IBGSW Chapter 93
Someone Arrives at the Magistrate Office
Misfortunes never come singly: the leaky roof gets rained on all night.
Two clever people don't need many words.
The moment Zhao Fusheng laid out the key information, Liu Yizhen understood what she meant.
Decades ago, a case Liu Huacheng handled had turned into a ghost, and the resulting ghost calamity had killed a Gold General of the Capital Demon-Suppression Bureau who controlled a great ghost.
"Ghost cases are linked by cause and effect," Liu Yizhen said.
"Right."
Zhao Fusheng nodded.
She hadn't been reborn long, but she had properly handled two ghost cases.
In her spare time she'd also leafed through the bureau's past case files. Going by past patterns: "Malignant ghosts have no memory and no thought; they act on instinct. But how their rules form is tied to the circumstances they lived in, even to the cause of their death."
For example, the Beggar Ghost had been a beggar in life, used to begging people for food, and died because of it. Its killing rule after death was to knock on doors and beg, and neither human nor ghost could refuse its request.
The ghost of Goutou Village was the same. Its birth could never see the light of day, so after death its rule was to erase people's memories of it.
And the Ghost Carriage was no different: it would also link cause and effect.
Once they were onto the serious business, both of them grew calm and sober.
"The ghost-controlling Gold General died because of the Headless Ghost, before it was dismembered. The Headless Ghost died because of your grandfather. Those three ghosts are tangled up with one another, so the carriage going to the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall is no coincidence," Zhao Fusheng said.
The moment she said it, Liu Yizhen's face fell.
If Zhao Fusheng's guess was right and the carriage was at least Calamity-tier, perhaps beyond Disaster-tier, then if it truly charged into Beggars' Alley, the two ghosts that had reached balance would surely revive.
No wonder Liu Huacheng and the Headless Ghost had shown aura fluctuations last night.
Liu Yizhen kept his composure well. Though he knew the situation was dire, he didn't lose his head. He said:
"Putting it that way, it really can't be blamed on you. The cause lies with me."
"Exactly."
Seeing Liu Yizhen willing to take responsibility, Zhao Fusheng nodded approvingly and declared shamelessly:
"You mentioned the Ghost Carriage to me that day, and that's how I got marked by it. So even if I hadn't told you about it today, you'd have run into it eventually. How can that be my fault? Don't you agree?"
"……"
Liu Yizhen was silent for a long moment, then accepted the blame.
"Since you boarded the Ghost Carriage, how did you get away?"
As he asked, he looked her up and down carefully once more:
"A calamity above Calamity-tier, and you got out in one piece—" Especially with the power of the ghost she controlled completely suppressed by the carriage, unable to use any of it, and still getting away safely. Liu Yizhen marveled:
"That's incredible."
Zhao Fusheng felt a lingering chill thinking of last night's terror.
It was pure coincidence.
Luckily she'd handled the Goutou Village case earlier and gotten the substitute paper figurine. Through the substitute ghost's rule and talent, the figurine had taken her seat in the carriage in her place.
Then she'd used the ghost arm's talent to steal the Golden Bell from the hands of the ghost driving the carriage, breaking its killing rule.
Without all that, her body would probably be stiff by now.
"Just luck," Zhao Fusheng replied, and added:
"And not unscathed, either—"
She'd paid a price.
Liu Yizhen half-believed her.
Though Zhao Fusheng's words suggested she'd been hurt, when they met this morning her head was clear, her spirits good, her limbs whole, with no blood on her; she didn't look like she'd been badly injured.
She said it was luck, but survival after meeting a ghost depends on strength. Luck matters, but it's never the main factor.
Still, everyone has secrets, and if Zhao Fusheng wouldn't say, he wouldn't ask further.
"Where is the carriage now?"
Liu Yizhen collected himself. What concerned him most was the Ghost Carriage itself.
"It stopped at—" Zhao Fusheng said, then paused for a moment.
Liu Yizhen waited patiently for a while. Seeing her silent, he assumed she didn't know. He frowned and was about to ask the next question when Zhao Fusheng said:
"Guess?"
"……" The corner of Liu Yizhen's mouth twitched, and he frowned at her.
Zhao Fusheng was unfazed:
"When I handled the Beggars' Alley case, you made me just as uncomfortable. Now it's finally my turn for revenge."
"Childish!"
Liu Yizhen, at the end of his patience, rolled his eyes.
She burst out laughing:
"Hahahaha."
The brief interlude eased the mood between them considerably.
After the joke, Zhao Fusheng said seriously:
"The carriage stopped forty years ago."
"What?"
Though Liu Yizhen had never seen the carriage, he had speculated that it might have some hidden rule, such that ordinary people who didn't touch the rule couldn't see it.
He never imagined Zhao Fusheng would say it was parked forty years back.
"The Ghost Carriage seems to have the power to ignore time," Zhao Fusheng said.
Her answer made Liu Yizhen frown deeply.
"When I jumped off the carriage, I happened to see the scene on the night of your grandfather's sixtieth birthday."
The Headless Ghost reviving and killing, the carriage stopped at the front gate.
"If you hadn't shown up just then, I might have been swept into the flood of time," Zhao Fusheng sighed.
The carriage's power was beyond belief.
Liu Yizhen couldn't answer. He was still working to digest the information she'd given.
Such a terrifying Ghost Carriage had ended up in Wan'an County—might it be the influence of the ghost fog?
"What do you plan to do about this case?" The more Liu Yizhen thought, the thornier the Ghost Carriage case seemed.
Fortunately, he wasn't the commanding officer of the Wan'an County bureau, and at most, for the sake of the two ghosts in the Confucian temple, he could lend Zhao Fusheng a hand for now.
He thought it over:
"I can help within my abilities."
After all, Zhao Fusheng had been dragged into this case partly because of him; for public reasons or private, he couldn't stand by.
"But my power is limited. And my main duty is to watch the two ghosts in the Confucian temple. Until the danger from those two is fully dealt with, I can't be away from the temple for long."
He set out his bottom line first.
Zhao Fusheng said:
"That's all I need to hear." She smiled and lowered her eyes to the soup in front of her; her drooping eyelids hid her thoughts:
"Don't worry. I can't resolve the carriage problem completely right now, but in the short term it shouldn't make trouble again."
A malignant ghost kills mainly through its rules, but with the Golden Bell gone, the driver would probably prioritize searching for the bell, then Zheng He. Rushing the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall of forty years ago would come only after those two conditions were met.
Hearing the implication that she'd already, for now, stripped the carriage of its power to wreak havoc, Liu Yizhen's pupils contracted sharply.
Having casually revealed her extraordinary strength, Zhao Fusheng went on:
"But this case will be resolved sooner or later." Then, as if making idle conversation, she asked:
"Since we'll be working together sooner or later, Yizhen, what means do you have against malignant ghosts? Are you a ghost-controller too?"
She had kept this question buried for a long time.
It was just that, with the two of them wary of each other, Liu Yizhen might not have answered.
Now, with a future partnership set, he should disclose some things.
Liu Yizhen hesitated for a long while.
It was his secret. But having "dragged" Zhao Fusheng into such a terrifying ghost case, he'd lost the right to keep it hidden any longer.
After a while he seemed to make up his mind and shook his head:
"I'm not a ghost-controller."
He looked up at Zhao Fusheng:
"But when my grandfather was alive, he said I was a born Malignant Ghost Keeper."
“Malignant Ghost Keeper?”
Hearing the title, Zhao Fusheng was stunned for a moment.
Liu Yizhen nodded:
"My presence can—" He thought, then said:
"Suppress malignant ghosts?"
"Isn't that the same as the Headless Ghost's power?"
Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng was truly startled.
"Not the same."
Liu Yizhen shook his head:
"The Headless Ghost has a deterring effect on ghosts. My presence, to be precise, can soothe ghosts and put them into a brief sleep for a while."
"Isn't that skill even more outrageous?" Zhao Fusheng blurted.
But then she thought of something:
"Only ghosts have rule-based abilities. You don't control a malignant ghost, so how—"
"Because I'm probably something like a living ghost myself."
The moment he finished, Zhao Fusheng's face changed.
"Don't worry."
Liu Yizhen forced a smile:
"My situation is somewhat similar to the Goutou Village ghost case you handled." Then he added:
"But there are differences."
Suppressing her surprise, Zhao Fusheng listened to him continue:
"The malignant ghost in the Goutou Village case was born a ghost, and only later, because of Zhang Xiongwu, fully turned into one."
At this, Zhao Fusheng nodded.
Liu Yizhen went on:
"You know my family's situation."
In his later years Liu Huacheng had lived alongside ghosts, which made his son short-lived; with malignant ghosts all around, his grandson had nearly died in the womb.
Growing up in such an environment, Liu Yizhen had, astonishingly, been born with a portion of the power to soothe malignant ghosts.
The reason the Headless Ghost could still sleep despite the missing coffin nail and lid was, besides the Beggar Ghost's offerings and their mutual suppression, partly Liu Yizhen's presence.
"But I'm a human after all, and my human side has the upper hand, so my suppressing effect isn't great."
Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng finally had an understanding of Liu Yizhen's true situation.
She thought it over:
"Then after you die, there's a high chance a malignant ghost will revive."
"Possibly," Liu Yizhen nodded.
"Your Liu family’s ancestral graves must be smoking with good fortune, ghost after ghost,1" Zhao Fusheng quipped.
"If you're ever going to die, you'd better not die in Wan'an County."
Liu Yizhen gave a soft laugh and didn't take the bait.
"Let's set the carriage case aside for now. I'll look for you when I need you; you stay in the Confucian temple."
Having learned Liu Yizhen's secret, Zhao Fusheng coveted his ability, but dared even less to use him lightly.
If he got used up, trouble would follow.
"Forget it, forget it, enough of that." Zhao Fusheng waved a hand.
After laying their cards on the table, the two trusted each other somewhat more than before. She looked at the bowls on the table:
"Actually, I'm curious about something—"
As she spoke, she turned to look at Meng Po, busy washing bowls.
"You suspect something's off about her?"
Liu Yizhen, with a tacit understanding of his own, no longer touched on the carriage case and followed her lead.
"She saw the Ghost Carriage and wasn't taken."
When the Beggar Ghost case happened, the ghost domain had appeared just near the intersection where she set up her stall.
Zhao Fusheng asked him:
"Doesn't that seem too coincidental to you?"
"A bit," Liu Yizhen nodded.
"But investigating cases is your duty. It's none of my business."
Having said that, he called out:
"Meng Po, could you wipe the table, please?"
Meng Po answered and hurried over with a rag. As she wiped away the mess, she asked the two warily:
"Have you two made up?"
"We weren't fighting to begin with."
Zhao Fusheng answered with a smile, then picked up the bowl of vegetable soup, now somewhat cool, and drained it in a few gulps, wiping her mouth:
"He's just petty, and misunderstood a few things."
"……"
Liu Yizhen didn't argue. Recalling the whole course of the carriage case, he accepted the accusation.
After finishing her soup, Zhao Fusheng patted down her clothes and groaned inwardly:
"Oh no."
Since her rebirth she hadn't gone out much, and she had no habit of carrying money.
She hadn't brought much when she left yesterday, and after paying for soup, it was gone. She'd thought she could go straight back to the bureau, but the Ghost Carriage's appearance had sent her back to the Confucian temple instead.
Now her pockets were completely empty.
Seeing her pat herself down a couple of times, Liu Yizhen grew wary:
"Don't tell me you didn't bring money?"
Meng Po laughed:
"If you've no money, never mind. Is it so much for me to treat you two to a bowl of soup? Yesterday you said you'd help me look for my daughter, and I'm more than grateful—"
"That won't do."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head:
"Yours is a small business, and washing rice, cleaning vegetables and boiling soup is hard work."
It wasn't easy for Meng Po to earn money.
Though Zhao Fusheng now wondered how she'd been lucky enough to avoid the ghost calamity, Meng Po was a human being and a commoner of Wan'an County, and Zhao Fusheng had her own principles for how to treat people.
"Tell you what, Yizhen pays."
"What?"
Liu Yizhen, bowl in hand, objected at once:
"I didn't bring money either."
Zhao Fusheng ignored him and said to Meng Po, pointing at him:
"Put it on his account. Collect from him later."
Liu Yizhen couldn't take it anymore:
"If it's a tab, why not yours?" he said. "You said it was your treat. That's the only reason I came."
"Next time's my treat, definitely next time!" Zhao Fusheng promised.
"……"
Liu Yizhen rolled his eyes again, and Zhao Fusheng burst out laughing.
After that the two stopped talking about ghost calamities and focused on finishing their soup. Liu Yizhen, eager to get back to the Confucian temple, told Meng Po before leaving that she could come to Beggars' Alley for the money once she was done for the day.
Not long after he left, Zhao Fusheng heard a carriage approaching.
After last night's brush with death, she dropped her earlier relaxed manner. At the sound of hoofbeats and wheels, her scalp prickled and she turned around instinctively.
A carriage was racing toward her from the intersection in the distance. When she made out its shape and its driver, she let out a long breath of relief.
It was the Demon-Suppression Bureau's carriage, and the driver was Fan Bisi.
He looked anxious, not paying much attention to his driving, glancing left and right.
When the carriage swung off the main road toward Beggars' Alley, he turned his head instinctively toward Meng Po's stall, and his eyes met Zhao Fusheng's.
The moment he saw her, Fan Bisi's eyes lit up. A delight he couldn't hide spread over his face. He yanked the reins and shouted:
"Whoa—"
At the shout, the horse's hind hooves braked and the carriage stopped. He jumped down and called out:
"My lord!"
Anyone could see he'd come specifically to find Zhao Fusheng; something urgent must have happened at the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
The brief leisure was over.
Zhao Fusheng stood, waved goodbye to Meng Po, and walked toward Fan Bisi.
"My lord, thank goodness you're all right."
The moment he saw Zhao Fusheng at Meng Po's stall, the weight lifted from Fan Bisi's heart:
"The bureau’s been frantic with worry. Since last night, everyone in the Magistrate Office has been looking for you. Magistrate Pang and the others haven't slept all night, and they're still waiting at the bureau for news."
Zhao Fusheng climbed into the carriage:
"Is everything peaceful at the Magistrate Office?"
Seeing his uneasy look, she asked that first.
"Well—" Fan Bisi hesitated:
"It's a long story."
"Then make it short," Zhao Fusheng said lightly.
"People from Baozhi County have come to our door." Fan Bisi dropped the bombshell straight out.
As he spoke, he sneaked a glance back at Zhao Fusheng's expression.
