IBGSW Chapter 89
Boarding the Ghost Carriage
The girl in the fur cloak, face half hidden, shyly lifted her eyelids.
She had bangs that covered a pair of watery eyes.
Now her gaze peeked through a gap in the bangs at Zhao Fusheng, who happened to be looking at her too. Their eyes met, and the girl jolted and hastily turned her face away.
The woman sitting diagonally across from Zhao Fusheng saw this and smiled with pursed lips. “You don’t need to guess. None of us know each other. Just as...”
As she said this, she turned toward the green-robed man, but her body stayed seated as she turned, so all she could see was the person beside her, not the green-robed man’s face.
But Zhao Fusheng, seated diagonally opposite, could see clearly that this motion was meant to look at the green-robed man.
As she turned her head, fear appeared on her face. “As that gentleman said, it was fate that brought us onto this carriage.”
The green-robed man said with a smile, “Since none of us knew each other before, why not introduce ourselves? What do you say?”
“Fine!”
The others, hearing him, all nodded in unison.
“...”
The scene before her was truly eerie.
When Zhao Fusheng first saw these people laughing and chatting, though she’d thought the carriage and the green-robed man odd, she hadn’t thought of malignant ghosts, only guessing there was another ghost-controller hidden in Wan’an County.
She’d handled two ghost cases recently and her reputation had risen, and she might have attracted the attention of someone hiding in the shadows who meant to give her a taste of their power.
But now, seeing them all nod at once, a creeping horror rose and shattered her earlier guess.
She finally realized she might have met a major problem. The people she saw in the carriage might not be real “people,” and she was most likely in a predicament similar to being manipulated by the substitute ghost in Goutou Village.
“Let’s start with the new arrival.”
The green-robed man’s tone was casual yet carried an imposing authority that couldn’t be refuted.
As soon as he spoke, everyone else in the carriage turned with smiles.
A dozen or so pairs of eyes fell on Zhao Fusheng at once, and the pressure on her doubled.
She was already wary of the carriage, so how dared she really reveal her identity?
Though everyone’s eyes were on her, Zhao Fusheng still meant to refuse.
But something terrifying happened again.
Her body seemed to go against her will. Zhao Fusheng clearly felt the corners of her mouth lift uncontrollably.
Faced with the green-robed man’s calling on her and everyone’s gaze, a feeling of pride and satisfaction rose in her, and before speaking she even cleared her throat. “Ahem, ahem.”
“...” What the hell!
Zhao Fusheng began frantically recalling everything from her day.
From the green-robed man’s words, she could tell this carriage had come for her, yet she had no idea how she’d attracted such an uncanny carriage.
She hadn’t been reborn long, and the original host’s identity was simple, with no ties to ghost incidents before dealing with the Fan brothers.
After her rebirth she’d handled the Beggars’ Alley calamity and stayed in the bureau without going out, until the Goutou Village case fell into her hands and she left the bureau gate again.
And after resolving the Goutou Village case, today she’d gone to the Confucian temple, spoken with Liu Yizhen, then come to Meng Po’s stall, and in between she hadn’t dealt with anyone else.
Her life was simple, her movements clear at a glance, and by rights she shouldn’t have gotten involved in such an uncanny matter.
She took a deep breath, still frantically searching her mind for clues linking the green-robed man and the driverless carriage, when she heard herself say, “I was originally born in Jiumen Village, my family...”
“...Now I am the chief commanding officer in Wan’an County, controlling one malignant ghost, and am on the edge of its revival...”
She hid nothing.
Everything she should say and shouldn’t say came out like beans from a bamboo tube.
The green-robed man had produced a ledger from somewhere and was writing with a brush, and watching him, Zhao Fusheng’s heart quivered with fear. She thought:
My name is already recorded once in the Soul-Life Register and once in the One-Name Register in the Confucian temple, and now, by the look of it, I’ll be written down yet again in this uncanny carriage.
If this carriage was also connected to a ghost, then she was by now registered by three malignant ghost forces.
“A person really can’t be too popular...”
She sighed.
That sigh also came from her own mouth, and after she said it, Zhao Fusheng herself was stunned.
She then realized that her body hadn’t entirely lost control. She simply couldn’t resist the green-robed man’s instructions, and as soon as she felt resistance to his words, her body betrayed her thoughts and made decisions entirely different from her mind.
Seeing this clearly, Zhao Fusheng reacted at once: if she stopped fighting the green-robed man and complied with his instructions, her body wouldn’t lose control, and she might even find clues in the conversations with everyone and seek a chance to escape.
Having made up her mind, the feeling of lost control vanished completely.
Her upturned mouth drooped, her expression no longer stiff, becoming much more natural.
The green-robed man, writing, seemed to sense her psychological change in that moment, and instinctively looked up at her.
Zhao Fusheng smiled at him and reminded him, “Write, write. Have you finished? My name is Zhao Fusheng, from Jiumen Village.”
“...”
The others smiled strangely with pursed lips and said nothing.
The green-robed man ignored her and lowered his head to write furiously again.
At that moment, the man who had spoken to Zhao Fusheng earlier and mentioned “Squire Liu’s birthday” suddenly looked a bit odd.
His lips moved as if he had something to say.
Zhao Fusheng looked at him, and he breathed out in relief before saying, “Wan’an County’s Demon-Suppression Bureau?”
“Yes.”
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
She noticed that this man seemed very concerned about “the Wan’an County bureau.” At this thought she noticed something strange.
By rights, a carriage that appeared in Wan’an County should carry Wan’an County people...
Wait!
Zhao Fusheng remembered the earlier introductions: they’d only said which village and town they were from, but hadn’t mentioned “Wan’an County.”
A guess rose in her mind: could the people on the carriage not be Wan’an County people? Could this carriage not be a vehicle of this county?
While she was thinking, the man said with a smile, “I never expected to meet you here, my lord.”
The green-robed man seemed uninterested in their catching up and didn’t try to stop them from talking.
Zhao Fusheng steadied herself and asked him, “You’re from Wan’an County too?”
“Yes.” The man nodded uneasily and answered, “I’m called Liu Bo, third in my family, so people call me Liu San1.”
Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng felt vaguely familiar.
Old memories seemed about to surface, but there was always a thin layer of paper between them, and she couldn’t remember where she’d heard the name “Liu San.”
While she was tense, Liu San added, “I’m from Huangquan Village in Wan’an County.”
Huangquan Village, Liu San!
The two key pieces of information entered Zhao Fusheng’s ears like a key opening the door of a maze.
Disordered memories broke through the fog barrier, and Fan Bisi’s voice rang in her mind:
“...Someone once found a strange carriage near Huangquan Village.”
“The person who mentioned the carriage vanished mysteriously the next day... and some who heard about it from others also went missing...”
“No one knows what this carriage looks like...”
“...Liu San, who reported it, had heard a neighbor mention this carriage, and the next day...”
“Liu San is certain to die!”
The look on Fan Bisi’s face as he said this then surfaced in Zhao Fusheng’s mind, and the last sentence echoed in her head: Liu San is certain to die! Liu San is certain to die! Liu San is certain to die!
Slowly the sentence changed flavor, and Zhao Fusheng automatically turned it into:
Zhao Fusheng is certain to die!
Zhao Fusheng is certain to die!
Zhao Fusheng is certain to die!
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
Zhao Fusheng suddenly lost her composure and cursed. “Damn Fan Bisi! Damn the Fan brothers! Those two crows!”
She finally understood where she was and the danger she was in.
When she’d been reborn that day and opened the Investiture of the Gods, after figuring out her situation she’d been eager to take on tasks to earn merit.
And that day Fan Bisi had mentioned three ghost cases, the first of which was the Ghost Carriage!
The Ghost Carriage had few clues, but Fan Bisi had happened to mention the name of the one who’d reported it, “Liu San,” and that the carriage had appeared near Huangquan Village.
Now the man on the carriage called himself Liu San and was from Huangquan Village.
Two key clues matched the case details from that day, and Zhao Fusheng understood at once that she had unwittingly boarded the Ghost Carriage!
“What a sin! What a sin! What bad karma!”
Zhao Fusheng sighed three times.
Fan Bisi had said that whether people mentioned the Ghost Carriage or heard of the Ghost Carriage incident, they might go missing.
She hadn’t understood then, but now she did: the Ghost Carriage’s existence was itself taboo, much like the substitute ghost’s. Mentioning it or hearing it mentioned triggered the taboo and stepped into a forbidden zone.
She’d heard Fan Bisi tell of this case and touched the malignant ghost’s rule.
So afterward, even without leaving her room or doing anything, she’d attracted this trouble, because the day she heard about the Ghost Carriage case she’d already been marked by it.
Having worked this out, Zhao Fusheng quickly calmed down.
What had happened had happened. Cursing the Fan brothers was no use. Better to think of a way to escape this uncanny carriage.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The green-robed man, as if he hadn’t heard her cursing, was still writing with his head down.
The woman who had spoken to her earlier, who seemed more cheerful, curious at her teeth-gritting cursing followed by a long sigh, asked.
“Ah, I finally understand why I was invited onto this carriage,” Zhao Fusheng said sadly. “But what I don’t understand is why, when everyone heard, only I was picked up, when it wasn’t even me who said it? Why didn’t you pick up Fan Bisi and Fan Wujiu?”
“Fan **? Fan **?”
The green-robed man, who’d been writing, finally looked up at this.
But for some reason, when he said the Fan brothers’ names, they seemed held in his mouth, unable to be pronounced.
He didn’t notice this himself, and as he spoke turned to flip through his register. “They aren’t in the ledger. They’re not invited guests.”
“...”
Zhao Fusheng wanted to curse again.
“The people they spoke of weren’t invited guests, but I heard it and got an invitation???”
“Is there no law, no justice?”
The big man ignored her words, smiled, and flipped the register again. “But the Deputy Commander Zheng you mentioned just now is quite interesting. I’ve already registered him.”
“...”
Zhao Fusheng was suddenly speechless, and for a moment felt somewhat sorry toward the chief commanding officer of Baozhi County’s bureau, whom she’d never met.
“Sigh.”
She sighed.
Now that she’d confirmed this carriage was a ghost entity, no wonder she hadn’t seen the driver: the one driving was a ghost, not a person.
Her gaze fell on the ledger in the green-robed man’s hands, and a whim struck her: how accomplished she’d become now, to be registered by three malignant ghost forces.
If malignant ghosts had memory, thought and consciousness, they’d probably point at her nose and curse her as a three-surnamed slave.2
Zhao Fusheng’s eyes darted. She had her feet on three ghost boats at once, but didn’t know which of the three ghost forces was fiercest.
The ghost servant went without saying.
It was in the Capital, and even if it had some power, that power was shockingly weak. And the Soul-Life Register wasn’t on Zhao Fusheng now.
After the Goutou Village case, to let Zhang Chuanshi use the ghost’s power to ease pain, she had lent him the register.
So all she could rely on was the One-Name Register.
This place was right near the Confucian temple.
Liu Huacheng was no pushover. After his death his malignant ghost had revived and could restrain the Headless Ghost, which showed he was no soft peach3.
The One-Name Register was a great malevolent object derived from him. With her name on it now, she could only hope Liu Huacheng would sense her predicament, revive quickly, and come to snatch her away.
...
But all that was her happy fantasy.
Liu Huacheng and the Headless Ghost were restraining each other, and there was no way he could revive now.
On the contrary, Zhao Fusheng began to worry: the Confucian temple held three suppressed malignant ghosts, and with the Ghost Carriage suddenly bursting in tonight, might it break the balance and cause the three ghosts, currently harmless, to revive?
Thinking of this, her expression turned ugly.
But a moment later she faced reality and thought of her own situation: she herself was a clay Bodhisattva fording a river, and even if Wan’an County faced danger, she was powerless to help.
The most urgent task was to find a way to leave the Ghost Carriage.
Fan Bisi had said the Ghost Carriage could only be boarded, not left, and so far no one had been heard of escaping, which was why this ghost case was so eerie and had so few clues.
She thought, pushed down her guilt toward Deputy Commander Zheng, and said to the green-robed man, “Let’s make a deal. You were going to invite Deputy Commander Zheng of Baozhi County onto the carriage sooner or later anyway. Why not go invite him now and drop me off somewhere? How about it?”
The big man smiled. “This isn’t the time to invite him.”
“Why not?”
Zhao Fusheng froze and asked back.
The green-robed man said patiently, “There’s no room on the carriage.”
“No room?”
Zhao Fusheng looked around. “It was also crowded earlier, but you clearly squeezed out a space.”
After learning the carriage was driven by a malignant ghost, she had already guessed that the people on it weren’t necessarily living.
The green-robed man talking with her might be a ghost, or might be an illusion created by the ghost’s rule.
But the Ghost Carriage was too mysterious. With her name already registered, even if she escaped successfully this time, the carriage would remain a hazard in the future, so she might as well converse as much as possible and see if she could draw out some useful clues.
