IBGSW Chapter 147
The Ghost's Mark
As soon as Zhao Fusheng finished speaking, every eye in the room turned to Zhuang Laoqi, who shivered under their stares.
"I, I— what's wrong with me?"
He had no memory of what had just happened. He knew only that a moment ago he'd been speaking about Fourth Madam Zhuang's death in Kuailiang Village, and the next moment Fan Wujiu and Wu Shaochun had him pinned to the floor with both arms broken, in agony.
His head was dripping wet and there was water on his body, as if he'd just been pulled out of a river...
And now Lord Zhao was suddenly saying she was going to tear open his clothes at the back. Zhuang Laoqi's fear was easy to imagine.
Zhao Fusheng had come within a hair of her ghost reviving, and then turned danger into safety.
That feat greatly encouraged Fan Wujiu, even more than seeing her subdue the Zhao couple's malignant ghosts in Baozhi County.
He had seen Zhao Qiming's malignant ghost revive. Zhao Fusheng had suppressed hers, which made her far more capable than Zhao Qiming!
The thought stirred his nerves and filled him with confidence in her.
At her words, he overcame even his fear of malignant ghosts. Without a word, he reached out, seized Zhuang Laoqi's clothes, and tore—
With a rip, the clothes split.
Everyone's eyes fixed on Zhuang Laoqi's body.
As soon as the clothes were torn, Zhang Chuanshi and Magistrate Pang, who had been sitting clutching his chest, both leaned forward to look at Zhuang Laoqi's back.
He was as thin as kindling. From years of labor his spine was slightly bent, and the gaps between his vertebrae pushed up the thin skin so that his spine looked like a bramble stem.
He must have gone shirtless often, because his skin was dark, almost bronze.
But the most terrifying thing was not Zhuang Laoqi's gauntness or the faint dampness on his skin. In everyone's sight appeared something so unbelievable and shocking that they all stared, wide-eyed, and for a long time no one dared make a sound.
...
When the ghost had revived behind Zhao Fusheng, Gou Laosi had seen the ghost manifest and been frightened unconscious on the spot.
After the ghost of "give first, take later" vanished, Gou Laosi slowly came to.
"Ghost— ghost—"
As soon as he woke, he shrieked.
But no one paid him any attention. The bureau's people were all gathered around Zhuang Laoqi.
Zhuang Laoqi, uneasy, jolted when he heard his cousin cry "ghost," and shouted:
"Where's the ghost?"
Pinned by Wu Shaochun, he couldn't move and could only crane his head left and right.
After Zhuang Laoqi called out, Gou Laosi finally came to his senses.
In the bureau's hall, as the malignant ghost was suppressed again, the ghost domain that hadn't yet fully formed gradually faded.
The dark clouds that had blotted out the sky slowly dispersed and sunlight shone down again, driving off the gloom.
The hall was dim, since Zhang Chuanshi and Wu Shaochun had closed the doors earlier to stop Zhuang Laoqi, but it was light enough for Gou Laosi to see what was happening.
The ghost was gone. Everyone in the hall was crowded around Zhuang Laoqi.
Memories from before he fainted returned, and Gou Laosi stared at Zhuang Laoqi in terror: "Ghost—"
But seeing Zhuang Laoqi's frightened face, no longer eerie as before but seemingly restored to his senses, he hurriedly scrambled up and crawled forward two steps:
"Cousin—"
After he spoke, his eyes fell on Zhuang Laoqi's back.
Fan Wujiu had torn open Zhuang Laoqi's clothes. Beneath his left shoulder blade there was now a hole the size of a fist.
The skin around the wound had become thin flakes, burned red-hot, glinting with an eerie blood light.
The opening seemed blocked by an invisible membrane, through which one could glimpse what lay in his chest below.
Most terrifying of all, inside Zhuang Laoqi's chest there was no beating heart. There was only rippling black water.
As he spoke, the water glug-glugged through his chest, but whenever it surged against the skin around the wound it seemed to be stopped by the burning-red skin flakes and rolled back into his body.
How could a man without a heart still speak and live?
Gou Laosi was dumbstruck.
His mind went blank, and his body felt as if its soul had been drawn out. He gazed blankly at Zhuang Laoqi.
But his cousin didn't notice the terror in him at that moment.
Zhuang Laoqi seemed not to know anything was wrong with his body. He had only seen Gou Laosi wake up crying "ghost," and he was already trembling with fear. At the word "ghost," his soul nearly flew away, and seeing Gou Laosi staring at him blankly, he hurriedly cried out in fear:
"Cousin, where's the ghost?"
His face was an unnatural, deathly white. Great beads of water seeped from his forehead, the sides of his nose, his chin and cheeks, and it was impossible to tell whether it was the terrible black water inside him or cold sweat from fright.
The droplets gathered into small streams that wound down his cheeks, collected at his chin, and dripped drip-drip to the floor like a small spring.
His body had begun to behave strangely, yet he seemed to have forgotten the pain of his broken arms. His arms hung to the floor at strange, twisted angles, and he turned his head left and right, peering nervously around.
"Ghost—"
Gou Laosi's terror surged again, and his eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
After he fainted, Wu Shaochun finally came to his senses. He all but scrambled away on all fours, letting go of Zhuang Laoqi, pushing with his hands on the floor and treading with his legs, face to the ceiling, crawling backward and quickly putting distance between them.
Wu Shaochun had been through the Goutou Village ghost case and knew the cruelty and terror of malignant ghosts.
But a man could survive being flayed. How could he go on living without his heart, lungs and organs?
Through the hole in Zhuang Laoqi's back, you could see that all his internal organs had been hollowed out and replaced with a cavity of reeking water, and he himself was completely unaware. For onlookers, that was the most frightening thing.
"He—" Wu Shaochun landed on his rear and looked up at Zhao Fusheng, wanting to ask: is Zhuang Laoqi a man or a ghost?
But Zhuang Laoqi, freed by him, was at a loss and was slowly rolling over to sit up with an anxious face. Wu Shaochun swallowed the words he'd wanted to ask.
He feared that Zhuang Laoqi was a ghost, and that his question might enrage him and make him revive as a malignant ghost in an instant, leading to something even worse.
"It's all right."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head at him.
Her gaze returned to Zhuang Laoqi.
With the ghost's mark on him suppressed, he seemed to have lost his body's senses. The place on his backside where he'd been paddled no longer seemed to hurt.
He was also unaware of the condition of his own body.
As he sat up, the water glug-glugged in the hole at his back, but a layer of invisible force sealed it, and it didn't flow out of his body.
Zhuang Laoqi didn't know what his back looked like. From Wu Shaochun's and Gou Laosi's expressions he'd realized something was wrong.
His face got worse, and the streams running down it quickened.
The droplets seeping from his pores had turned black with silt, and his face was marked by the pallor of death.
At the same time, the water sealed behind the hole in his back by some eerie power began to surge, battering at that mysterious restraint.
Splash— splash—
The sound of water rose again and again.
Zhuang Laoqi's expression began to stiffen. The blue veins on his face stood high like tangled earthworms.
"What's that sound?"
He had heard the water and was beginning to feel uneasy.
"..."
He was answered by the deeply uneasy faces of Wu Shaochun and the others.
Zhang Chuanshi retreated without a sound.
Not far off, Gou Laosi lay unconscious on the floor, motionless, as if dead.
In the hall, silence spread through the air.
Just then, Zhao Fusheng suddenly sighed.
"What sound?" she said lightly.
"You misheard."
"I heard water."
Everyone was horrified, and Zhao Fusheng's reply gave Zhuang Laoqi great encouragement.
He reached back to touch his own back:
"My lord, what's on my back? Am I going to end up like Kuai Mancai—"
"There's nothing on your back." Zhao Fusheng shook her head.
"I heard water," Zhuang Laoqi said uneasily.
As he spoke, the droplets on his forehead and the sides of his nose gathered into streams that ran down his chin and drip-dripped to the floor.
"I'm so full of water," he sighed.
Zhao Fusheng remained unruffled:
"You've been frightened. It's normal to sweat a lot."
She glanced at Wu Shaochun, signaling him not to shrink back anymore:
"Because you heard earlier that your elder cousin was drowned in Kuailiang Village, you're uneasy and your mind is unsettled. That's why you hallucinated and heard water."
"Is, is that so?"
Zhuang Laoqi asked, doubtful and uneasy.
As he spoke, he grabbed at his face. The droplets on it soaked his whole palm, as if he'd put his hand in water.
"Of course," Zhao Fusheng said. Seeing that he still didn't believe it, and that the sweat he shed now carried a muddy black grime, she changed course:
"But Kuailiang Village really has had a mishap. A ghost case has broken out, and your elder cousin's death has most likely caused a malignant ghost to revive and affected Zhuang Family Village."
Her half-true words stopped Zhuang Laoqi short.
Fan Wujiu, watching his back, saw that the wound's expansion had paused at Zhao Fusheng's words.
He swallowed without making a sound and sent Zhao Fusheng a look.
"Kuai Mancai was marked by the ghost. After he went to Zhuang Family Village to deliver word, your Zhuang Family Village was marked too. The fog that blanketed your village then is what we call a ghost domain."
"A ghost domain?"
Listening to Zhao Fusheng explain unhurriedly, Zhuang Laoqi froze, and he stopped being so agitated.
Though he still seemed afraid, he could hold his emotions in check.
"Yes. A ghost domain is the area a malignant ghost affects once it revives. Heavy fog, early darkness, late dawn, those are signs of it," Zhao Fusheng said patiently.
She dropped the impatience she'd shown when questioning Zhuang Laoqi earlier and was now unusually tolerant of him:
"And you've been marked by the ghost too, so your cousin was afraid when he learned the truth."
"Is— is that so?" Zhuang Laoqi murmured.
"Yes." Zhao Fusheng nodded, and added:
"In fact, your cousin saved you, but he himself has been affected and marked by the ghost."
As she spoke, she saw Zhuang Laoqi still reaching to touch his own back.
After he woke and sat up, he faced Zhao Fusheng, so she couldn't see his back.
But Fan Wujiu happened to be sitting behind him.
From the horror on Fan Wujiu's face more than once, Zhao Fusheng could tell Zhuang Laoqi's hand had nearly touched the hole in his back.
She simply said:
"Here's what we'll do. If you don't believe me, we'll tear open Gou Laosi's clothes, and you can look at his back. Then you'll know what yours looks like."
As she finished, Zhuang Laoqi breathed out in relief.
On his terrible face appeared a faint, relieved smile:
"All right."
"No!"
"I don't think that's a good idea—"
The objections came from Zhang Chuanshi and Fan Wujiu.
After they spoke, Zhuang Laoqi's pleased expression stalled. Seeing his face, which had finally stopped seeping, begin to sweat again, Zhao Fusheng gave the two a cold look:
"What's wrong with it? Tear open Gou Laosi's clothes."
She ordered it in a firm tone that allowed no argument.
Zhang Chuanshi shrank back, Fan Wujiu was frightened, and a faint stench began to leak from Zhuang Laoqi.
"Tear it!" Zhao Fusheng barked.
She had built up a certain authority, and at that shout, Fan Wujiu suppressed his panic, half rose, and crawled on his knees toward Gou Laosi.
His outstretched hand paused above Gou Laosi's back:
"My lord—"
But he met Zhao Fusheng's steady gaze. Fan Wujiu looked back at Zhuang Laoqi. The man was in fact already dead, though for some reason he could still speak and walk like an ordinary person.
But anyone with eyes could see he was on the edge of reviving as a malignant ghost. It seemed that if anyone told him of his own death, he would revive at once, turn into a ghost, and strike out to hurt people.
Zhuang Laoqi's back was terrifying, no longer a living body.
And Gou Laosi had eaten and lived with him for several days and had been affected by the ghost's vessel too. It was hard to say his back wouldn't be the same.
If Zhuang Laoqi saw what his cousin's back looked like, he would surely be badly shaken.
But Zhao Fusheng's attitude was firm, and if anything went wrong, she, a powerful commanding officer, was there to hold the line. What was there to fear?
At the thought of Zhao Fusheng's past feats, Fan Wujiu's courage rose. He grabbed the clothes on Gou Laosi's back and tore—rip.
The gray short jacket split, exposing Gou Laosi's back.
His back was like Zhuang Laoqi's, skinny as kindling, with the knots of his spine standing out and tenting the skin.
But his skin was a bit fairer than Zhuang Laoqi's, and beneath his left shoulder blade was a fist-sized purplish-red bruise, as if someone had punched him and left the mark.
Whew—
Everyone, on seeing the mark, let out a long breath.
When she'd forced Fan Wujiu to tear open Gou Laosi's clothes, Zhao Fusheng had guessed that since Gou Laosi's contact with the ghost was shorter than Zhuang Laoqi's, even if he'd been marked, his condition should be far milder.
But only when she saw the mark on Gou Laosi's back with her own eyes did her hanging heart settle back in her chest.
