IBGSW Chapter 64
More Clues
The villagers were arguing red-faced over who would host the guests when Wu Liyou hurried back. Seeing the others scrambling to drag the guests off, he pushed his way through. “My house already has the fire lit.”
As he spoke he pointed, and Zhao Fusheng followed his finger. Sure enough, a house in the distance had lamplight.
“Not yet. I want to see Wu Liren’s house first.”
At the name Wu Liren, the villagers who had been crowding in so eagerly shrank back, each stepping back half a pace.
“My lord, Wu Liren’s house is ill-omened...”
Someone spoke hesitantly. “His whole family vanished at the start of the eighth month and there’s still no trace. Dozens of people. Where did they go in one night?”
“It must be a haunting!” someone chimed in.
“Definitely a ghost.”
They all started talking at once. “Maybe Wu Liren’s old man did something wicked in the county back then and brought a ghost down to claim his life.”
...
As they chattered, Wu Dajing also urged, “My lord, why not go tomorrow? Look, it’s dark already...”
“That’s right.” Zhang Chuanshi had looked down on this country codger the whole way, but at this he hurried to back him up. “Pitch black, you can’t see anything. Better go tomorrow.”
He was terrified of ghost cases and wished he could delay and delay until the whole thing fizzled out. It would be ideal if he and Zhao Fusheng spent a couple of days in this backwater, found nothing, and went home safe.
“No.”
Zhao Fusheng flatly refused.
She turned and looked at Zhang Chuanshi, reading everything in the old man’s heart clearly. “We came here to handle a ghost case. We can’t hide from it.”
That sent a chill through him, and he objected. “It might not even be a ghost case. So far we haven’t seen so much as the shadow of a ghost.”
She nearly laughed at his optimism. She said nothing, and her laugh made Zhang Chuanshi’s skin crawl.
“I’m going to Wu Liren’s house now. Somebody lead me there,” Zhao Fusheng said with a shake of her head.
At the word “now,” the enthusiastic villagers who had crowded around took step after step back, and many looked ready to bolt for their houses.
Even Wu Dajing, who had come with her, dodged her eyes.
Zhao Fusheng frowned.
This was for Goutou Village’s sake. The ghost was in hiding, but its killing rule had already shown itself. From her study of case files these past days, she understood that once a ghost entity gained strength, it would first kill the people who had triggered its rule.
The people of Goutou Village were all related, and from her conversation with Wu Dajing earlier, she could tell these people had probably already been “chosen” by the ghost and fallen under its rule.
If she did not deal with this ghost case, the whole village would die at the ghost’s hands.
“I’m not exaggerating to scare you. Now that I’m here, I can say for certain this is a ghost case,” she said gravely.
The people around her only whispered among themselves.
“So it is a ghost case.”
“I knew there was a ghost.”
“Wu Datong must have done something wicked out there and brought a ghost down for his life. No wonder Wu Liren’s family is gone. Maybe the ghost ate them.”
...
They buzzed on, even a little gleeful, with not the slightest sense of impending disaster.
“Don’t think this ghost only harms Wu Liren’s family. Ghosts don’t know that grievances have their perpetrators and debts their debtors.¹ If I don’t handle this case, Goutou Village will meet disaster sooner or later.”
“I don’t see any disaster...”
A man muttered, emboldened, and before Zhao Fusheng could turn he ducked back into the crowd.
Zhang Chuanshi was delighted by all this, though his face showed anger. “Insolent peasants, daring to talk to her lordship like that.” Then, fawning at Zhao Fusheng, “My lord, let me go discipline him for you.”
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and stopped his show of loyalty.
“The malignant ghost has already appeared,” she said.
“Where is it?” someone asked.
“It’s hiding among us,” Zhao Fusheng answered.
“Where?” The crowd was startled, and looked left and right. Seeing only familiar faces, they relaxed again. “My lord, are you joking with us?”
After this commotion they were about to scatter, afraid Zhao Fusheng would seize them and force them to Wu Liren’s house.
“Stop! Stop right there,” Zhang Chuanshi shouted, feigning displeasure.
Wu Dajing, embarrassed, also shouted. “Stop, all of you. Don’t leave yet.”
Zhao Fusheng felt a sense of the absurd.
She was sharp-minded and smooth with people, and she knew exactly how to deal with them. Villagers who were selfish, timid, short-sighted, and cold could not be moved with principles. Intimidation by authority, driving them by force, was by far the most fitting method.
“...” But she wasn’t yet fully part of this age. Knowing the easy and effective way, she still hesitated for a moment.
Still, she was no ordinary person. In a flash of thought, another idea came to her.
“Here’s how it’ll be. I’m handling a ghost case. While I do, you follow my orders. Whoever gives me information, I’ll reduce their family’s taxes once I’m back, in proportion to their service and contribution.”
Her earlier talk with Wu Dajing had given her a sense of the burden the people of this era carried. The moment she finished, the people who had been backing away stopped in their tracks.
“I can’t decide the court’s taxes. But the bureau’s taxes I can promise.”
By Wu Dajing’s account, his family paid nearly thirty taels a year, and the bureau’s levies alone made up two-thirds of it.
With a condition like that, it wasn’t only the other villagers who were tempted. Even Wu Dajing grew eager.
“Is this true, my lord?”
His family earned thirty taels a year, working almost the entire year for the court and the officials. If they could save on taxes, it would be a heaven-sent windfall.
“I’m not joking.” Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Talk of the ghost case had left them unmoved.
Country villagers had no idea how terrifying a malignant ghost was. Especially with this case, whose ghost left no trace, so that not even Zhao Fusheng’s Hell could catch it, these people couldn’t feel the ghost’s presence, and wearing out her tongue on them was pointless.
But the moment taxes came up, tied to their future lives, nobody wanted to leave.
“If anyone provides useful clues for the case, I’ll reduce their taxes even more.”
Wu Dajing was both startled and delighted.
He remembered the authority she had wielded at the bureau, how the town officials treated her with respect and even the county magistrate himself was agreeable and docile before her.
He believed her promise at once. Then something occurred to him, and his face went from pale to livid. “Oh no,” he said in regret.
“All the things I told you on the way here...” His face fell, and he said miserably, “I wonder if those count.”
“They’re worth half a year of your taxes,” Zhao Fusheng said in a low voice.
Her gaze rested on Wu Dajing. The old man still didn’t know the malignant ghost was probably right beside him. His nosebleeds and scratching were almost certainly because the ghost had latched onto him.
Over their journey he had mentioned Wu Datong’s eldest son several times and triggered the ghost’s rule. That half-year tax reduction was his due reward.
“I’ll take you to Wu Liren’s house, my lord!”
Wu Dajing was overjoyed at this, and said it at once.
He had weight in the village, and when the others saw him speak up, they hurriedly chattered, afraid of being left behind.
“I’ll take you too, my lord. Wu Liren’s house is near mine, and I know a lot of things.”
“My father grew up with Wu Datong, so we know that family’s business too.”
...
The villagers who had shrunk from the name Wu Liren a moment earlier now scrambled to lead the way, fearing that if they hung back they’d never get another chance.
“In that case, we’ll all go together,” Zhao Fusheng said, and someone fawned, “I’ll go home for a torch to light your way, my lord.”
“Go, go,” Wu Dajing urged.
He turned to Zhao Fusheng. “Whatever you want to know, my lord, just ask me.”
Zhang Chuanshi, shoved aside, watched it all with resentment, fear and anger together, his spirits sagging.
“Since the case is tied to Wu Liren’s family disappearing, let’s begin with Wu Liren,” Zhao Fusheng said.
“What do you want to know about him, my lord? He’s forty-one this year. He’s got one wife and eight concubines, and twenty-seven sons...” someone said first.
Zhao Fusheng had already heard this from Wu Dajing, and was about to speak again when an old man objected. “What forty-one? He only turned forty at the end of last month. He’s just eating forty-one’s rice now.”²
The one-year difference was nothing in itself, but Zhao Fusheng sharply caught the gap in time.
“You—”
She cut off the crowd’s chatter at once and pointed at the old man who had spoken.
The old man, pointed at, first panicked and instinctively tried to shrink back into the crowd, but someone behind him shoved him forward, and remembering Zhao Fusheng’s status, he gathered his nerve and stepped out. “My lord...”
He was about fifty, wearing a gray-blue short jacket covered in patches, barefoot.
“That’s Wu Jiu’s father...” Wu Dajing squeezed over to her side and explained in a low voice.
Zhao Fusheng immediately remembered who Wu Jiu was.
It was because Wu Lifu and Wu Jiu had been brawling and each wanted the village chief to judge it that the news of Wu Liren’s family disappearance had come to light in the village.
She nodded and beckoned to the old man. “You say Wu Liren isn’t forty-one but forty. Come tell me about it.”
Seeing her gentle tone, Wu Jiu’s father swallowed his unease, pushed past the other villagers, and cupped his hands to her. “Yes, everyone may have misremembered.”
He said, “Some of us here count by nominal age. Wu Liren was born on the thirty-first day of the seventh month of year 206 of the Great Han. I remember that clearly.”
The information from Wu Jiu’s father was important and instantly resolved the doubt in her mind.
By Wu Dajing’s original account, Wu Datong’s eldest son had been born to a woman of unknown origin forty-one years ago, on the thirty-first of the seventh month.
He remembered the date with unusual clarity because shortly after Wu Datong’s eldest son was born, Wu Dajing’s old mother had died on the seventeenth of the ninth month.
After getting a son, Wu Datong had secretly left Goutou Village for Wan’an County, become a hand in Zhang Xiongwu’s shop, and performed a great service for him, for which he was rewarded.
Because both events happened forty years ago, Zhao Fusheng had naturally tied Wu Datong’s service to the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall case of forty years earlier.
But the dates of the two cases didn’t match, and she had kept wondering whether her deduction had gone wrong.
Now, hearing Wu Jiu’s father give Wu Liren’s birthday, it all suddenly clicked.
This news mattered.
She turned to Zhang Chuanshi. “Reduce Wu Jiu’s family’s taxes this year by three months. Once we’re back, tell Fan Bisi to handle it right away.”
Zhang Chuanshi was both startled and delighted at this.
Startled that Zhao Fusheng was still bent on handling the ghost case, delighted by what her words implied: once they returned, Fan Bisi would be ordered to do it! That meant she might protect him on this trip so he wouldn’t die at the ghost’s hands.
Half believing it, he answered loudly. “Yes!”
Wu Jiu’s father was overjoyed at her promise. “Thank you, my lord!”
“Tell me the details of Wu Liren’s birth date. Are you sure he was born on the thirty-first of the seventh month?” Zhao Fusheng asked.
With her promise in hand, Wu Jiu’s father was in high spirits. He nodded firmly. “I am!”
He said, “To be honest, in my younger days I peddled mountain goods. Our village was poor and many peddlers wouldn’t come this way. In those years several villages around here would arrange to go to the city together to sell mountain goods.”
He pointed to Goutou Mountain behind him.
“That year I went to the city with my old woman, and we happened to run into Wu Datong. He said he worked at a paper effigy shop and that his master was quite imposing.”
Back in the village, Wu Datong had never been well regarded.
He had lost his father young and was poor. Many of the children he grew up with looked down on him, which had made him extremely insecure and extremely arrogant at the same time.
Decades later, when he met his old playmates in the city, having backed the right master and now putting on airs, naturally he flaunted it.
“At first I didn’t believe him. I thought he was bragging.” While Wu Jiu’s father was speaking, someone fetched torches and came back.
The crowd couldn’t stand to see one man get the reward alone, and they urged Zhao Fusheng to hurry to Wu Liren’s house.
“We’ll talk as we walk,” Zhao Fusheng said, and Wu Jiu’s father nodded.
“In the village we all knew Wu Datong was unreliable. He loved showing off, and you couldn’t tell his truth from his lies. Everyone thought him a drifter.”
Several old men in the crowd nodded in agreement, and Wu Dajing chimed in.
“When he saw I didn’t believe him, he insisted on taking me to see. But he said his master had a strange temper and told me to hide in the dark and look through a door crack, nothing more.”
Wu Jiu’s father, as if recalling the scene, felt a prickle of fear and scratched his cheek, leaving several marks on his dark face. In the torchlight, it seemed flakes of scab flew up.
But everyone’s attention was on tax relief and Wu Liren’s house, and apart from Zhao Fusheng nobody noticed.
“I had nothing to do, so I went along. His master didn’t just sell paper figurines, he sold some strange lanterns too.”
“The business was fairly big, but for some reason it looked eerie...”
Wu Jiu’s father gave an embarrassed laugh. “The house was pitch dark. I wasn’t afraid of anything when I was young, but I really was scared then.”
After they entered, Wu Datong pulled him into a side room.
“You saw his master?”
“I did.” He nodded. “A white-haired old man in jet-black clothes with huge sleeves. When he folded his hands, the sleeves nearly dragged on the ground. It looked like he was dragging a coffin plank and holding it across his chest.”
He gestured, and Zhao Fusheng’s heart stirred.
Villagers spoke plainly and didn’t have many descriptive words, but what Wu Jiu’s father had unwittingly said reminded her of something she’d overlooked during the Headless Ghost case at the South City ancestral hall.
White hair, jet-black clothes. She remembered Paperman Zhang, whom she had met once.
