Rong Ji met Ding Ruo’s blank gaze with a cool, unyielding stare of his own. The faint smirk on the folklorist's face was a chilling mask, a stark contrast to her usual trembling demeanor. A cold, heavy silence descended, broken only by the persistent drip of water from the rafters above and the distant, mournful churn of the temple's flooded depths. “Well, well,” Rong Ji drawled, pushing a hand through his damp, dark hair. “Look what the tide dragged in. A new accessory, Ding Ruo? Or have you finally decided to stop playing the shrinking violet and show us your true colors?” His voice held a sharp edge, cutting through the eerie quiet. Ding Ruo’s smirk vanished, replaced by a blink. Her eyes darted, regaining a semblance of their former nervousness. She hugged the brass key to her chest, her knuckles white. “Ah, Rong Ji! You startled me. I was… I was just looking at this. It was stuck in the wreckage, near where the water went down. I think it’s a key!” Her voice was thin, reedy, perfectly mimicking her earlier timid act. Her gaze flickered to Tang Ze, then back to Rong Ji, feigning uncertainty. “Do you think it opens something important?” Tang Ze, still reeling from the Announcer’s threat and Qinghe’s display, only gave a weak nod. “Yeah, it looks… old. Probably for those stairs.” He gestured to the moss-covered descent. “But who knows what’s down there.” Rong Ji eyed Ding Ruo for another moment, a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze. He offered no comment on her sudden ‘discovery,’ instead turning his attention to the dark stairwell. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there? Our gracious host tends to leave gifts in plain sight, just out of reach.” He glanced at Qinghe, who stood beside him, her crimson veil a stark splash of color against the grimy stone. She offered a subtle nod, her silence a steady anchor in the escalating chaos. They descended, the air growing thick with the stench of stagnant silt. The stairs spiraled down, each step slick with algae, until opening into a cavernous basement vaulted in black stone. Here, the subterranean river rushed through the ancient foundations in a heavy, dark surge. The water was chest-high, churning with unseen debris, and the faint, unsettling echo of a low, rhythmic thrum resonated through the stone. “This is… not ideal,” Tang Ze mumbled, his phone clutched tightly. He waded in cautiously, the water immediately soaking his chest. “What if there are… water things?” “Worry less about ‘water things’ and more about what our gracious Announcer has planned for this segment,” Rong Ji retorted, stepping into the frigid depths. The cursed water bit at his skin, and he felt his spiritual energy, usually vibrant and responsive, grow sluggish, like mud in a well. It was a tangible suppression, a cold weight pressing on his every internal movement. Qinghe followed, gliding through the murk without resistance, though her scarlet silk clung to her collar in the oppressive dampness. Ding Ruo, now clutching the key and her bag, hesitated for a moment before plunging in with a theatrical shiver. She made sure to stay close to Tang Ze, her face a picture of exaggerated fright. Just as they began to navigate the relentless current, a new sound cut through the water’s roar – a reedy, high-pitched tune, like a funeral flute played by a madman. From the churning darkness upstream, a massive flotilla emerged. Not ordinary boats, but an armada of towering paper sampans, their hulls razor-sharp and folded with grotesque, grinning visages. Each craft carried dozens of frantic effigies, their flat limbs twitching, their inked stares vacant and malevolent. At the helm of the lead vessel loomed a towering, hunched effigy. Its head was a pasteboard mask of an ancient crone bearing a wide scarlet mouth and powdered cheeks. Her eyes glowed with sickly green flame beneath bristling brows. Her folded parchment robes displayed characters of burial and matrimonial sacrifice, and in her oversize hands she held a crooked staff tipped with a miniature veiled doll. This was the ritual crone of the flooded tombs, an entity of cursed pairings compelled by the Broadcast's lethal program. [“Ratings alert! The Matchmaker’s Fleet is initiating ‘Forced Union Protocol’! Evade or be bound! This segment is brought to you by… the ever-present threat of your own impending doom!”] The crone let out a cackle that jarred against the piping flute, and the paper vessels lunged ahead, their folded edges cleaving the wash. Rong Ji spat a curse. The water’s foul pressure choked his meridian channels like mud clotting a dry conduit; drawing upon talismans would be slow and brutally taxing. “Hold on!” Rong Ji yelled, pushing Tang Ze and Ding Ruo behind him. He adopted a low, agile stance, moving with a surprising, fluid grace even against the powerful current. Though his spiritual might was dimmed, his physical prowess remained. He moved like a shadow, deflecting the sharp paper prows with his forearms, spinning and kicking the smaller paper figures that leaped from the barges like predatory insects. Each impact jarred his forearms to the bone, but he answered the collision with a biting sneer, refusing to give an inch of ground. A wide skiff veered toward Qinghe, its prow folded like an open, jagged beak. Rong Ji spotted the rush, but half a dozen paper constructs swarmed his flanks, their paper talons slicing at his sleeves and trapping him in the mire. Qinghe braced herself, her silhouette poised for a counterattack, but her gaze lingered on Rong Ji, a silent question in her eyes. “They’re too many!” Tang Ze shrieked, scrambling to avoid a particularly aggressive paper figure. He fumbled with his phone, his vlog camera still running, capturing every terrifying moment. As a razor-edged paper arm swiped inches from his face, an idea sparked in his fear-addled mind. “The light! They’re paper, right? Ghostly, but still… sensitive to bright light!” He pulled a small, modified LED flash attachment from his pocket, a custom piece for his night-vlogging. With a desperate yell, he aimed it, not at the overall darkness, but directly at the grotesque faces of the approaching paper armada, and triggered its highest lumen setting. A blinding, pure white light, far more intense than a standard phone flash, erupted, piercing the gloom like a concentrated sunbeam. The effect took hold at once. The effigies caught in the direct beam hissed like scorched leaves, their inked features charring brown. The sampans lost momentum and collided against one another, their folded hulls scraping harmlessly. The bridal crone on the main deck recoiled, her phosphorescent gaze guttering as the piping pipe-tune dissolved into a wheeze. “Keep the beam high!” Rong Ji barked, pivoting on his back foot to sweep two constructs into the swirling foam. The light, though temporary, gave him the precious seconds he needed. Tang Ze swept the blinding arc across the river. The crone screeched, thrashing her staff to drive her fleet inward, but the searing wash threw the formation into disarray. Rong Ji shoved through the opening, cracking pasteboard necks with precise elbow strikes while Qinghe tore through the drifting hulls beside him. Even Ding Ruo slipped low beneath flailing paper sleeves, though her watchful gaze stayed glued to Tang Ze’s device. They reached the far bank, hauling themselves onto a narrow stone shelf just as the crone gave a rattling shriek. Her lead sampan, smoldering from the flash, rammed the ledge in a final convulsion. A scorched paper hand whipped out from the listing deck. It wasn’t aimed at her body, but at the trailing edge of her crimson veil. With a sickening, tearing sound, the phantom grasp tightened, threatening to rip the precious fabric clean away just as the chilling, resonant thrum of the third drowned bell began to echo from the temple’s depths.

The Paper Flotilla