Playing the Ghost

Before long, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai used the moonlight to quietly scale the wall and slip out of the Zeng Residence. In those days, once darkness fell, the streets were virtually deserted, and things like streetlamps simply did not exist, so they had little worry of being spotted. Mingjiao Temple was very close to the Zeng Residence, separated by a mere two streets. It could be reached in just a few strides. Sun and Huang spent barely five minutes arriving at the temple’s rear wall, smoothly rendezvousing with Zhou Wu. Because they had already laid their plans beforehand, there was no need for idle chatter upon meeting. After exchanging a few hushed words, they scaled the wall and entered the temple grounds. The corpse of Zeng’s Second Lady had already undergone preservative treatment the previous day; the shroud and coffin had also been prepared, and at the moment, that very coffin rested inside an unoccupied, vacant room in the temple. A Buddhist hall was no place to lay out a corpse. A dead body was an object of dark, baleful energy; without the rites of deliverance and cremation, it was strictly forbidden from entering the Mahavira Hall. This was an ironclad rule. Never mind Zeng Laoye—not even the Emperor himself could mess with it. Therefore, after the Second Lady’s corpse was transported here, it had been placed in a room without any Buddha statues, where monks circled it, chanting scriptures for her deliverance. Monks were human too, and they needed rest. Come nightfall, they had retired to sleep, leaving behind only a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old novice monk to watch the coffin, keeping a token vigil through the night. Sun, Huang, and Zhou arrived at the doorway of the room housing the corpse (doors to rooms holding bodies could never be closed). Peering inside, they found the young monk sitting cross-legged with his back to the door, his head drooping as he dozed off. At the sight, the three merely exchanged glances without a word. Huang Donglai took the lead and stepped inside. Using his lightness skill, he closed in behind the novice without a sound, retrieved a cloth soaked in medicinal liquid from his breast pocket, and clapped it over the youth’s nose and mouth. The novice monk slumped over on the spot, unconscious. Sun Yixie and Zhou Wu followed right behind, both stepping through the doorway. “Brother Huang, that’s some nifty medicine,” Sun Yixie teased in a low whisper as soon as he entered. “Use it for flower-plucking, do you?” “I’ll pluck your sister!” Huang Donglai snapped back. “This is a proper, fast-acting inhalant sleeping draught produced by our Huang Clan! A secret formula! Do you know what a secret formula is?” “All right then. Whip up eight or ten packets for me some other day. My sleep hasn’t been great either,” Sun Yixie said. “Piss off,” Huang Donglai said. “Whenever you can’t sleep, just give me a shout. I’ll knock you out cold with a club.” Huang Donglai knew Brother Sun well enough; to keep his brother from straying onto the wrong path, he firmly shot Sun Yixie down. While they traded these few quips, Zhou Wu had already swiftly pried open the coffin lid (before burial, coffin lids were never nailed shut). Zhou Wu was, after all, the constable head of Luzhou City. Even if he was no top-tier expert, his physical strength was far beyond ordinary men. If even Sun Yixie could shove open a heavy stone coffin lid with brute force, opening an ordinary wooden coffin was child's play for Zhou Wu. “It’s still here,” Zhou Wu remarked after opening the coffin and glancing inside. Hearing this, Sun and Huang stopped joking and both approached the coffin to look inside. Indeed, it was “still here”—the Liuli Carp remained firmly clasped in Zeng’s Second Lady’s hands, pressed tightly against her chest. “Hmph… as expected.” After a brief inspection, Huang Donglai smiled and said, “This Second Lady was poisoned to death too.” He paused, then explained, “The toxin she ingested is called ‘Immortal-Binding Cord.’ When this poison takes effect, the victim’s heart and lungs feel as though bound tightly by ropes, rendering them unable to beat or breathe, causing rapid asphyxiation and sudden death. Another characteristic of this poison is that rigor mortis sets in exceptionally fast and severe, as if the entire body has been ‘bound fast’… Therefore, as long as the Liuli Carp was placed into her hands shortly after her death, it would create the false impression we see now—a corpse clutching something so tightly it won’t let go.” “Worthy Younger Brother Huang,” Zhou Wu chimed in, “under these circumstances, can we still…” “Of course we can.” Huang Donglai knew what he wanted to ask and answered directly, “Just pry it open with force.” “Ah?” Zhou Wu was momentarily taken aback. “That simple?” “Nonsense. No matter how stiff it is, it’s still just flesh and bone. It’s not forged from iron,” Huang Donglai said. “Why wouldn’t it pry open?” As he spoke, he had already reached into the coffin. With a slight exertion of force, he pried open the Second Lady’s fingers. Watching Huang Donglai retrieve the Liuli Carp so effortlessly, Zhou Wu let out a self-deprecating chuckle. Only now did he realize: over the past three days, if anyone had possessed the nerve and wasn't afraid of desecrating the dead—daring to pry them apart directly like Huang Donglai—the fish would have been removed long ago. It was precisely because everyone feared and believed in ghosts and spirits that they took it for granted her grievance was too deep to let go, assuming they had to find monks to chant scriptures and deliver her soul before she would release her grip. Of course… if they truly had the patience to wait until rigor mortis passed, her hands would indeed have relaxed naturally. “All right, done. Let’s move.” Huang Donglai retrieved the Liuli Carp, tucked it into his breast, and headed out. Zhou Wu and Sun Yixie did not dawdle either. The two swiftly stepped to either end of the coffin, head and foot, lifted the Second Lady’s corpse out in one smooth motion, and followed him out… *** During the third quarter of the Hour of the Ox, housekeeper Zeng Su tossed and turned in bed, plagued by endless nightmares. As the saying goes, a guilty conscience needs no accuser. Even though Zeng Su was now a repeat offender with several lives on his hands, and his mental resilience was not weak, in the end… he was neither a professional assassin nor a member of the jianghu. He was merely the housekeeper of a prominent household. In the span of a mere half month, a person could not transform that thoroughly. If this whole affair blew over and another year or six months passed, Zeng Su might have pulled through… By then, he would have grown accustomed to carrying on with murder on his conscience, but right now, he clearly could not. Thus, in his dreams, everything returned to the beginning… That day, Zeng’s Second Lady had suddenly summoned him into her room, weeping and making a scene, demanding to know when he would finally take her and fly far away. Zeng Su had been at a loss for words. Zeng’s Second Lady was thirty-two this year, while Zeng Laoye was sixty. As the poetic phrase went, “a pear blossom pressing against a crabapple”—in such wealthy households with old husbands and young wives, such scandals were only to be expected. In truth, Zeng Su was not young either, already forty-three, but compared to Zeng Laoye, he was still in the prime of life. The illicit affair between him and the Second Lady had been kept very well hidden. Aside from the two lovers, only the Second Lady’s personal maidservant knew of it in the entire manor. In the beginning, the maid had covered for them under threats and inducements, but as time went on, she became bound to the same rope. After all, the deed was done; once exposed, the adulterous pair would naturally be drowned in pig cages, while she, as a maidservant, would surely be beaten to death by the master. Originally, so long as they kept a low profile, life could have continued like this. In a few years when Zeng Laoye passed away, they might have grown even bolder. Yet the Second Lady was still young and refused to accept her lot… She had ambitions. She did not want to carry on sneaking around forever; she wanted to bundle up a cache of valuables from the Zeng family and have Zeng Su elope with her. As for Zeng Su, it was not that he lacked the nerve, but that he lacked the foolishness—the foolishness to do something so stupid. What was she thinking? Was the Zeng family just an ordinary household? Running away with the master’s Second Lady? Could they actually escape? Unless they fled beyond the borders of Da Ming, they would inevitably be hunted down and dragged back. Faced with the Second Lady’s repeated weeping, tantrums, and coercive threats, Zeng Su knew this matter could hardly end well. So, he decided… to run away alone. He had already laid his plan: he would leave a letter for Zeng Laoye, confessing that he had let the household down, succumbed to greed, and stolen a hundred taels of silver from the ledger. Unable to face his master, he would write that he had no choice but to flee after leaving this note, begging the master to remember their years of devotion and refrain from reporting him to the authorities, simply letting him go. Zeng Su had calculated meticulously. This amount of money was neither too much nor too little—not so exorbitant that Zeng Laoye would hold an irreconcilable grudge, nor so petty that his flight would appear contrived. When the time came, he would take the silver, flee far and wide, and live comfortably. Meanwhile, the Second Lady would have no choice but to abandon her fantasies; if she made another fuss, she would only be courting her own death, which would have nothing to do with him, Zeng Su. He was already poised to execute this scheme, but unexpectedly… on the very day before he was set to flee, he met someone. It was a woman. A “faceless” woman. Every time she appeared before Zeng Su, she wore a different face. Sometimes she was a charming young matron, sometimes a hunched old crone, and at other times she became a breathtakingly gorgeous maiden. That day, the woman had sought Zeng Su out of her own accord. She possessed martial arts and was exceptionally glib of tongue. She knew everything about Zeng Su, including his affair with the Second Lady and his plan to abscond alone. She told Zeng Su that she had a way to keep him as the Zeng family’s housekeeper while making the Second Lady “shut her mouth forever.” Zeng Su had refused at first, but he quickly realized she was not offering him a “choice”—she was threatening him… Faced with being exposed and drowned in a pig cage versus killing the Second Lady and remaining the Zeng Residence’s housekeeper, Zeng Su did not agonize for long. Following the woman’s instructions, at the appropriate time, he placed the “Liuli Carp” along the path He Da and He Er frequently walked, intentionally letting them discover and pick it up. He cooperated with the woman to stage ghostly tricks, frightening Zhao Daqiang sick. Using the powdered drug the woman provided, he lured He Er out at night, drugged him unconscious, retrieved the Liuli Carp from his body, and shoved He Er into the pond. He laced Zhao Daqiang’s drinking water with the woman’s poison, causing Zhao Daqiang to die of an incurable affliction. Next, the woman mimicked He Er’s voice, placed the Liuli Carp in He Da’s room, and played the ghost to terrify He Da again. Zeng Su followed closely behind, leading the servants in to “save the day.” He Da was petrified and poured out everything he had seen and heard. Zeng Su used this testimony to report to Zeng Laoye, connecting all the prior events to cement the claim that “the Liuli Carp is an unholy object attracting malevolent spirits,” pinning all the blame onto the He brothers. Afterward, He Da departed the Zeng Residence, while Zeng Su, under Zeng Laoye’s orders, led men to bury the Liuli Carp deep in the desolate wilderness. Yet that very night, he quietly returned and dug the relic back up. With all this accomplished, it was finally time to strike at the Second Lady. In any case, so long as the corpse held the Liuli Carp, her death would be attributed to the same supernatural hauntings as before. After killing the Second Lady, Zeng Su recited the entire “ghost story” to Constable Head Zhou in front of all the yamen runners, using them to spread the tale through every street and alley. On the other hand, after He Da left the Zeng Residence, the more he thought about it, the more suspicious things seemed. It wasn't that he cared about the truth; he was simply terrified that the unholy object would target him again. Thus, he visited the pawnshop once more to ask the manager what was really going on with the Liuli Carp. What he did not know was that the shopkeeper had also been bribed by that woman, putting on an act to shroud things in mystery from the start. Consequently, He Da’s inquiry brought about his own doom. Receiving instructions from the woman, Zeng Su hurried to the inn, found He Da, and while conversing with him, covertly slipped poison into his tea, successfully silencing him. By this point, four lives rested on Zeng Su’s hands. He had indeed evaded capture and secured his position as the Zeng Residence’s housekeeper. Nor did he fear any “Jade-Faced Flying Dragon Sun Honglei” or “Old Immortal Xu Dong Huang Xiaose,” dismissing them as charlatans and swindlers wandering the jianghu. Yet Zeng Su feared ghosts. He feared that ghosts truly existed in this world, that those he had murdered would return to claim his life. He also feared that “faceless” woman, because to this day, he still did not know what her ultimate purpose was in orchestrating all of this from behind the scenes. *Scritch—scritch—* An eerie noise startled Zeng Su awake from his slumber. He hesitated in the dark for a moment, confirming that the sound was no hallucination. He quickly climbed out of bed and groped in the dark to light the oil lamp on the table. “Aah!” The moment the room brightened, Zeng Su cried out in terror. Sitting atop his table was the Liuli Carp. *Scritch—scritch—* The sounds outside the door seemed to remind him that the fish was not the most terrifying thing. Zeng Su turned his head stiffly toward the window, following the sound. There… stood the familiar shadow of a woman, appearing to stare at him through the lattice. He recognized it. It was the Second Lady’s silhouette… In truth, even if Sun and Huang had not brought the Second Lady’s corpse here tonight and had simply found any woman to stand there, in this eerie atmosphere, Zeng Su would have automatically envisioned her as the Second Lady. “Namo Amitabha, Namo Amitabha…” In sheer terror, Zeng Su retreated to the corner farthest from the door and window, shut his eyes tight, pressed his palms together, and began chanting the only Buddhist phrase he knew, praying that the ghost would disperse because of it. He was hoping for too much… Several seconds later, a *creeeak* sounded. His door was pushed open a crack. A housekeeper was still a servant, and servants’ doors were never permitted to be locked. A gentle push from outside would open it… In fact, Sun Yixie had already opened it once earlier when he slipped in to plant the Liuli Carp; Zeng Su had simply been asleep and unaware. “Namo Amitabha! Namo Amitabha…” With the opening of the door, Zeng Su chanted faster and more frantically, but he no longer dared to close his eyes, dreading that doing so would leave him blind to whatever horrifying danger drew near. Unexpectedly, once the door cracked open, silence abruptly descended outside. The woman’s silhouette vanished as well, as if everything just now had been nothing more than an illusion… Had the Liuli Carp not been resting on the table, Zeng Su might have genuinely begun to wonder if it had merely been the wind. Just as Zeng Su’s heart relaxed ever so slightly, suddenly—the Second Lady’s head drooped limply sideways through the crack of the doorway, a pair of dead, unblinking eyes staring directly at Zeng Su.