IBGSW Chapter 74
Truth and Illusion
Speak of the devil, and the devil appears.
The two had guessed that someone had guided them to Goutou Village, and that this guide was Wu Dajing.
Then they had found bloody fingerprints in the carriage. Combined with Wu Dajing’s strange disappearance and the absence of any memory of him, both had guessed the village elder had died at the ghost’s hands.
But the man they’d just speculated was dead was now alive again, knocking at the door the next moment.
In a lonely village at dark of night, even the audacious Zhao Fusheng felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.
“How frightening,” she sighed.
“Truth and illusion mixed together. It’s really impossible to tell them apart.”
“M-m-my lord...”
Zhang Chuanshi was so scared he nearly wet himself.
He had only learned his trade off the beaten path and wasn’t a true order envoy. Even a real envoy rarely saw a scene like this, since envoys were a consumable “product” and one mission killed a bunch.
Those who survived two or more ghost cases were all seasoned veterans.
At the bureau everyone went pale at the mention of ghosts. He was just a small coffin shop owner and shouldn’t be here.
A malignant ghost was beyond the nerve of a death-fearing man like him!
He turned to climb down from the carriage, but thinking that a ghost might be outside, he didn’t dare move, and could only squeeze toward Zhao Fusheng’s side with a tearful face. “My lord, is he, is he a ghost?”
“What should we do?” Zhang Chuanshi shook nonstop, regretting that tonight he hadn’t stayed obediently at Wu Dajing’s house and had followed Zhao Fusheng here.
“Don’t panic.” Zhao Fusheng, shocked to the extreme, was instead calm.
She turned to look at the spot on the lower right of the carriage. The four marks there had completely vanished.
“Where in this world is there such a coincidence?” She narrowed her eyes, and the eyes showed a sharp glint. “The moment we guess Wu Dajing is dead, Wu Dajing appears.”
It looked as if the ghost had been following her all along, and her investigation had triggered its rule, which then automatically an “error.”
But a ghost has no thought or intelligence. A fix this coincidental and stiff only made her more suspicious.
And to make up for such doubts, people’s perception and memory would very likely become disordered again. Zhao Fusheng guessed this might be why she had lost part of her memory earlier.
“It’s a ghost. It must be a ghost!”
Hearing her, Zhang Chuanshi was even more certain the Wu Dajing outside the door wasn’t human.
“We can’t let it in.”
“No.”
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and looked at him.
“Not only will we open the door and let ‘him’ in, we’re going to look at who exactly this Wu Dajing is.”
“...”
Zhang Chuanshi looked shocked and incredulous.
She knew full well that Wu Dajing wasn’t human, and still dared to rush forward. This commanding officer’s behavior was truly impossible to fathom.
“My lord, it’s, it’s a ghost...”
“So you know it’s a ghost?” Zhao Fusheng gave a couple of chuckles. “If you touch a malignant ghost’s rule, it will kill you and you can’t hide. If you don’t touch the rule, you can travel with it and be fine.”
She thought of the Beggars’ Alley case, when she’d screwed up her courage and followed the Beggar Ghost to its lair. Without that she wouldn’t have forced out the secret from Liu Yizhen.
“If we don’t act and just hide, I suspect we’ll again lose our memory of Wu Dajing, and then we won’t remember at all that he ‘might’ be dead.”
This sentence was what truly persuaded Zhang Chuanshi.
He feared malignant ghosts.
But if he lost part of his memory of the ghost because of fear and avoidance, then lived with a ghost without knowing it, that was a horror terrifying enough merely to imagine.
“I...”
Zhang Chuanshi shook without stopping.
He regretted following Zhao Fusheng to Goutou Village. Dealing with malignant ghosts was too stressful.
“My lord, save me. If I can just get back to the bureau alive, I’ll confess everything...”
“I’ll never handle a ghost case again, my lord, have mercy.”
Zhao Fusheng smiled and didn’t answer, only said, “Let’s go.”
She was the first to jump down from the carriage.
Outside, “Wu Dajing” was still knocking.
Bang-bang-bang
The old village doors weren’t tightly fitted, and one light slap made the frame shake.
Having named himself, “Wu Dajing” said nothing more, only slapped the door mechanically.
When they heard Wu Dajing’s voice, the Wu Lifu family instinctively wanted to open the door.
“Wait.”
Zhao Fusheng stopped him with a hand. Wu Lifu froze. “My lord?”
“Let me open it.”
“It’s just opening a door. Why trouble you, my lord...”
Wu Lifu still wanted to show off, but Zhao Fusheng knew the “Wu Dajing” outside had something uncanny about him and stopped him quickly.
She strode toward the door. Zhang Chuanshi, cowardly and afraid of death, hid far behind Wu Lifu and the others, holding the torch forward and professing loyalty with his mouth. “Be careful, my lord.”
Zhao Fusheng ignored him and stopped before the door.
Though she’d decided to face the ghost directly, dealing with ghosts still put enormous psychological pressure on her.
She took a deep breath, then pulled out the door bolt and yanked the door open.
Creeeak
The gate opened, night wind surged in, and the torch in Zhang Chuanshi’s hand was pressed down by the wind, its flame much dimmer.
“Aaaaaah!”
He screamed and hid behind Wu Lifu, shaking.
Wu Lifu didn’t know why this “big shot” from the city was so cowardly. He didn’t yet know “Wu Dajing’s” true identity and thought the village elder was back. Seeing “Wu Dajing” standing outside, he smiled. “Uncle Dajing, you’re finally back.”
“You went to the town to report the case three days ago, and today the officials of the bureau have come, and there was no sign of you, and everyone’s been worried.”
After opening the door, Zhao Fusheng stared at the person outside.
The night outside was black as ink.
The moonlight above seemed unable to pierce the night beyond Goutou Village. By the light of the torch in Zhang Chuanshi’s hand, she could faintly see mist droplets floating in the air, wrapping the fields and grass outside the village in darkness.
Ghost fog!
The thought suddenly surfaced in her mind, and her heart tightened.
When they’d entered the village at dusk, everything had seemed normal, but after night fell the village was shrouded in ghost fog.
An old man of about sixty stood at the gate, wearing a loose dark blue garment tied at the waist with a bright blue sash, cheeks gaunt, pale skin tinged with black, looking as if his complexion was bad.
“I was delayed on the road. Ran into a little trouble.”
After he finished, he turned to Zhao Fusheng. “So I had you go ahead, my lord, to the village.”
As his words fell, something strange happened.
“Wu Dajing’s” arrival seemed to awaken a long-sealed memory in Zhao Fusheng.
Her disturbed memory broke through like thawing ice. The scene of the village elder arriving at the bureau, led by Magistrate Pang and the others, flashed through her mind like scenes on a spinning lantern.
After that the three had traveled together, and she and Wu Dajing had talked all the way.
But what exactly they’d talked about, she couldn’t recall at all.
As “Wu Dajing” spoke, a memory arose in her mind: halfway there, Wu Dajing had said he had something to do, suddenly got off the carriage and parted from her and Zhang Chuanshi, and the two had arrived first, and only now was Wu Dajing returning to the village.
Not to mention how abruptly this memory had appeared, Wu Dajing parting ways halfway was itself unreasonable.
Given her character, on a ghost case she would certainly have questioned him closely.
She and Wu Dajing had talked, yet she remembered none of the conversation: that was the first point of suspicion.
And Wu Dajing was a key witness in the ghost case. She would never have let such a person out of her sight to act freely: that was the second point.
With these two doubts, Zhao Fusheng was even more certain there was something uncanny about the Wu Dajing before her.
But she didn’t rashly expose it.
As she’d told Zhang Chuanshi, the ghost’s rule was now taking corrective measures to “hide” the truth.
Once she exposed the truth, the rule would shift again, and in order to “rationalize,” would very likely disturb her perception once more and erase her memory.
Thinking so, Zhao Fusheng decided to mark all her memories of Wu Dajing as “doubtful” and to go along with what he said. “Ah yes, yes, yes. We finally found Goutou Village thanks to your directions.”
Zhang Chuanshi watched in terror as she talked with the “malignant ghost.”
And as she spun her nonsense, an even more terrifying thing happened: in Zhang Chuanshi’s mind, a memory really did appear of Wu Dajing pointing out how to reach Goutou Village.
If this “memory” hadn’t appeared suddenly as Zhao Fusheng spoke, and if Zhang Chuanshi hadn’t already been guarded against Wu Dajing, he’d have noticed nothing, and wouldn’t have realized in time that the memory had been forced into his mind.
Hearing her, Wu Dajing smiled.
“Glad you arrived safe. I’ll go home right away and tell Liyou and the others to light the fire and cook, to host you, my lord.”
The Wu Lifu family noticed nothing strange. “The meal’s long been made,” Wu Lifu said. “They’re killing chickens and ducks, and it’s quite lively.”
A woman said sourly, “I wonder if the food’s done and whether we could go eat some too.”
Wu Dajing was about to speak when Zhao Fusheng spoke first. “Let’s not make a fuss tonight. Everyone rest early, and we’ll talk tomorrow morning.”
The woman, interrupted, dared not show her anger and could only meekly say yes.
Zhao Fusheng turned to look at Zhang Chuanshi. “Old Zhang, let’s go too.”
“...”
Zhang Chuanshi looked horrified and shook his head frantically, but before he could speak, Zhao Fusheng looked at him, and he shuddered all over.
Zhao Fusheng had left a very frightening impression on him, and now he didn’t dare go against her, so he said with a bitter face, “My lord, it’s, it’s dark. Why not let this old man go home himself, and we, we stay at Wu Lifu’s for now?”
He didn’t want to travel with a ghost.
Zhao Fusheng shook her head.
Traveling with a ghost was dangerous, but danger also meant possible gain.
Having had her memory erased several times left her deeply uneasy. She was trying her best to find new clues. Otherwise, once certain she’d been caught by the ghost’s rule, she wouldn’t even know how she’d died.
“I have something to say to Wu Dajing. We’ll go together, and you carry the torch to light the way.”
Zhang Chuanshi looked miserable, stole a glance at Wu Dajing, and nodded listlessly.
The three entered the village from Wu Lifu’s house, and Zhao Fusheng, like an old horse who knew the road1, walked in front.
“Wu Dajing, after you parted from us today, what did you go do?”
Though she knew the Wu Dajing before her was off, she still pretended to know nothing and began questioning according to the bureau’s case procedures.
“I went to pay respects to Wu Datong.”
Wu Dajing, walking with her, answered smoothly when she asked.
As he brought up the existence of “Wu Datong,” the corresponding information naturally rose in her mind: Wu Datong, father of village chief Wu Liren, died on the twenty-first of the seventh month.
Before she asked, Zhao Fusheng was certain she hadn’t remembered these clues, but once Wu Dajing spoke, his words were like a key opening a sealed memory box.
Zhao Fusheng realized at once: before her amnesia, she had long ago investigated the clues about Wu Datong, but because the ghost’s influence had made her forget everything.
At this her eyes brightened, as if she had found a way to search her memory.
But this ghost could interfere with memory and perception, so she didn’t know whether the information she “recalled” was accurate.
If her memory was in error, the consequences for her handling this ghost case might be incalculable.
She touched the ghost arm in her sleeve and asked again, “Were you very close to Wu Datong? You went to pay respects even after his death.”
“We grew up together. We’re distant cousins,” Wu Dajing answered respectfully.
Her eyes flickered, and she nodded. “Sounds like a close relationship. As for this Goutou Village case, it was...”
Her memory grew increasingly muddled. When she got to the ghost case itself, Zhao Fusheng actually paused and couldn’t recall the case’s sequence for a moment.
Each time she tried to recall, her head hurt, and an intent in her sea of consciousness seemed to remind her: don’t think about it.
She massaged her brow a couple of times, and after enduring the headache, tried again to remember.
She started from what she could remember: Wu Dajing entering the bureau, recounting the ghost case, mentioning Wu Datong, Wu Datong’s son being village chief Wu Liren...
Thinking this, her persistence paid off, and she finally remembered that she had entered Goutou Village because village chief Wu Liren’s family had mysteriously disappeared.
“It was Wu Datong’s son’s family that disappeared.”
Hearing this, Wu Dajing wasn’t surprised. He nodded and said, “Wu Liren’s whole family is gone.”
His words seemed like a miracle cure for amnesia. At that, Zhao Fusheng felt as though she had opened her Ren and Du meridians.2 The scene of Wu Dajing raising the ghost case at the bureau surfaced one by one in her mind.
With dozens of Wu Liren’s family missing, she should have started from Wu Liren’s situation.
But she recalled that Wu Dajing had first brought up paying respects to Wu Datong, and by sharp instinct, even after amnesia, with the clues she had now fragmentary and the case information unclear, she made the same judgment and choice she’d made before: “How much do you know about Wu Datong?”
Hearing her ask not about Wu Liren but about Wu Datong, Zhang Chuanshi looked up at her in surprise.
Wu Dajing’s expression didn’t change. “Not much in the past.”
As soon as he finished, Zhao Fusheng caught the strangeness in his words. “Not much in the past. What about afterward?”
Wu Dajing stopped in his tracks and stared at Zhao Fusheng.
