Quiet. Oh look, one of your cousins.
Spare me Rose, it's bad enough traversing this hideous peak.
You feel that? The wind is lying to us.
Yeah, it's too still, to be honest, Sudden shifts as if it
were trying to. Misguide us.
Glad we're on the same page. Look at this tracks.
Flat footed dragging, no heel strikes.
Not just one either. A few days old, maybe less.
There's something else, spiritual decay, something old
has been pulled from the ground, half bound, half freed.
Something's moving watching you bring the wards.
Of course, we're not the first ones to walk this path.
Let's not keep the dead waiting. You're listening to Way of the
Jaded Fist, produced by Desmond Childs and Jazzy Nay.
You can now find the show on other platforms such as Podcast
Addict and Pocket Casts. We'd like to thank everyone for
their support of the show. It appears Danny Rose and
Esmeralda have found themselves in the midst of a strange
investigation beneath the cold mountains of the Himalaya Rift.
What will our heroes uncover about the mysterious footprints
in the snow? Find out today Raymond Getty,
yours truly speaking. Thanks for listening and enjoy
the show. As twilight deepens, the village
of Bao Guang gathers in solemn stillness.
A vigil forms in the square. Soft lanterns, incense trails
and whispered prayers fill the air, but beneath the surface,
fear clings to every breath. The dead no longer rest here.
Oh great spirit of the Rift. The energy's thick here, like a
thread pulled too tight. Every spirit is straining at the
veil. Right.
No guards, no Talisman perimeter.
They're scared, not stupid, just worn down.
I'll just place a barrier here with Storm's fury.
Don't want to spook anyone just yet, but they're exposed.
Greetings strangers. Welcome to Bao Guang.
We just finished our twilight vigil for the dead.
Unfortunately, something is keeping them from their eternal
rest. I am called Esmeralda and this
is Danny Rose. We were merely passing through
and sensed spiritual unrest here.
I'm afraid Zhang Shi may be haunting your village.
Thank the flame. I take it this has been a
recurring issue? They come earlier now, Last one
came just after sunup took old Lin tore through the incense
smoke like it wasn't even there. We are ill equipped to protect
ourselves, never mind the dead. And the talismans on your
graves. Burned.
Warped somehow, as if something else rewrote them.
No, no, no, no. Quiet.
The. Sound is soft but unmistakable,
like a calloused fist on wood, steady and unsettling, a herald
of what's coming. Stay sharp.
Spirit, grant me the power to bind his limbs, render him
immobile. It's not being driven, it's
feeding. Storm's Fury bind and hold lock
its path. It's trapped.
It speaks. We have.
Been freed. Mortals this.
Realm is now our banquet, your. Flesh is now our feast.
I must warn you, I'm a little bitter.
Years of underachieving and all that.
It's trying to warn us. I know, I know.
Laugh so we don't cry, right? By breath and silence, by will
and name, the spirit returned to stillness.
By the Spirit it's it's gone. Indeed it is.
That that wasn't how they used to move.
Apparently they're not following orders anymore.
Precisely. Which means someone tampered
with the law that binds them. This isn't Jiangsu tradition.
It's something worse. Unsettling to say the least.
I must alert the other monks. If incense doesn't work, we'll
have to settle for a man made wall around the village.
I have a hunch. Dawn of Shadow.
The one and only, however, they would have had to have run this
little experiment of theirs by the vampire Butcher himself.
I see the king of the Jiangsu must have allowed this mayhem to
occur. Emperor.
For the record, he gets pretty pissy about it.
What's our next move? Hmm friend monk, could you take
us to your inn? We have coin and are in need of
shelter. In exchange will help you with
your vampire problem. Sound fair?
As a maiden in waiting. Right this way, friends.
Way of the Jaded Fist. Bao Guangxin is small but
sturdy, it's wooden beams worn smooth by decades of hands and
prayer. For now, it offers Danny and
Esmeralda the simplest of comforts.
Heat, silence and food that doesn't fight back.
Soup's hot, no sign of poison, and I think I even saw a
vegetable in here. Can't complain.
Radish, I think. Nice little atmosphere.
It's all right. It certainly contrasts the
gloomy scene earlier this afternoon.
Agreed, and I will sing praises to the goddess of indoor
plumbing until my last breath. Place has that look like it's
been rebuilt a few too many times.
Feels held together by memory. That's usually where the real
strength lives. Walls like these, they remember
screams, whispers and everything in between.
Ginger broth and Bitterroot tea. Good for the nerves and the
soul. Greetings friend Monk, join us.
Good evening. You got anything for undead
breath and cursed ink? Not in the pantry, but I can
offer answers. Wait, wait.
Before we get the goods. Here, take it you're not a big
drinker, seeing as how you're a monk and all.
See me? I can't help it.
It's a social construct our society has ensnared me in.
But what can I say? I love a good cup of sake.
Esmeralda, you want in on this? Pour me up, Danny Boy.
I'm not a sake girl, but this here's hard liquor.
A nice change of pace. Goodness, Grace, you're a tough
twosome. Go on, friend.
Monk, we're nothing but ears. Tell us what you know.
Understood. Well, I guess to begin, the
shrine didn't fall all at once. It rotted, one prayer at a time,
unanswered. One night, spirit uncollected.
We thought it was neglect, misfortune, a thinning of the
veil. And when did you realize it
wasn't just bad luck? When the earth beneath the altar
began to whisper back, first in dreams, then in blood.
Excuse me, you're saying someone primed the shrine for
corruption? Who?
We never saw his face, only the shape of him, cloaked in robes
darker than shadow. Of course.
He came when the fog was thickest, laid offerings in
silence. We had thought he was grieving
until the offerings bled through their own bowls.
By the Rift. It wasn't long after that the
binding started failing. The talismans burned backwards,
spirits wandered during the day and the villagers, they stopped
visiting the shrine all together.
Interesting. Yes, most interesting.
What's your thinking, Esmeralda? Pulled their belief away from
it, made it hollow, easier to twist.
Exactly. A shrine with no worship becomes
a doorway. Sounds like this person is
testing patterns it. Appears so yes.
Seeing how far they can stretch tradition before it snaps.
That's exactly what he is doing. He you know of this person.
Lord Valerius, the leader of the Dawn of Shadow, the Eru K
cultist who believes the world is just a garden of bones
waiting to be harvested properly.
You know what? I think that's the exact
inscription I'd put next to his picture in the dictionary.
He's not wrong about one thing. The soil here remembers death,
and someone taught him how to dig.
The way of the. Jaded Fist.
In martial arts, they teach you that stillness is strength, that
the best move is the one you don't make, the one that lets
your opponent show you what they are.
But stillness in a haunted village, that is not strength.
That's the world holding its breath, waiting for something to
crawl back out of the ground. Esmeralda and I had barely
slept, she said. The inn walls were too quiet.
Danny said the T was trying to kill him.
But we both knew the truth. Something had infected this
place, something old. And if the dead were starting to
walk in daylight, it meant someone wasn't just breaking the
rules, they were rewriting them. It was morning in a backroom of
the Bao Guang Inn. 1 old villager, two tired fists, one
story they won't want to hear. All right, friend, no need to
impress us. We've seen weirder than ghosts.
Just tell us what happened at the shrine.
Justin looking for trouble. Just my morning prayer and the
bread crumbs. Then I saw him.
Robes like midnight. Didn't walk, didn't breathe
right. And the birds, the birds just
stopped. In a fight, you learn to listen
with your skin. The tension in the air, the
breath of your opponent, the shift in their weight.
Everything speaks. You know how to hear it.
And everything about this man's story told me the enemy wasn't
coming. He was already here.
The birds weren't afraid. Not scared, not startled.
Just watching him like they knew him.
Allow me to pour you some tea of the sun.
Thank you again for getting up this morning to visit with us.
Thank you, Mr. Rose, and you as well, Lady Esmeralda.
We're here to help Ozzy San. Take your time.
What did you see? The man whose robes were like
fresh ink, No fray, no mud. I think he felt me.
He didn't turn, but the wind stopped like it bowed to him.
By the spirit. That's not just power, that's
ritual level reverence. Either those birds were trained
by spell, or something about him made death itself pause.
He didn't pray, didn't bow. He just leaned forward and
breathed on the altar. In field training they tell you
breathing is everything. Control your breath, you control
your stance, Control your stance, you control the fight.
But this wasn't controlled, this was a claim.
And after that? Two nights later we buried old
Lynn. Day after that kid saw him
standing at the well, not groaning, not limping, just
blinking. He looked confused, like he was
still trying to remember if he was alive or not.
Does it sound like any John Sure spell I've heard of?
Nope. That's not Zhongshu magic.
Zhongshu are bound by fear and Talisman law.
They hop, they hunger, they obey.
This is memory bound resurrection.
Someone is raising the dead and letting them keep their names.
Hold on, I thought that kind of magic was banned centuries ago.
It was. It's called name walking.
It breaks the soul into pieces, leaves enough to animate, enough
to fool, but never enough to be whole again.
It's all etched into my mind. I cannot forget no matter how
hard I try. Ozisan, I'm sorry for the
trouble we're causing you. I remember we burned Lin the
second time, but even now I still hear something at the
well. It's crying out to me.
Oh, Jason, you OK? We can take a break if you need
to. Am I, Am I bewitched, Mr. Rose?
Lady Esmeralda. I don't want you worrying about
those sorts of things. It's why Danny and I are here.
We're here to please. Tell me, won't you?
Will you promise to tell me if I'm bewitched?
I don't want to bring a curse down on the others.
Please tell me. I will let you know, Ozisan, I
promise. The well, always the quiet
spots, the places folks pass by without thinking.
Like silence can't drown you if you don't look too close.
But we were going to look hard. Way of the jaded.
Fist. The graveyard sits just above
the village, old stones, crooked fences, the kind of place people
stop tending once too many stories grow around it.
Lynn's plot lies near the back. The soil's been disturbed twice,
but it never stayed down. Our heroes make their way to old
Lynn's grave, Danny out in front, then Esmeralda storms.
Fury whirls around in Rose's hands above his head, then taps
once against the stone. Danny's breath is steady.
Esmeralda kneels beside a sunken grave, fingers brushing the
earth. Grave looks filled but not
settled. Soil's too loose.
Evidently because something came out, not in.
Right. Esmeralda removes a small bundle
of bone charms and Talisman from her coat.
She draws 3 short lines in the dirt, forming a triangle around
the grave. The wind begins to hush.
Spirit broken by law or. Will.
Drift not in. Echoes.
Return by name. Reveal the chill.
Whoa. An eerie hum rises, low and
discordant. The air warps slightly, like the
grave is exhaling. A faint moan echoes from beneath
the soil. Not loud, but close.
Don't like the sound of that? I knew it a resonance.
Resonance. Correct.
Valerius carved part of Lynn's identity from this place, the
graves remembering him even though he's not in it.
Oh, not a grave missing it's body.
Oh no, Danny, this is not good. What's the stitch?
This wasn't a possession after all.
This was a harvest. His death wasn't the end, It was
the start of something else. By the Spirit, you startled me.
I'm sorry. Forget it.
So you're saying whatever walked out of here wasn't Lynn?
Precisely. At least not all of him.
Just enough to pass. The grave no longer feels like a
resting place. It feels like a door left ajar,
and behind it someone breathing just slow enough not to be
noticed. Way of the Jaded Fist is a proud
part of the Project Zion theater, appearing in today's
episode where Desmond Childs as Danny Rose, Jessica and Bogart
as Esmeralda, Kurt Messener as the Monk, Michael Tooley as the
Voice of the Juncture, and Greg Kite as the Old Man, the one
who's probably been bewitched. Which brings me back to the
story. Danny Rose and Esmeralda have
discovered the use of forbidden magic by none other than Lord
Valerius, That shady mongrel. He's using name walking magic to
bring the dead back to life. But why and to what end?
Find out next time. I'm Raymond Getty, your faithful
show announcer. Thanks for listening and we'll
see you all next time. Some voices used were
implemented via text to speech or recorded remotely.
Voice actors were financially compensated.
Truly a blend of talent and technology.
Check out our show page Jaded Fist drama.wordpress.com.