IBGSW Chapter 4
Suspicion Takes Root
Piecing the clues together — her arrival in the county, her sudden appointment as head of the bureau, the bizarre stroke of good fortune before bad luck spiraled into death for both her and her parents — it was clear the Fan brothers had harbored sinister motives from the moment they purchased her.
Unfortunately, there were far too few clues.
The original Zhao Fusheng had seen little, thought small, and been timid. There was a great deal she had never bothered to look into.
The Zhao Fusheng who had crossed over was her exact opposite. Calm and meticulous, she was best at picking out whatever could benefit her from scattered details.
According to the original host's memories, the Fan brothers were twins, but the original Zhao Fusheng had spent several months with them and had picked up a few tricks for telling them apart.
The elder brother, Fan Bisi, was a calculating man who held much back when he spoke. He was deeper in his scheming, and his skin was a shade darker than his brother's.
The younger one, Fan Wujiu, was no easy man to deal with either, but he lacked his brother's patience and had a hotter temper. His skin was fairer, and, most important, he had a small mole on his earlobe.
From what the original Zhao Fusheng had observed, both men seemed to have some abilities. She hadn't dared to pry into what they were, and couldn't have found out anyway. One thing was certain, though: Fan Wujiu had keen hearing, and even an ordinary person's whisper couldn't slip past his ears.
The brothers had probably meant to set a trap for the original Zhao Fusheng from the start, and they had been cautious in what they said to her at first. Even later, when they knew she was dull and timid, Fan Bisi had clung to the principle that the more one said, the more one gave away, and had never let slip a single useful clue.
Yet there was one thing they had said early on that, thinking back on it now, did not add up.
The Fan brothers had said that the chief commanding officers who once held the Demon-Suppression Bureau were all dead, and that only the two of them were left in the whole bureau.
Zhao Fusheng, new to this place, didn't yet know how large a county government in the Great Han was. But from what she remembered, Jiumen Village was just one of many villages in its local town, and that town was only a small town under the county's jurisdiction.
Wan'an County governed an unknown number of towns. By that estimate, there was no way two people could cover the peace of an entire county. A county's bureau needed at least a handful of commanding officers and order envoys.
Even allowing that ghost entities were rampant and the court was short of men to suppress and drive them off, Zhao Fusheng judged that a county seat of this size should have no fewer than ten people in its bureau. And besides the proper exorcists, there ought to be menial workers as well.
But after the original Zhao Fusheng entered the city, she had seen no one else in the bureau.
The offices on either side and the wing chambers at the back had long since been abandoned. They had clearly gone unoccupied for ages, and the place had a rundown, decayed look.
Now, recalling those memories, she felt that the buildings gave off a bloody reek thick with ghostly aura, as though many people had died there and a resentment that would not disperse still lingered.
Besides, the bureau held extraordinary standing. Even if its numbers had been depleted, a county that ran well would recruit new hands or report to the court and request more envoys. It could not possibly be as casual as Fan Bisi made it sound.
Guided by the previous commanding officer, they brought an ignorant farm girl into the bureau to become the head of it.
It sounded utterly preposterous, yet the original Zhao Fusheng had taken it for a windfall and never doubted it for a moment.
"..."
Zhao Fusheng was too exasperated to even complain.
On top of that, she had died and come back last night. The Fan brothers, not knowing what she'd been through, had perhaps assumed there was no living soul in the yamen that morning. They hadn't been as careful as usual and had mentioned a few things in their conversation.
She hadn't been fully clear-headed at first and hadn't caught the whole exchange. But from the little the brothers had said, Zhao Fusheng had extracted some key information: Paperman Zhang, the bureau cursed by a ghost entity, the ghost domain, rules, the blood pact.
She rubbed her forehead.
While she had been silently thinking, the Fan brothers had kept staring at her. Fan Bisi's expression gradually changed from wariness to suspicion, and his eyes took on a cold, appraising look that put Zhao Fusheng on guard.
These two had ill intentions. Her luck had turned good and then bad after entering the bureau, and she had finally died to a malignant ghost. Put together with a phrase like 'the bureau is cursed by a ghost entity,' it was not hard to guess that the brothers had been using the original Zhao Fusheng as a scapegoat.
Wary of them now, and seeing Fan Bisi keep looking her over, she spoke, "I don't know what happened either. Yesterday I think I was attacked by a ghost entity. I thought I was certainly dead, but somewhere in the dark I heard lightning and thunder, and then I woke up."
As she said it, she remembered the feeling of being attacked by the evil ghost in her dream. Her face went deathly pale, and she couldn't help reaching up to touch her neck and chest.
A ghost's hand had once passed through her body. This body seemed to still carry the agonizing pain of dying at a ghost's hands, and she trembled uncontrollably.
But Zhao Fusheng quickly mastered herself. The wounds on her body had healed. Only the shadow the malignant ghost had cast might still affect her. Under the brothers' suspicious gazes, she suppressed the horror.
"I don't know the details myself. Anyway, I'm alive now."
Fan Wujiu turned to look at his brother, confusion on his face.
Fan Bisi's expression was grim. After a long while he nodded, "That's good."
Then he asked, "When did you wake up?"
The moment the question left his mouth, Zhao Fusheng sensed the hostility behind it. And when Fan Bisi saw the look in her eyes, he simply stopped hiding his intent.
"Did you hear the conversation between us brothers?"
"Conversation?"
After weighing it briefly, Zhao Fusheng decided to play dumb again for now.
"When I woke up, the last few months felt like a nightmare, and I couldn't believe it. So the moment I came to, I ran out the door to see where I actually was..."
She had only just woken. Although she already sensed that the Fan brothers were no good, she was weak and alone and in the dark about most things, so she naturally chose not to fall out with them openly yet.
"Brother, she..." Relieved to hear this, Fan Wujiu was about to say more when Fan Bisi smiled faintly:
"Then that's all for the best."
When he had finished, he added gently, "What ghost entity attack? You must have had a nightmare. If a person is attacked by a ghost entity, how could anyone be left alive? Don't dwell on it."
Then he said, "You've just come to. Rest for a while. Wujiu, come with me."
He beckoned to his younger brother.
Fan Wujiu walked over to him. The two went around the courtyard and slipped behind the left wing chamber, where Fan Bisi's face suddenly darkened.
"That girl's gotten smart."
