Silence fell over the courtyard like a shroud. Chen Dazhu's pipe slipped from his fingers and clattered against a stone.
"Fifty years ago," Old Wu said, lowering his head to look at the beads. His thumb rubbed one bead in particular—darker than the others, almost pure black, a fine crack running across its surface. "Shanghe Village. The first child the Nail Borrower chose was my younger sister. She was six years old."
No one spoke. Even the wind had died.
"I would not let them burn her. I hid her in the cellar and watched over her all night. In the middle of the night, she woke. Her eyes were completely black. She asked to borrow my nails." Old Wu's thumb pressed into the cracked bead. "I gave her all ten of mine. Ten nails bought her ten more days. On the eleventh night, she still passed. But before she went, she returned the nails to me. She had strung the nails borrowed from others into this strand of beads and placed it in my hands. She said—"
He looked up. Something in those murky eyes had shattered.
"She said, 'You are the handler. Keep these nails. When I have borrowed ninety-nine, you will be free.'"
Xiulan's fingers dug into Nian'an's clothing. She understood now. Old Wu had never been exorcising anything. He had been collecting debts for the Nail Borrower. He believed that ninety-nine nails would set him free. So he kept collecting. Kept burning. Kept stringing new nails onto his beads.
But the Nail Borrower's rule had never been about the number ninety-nine. She simply liked to borrow. Ninety-nine had never been the end. It was the bait.
"So you meant to make Nian'an the ninety-ninth," Xiulan said, her voice shaking. "You thought one more nail and she would let you go. But you have collected ninety-eight, and has she released you? Fifty years, and you are still her handler."
Old Wu's lips trembled. He tried to speak, but no words came.
Then, from Xiulan's arms, a voice emerged.
"Ma—ma—"
The blood of every person present ran cold. The voice came from Nian'an's body. Muffled, as if through water, but unmistakably "Mama."
Xiulan looked down. Nian'an's eyes had opened. There were no pupils. Where the black should have been, there was only a dense, churning darkness, like two bottomless wells. Something moved in those wells. Something looked out.
Nian'an's lips parted. The voice that flowed from the nine-year-old's mouth was not a child's. It was an old woman's—ancient, rasping, carrying an accent from some unknowable dynasty.
"You said you would trade your nails for his?"
Xiulan trembled from head to toe, but she did not let go. She stared into those eyes that were not her son's and forced the word through clenched teeth.
"Trade."
The churning darkness paused. Then the old woman's voice carried a thread of amusement.
"One nail for one nail. Give ten for him, and I return ten days of his life. After ten days, I will come for the rest. His, or yours. You choose."
Xiulan looked down at her own ten fingers. Ten nails, intact. She remembered her grandmother's words—the human soul grows from the fingertips.
"Not ten days," she said, her voice impossibly soft. "Take them now. All ten. Give me back my son's life."
She set Nian'an on the ground and raised her ten fingers into the dying light.
All five nails on Nian'an's right hand turned black simultaneously. They detached and drifted into Xiulan's waiting palm. At the same moment, the five nails on Xiulan's left hand began to darken. Pain bloomed from her fingertips—a deep, seeping ache. She watched her nails darken, shrivel, and fall, mingling with Nian'an's five.
Ten black nails lay in her hand, cold as late autumn leaves.
Nian'an's eyes closed. When they opened again, they were normal—black pupils, white sclera, reflecting his mother's pale, sweat-sheened face.
"Ma…" His voice was hoarse. "My fingers hurt."
Xiulan took his hand. On his left pinky, a new nail was slowly emerging—pink, thin, flushed with new blood.
She looked down at her own hands. All ten fingers were bare. The nails were gone. It did not hurt anymore. Instead, there was a lightness she had never felt before, as if her ten fingers no longer belonged to her.
Old Wu collapsed to his knees. His prayer beads scattered, ninety-eight nail-beads rolling across the ground. He looked at the scattered beads, then at Xiulan's bare fingertips.
"You gave her your nails for him… When she comes again in ten days, what will you give her then?"
Xiulan did not answer. She lifted Nian'an into her arms and carried him into the house. The door closed behind her.
Old Wu knelt in the dirt, gathering the scattered beads one by one. When he reached the ninety-eighth, his hand stopped. He looked down at his own left pinky—the nail he had kept for fifty years, waxy yellow, twice as thick as normal. It was darkening.
A black line crept from the base, slow and steady, toward the tip.