IBGSW Chapter 116
Awing the Crowd
The ghost arm prodded the register, and it flipped back one page. A name appeared, just as she'd hoped: Zhao Fusheng!
Her eyes lit up. But in a heartbeat the three characters of "Zhao Fusheng" faded fast and turned back into "Zheng He."
She wasn't ready to give up. She jabbed with the ghost arm again. Crack!
A knuckle of the arm snapped. The register flipped back a whole stack of pages, and another name surfaced at random: Liu Honghong.
Before long, "Liu Honghong" vanished too, and Zheng He's name reappeared on the page.
"Forget it."
Feeling the cost, she lifted the ghost arm. Its clenched fist could no longer hold its grip. The whole arm had gone a dead gray, the baleful aura on it much thinner, and a faint rotten stench had begun to seep out.
"Looks like Zheng He is fated to meet this calamity."
She couldn't save him.
In principle, the register's list couldn't be altered. More precisely, her strength wasn't enough to force a change to the Ghost Carriage's rules. It would have to wait until she could think of something later.
But she had confirmed that the Ghost Carriage could no longer harm her. A person and a ghost shared a room, and the ghost that drove the carriage did not react at all.
She walked around the carriage, committing the ghost's features to memory. After looking for some time, a whim struck her: setting aside the loss of freedom, and the feelings of everyone else around, Ding'an Tower might, in a sense, be the one truly safe place in the world for her right now.
A Ghost Carriage that no longer constrained her, and that carried Disaster-tier menace. Even if she recklessly forced the ghost she controlled to the fore right now, the Baleful-tier give-first-take-later ghost wouldn't dare revive in front of it.
"What a shame."
She sighed. She had no way to take the Ghost Carriage with her.
Her Hell had only two levels and couldn't hold a Disaster-tier ghost. If the Ghost Carriage were taken into Hell, the Shikong Ghost Bell would combine with it and surely burst through Hell's confinement, and Zheng He downstairs would be the first to die.
Still, the Ghost Carriage's arrival was good news in one way. The Liu Clan Ancestral Hall could rest easy for the time being. If Liu Yizhen heard what a favor she'd done him by getting rid of the trouble, wouldn't he kowtow to her?
She shook her head with regret.
Just then, someone knocked at the door. Tap, tap.
"Who is it?"
She put her stray thoughts away, alert again, and barked the question.
The person outside seemed cowed by her tone. After a long moment, a timid voice answered:
"There was a noise upstairs just now. Lord Zheng and Steward Liu were worried something had happened to you, my lord—"
Before he could finish, Zheng He's voice rang out:
"Lord Zhao—"
At the sound of his voice, the Ghost Carriage's driver, which had been sitting in dead silence, twitched a finger.
On the register in its hand, the name "Zheng He" began to seep blood. That meant the ghost sensed its target nearby.
But without the Golden Bell to guide it, it could only sense that Zheng He was around, not exactly where.
The ghost horse stamped uneasily, its hoof landing on the wooden floor with a clatter.
"Zheng He, get lost!"
Seeing it going wrong, Zhao Fusheng roared:
"Get downstairs right now!"
"Y-yes, yes! Going now—"
Hearing her fury, Zheng He didn't stop to think. A string of panicked footsteps pounded away, and the ghost that had been on the verge of reviving sank back into stillness.
The remaining Ding'an Tower servant, shaking at her outburst, stammered:
"M-my lord, the hot water Lord Zheng ordered—"
"Leave it at the door and go."
With Zheng He gone and the danger over, Zhao Fusheng's voice settled.
The servant answered and tiptoed back downstairs.
Soon the floor was quiet again.
After a while, she took out her fire-starter and relit the lamp in the room. Perhaps because a Ghost Carriage was hiding in the room, the light was affected and came out dim. She opened the door and, sure enough, found several buckets of hot water outside.
Besides the water there were new toiletries and a change of clothes.
She carried the things in and washed up. When she was done, through the hole at the back of the room where the Ghost Carriage had burst through, she could see that the painted pleasure boats on the Shangjia River in the distance had lit their lamps.
But unlike last night, with the ghost case solved, the gloom hanging over Baozhi had been swept away. When the boats opened again, among the strings and flutes there was no faint, half-heard crying.
Tonight's festivities were no longer mixed with fear and grief.
Zhao Fusheng smiled a little.
She went out, carefully locked the door, and headed downstairs.
When she came down, Zheng He and the others were still there.
Zheng He's sallow face wore an uneasy look.
Earlier he had felt a palpitating dread, as if a natural enemy had appeared, and it had unsettled him badly.
That feeling had quickly passed, and just as he'd begun to think it was an illusion, an even more terrifying presence had suddenly appeared.
That fear went straight to his soul, as if it could take his life in an instant. It frightened him more than seeing the Zhao couple's ghosts appear.
While he was still on edge, a heavy crash sounded from upstairs, followed by the splintering of wood.
The whole of Ding'an Tower swayed twice. The people talking in the hall fell silent, and a flood of wood chips came clattering down.
That told Zheng He it wasn't his imagination. Something must have happened.
The upper floors had been cleared out, with only Zhao Fusheng up there.
He was curious what had happened, and uneasy about the noise. He had a premonition that something terrible had happened, and that it involved his own life. So on the pretext of concern for Zhao Fusheng he'd tried to go up and look, and hadn't even reached the room before being driven off.
Her tone had been grave then, and Zheng He had worried she'd settle accounts later. Now, seeing her come down calm, the weight on his heart lifted at last.
Fan Bisi, seeing Zhao Fusheng appear, didn't rush to ask about the noise upstairs. Instead he said with a smile:
"My lord, the Baozhi case is closed. Lord Zheng and the others just talked it over and want to hold a victory banquet for you."
Fan Wujiu chimed in:
"Steward Liu has already passed the word. The pleasure boats on the Shangjia River are getting ready."
Tonight the boats weren't being pushed into service.
Once the news that Zhao Fusheng had settled Baozhi's ghost case spread, every gentry family and rich merchant in the county would likely come running. They were all anxious to please her, so tonight's banquet was sure to be lively.
Zheng He forced out a stiff smile:
"There wasn't time to prepare properly. Otherwise we'd lay out every delicacy from the mountains and seas, anything you could name, my lord. Why not stay in Baozhi a few more days—"
"No."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head.
She didn't refuse the kindness of the banquet, but she did refuse Zheng He's attempt to keep her there:
"We'll rest tonight. First thing tomorrow morning we set out for Wan'an County."
At her words, Zheng He couldn't tell whether to feel relieved or regretful.
Zhao Fusheng was far too strong!
To Zheng He, her presence was both a help and a threat. After watching her drive off the Zhao couple, he didn't dare underestimate her at all. Before that, he'd thought that if she took a liking to Baozhi, he might have to petition the court to be transferred elsewhere.
But he was used to living in Baozhi and had long treated it as his own retirement territory, so he was a bit reluctant to leave.
As it turned out, he'd been overthinking. Zhao Fusheng had no intention of staying in Baozhi.
Hearing she was leaving, the string drawn tight in his heart eased, and then he began to worry about what would happen the next time a ghost case came up.
"Why such a hurry, my lord?"
He said quickly:
"The case has only just ended. Why not stay and recuperate here for two or three months?"
Wan'an County was now shrouded in ghost fog, with one disaster after another breaking out. He didn't know what method Zhao Fusheng had used to break free of her shackles (Zheng He guessed she hadn't been entered in Jia Yi's Soul-Life Register), but how could she possibly want to return to that land of exile?
"Wan'an County isn't peaceful, you know."
Zheng He sighed.
Zhao Fusheng shook her head:
"Wan'an County is my territory."
Precisely because Wan'an wasn't peaceful, and the ghost fog had made ghost cases more frequent, she worried that if she stayed away too long, trouble would break out there.
"I have to get back to handle cases."
"More cases?!"
Zheng He was startled to hear it.
He had pumped the Fan brothers for information the night before. He knew it was true that she had handled several cases before coming to Baozhi.
How could a ghost-controlling commanding officer handle so many major cases one after another? And from what Fan Bisi implied, most of the ghosts in her cases had grown into something formidable, nothing like ordinary minor hauntings. Wasn't she afraid her ghost would revive and kill her? Or had she already nearly died once, and so become uncommonly bold, no longer fearing death?
"We're commanding officers of the court. Of course we have cases to handle."
Zhao Fusheng gave him an odd look.
Seeing that she was set on leaving and not joking, Zheng He rubbed his hands:
"But my lord, tonight's ghost case—"
At the mention of the ghost case, Xu Yachen, Liu Rong and the others sitting at a distance all narrowed their pupils at once, ears twitching. As one they held their breath, watching from the corners of their eyes.
Baozhi's safety was at stake, and everyone naturally cared.
"What about tonight's ghost case?"
Zhao Fusheng saw what he was after but played dumb.
She walked to a chair, and someone filled a cup of tea and brought it to her hand.
"As you know, my lord, a ghost's killing rule... Many people in Baozhi have been marked by the ghosts—"
Zheng He stood beside her, smiling obsequiously:
"The ghosts have left tonight, but the killing rule hasn't changed. If they come back, the consequences are unthinkable..."
Before he'd finished, Zhao Fusheng took a small sip from her cup and let out a long breath of steam:
"No need to worry about that."
She said calmly:
"The ghosts won't be coming back."
"W-what do you mean?"
Zheng He didn't follow.
Fan Bisi was quick-witted. Seeing Zhao Fusheng's calm face, and recalling how she had dismembered and sealed ghosts before, a bold and astonishing idea surfaced in his mind.
"Could it be that you've already sealed the two ghosts, my lord?" he blurted.
"What?!"
Before Zhao Fusheng could reply, Zheng He cut in:
"Sealed? Impossible—"
He cried out instinctively:
"Calamity-tier ghosts. How could they be sealed so easily?"
"They had actually reached Disaster-tier," Zhao Fusheng reminded him.
Everyone qualified to be in the hall of Ding'an Tower shuddered hard at the word "Disaster-tier."
Xu Yachen, leaning on his cane, had a brilliant light flare in his old eyes. The muscles of his cheeks clenched as if he'd made some decision, and he tapped the cane on the floor.
At the thud, Xu Yachen startled himself.
Luckily, Zheng He and the Baozhi order envoys, and Liu Rong too, all had their attention on Zhao Fusheng, and no one noticed his slip.
In fact, hearing "Disaster-tier ghost calamity" brought on a chill of lingering fear in everyone.
"Disaster-tier—"
Zheng He's face was full of shock, and for a moment he could not speak.
Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"After these days of slaughter, each ghost had already advanced to Calamity-tier. Once they retrieved their door planks and pieced their strength together, they truly reached Disaster-tier."
The Investiture's rules for judging tier were strict.
Zheng He might be an old commanding officer with plenty of ghost-case experience by the world's measure, but the ghost he controlled was only Baleful-tier. And with him tucked away in Baozhi, his knowledge and horizons were limited. Facing ghosts above Baleful-tier, he could sense danger but couldn't tell the exact tiers apart.
Had someone of general rank come from the court, they would surely have seen long ago that the Zhao couple's ghost calamity was a Disaster-tier case or higher.
"What do we do?"
Zheng He had guessed that this double-ghost case was extraordinary, but hearing "Disaster-tier ghost calamity" still left him shaken with dread.
With the joy of the case's temporary end drained away, fresh worry flooded in:
"I have to report to the court and ask them to send someone to take over Baozhi."
He couldn't stay here any longer. If the ghosts came back, the whole county would be done for.
"That won't be necessary."
Zhao Fusheng said with a light laugh, cup in hand.
"Why not?!"
Zheng He asked, but the answer had already surfaced in his mind.
He turned toward Fan Bisi and saw him struggling to hold back his delight as he looked at Zhao Fusheng.
"Big Brother Fan already said so. These ghosts have been sealed by me. As long as I don't die, the ghosts won't appear again," Zhao Fusheng said, unhurried.
When she finished, the whole hall of Ding'an Tower fell dead silent.
"..."
Everyone forgot to speak. They even held their breath, and for a time all of them stood rooted as if something were lodged in their throats.
"Sealed..."
Gu Jiansheng came to his senses, and his eyes began to shine.
"Well, not exactly sealed," Zhao Fusheng said, and Zheng He felt a small relief: I knew it!
A Disaster-tier ghost calamity made of two ghosts. If a newly appointed official who'd held her post less than a month, with no veteran commanding officer to guide her, could seal that with ease, then the court's great generals would be thrown into a frenzy of shock. The Emperor himself could not have let such a talent stay in Wan'an County. He would have summoned her back to the Capital to serve at his side.
