IBGSW Chapter 153
A Troublesome Flower
Zhao Fusheng’s string of questions jolted Zhang Chuanshi and the others out of their daze, and they gathered round the flower, clucking in wonder.
In the same instant, Zhuang Laoqi’s remains began to change again.
After several bowl-sized crimson buds had opened, the bones that had been white as jade seemed to have all their vital essence drained, and began to wither.
In a flash the bones went from white to gray, then from gray to brown, the color of dead, rotting roots.
At the joint between ribcage and spine, the decayed bone could no longer hold up the whole skeleton. The ribs snapped one after another and scattered to the ground.
But the several beautiful flowers did not break apart. They simply fell with the broken bones and lay open to heaven and earth.
“This—”
Zhang Chuanshi saw the flowers and couldn’t keep his hands to himself:
“Your Honor, what is this?”
Zhao Fusheng gave nothing away and encouraged him:
“Pick one and show me.”
Zhang Chuanshi nodded, but the moment his hand touched the black-red bloom he snatched it back, turned and grinned at Zhao Fusheng:
“Does Your Honor take Old Zhang for a fool?”
The two thin whiskers on his upper lip trembled with his smug laugh:
“I’m not doing a dumb thing like that—”
Zhang Chuanshi hadn’t finished when Fan Wujiu’s hand shot out like lightning, wrapped around Zhang Chuanshi’s hand and all, and closed on the stem of the blood-red strange flower.
One moment Zhang Chuanshi had been grinning smugly at Zhao Fusheng. The next his hand was forced to grip the stem, and Fan Wujiu gave it a little pull and yanked the bloom off roughly.
“...”
The sudden turn left Zhang Chuanshi helpless, without a shred of defense.
Everyone gaped. Wu Shaochun felt a chill run down his back, glanced at Fan Wujiu, and hurriedly backed away warily.
“Your Honor, Old Zhang picked it.”
Seeing the flower picked, Fan Wujiu let go, reached back to his backside, wiped his palm on his trousers hard a couple of times, and grinned.
“Hehe—AAAH!!!”
A moment before, Zhang Chuanshi had been smirking. The next moment he let out a heart-rending scream:
“Little Fan, I’m going to beat you to death!”
“Your Honor, this flower doesn’t look poisonous. Old Zhang has plenty of lung power,” Fan Wujiu said, backing off a few steps to dodge the spittle spraying from Zhang Chuanshi’s screams.
“You plague-ridden, gallows-bound Fan Wujiu—”
“All right, enough fooling around.”
Seeing that Zhang Chuanshi still had the energy to curse, Zhao Fusheng said:
“The flower shouldn’t kill a person on touch, but—”
A thought struck her and she was about to speak, but Zhang Chuanshi, burning with rage, flung the flower he’d just been forced to pick like a lump of live coal toward the slope by the river, scrubbing his hands frantically on his clothes:
“Damn you, Fan Wujiu, I’m going to report you to the authorities—”
“We are the officials of Wan’an County. Who’re you going to report me to?”
Fan Wujiu chuckled, and Zhang Chuanshi, furious, lunged to grab him. Fan Wujiu folded at the waist and slid away like a loach.
“You plague-ridden, gallows-bound Fan Wujiu—”
Seeing him still dodging, Zhang Chuanshi couldn’t help grabbing for him again. Fan Wujiu knew he’d played a dirty trick, and afraid the old man would really fight him to the death if pushed too far, he hid behind Zhao Fusheng and wouldn’t show himself.
On a normal day, Zhao Fusheng’s prestige weighed so heavily on Zhang Chuanshi that he would have swallowed his anger.
But today he had picked a flower off a dead man for no reason. And the dead man had died to a malignant ghost. Nobody knew what strangeness lay in a ghost flower that had grown from him, and even if nothing was wrong, it was just bad luck.
He wouldn’t let it go. He tried to grab Fan Wujiu across Zhao Fusheng, and the two of them ran circles around her, one after the other.
“...” Zhao Fusheng’s face darkened.
Without a word she stuck out a leg. As Fan Wujiu ran around her, he failed to notice it and was tripped neatly, falling with a thump.
“Hahaha—” Zhang Chuanshi was about to laugh at the sight when Zhao Fusheng pulled out the ghost arm and gave him two bang, bang raps.
The revived ghost arm opened its dripping hand and clutched at Zhang Chuanshi’s arm. Luckily he reacted fast and pulled away in time.
But even that easy slip-away left Zhang Chuanshi’s arm aching from the squeeze.
Fortunately the ghost arm’s strength was much reduced after its damage. Otherwise his arm would have been broken at best, or at worst had a piece of skin torn off.
“Your Honor—”
Clutching his pinched arm, Zhang Chuanshi called out, still shaken.
“Your Honor.”
Fan Wujiu also scrambled up from the ground and called sheepishly.
“Is this the time for this? Even fooling around needs a limit.”
Zhao Fusheng gave them each a cold stare. Under it Zhang Chuanshi and Fan Wujiu both turned their faces away, awkward, and each a little unconvinced.
“I just wanted to joke around with Old Zhang. Why’s he so petty—”
Fan Wujiu muttered.
“A joke?” Zhang Chuanshi yelped, and at that the blood rushed to his head:
“Is that how you joke? Then why don’t you pick a flower—”
“You started it, joking with Your Honor. If you hadn’t got so close to the flower, could I have picked it?” Fan Wujiu retorted, refusing to give way.
“...”
Zhao Fusheng’s fist curled and she wanted to give the two of them a punch each.
Uh-oh!
The pair, still in full quarrel, saw her face darken and felt a sense of doom. They shut their mouths together.
“Your Honor, I think the flower’s nothing so special. Master Zhang picked it and nothing happened. Second Brother Fan is right. He’s lively as ever now, so maybe it’s just bad luck,” Wu Shaochun said quietly, trying to smooth things over.
Hearing this, Fan Wujiu nodded quickly:
“Right, right, right.”
Zhang Chuanshi was still wiping his hands for all he was worth. Zhao Fusheng said:
“What’s so unlucky about it? Old Zhang runs a coffin shop. He deals with the dead all the time. He’s used to this.”
“How is it the same?”
Zhang Chuanshi protested weakly. “Your Honor, you said it yourself, those are dead people, but Zhuang Laoqi was a living dead man, a ghost—”
“You’ve got corpse slaves in your shop, and I never saw you mind them,” Zhao Fusheng retorted.
“That’s different too. Corpse slaves won’t harm me,” Zhang Chuanshi said.
“Zhuang Laoqi didn’t want to harm you either.”
The moment she said this Zhang Chuanshi let out a long breath of relief, his pale face breaking into a smile:
“If Your Honor puts it that way, I’m at ease.”
“You’re at ease too soon.”
Zhao Fusheng said flatly.
“What does Your Honor mean by that?”
That single sentence made him lift the heart he’d just put down again. He asked, a little tense.
Just then Gou Laosi, sunk in grief, suddenly spoke:
“Your Honor, Zhuang, Zhuang Family Village—”
He was looking toward the village. A look of shock was on his face, and the finger he raised toward the distance would not stop shaking.
Everyone turned. In the distance the village was changing.
A wave of gray mist rolled from the fields before them toward the houses far off. Wherever the wave passed, the golden wheat fields and the fruit-laden branches were flattened one by one.
The fields turned barren, the soil dry and gray, with unharvested rice stubble beginning to blacken.
Many unharvested vegetables had rotted and withered in the ground.
The fruit trees had died, their leaves nearly all fallen, only bare branches left.
And in the distance the houses no longer sent up smoke from their chimneys. The village, which had been like a Peach Blossom Spring1, was struck back into its true shape in an instant, as if with Zhuang Laoqi’s death.
“What’s going on—”
Wu Shaochun looked and asked, a little alarmed.
“What we saw earlier was only an illusion.” Zhao Fusheng thought it over and explained:
“Probably the scene we just saw was the ‘hometown’ that Zhuang Laoqi longed for in his heart. When his consciousness died, the village naturally showed its real face.”
Her words stirred sorrow in Gou Laosi again, and he wept softly.
“Your Honor—”
At a tender moment like this, Zhang Chuanshi couldn’t settle. He was still worried that, having picked a flower that grew on a dead man, he might suffer some aftereffect.
Unfortunately, Zhao Fusheng had been about to explain when Gou Laosi interrupted.
Now Zhang Chuanshi didn’t care what was strange about Zhuang Family Village. He called to her:
“Your Honor, what did you mean when you said I was at ease too soon?”
Zhao Fusheng sighed and put away the ghost arm she’d taken out:
“Zhuang Laoqi was marked by a malignant ghost, and he died at its hands.” The reason he hadn’t died, and hadn’t become a ghost servant, was probably that back at the Demon-Suppression Bureau, Zhao Fusheng’s own ghost had nearly revived, and that had driven back the ghost’s aura that had borrowed his body.
When the malignant ghost withdrew, by some fluke his consciousness hadn’t faded, and he stayed in a delicate state between life and death.
At first he hadn’t known he was dead, so his condition was more or less intact. But later, from the fear and avoidance of Gou Laosi, Wu Shaochun and the others, he must have guessed something, so the corpse stench on him grew stronger and he dripped water all along the way.
On the carriage, when he talked about the past with Gou Laosi, Gou Laosi lost control for a moment and called him “cousin,” which pulled back a part of his humanity and eased his dripping a good deal.
But at that point he must have been desperate to get back to his hometown.
As the old saying goes, fallen leaves return to their roots2.
Under his power’s influence, not long after the carriage left Wan’an County it entered a ghost domain and reached Zhuang Family Village at an inconceivable speed. At the very moment Zhuang Laoqi saw his hometown, he got down from the carriage and died.
“He didn’t harm anyone before he died, but he’s tied to a malignant ghost after all. Flowers bloomed on his bones after death. Old Zhang looks fine for now, but nobody can say with a case like this.”
When she reached this point, Zhang Chuanshi shivered twice and put on a tearful face:
“Your Honor, don’t scare me—”
“Take off your clothes. Let me look at your back.”
Zhao Fusheng said.
Her words frightened Zhang Chuanshi badly. But he knew some things were more urgent than others, and though terrified, he forced himself to stay calm, tore his clothes open, pulled them off, and turned his back to everyone.
To everyone’s surprise, Zhang Chuanshi’s back was thin and clean.
Zhao Fusheng examined the area behind his left chest in particular and didn’t see the purple-blue marks like the ones on Gou Laosi’s back.
“It’s fine.”
Zhao Fusheng said.
To Zhang Chuanshi it was gospel in the midst of despair. He let out a huge breath:
“Really?”
“Really.”
Zhao Fusheng nodded:
“There’s not a mark on it.”
“Hahaha—”
Zhang Chuanshi burst out laughing, then for some reason his eyes suddenly turned toward Zhuang Laoqi’s remains.
All that was left of the bones now was a skull, still reasonably intact, which looked eerie.
But after Zhuang Laoqi’s incident, Zhao Fusheng had lied to him to steady the situation. At the time he’d clearly been a living dead man, and she’d still told him it was fine.
Zhang Chuanshi was deeply suspicious by nature. Thinking of that, he said doubtfully:
“Your Honor, don’t fool me. I’m not an idiot like Zhuang Laoqi.”
“It’s really fine. Your back has no ghost mark at all. Could it be I overthought it, and the flower that grew on Zhuang Laoqi’s bones after his death means nothing else?”
Zhao Fusheng frowned. She looked at Zhang Chuanshi’s back once more. There was no ghost mark, and nothing strange showed for now.
But from her experience on several ghost cases, she felt this wasn’t over.
“Forget it. Old Zhang, put your clothes back on.”
If nothing bad happened, all the better. If Zhang Chuanshi had been hit, what was coming couldn’t be dodged, and worrying wouldn’t help.
At first Zhang Chuanshi had been glad to hear his back had no mark, but seeing Zhao Fusheng’s grave face he grew uneasy again.
“What do we do now?” Fan Wujiu asked quietly.
Zhang Chuanshi’s back had no ghost mark. Fan Wujiu was relieved too. Otherwise the old man would probably have fought him to the death.
“We’ll go into Zhuang Family Village, walk through it, and see if there’s anyone alive—”
Zhao Fusheng thought for a moment and said.
Gou Laosi’s lips moved, but no sound came.
Looking at it from afar, Zhuang Family Village was like a ghost village, and it didn’t seem to have survivors.
The group had stood here for a good while and hadn’t been watched by anyone alive. Even if they went in, they’d probably find nothing.
Gou Laosi said:
“Your Honor, when I came last time, I thought the village was eerily quiet, with lots of people missing—”
Seven or eight days had passed since his last visit to Zhuang Family Village. With the malignant ghost causing this much trouble now, the villagers must be in grave danger. Perhaps Zhuang Laoqi had been the last survivor.
Thinking of Zhuang Laoqi, Gou Laosi’s expression grew somber again.
Zhao Fusheng said calmly:
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll make a quick circuit through the village. Mainly I want to see the village chief’s home.”
“The village chief?” Zhang Chuanshi’s eyes darted at that:
“Your Honor wants to see Kuai Mancai’s corpse?”
This old man usually slacked off and dodged trouble whenever he could, yet now he’d suddenly gotten sharp and willing to join a ghost case. Probably because of the flower he’d picked.
“Yes,” Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Zhang Chuanshi couldn’t stand still any longer:
“Let’s go, let’s go.”
“Gou Laosi, do you know where the village chief of Zhuang Family Village lives?” Zhao Fusheng turned to Gou Laosi, who nodded uneasily:
“I do.”
“Good. We’ll split up, which is faster.” Zhao Fusheng looked at Fan Wujiu:
“Second Brother Fan goes with Shaochun. Old Zhang goes alone. The three of you check whether anyone’s alive in the village. Gou Laosi comes with me to the village chief’s home. We’ll all meet there in the end.”
Her words made the others uneasy, but Fan Wujiu had handled two ghost cases with her and knew that on ghost cases her word was law. Once she assigned tasks there was no refusing.
And before he left, his older brother Fan Bisi had told him to follow Zhao Fusheng’s orders and not overthink things.
He forced down his unease and nodded:
“Fine.”
Wu Shaochun was loyal to Zhao Fusheng and nodded too:
“Yes.”
Only Zhang Chuanshi was afraid:
“Your Honor, why’s everyone in twos and only I’m alone? I, Old Zhang, don’t dare—”
“Look at your cowardly face!” Zhao Fusheng scolded:
“The source of the ghost calamity is Kuailiang Village. I suspect the people of Zhuang Family Village were marked by Kuai Mancai and then drawn to Kuailiang Village, all together. For now this place is only covered by the ghost domain and won’t cause any major crisis.”
Then she added:
“You don’t have a ghost mark on you now, but I think that flower is uncanny. It may be a kind of mark too, just that we can’t say yet what kind. If it’s a special mark, ordinary ghost servants will avoid you on sight. You’re the safest of us all!”
Her words left Zhang Chuanshi speechless, choking back tears, and he had no choice but to accept.
Time wouldn’t wait. Once everything was settled, they split into three and headed straight into the village.
Fan and Wu ran off toward the left side of the village, Zhang Chuanshi alone toward the right, and Zhao Fusheng and Gou Laosi entered through the middle and made straight for the village chief’s old house.
