IBGSW Chapter 90
The Substitute Paper Figurine
“When the time comes, the place can be vacated. When the time hasn’t come, no place can be squeezed out.”
The corners of the big man’s mouth lifted at a perfect angle, as if measured, and didn’t droop even as he spoke.
Under Zhao Fusheng’s repeated questioning, his patience was superb. He explained, “The seats on the carriage are fixed, seated by name. Those who haven’t been invited can’t get on, and those who’ve boarded can’t leave.”
As the green-robed man’s words fell, the flame of the fire-starter in his hand suddenly turned from bright yellow to green, and the carriage was filled with eerie ghost aura.
In the green light, everyone’s face was covered in a terrible blue-green pallor, and those who had been smiling a moment ago now looked sinister and fierce, their gazes chilling.
The stranger thing was not the change in environment.
Above each person’s head hung a red thread glowing with blood, and at the end of each thread was tied a black wooden tablet.
The tablets were about a palm long, each with a name painted in blood.
Liu Bo, Lin Hongfu, Fang Yurong...
An ominous premonition rose in Zhao Fusheng, and she looked up above her.
At that look she found she could no longer see the carriage roof above her head.
As far as her eyes could reach, above her was endless darkness.
From the darkness a blood thread hung down, and at its end was a tablet with her own name written on it: Zhao Fusheng.
One look at the tablet filled her with dread, and she instinctively wanted to stand and flee.
But the moment she moved, her organs felt a bone-deep agony.
The writing on the tablet seemed to melt into liquid and flow, and the blood thread twisted wildly within the tablet.
In the agony, countless blood filaments hung down and wound toward her from above her head and shoulders.
At the same time, blood filaments began to emerge from the bench beneath her, binding her body as though weaving a cocoon to wrap her alive onto the carriage bench.
Zhao Fusheng’s heart sank, and she immediately moved to shake her sleeve and pull out the ghost hand.
But the moment she moved, the filaments caught her wrist. They seemed alive, trying to bore through her skin and rush into her blood vessels.
Strangely, Zhao Fusheng’s skin was extremely slippery, and though the blood-glowing red threads jabbed at her several times, they couldn’t pierce her body, so they simply bound her tight.
In this moment of crisis her heart sank, and she meant to rouse the malignant ghost she controlled.
But as soon as the thought arose, the Investiture of the Gods prompted:
The Baleful-tier Malignant Ghost is restrained!
“...”
Zhao Fusheng silently cursed her luck.
She hadn’t expected her malignant ghost to be suppressed by the Ghost Carriage; no wonder it hadn’t stirred at all since she boarded.
That ghost, so full of swagger earlier and nearly annihilating the Wan’an County bureau’s lifeline, was turning out useless at the critical moment.
What surprised her even more was that the malignant ghost she controlled was already a Baleful-tier entity, and yet in the face of the Ghost Carriage it had been completely suppressed.
It seemed tonight’s trip was dangerous indeed.
She steadied herself and forced calm. “I’ve seen it.”
Seeing her sensible, the green-robed man kept his smile, but the fire in his hand turned from green back to yellow.
The cold, resentful baleful aura receded, and the carriage was lit with bright light. The deathly people from before were all smiles again, and the mood became lively once more, as though the earlier sight of the name tablets and the blood threads wrapped around her had been an illusion.
Though she couldn’t see the baleful blood threads, Zhao Fusheng felt more and more that the shadow of death was drawing near.
Her nerves were taut, but she smiled. “So when will this seat be vacated?”
The green-robed man said with a smile, “It will be vacated when the time comes.”
Zhao Fusheng realized that what spoke to her might not be human, and that the gap in strength was huge, so even if she asked further she probably wouldn’t get anything.
She thought a moment, then looked at the woman diagonally across from her and asked again, “By the way, before I got in I heard you talking, and it sounded lively. What were you all talking about?”
As she spoke, she glanced from the corner of her eye at the green-robed man.
He sat straight with both hands on his thighs, ignoring her question and with no intention of stopping the others from chatting.
“I think I heard you mention Squire Liu.”
“Right.”
The woman smiled. “We’re all going tonight to congratulate Squire Liu.”
“To congratulate Squire Liu?” Zhao Fusheng raised her voice slightly.
Liu San said, “That’s right. Squire Liu is a well-known wealthy man in Wan’an County.”
He too was pulling up the corners of his mouth in a smile.
At some point everyone on the carriage had lifted their lips like this, as if pressed from the same mold, which struck fear at a glance.
“Where in Wan’an County is there a wealthy man named Liu?”
Zhao Fusheng set aside her own fear of the Ghost Carriage and began to think about who the “Squire Liu” these special “guests” mentioned was.
Wan’an County wasn’t safe now. The county’s well-known wealthy families had long since fled, so what wealthy man was there?
Among the gentry who stayed, Fan Bisi had organized a roster, and none was named Liu.
But she remembered something.
This was just outside Beggars’ Alley, and Beggars’ Alley was the predecessor of the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall.
Forty years ago, when Liu Huacheng was alive, the Liu family could be called a great house.
She was thinking when Liu Bo laughed. “How could there not be?”
He rested his hands before his legs and said, “Master Liu Huacheng. Today is his sixtieth birthday, and I hear his descendants are throwing a flowing banquet for several days, letting guests eat and drink freely, no charge, and even giving out gratuities.”
When Zhao Fusheng realized she’d boarded the Ghost Carriage, she had already prepared herself not to judge anything inside by common sense.
But when she actually heard Liu San mention “Liu Huacheng,” her pupils still contracted.
“I hear people from ten miles around Wan’an County are all going to wish Master Liu a long life, and it’s very lively.”
At the mention of Master Liu’s birthday, the others in the carriage perked up and began chattering again.
“I hear this gentleman once held office in the Capital...”
“His son ordered dozens of pigs.”
...
These words sounded normal, but the more normal they sounded, the more horrified Zhao Fusheng felt.
Originally she’d been able to hear only the voices in the carriage, the bell, and the hooves pulling the wheels. But as the others mentioned “Master Liu” more and more, the sounds of the outside world changed.
At some point, the usually silent area outside Beggars’ Alley suddenly filled with clamor.
The footsteps of countless hurrying people, the clamor of shouting, and mixed in with them, the earth-shaking sound of opera singers’ clear, long chanting and drums and gongs passed through the carriage, which should have been airtight, and into her ears.
“Make way, pig’s head meat coming through!”
“You wretch, hurry up! When the master comes out and sees the table isn’t cleared, he’ll flay you alive...”
Urging, cursing, and the loud cheers of those listening to opera floated into the carriage one after another. Everything was too real, not like illusion.
Zhao Fusheng clenched her teeth hard. “Are we really going to wish Liu Huacheng a long life?”
“Of course.”
The green-robed man nodded. “Since we’re already here, of course.”
As he spoke, she felt more suffocated.
The carriage was brightly lit and she couldn’t see the blood threads or name tablets, but the uncanny scene from before was already engraved in her mind, and she knew that countless blood-light threads must be binding her now, tying her to the Ghost Carriage.
At some point the golden bell outside rang more urgently.
Thin mist gradually filled the carriage.
Under its influence, the flame in the green-robed man’s hand was suppressed and grew dimmer.
The fire again turned from yellow to green, and the eerie, sinister scene reappeared.
Zhao Fusheng saw the faintly visible blood threads hanging black tablets over each person’s head, and the lively discussion of Liu Huacheng’s birthday cut off abruptly.
The smiling “people” sat in their places with strange smiles.
The blood threads hanging from the carriage roof were tied around each person’s neck, and just then a scream came from the distance:
“Aaah...”
The voice was terrified, as though seeing the most horrifying scene in the world. “Ghost!”
At the heart-rending scream, Zhao Fusheng’s heart sank. She remembered the birthday banquet at the Liu family forty years ago, when the Headless Ghost revived.
The Ghost Carriage could actually travel through time and return to the past.
Once it entered the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall, it would mean a whole carriage of people being brought into a ghost domain...
No, not a whole carriage of people!
Zhao Fusheng quickly realized that from the look of it everyone on the carriage was dead.
Liu San was the best proof. When Fan Bisi mentioned the case, the incident was already half a year old, and Liu San, taken by the Ghost Carriage, had vanished without a word.
That is, the only living person on the carriage was her.
If she didn’t find a way off, she too would die on the carriage, and Deputy Commander Zheng of Baozhi County would be the next victim.
Zhao Fusheng was frantic.
She couldn’t stay on the carriage, and she couldn’t enter the Headless Ghost’s ghost domain of forty years ago either.
Thinking this, she asked the green-robed man, “You said the seats on the carriage are fixed, and no one can board if no seat has been vacated.”
The green-robed man, who had looked so smiling and amiable, now looked terrifying.
His face was bluish, his eyes carried the pallor of death, and though he was still smiling, the smile had a forced stiffness. “Right.”
He seemed not to notice and nodded.
“Then what if I get off and vacate a seat?” Zhao Fusheng asked.
As soon as she said it, everyone in the carriage who’d been smiling stiffly turned their heads in unison, looked at her with strange smiles, and malice appeared in their eyes.
Facing the stares of the ghosts, Zhao Fusheng didn’t mind and kept looking at the green-robed man, waiting for his answer.
“You can’t get off.”
The green-robed man said coldly, “One person, one seat. Someone who has boarded has no reason to leave.”
Zhao Fusheng sighed. “That is, once I’ve boarded this carriage I can’t leave and must stay in it.”
“Tonight we’re going to Master Liu’s birthday banquet. Our gathering is fate, and we’ll all drink a cup of birthday wine at the Liu house,” the green-robed man said with a sinister smile.
“I’m not hungry.” Zhao Fusheng shook her head stubbornly. “And I don’t drink. I’ve quit.”
“...” The ghosts looked at her coldly.
The green-robed man smiled and said nothing.
The bell rang urgently, the mist in the carriage grew thicker, and the malignant ghosts’ aura grew heavier.
Frigid malice mixed with violent energy rushed at her face, and someone shouted loudly, “A carriage of honored guests has arrived!”
As the words fell, the carriage jolted heavily.
A drop of foul-smelling blood dripped onto Zhao Fusheng’s head.
A chill spread instantly from the top of her head, running down her skull and tightening around her neck!
The shadow of death surged in. Her gaze fell on all the dead people hanging from blood threads opposite her, and her heart leapt to her throat.
She couldn’t stay on the Ghost Carriage any longer!
The ghost hand couldn’t be used, and the Baleful-tier malignant ghost she controlled was fully suppressed in this situation.
But at the brink of life and death, Zhao Fusheng wasn’t afraid. She still had another trump card.
“Open Hell!”
At a thought, her consciousness sank into her sea of consciousness, the Investiture of the Gods activated, Hell opened silently, and black shadows spread.
The Investiture of the Gods prompted:
Opening Hell in a special ghost domain requires merit to sustain.
“Open it!”
At this life-or-death moment, Zhao Fusheng had no leisure to count costs.
The Investiture of the Gods then responded:
Hell opened.
Merit -10!
Merit -10!
Merit -10!
...
A series of merit-consumption notices kept sounding, but this was no time for Zhao Fusheng to grieve over them.
While the black shadows covered her, the red threads binding her body were severed in an instant.
The green candlelight was extinguished by Hell’s power, and the true scene inside the carriage came into her view!
She was in a sealed, pitch-black space. The green-robed man who had sat by the door had vanished. The two rows of people who had been talking with her now stood stiffly, bodies as if sucked against the carriage walls, turned into dried corpses, long since devoid of life.
The flesh and blood of everyone seemed to have been drained, leaving only a withered layer of skin wrapped around bones.
The corpses had their heads tilted back, lips shriveled so dry they couldn’t cover their exposed teeth, as if screaming silently.
The scene shocked Zhao Fusheng, but she’d expected it and so wasn’t flustered.
What she found tricky was that the carriage had no door.
It was sealed all around, airtight, like a welded closed space, and barring accident, even having seen through the illusion the Ghost Carriage had made, she couldn’t leave.
The green-robed man’s earlier words surfaced in her mind:
“One person, one seat; there are no extra places...”
“When the time hasn’t come, those outside can’t get in and those inside can’t get out.”
Merit -10!
Merit -10!
...
In that moment, Zhao Fusheng’s merit was again heavily consumed.
She felt as if the sea of consciousness where she stored merit had had its sluice gates opened, a rushing flood, but no time to feel pain, and turned her mind into Hell.
Hell held nothing now but the substitute paper figurine she’d sealed and taken in, and no other malignant ghost.
When the Investiture of the Gods had sealed this ghost in Goutou Village, it had told her: substitute paper figurine, same name, same surname, same blood, same flesh as her.
It was a substitute figurine that perfectly copied her, with a ghost inside. She didn’t know whether it would work on the Ghost Carriage.
If the green-robed man’s words were true, once she boarded the Ghost Carriage she could never leave, which meant she had to have a seat on the carriage.
The seats were exactly full now. If a person (or a ghost) were suddenly added, the carriage’s capacity would be exceeded, equivalent to overloading, which would go against the ghost’s killing rule, and there should be a moment when a door opened and a place was squeezed out.
But all this was only her guess, and if wrong, she would die at the Malignant Ghost’s hands at once.
But things had gone so far that Zhao Fusheng had no leisure to deliberate.
