IBGSW Chapter 55
Fellow Ghost-Controllers
Back when Zhao Fusheng forced Zhang Chuanshi to join the bureau, she had been all smiles too, seeming amiable and easy to talk to, and then he had taken a great tumble and been stuck at the bureau ever since.
"...Is, is it something to do with Paperman Zhang?" Zhang Chuanshi's old face scrunched up, and after hesitating a long while he probed miserably.
Zhao Fusheng gave no answer. With her heels pressing the chair, she leaned her upper body back until the front two legs of the four-legged chair came off the floor and only the back two supported her. She rocked back and forth and the chair creaked.
Zhang Chuanshi gritted his teeth: "It has nothing to do with me, my lord."
Inwardly he thought: what rotten luck.
Back then he hadn't managed to flee this street, and once he'd stayed, he'd never been able to leave. Now he was on the Soul-Life Register and under another's control, with nowhere to run.
Zhao Fusheng was blessed with luck and a tough life. She had gone into Beggars' Alley and not died, and had even dismembered the malignant ghost, which frightened him all the more.
Under her stare now, Zhang Chuanshi was under heavy pressure.
He held out for a few breaths, then couldn't take it any more, and with sweat pouring down his head dropped his oily airs and pleaded: "My lord, you know what happened that day. I went to the back to make tea and I don't know what you and my uncle talked about..."
"Where is Paperman Zhang?"
Zhao Fusheng cut him off, not wanting to beat around the bush any longer.
"Pa-Paperman Zhang—" Zhang Chuanshi was startled by her directness.
He screwed up his eyes, the bags beneath them swelling like fish bladders, and he said in a low voice: "That day the Zhang residence suddenly caught fire, and my uncle, no, Paperman Zhang turned into a strange paper figure and flew away—"
The Fan brothers, seeing the two discussing Paperman Zhang, put aside their worry for the future and watched Zhao Fusheng and Zhang Chuanshi.
Zhao Fusheng, heels pressing the chair, rocked herself back and forth and smiled at Zhang Chuanshi: "Don't lie to me."
"I wouldn't dare, I wouldn't dare."
Zhang Chuanshi waved his hands and shook his head: "Many people saw Paperman Zhang fly out of Wan'an County that day, and the Fan brothers went to look afterward. If you don't believe me, ask them."
With that he quickly pointed at Fan Bisi and his brother.
Fan Bisi gritted his teeth and glared at Zhang Chuanshi in annoyance, but when Zhao Fusheng turned her head, he hesitated for a moment and then said: "We did go and look. The old Zhang residence has been reduced to ruins."
The brothers had in fact been quite startled by this. After they finished what Zhao Fusheng had told them to do that day, they hadn't dared stop for a moment and had fled back to Wan'an County, afraid Deputy Commander Zheng of Baozhi County would learn of it and come to make trouble for them.
The moment they got back they heard of the big event in the city: the newly appointed commanding officer of the bureau had burned down Paperman Zhang's house, and Paperman Zhang had turned into a strange paper figure and flown off into the sky, whereabouts unknown.
At first they hadn't dared believe it, until Zhang Chuanshi, in hiding, steeled himself and came out to confirm it. They didn't know what Zhao Fusheng and Paperman Zhang had discussed or why she'd done it. The brothers were baffled and could only conclude that Zhao Fusheng, affected by the ghost, was impulsive and quick to anger, and had suffered some small slight and gone to vent on Paperman Zhang.
Now that Zhao Fusheng was in front of them, none of them dared ask why.
Fan Bisi said, "Afterward we had Magistrate Pang send men to search, but found no trace of Paperman Zhang."
Though he didn't know why Zhao Fusheng had made an enemy of Paperman Zhang, since she had made her position clear, Fan Bisi and the others naturally had to act as Paperman Zhang's enemies too. His temperament was to leave no gaps in whatever he did, and it was only after Zhao Fusheng returned safe that Fan Bisi began to feel glad about his arrangements.
"Maybe since he offended you, he's already left Wan'an County," Fan Wujiu guessed.
The other two kept nodding.
"He lied to you," Zhao Fusheng said with a smile.
"Huh?" Fan Bisi was puzzled. Zhao Fusheng didn't explain, but looked at Zhang Chuanshi: "The Zhang family has lurked in Wan'an County for forty-odd years. Would they leave so casually before achieving their goal?"
Her words came from nowhere, but their content startled the Fan brothers. Zhang Chuanshi's pupils shrank, his face stiffened for a moment, and then he pretended to be astonished too.
"Stop pretending," Zhao Fusheng said, shaking her head. "If you keep it up it'll look fake."
"Fusheng, what's going on?" Fan Bisi asked quickly, confused.
Zhao Fusheng said, "This has to start with the ghost calamity in Beggars' Alley."
She looked at the three in the courtyard and let out a long sigh. These were her makeshift team for the future. They weren't reliable, but she couldn't go out alone on every ghost case, and later cases would need hands. The Beggars' Alley case was no secret, and some things could be told to them. It was also a chance for her to demonstrate her reasoning ability indirectly, to cow clever-clever people like Fan Bisi and make him toe the line.
The three were indeed curious about the Beggars' Alley case. Zhang Chuanshi had not been at the bureau before, and though he lived next door, knew nothing of its inner workings, only that they were "the people who handled ghost cases." For the Fan brothers, this kind of scene, everyone discussing a ghost case together, was familiar yet, from the passage of time, somewhat strange.
Now that Zhao Fusheng was willing to tell them, Fan Wujiu, who was more easygoing, fetched a stool and sat down, urging eagerly: "Fusheng, tell us quick."
Fan Bisi put a hand to his forehead helplessly, looking at his dense brother in exasperation.
"At first I was misled by the clues in the Beggars' Alley case, and thought it was the same as the case from forty years ago."
Then she told them everything: how, after getting the case scroll, she had found Zhang Chuanshi, followed his lead to find Paperman Zhang, and learned the Headless Ghost's whole origin from his mouth.
"I thought I was well prepared, but after entering Beggars' Alley I found it wasn't that at all."
She skipped over the process of her clash with Paperman Zhang and went on to how she found the ghost killing in Beggars' Alley and worked out its killing rules. Zhao Fusheng spoke briefly but didn't hide the general course of events. When Fan Bisi heard her describe looking straight at the ghost's movements, and then brazenly following the ghost and discovering its hiding place, his heart thumped wildly and his hands and feet went cold.
"..."
This was reckless! Courting death! How had she dared?
"Afterward, from what Liu Yizhen told me, I got some of the clues and deduced a few things."
She turned her eyes back to Zhang Chuanshi: "Decades ago Liu Huacheng brought home a sealed ghost. Then before his birthday the ghost coffin's nail was stolen. Liu Huacheng, with no choice, used the coffin lid to ask Zhang Xiongwu to suppress the revived malignant ghost—"
She paused and looked at Zhang Chuanshi, whose expression had visibly turned flustered: "All of that should have been under Zhang Xiongwu's control. He stole the coffin nail and forced the Headless Ghost to revive to create chaos, and thereby forced Liu Huacheng to hand over part of the coffin lid himself."
"N-no—impossible—" Zhang Chuanshi reflexively objected.
Zhao Fusheng sneered: "No need to rush to deny it. I have my reasons for saying so."
The truth of the South City ghost case forty years ago hadn't been recorded, so the bureau's information on it was incomplete. Now Zhao Fusheng supplied the missing information, and the Fan brothers were so shocked they couldn't recover for a long while.
"Zhang Xiongwu could make ghost lanterns, and these lanterns can interfere with a ghost's perception. If a man like that had stayed in the Capital, people would be fighting tooth and nail to recruit him."
Even if the lanterns he made weren't perfect, with even a thread of a chance to survive he would have been sought after, let alone his cooperation with Su Long to artificially "point" a ghost. Once such a feat went into the bureau's case scrolls, the court would never have let such a "talent" go.
"And yet he sought neither fame nor profit nor power, but burrowed in Wan'an County. What for?" Zhao Fusheng asked.
Zhang Chuanshi's mind was in a mess by then, his thoughts held in her grip, and hearing her question he asked back by reflex: "What for?"
"Maybe he wanted to be a good man," Zhao Fusheng sighed.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Fan Bisi, his brother, and Zhang Chuanshi were all so stunned by this answer that they didn't know how to take it. Zhao Fusheng pulled out a smile with no warmth in it:
"Just kidding."
At first no one spoke. After a while Zhang Chuanshi gave an awkward, stiff laugh.
"Ha, ha—"
When he finished laughing and saw the Fan brothers stay silent, the sound was swallowed back into his throat, and he cooed twice like a pigeon, then fell quiet too.
"Maybe he just wanted to steal that coffin."
Zhao Fusheng paid no attention to their reactions and gave her deduction.
"If the coffin lid Liu Huacheng gave back then had satisfied his appetite, the Zhang family would have moved out of Wan'an County then. The reason they haven't left in forty years may be that they wanted to take the whole coffin away together."
"The reason Paperman Zhang lured me into Beggars' Alley was probably to trick me into dying."
She analyzed, "We know there are three ghosts in the Confucian temple. Two have reached a balance, and the other is a street-wandering loafer who goes out strolling every day, so Paperman Zhang had no opening to act."
"..." The Fan brothers were baffled. Seeing the ghost fog earlier, they had known the temple case wasn't simple, but hearing Zhao Fusheng say that a little temple harbored three great ghosts still made them uneasy.
"To make his move, he had to find the right chance, to get the Beggar Ghost sealed."
"So he wanted you to subdue the Beggar Ghost?" Fan Wujiu asked foolishly.
"He wanted me dead." Zhao Fusheng looked at him and answered.
Fan Wujiu thought she was scolding him and ducked his head. Fan Bisi looked at his brother and explained: "Fusheng is also a ghost-controller. If she had died in Beggars' Alley, the ghost she controlled would surely have revived, and then it would have formed a subtle balance with the Beggar Ghost."
At this explanation, Fan Wujiu and Zhang Chuanshi finally understood.
From this speech Fan Bisi felt anew how frightening Zhao Fusheng was. She seemed extraordinarily shrewd, able to see through people's hearts. Was it precisely because she guessed Paperman Zhang's intentions that she had moved against him?
As he was daydreaming, he heard Zhao Fusheng suddenly ask: "Is Paperman Zhang a ghost-controller?"
The three of the bureau were all astonished by her question.
"N-no way!"
Zhang Chuanshi blurted: "Since I was little—"
He stopped for a moment, then said: "We're relatives. I've known him for decades. He doesn't control a ghost."
Fan Bisi also explained: "Ghost-controllers are moody, and ghosts affect people greatly. A ghost-controller couldn't have lived this long."
"Not necessarily," Zhao Fusheng laughed.
She had sharply caught Zhang Chuanshi's slip in his shock, the words "since I was little," and she stored it away.
"He has a faint ghostly aura. At first I thought it was because he makes ghost slaves."
Zhang Chuanshi nodded hurriedly, about to speak, but Zhao Fusheng didn't give him the chance: "When I burned him that day, I found his body seemed to be cut from paper but kept a person's consciousness. Burned by the flames he didn't even die, and he flew off into the sky afterward. Whose ability is that, if not that of a man controlling a ghost?"
At her words, Fan Bisi no longer dared be sure. Many recent events had exceeded his earlier understanding one after another: Paperman Zhang might be a ghost-controller; Zhao Fusheng had changed as if she were a different person since dying and returning; the Zhao couple, who shouldn't have revived at the same time, had grown formidable; and most terrifying of all, the Confucian temple hid three great ghosts.
Zhao Fusheng took in all three reactions. From their faces, the fact that Paperman Zhang controlled a ghost was probably unknown to anyone in Wan'an County. Had that fire not forced him into his true form, everyone would still be in the dark. He had hidden it deliberately, and Zhao Fusheng guessed the several previous chief commanding officers who had cooperated with him in Wan'an County probably knew nothing.
"But if a person controls a ghost, how can he not die?" Fan Bisi muttered, bewildered.
Zhao Fusheng thought for a moment and said: "It might be because of the coffin lid."
The ghost coffin could suppress the Headless Ghost. According to Liu Yizhen, once the Headless Ghost was put in the ghost coffin and sealed, it fell into sleep and never caused trouble again.
"My guess is that Zhang Xiongwu found in it a way to suppress ghosts, so he risked controlling a ghost and tried to get the coffin so as to force the ghost he controlled into 'sleep,' a sealed state, so a ghost-controller could carry a ghost and not die?"
As she said this, her eyes brightened, as if she'd finally found a path to deal with the ghost she controlled other than relying on the Investiture of the Gods alone. From this angle, Zhang Xiongwu really was a talent.
But the spark of hope that had just risen was doused by Fan Bisi's words.
"It might not work," he said.
"All things restrain and complement each other. A ghost's malevolent object works best only when it is matched to that ghost. Like the Headless Ghost you mentioned looking for its head: although it killed people in the meantime, the head it originally had must be the one most suited to it. So until it finds its own head, its ghost body is incomplete and its power is limited."
"And though the ghost coffin that seals it is wondrous, it must be the one most suited to it. With other malignant ghosts, the coffin's suppressing force might not be so amazing."
Fan Bisi's words were plain and simple, and Zhao Fusheng understood at once what he meant, and fell into thought again.
