribs. Her eyes, no longer dulled by illness, fixed on Qiao An. Survival. That was her only thought. Qiao Mian hoisted her emaciated frame over the timber side, unseen while the mourners backed away from Dafu’s bellowing. Her movements were stiff, like a corpse reanimating, but she moved with purpose. She reached Qiao An, pulling him up by his thin arm, her touch surprisingly firm. “Qiao An,” she rasped. The boy looked up, snot freezing on his lip, his gaze locking onto hers. He didn’t scream, didn’t flinch away. Just stared, as if seeing a ghost. “Move,” she commanded, pulling him toward the pines flanking the burial knoll. The boy, traumatized but obedient, stumbled after her, not questioning the apparition that claimed to be his sister. Crouched in the brush beneath a snow-laden fir, Qiao Mian hauled out the crisp crop. Its white flesh gleamed, a beacon of hope in the desolate landscape. She snapped the root in half, shoving a thick chunk into the boy's hands. He devoured it, ravenous, his cheeks puffing out as he chewed. She ate too, feeling the surge of energy, the sweet, earthy taste a balm to her starved body. “Eat it down,” she muttered, chewing the peppery, wet flesh. “They won't get your ration card, and they won't bury us.” Their quiet moment, a fragile bubble of survival in the brutal cold, was shattered by the distinct crunch of footsteps on the fresh snow, drawing agonizingly close. Qiao Mian tensed, pulling Qiao An tighter against her. The sound stopped, just inches from their hiding spot. A powerful beam of light cut through the gloom of the woods, sweeping across the snow and landing squarely on Qiao Mian’s pale, dirt-streaked face. Her eyes narrowed against the glare. “Thought you were dead, girl.” The voice was rough, familiar, and laced with a chilling sneer.

The Frozen Coffin