IBGSW Chapter 130
Carrying the Ghosts Away
The sight before them left Zhang Chuanshi and the others speechless.
There were too many ghosts here!
A rough count put them at several dozen at least.
It seemed West City, being near the Ghost Mausoleum, had been the first to suffer, and the dead had become the Mausoleum ghost's ghost servants, summoned here.
Though Zhao Fusheng had dealt with several ghost cases, this was the first time she had seen revived ghost servants in droves, and her back prickled too.
Zhang Chuanshi, stiff all over, kept shooting Zhao Fusheng looks, signaling that the four should leave at once.
She ignored him and cleared her throat:
"Fan—Fan—"
Fan Bisi stood rooted, not moving.
He had thought that groping forward in the dark and holding hands with a ghost was already the most terrible thing in the world.
But now, seeing the ghosts gathered in a crowd, the accumulated chill climbed slowly up his legs and spread along his spine to his limbs and bones.
His soul seemed to have been cut off from his body. He didn't hear Zhao Fusheng's first call, and only after she'd called several times did he ask, in a shaking voice:
"M-My l-lord... what is it?"
"Where is the Ghost Mausoleum's seal?"
After the initial shock, Zhao Fusheng soon calmed.
She found that although there were many ghosts, really only one malignant ghost was here; the rest were merely ghost servants summoned after it killed.
The ghosts' first aim was to destroy the seal. The four's rash entry hadn't triggered an attack, and all the ghosts were gathered around the stone pillar, hammering.
Once she was sure of this, Zhao Fusheng at once grew bolder.
She studied the ghosts closely.
Some held coachman's whips, some broken bowls, some farm tools.
What the ghosts held should be tied to their state before death.
Though the ghosts' implements were mixed, with so many of them the show of force was alarming.
Stout as the pillar was, it wouldn't withstand so many ghosts hammering at it.
And the ghost seal had been placed in the middle of the eighth month last year, a year ago, so its power had been fading, which was why the ghost of the Ghost Mausoleum had revived.
If this were allowed to worsen, the summoned ghost servants would probably destroy the seal completely before long, and once it broke, matters would be grave.
"..."
Her words left the three, who'd been stunned stupid, slow to react.
After a long while, Fan Bisi finally managed, with effort, to move his eyes:
"My lord, you mean—"
"I'm asking where the seal is," Zhao Fusheng repeated.
Clang-clang-clang—
Ding-ding-ding—
The hammering was ceaseless.
Fan Bisi didn't answer. Zhao Fusheng lost patience and raised her voice:
"Is the seal on the pillar the ghosts are crowded around?"
At her shout, all the hammering seemed to stop for a moment.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Zhang Chuanshi and the others nearly had their hearts stop.
But after a moment the familiar ding-clang hammering resumed.
Oddly, the sound that had made Magistrate Pang and Zhang Chuanshi's hair stand on end earlier now, when it came again, gave them an inexplicable sense of safety and relief.
"My lord..."
Zhang Chuanshi tugged at her clothes and whispered:
"Let's go."
They couldn't solve this here.
The ghost case that had erupted at the Ghost Mausoleum clearly wasn't one the Wan'an bureau could handle.
"Where to?"
Zhao Fusheng asked, her face somewhat cold.
"Back to the bureau first, and then think of something—"
Zhang Chuanshi whispered.
As he spoke, the corner of his eye kept watching the ghosts, and though he knew they had lost the senses they had in life, he still feared that a louder voice might trigger the ghosts' killing rule.
"I think Master Zhang is right."
Magistrate Pang nodded.
He was only a frail old magistrate, and not being frightened to death by now already showed plenty of courage:
"We can't solve this. Clearly the Mausoleum's seal has lost its effect. For now we should find a way to inform the court and ask it to send someone to seal the Ghost Mausoleum again."
Among ghosts, too, higher ranks suppress lower ones.
Once a general-rank figure laid an imprint with the ghost he controlled, the Mausoleum would be held down again, and the calamity naturally lifted.
Fan Bisi nodded too.
Compared with Zhang Chuanshi's simple fear of death, Magistrate Pang's words were reasoned and well founded, convincing both Fan and Zhang.
"We can't leave."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head.
Zhang Chuanshi, anxious, was about to speak, but she went on:
"You've seen the situation. The Mausoleum's ghost has summoned ghost servants. With this many ghosts hammering at one seal, how long do you think it can hold?"
Under the gray sky Zhao Fusheng looked calmly at Magistrate Pang.
Not far behind her, countless dead, holding tools, were hammering at the pillar.
The eerie, terrifying scene contrasted sharply with Zhao Fusheng's calm questioning.
"If we leave West City now, even if we send word to the court, by the time the court's people get here it's hard to say whether Wan'an County will still exist."
The outline of this Ghost Mausoleum case was now basically clear.
The ghost's main act was hammering at the seal.
The hammering sound was the medium of the ghost's marking: anyone who heard it had a chance of having their chest drilled through by the ghost's hammering and dying.
Once dead, they revived at once as the ghost's ghost servants, and, drawn by the sound, went to the Mausoleum to break the seal.
As time passed, the ghost would kill more and more.
Once it had killed enough, one of two things would happen.
First: the ghost would advance in rank.
The Mausoleum's seal had been left by a general-rank figure, and for now could still hold the ghost back, but that suppressing force was clearly weak now, and the ghost was only being confined here, unable to step out.
Once the ghost advanced, it was hard to say whether the fading seal could still suppress the ghost of the Ghost Mausoleum.
Second: the more dead, the more ghost servants the ghost summoned.
With more servants all attacking the pillar together, the destruction of the seal was only a matter of time.
"Once the seal breaks, what good is the court sending someone?"
Zhao Fusheng asked, then added with some humor:
"Maybe if whoever comes has any conscience left, they'll bow to the dead."1
"..."
In this situation, the others couldn't laugh. Their faces were terrible.
"And whether the court will send anyone isn't certain. You know best what Wan'an County's situation is." Zhao Fusheng looked at Magistrate Pang:
"If the court's people haven't come by then, well, the ghost won't wait. Don't forget, your wife has already been marked by the ghost."
Magistrate Pang didn't dare make a sound.
He thought of his bewitched wife and saw he had no way out.
"What do we do?"
Fan Bisi looked at Zhao Fusheng.
She hadn't panicked, and had just resolved the case of the Zhao couple's revival in Baozhi County. Perhaps she had a method.
"Fusheng, can you solve this ghost case?"
"I can reinforce the seal."
Zhao Fusheng said calmly.
"What?!" Zhang Chuanshi cried out.
Magistrate Pang, who had been drooping, felt on hearing this as if a thread of life had appeared in utter despair, and raised his head with some delight:
"My lord, is that true?"
"It's true. I can reinforce this seal." Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Her words filled them with surprise and joy.
Fan Bisi had had some confidence in her all along, and on hearing it he felt as if he'd swallowed a calming pill:
"What do you need us to do?"
In a few words Zhao Fusheng settled the three's flustered hearts.
"Is the seal on the stone pillar?"
Zhao Fusheng asked again.
She needed to confirm the seal's location in order to judge whether her guess that the ghost was destroying the seal was true.
Fan Bisi nodded quickly:
"Yes. Last year I went with Brother Qiming and General Zhu Minghui from the court, and we laid the ghost seal over there."2
He pointed toward the pillar the ghosts surrounded.
Magistrate Pang nodded too:
"The seal should be at that spot."
Having confirmed this, Zhao Fusheng relaxed:
"Good. All that's left is to draw the ghosts away so I can squeeze in and mend the seal."
She said it as if it were easy, but the moment the three heard "draw the ghosts away," their calves involuntarily cramped.
"..."
For a while they looked at one another, not knowing how to begin.
"H-how do we draw them away?"
After a long while, Fan Bisi swallowed and asked.
Zhao Fusheng had proposed a plan, but carrying it out would be extraordinarily hard.
But she seemed to have it all worked out. When Fan Bisi finished, she looked up, and her eyes passed over Fan Bisi and over the utterly dejected Zhang Chuanshi.
Under her gaze Zhang Chuanshi at once grew wary.
"My—"
He was about to speak, but Zhao Fusheng cut him off:
"Old Zhang, whose hands did you and Brother Fan hold on the way here?"
The question made both men break out in goosebumps, and again they began rubbing their palms hard against their clothes.
"Were they the dead's hands?"
"..."
"..."
Both men looked ghastly, cold sweat pouring down.
"My lord, stop—"
Zhang Chuanshi looked as though he were dying, and said weakly:
"Don't ask."
"If you two held the dead's hands, it proves that simple physical contact won't make these ghosts attack you."
At this, the corners of Zhao Fusheng's mouth curved as she tried to make her face look more kindly.
But Zhang Chuanshi's eyes widened as if he had seen a devil.
"You're not thinking of—"
Before he finished, Zhao Fusheng said:
"I think we should simply haul these ghosts away, all of us together."
"!!!"
In fact the moment she mentioned the two men holding hands with ghosts, Zhang Chuanshi had sensed trouble.
But he hadn't imagined she would really dare make such an outrageous request.
"I—I can't—"
Zhang Chuanshi shook his head desperately.
He deeply regretted that on the day Zhao Qiming's ghost revived he hadn't moved away at once instead of staying across from the bureau.
And that after Zhao Fusheng took a ghost under her control, in a moment of madness, as if a ghost had addled his wits, he had come to the bureau to collect a debt.
If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have met Zhao Fusheng, and wouldn't have been forced into the bureau. Now he couldn't leave, and staying was worse than death.
"My lord, kill me."
At Goutou Village he had been flayed over most of his body for no reason; his wounds weren't healed, and he now stayed alive only by the Soul-Life Register. And Zhao Fusheng wanted him to carry corpses that had already revived as ghosts...
Zhang Chuanshi made up his mind:
"Anyway I'm not going."
With that he sat down on the ground and made himself a stubborn lump no one could budge.
"Look at that attitude of yours."
Zhao Fusheng sneered, convinced she could still handle him:
"Brother Fan, Magistrate Pang, let's go—"
With that she turned to leave.
Zhang Chuanshi, who had been sitting on the ground, panicked on hearing it and scrambled to his feet:
"My lord, wait for me—"
Before he'd finished, she turned to look at him, and he knew he'd been tricked.
But Zhang Chuanshi was set on not carrying ghosts, so he planted his feet again:
"Anyway, right now I won't do anything but flee. You can either kill me, my lord, or I won't move."
He crossed his arms.
"..." Fan Bisi looked at him speechlessly, then braced himself:
"Fine, I'll go. I'm strong."
Zhao Fusheng had no time to argue with Zhang Chuanshi either.
While they talked, the ghosts were quickly destroying the seal, and more ghost servants were arriving one after another in the distance. There was no time to lose.
"Good," she said, having already made up her mind, and nodded:
"I'll carry the ghosts with you."
Fan Bisi had in fact been ready to act alone.
Of the four, Zhang Chuanshi had made up his mind to be dead weight, and Magistrate Pang was old, weak and timid, and no help.
Zhao Fusheng was, after all, the leader. Some things she needed only say and not do, and she would be the main force for sealing later, so no one would fault her for not hauling ghost corpses.
He hadn't expected that she would offer to help, and Fan Bisi was a little moved:
"My lord..."
"Don't say more. Time is short."
Zhao Fusheng waved off his words.
The two cautiously went forward and slowly approached the ghost cluster.
Though Zhao Fusheng had judged that the ghosts' first aim was to destroy the seal and that killing was only a bad side effect, anything could happen when dealing with ghosts.
And a slight slip might cost a life.
So the two stepped with great caution, and Zhang Chuanshi at one side couldn't help quietly turning his head to watch them.
Though Zhao Fusheng was on guard, she did not slow her pace.
Once she'd decided, she didn't delay, and a few steps later they were nearer and nearer the ghosts.
Five paces—
Three paces—
Two paces—
As she approached, the formerly chaotic hammering stopped at some point.
The ghosts stared coldly at the stone pillar at the center.
They were dressed differently and held different things, but all had the same pale, bluish faces, eyes like two bottomless pits.
The terrifying holes in their chests surrounded the pillar with the seal in the middle.
The ghosts' halting had Fan, Zhang and Pang with their hearts in their throats.
Fan Bisi stopped without meaning to.
But Zhao Fusheng, relying on the Investiture of the Gods, did not stop completely. She only slowed and tentatively approached the ghosts.
One step!
When she came up behind one ghost, all the ghosts moved at once, raising their hands in unison.
The arms that had been hammering rose high, and Zhang Chuanshi squeezed his eyes shut, not daring to cry out.
But in the next instant the ghosts brought their hands down together against the stone pillar: Clang!
The strike, a gathering of all their strength, was deafening.
