IBGSW Chapter 121
The Ghost Fog of Wan'an
Zheng He had fallen into a strange state.
He spoke as though he feared death, and yet also as though he had long since made his peace with it. The result was an expression full of contradictions.
"By the end of this year?"
Zhao Fusheng asked.
Zheng He nodded.
"Yes."
"The malignant ghost won't last until then before it revives?" Zhao Fusheng asked.
"It's not only the ghost reviving," Zheng He said:
"You're a commanding officer too. You must know the court's rules for handling cases?"
As he spoke, he turned to glance at the Fan brothers.
Beside him, Fan Bisi's eyes flickered at those words, and for some reason Zheng He had the feeling he looked guilty.
"I know them."
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Zheng He went on:
"Three cases every year."
Zhao Fusheng found the man rather interesting.
She had been in Baozhi County for only two days. When she first dealt with Zheng He, he had been dark and vicious, like a walking malignant ghost, and the moment they met he had attacked her at the first word of disagreement.
Once he found he couldn't win, he had turned very sensible, able to bend when he had to.
She couldn't tell how he fared at handling ghost cases, but he was clever, and had performed his duties as an assistant flawlessly. That included suppressing the ordinary people who had been used as bait last night, and tidying up afterward. He had done well at both.
He was treacherous and savage, afraid of death, and hardly a man of great principle. Yet now that the subject was death, he seemed remarkably calm.
"I won't be able to finish this year's cases," he said.
He shook his head.
"Failing the quota is the same as breaking the ghost servant's contract. That kills me too."
In other words, even if he escaped dying when the ghost he controlled revived, he would die when the ghost servant came to collect.
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
The Fan brothers waited quietly to one side without a word. Zheng He paused, and was about to say something more when Zhao Fusheng asked:
"What do you plan to do afterward?"
The words he had been about to say went back down his throat. His face was stiff and cold, but his mind was not slow, and he answered at once:
"I'll keep the secrets of Baozhi County, of course—"
Zhao Fusheng's name had been entered into the Soul-Life Register, yet she had found a way out from under the ghost servant's control. To the court that was a grave taboo, and she presumably didn't want it known.
"As for you having come to Baozhi County, I'll find a way to keep it quiet—"
"Liar."
Zhao Fusheng laughed softly and cut him off.
"You don't want to keep it quiet, and you couldn't if you tried."
"The moment we leave, you'll report it to the court and wait for someone to come and take over your mess."
"..."
The smile on Zheng He's face slowly faded, and the blotches on his skin darkened a shade.
Zhao Fusheng didn't mind. She said lightly:
"Keep a good watch on the Red Spring Opera Troupe for me. As for your predicament, I have a way to help you with it."
"What?"
Zheng He's head snapped up.
His faintly gray pupils contracted sharply, and on that face as stiff as a ghost's, a trace of very human eagerness appeared.
"My lord, what do you mean by that?"
"I can resolve the ghost case in Baozhi County for you, and I can suppress the problem of your ghost reviving."
Zhao Fusheng looked at him, smiling.
"Whether you report the double-ghost case to the court is your choice. Once you've thought it over, send someone to Wan'an County to find me."
"..."
Zheng He's heart and lungs had long since been eaten hollow by the ghost, yet hearing her words, his chest still heaved as violently as it had when his organs were whole.
"My lord—"
He wanted to ask more, but Zhao Fusheng said no more to him. She turned and climbed into the carriage:
"It's getting late. Prepare to set out."
"Oh, and don't repair the damage to Ding'an Tower. Leave it exactly as it is now."
Her voice drifted out of the carriage:
"Unless I give other orders later."
"...Yes."
Zheng He answered without thinking.
The driver cracked his long whip, the horses lifted their hooves, the wheels turned. The two carriages were already far away when Zheng He seemed to remember something and ran a couple of steps after them:
"My lord, is what you said true?"
He had thought he was certain to die this year, but her words had undeniably given him a thread of hope.
Handling the ghost case would be easy enough.
Zhao Fusheng had already proven her ability by resolving the double-ghost case. But suppressing his own ghost's revival was no light matter.
Even the court's generals couldn't solve such a problem. How did Zhao Fusheng dare say she could?
Was she bluffing him?
While Zheng He stood there, his expression shifting between doubt and hope, Gu Jiansheng, his face wrapped in bandages, watched Zhao Fusheng's carriage recede. After holding back for a long while, he gathered his courage and said to Zheng He:
"Deputy Commander, if you want to throw in your lot with Lord Zhao, why not send me to Wan'an County as a hostage1—"
"Get lost!"
Zheng He barked at him.
...
Meanwhile, on the road home, Zhao Fusheng and the Fan brothers were all in good spirits.
Fan Wujiu was grinning so hard his eyes had disappeared:
"I never thought we'd come back safe from a ghost case this time."
Not only had they not died, they hadn't even lost an arm or a leg.
"When Zhao Dayou and his wife appeared last night, I was so scared my soul left my body..."
Fan Bisi was excited too.
But hearing his brother speak so carelessly, mentioning Zhao Fusheng's parents like that, he shot Fan Wujiu a warning look before saying:
"It was Lord Zhao's skill."
When it came to this case, Fan Bisi was utterly won over by Zhao Fusheng.
He had read many of the Demon-Suppression Bureau's case records, and had seen Zhao Qiming handle ghost cases with his own eyes. Quite apart from the extraordinary peril of the process, once a case was done, Zhao Qiming would go through a clear period of losing control.
Large numbers of order envoys dying alongside him was nothing new.
When the Zhao couple appeared last night, their aura was savage, and that violence had even made many weak-minded ordinary people lose their composure. The two brothers had been badly frightened too. Yet a case like that had been dissolved by Zhao Fusheng in an instant.
Most important of all, with so many people on the scene, not one had died.
It was simply unbelievable!
Who knew what means she had used to resolve the case, but it left the Fan brothers both fearful and reverent.
And she hadn't lost control. She was exactly as she always was, as if she had never used a ghost's power at all.
They had set out pessimistic and had never expected to return safely.
By Fan Bisi's count, this was already the second time Zhao Fusheng had led order envoys on a case and brought everyone back safe both times. That was a very big deal indeed.
Fan Bisi's somewhat gloomy face gradually eased into a look of relief. He stole a glance at Zhao Fusheng, and his eyes seemed a little brighter than before.
Zhao Fusheng was happy too.
The trip to Baozhi County had paid off handsomely. Besides the gain in merit and the successful investiture, she had taken a coin from the ghost Zheng He controlled.
More than that, she had lured the Ghost Carriage to Baozhi County, reducing the risk of a ghost calamity erupting in Wan'an County and passing that landmine, for now, into Zheng He's hands, with Zheng He none the wiser.
She thought of the carriage full of gold, and her heart grew happier still.
Seeing her relaxed expression, Fan Bisi seemed able to guess her thoughts and hurriedly said:
"Congratulations, my lord. On this trip to Baozhi County, Xu Yachen and the others, Lord Zheng included, pledged a total of thirty-four thousand taels of gold."
Hearing the figure, Zhao Fusheng's smile deepened.
Fan Bisi smiled along:
"But since these people don't have enough gold on hand, we've collected nine thousand taels first..."
At that, Zhao Fusheng's smile froze:
"They faked their donations?"
"Faked?" Fan Bisi was taken aback. Zhao Fusheng explained:
"I mean they shouted the slogan but couldn't actually come up with the money?"
"They wouldn't dare cheat you!"
He had shaken his head halfway, then thought of human nature and hurriedly added:
"There may be a few fishing in troubled waters, but most wouldn't dare."
"Mainly it's that Baozhi County is only so big. Nine thousand taels of gold is probably already most of the county's reserves. The rest will be sent to Wan'an County bit by bit afterward."
Zhao Fusheng breathed a sigh of relief.
"Besides the money, six households asked last night about moving to Wan'an County. They're also asking about the shops in front of the Demon-Suppression Bureau, and are willing to pay two thousand taels of silver a year in rent."
Zhao Fusheng ran the numbers roughly in her head and nodded:
"Now that we have money, we should first fill out the staff the bureau's offices need, and have the storefronts repaired and tidied."
The money had originally been donated to her by gentry and wealthy merchants, and by unwritten custom it should have gone into her private holdings.
But since Zhao Fusheng had taken charge of the bureau, she had shown no taste for luxury or display, and no interest in handsome men or finery. From what Fan Bisi had observed, her only hobby seemed to be handling ghost cases.
He remembered what she had said the day she was revived as a ghost-controller: Eat the sovereign's pay, serve the sovereign's cause... as a commanding officer or order envoy, one should protect the people of a region... handle ghost cases, keep the people safe, uphold justice.
He had thought she was raving at the time. Now he wondered: could she have meant it?!
"...Yes."
Fan Bisi answered hesitantly, then added:
"But this is no small sum. By past custom, repairs to the bureau should be paid for by silver allotted from the court—"
"Where does the silver the court allots every year come from?"
Zhao Fusheng asked curiously.
"The yamen treasury," Fan Bisi explained:
"Local yamens generally collect taxes, and if the bureau needs funds, the court's decree allows it to draw on them first."
In other words, under certain circumstances a local county government could be considered the bureau's private coffers.
"But the annual taxes owed to the court can't be shorted either, so if the bureau draws on the treasury, the local yamen simply raises taxes."
At this, Zhao Fusheng said:
"So it would be squeezed back out of the common people?"
"...Yes."
Fan Bisi nodded.
"Forget it."
Zhao Fusheng had been a little interested at first in hearing about the treasury, but on learning where the silver came from, she shook her head:
"My Wan'an County doesn't have many people left as it is. Tax them more and they'll all run off. Then what would be the point of me being a commanding officer with no one under me?"
She went on:
"The court has given up on Wan'an County. In a sense, that makes Wan'an County my territory. We'll use this gold to overhaul the yamen, but keep the accounts straight. If I ever get the chance to go to the Capital, I'll find someone to settle them with."
Fan Bisi nodded: "I'll see to it when we're back."
"I'm going to rest for a bit. Don't disturb me."
She had faced the Ghost Carriage last night. Though the night had seemed to pass calmly, she had been tense the whole time and was quite worn out.
The Fan brothers answered, and Zhao Fusheng closed her eyes to rest.
Time passed bit by bit, and the carriage left Baozhi County's territory and entered Wan'an County's.
The instant they crossed over, a thin layer of cloud appeared in the sky from nowhere and covered the sun.
Moments earlier the sun had been blazing. Within a short while its light had taken on a murky, grayish cast.
By the time the party reached Wan'an's county seat, it was afternoon.
A faint, barely visible haze hung over the town. It was only the eighth month and still well before dusk, yet the whole county seat felt as tense as if a storm were coming, black clouds pressing down on the city walls.
Fan Bisi's relaxed expression tightened the moment they re-entered Wan'an County, and his nerves involuntarily drew taut.
He was about to turn and speak to his brother when he saw that Zhao Fusheng, who had been dozing against the carriage wall, had at some point sat up straight and was looking out of the carriage with a grave expression.
"My lord—"
Fan Bisi was startled, then called out.
Zhao Fusheng sighed softly:
"It seems something happened in Wan'an County while we were away."
She could sense a faint, barely perceptible trace of a malignant ghost's baleful aura.
Where the haze lay, a chill peculiar to ghosts drifted, making people feel stifled and gloomy.
It was as though the fear and unease in one's heart had been magnified a thousandfold, leaving a nameless fury looking for a way out.
Fan Bisi felt something was wrong too.
As the carriage rolled through the crumbling city gate, the driver tugged at his collar without thinking and shivered with cold.
It was extremely quiet. The wheels clattered over the ground, the sound suddenly loud enough to grate.
After a while a soldier guarding the gate crawled out from some corner and shouted:
"You lot..."
He shouted with his head down and shoulders hunched, his face blue-black with cold, so listless that he had none of a soldier's spirit. Only after he had finished shouting did he seem to see the carriage clearly. Spotting the Demon-Suppression Bureau emblem displayed on it, he knelt down in terror.
The carriage didn't stop. It drove straight into the city.
After it left, the soldier seemed to remember something. He scrambled into a thatched pavilion nearby, where a great bell hung, and rang it with all his strength.
Dong—
The bell soon broke the stillness and echoed through the eerily silent county seat.
This was a signal method unique to Wan'an County. It meant something big had happened.
Meanwhile, in the county yamen, Magistrate Pang, haggard and frantic, could not sit or stand easy.
In the two short days since Zhao Fusheng had left, he seemed to have aged ten years, his back suddenly stooped.
When the bell sounded inside the yamen, he gave a violent start and summoned his secretary:
"Am I hearing things? I thought I just heard—"
"A bell." The secretary, also suppressing his excitement, said with certainty:
"It's the bell!"
"On the day Lord Zhao installed that old bell at the city gate, she said it would carry messages by sound. One stroke means something big has happened, and three mean danger."
The secretary said:
"Now it has rung once, which means something has happened."
But what important thing could be happening in Wan'an County now? For everyone in the county seat, the most important thing in the world was Lord Zhao of the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
Everyone's safety depended on Zhao Fusheng.
Now the bell had rung. The secretary felt it was hardly possible, yet he also dared to hope:
"Could it be, could it be that Lord Zhao has finished the Baozhi County case and come back?"
"Lord Zhao is back!"
Magistrate Pang leapt to his feet, and the anguish on his face vanished.
He was not the only one who heard the bell. The gentry, Yu Weide among them, heard the signal too, and everyone guessed that Zhao Fusheng had returned.
"Quick, quick, quick, I'm going to the bureau—"
The same conversation played out in the homes of many gentry and wealthy merchants. The quiet dead city, at the news of Zhao Fusheng's return, seemed instantly to come back to life.
