"Hey, Sherry." "This is Jensen." "Miller and I are going out of radio range to check out that Chinatown leak." "Personally, I think the guys around here are probably doing too many loads of laundry." "Ten-hour, Jensen." " Sherry's got a thing for me." " Oh, yeah." "That must be why she avoids you like the plague, huh?" "Let's go." "Come on." "Wanna get tickets for Monday's game?" "No." "I think I'll pass." "What is it with you?" "You never wanna have any fun." "I'm a busy guy." "Does that bother you?" "Hey, what's that?" "Look at this." "We've got a crack in the casement here, huh?" "It's pretty small." "It's probably just auxiliary pressure off the main breach." "Let's give it a whack, anyway." "What the hell." "Check it out." "What the hell is that stuff?" "Bet you this junk sunk down here after that big one in 1906." "The latest tremors must have shaken it around a little." "Oh, mama." "I think I've found me gold." "Gold?" "Looks like brass to me." "Oh, come on." "This could be worth something." "It's just ashes." "No big deal." "Just dump them right here." "I'm gonna come back here tomorrow, when I got more time." "See what other stuff is down here." "Knock yourself out." "Come on." "Let's go." " Still no sign of a break." " It's gotta be down here somewhere." "I told you we should have taken that last turnoff." "Shut up." "Let's split up here at this branch, okay?" "I'll meet you back here in 10 minutes." "Hey, Miller!" "There's a woman running around down here." " What?" " A Chinese..." "Jensen." "Where are you?" "Still looking." "Come on, baby." "Where'd you go?" "Since the beginning oh time  mankind has existed between the world oh light  and the world oh darkness." "Our secret society has been here horever  protecting others hrom the creatures who inhabit the shadows and the night." "Known only to the initiated by our true name  The Legacy." "There is a nice lady." "Let me give her a kiss." "Come here with your finger and your hand." "Bravo, bravo." "Well, you certainly got him under control." "You better hope so, or you'll be missing a couple of fingers." "No, don't worry." "Our little friend is quite harmless now." "The toymaker's spell is finally broken." "Good morning." "Luna Foundation." "One moment, please." "Dr. Rayne, it's for you." "Can you put it on the speakerphone?" " Derek Rayne." " Derek, old hriend." "I trust your morning meeting has concluded with satishaction." "Lee Tzin-Soong." "We've just finished, as if you didn't already know." "To what do I owe this honor?" "There's an article in today's paper I'd like to discuss with you." "Well, maybe you could be a little bit more specific?" "Alex." "So good to hear your voice." "Perhaps you may have overlooked the mysterious disappearance  oh a city maintenance man in Chinatown." "I did not, actually." "I read in the Chronicle that the police were pursuing a couple of leads." "But it's not really up our alley." "Oh, wait." "Foolish me." "I must assume, then  that you are not aware oh the story coverage in our local Chinese paper?" "No." "I'm afraid we missed that." "Well  I urge you to look at it." "Then perhaps you'll come and visit me at the Cultural Center." "Bring up the Chinese edition." "Okay, translating." "Scanning for key phrases." "Look at this." ""The mysterious Chinese woman alluded to by the missing worker may very well have been a ghost."" "A ghost?" "This does call for a visit to the Chinese Cultural Center." "Wait a minute." "One reporter's speculation that someone may have seen a ghost and you're running out the door?" "Well, Rachel, ordinarily this wouldn't be a reasonable course of action." "But then, you haven't met Lee Tzin-Soong yet." "I've never been here before." "It's beautiful." "Lee Tzin-Soong." "It's a pleasure to see you again." "Oh, Derek." " Life is treating you well, I see?" " Yes, fine." "I'd like you to meet my colleague." "Dr. Rachel Corrigan." "What an honor finally to meet you." "And delighted that we're both working in Legacy." "The honor is mine." "Yes." "Well..." "So let's see." "In good health." "But working far, far too hard, like your father." "Let's see this." " Have you been drinking my tea?" " On and off." "Let me see your eye." "More off than on." "I'll make a new batch of tea for you." " And you." " Lee Tzin-Soong." "Dr. Corrigan." "In excellent health." "Fiery dragon horse energy." "Thank you." "Well, last night, as I was meditating I sensed that the feng shui of Chinatown was seriously disrupted by an unknown source." " The feng shui?" "The spirit of place?" " Yes." "The energy of an entire area." "Derek." "This is my granddaughter, Mei-Ling." "She's grown up, huh?" "Mei-Ling?" "Hello, Dr. Rayne." "Dr. Rachel Corrigan." "Thank you." "I guess it's been quite a while." "It sure has." "The last time I was home from college you and Grandfather were so tied up in your men's business I don't think you even remembered my presence in the room." "Oh, no, I remember that day quite well." "You were wearing a rose-print dress and a gardenia in your hair." "That's quite a remarkable memory." "Mei-Ling has consented to take you to the tunnel site where you will begin your investigation." " Thank you." " Yeah." "No problem." "Miller, Jensen's partner, drew this map of the tunnels for the reporter, Mo Quan." "The bottom of this ladder puts you here." "The two of them split up around here and Jensen disappeared about here." "Great." "Good luck, Dr. Rayne." "It's Derek." " Do you need a ride back?" " No, thanks." "I'll walk." "It was great seeing you again, Derek." "I look forward to hearing how this turns out." " Dr. Corrigan." " Hey, thanks a lot." "So not quite the little girl you remember." "It's amazing." "She's turned out to be quite a young woman." "Well, yeah." "These things happen, you know." "And a young woman with a crush on you, I'd wager." "Look at this place." "Yeah." "Let's look at the map." "Jensen and Miller must have split up over there." "Right." "The junction is 100 yards ahead." " Down there?" " Yeah." "I don't like this place." "Hey, what's this?" " A crack in..." " No, Derek, wait." "Look." "Look at this." "These are fresh pick marks." "Oh, you're right." "It's loose." " Can you get this out?" " I'll try." "Derek, there's stuff in there." "Oh, my God." "Look at that." "Come on." "What have we got here?" "Look at this." "What are they?" "Pieces of wood?" " Chinese writing." " Look at that." "What's this?" "Hurry up." "Come on." "Let's go." "I told you to stay down!" "Don't you know how to count to 100?" "Piece of cake." "These people are pushovers." "Three stores in three days." "Beats working for a living." "I think you're lucky that old man didn't know kung fu." "I'll give you kung fu." "If he tries that with me, he gets two of these behind the ear." "The funny thing about robbing that Chinese guy." "A couple minutes after, I'm hungry." "What do you say we go get some...?" "What the hell?" "These are funeral artifacts from the inner sanctum of the Temple of Azure Clouds." "This is the insignia of the temple, the chop, on a nametag." "How come I've never heard of the Temple of Azure Clouds?" "Well, it no longer exists." "In 1906, the earthquake completely destroyed it." "Its location was lost to antiquity." "But this is from 1895." " Bad time for us." " Yeah." "Chinese immigrants and railroad workers flocking to the city for work." "They were treated with extreme prejudice." "You're very knowledgeable." "Where have you been keeping her from me?" "Last night, I was in my men's club and a fellow member came up to me, Zhou Zhan." "He said he was robbed by two persons." "Today, he was interrogated by police who said they found the robbers' car soaked with blood." "How does that connect?" "Well, Zhou Zhan did not talk to the police very much, but confided in me." "He said he saw the two men murdered and carried away by a female kuei." " A kuei?" " A Chinese fox spirit." "A ghost that kills." "Yes." "And if not stopped will kill again and again." "Okay." "This is where you found the funeral artifacts." "Now for the city map." "And we put them both together." "That should give us the exact location of the inner sanctum's vault." "You're looking at the 500th block of Mason and the intersection at Clay." " Excellent." "One thing about ghosts, Chinese or otherwise they like revisiting their resting places." "So you wanna go have a look?" "Let's go." "Hey, Alex." "Now that we've got a time frame, have you found anything?" "Alex?" "Oh, God." "This stuff is just so depressing." ""An overwhelming outbreak of racial oppression."" ""Claim jumping and massacres in the gold fields."" ""Building the transcontinental railroad on the back of the coolie for slave wages." And finally:" ""A total ban on Chinese immigrants and massive deportations."" "I had an uncle who was hanged in the South around the same time." "My great-grandmother told me about it." "I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 maybe." "She literally took me on her knee." "She wanted me to know so that I would never forget." "She told me of how they beat him." "The things that they did to him." "I can never get over how horrible it must have been for her." "They made her watch her son being hanged and she was powerless to do anything about it." "It just makes me feel like nothing has changed." "Now, the temple will be spread out over this entire area and according to this overlay, the inner sanctum is this way." "So the inner sanctum, is it like a mausoleum of sorts?" "More like a holy place." "Chinese Buddhism has very elaborate burial procedures to prepare for the transition into the next lifetime." "I wish I believed in reincarnation." "I'd like to know if I was gonna get another shot at life." "Yeah." "Who wouldn't?" "Have a look at this." "It looks like some kind of religious offering." "The fox spirit has killed three times." "Extremely vengeful, dangerous kuei." "Mr. Lee, there must be something meaningful we can do to stop her." "I think the urn is the key." "But the Chinese characters are so small and damaged in the weather I can't make them out." " Well, perhaps we can." "The microlaser was able to pick up what we needed." "These pictograms were on the urn." "This is from the Temple of Azure Clouds." ""Gao Ziyan her immortal soul has been clouded with evil and revenge." "And her ashes have been ritually sealed to prevent her from returning to this world."" "It's strange that this urn was left behind." "The fox spirit could have snatched it up if she didn't want to be found." "I agree." "Don't forget, the three corpses they were hung in such a precise manner." "Could there be a connection between the victims?" "Your friends were terrorized by two of them." "The third one is obviously Jensen, that worker who disappeared." "Jensen could've been killed by the kuei for desecrating the vault and stealing this urn." "The other two robbed and brutalized a local merchant." "So the kuei, whose soul is clouded by evil and revenge is taking out her anger on people who prey on the Chinese." "Okay." "So if it's a revenge motive, then I think the answer has to lay in history." "Well, Alex, cross-index murders in Chinatown with the name of Gao Ziyan, starting in 1800 till 1899." "Well, that's pretty broad." "It's gonna take some time." "It's getting late." "I have to go too." "Keep me up to date, please." "Mei-Ling?" "Maybe I ought to stay here." "They may need my help." "For more translations." "That's very kind." "Why don't we start from here?" "May I come in?" "Of course." " Are you comfortable?" " Absolutely." "For an old house, it sure has cozy rooms." "Yeah." "Well Alex called it a night as well." "She'll get back to work in the morning." "So that just leaves the two of us." "Yeah." "What shall we do?" "I was wondering about the fox spirit." "Business." "The bedding and food Nick and I found in the alley struck me as unusual for a ghost." "Not for a Chinese ghost." "Chinese ghosts, having had a far different cultural life than their Western counterparts have a far different afterlife as well." "I see." "Chinese family relationships in life are extremely close." "Is that so?" "That closeness continues after death." "They've even been known to  make love." "Really?" "Oh, yes." "Even if the ghost is obviously somewhat older." "For the Chinese, age is respected." "It goes without saying that the old can teach the young many things." "He said we would never meet him again." "So Derek." "How are things with you and Mei-Ling?" "It doesn't take a psychic to figure out what happened last night." "There was enough afterglow at breakfast to light up the whole damn house." "Well, I guess you could say things between us are very good." "Very good." "Here it is." "An anti-Chinese riot ended with the lynching of three men on the same street, just over 100 years ago." "The whole thing makes me sick." "Oh, and keeping with the sentiment of the time no names were given." "The victims were simply referred to as "three Chinamen."" " Any subsequent stories?" " One brief follow-up." "No suspects arrested." "Three men killed, and before the blood was dry it was yesterday's news." "Well, one thing's for certain." "Racially-motivated killings, hangings in the same street." "That's why Gao Ziyan's ghost is out to kill." "Well, think about it." "This woman, this fox spirit we're after she must have lost what?" "A father, a brother a husband to a lynch mob?" "Back then, she was helpless to do anything about it." "Now she's anything but." "It still doesn't make what she's doing right." "I'm not saying it's right, Derek, by no means." "But I know in Gao Ziyan's mind, it feels right to her." "Alex." "Well spoken." "You made a great case in there." " Thanks." " Feels good, huh?" "It does, actually." "I think you even convinced Derek." " Really?" " Yeah, judging by his silence." "He's not one to back down from a fight, especially if he thinks he's right." "That's certainly true of the Derek I know." "Anger." "It's a good tool, great." "It cuts through a lot of stuff." "But, Alex, you gotta be careful." "It's a double-edged sword." "You use it aimlessly, you're gonna cut yourself." "I hear you." "But it sure felt good." "Yeah." "Hey." "Copies of the Sai Gai Yat Po, newspapers, journals, diaries." "I put out the word and this is the response." "I'll examine these to leave the two of you alone." "He knows about last night, doesn't he?" "You know it's next to impossible to keep a secret from my grandfather." "He could read my face when I got home." "So I told him we spent some time together." "That's one way of putting it." "The proper Confucian way." "He understood." " About what happened last night..." " Derek." "No explanations are called for." "In fact, nothing's called for." "But I feel I should at least..." "To make anything more of it would be like, as Grandfather would say:" ""Putting legs on a snake."" "Legs on a snake?" "Too complicated." "Not necessary." "Oh, I see." "If I didn't mention it before, Derek you were wonderful for an old ghost." "Wait!" "I've found what we're looking for." "Look!" "We must move quickly, set the trap tonight." "Because from what I've been reading I'm certain the fox spirit will kill again." "These two men were cremated and buried with proper Buddhist ceremony." "This man, Tang Hua, was not." "He was buried in the pauper's cemetery." "And his young wife to be was Gao Ziyan." " The fox spirit?" " Without a doubt." "Her family was opposed to her upcoming marriage and disowned her, just prior to the murders." "According to this journal, the night after her fiancé was killed Gao Ziyan swore she wouldn't rest until Tang Hua had a proper burial and "the blood of her killers flowed red in the streets."" "Ultimately helpless with nowhere to turn for justice or comfort, she committed suicide." "My God." "So the fox spirit wants Tang Hua also buried with proper ceremony but she can't do it all alone." "Until her fiancé's body is put to rest she will continue her angry, vengeful killing streak." "So we need a Buddhist priest from 100 years back?" "No." "Traditions last for centuries." "I can perform the ceremony." "So first we have to find out where Tang Hua's buried and then someone has to invite the kuei to the ceremony." "She appeared above the temple ruins." "And she will return there." "She will kill again, unless we do something." "Yes." "So we've got to move fast on two fronts." "The old pauper's cemetery is over here." "So we split into two teams." "Rachel, Mei-Ling with me to deal with the fox spirit." "Alex, Nick and Mr. Lee to the cemetery to locate Tang Hua's corpse." "What do we do when we find it?" "Cremate it." "What is he saying?" "He says that she was here and that she was very angry." "She went over there, down into a culvert or a manhole and the ground was trembling very loudly." "We have to get into the tunnels." "No." "No." "No." "We've got our work cut out for us." "There's a whole mess of markers here." "Here." "Point your light on this." "This is Tang Hua's name in Chinese." "You look for this." "I'm gonna go on ahead." "You look around here." "All right." "Must have been some kind of seismic disturbances down here." "The street vendor did say he heard some rumbling." "Wait a minute." "There's light here." "Derek, can you see in there?" "Looks like candlelight." "That's it." "Right here." "Look." "Looks like it to me." "We found it!" "Lee Tzin-Soong!" "Lee Tzin-Soong!" "Can I get some light down here?" "Shouldn't I go get him?" "No." "He'll show up here sooner or later." "We don't need him yet." "With two of us working, we'll get done a little quicker." "Got it." "It's some sort of altar." " You all right?" " Yeah." "Man, this place is really fragile." "My God." "Look at this." "The temple must have slipped down into this fissure in the earthquake." "You all right, Mei-Ling?" "Easy does it." " You go right, we go left." " Okay." "Tell her we're here to help." "Tell her we understand what happened to her." "It's a terrible thing that happened to Tang Hua." "What did you tell her?" "I told her that we know that she wants a ceremony performed so that her and Tang Hua can be reunited and Grandfather was at the cemetery performing it." "The ceremony will stop the killing." "If she trusts us." " Oh, no." "She's going to the cemetery." " She wants to see for herself." "Yeah?" "Derek?" "Have Lee Tzin-Soong perform the ceremony now." "Go find Mr. Lee." "He's not here." "We separated." "Without Lee, she won't trust you." "You have to leave now." "She's coming." "She's already here." "No." "No." "Be cool, Alex." "She doesn't know if she can trust us." "She's looking for Lee Tzin-Soong." "Just take the light off of her, really slowly." "You can trust me." "I'm here to help you." "Easy, Alex." "Nick, she knows I understand about her." "She knows how I feel about this." "I swear." "We will give Tang Hua a proper burial." "You have to let go." "May the spirit of Tang Hua reenter in another life unburdened by the pains and sorrow of this world." "May the ghost of Gao Ziyan be finally laid to rest." "May the punishment she suffers for her deeds in another incarnation be followed by peace and reunion with the light."