IBGSW Chapter 144
Heading to Kuailiang Village
"How old is your village chief?" Zhao Fusheng asked.
"Sixty-six," Zhuang Laoqi answered.
"That's a long life."
In this era, the common people faced not only heavy taxes but also malignant ghosts running rampant. Life was hard, and a mountain villager who had reached sixty-six counted as long-lived.
"Yes—"
Zhuang Laoqi nodded. "Getting well without medicine was a good thing, so when the chief first got out of bed, nobody thought much of it. We were delighted."
When he said he wanted to go to Kuailiang Village, everyone assumed he was worried that Fourth Madam Zhuang's affair would harm relations between the two villages and wanted to step in and settle it.
"Changgen said—" Zhuang Laoqi hurriedly added, "Changgen is the chief's son. He said his father had only just got up and shouldn't rush, and with Kuailiang Village in trouble and Mancai dying inexplicably in Zhuang Family Village, the Kuailiang people might think we'd harmed him, and we'd never be able to explain ourselves."
Magistrate Pang nodded.
"He's right. Best to find a respected go-between to vouch for you. Safer."
"Exactly," Zhuang Laoqi said.
"But nobody could talk him out of it, nobody."
The chief went that very day, without even packing a bundle, off to Kuailiang Village.
At that point the people of Zhuang Family Village hadn't yet started to be afraid. It was after he'd been gone half a day, toward evening, that his son was standing at the door of the house looking out.
It was nearly mealtime and the chief hadn't returned. Zhuang Changgen was getting anxious. Then he suddenly froze, looked left and right, and without a backward glance went into the house.
His wife, who was cooking at the time, came out to fetch firewood and saw Zhuang Changgen carrying a bundle, looking ready to leave.
She quickly stopped him and asked where he was going, with dinner about to be served.
Zhuang Changgen said:
"Someone's calling me. I have to go to Kuailiang Village."
The answer stunned Zhuang Changgen's wife on the spot.
Kuai Mancai had died in the chief's house the day before, and the blood still hadn't been scrubbed clean. The people of Zhuang Family Village had heard rumors and only dared peek at the house from far off, avoiding it.
After the chief left that morning, no one had come all day.
She had been outside cooking the whole time and hadn't seen anyone at the door calling. So who had called Zhuang Changgen now?
More importantly, Kuai Mancai had been perfectly fine the day before, and then suddenly said someone was calling him, walked a couple of steps, and died. He had died horribly. Later the chief had woken up and said someone was calling him too and insisted on going to Kuailiang Village, and now a whole day had passed with not a glimpse of him.
Now Zhuang Changgen was saying he too was going to Kuailiang Village. His wife couldn't say exactly why, but she sensed something was badly wrong.
She called the chief's other sons and had them hold Zhuang Changgen down and forbid him to leave.
But in the end they couldn't stop him.
Zhuang Changgen was determined to go to Kuailiang Village. He came to blows with his brothers outright until he was covered in wounds, then left without looking back.
His leaving at that moment was strange, but understandable, since he was worried about his father.
But more horrifying things kept happening.
"Six days ago, Zhuang Juming in our village also packed a bundle, saying someone had called him to Kuailiang Village—"
As he said this, the muscles on Zhuang Laoqi's face twitched uncontrollably. He was clearly terrified.
"Before noon my uncle came running to my house in a panic, saying my cousin was packing his things and also saying someone had called him from behind, and he was going to Kuailiang Village."
Only two days earlier, when others mentioned the chief and his son going to Kuailiang Village, Zhuang Laoqi's cousin had been present too, and had exclaimed that it was "creepy."
Who would have thought that after only one night he would seem to have forgotten what he'd said, and be just as bullheadedly determined to go to Kuailiang Village?
Zhuang Laoqi's uncle and aunt wailed and begged and held him back again and again, but the result was the same as with Zhuang Changgen: they couldn't stop him.
"..."
Gou Laosi had only meant to joke with Zhuang Laoqi, and never expected a shocking and bizarre case lay behind it. Now he was pale with fright.
"And that's not all. That evening my uncle packed his things too, saying someone was calling him and he had to go to Kuailiang Village—"
In just two or three days, a dozen or so people in Zhuang Family Village, including Zhuang Laoqi's uncle and cousin, all said someone had poked them in the back with something, and then said someone was calling them to Kuailiang Village.
"After those people left, they never came back."
By now even the stupidest person would have realized something was wrong.
"Kuai Mancai, the chief, the chief's son Zhuang Changgen, Zhuang Juming, your cousin, your uncle—"
Zhao Fusheng summed up:
"Apart from Kuai Mancai, they're all from Zhuang Family Village, aren't they?"
Zhuang Laoqi nodded uneasily.
"Did every one of those people witness Kuai Mancai's death with their own eyes that day?" Zhao Fusheng asked again.
Zhuang Laoqi jolted hard. He looked up at Zhao Fusheng in terror.
"How does my lord know?"
"Is that even a question?" Zhang Chuanshi sneered. "Lord Zhao sees it all coming, like a god."
Flustered, Zhuang Laoqi said:
"All of them witnessed Kuai Mancai's death that day."
At this his tears suddenly poured out and he began knocking his head desperately on the floor.
"My lord, save me! When my father and mother saw my uncle and cousin go off to Kuailiang Village and not return, they knew something had gone wrong. Afraid for me, they told me to leave the village quickly."
"They suspected my elder cousin couldn't rest in her grave and was now pulling people down with her. I'd seen Kuai Mancai die that day too, and was afraid she'd come for me sooner or later."
So that very day Zhuang Laoqi's parents urged him to leave the village.
But something terrifying happened again.
Three or four days earlier, fog had quietly begun to shroud the outskirts of Zhuang Family Village.
After Kuai Mancai died at the chief's house, the villagers had noticed that the sky was darkening earlier and the days were taking longer to break. But the villagers weren't sensitive to malignant ghosts, and with all the recent trouble they were frightened and bolted their doors to stay home. In such an atmosphere, the ignorant villagers didn't realize the village was already ringed by fog.
When Zhuang Laoqi wanted to leave, he found he couldn't.
"The paths out of the village were gone—"
He murmured.
His voice was soft, but the terror in his eyes came through in his shaking tone and in the sound of his helpless swallowing.
"What?"
Gou Laosi cried out.
"My parents were seeing me off, but whichever road we took, it only led back to the one path to the river, the one that crosses over to Kuailiang Village on the other side."
The once-familiar village had become strange and terrifying.
At some point the fog had turned crimson, and a faint, eerie smell hung in the air, stifling.
Zhuang Laoqi's parents had been scared out of their wits. The family ran like headless flies along the paths between the fields, trying to find a way out.
But no matter which road they took toward the outside world, the fog twisted it, and after a few turns the three of them always ended up back at the riverbank.
A ferry boat was moored there, and across the river lay Kuailiang Village.
The family was terrified.
At a time like that, who would dare board the boat? They retreated home.
On the way back they met several villagers, laughing and chatting as they headed out.
These villagers seemed utterly unaware of the strange events in the village, and even greeted Zhuang Laoqi's family. When Zhuang Laoqi's parents asked where they were going, they all answered:
"To Kuailiang Village."
They seemed to have agreed in advance, all saying someone had called them along.
Some of them even smiled and invited Zhuang Laoqi's family to come with them, saying the more people the livelier.
At a time like that, even the stupidest person knew something terrible had happened in Kuailiang Village. Who would dare go?
Hearing this, Gou Laosi grew both frightened and confused, and said:
"But, but when I came looking for you, nothing was odd—"
At Gou Laosi's words, tears nearly poured down Zhuang Laoqi's face:
"I thought I was sure to die. Who knew, Cousin, you'd come looking for me just then."
Zhuang Laoqi's family had been cornered. By chance Gou Laosi had heard that the county was hiring workers to build a road for some great personage, and had come to invite Zhuang Laoqi to go with him.
And the strange fog that trapped the people of Zhuang Family Village had no effect at all on Gou Laosi.
He simply walked into Zhuang Family Village, and Zhuang Laoqi's family, seeing him as a lifeline, immediately went with him.
The family didn't even have time to pack bundles or valuables before they set out together.
"But as we walked, the family got separated—"
Zhuang Laoqi said sadly:
"I don't know when it happened, but my parents disappeared. When I looked back, I saw Zhuang Family Village surrounded by thick fog, impossible to see through."
After that he didn't dare turn back. Though he worried about his parents and family, he had no road back, so he went with Gou Laosi into Wan'an County, intending to lie low for a couple of days until things calmed down, then find someone to ask what had happened in Zhuang Family Village.
In those few days he'd had no strange experiences, but he'd lived in constant dread.
What happened in Kuailiang Village was a boulder pressing on his heart.
Fourth Madam Zhuang's affair, and her drowning by her husband's family, was a disgrace to Zhuang Family Village. He hadn't dared tell anyone, for fear of staining the village's reputation.
In that state he had lived through several frightened, anxious days.
Gou Laosi knew nothing of his cousin's state of mind. Today he had picked up a long, thin bamboo stick to joke with him, and as soon as he poked him in the back, he set off all the fear and worry Zhuang Laoqi had stored up for days.
That was why he'd lost control, seized the plastering board, and slapped it hard against Gou Laosi's back, setting off the commotion that ended with Zhao Fusheng and the others hauling them into the Demon-Suppression Bureau's yamen, where he finally told what had been pressing on his heart.
Though Fourth Madam Zhuang's affair was an unseemly matter, after holding it in so long, Zhuang Laoqi felt an indescribable relief now that it was out.
"I'm worried about my family..."
"What?"
Hearing this, Gou Laosi scratched his head.
"Cousin, are you misremembering? When I went to your house that day, I didn't see your auntie and uncle, or the rest—"
"What?!"
Zhuang Laoqi let out a cry. "How could that be? When you came, I was with my parents—"
The two cousins stared at each other, and both shivered.
"If you didn't see my parents, Cousin, then where did my mother and father go?" Zhuang Laoqi muttered to himself.
Zhao Fusheng exchanged glances with Fan Bisi and the others. All of them understood that Zhuang Laoqi's memory and perception had probably been distorted by the ghost domain.
"How could it be? Could she really have turned into a ghost after she died?"
Zhuang Laoqi said with a wretched face:
"But a wrong has its wrongdoer and a debt has its debtor. When my cousin sister was alive, she was such a virtuous, gentle woman. Besides, it wasn't our Zhuang people who killed her. Why would she harm us Zhuang Family Village folk?"
"Malignant ghosts are not what you imagine."
Zhao Fusheng said seriously.
After a person died, a malignant ghost might revive, and once revived it would lose memory and feeling and become a being that knew only the instinct to kill. Once you touched a ghost's rule, it didn't care whether you were a relative or friend from its life. When the Zhao couple's malignant ghosts revived and took back the door plank, the first one they wanted to kill was their daughter. That must have been an emotional reflex from before death.
The more someone couldn't let go, the more likely they were to form a rule after death. And those close to them were more likely to trigger the rule, and might even be the first to die.
"Why would it be like this?" Zhuang Laoqi said, bewildered. Hearing Zhao Fusheng's account, he grew both flustered and afraid.
"Why would it be like this? We didn't do anything to wrong her, so why would she harm us—"
Malignant ghosts have no human feelings. Zhao Fusheng shook her head and ordered:
"This ghost case has already taken hold. We can't delay."
Though Zhao Fusheng had no evidence yet, after this round of questioning she could nearly be sure that the case centered on Fourth Madam Zhuang and had already involved at least two villages, Kuailiang and Zhuang Family. And because Fourth Madam Zhuang's death had been shameful, both villages had deliberately concealed it. Seven or eight days had passed, the ghost domain had formed, and the case might already have spread.
Just when she'd been thinking Wan'an County was safe and untroubled, a major incident had occurred in the nearby villages.
"I'll pack up and set out at once." She stood abruptly and swept her eyes around.
Everyone her gaze touched looked uneasy.
Among them, only Magistrate Pang was relatively calm.
He knew ghost cases were terrifying, but since he didn't belong to the Demon-Suppression Bureau, this case would never involve him.
Zhang Chuanshi, on the other hand, was in a panic.
The bureau had few people to spare. Fan Bisi had already worked two ghost cases with Zhao Fusheng, so she probably wouldn't take him this time.
Of the order envoys, Wu Shaochun had never worked a ghost case, and he'd arrived at the wrong time, so he was very likely to be picked.
As Zhang Chuanshi thought this, he saw Zhao Fusheng's eyes land on Wu Shaochun.
He chanted inwardly:
"Pick him, pick him, pick him, pick him—"
Whether or not the chant worked, Zhao Fusheng said:
"Wu Shaochun."
A smile of undisguised glee spread over Zhang Chuanshi's face.
Then he saw Zhao Fusheng turn her head, and her gaze fell on Zhang Chuanshi.
Immense fear drowned him in an instant. Most of his strength drained away, and he began to chant without stopping:
"Don't pick me, don't pick me, don't pick me—"
But perhaps the luck of that spell was already used up, for this time it failed him.
Zhao Fusheng's voice sounded in his ears like a demon's incantation:
"Old Zhang—"
"Can't hear, can't hear, can't hear."
Zhang Chuanshi acted as if he hadn't heard.
Zhao Fusheng ignored him and looked at Fan Wujiu:
"Second Brother Fan, this time the three of you come with me. Eldest Brother Fan stays in the bureau."
"..."
Zhang Chuanshi's face turned ashen.
Fan Wujiu was a little panicked too, but he glanced at his brother, who looked fairly calm and nodded at him.
His heart eased, and he answered quickly:
"Yes."
"Yes," Wu Shaochun answered loudly too.
