IBGSW Chapter 146
Clash of Malignant Ghosts
The moment Fan Wujiu's hand closed on Zhuang Laoqi, he was shocked to find the man's body chillingly cold.
His arms were stiff, and the joints at his elbows and shoulders were like iron lumps rusted solid over the years. Fan Wujiu tried to bend an arm back and found it a real struggle.
Worse, the body seemed damp. Whether it was from sweat soaked into his clothes during the interrogation, Fan Wujiu couldn't tell.
When he grabbed, even his palm came away wet.
A body like that didn't feel like a living person's from a moment ago.
Fan Wujiu had also been through the double-ghost case in Baozhi County, and as he realized that what he was holding was a ghost and not a man, he let go in terror. The instant Zhuang Laoqi was free, he stepped forward again.
Fortunately Wu Shaochun, coming back from the door, stopped him.
But Wu Shaochun was struggling to hold him, and Fan Wujiu, recovering, hurried over, and together the two twisted Zhuang Laoqi's arms behind him and pinned him.
Zhuang Laoqi struggled without stopping.
His struggle was bizarre.
An ordinary person with both arms pinned back wouldn't dare thrash around, limited by the shoulder joints.
But Zhuang Laoqi seemed not to fear pain at all. He twisted his body violently, with shocking strength.
The joints of his arms and shoulders made cracking sounds, as if he were willing to wrench his own arms off to break free of Fan and Wu's hold.
Zhuang Laoqi bent his upper body sharply downward while his two arms twisted left and right, and the bone and flesh, unable to bear the force, gave off a spine-chilling snap.
Fan Wujiu felt a chill and looked to Zhao Fusheng for help.
"Pin him to the floor," Zhao Fusheng said.
Fan Wujiu and Wu Shaochun threw themselves onto Zhuang Laoqi's back.
With two grown men hanging on him, his back bent, yet he still moved forward.
Seeing this wasn't working, Wu Shaochun stuck out a leg and hooked his ankle.
But Zhuang Laoqi's bones had gone stiff, and it took several hooks before he went down with a thump.
Once down, he didn't stop moving forward. His body wriggled like a worm.
Zhao Fusheng strode forward, pulled out the ghost arm, and brought it down hard on his head.
Thud!
With a sharp crack, ghostly power met ghostly power.
The ghost arm had been damaged several times, and its strength was far less than before. At the first strike it wasn't even activated by the blow, as it usually was; only after Zhao Fusheng struck several times did it barely open its hand, trying to grab Zhuang Laoqi's hair.
Once a ghost's power was provoked, a chain reaction followed.
Fan Wujiu and Wu Shaochun, nearest to Zhuang Laoqi, watched with their own eyes as foul water welled up like a spring from his hair.
The black water was like old mud from a dead pond, stirred up and reeking.
It poured out through his hair and soon soaked the crown of Zhuang Laoqi's head.
But the water didn't drip down his hair. Instead it flowed upward, along the ghost arm, and soon drenched the whole arm.
As the water ate into the ghost arm, the arm was gradually suppressed by another malignant ghost's power.
In an instant, soaked by the stinking water, the ghost arm went still.
But a chill rose up the arm, seeking to eat into Zhao Fusheng's body.
At that moment, the malignant ghost Zhao Fusheng controlled seemed to sense another ghost's aura invading, and gradually began to revive.
A ghost shadow rose behind her, and the Investiture of the Gods sent a prompt: The malignant ghost you control is about to revive. Spend 100 merit to suppress it?
Zhao Fusheng ignored the Investiture's prompt.
The cold, murderous aura climbed the ghost arm. Foul water wet her palm and spread over the back of her hand.
The cold instantly froze the hand gripping the ghost arm and drained all the warmth from her palm.
Just then it seemed a power approached her back.
But the moment that ghost's power drew near, the ghost she controlled sensed a ghost entity invading. The terrifying ghost shadow rose slowly from beneath her feet like flowing pitch, and in an instant wriggled together into the shape of a malignant ghost.
"..."
Fan Wujiu, Magistrate Pang, Zhang Chuanshi and the others all saw this with their own eyes. They were scared out of their wits and lost the power even to cry out.
Of them all, Fan Wujiu was the most terrified.
This was the ghost of "give first, take later". It had once stirred a bloodbath in the Wan'an County Demon-Suppression Bureau and had nearly killed the Fan brothers.
Now the ghost had manifested, and Zhao Fusheng was in a life-or-death moment.
She had already used this ghost's power twice and had two-thirds of her life taken. If the ghost revived again, that would be the hour of her death.
The Baleful-tier malignant ghost hadn't fully taken shape, but its ghost domain had unfolded.
The Investiture's prompt sounded again in Zhao Fusheng's sea of consciousness: The malignant ghost you control is about to revive. Spend 200 merit to suppress it?
Zhao Fusheng's face didn't move, but sweat appeared on her forehead.
She held her breath. At that moment her heartbeat soared to an unbelievable speed.
Huff— huff—
The sound of blood rushing in her brain drowned out everything around her. At this moment of extreme danger, the malignant ghost took shape.
But after it appeared, it didn't rush to take Zhao Fusheng's life.
The strange black water gushing from the crown of Zhuang Laoqi's head first drew the ghost's attention.
This water of unknown origin was eager to mark Zhao Fusheng's body, to compete with the Baleful-tier ghost for the right to claim her life.
With the ghost possessing her, her body rapidly lost its warmth, her skin paled, and her eyes grew cold.
She flicked her hand with a grim look.
In the clash between ghosts, the two powers collided, and the eerie foul water was swiftly suppressed by the Baleful-tier ghost.
This wasn't Kuailiang Village, and it wasn't that ghost's home ground.
Once marked by the ghost, Zhuang Laoqi's body was only a vessel for spreading the mark.
Before the Baleful-tier ghost of "give first, take later," the eerie ghost water was quickly suppressed, falling to the ground, and its menace vanished at once.
Zhuang Laoqi's eyes cleared for a moment, and just then the ghost possessing Zhao Fusheng, its trouble with the ghost water settled, suddenly made Zhao Fusheng raise her hand and reach toward her own chest.
The ghost domain took shape. A bloodthirsty, violent, murderous gloom filled the bureau's hall at once.
The ghost wanted her life.
At this critical moment, the Investiture of the Gods in her sea of consciousness sent its final warning:
The malignant ghost has fully revived. Spend 1,000 merit to suppress it?
Yes!
Zhao Fusheng could already feel her hand beginning to jab at her own chest, out of her control. In this life-or-death instant, she answered in time.
1,000 merit was deducted.
In her sea of consciousness, she had 2,343 merit left.
The Investiture's power suppressed the ghost just in time. The possessing ghost reluctantly separated from her, and her arm went from cold to warm.
The ghost seemed to be gripped and peeled from her body by a pair of invisible hands, taking on a ghost's form. It looked at her with bitterness and reluctance, but under the power of merit, it silently shattered in the blink of an eye, turning into shadow and mist that fell like rain and vanished.
That brief clash between two malignant ghosts had lasted only a moment, but that moment had hung on a thread.
The terror it brought Zhao Fusheng was no less than that of any ghost case she'd faced before.
She had never imagined that a ghost case erupting in Kuailiang Village, dozens of li from Wan'an County, could enter the bureau through one ghost-marked person and burst out on the spot, nearly causing a tragedy.
Not only was the ghost arm completely suppressed by the mark's vessel, the malignant ghost she controlled had been fully revived.
Had she shown the slightest panic, or been slightly off in her timing, the bureau would have been drenched in blood by a malignant ghost today and everyone would have died.
At the thought of that terrible outcome, though she had already fully separated the ghost from her body, her face was still pale and she felt her body would not warm up for a long time.
A chill clung to her. After a good while she slowly rose and took back the ghost arm, now completely swollen with filthy water.
"M-my lord—"
Fan Wujiu, who hadn't dared make a sound all this time, now dared speak as Zhao Fusheng moved.
He had seen the ghost manifest and felt its overwhelming killing intent, and thought they were all doomed.
But Zhao Fusheng had somehow managed to suppress the manifested ghost again and make it vanish.
Now that she was moving, did that mean the danger had passed?
Fan Wujiu's heart pounded like a rabbit's as he waited for her reply.
In that moment, what flashed through his mind was Zhao Qiming's frenzy and bloodlust before his death.
Back then, Brother Qiming, whom he'd grown up with, had grown violent, his eyes bloodshot and swollen, looking at people as if he'd eat them. Later, driven by the ghost's influence, he had hollowed out his own chest, torn out his organs, and died horribly.
Before he died, the ghost had manifested like this too.
Fan Wujiu worried that when Zhao Fusheng raised her head next, her eyes would be red and wild as well.
His voice was dry as he called. Getting no answer, he couldn't help calling again:
"Fusheng—"
This time Zhao Fusheng moved.
She looked up at Fan Wujiu.
Her face was snow-white, still carrying the chill of possession, but her eyes weren't muddy. They were clear black and white, with a cool calm in them.
"I'm fine."
She answered.
"Whew—"
The breath Fan Wujiu had been holding in his chest rushed out.
He sagged weakly to the floor, so limp he couldn't even restrain Zhuang Laoqi. Trembling, he said:
"Just now, just now—"
Wu Shaochun and the others were badly frightened too.
Though Zhang Chuanshi had seen a ghost in the Ghost Mausoleum case and been chased by one because of the ghost coin, when he saw the ghost manifest behind Zhao Fusheng, he feared she would die from its revival and nearly died of fright himself.
In the Ghost Mausoleum the danger was real, but Zhao Fusheng had been like a needle that steadies the sea1. As long as she was fine, the case could be solved.
But today in the bureau, the ghost she controlled had appeared, and everyone had been badly shaken.
If she died, everyone here would be dead too.
"Just now my malignant ghost almost revived."
Zhao Fusheng said offhandedly.
She said it so lightly that Magistrate Pang's chest hurt from fright.
He clutched his chest and stumbled to find a chair. Zhang Chuanshi, who had only just let his tight string slacken, pulled it taut again, and while everyone was frightened by her words, she added:
"But it's fine now. I've suppressed the ghost again."
"..."
"..."
Everyone was dumbstruck, staring at each other, not daring to speak.
Just then Zhuang Laoqi, who had been pinned to the floor by Fan Wujiu and Wu Shaochun, suddenly seemed to wake.
"Ah— ugh—"
He let out a groan of pain. The fierce struggle earlier had torn the sinews and bones of both his arms, but while he was the ghost's vessel he'd lost all sensation and felt no pain.
After Zhao Fusheng used the ghost arm and the Baleful-tier ghost of "give first, take later" to push the ghost's mark off him for the time being, he briefly regained consciousness.
The moment he woke, the pain in his arms swept over him and brought tears to his eyes.
"Have, have mercy, my lord—"
He didn't know what had happened and thought he'd been put to some new torture, afraid his life would end here. As soon as he came to, he begged for mercy.
But Zhao Fusheng had no time for him.
She rubbed her hands and arms hard.
Her right hand, which had grabbed the ghost arm, had been eaten by the ghost water, and the palm and the gaps between her fingers gave off an unpleasant smell.
The water that had dripped on the floor was black, like mud that had festered for years.
She said to Fan Wujiu and the others:
"Things in Kuailiang Village may be out of control. This malignant ghost is far more powerful than I imagined. Once Zhuang Laoqi was marked, the ghost could actually use his body to spread the mark."
This foul water was one of the ways the ghost's aura spread.
"I couldn't subdue it with the ghost arm just now—"
She said it with some regret.
The ghost arm had been one of her handiest malevolent objects, but it had suffered repeatedly at the hands of the Ghost Carriage and was now half-ruined.
When Liu Yizhen had asked her to the Confucian Temple, she had considered rejoining the ghost arm and the Beggar Ghost, but with only 3,343 merit left, she'd worried about slipping up while piecing the ghosts together and affecting the next ghost case. In the interest of caution, she'd decided to hold off, handle one more ghost case and save up more merit, then piece the Beggar Ghost together more safely.
She had never expected that this Kuailiang Village case would be so dangerous that it would end up triggering the revival of the ghost within her, costing her 1,000 merit to get through the crisis.
She hadn't even set out for Kuailiang Village, and knew only half of what was happening there, and already she had spent some of her merit.
It was a poor start, and it left a shadow over Zhao Fusheng's heart.
"Luckily, at the critical moment my own malignant ghost revived and drove that ghost back. Otherwise the consequences would have been unthinkable."
The bureau had a plaque to suppress ghosts, and yet the Kuailiang Village ghost could revive through a vessel and kill from dozens of li away. That showed how dangerous the case was.
When she'd finished, she said to Fan Wujiu:
"Tear open the back of Zhuang Laoqi's clothes."
All they knew so far was that Fourth Madam Zhuang had been drowned for adultery and had very likely revived as a malignant ghost after death.
Each person who was marked shared one trait: they seemed to be poked in the back, and then all at once wanted to go to Kuailiang Village.
Before this, Zhuang Laoqi had also looked left and right, said someone was looking for him, and then wanted to set out for Kuailiang Village.
Combining this with what he had said about how Kuai Mancai died, Zhao Fusheng deduced that a mark left by the ghost's "poke" should appear on his back.
