IBGSW Chapter 124
Trouble Among the Gentry
"—my lord."
Zhang Chuanshi had not expected his single slap to be so powerful. As soon as he finished what he was saying and saw Yu Weide drop to the ground, he finally realized what had happened. His eyes trembled and he raised his voice:
"My lord!"
The cry quavered. He knew now how bad it was.
He scrambled back behind Zhao Fusheng.
At the sight of Yu Weide on the floor, the secretary cried out:
"He's dead!"
The crowd, already frayed by Yu Weide's banging, understood that this was very bad. They turned, saw Yu Weide on the floor, and echoed without thinking:
"Someone's been beaten to death! Someone's been beaten to death!"
Zhang Chuanshi had never imagined he had "killed" a man with a slap. Panicked and terrified, he wanted to slap his own face:
"Show-off! Show-off!"
He was truly afraid Yu Weide was dead.
Yet in his darker heart he hoped the old man was merely faking it to draw everyone's attention.
The Yu family had standing in Wan'an County, with many descendants. If the old man died under Zhang Chuanshi's hand, the Yus would never let it go.
The only way out was for Zhao Fusheng to protect him. If she did, the Yus would be no problem.
Having worked this out, Zhang Chuanshi's legs buckled and he knelt with a thump:
"My lord, I've been wronged—"
"He was faking it to extort me! Yu Weide has long been old and decrepit, he shakes when he walks. Today I saw the dark cast on his brow, so I worked out that something was wrong with him, and never expected he'd stage this to scam me!"
Zhang Chuanshi wailed loudly:
"I only saw he'd been bewitched and wanted to help him come to his senses!"
"With the injuries I've got, how much strength do I even have to hit anyone? How could I have killed him? Impossible! Impossible!"
Afraid of getting stuck with the blame if he spoke too slowly, he shouted his innocence before Zhao Fusheng could say anything:
"I don't think Yu Weide is dead. He may be faking. If you let me pinch his philtrum1, I swear I'll wake him!"
Zhang Chuanshi had learned his lesson this time.
He didn't dare act rashly on his own, and wanted Zhao Fusheng's go-ahead to cover himself.
Otherwise, if he split the old man's lip, wouldn't the Yu family come to make trouble?
Some gentry on good terms with Yu Weide glared at Zhang Chuanshi in anger.
Yet amid their panic, a trace of relief flickered in the crowd's eyes.
It wasn't very decent, but the instant Zhang Chuanshi knocked Yu Weide down, the maddening, liver-chilling tapping had stopped.
Just as they were privately glad, a faint tapping seemed to reach everyone's ears again.
Clang, clang, clang—
The moment the sound came, the crowd exploded!
Whoosh!
Not only Magistrate Pang and the rest sucked in cold air, but even Zhao Fusheng felt the hair on her back stand up as it rang out.
"Who? Who is still tapping?"
Magistrate Pang asked in terror.
Everyone was shaken and horrified, but Zhang Chuanshi was the happiest of all.
He snapped his head up and asked gleefully:
"Has Yu Weide woken up?"
Unfortunately, Yu Weide had not.
He lay limp on the floor, his cane a foot or so from his body. The tapping was not coming from his cane striking the ground.
If it wasn't Yu Weide, where was the tapping coming from?
While the crowd was still shaken, someone suddenly murmured:
"It's dark—"
The words were like a signal, and many trembled.
"It's dark..."
"It's dark."
For these past nights the whole of Wan'an County had heard the hammering after dark. After two nights, as more and more households had someone who, as if their soul had left them, began tapping on things, the crowd had come to dread the clang-clang with every fiber.
From the time Zhao Fusheng's carriage stopped before the bureau gates, then the crowd escorted her in and sat to talk, less than half an hour had passed. It had still been early, and yet in a moment it was as though night had fallen.
Outside it was pitch dark.
Tonight's darkness came fast and sudden. Outside, Fan Bisi shouted for people to light the lanterns, and Fan Wujiu loudly scolded:
"Don't try to steal Lord Zhao's gold, or I'll chop off your hands."
"..."
In the midst of such a tense and eerie atmosphere, Fan Wujiu had somehow started worrying about Zhao Fusheng's money.
The brothers' exchange clashed with the mood, yet oddly it untied a knot of worry in Zhang Chuanshi's heart.
A strange look flashed through the old man's big eyes and was gone. He cowered and glanced at Zhao Fusheng, and already he could hear the bang-bang tapping outside.
At first it was faint, only occasionally sounding, but within moments it had found a rhythm and was growing louder.
"My lord!"
Magistrate Pang drew a deep breath. That familiar, scalp-tingling feeling had returned, along with the fast, urgent hammering.
"It's, it's this sound—"
"Don't panic."
Zhao Fusheng waved a hand:
"Things have to be dealt with one at a time."
While everyone was at a loss and nearly frightened out of their wits by the sudden darkness and the tapping, Zhao Fusheng's calm and composure were, to the anxious crowd, like a Sea-Settling Needle2 in a surging tide.
Zhang Chuanshi, who had been kneeling and wailing, stopped crying at once without needing a rebuke from Zhao Fusheng.
"The first thing now is to confirm whether Yu Weide is dead."
Zhao Fusheng said in a low voice.
This ghost case in Wan'an County had come quickly and strangely.
The ghost hadn't appeared, yet it had silently struck down Yu Weide. It was truly vicious and savage.
With her word, Zhang Chuanshi felt reassured. He crawled forward on his knees several paces to Yu Weide's side, tucked the Soul-Life Register inside his robe, and reached to feel the old man's neck.
He was in the coffin trade and had some experience judging how long someone had been dead.
The neck was warm, and most important, an artery in it was pulsing.
At the sight Zhang Chuanshi was overjoyed: "My lord, he isn't dead!"
Once sure the man was alive, he was no longer afraid. He lifted Yu Weide's upper body and propped the old man's head on one arm.
Then he put out a finger and pinched hard above Yu Weide's upper lip.
Zhang Chuanshi was vicious and ruthless with his hands. His fingernail was long, and the pinch left a deep groove in the old gentleman's lip, sinking the long nail in for a good stretch.
"Ah—"
Yu Weide, who had lain as if dead, felt a stabbing pain through his daze and let out a scream, his lashes fluttering.
Whew. Zhang Chuanshi breathed a great sigh of relief and cried excitedly:
"My lord, I knew he was faking!"
Clang—clang—
The tapping rang on and on in everyone's ears.
At first, hearing that Yu Weide wasn't dead and had been pinched awake, the crowd had breathed easier.
But as the clang-clang sounded again, the strings in their hearts tightened once more.
Zhang Chuanshi hadn't thought much of it at first, but on hearing the two clang, clang strokes again, his body suddenly jerked. He let out a strange yell and shoved the old gentleman away to the floor like sending off a plague god.
With a heavy thud, Yu Weide was thrown aside.
Not only that, Zhang Chuanshi lashed out with his leg and kicked him twice, bang bang, and then, wailing like a ghost, rolled and crawled to Zhao Fusheng's side and screamed:
"My lord, save me!"
Zhao Fusheng's pupils contracted. She knew Zhang Chuanshi must have found something amiss.
He had been in close contact with Yu Weide. At first he hadn't said a word, and only after the tapping sounded did he act as if he had seen a ghost.
Before she could question him, a point of firelight outside seemed to drift toward the hall.
Clang—
Clang-clang—
The night thickened, and the tapping grew denser still. In the hall lay an old gentleman who had seemed bewitched and now was unconscious.
And that single flicker of fire floating in the air, flickering on and off, undoubtedly shattered the crowd's nerves. At last someone couldn't hold back and screamed:
"There's a ghost!"
"A ghost!"
The shouts of "ghost" spread like the strongest plague. Terror passed from person to person through the hall. Just as, overcome by fear, they were about to bolt for the door, Zhao Fusheng barked:
"Nobody move! Stay where you are!"
The several ghost cases she had handled in Wan'an County had laid a strong foundation and given her matchless prestige. Moreover, her earlier exchange with Yu Weide had revealed she had settled Deputy Commander Zheng's ghost case, and the fact that people from Baozhi County were one by one willing to move to Wan'an had made the crowd both revere and fear her.
Now with her angry shout the panic was checked at once.
Magistrate Pang, who had been rushing about like a headless fly and about to follow his secretary in a mad dash, slowly calmed.
Once calm, he recalled the groundless terror he had just felt, and found it both strange and frightening.
As the magistrate of a county the court had abandoned, who had lived through the several months when the bureau lost control and had long endured the Beggars' Alley ghost case in South City, Magistrate Pang's nerve ought to have been among the best of the lower officials of the Great Han Dynasty.
Yet for some reason, the moment he saw Yu Weide fall and heard the tapping begin, his defenses had collapsed quickly and he'd wanted only to run.
"Don't panic, don't be disorderly. Lord Zhao has returned and is right here at the bureau."
Once calm, Magistrate Pang knew what to do.
If Zhao Fusheng's meaning to Wan'an County was to handle ghost cases and keep the county secure, then Magistrate Pang's own role was to serve her well, firmly clear away her worries, and spare her anxiety over anything but ghost cases.
"Wan'an County now can't get out, so running won't save anyone. What place is safer than the bureau where Lord Zhao is?"
This made good sense, and the crowd, whose heads had been fogged by the terrifying sounds, came back to their senses.
Order was restored, and Zhao Fusheng gave Magistrate Pang an approving look.
She was about to speak when Fan Bisi's voice came from outside: "Why is it so dark in here?"
In a flash of firelight, the crowd saw Fan Bisi walk in out of the darkness carrying a lantern.
Zhang Chuanshi had truly worried the bureau was haunted, and when Fan Bisi appeared, his taut nerves relaxed and he couldn't help cursing:
"You whelp, don't you know that scaring people can scare them to death?"
Fan Bisi gave him a cold look, and since Zhao Fusheng was present, didn't bother with him.
Then he saw the crowd sweating, their faces pale, and in the middle of the hall an old man on the floor.
The old man had his back to him, body curled like a shrimp, a cane lying half a zhang from him.
Fan Bisi's eyes were sharp. Though he hadn't seen the old man's face, he recognized the cane and cried in surprise:
"Yu Weide?"
Outside, he and Fan Wujiu had been counting the gold and had called over some menials to ask what had happened in Wan'an in the last two days.
While they were talking, the sky had suddenly gone black.
This speed of darkening wasn't normal. He had told his brother to keep a close watch on the men unloading, then come into the hall himself, never imagining that in so short a time something would happen.
It looked as if Yu Weide had died at the bureau.
"He isn't dead."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head.
She had already sensed the cold aura of a malignant ghost all around.
Taking a deep breath, she suddenly turned to Zhang Chuanshi:
"Old Zhang, what did you find just now? Why did you panic like that?"
The sky had gone dark so suddenly, the tapping would not stop, and Yu Weide had collapsed so strangely; every event magnified the fear and unease in people's depths to the extreme.
Zhao Fusheng's calm at this moment was a great comfort to the crowd.
Zhang Chuanshi, who had been scared out of his wits, raised his head quickly when she spoke:
"M-my lord—"
Normally the old man was glib and quick, always rushing to speak and competing to curry favor, but now he even stammered.
But it concerned a ghost case, and he knew Zhao Fusheng's temper. He swallowed twice, steadied himself, and forced down his panic:
"I heard the tapping."
"..."
Hearing this, Magistrate Pang rolled his eyes.
"Nonsense!"
If Zhao Fusheng hadn't been in the hall, he'd have gotten up and cursed Zhang Chuanshi to his face.
"Everyone heard the tapping. What's so remarkable about that?"
Zhang Chuanshi had just made such a fuss that he nearly made people wet their pants.
Magistrate Pang endured it again and again, reminding himself: Zhang Chuanshi is an order envoy of the bureau, personally recruited by Zhao Fusheng. Give him a little face.
After calming himself this way he finally let out his breath, but still snapped back with the line Zhang Chuanshi had used earlier:
"Don't you know that scaring people can scare them to death?"
"No, no—"
Hearing him, Zhang Chuanshi knew the magistrate had misunderstood and waved his hands:
"I heard the tapping coming from Yu Weide's body!"
He was so anxious he wanted to scratch his face, but the wounds had only just scabbed over and he didn't dare touch them for fear the scabs would split and the blood spurt out again.
"My lord, I heard it clearly just now. The tapping came out of Yu Weide's chest!"
The moment he finished, everyone sucked in cold air and backed away several steps around the hall.
Hiss!
Whoosh!
Magistrate Pang, who had just relaxed, felt his heart stop for two beats and choked on his own saliva.
When he recovered, he rose in horror and staggered backward, and only the quick-witted secretary beside him held him up as they retreated.
The crowd wanted to rush for the doors, staring in terror at Yu Weide on the floor.
Fan Bisi wanted to run too, but he looked at Zhao Fusheng, who sat in the seat of honor and hadn't moved, and rooted his feet to the spot.
