IBGSW Chapter 107
The Red Spring Opera Troupe
Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"It's true we can't split up our manpower."
Half a month had passed and quite a few had died in Baozhi. If the ghost killed through gates as a medium, then even more people had been marked.
Baozhi had plenty of manpower, but most of its order envoys had come to join Zheng He because of his reputation, and were a mixed lot.
Zhao Fusheng was new here and hadn't sized them up. She didn't know how they performed in ghost cases.
Even if most were excellent, once split up their strength and courage would both be weakened.
Most important, the two ghosts this time were at least Baleful-tier, and with the two merged they could reach a terrifying Calamity-tier.
Zheng He, hearing that she didn't seem inclined to leave it at that, grew uneasy:
"My lord means..."
"Compile the whole list. Find everyone who had dealings with the victims or touched a door, and bring them to the bureau to report in."
If they couldn't split up, they'd simply gather together.
At this, Zhao Fusheng remembered the gentry and wealthy merchants who had clamored to see Zheng He at the bureau.
"Xu Yachen and the rest were so eager to find you. I suppose Squire Sun's death scared them?" she said with a smile.
Zheng He was still racking his brain over her earlier words, and, hearing her change the subject, answered reluctantly:
"They're all thick as thieves, breathing through one nostril. Sun..."
He got that far and suddenly understood what she meant:
"—those people may also be the ghost's next targets!"
Having said it, Zheng He shut his eyes, bared his teeth, and showed a rare flash of human pain on his stiff face.
"I invited Xu Yachen and the others to watch me handle the case. Those old men are all cowards who fear death and wouldn't budge. Looks like it's fate. Wan'an will soon have a few more big households paying taxes."
"My lord—" Even Zheng He, as bold and eccentric as he was, felt his vision go dark at this:
"Is that wise..."
He suspected Zhao Fusheng was planning something big.
Gathering so many people together, if the two ghosts came and she'd been bluffing and couldn't drive them off, everyone would be wiped out in one sweep!
Baozhi was one of the larger counties in the prefecture. Xu Yachen and the others were old, but many of them came from official families with plenty of court connections. If they all died in Baozhi at once, it would surely cause a stir in court and across the realm.
Zhao Fusheng had lost her whole family. She had nobody left; when she ate, her whole family was fed. But Zheng He had a family back in the Capital from before he started controlling a ghost, and he could never act as fiercely as she did.
"What's wrong with it?" Zhao Fusheng asked him, displeased.
Zheng He had controlled a ghost for years and considered himself a man who'd weathered great storms. What terrifying scenes hadn't he seen dealing with ghosts?
But Zhao Fusheng's words overturned his understanding.
His heart rejected it, and he racked his brain for an excuse:
"It's already late today. How could we get the list compiled in time—"
By now Zheng He thought Zhao Fusheng had truly gone mad.
At first he'd thought she wasn't affected by the ghost and acted with proper restraint.
But now it seemed she was deeply affected and only looked calm on the surface. Otherwise how could a normal person do something this reckless?
Gathering everyone who might have been marked by the ghost in one place was baiting a fish. It was openly displaying targets and inviting the ghost into the jar.
"..." She's gone mad!
Zheng He shook his head frantically in his heart and resented Gu Jiansheng for bungling things and bringing such a devil to Baozhi.
Her way of investigating a ghost's rule was impressive, but this way of acting was far too rash.
If he'd known, he'd have been better off letting Baozhi suffer the haunting and thinking of something else later.
Zheng He regretted it deeply.
While he was agonizing, Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"It is late, but compiling the list can't wait. Have it done overnight and hand it to me first thing tomorrow."
As she said this, seeing Zheng He about to speak, she raised an arm to stop him and added:
"Another case may come tonight—"
Here she paused briefly.
The pause was long. Zheng He had been listening helplessly, and after a while, when she didn't continue, he looked up in surprise at her, only to see Zhao Fusheng carry on as if nothing had happened:
"Have people find out as fast as you can the relatives, friends, and neighbors of whoever is hit by the ghost tonight, and tell me tomorrow."
Having said this, she looked at Zheng He:
"Did you hear that clearly?"
Her tone was mild, but she was not discussing it with Zheng He. She was telling him what to do.
"Do you really mean to do this, my lord?" Zheng He asked, his face dark.
It had come to this, and clearly she wasn't joking.
She turned and fixed her gaze on Zheng He until he got goosebumps and instinctively took a step back, taking a defensive posture. Then Zhao Fusheng smiled:
"Just do as I tell you. Don't ask anything else. Understand?"
Her tone carried no threat.
But Zheng He remembered how, the moment they'd met, they'd come to blows, the killing intent she'd shown, which had made even the ghost he controlled shrink back.
He couldn't beat her and couldn't do anything about her.
Having worked that out, he deflated like a punctured ball.
He answered helplessly.
"Let's go."
At that, Zhao Fusheng lifted a leg and stepped over the threshold.
"You're going into the Sun mansion to search again, my lord?"
Her action startled the others, and Zheng He hesitated for a long moment before following.
"I'm going to look it over again."
"Haven't you already looked?" Fan Wujiu, who also found the empty Sun mansion a bit creepy, scratched his head and said:
"You've already worked out where the ghost came from and found the link in how it kills. What's the point of walking in for nothing?"
Zheng He's steps halted, and he waited to see the show.
He hadn't known Zhao Fusheng long, but from their dealings he had crudely stamped an impression on her: stubborn, domineering, somewhat clever, reckless and heedless of the big picture, and unwilling to have her decisions questioned.
Fan Wujiu, questioning her in front of everyone, was undoubtedly challenging her authority, and she would likely discipline the twins on the spot to establish her power.
But the conflict Zheng He imagined did not happen.
Hearing Fan Wujiu's question, Zhao Fusheng said:
"You can't put it that way."
She shook her head:
"Everything I said before was only inference from seeing one pair of gates. Though I'm seventy or eighty percent sure, I still need more clues to confirm."
She turned and glanced at Fan Wujiu.
The two brothers had a rift with her, but Fan Bisi was clever and had shown sincerity several times since realizing she'd succeeded in controlling a ghost.
On this Baozhi trip, they had come with her knowing the danger, which made them decisive people.
Wan'an needed manpower now, and in the future she couldn't handle ghost cases alone each time. She intended to train the brothers, and said:
"Handling a ghost case is very dangerous. One careless slip and you may die."
"I have some confidence in this case, but not ten parts."
A malignant ghost could not be killed outright, and if she slipped up it would be certain death.
"If you're careless, even if you don't die once, you can't be sure you'll escape every time."
She paused, then continued:
"I'll be handling cases for a long time to come, and I'll need you two with me more often than not. You can't live long on luck alone."
Fan Wujiu scratched his head, but Fan Bisi caught the meaning behind her words, his eyes lit up, and he said nothing.
"..."
Zheng He gave Zhao Fusheng a strange look, thinking her a very odd person.
The group entered the Sun mansion and left Gu Jiansheng outside it.
He didn't want to go in.
But once Zhao Fusheng left, the big gate was eerily silent.
Perhaps the fright of the red gate's ghost shadow had stamped fear on him. He remembered how recklessly he'd pushed the door, and that his fingerprints might have stayed on it—
On the day of the Sun family's incident, he too had gone to inspect the scene as an order envoy.
It was like reliving the past, bloody everywhere.
The thick smell stung his eyes, and from somewhere he found strength, kicked off the ground, and shouted:
"My lords, wait for me—"
He feared the Sun mansion, but he feared being left alone even more.
Fear lent him strength.
Gu Jiansheng, whose legs had been limp, now ran fast, rushed into the mansion, even shoved Zheng He aside, and stuck close beside Zhao Fusheng.
"..."
Zheng He clenched and unclenched his fists. If Zhao Fusheng hadn't been there, he really wanted to give Gu Jiansheng a couple of solid punches.
The group entered the mansion.
It was a shambles inside, still bearing the horrors of the day of the ghost case.
Most of the relatively intact bodies had been collected. The Sun family's wealth had been plundered, leaving only bloody hasty footprints on the floor and some scratched silks scattered about.
In a mere half month, a powerful and prosperous family had nearly died out.
But Zhao Fusheng did see the door planks with bodies laid on them that Zheng He had mentioned.
As she'd expected, the planks came in pairs. The bodies that had been on them had been moved, but the brownish-black blood stains remaining showed how brutal the case had been.
"The removed door planks nearly all come in pairs. Single-leaf doors are intact."
—This also fit the pattern of the Zhao couple appearing together.
Having seen the Sun mansion's overall condition, there was no point in staying longer.
It was getting late, and Zhao Fusheng turned to go:
"Let's go. Back to the bureau."
The smell of blood here hadn't faded in half a month.
The bigger and grander the Sun mansion had been, the emptier and eerier it felt now that everyone was dead.
The others had been tagging after her, wandering around, and felt uneasy all over. Hearing her say they were heading back, they all let out a long breath.
"You won't look any further, my lord?"
Zheng He asked insincerely.
"I already had a good idea. I just wanted to be sure from every angle. No need to look more," Zhao Fusheng said.
She had used the Shikong Golden Bell's properties to find the ghost's imprint on the gate, confirmed the ghosts' identity, and from the fingerprints on the gate found the ghost's rule when hunting humans.
What remained was for Zheng He to investigate whether the Sun mansion and the various victims were linked to Kongyun Temple.
Once that was confirmed, this ghost case would be nearly thirty percent solved.
"Tonight I'll rest well. Tomorrow we prepare, and I aim to finish this ghost case by tomorrow night!"
What a boast!
Zheng He was nailed in place by her words.
Fan Bisi and his brother also found Zhao Fusheng's words hard to believe, but her earlier ghost cases had been handled beautifully, and the Fan brothers knew she'd escaped the Ghost Carriage's capture and had some faith in her strength.
So although her words were exaggerated, the Fans said nothing and quietly followed her.
The group left the Sun mansion and boarded the carriage. Only then did Gu Jiansheng breathe a long sigh of relief, then kept sniffing his clothes, feeling he reeked of blood.
Once they were seated, Zheng He smiled and said:
"You've come a long way, my lord. Tonight I'll have a few tables of wine laid on at Wangchun Tower in the county, to welcome you—"
He forced a smile:
"A troupe happened to arrive in the county recently with a few fresh plays, all the rage in the Capital. One of the troupe's dan1 actresses is young, but has a fine voice, and I specially kept her in Baozhi. Since you've come, why not come listen tonight?"
"Little Bailing?"2 Gu Jiansheng, who'd been shaking out his clothes, brightened at this and asked.
Zheng He ignored him. Fan Wujiu, hearing the words "Little Bailing," was quite surprised:
"Is it the Red Spring Opera Troupe?"
Though Fan Wujiu was only an order envoy, he was from Wan'an, so Zheng He gave him a little face and answered flatly:
"Mm."
"It really is the Red Spring Troupe."
Fan Wujiu turned excitedly:
"Brother, five years ago the Red Spring Troupe went to the Capital too. Brother Qiming took us to see them then. Remember?"
"I remember."
Mentioning the past, even the mature-beyond-his-years Fan Bisi showed a rare smile.
But the brothers quickly remembered that Zhao Qiming was dead.
The places were the same, but the people were gone. Thinking of those good memories now only added to the sadness.
Fan Bisi's smile froze, the light left his eyes quickly, and he returned to his usual grave, unsmiling look.
"Fusheng, the Red Spring Troupe is famous. Its troupe master was a martial role actor in his youth and is very capable. Five years ago the troupe had a dan named Bailing, a fine voice, and this Little Bailing—"
He turned to look at Zheng He as he spoke.
Hearing him call her "Fusheng," Zheng He only now learned Zhao Fusheng's personal name.
But he was surprised that an order envoy had been so impertinent and Zhao Fusheng hadn't flown into a rage and taken his life. Strange.
Still, it was Wan'an's business, and he couldn't say. Seeing Fan Wujiu turn to him, though he had no interest in dealing with an order envoy, he answered reluctantly for Zhao Fusheng's sake:
"She's Bailing's apprentice."
At this Fan Wujiu got excited and said to Zhao Fusheng:
"Fusheng, let's go together."
Zhao Fusheng looked at the two brothers with interest.
One was mature beyond his years, the other lively and bouncy.
She had always kept her guard up with these two, who were ruthless, but now, seeing Fan Wujiu eager to go play, she suddenly realized they were still young, only eighteen.
She smiled and said:
"You two go. I won't."
Until the ghost case was handled, she had no interest in such things.
"Go have fun for about four hours, then come find me. I have something to assign you."
She turned to Zheng He:
"Tonight's welcome banquet, they'll go in my place."
