IBGSW Chapter 52
Leaving the Ghost Domain
Liu Yizhen could vaguely guess how Zhao Fusheng felt.
He had stayed in Beggars' Alley for many years and knew its people, scenes, and things well. After the ghost domain covered the place, he had dealt with people and ghosts and seen too much of life and death.
In fact the Beggar Ghost's killing rules were not hard to work out, but after each killing no one had the courage to take the first step. So even though daytime was an absolutely safe period, most people felt the damp, dark rooms were safer, and preferred to hide there, passively waiting for the almsgiving hour and for the ghost to come hunting.
Today the Beggar Ghost's hunting hour had only just passed and it hadn't been long since it returned to the temple, yet when the gong sounded, everyone had come out of their rooms without a trace of doubt. It showed that these people were physically alive, but their spirits had already died of fear.
Perhaps this was the first time Zhao Fusheng had seen such a scene, so she hadn't quite got used to it.
"Don't like seeing this?" he asked as he struck the gong.
Zhao Fusheng naturally wasn't going to explain such things to him. She only shook her head and said.
"No, I'm looking for someone."
Then she rose on tiptoe and looked around in the tide of corpse-like people. After a while she seemed to spot something, and her eyes lit up.
"Found him."
She clenched her fist and strode off in the direction she was looking.
Zhao Fusheng was walking against the tide, and many people with dull eyes instinctively dodged as she approached. Those who reached the Confucian temple first saw Liu Yizhen holding the gong, but not the great cauldron of gruel they were used to. The numb, dazed crowd suddenly sensed that something was wrong, and the eerily quiet throng finally stirred uneasily.
"Everyone, there is no almsgiving today."
Liu Yizhen raised the gong and called out loudly.
The crowd stared at him blankly, as if not understanding what had happened.
"From now on, the temple will no longer give alms," Liu Yizhen explained calmly, the gong mallet in his hand.
"The day before yesterday, Commanding Officer Zhao of the Demon-Suppression Bureau entered this place. The ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley is resolved and the ghost domain has dispersed. It's safe here now, and you may leave on your own."
As he spoke the scene was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and only the tapping of Zhao Fusheng's footsteps against the crowd could be heard.
Liu Yizhen looked toward her and saw her dash into the crowd and pick up a bone-thin, short man in her hands. Lifted, the man curled up like a shrimp with his heels off the ground, arms wrapped around his head, not daring to resist.
The ghost domain had covered Beggars' Alley for a long time, and Liu Yizhen, giving alms every day, had memorized nearly every face among the survivors. Looking closely, he recognized the man she held at once. He was the one who, when Zhao Fusheng first entered Beggars' Alley, had forcibly thrust a bowl of gruel into her arms.
Liu Yizhen hadn't expected that Zhao Fusheng would still remember that grudge after finishing the ghost case, and he pressed his lips together.
But a commanding officer of the bureau was a local emperor1, in effect, and for Zhao Fusheng, killing one beggar was like squashing an ant. He wasn't interested and was about to turn his head when he heard Zhao Fusheng sneer.
"Finally found you, you little punk."
Then came two heavy thuds. Zhao Fusheng swung her fist and punched twice, enough to leave the beggar with a crooked nose and a bloody face. Having let off steam, she let go, and the beggar dropped to the ground with a thump, curled up in a ball, trembling.
Zhao Fusheng shook out her hand and grunted.
"Let's see if you dare harm anyone again."
The commotion finally broke the silence of the crowd. The beaten man, brought to his senses by the sharp pain in his face, panted softly and struggled to his feet, looking dazed and at a loss.
Zhao Fusheng, feeling refreshed after the beating, shook off all the oppression she had felt since entering Beggars' Alley.
She planted a hand on her hip and said in a loud voice, "Demon-Suppression Bureau handling the case! The ghost domain here is gone, everyone leave quickly!"
"Go!"
As she spoke she kicked the man who was still sitting on the ground.
At her words, all the survivors woke as if from a great dream.
"What..."
"The ghost domain is gone?"
"Did the bureau's people come?"
At first a few scattered people asked questions, but after speaking they seemed terrified and clamped their hands tightly over their mouths.
"..."
The scene was quiet for a moment.
Liu Yizhen, who had witnessed it all, was startled. He hadn't expected Zhao Fusheng to just beat the man for revenge and not take his life. With her cleverness she must understand the malice behind the gruel the beggar had pushed on her. Zhao Fusheng was full of cunning and not someone who took losses lying down, so her ending up doing this surprised him greatly.
But his surprise lasted only a moment. As the crowd stirred, he too explained.
"Everyone, the ghost calamity here is resolved. From now on the Confucian temple will no longer give alms."
He raised the gong and struck it twice more.
The dead-silent crowd was gradually infused with life, and the survivors finally realized what had happened. Some were overjoyed, some disbelieving, and apart from a few who remained numb and blank, most understood they had come through this nightmare of a ghost calamity unscathed.
"I-is it solved?"
"The ghost was driven away?"
"The ghost domain is gone?"
"Did we live—"
......
Many people started asking questions.
Liu Yizhen thought of the One-Name Register, hesitated a moment, and still said.
"This calamity is resolved. I can't say what will happen in the future."
To the uninformed crowd his words were like news of an amnesty reaching condemned prisoners. Everyone was overjoyed. Many tried looking around and sure enough saw the ghost fog dispersing and the sky growing light, the sign the ghost domain was lifting.
"It's light!"
"The ghost has left, we're safe."
"We can go!"
"I'm never coming back to Beggars' Alley—"
The survivors scattered joyfully in all directions.
At first their bodies were stiff from long cowering, but as they went they walked faster and faster, fleeing every which way, not daring to stay in Beggars' Alley a moment longer.
The man who had been slumped at Zhao Fusheng's feet realized something too. He quietly climbed up from the ground and slipped quickly into the crowd, as if afraid of being caught by Zhao Fusheng again.
"..."
Zhao Fusheng coldly watched him dart through the crowd like a loach, until he could no longer be told apart. Then she turned and looked toward Liu Yizhen and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Time to go home!"
She did not linger and headed back the way she had come.
The gloom lifted, and outside Beggars' Alley many people now stood. At their head were the Fan brothers, with the county magistrate and secretary she had seen before standing at their sides. Behind them stood the yamen runners, including Liu Wu, who had driven her, and a scattering of onlookers who weren't afraid to die.
"Brother—"
Fan Wujiu looked uneasily toward Beggars' Alley. By now the ghost domain had lifted and the fog was dispersing, and the stench of corpses, blood, and filth that had been sealed inside the domain was the first to drift out, turning faces pale.
"How much longer do we wait?"
Fan Wujiu looked terribly haggard:
"The ghost domain is already gone..."
"Wait a little longer. There's still no sign," Fan Bisi said calmly.
The old magistrate and the secretary beside them heard the brothers' exchange, looked at each other, and dared not speak.
"Do you think Fusheng is still alive?" Fan Wujiu asked.
No one dared answer.
"I don't know."
After a long time Fan Bisi shook his head.
"Is the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley so easily solved?"
A rather sleazy voice spoke up, and with a rustle Zhang Chuanshi stuck his head out from behind the Fan brothers:
"I think Zhao Fusheng was badly affected by the ghost, her mind isn't clear, and she's a newly minted ghost-controller with no experience. How could she easily drive off a malignant ghost?"
As he spoke he rose on tiptoe, stretched out his head, and fixed his mung-bean eyes on Beggars' Alley, forehead wrinkles squeezing into the character "王."2
"Maybe she died, the ghost she controlled revived and happened to balance the ghost of Beggars' Alley, and so the domain lifted by dumb luck."
His eyes darted about as he spoke, and though the lower half of his face was hidden behind Fan Bisi's shoulder, Fan Wujiu could hear the gloating in his words.
He glanced at his elder brother, who said nothing. But Fan Wujiu knew his brother's mind. Fan Bisi was quite wary of Zhao Fusheng, who controlled a ghost and had not died.
On the day the two brothers had parted from Zhao Fusheng in the city, they had taken a group of corpse bearers and carried the Zhao couple's bodies overnight to Baozhi County's territory and buried them properly. They hurried back to Wan'an County after noon the next day and did not find Zhao Fusheng there. Later Zhang Chuanshi of the coffin shop appeared, and the brothers learned from him that Zhao Fusheng had burned down Paperman Zhang's residence and borrowed men from the magistrate to take her to this place.
After the old woman at the stall by the street corner told them Zhao Fusheng had gone into Beggars' Alley, the ghost domain had not lifted for the next three days, and Zhao Fusheng's fate was unknown.
For two days now, all of Wan'an County's notables had been waiting here. Zhao Fusheng's life or death would decide where some of them went. If the last ghost-controlling chief commanding officer of Wan'an County died too, the bureau here would be effectively finished, and those with connections would naturally not stay.
The old magistrate and the secretary were probably thinking the same. The bureau's own people could not leave because of the soul-life register, and Zhang Chuanshi had been forced into the bureau. And because Zhao Fusheng had offended Paperman Zhang so badly, he was frightened of the consequences and now resented her bitterly, wishing she would die in this ghost calamity.
"Old Zhang, don't talk nonsense," Fan Wujiu scolded, then turned his head.
"Brother—"
"I think Fusheng isn't dead," Fan Bisi said.
At these words everyone's ears pricked. Even the magistrate stepped half a pace closer, wanting to hear more.
"Fusheng isn't dead?" Fan Wujiu was startled and raised his voice.
Fan Bisi thought for a moment, then said.
"Fusheng's personality changed after she took control of the ghost. I always feel—" He couldn't find the right words for what it was like to deal with Zhao Fusheng after she came back from the dead. But he did feel that Zhao Fusheng was shrewd and careful, yet bold in action and even a bit wild.
Zhang Chuanshi said she'd gone mad to burn down Paperman Zhang's house, but Fan Bisi thought it was just the sort of thing she would do. She never took a loss, and settled scores at once rather than swallow them.
"For the first three days the ghost domain was quiet. I think she was hiding and feeling out the ghost's rules. Anyway, I feel she may not die here," Fan Bisi said after thinking it over, giving his guess.
Zhang Chuanshi was startled to hear this, then his slanted eyebrows twitched.
"Not dying is no use either. You all know what the bureau's ghost is like. If she doesn't use the ghost's power, fine, but if she does, she'll probably suffer its backlash."
Then he added, "Even if there's no backlash for now, she could be affected by the ghost and go mad."
His words struck right at the Fan brothers' hidden worry. Fan Wujiu at once remembered what happened when the ghost in Zhao Qiming lost control, and his face darkened.
"I—"
As Fan Wujiu was about to speak, a chaotic pattering of footsteps came from the distance, as if many people were fleeing toward them.
"Shh—" Fan Bisi's eyes lit up and he called out, "Someone's coming."
The people who had been talking fell silent at once. In the thin fog, a number of ragged survivors came running out of Beggars' Alley. At first there were few, then more and more.
The magistrate hurried to have his runners stop them for questioning, but before the runners could move, Fan Bisi saw something and cried out.
"Here she comes!"
Everyone followed his gaze and saw Zhao Fusheng behind a group of people fleeing in panic, walking out of Beggars' Alley unhurriedly.
"Fusheng—"
"Fusheng!"
The Fan brothers saw her come out, first astonished, then wary.
She had spent several days inside Beggars' Alley and had blood on her, but she did not look worn. Her eyes showed no madness. She looked calm, even with a slight smile at the corner of her mouth, as if she had not come to deal with a ghost calamity but had just taken a stroll at a temple fair.
The people ahead of her kept turning to look back as they ran, as if afraid a ghost was chasing them. She was perfectly at ease and relaxed.
What exactly had happened in Beggars' Alley these days? Since Zhao Fusheng was alive, she must have had something to do with ending the calamity. Had she used the ghost's power? Or had she exploited the ghost's killing rules and lured it away?
Several questions rose in everyone's minds.
Fan Bisi suppressed the fear in his heart and was the first to step forward.
"Fusheng."
Fan Wujiu followed behind him.
Zhang Chuanshi, who a moment before had looked so gleeful, widened his eyes the instant Zhao Fusheng appeared, looking incredulous and almost despairing. But the next moment his face changed, all his earlier malice was swept away, and he scuttled after the Fan brothers, calling out obsequiously.
"Lord Zhao! Lord Zhao is blessed by heaven and has quelled the ghost calamity, a true blessing for our Wan'an County—"
The magistrate and the others looked at one another, equally startled and delighted.
The waiting crowd surged forward and surrounded Zhao Fusheng like stars around the moon.
