IBGSW Chapter 87
Midnight Carriage
Several men who’d had evil intentions broke out in a cold sweat, threw down their money, and left one after another, not daring to finish their soup.
After they left, Meng Po breathed a great sigh of relief, then turned and said solemnly to Zhao Fusheng, “Thank you for sparing them, my lord.”
Setting up a stall here wasn’t easy. If something happened, the others wouldn’t dare make trouble for Zhao Fusheng, but she feared that afterward nobody would dare come drink soup at her stall.
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and looked at the bowl before her. “Your soup is good, and it reminded me.”
She had thought herself clear-headed and uncontrolled by the ghost, but had been arrogant without knowing it, and luckily at the moment killing intent rose, the steam and aroma of the soup had hit her and snapped her out of it.
Meng Po froze, and Zhao Fusheng changed the subject. “Is this stall your livelihood?”
The old woman nodded.
The men had left in a hurry, knocking over stools in their haste. She set them upright one by one and collected the money from the table.
Seeing the soup left in the bowls, she looked pained and poured it all into one bowl, then put the rest into a basin to soak.
No customers were coming now, and with Zhao Fusheng there nobody would probably dare patronize her for a while, so she simply brought a stool and sat opposite Zhao Fusheng to chat.
“Yes, this stall is my livelihood. I sell a little food each day, enough for my own board and lodging.”
“Have you thought of setting up somewhere else?”
Zhao Fusheng lifted the soup, and its steam enveloped her face, her gaze unreadable. “The shops on the bureau’s street now belong to me. I’ll have them repaired, and then they’ll be empty.”
“...”
Meng Po fell still, bewildered.
Zhao Fusheng sipped the soup and said in a friendly tone, “We’re fated to know each other. When I was at my lowest, you offered to treat me to soup, and I’m willing to repay you. If you want, you can pick first among the shops on that street. How about it?”
“No need, no need.” Hearing this, Meng Po hurriedly waved her hand.
She’d been afraid at first that her refusal would seem ungrateful, but just as she said it she saw Zhao Fusheng smiling at her and sighed. “Please don’t tease me, my lord.”
She wiped her hands uneasily and said, “If you have something you want to ask, just ask directly.”
Zhao Fusheng’s gaze fell on her hands. They were coarse, with obvious cracked calluses at the knuckles, and in the cracks of the calluses was dirt that no scrubbing could remove, the marks of years of labor.
She wore a threadbare, washed-out coarse cloth garment, with a heavily patched apron, but it was washed clean, without a speck of dirt.
Selling food at a stall every day was no easy job.
From what Liu Yizhen had said, ten years ago she’d come here looking for family, then presumably never found anything, and had stayed here for ten years.
Thinking this, Zhao Fusheng said, “Two days ago I took on a case in Goutou Village.”
“...”
Meng Po had thought she had something to ask her. She’d even prepared herself to be questioned thoroughly by Zhao Fusheng, but never expected Zhao Fusheng to turn suddenly and bring up a bureau case.
The bureau was no ordinary place, and ordinary cases wouldn’t reach a commanding officer, so what she mentioned was naturally a ghost case.
But Meng Po was only an ordinary woman, and her friendship with Zhao Fusheng wasn’t close enough to discuss ghost cases.
The old woman was anxious but didn’t interrupt. She gripped her apron with both hands and listened carefully as Zhao Fusheng continued.
“The malignant ghost in this case was rather special,” Zhao Fusheng said, pausing and taking another sip of soup. “But the most special thing was the ghost’s origin.”
Meng Po grew more tense, clutching her apron in both hands, not understanding why Zhao Fusheng was telling her this.
Zhao Fusheng was unhurried. “This ghost’s birth was an illicit one that could not bear the light. Its father was an idler of the village who had reached the age of marriage without a wife, so, driven to evil by poverty, he abducted a young woman and brought her home.”
At this, Meng Po’s face changed.
Zhao Fusheng had been watching her as she spoke, and seeing her expression shift, she knew her words had hit a sore spot.
The old woman was almost restless, wanting to get up but forcing herself to hold on and not walk away.
A film of moisture rose in her yellowed, bloodshot eyes, and she held back crying with great effort.
“From inquiries, I learned that the girl the village idler abducted had been taken from Beggars’ Alley.”
Zhao Fusheng set down the bowl and stared at Meng Po. “I heard from Liu Yizhen in the Confucian temple that you came here ten years ago, at first looking for family.”
Meng Po was nearly in tears, and Zhao Fusheng went on, “Last time you said you were originally from Changzhou, married into Wuli County in Tongzhou, with a child at home.”
Her memory was astonishing, and even offhand words from her chat with Meng Po stuck in it.
“Afterward I went back and checked. Tongzhou isn’t near here, is it? Our Wan’an County belongs to Xuzhou. From Wuli County to here, even changing between boats and carriages, it would take seven or eight days, wouldn’t it?”
Meng Po sobbed softly, bowed her head and gently wiped the corner of her eye with the corner of her apron, then said in a low voice, “It took over two months.”
Zhao Fusheng stopped, then her face softened somewhat. “Beggars’ Alley used to be a mixed place, gathering all sorts. According to the people of Goutou Village, nearly all the women and children abducted in Wan’an County were hidden in Beggars’ Alley, awaiting resale.”
At this, Meng Po lowered her head and sobbed even more.
Zhao Fusheng sighed. Seeing her like this, there was much she needn’t ask, for she understood.
“You walked for over two months to come to Wan’an County and in the end stayed. Was it because you heard your daughter had once appeared here?”
Her sentence pierced the sorrow Meng Po had hidden in her heart for years, and she could hardly keep calm, breaking into a wail. “Yes.”
Zhao Fusheng gently set the soup bowl on the table.
Steam, scented with millet, rose in wisps, and Meng Po tried to hold back but still let out sobs.
After a good while she barely brought her emotions under control and forced a smile. “I’ve embarrassed you, my lord. Whenever I mention my daughter, I always...”
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and sighed. “Parents love their children by nature. When a child goes missing, it’s only natural for parents to weep. What is there to laugh at?”
Her tone was calm, and her words made Meng Po teary again. She was stunned for a while. “That’s true.”
After this brief conversation, the two seemed to grow closer. Meng Po wiped her eyes and calmed herself. “I’m originally from Su County in Changzhou1. My father was a scholar who never passed the exams. When young he was close to a classmate at the academy and betrothed me, in childhood, to that classmate’s family.”
Meng Po didn’t know why Zhao Fusheng was interested in her origins, but having met her twice, she felt, for some reason, rather warmly toward this chief commanding officer of the bureau.
She’d been in Wan’an County ten years, alone.
All those years she’d kept her stall here, seen many customers come and go, and asked people about her missing daughter, but others weren’t interested in her affairs.
She’d also met people who tried to use her daughter to cheat her out of money, and many thugs and street rogues who had joked about her daughter, so over time she stopped speaking, and her stomach was left full of unspoken words.
“I lost my mother young, leaving younger siblings, a brother and a sister, and I practically raised them.”
She spoke of the past calmly. “At nineteen I married into the Shen family...”
“The Shen family?”
Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng interrupted Meng Po.
She thought of how in Goutou Village, when people mentioned the woman Wu Datong abducted, some had said her surname was Zhang and some Shen...
“The classmate of my father’s was surnamed Shen, a scholarly family locally,” Meng Po explained, then asked, “Do you have any leads, my lord?”
As she said this, her eyes lit up and an eager look came over her face.
“Not certain.”
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and didn’t hide it from her. “In Goutou Village I heard villagers mention the woman Wu Datong abducted, some saying Zhang, some Shen.”
It had been forty-one or forty-two years, and nearly everyone who knew back then had been wiped out by the ghost. She sighed. “I can’t be sure.”
“Goutou Village?” She was restless, her hands kept gripping the apron, the five fingers loosening then tightening, and she bit her lip constantly. “Why didn’t I know sooner... Zhang, Zhang... Shen...”
“My lord, that girl in Goutou Village...”
She anxiously wanted to ask something, but at the edge of the words she grew timid, and as she spoke, tears rolled down. “My lord...”
Though Zhao Fusheng wasn’t sure whether the Beggar Ghost’s domain stopping here that day was coincidence or something else, there was no doubt that Meng Po was human.
She lived in Wan’an County, was one of the common people within Zhao Fusheng’s jurisdiction, and had stayed behind to search for her missing daughter. If there was a lead and it touched no secret, Zhao Fusheng was willing to tell her.
“I don’t know the details, but I recruited a village person into the bureau as an order envoy. He’s injured now and staying in Wu’an Town for the time being. When he reports to the county, I’ll have him sit at your stall and you can ask him then.”
Hearing her say this, gratitude showed in Meng Po’s eyes.
“I...”
She excitedly brushed her gray hair, then seemed to remember something and hurried to reach into her pocket for money. “Let me treat you to soup, my lord.”
“No need,” Zhao Fusheng shook her head, then mentioned another clue. “The Goutou Village people say that in the year after that woman was abducted, her family came to the village looking for her.”
“...”
At her words, Meng Po’s expression froze, her hand stopped in mid-motion toward her money, and after a while she gave a bitter laugh. “That, that probably wasn’t...”
Seeing Zhao Fusheng’s puzzled look, she said with difficulty, “You don’t know, my lord. My husband’s family in Wuli County was quite well known.”
She sighed and said in a low voice, “Every family has its own hard-to-recite scripture.2”
She didn’t spell out the details, but from the dimness in her eyes Zhao Fusheng guessed that after her daughter went missing, a great quarrel had arisen between Meng Po and her family, or she wouldn’t be alone here for ten years.
“In any case, thank you, my lord.”
She was disappointed, but perhaps after years of seeking her daughter she’d grown used to disappointment, and faced with another broken lead she could thank her calmly.
“I haven’t helped with anything yet, so there’s no need to thank me now,” said Zhao Fusheng. “But I’ll ask Magistrate Pang to keep an eye out. Tell me about your daughter...”
Hearing this, joy appeared on Meng Po’s face. “Thank you, my lord!”
After saying this, she went on. “My daughter’s name is Shen Yishu, and forty-three years ago, she...”
Judging by Meng Po’s age, if she had a daughter, the daughter would be no young woman either. But she’d only come to Wan’an County ten years ago, and Zhao Fusheng had first assumed her daughter had gone missing a dozen years back, not expecting her to start from forty-three years ago!
Forty-some years ago had been a special time. Forty-two years ago, Wu Datong of Goutou Village had abducted a woman, who died a year later and gave birth to a ghost fetus—
and forty-one years ago, Wu Datong had used that ghost fetus to steal the coffin lid.
Invisibly, many things were linked in sequence, as though a hand behind the scenes were pulling the strings.
Since it concerned her daughter’s whereabouts, Meng Po laid out everything she knew and all the clues she’d gathered over the years.
“That year my husband was transferred to Wuli County. In the early ninth month, an old schoolmate of his visited.”
The man had come with his family, and naturally Meng Po and her husband had to entertain.
“They had a daughter too, about the same age as our Yishu, and the two children took to each other at once.”
“That day we were hosting a banquet at Tongzhi Tower3. Halfway through, I noticed my daughter was missing.”
The other family’s daughter was also missing. At first neither side thought much of it, assuming the two girls were close and had hidden somewhere whispering.
Not until they’d searched the whole tavern and found no sign of the children did both families panic.
The two families rushed into the street and asked nearby people. The shopkeepers and waiters hadn’t noticed, but Meng Po, in her anxiety, questioned everyone near the tavern, and from an old woman selling handkerchiefs at a stall she learned that she’d seemingly seen a short, thin old man in a black robe speaking with two girls.
Afterward both families tried to find a short, thin old man in a black robe matching the handkerchief seller’s account, but in a big place like Wuli County, how many such old men were there?
In the end the Shen family never found anyone, and the two children had vanished without a trace.
“All these years I’ve been looking for my child, drifting from place to place. Now forty-odd years have passed, and I’m nearly too old to keep searching...”
Meng Po sighed. “I don’t know where she is now, or whether she...” Her voice broke, and finally she took a deep breath, eyebrows lifting, eyelids lowered to shield the tears in her eyes. “Or whether she blames me.”
...
Zhao Fusheng sat at Meng Po’s stall for over two hours, and when she rose after chatting, it was already dusk.
She turned and looked around. In the distance, the lights of the Confucian temple in Beggars’ Alley flickered faintly and carried over the long street.
Behind her, Meng Po was busy clearing bowls and chopsticks. Wan’an County was sparsely populated and cold now, and it wasn’t very safe to walk the streets too late, so she hurried to pack up and return to her temporary lodging.
Zhao Fusheng was puzzled. She’d arranged with the bureau’s driver that he’d take her to the Confucian temple in the morning and come pick her up at dusk, and now it was nearly dark and she still hadn’t seen the bureau’s carriage. Had something on the road delayed him?
She had come to Beggars’ Alley twice and had a rough memory of the bureau’s direction, so she simply started walking back, perhaps meeting the carriage on the way.
Having decided, she walked ahead.
Meng Po, packing up behind her, saw Zhao Fusheng alone and, for some reason, her brow twitched. She called, “My lord, why not sit a while longer and go when the bureau’s people come to fetch you?”
“No need.”
Zhao Fusheng didn’t turn, only waved. “Hurry and finish packing and go home early. Wan’an County still isn’t very safe.”
After nightfall, a thin mist veiled the street, and from far off the Confucian temple sent a hazy glow. Zhao Fusheng’s figure was guided by the light and shadow and melted into the mist.
Meng Po felt an unaccountable unease, and called again. “My lord...”
This time Zhao Fusheng didn’t answer.
She seemed not to have heard the old woman’s voice.
In fact, after Zhao Fusheng finished speaking, everything around fell silent.
Since Beggars’ Alley had been haunted, the area didn’t have much human warmth, and at night it was especially quiet, a bit eerie, but this silence now was too strange.
Having handled two ghost cases, Zhao Fusheng’s alertness was extraordinarily high, and after she called out she realized something was wrong.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. Her heart beat twice rapidly in her chest, and just as she felt unease, a faint ding-ling sounded at her ear. It sounded like a bell clanging, and then clip-clop hoofbeats came along with the sound of wheels rolling over the ground.
Zhao Fusheng’s face tightened. It was exactly like someone bringing a pillow to a sleepy person.4
Just as she was troubled for lack of a way home, a carriage seemed to be heading toward her.
