IBGSW Chapter 45
Turning the Tables
The outlandish guess had become reality, and the shock left Zhao Fusheng speechless for a long time.
All three ghosts hid together in the Confucian temple. How had Liu Yizhen dared? He was living with three ghosts!
She remembered the shrine niche she had glimpsed from in front of the temple when she came looking for Liu Yizhen yesterday. She hadn't seen the "statue" enshrined inside clearly, but even then it had given her an uncanny feeling. But then the ghost lantern had shattered and Liu Yizhen appeared, cutting her peeking short.
With mixed feelings, she followed the ghost around a street corner.
The light of the temple grew brighter. The pale lamplight pierced the blockade of the ghost fog and let her see the scene before the gate at a glance.
At the main gate stood a tall figure holding a wooden pail in each hand.
Perhaps the hour had come. He seemed a little anxious and kept turning his head uneasily, as if waiting for something.
When he heard the heavy tapping of footsteps, the figure turned its head sharply.
The stiff, deathly pale ghost, carrying its dripping head, walked unhurriedly into the area lit by the ghost lanterns.
The young man with the pails saw this and instinctively looked at the head in the ghost's hand—
"Huh?" He seemed to notice something strange and made a sound of surprise.
The head belonged to an older man with uneven teeth. Evidently the ghost's prey tonight was not Zhao Fusheng.
While the young man stood there, bewildered and uncertain, a familiar voice spoke.
"What's the matter? Didn't expect it not to be me, did you?"
The slightly mocking remark, coming so suddenly, gave the young man an enormous fright.
His mighty frame shuddered.
The pails in his hands fell to the ground with a clang, and water sloshed out and splashed everywhere.
Behind the ghost, a figure slowly stepped out of the shadows—
"It's you!" Liu Yizhen cried, thoroughly shaken, and stammered.
"Y-you, how, how did you dare—"
Ever since Zhao Fusheng met Liu Yizhen, he had struck her as extremely calm and mature. He hadn't been afraid even at the sight of the ghost, but now he looked badly frightened by her sudden appearance.
Perhaps he was shocked that she had not only survived tonight's ghost calamity but had also strolled behind the ghost for most of a street. He was panting hard as he spoke.
His hands were splashed with water. His fists clenched, then loosened instinctively, then clenched again, over and over. He was so shocked that his pupils kept contracting.
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and watched the ghost move step by step toward the temple gate.
The lamplight shone on the ghost and made the blood dripping on the ground extremely clear.
The ghost passed right by the dazed Liu Yizhen. Whether because of the Ghost Lanterns or because it had completed tonight's killing rule, it seemed not to "see" the living person standing in front of it.
It climbed the steps stiffly and crossed the threshold. Then the tapping of its footsteps came from the silent great hall, echoing, and the ghost's presence was gradually swallowed by the shadows inside.
Before long there was a clatter of impacts, and then everything fell quiet.
Now two living people stood in front of the temple gate, facing each other without speaking for a long time.
"I never expected it to turn out like this."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head again, "No, I should have thought of it long ago."
No wonder Liu Yizhen had only smiled and said nothing when she asked yesterday how many ghosts were in the temple.
By her earlier reasoning, the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley had originally appeared to counter the Headless Ghost. The Headless Ghost was sealed in the Confucian temple, so it was not impossible that the head-carrying ghost also hid there.
But Liu Yizhen living in the temple had misled her. She hadn't thought anyone would dare share a room with a revived malignant ghost.
Then there was the revival of the ghost after the old temple keeper's death. She sighed and said:
"I never thought that our tiny Confucian temple in Wan'an County would turn out to be so full of 'ghost talent.'"1
As she spoke she looked up at the ghost lanterns hanging above, then at the two pails beside Liu Yizhen.
Then she remembered that when she came here yesterday morning, the ground had been wet, as if freshly washed. It had made her suspicious at the time.
"..."
Her words left Liu Yizhen speechless for a moment. Finally he calmed his heartbeat and said:
"Let me clean up here first, then I'll talk to you."
He motioned her to step aside, bent down, and tipped out the two pails, which had spilled most of their water. The water rushed out and washed the ground.
He took a long broom from near the wall and began scrubbing away the traces the ghost had left. It was plain he did this regularly, because his movements were practiced. In a few strokes he had cleaned the front of the temple. When he put away the broom and pails and came back out, he glanced at Zhao Fusheng—
Her expression was calm, but her eyes were deep and wary of him.
The girl wore a pair of worn cloth shoes. Both big toes had split through, and her socks showed inside.
Soles and uppers were nearly soaked in blood, and after the water he had just poured they were practically wet through.
"Would you like to clean your shoes?"
Zhao Fusheng looked down at her feet and saw the toes that were almost poking out of the holes.
Liu Yizhen's eyes fell on her feet. Her eyes darted, and then she laughed, "Sure."
She bent over as if to take off her shoes.
"Then take them and scrub them clean for me—"
"..."
Her reaction caught Liu Yizhen off guard.
Generally, people have a sense of shame. When someone glimpses their unpresentable side, most instinctively want to run or explain themselves.
Zhao Fusheng had been lucky enough to become a commanding officer of the bureau, but she came from a poor background and dressed shabbily, which did not match her position.
Liu Yizhen had mentioned her shoes on purpose, wanting to embarrass her so she'd drop the conversation to come.
But she wore her worn shoes without a bit of awkwardness, and when she moved to take them off, Liu Yizhen was the one who jumped.
"Don't—"
He lost his composure again and cried out.
Her hand was still on the heel of the shoe. She had no further move planned anyway, and when she heard the young man lose his nerve, she snorted with laughter.
"Just kidding. Look how scared you got."
She straightened up.
Liu Yizhen had looked rather vexed, but when he heard her laugh, he felt his own behavior had been ridiculous: he'd tried to put her on the spot and she had turned it right around on him. He couldn't help laughing too.
The laughter drained the tension from the air between them.
Liu Yizhen's expression seemed much relaxed, but in truth he was even more wary of Zhao Fusheng.
She was clever and cunning, unpredictable in what she'd do, and especially good at reading people's hearts and the mood of a moment.
Since the ghost had returned, it seemed to him that his emotions had been in her grip all along. Even his attempt to drive her off had apparently fit within her expectations.
Zhao Fusheng didn't care what he was thinking. She said calmly:
"I'm going to be dealing with ghosts from now on, so I'd better get used to this sort of thing."
Liu Yizhen nodded thoughtfully.
Zhao Fusheng said:
"I just didn't expect that the ghost of Beggars' Alley was something you were keeping."
"No—"
Liu Yizhen wanted to deny it at first, but under Zhao Fusheng's gaze he finally sighed.
"It's a long story."
"Then tell it slowly," Zhao Fusheng said, staring at him. "I know you're still hiding things, but with this many lives involved, you can't keep hedging."
He who hesitates when he should decide brings chaos on himself.2
She had made up her mind. The ghost of Beggars' Alley was something the Confucian temple had raised. If Liu Yizhen was a sly and cunning man who still dared to spin lies to fool her, she would have to find a way to kill him later and leave no seeds of disaster.
The man was rather strange.
He was a living person, and he did not have the cold, savage air of someone controlling a ghost. But Zhao Fusheng could also sense on him the faint ghost presence picked up from constant dealings with ghosts.
It was a very odd feeling.
She had not controlled a ghost for long and had not dealt with many, but she vaguely felt that Liu Yizhen was special. The ghost she controlled seemed to bear him no "ill will," and some indefinable link seemed to exist between the ghosts and him.
He and his grandfather, the old temple keeper, had taken over the almsgiving in turn and dealt with ghosts. They must have a set of methods for handling ghosts that they weren't willing to share with others.
She suppressed her stray thoughts. She would look into Liu Yizhen once she had dealt with Beggars' Alley. For now the most important thing was still the predicament in Beggars' Alley.
"You must know the origin of the ghost in the Confucian temple."
"Yes." Liu Yizhen nodded.
Tonight the ghost's whereabouts had been exposed, which meant another of the secrets he had been trying to hide was out.
Since the temple was built, this matter had been kept well hidden for forty years. Even after Beggars' Alley fell into trouble and the ghost killed one after another, other people might have worked out the ghost's killing rules from earlier deaths, but ordinary people were mostly afraid of death, and none were as outrageously bold as Zhao Fusheng, who dared to follow a ghost at close range and find where it hid.
Liu Yizhen frowned, thought for a moment, then suddenly laughed.
"Forget it. This matter was always tied to the bureau anyway, and there's no shame in telling you."
Once he had decided, he stopped agonizing and said plainly:
"I think you already understand a lot. You've got a rough picture of the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley and the situation here."
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Liu Yizhen asked again:
"And you know about the ghost calamity at our Liu family forty years ago?"
"Of course."
Zhao Fusheng raised an eyebrow and answered again.
"Su Long and Zhang Xiongwu couldn't solve it back then," he said bluntly.
Zhao Fusheng remembered what Paperman Zhang had mentioned and asked:
"Because of the Headless Ghost's special power?"
"Yes." Liu Yizhen nodded and said:
"The Headless Ghost corpse's power is special. It can suppress malignant ghosts. My grandfather said that the ghost Su Long controlled had reached the Baleful-tier, but in front of it, it was still suppressed, and Su Long couldn't use its power at all."
Zhao Fusheng had only heard Paperman Zhang mention how terrifying the Headless Ghost was. She hadn't expected its ability to be so defiant of heaven.
She thought of the ghost she herself controlled, and her mind stirred.
"I think that ability is really clever—"
The ghost she controlled would revive and take her life if she used too much of its power. If she could get the Headless Ghost's corpse, couldn't she borrow her own ghost's power, then immediately carry the Headless Ghost's corpse on her back afterward?
Then the Headless Ghost's power would suppress the ghost she controlled, effectively sealing it, and wouldn't she be able to exploit a loophole and borrow the ghost's power without limit, leaving the ghost entwined with her helpless?
"Don't let your imagination run away with you!"
Liu Yizhen heard her, took one look at her expression, and seemed to guess at once what she was planning. He rebuked her loudly, "It's not as if nobody has tried that naive idea."
The Headless Ghost could indeed suppress other malignant ghosts and put them into a sealed state. But once it revived, who would suppress it?
"I advise you to give up on that. If you borrow the Headless Ghost's power, it will take your head first and end your life on the spot."
"...Fine."
Zhao Fusheng sighed with a bit of regret.
But she did not give up entirely.
The Headless Ghost's power was very useful to her. She just couldn't find a way to restrain it for now. If she ever found one, this ghost might prove very useful someday.
Liu Yizhen took one look at her expression and knew she hadn't taken his words to heart. He got a headache just thinking about it.
"Don't mess around. When that ghost's corpse was intact back then, it caused a great catastrophe in the Capital and killed a Gold General—"
Zhao Fusheng had already heard all this from Paperman Zhang, so she nodded with a smile.
"I know."
"But do you know this? The bureau's general ranks depend not only on merit, seniority, and the ghost's abilities, but also on the ghost's tier. According to my grandfather, the ghost that Gold General controlled was of the Disaster-tier or above!" Liu Yizhen said gravely.
At this, Zhao Fusheng actually took notice.
Paperman Zhang had mentioned the tiers of ghosts, which came in five: Evil Spirit-tier, Vicious-tier, Baleful-tier, Calamity-tier, and Disaster-tier.
In other words, among the tiers humans assigned to malignant ghosts, a Disaster-tier great ghost was already the most terrifying kind.
That a general who controlled such a ghost had died in a ghost calamity in the Capital was what really worried Zhao Fusheng.
"A ghost of Disaster-tier or above?" She frowned.
Naturally Paperman Zhang wouldn't have told her all these details. The man was vicious and calculating, and he had deliberately given her incomplete information precisely to lure her to her death.
"Yes." Liu Yizhen nodded gravely. When he saw she was finally taking it seriously, he felt relieved.
"The Headless Ghost corpse's tier is that formidable? It could kill a general who controlled a Disaster-tier ghost, so back then it—"
"It's not entirely like that," Liu Yizhen said. "The Headless Ghost corpse's rules defy heaven, but there was a reason it could kill that Gold General."
