IBGSW Chapter 106
Ghost Shadow on the Red Gate
Zheng He's scrambled thoughts were quickly dragged back to reality by Fan Wujiu's cry.
Gu Jiansheng sucked in a breath too.
Under everyone's startled gaze, Zheng He fixed his eyes on the gate, and at the sight he couldn't help a gasp: Hiss!
Zhao Fusheng's hand faced the Sun mansion's vermilion door. Centered on her palm, gloom spread invisibly outward and bore down like a weight.
She had done something, and a layer of invisible film seemed to tear away from the door.
Countless jet-black handprints appeared across every part of the mansion gate.
The knocking of the copper ring, the marks of pushing it open, the motions of closing it behind someone. It was as if the door had been a living thing that had recorded the fingerprints of everyone who'd ever touched it.
"This is—"
Zheng He could hardly believe it:
"Are these fingerprints?"
"Prints left by everyone who ever knocked on, opened, or passed through the Sun family's door?"
The strange sight frightened him and made him quickly forget the golden bell he'd heard earlier.
He stared wide-eyed at Zhao Fusheng in disbelief:
"How—how did you do that—"
The previous commanding officer of Wan'an had been Zhao Qiming, and the ghost Zhao Qiming controlled had been one his father had once controlled.
As a veteran of the bureau, and with the two counties being neighbors, Zheng He had kept track of Zhao Qiming, and knew his ghost's rule: "give first, take later."
Zhao Fusheng herself had admitted she'd nearly been killed by this ghost and had succeeded in controlling it by accident, which meant the ghost she'd inherited was Zhao Qiming's.
But Zhao Qiming's ghost didn't have this ability!
How had she done it? To make a gate surface every mark of those who had passed by, as if she could trace the door's past, was like the folk legend of "the dead picking up their footprints."1 It already belonged to the realm of gods.
Zheng He's mind was a mess, and he stared at Zhao Fusheng, wanting an answer.
But Zhao Fusheng had no time for him.
The moment she'd seen the two vermilion doors, the thought had come to her to use Hell's power to test her guess.
The planks the Zhao couple had lain on after death had been stamped with ghost shadows, making the bureau's two door planks peerless malevolent objects.
A malignant ghost's killing rule left traces.
If the Sun family had died at the hands of the Zhao couple, the ghost's mark would surely remain on the doors.
Her Hell now held the Shikong Ghost Bell. The bell had the power to travel through the stream of time and could trace targets, and it was what gave the Ghost Carriage its direction.
With a thought she unleashed Hell over the door, and the Shikong Golden Bell's effect was clearly borrowed. The marks on the door surfaced one by one beneath Hell's shadow.
"..."
Zheng He was stunned, and the Fan brothers and Gu Jiansheng stared at the dense handprints, too shocked to speak.
Zhao Fusheng didn't answer Zheng He. She kept going.
Hell's shadow covered the whole vermilion gate. The Fan brothers and Gu Jiansheng couldn't see Hell with their eyes, but Zheng He had already sensed its threat.
And the most terrifying thing was not the fingerprints.
As the whole gate was blanketed by the first level of Hell, just when everyone thought Zhao Fusheng would stop there, another eerie scene unfolded.
All the surfaced fingerprints faded one by one, and a faint baleful aura floated up from the gate.
Black air seeped out from the middle of the planks. A wave of fear swept Zheng He and raised every hair on his body.
The black air gradually formed a picture, a strange "human figure" about seven chi tall2. No, to be precise, it was no longer a "human figure" but something more like a ghost shadow!
"What is that!!!"
Zheng He couldn't hold back any longer and cried out.
The "figure's" face couldn't be made out. Blood light wrapped in black air, its baleful aura soaring to the sky, chilling anyone who looked at it to the bone.
The Fan brothers and Gu Jiansheng went numb with horror at the ghost shadow's appearance, hair standing on end so hard their bound topknots pulled painfully at their scalps.
"Gh-ghost!"
Gu Jiansheng's legs gave out at the sight of the ghost shadow.
He finally understood why Zhao Fusheng had rebuked him earlier and told him not to touch things at random.
Zhao Fusheng said nothing. Once Hell completely covered the gate, the ghost shadow appeared.
Wreathed in black air, a malignant ghost's reflection was imprinted on the door.
The Sun mansion, inside and out, was deathly still. The ghost shadow's black air churned, so shaking the three envoys that they wanted to cover their heads and flee.
At first Zheng He, too, was stunned by the sudden ghost shadow.
But he was a ghost-controller, after all, and he soon recognized that this wasn't the malignant ghost itself but a residual image left by one. He didn't know what power Zhao Fusheng had used to force the ghost's imprint to appear.
Gu Jiansheng was the least able to bear it. The instant the shadow appeared, he was so frightened that he went limp and crumpled to the ground.
By comparison, the twin order envoys from Wan'an, though their lips were white with fear, at least stayed on their feet and didn't try to run.
Malice rose in Zheng He, who thought Gu Jiansheng was embarrassing himself and wished he could kick him to death.
"Stop howling like a ghost."
He lifted a leg and kicked him.
Zheng He's strength was enormous. Had Zhao Fusheng not been right beside him, causing him to hold back, that kick would have broken Gu Jiansheng's bones.
Even restrained, it hurt so much that Gu Jiansheng yelped "Ow!"
"It's only an image the ghost left. It's not the real ghost."
The sharp pain finally jolted Gu Jiansheng out of his terror. Hearing Zheng He, his heart eased slightly.
But even if what was on the gate wasn't a real ghost, the image was too frightening for him to dare look up.
Gu Jiansheng was full of regret at that moment, wishing he could chop off the hand he'd used earlier to push the door.
He kicked his legs, trying to get up, but they were limp as noodles.
Zhao Fusheng slowly withdrew her hand and looked at the gate on the other side, which was shut:
"It looks like there's no need to force the other door. My mother's ghost shadow should be on it."
At this point in the case, there was no longer any doubt about the ghosts' identity.
When Fan Bisi saw the ghost shadow, he thought of the door planks in the bureau that day. Hearing Zhao Fusheng, he nodded silently.
Zheng He didn't dare speak.
Two ghosts committing crimes together was beyond his ability.
He couldn't handle this case or deal with two ghosts, so he could only rely on Zhao Fusheng and follow her in everything.
"Do you have any leads on this case, my lord?" Zheng He asked, adjusting his attitude.
"Two ghosts. Going by the pattern so far, I'll tentatively say they come out at night," Zhao Fusheng said, looking at the gate. Then she slowly shut Hell down again at the cost of 5 points of merit.
As Hell withdrew, the ghost shadow on the gate gradually vanished and the mottled fingerprints faded away bit by bit.
The vermilion gate looked just as before, with dried, irregular blood stains, but remembering the strange scene, no one dared look straight at the two doors again.
"After the two ghosts commit a crime, the ghost shadows get imprinted on the door planks. I infer the ghosts' killing rule is centered on door planks."
Hearing this, Zheng He knew she was summarizing the case's rules and braced himself, quickly committing her words to memory.
"A ghost kills one household at a time, and after the killing, the ghost shadows stay imprinted on the doors." Remembering the fingerprints on the gate, Zhao Fusheng went on:
"Anyone who touches a door the ghost shadow was left on gets marked by the ghost, and after that the ghost follows the fingerprints and claims lives one by one."
From the time she arrived in Baozhi and brought up the ghost case to arriving at the Sun house, a little over two hours at most had passed, yet she had already summed up this many rules for a ghost case that had left Zheng He helpless.
While Zheng He stood in a daze, Zhao Fusheng asked him:
"Did the people of Kongyun Temple die the same way?"
"Y-yes. Yes, yes."
Hearing her question, Zheng He hurriedly answered:
"The runners reported they all died the same way, they were... were disemboweled by the ghost..."
"Were there corpses laid on door planks, too?" Zhao Fusheng asked again.
"..." Zheng He's face stiffened. He glanced at Gu Jiansheng on the ground and couldn't answer.
The twenty-seven dead at Kongyun Temple were all either monks or poor scholars lodging there. Since the deaths were suspected to be from a ghost calamity, Zheng He had avoided it like the plague and never dared go to the scene.
The people forced to go had been Baozhi's yamen runners.
When a ghost case was involved, those ordinary people were terrified, and weren't about to observe closely. They could only report in general terms, and knew none of the details.
Zheng He, stumped by the question, said quietly:
"I'll have it checked out right away."
"Mm."
Zhao Fusheng nodded and said:
"In handling ghost cases, life depends on it. You can't afford to be sloppy about any detail. If you misjudge a ghost's rule or features, you may not get a chance to correct the mistake."
"..." Zheng He's face showed disagreement.
He was already half buried in the yellow earth, near death, and neither handled ghost cases nor wanted to. He just wanted to live out the next two years comfortably and be content to die.
He considered himself to have handled three cases, and that his existing experience was enough to hold the post of commanding officer. Zhao Fusheng's experience was good, but he didn't want to learn from her.
But he only dared think this in his head, not say it aloud.
Zhao Fusheng, sharp as a tack, had guessed something from his lack of response despite his blank expression.
She wasn't angry. Everyone had their own fate. If Zheng He listened to her, fine. If not, then in a while, when she had a free hand, the best thing would be to find a way to absorb Baozhi into Wan'an's domain and kick Zheng He out.
"Have someone check whether the Kongyun Temple gate is a double door, and whether, among the families who died to malignant ghosts in the past half month, any had visited Kongyun Temple before the ghost case broke out and were marked by the ghost that way."
Since the evidence wasn't conclusive, Zhao Fusheng didn't dare draw too many conclusions. She had to wait until Zheng He got the information before she could confirm.
But what she meant stirred something in Zheng He:
"Do you mean the Kongyun Temple monks may have been marked by the ghost by coincidence, and the temple was then slaughtered by it? And that Kongyun Temple's gate was temporarily possessed by the ghost, so anyone who touched the gate might be marked?"
In other words, everyone who had visited Kongyun Temple was on the ghost's hunting list.
"Right."
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
In fact, by her judgment, the Kongyun Temple monks had most likely been marked by the ghost through no fault of their own.
The ghost had been searching for its malevolent object, the door planks, and by chance had found Kongyun Temple's gate, and the temple's monks had died horribly.
But Kongyun Temple's gate wasn't the malevolent object originally bound to the ghost. After killing, the ghost left, yet from the planks it had possessed it had marked the living who'd touched the gate and begun hunting them.
Zhao Fusheng added:
"By now it may not just be Kongyun Temple's door. Every household that has suffered a ghost calamity and been hunted by the ghost may have door planks marked by the ghost."
She looked at Zheng He, her expression extremely serious:
"And anyone who had dealings with those victims is very likely the ghost's next target."
Zheng He wasn't stupid either.
With her laying it out so plainly, he immediately grasped how serious it was.
A case that had been complicated suddenly became clear and simple after her analysis.
Zheng He, who had been helpless in the face of the unknown ghost case, now understood the ghost's killing route.
By her account, if Zheng He could compile a list of the earlier dead in advance and then list everyone who'd had dealings with them, they could predict the ghost's next move, and even estimate which household it would kill next!
"..."
Thinking this, Zheng He couldn't help feeling a flicker of excitement and eagerness.
Zhao Fusheng is amazing! he marveled to himself, glancing at the Fan brothers:
Where on earth did these two order envoys from Wan'an find such a monster? She seems born to handle ghost cases.
She controlled a ghost yet wasn't affected by it.
She obviously controlled the ghost of "give first, take later", yet seemed to have another hidden malignant ghost that could track a ghost's movements.
None of that was what truly shocked Zheng He. What did was that she used the ghost's power as if it cost her nothing, using it at will, as if a malignant ghost's power were a treasure trove to her, inexhaustible, with no need to worry about consequences.
A ghost case that everyone feared seemed to her a trivial event.
She didn't seem afraid of malignant ghosts either, and spoke of them with perfect composure, so that when she handled cases she seemed not to be disturbed by emotion in the slightest.
"If we compile such a list, we may be able to work out the ghost's next move," Zheng He said.
"Right," Zhao Fusheng nodded.
"Once we've compiled the list, we can send people to the homes on it—"
As Zheng He got that far, Gu Jiansheng, sitting on the ground, shivered all over.
He couldn't help glancing at Zheng He and said softly:
"My lord," he called to get his attention, and then reminded him:
"This is a ghost case."
A ghost case was different from an ordinary case!
A malignant ghost didn't fear yamen runners, and so what if they knew the ghost's movements and predicted its actions?
Zheng He, who had been won over by Zhao Fusheng's deductions, felt as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head, and came to his senses:
"That's right, we can't send people to those homes—"
Ordinary people were out of the question. Even ghost-controllers risked their lives when they dealt with ghosts.
If they went to the homes on the list and met no ghost, fine. If they did, they might get wiped out in one sweep.
At the thought, Zheng He grew much calmer.
