IBGSW Chapter 131
The Potential of Running for Your Life
Zhao Fusheng was only a single step from the ghost horde. She could see clearly how the stone pillar, the one that held the safety of the Ghost Mausoleum in its keeping, shuddered heavily under the pounding of the ghosts.
The ghost domain had warped her vision, and with malignant ghosts packed around the pillar rank upon rank, she had no way of telling which one was actually in charge here.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ghost servants.
Her arrival had broken the horde's haphazard chiseling at the seal, yet they showed no sign of attacking her. The hands they had raised at first had been nothing but a false alarm.
After the scare, Zhao Fusheng's nerve came back.
She drew a deep breath, forced down the urge to retreat, stepped forward, and wrapped both arms around the waist of one of the ghosts.
Earlier, Zhang and Fan had held hands with ghosts and proved that these ghost servants wouldn't kill anyone, at least for now. Perhaps because these people had turned into ghost servants after death, these malignant ghosts were all real bodies turned ghost, and they could be grabbed.
The moment she had one in her arms, she bent her knees slightly and hoisted it onto her shoulder.
The ghost servant hadn't been dead long, but its corpse was icy, like a hard stone that had lain frozen in the ice for ages. The instant Zhao Fusheng gripped it, she felt as if all the blood in her body would freeze solid. The malignant ghost she controlled, which had sunk into temporary dormancy, was stirred by the ghost aura and seemed on the verge of reviving.
"..."
Zhang Chuanshi was so frightened that his bile rose. His mouth tasted bitter.
He hadn't expected Zhao Fusheng to be so bold, so fierce. A revived malignant ghost, and she simply went and hugged it, without a flicker of hesitation.
Zhao Fusheng retreated at a run with the ghost in her arms. Magistrate Pang and Zhang Chuanshi, seeing her come charging toward them, both wanted to bolt.
The sight was scary enough to kill, and yet it also had a strange, absurd, almost comic quality. Had the atmosphere and surroundings not been so wrong, Zhang Chuanshi would have laughed.
But right now he couldn't laugh at all. He even felt a little like crying.
"..."
Fan Bisi was terrified too.
But Zhao Fusheng's success in carrying a ghost out gave him great encouragement. While his courage hadn't yet run dry, he stepped forward, quickly scooped up a malignant ghost, and backed away.
The two returned to the spot where they had first crossed into the range of the Mausoleum's seal, and Zhao Fusheng set her ghost down.
The moment the dead man's feet touched the ground, he started on his stiff legs toward the pillar again. The ghost servant's hand was still raised in midair, still making digging motions. The smell of blood hit them full in the face and nearly turned Zhang Chuanshi's legs to jelly.
His face went iron-gray, and he scrambled backward.
"Old Zhang—"
Zhao Fusheng had only just called his name when, in a moment's inattention, the ghost servant on the ground took two steps forward. Luckily she was quick of eye and hand and clamped onto its collar; otherwise the ghost would have gotten away and all that effort would have been wasted.
"Don't call me, don't call me—"
Zhang Chuanshi lowered his head and muttered under his breath, over and over:
"Can't see me, can't see me—"
Zhao Fusheng ignored him and ordered flatly:
"Hold this ghost."
"I..."
He was about to refuse with a face like a funeral, but Zhao Fusheng's expression darkened at once and she barked:
"Hold him!"
At her fierceness, Zhang Chuanshi wilted on the spot. His body reacted faster than his mind, and by the time he came to himself, both his hands were already clutching the ghost's clothes for dear life.
Just then Fan Bisi came back too, shouldering a ghost. He set it down and shouted:
"Old Zhang, hold on to the ghost."
Having seen the ghost try to head straight back to the pillar the moment Zhao Fusheng put hers down, he'd grown wary himself, and now he copied her, telling Zhang Chuanshi to grab on.
"..."
Zhang Chuanshi wanted to curse him out, but in matters of ghost cases, Zhao Fusheng's word was always final.
Besides, he had already refused once to haul a ghost. If he refused again, he might set off her temper at a moment like this.
Fan Bisi had already dropped him in it three times tonight. He filed the grudge away in his heart and, tears in his eyes, stretched out his other hand and took hold of the ghost too.
Zhao Fusheng and Fan Bisi turned and went to haul more ghosts.
With the experience of this first successful "ghost-stealing," most of Fan Bisi's fear dissolved.
But fear never vanished; it only moved. It moved onto Zhang Chuanshi and Magistrate Pang.
Zhang Chuanshi was not strong, and now he was facing two ghost servants. The pressure on him could be imagined.
By the look of their bodies, these people were already dead.
And yet they were still moving.
Through the blood-soaked clothing, Zhang Chuanshi could feel the two lumps of dead flesh thrashing violently, with astonishing strength. It had even turned into a reverse case of ghost pulling man: they were dragging his scrawny frame toward the horde.
He bowed his back like a drawn bow, arched his feet, dug his ten toes into the ground, and tried to match the ghosts' strength.
But he was only a gaunt, withered old man of fifty-odd, no better than a big gray rat. How could he match two ghosts?
"Aaaah—"
He let out a heart-rending shriek as the two ghosts dragged him forward instead.
Magistrate Pang had been trembling in terror already, and the sight of Zhang Chuanshi's plight made him realize at once that this was bad.
There were too many malignant ghosts here. When Zhao Fusheng and Fan Bisi had rushed to carry ghosts away from the pillar, they'd skipped calling on Pang and Zhang, and Zhang Chuanshi had thought he'd gotten out of this dangerous job. Now it seemed there was no avoiding dealing with ghosts after all.
Zhang Chuanshi didn't have three heads and six arms1. The next time Fan Bisi and Zhao Fusheng came back with a ghost each, who would be left to hold on to them?
At that thought, Magistrate Pang hurriedly called out:
"Lord Zhao, let me help too."
He would rather help carry dead men than be forced, like Zhang Chuanshi, to hold two corpses. One wrong move and he'd be dragged into the horde by the dead.
"My lord, save me—"
Zhang Chuanshi was still screaming.
Zhao Fusheng had just shouldered another ghost servant's corpse. Turning back, she saw Zhang Chuanshi's predicament and wanted to hurry over and help him.
But with a malignant ghost on her shoulder, she couldn't split herself in two.
The trouble with these ghost servants was that they went back to their original spot on their own, and they couldn't be beaten down or injured into losing the ability to move.
That meant that every time she and Fan Bisi carried a ghost away, it ran right back again. After several rounds, it had all been wasted effort.
"This isn't going to work."
Zhao Fusheng frowned:
"We simply don't have enough people."
Fan Bisi breathed a sigh of relief. He'd long thought this wasn't going to work.
"If we had weapons, we could break these ghost servants' legs."
He rubbed his hands hard against each other, trying to rub off the feel of having held a ghost.
"If a ghost servant's body were a bit shorter, maybe it wouldn't be able to reach the seal."
"Not a bad idea, Brother Fan."
Zhao Fusheng smiled and gave him a word of praise.
In truth, Fan Bisi's idea wouldn't work.
The bodies of people killed by malignant ghosts were stiff, and once the ghost revived, they became cold and hard. The moment she'd held one, Zhao Fusheng had felt that these ghost servants were far heavier and harder than ordinary flesh and blood. Ordinary swords and knives would probably never take away their ability to move.
Even if young, strong men took up blades, it would be hard to cut down this many ghost servants in a short time.
But these were malignant ghosts they were facing, and Fan Bisi had managed to come up with a suggestion despite his fear. That was already a very decent showing.
Zhao Fusheng had praised him insincerely. Just then, Zhang Chuanshi nearly got dragged back into the horde by the two ghost servants he was holding.
He let go in time, and now sat on the ground with no strength left, trembling.
Having cheated death, Zhang Chuanshi heard Zhao Fusheng and Fan Bisi chatting. His face went iron-gray and he panted so hard he couldn't speak.
"Hauling ghosts is too slow."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and looked at the ghost seal, where the ghost servants were hammering away with a clang-clang:
"I do have another method—"
Her eyes glinted, a smile crept onto her face, and she turned to look at Zhang Chuanshi:
"Old Zhang, how are you doing?"
"I... I'm done for—"
Zhang Chuanshi was afraid of her now and waved his hands without stopping.
"My lord, really, I can't. I'm old and frail, my blood's run dry, I truly can't hold on—"
He was terrified she'd call on him to hold ghosts again.
These people, in death, knew neither fear nor retreat, and their strength was astonishing. He was no match for it.
"If you had to run for your life, could you still get to your feet?" Zhao Fusheng asked again, gently.
"..."
Fan Bisi felt something was off.
At a time like this, with malignant ghosts wrecking the seal, Zhao Fusheng was somehow at leisure to worry about Zhang Chuanshi's wellbeing. Something about it didn't sit right.
A bad premonition rose in his heart. He stole a glance at Zhang Chuanshi, only to see that at the words "run for your life," Zhang Chuanshi had scrambled to his feet in one motion and given his legs a shake:
"My lord, are we leaving the Mausoleum?"
"Soon."
Zhao Fusheng nodded with a beaming smile:
"But before we go, there's something I need you to do."
"Wh-what is it?"
Hearing this, Zhang Chuanshi's guard went up at once.
He was no fool; he could tell Zhao Fusheng was acting strangely.
He was about to refuse, face like a funeral, when she said:
"It's nothing much. I have a wonderful treasure, and I'd like you to hold it for me."
"???"
Zhang Chuanshi's face showed bewilderment.
Fan Bisi's expression shifted, and he felt jealousy and curiosity at once.
The original Zhao Fusheng, of course, had never owned any treasures. But after she took on a ghost, perhaps over the course of a few ghost cases she really had collected some treasure.
But they were all order envoys of the Demon-Suppression Bureau, all risking their lives, all handling ghost cases the same way. Why did she insist on giving the treasure to Zhang Chuanshi instead of him?
"My lord, is it really true?"
Zhang Chuanshi also felt something fishy was going on.
Over this stretch of time together, he had picked up a few patterns in Zhao Fusheng's character.
She wasn't someone who gave up halfway on a ghost case. Before they'd set out, she'd said she was confident about this one and that she could reinforce the seal. There was no reason for her to back down now just because of ghost servants.
"Of course it's true." Zhao Fusheng nodded and called to him:
"Come here. I'll give it to you."
"You wouldn't be tricking me, my lord, would you?" Zhang Chuanshi still didn't quite believe it.
"Stop yapping!" Zhao Fusheng snapped. "Hurry up. This thing is a treasure. It can bribe even ghosts—"
At that, thunder cracked in Fan Bisi's head. He suddenly understood what Zhao Fusheng meant to hand Zhang Chuanshi.
The ghost coin!
To be precise, the life-buying coin that had been spat from the mouth of the malignant ghost Zheng He controlled, the one that even ghosts wanted.
Something still felt off to Zhang Chuanshi, but if Zhao Fusheng had gone this far, she clearly wouldn't be lying to him.
The moment he heard "treasure," he was greedy before he knew it. He hurried forward with his hand out, face wreathed in a fawning smile:
"You really do dote on me, my lord—"
Zhao Fusheng had no time to waste words on him.
The seal was weakening bit by bit, and even as they talked, the black fog here was growing thicker. The longer they dawdled, the more people the malignant ghost would kill.
These were all innocent subjects of Wan'an County. She couldn't keep stalling.
With a thought, she pulled the life-buying coin out of Hell.
The instant the coin appeared, the clang-clang of chiseling in everyone's ears stopped dead.
Zhang Chuanshi heard the sound cut off, and his body already sensed that something was wrong.
But before he could turn to look, his palm sank. Zhao Fusheng had pinched something and set it in his hand.
The object was icy and chill, and seemed slightly wet, carrying an aura that made Zhang Chuanshi feel inexplicably horrified.
He instinctively weighed it in his hand.
With a shopkeeper's years of experience taking money and running a store, he could tell it was a coin: round, with a square hole.
Zhang Chuanshi looked down. A coin stained with uncanny black water lay in his palm, put there by Zhao Fusheng.
"Why are you giving me a single coin, my lord—"
He was in the middle of asking when Zhao Fusheng bellowed at him:
"Run!"
The command came, and his body obeyed.
Zhang Chuanshi bolted, legs flying.
"Ghost's coming, Old Zhang."
At this moment Fan Bisi poured oil on the fire, calling out to him.
Zhang Chuanshi couldn't understand how a ghost could be coming. He turned his head on instinct—
By the stone-pillar seal at the entrance to the Mausoleum, a malignant ghost with a gray-green complexion and a withered, shrunken face was stepping out of the crowd of ghost servants.
In its hand it held a sharp, blood-dripping awl, and slowly it drove the awl into the big hole in its own chest.
As if it had sensed the coin, its form turned from solid to insubstantial. It passed through the corpses of the ghost servants as a black shadow and headed straight for Zhang Chuanshi.
The malignant ghost's aim was clear: it wanted the life-buying coin in Zhang Chuanshi's hand, the coin even ghosts coveted.
The ghost's aura engulfed Zhang Chuanshi in an instant. It had locked onto him!
"Aaaaaaaaah!!!"
A shriek loud enough to pierce the clouds burst from Zhang Chuanshi's mouth.
"Zhao Fusheng!!! You set me up!!!"
A moment ago he hadn't understood why Zhao Fusheng had suddenly asked whether he had the strength to run for his life. But now that he had taken the coin, the malignant ghost that had been wrecking the seal had stopped caring about the seal at all and just wanted the money. How could he not see what she was up to?
She had found driving off the ghost servants tiring and inefficient, so she'd hatched a plan: draw the source, the malignant ghost itself, away directly.
"Aaaaaaaaah!!!"
Having worked this out, Zhang Chuanshi wanted to weep and had no tears.
A real malignant ghost was ten thousand times more terrifying than a ghost servant, and its body shifted between real and unreal.
Wherever the black shadow swept, the ghost's form solidified at once, and a black ghost claw reached out to seize Zhang Chuanshi.
Zhang Chuanshi's only regret was that his parents had given him just two legs. The soles of his feet were about to throw sparks. Pushed to the brink, he burst out with extraordinary potential, and his legs ran so fast they left afterimages.
The malignant ghost pursued relentlessly.
The ghost servants slowly shifted their feet and followed behind the malignant ghost.
"..."
Fan Bisi watched Zhang Chuanshi's figure shoot into the black fog and vanish in an instant. He was speechless:
"Old Zhang really is fast."
When a man is running for his life, his potential is truly limitless.
