IBGSW Chapter 43
The Terrifying Truth
Liu Yizhen's reaction was slightly unexpected.
Joining the Demon-Suppression Bureau meant being entered in the Soul-Life Register and trapped in Wan'an County with no hope of release.
As a descendant of the Liu clan, judging by his speech, he knew the bureau's situation quite well.
Yet the moment she made the demand, he agreed. That was clearly unreasonable.
People generally do things for a reason.
Joining an organization like the bureau meant either profit to be had, or, like Zhang Chuanshi, being coerced and finding that compromise was the best option when there was nowhere else to turn.
Neither case applied to Liu Yizhen.
This man lived alongside ghosts, held the One-Name Register, and had survived in a ghost domain for so long handing out gruel, which showed he had real ability.
When something is out of the ordinary, there is a demon behind it—
She was half suspicious of his attitude but pretended to take it in stride:
"No problem." She held the jade book and said with a smile:
"You can be entered in the Soul-Life Register first. When this is over and you've taken care of your business, come report to me at the bureau."
Her only aim was to use the Soul-Life Register to restrain the One-Name Register. Whether Liu Yizhen was really willing to serve the bureau was a matter for later. She would pull him in first.
"All right—" Liu Yizhen nodded without hesitation.
Things were going far too smoothly.
Zhao Fusheng frowned.
Liu Yizhen did not look stupid. If anything he seemed unusually shrewd.
He had stayed in Beggars' Alley for over a month after the trouble began and had come to no harm, which showed he had nerve and some experience dealing with ghosts.
He should know how terrifying malignant ghosts were and should understand what joining the bureau would bring.
She had expected to spend plenty of words persuading him to enter the Soul-Life Register. She had even prepared to use threats and bribes. Instead, he had agreed without hesitation the moment she proposed it.
His eagerness only made her suspect he was merely putting her off.
"—But not right now," Liu Yizhen said.
That was more like it.
Holding the Soul-Life Register, Zhao Fusheng could not help laughing, then asked him:
"When do you think would be the right time?"
"After the matter in Beggars' Alley is settled." Liu Yizhen looked at her frankly.
"You hold the Soul-Life Register, so your identity is not in doubt. But you say you control a ghost, and I still don't know how strong you are."
He spoke plainly, "We're inside a ghost domain, and now that you're on the ghost's list, there's no telling whether you'll escape this calamity. I can't gamble my future on you right now."
His meaning was simple. In handling this ghost calamity, Zhao Fusheng had to demonstrate abilities that convinced him before he would join the bureau.
And if she died in Beggars' Alley, the agreement between them would naturally come to nothing.
After saying this he looked at her and added, "Don't worry. Since I've agreed, I won't go back on it."
Zhao Fusheng thought it over briefly and put the register away without fuss.
"Fine."
She read people very well and saw at a glance that Liu Yizhen was resolute and not someone who gave in because of a threat. She did control a ghost, but she knew the ghost she controlled could be used at most once more, and she could not let her temper spend its power on a contest of wills.
With a basic understanding reached between them, Liu Yizhen said:
"In that case, I won't say more. I still have a lot to do."
He gave Zhao Fusheng a slight nod and turned to go back toward the Confucian temple.
"Oh, right." Before stepping back into the shadows, he stopped and half turned his head.
One half of Liu Yizhen's face was in the pale lamplight and the other half in darkness, which gave him a split look.
"Don't go inside the Confucian temple."
"Is there a ghost in the temple?" Zhao Fusheng asked casually, toying with the Soul-Life Register.
"How many?"
"..." Liu Yizhen said nothing. He only smiled, then turned and stepped over the threshold of the great hall, and his figure vanished into the dark.
With no one left to talk to, the space before the temple felt empty and cold.
Zhao Fusheng tucked the jade book back into her robe, glanced at the temple, and thought for a while.
The situation in Beggars' Alley was grave.
She sighed.
Liu Yizhen had warned her more than once not to enter the temple, which showed how dangerous it must be inside.
He had not answered her probing question, but his silence was the clearest answer.
She rubbed her brow in frustration, and her expression gradually grew serious.
She already knew that the Headless Ghost corpse, dismembered forty years ago, was suppressed inside the Confucian temple. That was the first ghost in the temple.
And in order to suppress the revived Headless Ghost corpse, Su Long and Zhang Xiongwu had artificially "invited" out another ghost, so the two ghosts formed a balance. That was why the temple had kept up a surface calm for forty years.
The key figure holding that balance was the old temple keeper.
He was Liu Huacheng's trusted subordinate, in charge of the bulk of the family wealth, guarding this place for the Liu family and soothing the ghosts.
Zhao Fusheng was especially interested in this old temple keeper. He knew many secrets. Before dying he had probably already known that after his death one of the malignant ghosts "invited" into the temple would certainly revive, and so he had sent his grandson to the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
The Headless Ghost and the malignant ghost in Beggars' Alley that killed by the register should, in theory, have checked each other and formed a perfect balance. As long as the balance held, things should have continued as they were—unless the old keeper had been certain from the start that the balance would break after his death.
After much thought, she judged that there were three possibilities for breaking the balance between two Baleful-tier ghost entities.
First, one of the two malignant ghosts gained or lost strength, so their ranks were no longer equal and the balance broke.
Second, the two ghosts' strength had never been equal, and the old temple keeper's almsgiving had played a major role in evening it out.
Third, one malignant ghost vanished and the other awoke.
Of the three, Zhao Fusheng ruled out the first at once.
She did not understand how malignant ghosts formed in this world, but advancing a ghost's rank was not easy, and weakening a malignant ghost's rank could probably only be done through suppression or dismemberment. Either was far too difficult.
The second was very likely, but she set it aside for the moment.
As for the third, it was extremely unlikely.
Malignant ghosts did not vanish for no reason. From her limited understanding, once a ghost revived it formed a ghost domain according to its rank, and once the domain took shape the ghost would not disappear without committing great slaughter, unless someone interfered.
The situation in Wan'an County was this: the only one who could openly interfere with ghosts was herself.
So she did not consider the third.
By elimination, the second was most probable.
But then she recalled her conversation with Liu Yizhen.
The key moment when the balance between the ghosts broke was the old temple keeper's death. She had asked him tentatively whether the ghost revived after his grandfather died, and whether the ghost in Beggars' Alley was his grandfather.
Liu Yizhen's answer was subtle. He first said "yes," then denied it flatly.
From his attitude and the current state of Beggars' Alley, another possibility for the broken balance surfaced in her mind, the fourth: a third ghost had appeared in Beggars' Alley.
—The old keeper had become a malignant ghost right after dying.
Once he became a ghost, the original balance between the Headless Ghost and the almsgiving ghost was quickly broken, so one of those two ghosts revived.
Liu Yizhen's words confirmed it. He had said with certainty that the Headless Ghost sealed by Su Long forty years ago could absolutely not revive.
The reason Liu Yizhen was so certain was that he knew the old keeper had already revived as a malignant ghost.
And he had said the almsgiving ghost was not his grandfather. So Zhao Fusheng concluded that after the old keeper died, he became a malignant ghost of at least Baleful-tier and balanced against the sealed Headless Ghost corpse, forming an odd equilibrium in which neither stirred.
Meanwhile the almsgiving ghost, which had originally checked the Headless Ghost, was freed from restraint and revived, and that gave rise to the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley.
(Liu Yizhen's remark that the ghost in Beggars' Alley had originally been tied to the case forty years ago but was no longer much connected also supported this.)
A mere Beggars' Alley around a single Confucian temple, and it hid three great ghosts!
She had gone cold and her hair had stood on end the moment she realized this during her talk with Liu Yizhen.
Su Long must also have known this when he settled the calamity back then. This commanding officer of the Demon-Suppression Bureau from forty years ago had the ability to "invite" ghosts artificially. He might even have foreseen forty years ago that the old temple keeper would likely turn into a ghost after dying, which was why he repeatedly warned his successors in the case scroll: do not set foot in Beggars' Alley.
When the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley broke out, three great ghosts would run wild. One malignant ghost alone was already hard to deal with, and a ghost-controller who was not strong enough, who went deep into this place rashly, would have no chance of surviving.
"Sigh—"
Zhao Fusheng let out a long sigh.
She was only a rookie at the bureau, forced to do a job she wasn't qualified for, like a duck driven onto a perch1, and she had not expected to face such a catastrophic problem.
And she had no way back, so she had to bite the bullet and press on.
The only way left was to drive out the ghost, save the people, earn merit, and keep herself alive.
She pressed her twitching brow again and recalled Liu Yizhen's warning: don't go into the Confucian temple.
The man was deep and his words carried hidden meanings. Since it was worth warning her about more than once, something inside the temple must be strange.
After the old temple keeper died, the almsgiving ghost in Beggars' Alley had revived immediately. By all signs the old keeper's body had not been moved.
He had lived in the Confucian temple all his life, and after death he could balance the sealed Headless Ghost inside the temple, which showed that the old keeper was in the temple.
The truth was nearly out: there were at least two great ghosts of Baleful-tier or above inside the Confucian temple.
Under these circumstances, Liu Yizhen's warning made him seem especially sincere and kind.
The thought entered her mind and she could not help laughing aloud.
She had just found a stranger sincere and kind-hearted, when his answer to a ghost calamity was to let a great many people die. Her mental state, clearly, was seriously off.
Still, although the problem of the temple looked complicated and terrifying, the situation wasn't as bad as expected.
After all, two of the ghosts were currently in a sealed state and Liu Yizhen was living among them for now, which meant for the time being only the almsgiving ghost was the immediate problem.
She was hardly able to look after herself, so she certainly had no strength to wade into this muddy water. All she had to do was focus on the malignant ghost that killed by the almsgiving list.
Having thought this through, even without Liu Yizhen's warning she would never have tried to barge into the temple to see for herself.
She planned to spend the time ahead wandering around Beggars' Alley to learn its layout.
If possible, finding the almsgiving ghost's most likely hiding place would be best of all.
From her observations last night and her talk with Liu Yizhen, she had worked out the ghost's killing rules and the time it appeared.
It should not appear in daytime, which meant daytime was an absolutely safe zone for her.
As long as she wandered around before the almsgiving began each day, nothing should happen.
Once she knew the routes, they might help her escape when she faced the ghost.
Thinking this, Zhao Fusheng turned to look around.
The road in front of the Confucian temple was shaped like "丄"2, with a small lane on each side of the temple disappearing into the ghost fog, while straight ahead of the main gate another road ran on.
This place had been the Liu family's private land and the site of the Liu mansion. After the Liu family left Wan'an County and donated their ancestral home and hall, this stretch of the south city had been rebuilt to some degree over forty years, but the basic layout should not have changed much.
But once she actually walked through Beggars' Alley, Zhao Fusheng found it far bigger than she had imagined, with streets crisscrossing and linking up.
Someone unfamiliar with the layout would easily get lost among the long streets and small lanes.
After circling several times, though, she did find a pattern for reading the route.
The streets and lane ends looked disordered but followed a clever overall plan. Apart from some small lanes crossing the main roads, the main streets of the whole of Beggars' Alley were laid out like the character "囬."
The Confucian temple stood where the inner "口" sits in "囬," and the other lanes, houses, and shops were built around it.
They surrounded the temple like stars around the moon.
Counting on the ghost she controlled and the ghost lantern in her hand, and on daytime being the "safe period," she pulled open the shop doors along each street and looked inside.
Some of the houses were in ruins, attacked by the ghost, with scattered remains and a stench that hit the nose. Others were occupied by living people, who were both startled and angry at her arrival and seemed at a loss.
All this took a lot of time, and in the end she found nothing useful in these houses and sensed no trace of the ghost.
Where had the ghost hidden?
