IBGSW Chapter 140
Strange Tales from Zhuang Family Village
Zhang Chuanshi's one shout made all the onlookers scatter like startled birds.
The two in the middle also wanted to run. Fan Bisi, already furious that Magistrate Pang and the others had seen the menial workers he'd hired quarreling and slacking, and afraid Zhao Fusheng would think him incompetent, was determined to make an example of these troublemakers.
Seeing the two about to flee, he bellowed at once: "You two, stop right there!"
Neither was old, around twenty-five or twenty-six. Stopped by Fan Bisi's shout, they showed timid faces, with none of the fierceness they'd had in the quarrel.
Their clothes had been torn open, and they looked as if they'd rolled around on the ground, covered in dust. Seeing Fan Bisi's grim face, they called out, bracing themselves:
"My lord."
"Come here."
Fan Bisi barked.
The two looked at each other. They had lost their earlier ferocity and now felt regret, terrified of punishment.
They approached with trembling hearts, and Zhao Fusheng asked:
"What are your names, and how did you end up quarreling here?"
In contrast to Fan Bisi's thunderous look, she was mild in manner, and the two, who had been shaking with fear, relaxed a little. One of them, wearing a gray short jacket, stepped forward and said:
"Answering my lord, my surname is Gou, and I'm fourth in my family. I was hired by the gentlemen of this office to repair the main gate, and I'm a cousin of Zhuang Laoqi."
As he said this, he looked back at the other man.
"The foreman said the bureau's gate had to be rebuilt, and that's what we've been busy with today. After working a while, I made a joke to Zhuang Laoqi, and he flew into a rage, grabbed a shovel, turned around, and hit me with it—"
At this, he looked wronged:
"I beg my lord to decide, and to let me give him one whack back1."
Before coming to Wan'an County, Magistrate Pang had served in other counties and had dealt with many country folk and heard countless petty quarrels like this.
Having dealt with them so much, he knew these people were poor, ignorant, sometimes hopelessly foolish, and fought at a word, and once they lost their heads they could split each other's skulls open, so that small matters became big.
If it were just a single quarrel, that would be fine. But as Wu Shaochun had said, bandits were now rife, and many villages had banded together in clans and stood together.
If one man was bullied, the whole village turned out, and a small quarrel could grow into a great disaster.
It could well turn into a brawl between two villages, the kind of feud officials hardly dared touch.
Now, hearing that Gou Laosi and Zhuang Laoqi had come to blows over a mere joke, and had started it at the bureau's gate, the old magistrate's eyes showed naked contempt for the two: scoundrels!
If this hadn't been the Demon-Suppression Bureau's own ground, Magistrate Pang would probably have had them dragged off and given ten blows of the paddle each.
Fan Bisi, hearing such a trivial matter, was also angry:
"A little thing and you start quarreling, and the others stop working to watch, and you disturb my lord—"
His eyes showed a fierce glint, and he was about to say more when Zhuang Laoqi cried out:
"I've been wronged! I've been wronged, my lord."
Zhao Fusheng found it interesting. Before Fan Bisi could flare up, she asked first:
"How were you wronged? Is what Gou Laosi said not true? Didn't you hit him with a shovel?"
"I did hit him—"
Zhuang Laoqi dared not lie in front of everyone and answered quickly.
"If you really did hit him, then you struck first. How are you wronged? Or did he not make a joke, but deliberately provoke you to strike?"
"He did make a joke," Zhuang Laoqi said.
At this, Magistrate Pang said coldly:
"He's your cousin and works alongside you. He made a joke, and you hit him. A scoundrel like you, if someone greeted you on the road and startled you, would you stab him with a knife?"
"No, no, I wouldn't."
Zhuang Laoqi waved his hands in a hurry.
"Then he did make a joke and you did hit him, so you weren't wronged. You made trouble and caused a disturbance. Simply—"
Zhao Fusheng was smiling and about to name Zhuang Laoqi's punishment when he sensed something wrong and said quickly:
"My lord, please judge: the injustice lies in the joke."
"What?" Zhao Fusheng asked in surprise:
"What joke was it that earned him a blow from your shovel?"
"My cousin poked me in the back with a bamboo stick, and it scared me badly," Zhuang Laoqi said hurriedly.
He seemed a man of stiff thinking; even telling about his quarrel with Gou Laosi he made it unclear.
Magistrate Pang didn't want to listen to the scoundrels' quibbling. Hearing this, he said:
"My lord, I say these scoundrels are cunning and slippery. Give him ten blows of the paddle and send him home. Don't get tangled with them and waste my lord's time."
His words scared Zhuang Laoqi badly, and even Gou Laosi, who had brought the complaint, was startled.
The two were distant cousins and had fallen out in their roughhousing, but if the government really gave Zhuang Laoqi ten blows, he'd be bedridden for months.
If he were lucky, he'd only be crippled. If unlucky, he might even lose his life.
"My lord..."
Gou Laosi hurriedly tried to plead:
"I was only joking with Zhuang Laoqi just now. We were wrong—"
"I was wrong too, my lord, spare my life—"
Zhuang Laoqi begged desperately.
Fan Bisi didn't want to listen to more from the two and looked at Zhao Fusheng:
"My lord, I think Magistrate Pang is right."
Zhao Fusheng, though, felt something was off.
It wasn't that she thought Magistrate Pang's punishment too heavy. It was that when Zhuang Laoqi mentioned that Gou Laosi's joke had "scared him badly," everyone present assumed he was quibbling to dodge punishment.
But Zhao Fusheng could see Zhuang Laoqi's face change when he brought up the "joke."
Such terror was not something one could fake.
Zhao Fusheng at once dropped the idea of not meddling, and asked him:
"How did one joke scare you into this state?"
"This... He..."
Zhuang Laoqi was lost for words. He looked at his cousin, stammering and unable to say anything clear, his eyes wandering, not daring to look at Zhao Fusheng.
"I think he's just talking nonsense and trying to deceive my lord."
Zhang Chuanshi jumped in and pointed at Zhuang Laoqi, cursing him.
"No, no."
Hearing this, Zhuang Laoqi was alarmed and waved his hands.
The commotion drew the eyes of many menial workers busy nearby. Quite a few stopped what they were doing and, openly or covertly, listened in.
Zhuang Laoqi was also anxious, looking around on all sides with a regretful look.
Gou Laosi was filled with remorse as well.
Neither of them had expected that a simple joke, once it alarmed an official of the Demon-Suppression Bureau, would have such serious consequences.
Magistrate Pang had no patience for these scoundrels and suggested arresting them, taking them to the yamen, and giving each ten big strokes, to keep the menial workers from copying them and making trouble.
"The rest of you keep working. You two come with me into the bureau."
Zhao Fusheng thought it over and called the two into the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
Fan Bisi shouted at the other menial workers to go on working, and the onlookers' little disturbance soon dissolved under the efforts of the few officials.
The group returned to the bureau's hall. Zhuang Laoqi and Gou Laosi knelt on the floor, uneasy, not knowing what fate awaited them.
"Tell me about the joke from start to finish."
Zhao Fusheng sat back in the main seat and gave the order.
Zhuang Laoqi's mind was unsettled and he dared not speak. Gou Laosi was also afraid, but by now he'd seen that Zhao Fusheng was the backbone among these officials. Perhaps only this lord letting up could dissolve the disaster that had fallen from the sky today.
Thinking this, he forced down his fear and answered:
"Answering my lord, Zhuang Laoqi and I are cousins. His grandfather is my grand-uncle on my mother's side, so when we heard the county was recruiting menial workers, we came to Wan'an County together to work."
He first explained their relationship, then, afraid Zhao Fusheng would find him long-winded, was about to explain a little more when he saw her nod, motioning him to go on.
This lord was patient and seemed good-tempered. Gou Laosi felt a surge of calm, and his terror eased by a fraction.
"Today the foreman outside—"
He meant the foreman Fan Bisi had hired. "—told us to knock down the wall outside the yamen and rebuild it. While we were working, I picked up a stick. It looked straight, so I wanted Zhuang Laoqi to see—"
While Gou Laosi spoke, Zhao Fusheng's eyes had been on Zhuang Laoqi.
Having handled several ghost cases and dealt with ghosts, she was by now a seasoned commanding officer.
She could smell something out of the ordinary on Zhuang Laoqi, and her instincts told her there might be a case behind him.
This concerned ghost cases, and she brought out the cautious side of her nature to the fullest. Hearing Gou Laosi say this, she asked:
"What kind of stick?"
"It was just a bamboo pole, I don't know where it came from. Very thin but very straight, about this long—"
Gou Laosi was bewildered by the question, but since Zhao Fusheng asked, he dutifully gestured the length:
"When Zhuang Laoqi hit me with the shovel just now, it broke in two."
Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng gave Fan Wujiu a look.
Fan Wujiu went out at once, and a moment later returned with a bamboo stick broken in two.
"This is it."
Seeing the bamboo in Fan Wujiu's hands, Gou Laosi hurriedly pushed himself up, and Fan Wujiu barked:
"Kneel properly!"
He dropped back to his knees, eyes fixed hopefully on Zhao Fusheng.
Fan Wujiu handed the bamboo stick to Zhao Fusheng. She felt it. It was about as thick as a pinky, broken in two, each piece over a foot long, and when whole it would have been more than a meter.
The stick was cold in her hand and dusted with mud. It had no baleful aura and didn't look like a malevolent object born alongside a ghost. It was just an ordinary object.
If the problem wasn't with Gou Laosi, it was with Zhuang Laoqi.
How could an ordinary bamboo stick scare him so badly that he dared pick a quarrel at the bureau's gate, even striking his cousin?
"What's wrong with this bamboo stick, Zhuang Laoqi? Why did you hit someone because you were poked?"
Zhao Fusheng tried poking Zhang Chuanshi, sitting beside her, with the stick. He twisted his waist and back as if it tickled, but didn't dare dodge, and could only call out:
"Spare me, my lord."
"What is there to spare you for?"
Zhao Fusheng struck him a couple of times with the stick. The old man, who usually pretended to be feeble and slack, was as nimble as a monkey when hit, and darted quickly to one side.
"It doesn't seem to hurt much to be poked by this. How did it make him this angry?"
From the corner of her eye she looked at Zhuang Laoqi. He had grown more uneasy, his knees shifting nonstop, sweat appearing on his forehead. When Zhao Fusheng questioned him, he stammered:
"I just don't want anyone poking me in the back with a bamboo stick—"
"Zhuang Laoqi, you scoundrel. If you don't tell the truth, I'll charge you with lying to me and have you thrown in jail!" Zhao Fusheng threatened.
"Spare me, my lord!" Hearing "jail," Zhuang Laoqi was thoroughly scared and quickly said:
"We, we have a saying in our village, that a bear turned spirit will disguise itself as a person and stand behind you and pat your shoulder or back with something, and when you turn around, it bites your head off—"
He'd come up with the excuse in a hurry, but he'd barely finished when Gou Laosi said:
"There is a legend like that, but a story like that is for scaring kids. It couldn't scare you into this state."
"You shut up!"
Hearing his cousin, Zhuang Laoqi was alarmed and pushed himself up on his knees, glaring at him.
Today's trouble had all started with this cousin's joke, and now he was undermining him. Zhuang Laoqi was furious: "How do you know this story couldn't scare me?"
The two cousins were about to start up again, and Magistrate Pang was speechless.
Seeing this, Zhao Fusheng vaguely made out that the problem might lie with Zhuang Laoqi's hometown.
She shouted:
"Silence!"
The two cousins, who'd been arguing red-faced, heard her cry and remembered where they were. They knelt back in place and bowed low, not daring to make a sound.
"Zhuang Laoqi, what village or town are you from?"
Such an ordinary question made Zhuang Laoqi lose his composure, sweat pouring down, unable to speak.
"Cousin, my lord's asking you—"
Seeing how he looked, Gou Laosi felt something was odd and elbowed him. Zhuang Laoqi came back to himself and said hurriedly:
"I beg my lord to ask once more—"
Zhao Fusheng's eyes flickered.
"What village or town are you from?"
Zhuang Laoqi swallowed:
"Answering my lord, I'm from Zhuang Family Village in Wulidian."
"Wulidian?" Zhao Fusheng turned to Magistrate Pang, who quickly said, "Wulidian isn't far from our Wan'an County, about twenty-some li2. The local precinct chief is surnamed Zhou, and under his jurisdiction are seven villages."
Since the Ghost Mausoleum case, Magistrate Pang had been full of confidence about reviving Wan'an County. He had been diligent in his duties lately and knew the information on every village, town, and official in the county by heart. He answered as soon as Zhao Fusheng asked.
When he finished, he saw her look of mild surprise and approval, and felt flattered, and his drive grew all the more. He even found the troublemaking Zhuang Laoqi and Gou Laosi a bit more pleasing to the eye.
Zhuang Laoqi nodded hurriedly.
In fact, for villagers like him, the highest official they knew by name and face was the village head. How could he know who the chief of Wulidian was?
But he wasn't stupid. Seeing Magistrate Pang's fine clothes and the respect the others showed him, he guessed he must be an official. Anything an official said, if you just nodded, you couldn't go wrong. After nodding he added:
"Yes, yes, yes, I did hear his surname is Zhou."
"..."
Seeing him, Zhao Fusheng knew he was just humoring them.
But her goal wasn't the chief of Wulidian. It was Zhuang Family Village, and the Zhuang Laoqi before her.
Thinking this, Zhao Fusheng got straight to the point:
"Zhuang Laoqi, has your village had any strange happenings lately?"
