IBGSW Chapter 19
Shrouded in Mist
There was no further record after the file. The case seemed to end there.
Zhao Fusheng had finally found the account of the South City ghost case from forty years ago, but having read it she didn't feel the relief she'd expected.
She had inexpressible doubts, and more of them than before she'd read the case.
Su Long had been extraordinary. Four ghost cases in a row was a rare thing in all of Wan'an County's history.
And in a sense the Lius' ghost case in the south of the city had also been "solved" by him, since after that the Lius' "ghost" was driven away and no strange event occurred there again, a peace that lasted forty years.
In an age when ghost cases were frequent, that was truly incredible, and showed how exceptional Su Long had been.
He had cracked five major cases, yet he had recorded this Liu case with remarkable secrecy.
First, the file was written in dense detail. Compared with the other ghost-case files Zhao Fusheng had read, this one recorded the Lius and head of household Liu Huacheng's background in very full detail.
But when it came to the actual ghost case, there were only a few words: the ghost's rank wasn't low, and two envoys had died.
How Su Long and Zhang Xiongwu had solved the case and resolved the calamity was not mentioned at all.
Most importantly, connecting Su Long’s lingering warning with Fan Bisi’s mention of a young man who had come a month ago demanding the bureau honor an old agreement, Zhao Fusheng ventured a bold guess: forty years ago, Su Long had already foreseen that the ghost calamity would return. Even back then, he must have realized the incident would resurface decades later, and so he had struck a private deal with the Liu family, ensuring the bureau would be left to clean up his mess.
Unfortunately the timing had been wrong.
When the Beggars' Alley ghost calamity broke out, the bureau could barely protect itself and the Fan brothers had been helpless.
By now more than a month had passed.
At this thought, her heart sank.
The file in her hand weighed a thousand catties1. She wanted to put it down but couldn't bring herself to. She read it through twice more from beginning to end, committed every small detail to memory, then set it down, her expression grave.
"Liu Huacheng, Liu Huacheng..." she muttered under her breath.
"This man bought an official post early on, served as Right Supervisor of the Tingwei in the Capital, then mysteriously resigned and came home to inherit the family fortune..."
On his sixtieth birthday the house was haunted, many of the family's blood kin died, and the same day a ghost domain appeared at the Lius'.
"What kind of official is a Right Supervisor?" Zhao Fusheng frowned in thought.
She had worked for years and long since left school, and no longer remembered the officials and backgrounds of historical dynasties.
And this Great Han shared only a name with the Han dynasty she knew. After all, the existence of ghost cases and the Demon-Suppression Bureau already showed this dynasty was strange.
The original Zhao Fusheng had seen little of the world and knew nothing of court posts. Searching the original owner's memory, she found the girl had thought village and town officials already very important, and "Right Supervisor of the Tingwei" was merely "a very big official" to her.
But although Zhao Fusheng didn't know how big Liu Huacheng's post actually was, she knew one thing.
For ordinary people, "commoners don't fight officials" was an ingrained conviction.
No matter how prominent the Lius were, they were still confined to a single county. For Liu Huacheng to have secured a post in the Capital proved he was no ordinary man.
That he had suddenly resigned and returned home suggested there was far more to the story than met the eye.
"Fan Bisi said a ghost that can create a ghost domain has at least broken past Evil Spirit-tier. Assuming Evil Spirit-tier is the lowest, what is the rank above it? And what rank is a Baleful-tier ghost?"
She was frustrated: she'd only just borrowed a corpse to return to life and knew too little about the Great Han, and the original Zhao Fusheng was ignorant and knew nothing of such matters.
"By Su Long's warning, one must control a Baleful-tier ghost or better to enter. Does that mean the malignant ghost here is nearly Baleful-tier, or already there?"
Zhao Fusheng murmured, "If so, I could actually give it a try..."
She had a malignant ghost wrapped around her, and the Investiture's prompt said that ghost was already exactly Baleful-tier.
But once she used the ghost's power, it would be like bargaining with a tiger for its skin, and the consequences would be severe.
More importantly, she actually doubted whether the ghost in Beggars' Alley next to the Lius' was "Baleful-tier."
Su Long's warning was forty years old.
With his experience, vision and skill at the time, Zhao Fusheng trusted his judgment.
But the problem was that ghosts could advance in rank by killing.
When Su Long handled this ghost calamity, had he thought about whether his method would keep the Lius peaceful for forty years?
Had he foreseen that forty years later the ghost might not still be what he'd estimated?
She hesitated, and after a while rolled up the scroll and tucked it into the front of her clothes.
Her eyes fell on the shelf again and she drew out another file.
This file was still Great Han Year 206, but the timeline had reached November, and the case wasn't recorded by Su Long.
She set the file aside and picked again, and after a long search, the closest to June was an August case record, again not Su Long's.
A thought occurred to her: could Su Long have died soon after finishing the Lius' ghost case?
With that in mind, her eyes fell on the shelving along the far wall, with a label above it: Roster of Past Personnel of the Wan'an County Demon Suppression Bureau.
Since ghost cases were so dangerous, the bureau's personnel rosters seemed to outnumber its case files.
They were arranged chronologically, each compartment stuffed full.
After searching for quite some time, she finally found the year Great Han 206.
In the course of searching she found many commanding officers' and envoys' names appearing, then quickly vanishing.
The roster briefly recorded their ages, when they'd entered the bureau, how long afterward they died, and the cause of death.
Zhao Fusheng found Su Long's entry.
Roster of Past Personnel of the Wan'an County Demon Suppression Bureau
Name Post Died Age Served the bureau Cause of death Remarks …… Su Long Wan'an County Bureau's Commanding Officer Great Han Year 206, July 4 31 A year and a half The malignant ghost he controlled slipped out of control, and he was killed in the end by Shao Wenxun, bearing the token of command. The malignant ghost on him was taken under Shao Wenxun's control and carried back to the Capital. Following his death, merit was assessed and rewarded; five generations of his blood kin are to be cared for by the imperial court. ……
Just as Zhao Fusheng had expected, Su Long had died not long after the Lius' ghost case in Wan'an County, when his ghost slipped out of control.
She sighed again.
The death rate among commanding officers and envoys in the bureau was truly high. Su Long had been talented, and even someone like him couldn't escape death.
The Lius' waters in Wan'an County were not easy to wade, she thought. She hesitated a long while, but didn't put the scroll in her robe back in its original place.
