Chapter Thirteen: As It Should Be

Chapter Thirteen

"I… Forget it, I don't want it anymore…"

Old Zhang hesitated for a long while, then shook his head.

He now realized he'd been too hasty, having fallen into Zhao Fusheng's verbal trap and inadvertently revealed information. Regret filled his heart as he repeatedly backed away, muttering, "Forget it, forget it, I won’t collect the debt for now—"

"That won’t do." As he tried to leave, Zhao Fusheng refused to let him go.

"Paying your debts is only right and proper."

She feigned kindness. "How about this? I command a ghost—you must have heard as much, being neighbors."

At these words, cold sweat broke out instantly on Old Zhang's forehead.

A sense of foreboding crept over him, his right eyelid twitching furiously. Just as he was about to speak, Zhao Fusheng continued, "After all, we've been neighbors for years. This ghost I command is the one you all know best—first the favor, then the repayment, isn't that fair?"

She beamed. "To me, this is hardly a ghost—more like the God of Wealth reborn! A benevolent spirit who delivers aid in times of need!"

…

The Fan brothers, Fan Must-Die and Fan No-Rescue, looked at her in stunned disbelief, their expressions indescribable.

"I've tested this ghost's 'abilities'—including delivering money and rice."

Old Zhang's sweating intensified as Zhao Fusheng advanced a step. He trembled and desperately retreated. "No, no, no…"

"How about I ask the ghost to fetch you your one hundred and two taels of silver…" Zhao Fusheng hadn’t finished her sentence before Old Zhang howled in terror, "No, you mustn’t!"

"Why not?" Zhao Fusheng smiled sweetly. "Isn’t it just money? If it’s not enough, I can ask for more."

"No," Old Zhang shook his head.

Suddenly, Zhao Fusheng grabbed his sleeve; caught off guard, he was seized. The girl's hand was icy and slender, and remembering the vengeful ghost she harbored, the old man screamed in terror, "Ah! Help, help— Don’t kill me, I don’t want the money anymore…"

"How could you not want your money? You must want it," Zhao Fusheng sneered coldly. "Not only must you want it, you must want it all."

"No, no, I miscalculated, it’s not that much silver, let me recalculate—" Old Zhang shouted, at the same time calling for the Fan brothers to save him. "Fan, Fan Commanders…"

"Fusheng." The turn of events caught the Fan brothers off guard. Zhao Fusheng had shed her former timidity, becoming shrewd and forceful.

Fan Must-Die's heart skipped a beat and he quickly intervened, "Don’t kill him. He… he’s kin to Paper Zhang…"

"Yes, yes, Paper Zhang is my distant nephew," Old Zhang seized the chance, shouting loudly, "Please don’t kill me."

"A distant nephew, not a close one," Zhao Fusheng sneered, unmoved. "Besides, that so-called Paper Zhang tried to trick me before, nearly costing me my life. Though I survived, my parents did not. If he doesn’t come troubling me, I’ll still seek him out for this debt."

Her forcefulness surprised Fan Must-Die.

But so it was with those who commanded ghosts: after long exposure to vengeful spirits, they inevitably became sinister, ruthless, and solitary—difficult to deal with.

Now that she harbored a fierce ghost, her confidence had swelled beyond measure. Fan Must-Die had seen such types before—rarely did they live long, for as the ghost’s influence grew, their actions became ever more erratic. Within a year or two, if not slain by ghosts, they would die by the hand of the authorities.

But that was for the future; for now, Zhao Fusheng was on the verge of losing control.

If she killed Old Zhang, it would likely provoke Paper Zhang’s wrath.

She might not fear trouble, but the Fan brothers would surely suffer for it.

Most unsettling was the hint in her words: she still nursed a grudge over her parents’ deaths and was merely biding her time.

"Don’t kill me, don’t kill me—" Seeing that invoking Paper Zhang failed to deter her, Old Zhang recalled the fate of other ghost-handlers in the Demon Suppression Bureau, and his terror deepened.

"What do you want to take from the Demon Suppression Bureau?"

Zhao Fusheng pressed him.

"I…" Old Zhang hesitated, despair flickering in his eyes after a long pause. "I… I misspoke, I only wanted money…"

He was terrified of the vengeful ghost clinging to Zhao Fusheng, but it seemed there was something even more frightening than that ghost. The words caught in his throat—he would rather die at a ghost’s hand than say more.

"Fusheng, Paper Zhang—" Fan Must-Die, sensing things were spinning out of control, tried to mediate again. "He’s not easily dealt with. Even when Zhao Qiming lived, they kept their distance. Why make an enemy of him now, especially when the power of a vengeful ghost should never be used lightly…"

"What’s there to fear?" Zhao Fusheng retorted deliberately. "You know as well as I do that I’m doomed anyway, it’s only a matter of sooner or later. If he comes for me, my parents are dead, I’m all alone and won’t live long regardless. I’ll just drag him down with me."

Her tone was unyielding, leaving no room for negotiation.

Fan Must-Die was at a loss for words.

Even as shrewd as he was, he looked helplessly to his brother, who dared not speak at all.

Hopelessness covered Old Zhang’s face. The two doll-like apprentices from the incense and paper shop, seeing the situation, had already slipped away quietly, locking themselves inside their store.

Just as everyone thought the matter was irreconcilable, Zhao Fusheng suddenly changed her tone, her coldness subsiding as she smiled with crescent eyes. "But Brother Fan is right."

She let go of Old Zhang, whose legs went weak and who collapsed onto the floor with a thud.

"We’re all neighbors here. There’s no need to go to extremes, right?" she asked with a gentle smile.

"Yes, yes, yes—" Old Zhang, having escaped death, nodded desperately.

"I miscalculated the coffin price. A coffin doesn’t cost three taels of silver," he stammered, drenched in cold sweat but not daring to wipe his brow. "Besides, as a man of Wan’an County, now that the Demon Suppression Bureau is in trouble, it’s my duty to help—I can’t possibly press for old debts. Let’s just write them off…"

He was truly afraid of the ghost attached to Zhao Fusheng, and of accepting things that didn’t belong to him, lest it cost his life.

"I’ll deliver two coffins to you…"

"No! How could I let you give them away?" Zhao Fusheng declared righteously. "Let’s do this: you’ll still be paid for the coffins; I can’t let you suffer a loss. But right now, we really have no money…"

"I don’t want money…" Old Zhang stammered, hastening to object.

Before he could finish, Zhao Fusheng changed her tone. "We have no money, but I have authority. Now that I’m the Commander of the Demon Suppression Bureau, I make the decisions. I’ll bring you into the bureau right now."

"No, no—" Old Zhang was startled and tried to refuse, but Zhao Fusheng seized his hand and said sternly, "Once you join the Demon Suppression Bureau, you serve the court in life and in death. When Wan’an County’s crisis is over, the court will pay you what you’re owed."

"I…" Old Zhang’s eyes bulged.

"Don’t worry," Zhao Fusheng interrupted. "No job is more secure than a government job—this has been true for centuries!"

She declared decisively, "Work a few more years and the court will provide for your retirement—" She made wild promises, then turned to Fan No-Rescue: "Bring out the Soul Registry. Old Zhang isn’t one of us, and I can’t rest easy with his coffins here. I’ll have to borrow some ghost money to use for now."

With a single sentence, she cut off Old Zhang’s escape.

She added, "Record the debt; the court will repay it in the future."

…

Fan No-Rescue and Fan Must-Die exchanged glances.

No one had foreseen such a turn of events. After speaking, Zhao Fusheng saw the Fan brothers standing motionless, raised an eyebrow, and urged, "Well? Hurry up!"

Fan Must-Die fetched the jade registry. Before the ghostly ledger, Old Zhang resisted with all his might.

He looked back several times at his apprentice, a pot-bellied fellow who only watched with indifference, devoid of human sympathy for the ordeal before him.

Zhao Fusheng smiled at Old Zhang, her eyes carrying a threat.

In these times, human life was worth little. Those who handled ghosts might still be called human, but the moment they began consorting with ghosts, their souls twisted; in moments of loss of control, they were half human, half ghost.

Old Zhang knew all too well how erratic such people could be. Now that the Demon Suppression Bureau of Wan’an County was a hollow shell, with Zhao Fusheng’s parents dead and she herself possessed of a powerful ghost, she acted with abandon and disregard for consequences. He had no choice left.

At last, he bit his finger, letting the blood drip onto the ghostly registry.

Instantly, a bloody glow enveloped a dark shadow that floated above the jade book, taking the shape of a half-bald, palm-sized little man.

Malice radiated from the figure, which finally resolved into a blood-red name: Zhang Chuanshi.

Zhao Fusheng smiled at the sight. "Very good."

"Aren’t you afraid of my nephew…?" Zhang Chuanshi, forced into the Demon Suppression Bureau, was exceedingly resentful.

He knew all too well the situation in Wan’an County’s Demon Suppression Bureau. Once his blood entered the Soul Registry, he was bound to this place.

If the vengeful ghost in Zhao Fusheng lost control, as a member of the bureau, he would also be imperiled.

"I don’t even know how long I’ll live—who has time to worry about anything else?" Having achieved her aim, Zhao Fusheng laughed. "Now we’re all on the same side. Bring over two coffins; my parents’ bodies must be buried as soon as possible."

"Hmph!"

…

Zhang Chuanshi, grim-faced, led his pot-bellied apprentice away, not even bothering to retrieve the ledger he’d left on the ground.

Zhao Fusheng paid him no mind; he would inevitably return. With the Soul Registry in her hands, he could not leave Wan’an County. As for what he truly wanted from the Demon Suppression Bureau, time would reveal it.

If he failed to deliver the coffins, she would simply fetch them from his shop herself.

She looked at the Soul Registry, hesitated for a long while, and instead of returning it to its box, tucked it into her own robe.

This action caused Fan Must-Die to pause.

"I must keep this item on my person," she said as she put it away.

Fan Must-Die offered no objection.

Usually, this object was indeed kept by the Commander, but it was branded with a ghostly curse, and to carry it closely was tantamount to binding another ghost’s will to oneself—any action could be seen by Jia Yi through the registry. Thus, most commanders stored it elsewhere.

But he guessed that as a ghost-handler, Zhao Fusheng was worried about the vengeful spirit within her spiraling out of control, and hoped to suppress it with this artifact.

He nodded and said nothing.

But Zhao Fusheng asked, "In the Demon Suppression Bureau, how are ghost cases usually handled?"

…Fan Must-Die gave her a strange look.

Just moments ago, when she’d threatened Old Zhang, her smiling face had been chilling; now, discussing ghost cases, her expression was serious, as if she wasn’t joking at all.

"Fusheng, dealing with ghosts is no trifling matter," he warned, frowning. "The terror of ghosts is beyond words. Right now, you rule Wan’an County alone, the imperial court is far away—why not enjoy yourself instead of seeking out ghost cases?"

"I said I intend to restore the Demon Suppression Bureau; taking on ghost cases is what I must do," Zhao Fusheng replied with a frown.

She was utterly unlike the Zhao Fusheng of the past, giving no thought to concealing her true nature.

Perhaps it was the ghost within her, but Fan Must-Die felt a faint pressure whenever he spoke with her now.

After a long silence, Fan Must-Die finally gave up trying to persuade her and said helplessly, "Generally, when a ghost appears locally, someone must report it, and then the Demon Suppression Bureau will act."

But dealing with ghosts was no easy matter.

Whenever local Demon Suppression Bureaus faced particularly troublesome cases, they would dodge or deflect them if at all possible.

So long as the situation didn’t become dire, the priority was to suppress public opinion and deceive the imperial court; only if things spiraled out of control would they escalate the matter.

Generally, so long as chaos didn’t erupt, the court lacked the means to strictly manage these ghost-handlers. Most of the time, they simply turned a blind eye—so long as things looked fine on the surface.

To ordinary people, ghosts were terrifying, but sometimes human malice surpassed that of any specter.

Those who consorted with ghosts were, in many eyes, no different from ghosts themselves.

The most frightening thing was that such people could be greedy, desirous, and malicious—sometimes even more ruthless than ghosts.

There were families who, rather than risk the greater evil of the Demon Suppression Bureau, would endure a haunting in silence, for fear of bringing disaster upon their whole clan.

With this, the frequency of reported ghost incidents in the counties was actually quite low.

Even in Wan’an County, now shrouded in ghostly mists, reports were rare.

"In the past half year, there have been only a handful of reports."

But the Demon Suppression Bureau itself was in crisis at the time; the Fan brothers could barely protect themselves, let alone handle such affairs.