IBGSW Chapter 96
Cleaning Up the Aftermath
Zhao Fusheng looked at him and asked:
"What wasn't clear in what I said?"
Fan Bisi's heart skipped. He answered quickly:
"Nothing—"
"Then record first. If you have questions, ask after you've written it down," she said coolly.
Not daring to say more, Fan Bisi dipped his brush and, suppressing his doubts, wrote down everything she'd said.
Zhao Fusheng's eyes rested on his brush tip. When he finished, she continued:
"The Ghost Carriage is composed of four great malevolent objects: a ghost register that lists its passengers, a golden bell, a body like a black coffin, and a black horse pulling it."
She held nothing back about the carriage's appearance.
If the driving malignant ghost really was the Gold General of old, the court would long since have recorded the carriage's details; it would come out in a comparison sooner or later, so hiding anything was pointless.
She recalled the details:
"The driving ghost wears a green robe and a jade-buckled gold belt. I suspect it's the Gold General who died back then in the revival of a malignant ghost."
Amid the swish-swish of the brush tip moving across the paper, Fan Wujiu didn't dare breathe. In the side chamber, only Zhao Fusheng's voice and Fan Bisi's writing could be heard.
Zhao Fusheng started from the moment she first saw the carriage appear:
"The Ghost Carriage seems able to interfere with people's awareness and perception. At first, anyone who sees it mistakes it for an ordinary carriage."
When she mentioned speaking with the malignant ghost, the two Fans shuddered, chilled by hindsight at what she'd gone through last night.
"Once 'invited' by the malignant ghost, the invitee cannot refuse. Each person on the carriage gets one seat; if there's a surplus person, they're pushed out of the compartment and killed by the malignant ghost."
"The Ghost Carriage can travel through time. It finally stopped at the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall forty years ago."
At this she added:
"That's another reason I suspect the carriage belongs to the Gold General who died more than fifty years ago in the Headless Ghost case."
She didn't mention how she'd escaped the carriage, or that she'd made off with the golden bell. When she'd finished, she asked:
"Got it all down?"
"I have."
Fan Bisi was drenched in sweat. After recording every word she'd said and reading it over carefully, he stood and presented the case record to Zhao Fusheng with both hands:
"My lord, please look it over."
Zhao Fusheng glanced at him, took the record, and skimmed it. Then she laid it on the table and pushed it back toward Fan Bisi:
"Add one more line."
She said:
"By my judgment, the Ghost Carriage case meets at least the standard for Calamity-tier or above, and it can't be ruled out that it has already reached Disaster-tier."
The ruling made Fan Bisi's brush hand jerk. He looked up at her, eyes full of disbelief.
The brothers didn't doubt Zhao Fusheng's judgment. She controlled a Baleful-tier ghost entity, and her strength was no less than that of the previous commanding officer, Zhao Qiming. What she said was absolute truth in Wan'an County!
"Disaster-tier—"
Still, the appearance of a Disaster-tier ghost calamity robbed Fan Bisi of his voice. Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"Ghost horse, ghost coffin, ghost register, golden bell. All four are great malevolent objects, and they come as a set. Working together, they multiply the carriage's killing power several times over."
Remembering last night's peril, she still felt a lingering chill:
"And with a malignant ghost at the reins, the carriage's strength is like a tiger with wings. The Baleful-tier malignant ghost I control was thoroughly suppressed the moment I boarded; it couldn't even use its power."
At that, she couldn't help sighing:
"Who'd have thought ghosts bully the weak and fear the strong."
Her ghost usually swaggered around, and using its power twice took two-thirds of her life. Yet when the Ghost Carriage case came, it hid and refused to come out.
"……"
The two Fans looked at each other, completely rattled.
After a while, Fan Bisi asked in alarm:
"In that case, how did you get out?"
"Dumb luck."
She didn't want to say more, and Fan Bisi tactfully stopped asking.
"My lord, with such a ghost case now in Wan'an County, what do we do?"
Zhao Fusheng had returned safe, but she herself had said the Ghost Carriage case was extremely dangerous.
A case above Calamity-tier couldn't be resolved by the local County Government; it had to be reported to the court, which would dispatch a general from the prefectural office to handle it.
If it was above Calamity-tier, suspected Disaster-tier, even the prefecture’s generals might not be able to manage; most likely the court itself would have to step in.
But Wan'an County had long since been abandoned by the court. No ghost-controllers would ever set foot here. If Wan'an County met such a major case, what could it do?
True, Zhao Fusheng had mentioned the carriage stopping at the Liu Clan Ancestral Hall forty years back, but she had also said the carriage could slip through time without hindrance.
It had picked up Zhao Fusheng of Great Han year 246 and carried her to year 206; very probably it could return from forty years ago to the present in an instant.
If Zhao Fusheng had merely escaped, rather than driving the Ghost Carriage out of Wan'an County, the case hadn't been successfully handled.
The threat remained. The court couldn't send help, so Wan'an County was in even worse shape than before!
Fan Bisi was certain that if the wealthy households and gentry who hadn't yet fled learned the Ghost Carriage had appeared in the county, they'd pack their possessions in the morning and turn up in the neighboring county by the afternoon.
He was fretting and about to ask again when Zhao Fusheng said calmly:
"Don't worry. I've dealt with this case."
"What?"
The answer, once more, was beyond his expectation. He cried out, breaking decorum: "You dealt with it?"
Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"The Ghost Carriage has, for the moment, lost—"
She thought, then said:
"—its direction. Even if there are victims, it can't mark them precisely as before and take them away to be killed in time."
"……"
This was beyond what Fan Bisi could take in at that moment.
A moment ago he'd been terrified that Zhao Fusheng had met a case above Calamity-tier, anxious about how she'd escaped, fearful of the carriage roaming through Wan'an County. A moment later he learned from Zhao Fusheng that she'd practically brought the carriage to a halt.
How had she done it?
What exactly had she done to the Ghost Carriage?
……
Questions flooded Fan Bisi's mind.
But since she'd earlier declined to answer his question about her escape, he tactfully refrained from pressing.
"A malignant ghost acts according to its own rules."
Once ghost cases came up, Zhao Fusheng dropped her earlier nonchalance and explained in detail:
"The driving ghost left from the Liu Clan's Ancestral Hall of forty years ago. It will follow its primary rule." Here she paused.
Fan Wujiu, for once sharp, hurriedly poured her a cup of cold tea and handed it over.
Zhao Fusheng drained it and said:
"First, it will look for the next name recorded in the ghost register."
Before, with the golden bell's help, the carriage found victims on its list very quickly. Now, without the bell, it would only wander blindly. To find one particular person blindly in a vast Great Han would be like fishing for a needle in the ocean.
"And as long as it hasn't found the next person in the register, everyone else is safe."
Zhao Fusheng looked at the Fans:
"On that basis, I think the Ghost Carriage case can be said to have reached a pause for now, and it poses no threat to us."
"……"
"……"
Fan Bisi and Fan Wujiu felt their scalps tingle. On top of the shock and thrill, their understanding of Zhao Fusheng's strength was renewed!
They'd underestimated her again.
They'd assumed that after suppressing the Zhao couple and handling the Beggars' Alley and Goutou Village cases, she'd be on the verge of a ghost reviving. Instead, after Goutou Village she’d run into another ghost calamity, this time the Ghost Carriage, escaped it smoothly, and even "resolved" the case.
Zhao Fusheng herself considered the case not thoroughly resolved, merely paused, but the Fans, who'd spent many years at the Demon-Suppression Bureau, knew perfectly well: a malignant ghost can never be fully destroyed or killed.
Against ghosts, humans are always at a disadvantage.
By these two principles, whenever a commanding officer of the bureau handled a case in the past, if they could drive the ghost out of their territory, dissolve the ghost domain, and stop the ghost from killing everyone inside it on the spot, that already counted as success.
Where the ghost went afterward was some other place's bureau's headache.
When facing a case above Calamity-tier, if a prefectural or county bureau could drive off a Calamity-tier ghost, that was already a major achievement worthy of the court's attention and the Son of Heaven's commendation!
And in the Ghost Carriage case, Zhao Fusheng had done far more than drive the carriage away: she'd stripped the malignant ghost of its ability to hunt humans.
In the Fans' eyes, she had undoubtedly resolved the case completely—even if Wan'an County were still under the court's protection, a general-level ghost-controller sent by the court might not have solved it as perfectly as she just had.
The three fell silent for a time, looking at one another without words.
The room was eerily quiet, and then a commotion from outside broke the silence.
"I told you, my lord is busy right now—"
Someone outside seemed to be arguing, the quarrel growing louder as they bandied words.
"Busy? I think you're guilty and deliberately avoiding us!"
The other voice grew louder, with no regard for the menial worker trying to stop him:
"Get out of my way. I want to see your commanding officer—"
Bang!
Fan Bisi, absorbed in the Ghost Carriage case, was startled by the racket.
He was respectful toward Zhao Fusheng now, but that didn't make him good-tempered.
Commanding officers in the bureau were generally vile-tempered because of their ghosts, and in the eyes of ordinary people order envoys were just as hard to deal with as evil ghosts.
He slammed the table, ferocity in his eyes:
"My lord, it's Baozhi County's people."
Zhao Fusheng had handled several ghost cases in a row, controlled a Baleful-tier malignant ghost, and had just finished a case above Calamity-tier. That was an astonishing event even among the Great Han's Demon-Suppression Bureaus.
It was only because Wan'an County was now wrapped in ghost fog and the court knew nothing of her abilities. A year ago, on the strength of this one month alone, she'd have been famous throughout the realm. How could Baozhi County's people come to Wan'an County to throw their weight around!
His outlook had completely changed.
Last night, hearing Baozhi County had sent someone, his first reaction had been guilt, cowed by Zheng He's name. Now his thought was: what makes a mere Deputy Commander Zheng think he's even in Zhao Fusheng's league?
"They dare make trouble in our bureau without fearing death. My lord, let me teach him a lesson!"
When Zhao Fusheng didn't object, he tilted his chin toward his brother:
"Wujiu, go beat him. Break his arms and legs. Just leave him alive."
"Okay!"
Fan Wujiu clenched his fists and made to go out.
Zhao Fusheng stopped him:
"Just bring the man in."
Though she hadn't contradicted Fan Bisi's words, her meaning was exactly the opposite of his.
For once Fan Wujiu didn't obey his brother; he answered Zhao Fusheng:
"All right."
"……"
Fan Bisi, embarrassed, said:
"It's only a small fry from Baozhi County who doesn't know his place, trying to borrow Deputy Commander Zheng's name to throw his weight around here. Why give him face, my lord?"
"Why meet him? Just beat him back. I don't believe Deputy Commander Zheng would dare come in person—"
Bound by the Soul-Life Register, commanding officers in each prefecture and county couldn't easily leave their own territory. Zhao Fusheng had been provoking Deputy Commander Zheng recklessly precisely because she'd counted on him not daring to leave his post without a transfer order.
And even if Deputy Commander Zheng did, fearless of death, come, a veteran ghost-controller like him, however hot-tempered, could at most win a war of words. Make him actually fight and he'd probably be the first to cave and kneel—otherwise his ghost would revive and teach him a lesson on the spot!
"They're here about my parents' malignant ghosts reviving."
Zhao Fusheng said.
"So what?" Fan Bisi asked, puzzled:
"The strong rule."
When Zhao Fusheng had been weak, if Deputy Commander Zheng came to her door, Wan'an County would naturally have had to bow low;
but now that she was strong, it was simply Baozhi County's fate to suffer this calamity.
"That's how the bureaus have always done it," he said. Malignant ghosts couldn't be killed, and ordinary commanding officers had no means of dismembering or suppressing them; shipping a ghost calamity into someone else's territory was routine practice.
"I think Deputy Commander Zheng only dared send someone because he saw us lose the court's protection."
After a few sentences, seeing Zhao Fusheng smile without speaking, a strange thought struck Fan Bisi:
"My lord, are you going to see him—"
"Surely not, surely not—"
The thought left him stammering.
Zhao Fusheng nodded and said what was in his mind:
"I'm going to clean up this mess."
"Th-that's impossible!"
He grew frantic, eyes wide, and stood up:
"Though Baozhi County is close to us, it hasn't been affected by the ghost fog, and the two ghosts reviving there—though thorny—"
Fan Bisi paused.
In truth, as far as he knew, the Great Han had no precedent for two ghosts moving together. Two ghosts appearing at once to commit crimes was no ordinary headache; even if reported to the court, the court's people would be troubled too.
"But as you said, if Deputy Commander Zheng can't resolve it, he can ask the court to clean up the mess. What's it to us?"
Remembering how he'd misjudged Zhao Fusheng over the Ghost Carriage case and wanting to curry favor with her, he said:
"You've handled three ghost cases, and before that suppressed the Zhao couple—"
Fan Bisi remembered Zhao Qiming's death and shivered:
"If you handle more ghost cases, you might provoke a ghost's revival. Why not do as Deputy Commander Zheng did and stop, now and forever? I'll have people build up your name outside."
Once her name was out, there'd be plenty of scapegoats coming to throw in with her. Fan Bisi said offhandedly:
"If a ghost case comes up, send them. You can sit in the bureau, safe and comfortable."
Zhao Fusheng looked at him with a half-smile:
"I'm going to Baozhi County."
It was a decision, not a discussion.
Fan Bisi understood her meaning at once.
"But—" He choked, speaking incoherently:
"But you're bound by the Soul-Life Register. You c-can't leave Wan'an County."
"The Soul-Life Register can't bind me for now."
Zhao Fusheng shook her head and dropped her bombshell.
She said it lightly, but its meaning left Fan Bisi frozen in place, unable to recover for a long time.
