Chapter 153: Plucking the Thorny Blossom

Chapter 153

Zhao Fusheng's series of questions snapped the stunned Zhang Chuanshi and the others back to reality. They gathered around the flower, marveling and clicking their tongues.

Yet in the very blink of an eye, the remains of Zhuang Laoqi began to transform.

The snow-white, jade-like withered bones, having given birth to several bowl-sized, brilliantly red flower buds in full bloom, seemed drained of all their vital essence, suddenly beginning to wither.

In an instant, the bones turned from white to grey, and from grey to brown, taking on the color of decaying tree roots.

At the junction of the ribcage and the spine, the corroded bones could seemingly no longer support the entire skeleton; the ribs snapped one after another and clattered to the ground.

However, those several beautiful flowers did not shatter. Instead, they merely tumbled to the earth along with the broken bones, spreading open between heaven and earth.

"This—"

Upon seeing the flower, Zhang Chuanshi reached out with itching fingers, wanting to pluck it.

"My Lord, what is this?"

Without changing her expression, Zhao Fusheng encouraged him: "Pick it up and let me have a look."

Zhang Chuanshi nodded, but the moment his fingers touched the black-red blossom, he abruptly pulled his hand back, turned his head, and grinned sheepishly at Zhao Fusheng.

"Does the Lord take old Zhang for a fool?"

The two thin, slender mustaches on his upper lip quivered with his smug smile.

"I am not about to do such a foolish thing—"

Before Zhang Chuanshi could finish speaking, Fan Wujiu suddenly reached out with lightning speed, enclosing Zhang Chuanshi's hand entirely within his own and grabbing the stem of the strange, blood-red flower.

The moment before, Zhang Chuanshi was still grinning smugly at Zhao Fusheng; the next moment, his hand was forcibly made to grip the flower stem. With a slight exertion of force, Fan Wujiu brutally snapped the flower off.

"..."

This sudden turn of events caught Zhang Chuanshi entirely off guard, leaving him without the slightest bit of preparation.

Everyone was dumbstruck. Wu Shaochun felt a chill run down his spine, cast a glance at Fan Wujiu, and hurriedly stepped back in vigilance.

"My Lord, old Zhang has plucked it."

Seeing that the flower was off, Fan Wujiu released his grip, slid his palm behind his buttocks, wiped it vigorously against his trousers, and flashed a smile.

"Heh heh—Ah!!!"

The moment before, Zhang Chuanshi was still wearing a sly grin; the next moment, he let out a heart-wrenching, piercing shriek.

"Little Fan, I am going to beat you to death!"

"My Lord, this flower doesn't look poisonous. Old Zhang's breath is strong enough." Fan Wujiu took a few steps back to avoid the spray of spittle flying from Zhang Chuanshi's screams.

"You plague-ridden, neck-chopping Fan Wujiu—"

"Alright, stop messing around."

Seeing that Zhang Chuanshi still had the energy to curse, Zhao Fusheng could not help but say: "The flower probably won't kill someone the moment they touch it, but—"

A thought stirred within her mind, and just as she was about to speak, Zhang Chuanshi, consumed by burning fury and treating the freshly plucked flower like a burning coal, hurled it toward the grassy slope near the river not far away, while frantically scrubbing his own hands against his clothes.

"Damn Fan Wujiu, I am going to report you to the authorities and have you arrested—"

"We are the officials of Wan'an County, who are you going to report to?"

Fan Wujiu chuckled. Zhang Chuanshi flew into a towering rage and reached out to grab him.

Bending the upper half of his body forward, Fan Wujiu slipped away like an eel.

"You plague-ridden, execution-worthy Fan Wujiu—"

Seeing that Fan Wujiu was trying to dodge, Zhang Chuanshi instinctively reached out to grab him again. Knowing that what he had done was improper and fearing he might push the old man to the point of a desperate fight, Fan Wujiu hid behind Zhao Fusheng, refusing to show himself.

Under normal circumstances, Zhao Fusheng's authority weighed heavily in Zhang Chuanshi's heart, and he would have simply swallowed this grievance.

Today, however, he had inexplicably plucked a flower growing from a dead man—a dead man who had perished because of an evil ghost, whose ghostly flower might possess unknown horrors. Even if there were no abnormalities, it was thoroughly inauspicious.

Unwilling to let the matter rest, he tried to reach around Zhao Fusheng to grab Fan Wujiu, the two of them circling back and forth around her.

"..." Zhao Fusheng's face turned livid.

Without a word, she stuck out her leg. As Fan Wujiu ran around her, caught unawares, he was neatly tripped and tumbled to the ground with a dull thud.

"Haha—" Seeing this, Zhang Chuanshi was just about to laugh when Zhao Fusheng drew the ghostly arm and struck him twice with a sharp *bang, bang*.

The awakened ghostly arm opened its damp palm and lunged to grab Zhang Chuanshi's arm. Fortunately, he reacted swiftly and pulled back just in time.

Even with that light, fleeting brush, the squeeze still left Zhang Chuanshi's arm aching fiercely.

Had the ghostly arm not been damaged and its strength drastically reduced, his hand would have either been cleanly broken or had a layer of skin violently torn off.

"My Lord—"

Clutching his bruised arm, Zhang Chuanshi cried out in lingering fear.

"My Lord."

Fan Wujiu also scrambled up from the ground and called out awkwardly.

"What time is it? There has to be a limit to your nonsense."

Zhao Fusheng shot them both a cold glare. Meeting her gaze, Zhang Chuanshi and Fan Wujiu both averted their eyes, looking somewhat embarrassed yet stubbornly unyielding.

"I just wanted to play a joke on old Zhang, why is he so petty—"

Fan Wujiu muttered under his breath.

"A joke?" Zhang Chuanshi let out a strange squawk, the blood rushing straight to his head at those words.

"Is that how you play a joke? Why don't you go pluck a flower yourself—"

"You were the one who wanted to joke with the Lord in the first place. If you hadn't gotten so close to the flower, would I have been able to pluck it?" Fan Wujiu retorted stubbornly.

"..."

***

Zhao Fusheng clenched her fist, once again tempted to plant a few blows on both of them.

*Oh no!*

The two, who had been arguing fiercely, noticed her grim expression and instantly felt a sense of impending doom, shutting their mouths in unison.

"My Lord, in my view, this flower isn't anything extraordinary. Master Zhang picked it and nothing happened. Second Brother Fan is right, he's jumping around full of life right now, so it's probably just bad luck."

Wu Shaochun chimed in softly to smooth things over.

Hearing this, Fan Wujiu nodded frantically: "Right, right, right."

While Zhang Chuanshi was still scrubbing his hands desperately, Zhao Fusheng remarked: "What bad luck is there to speak of? Old Zhang runs a coffin shop and frequently deals with the dead; he's long since used to this sort of thing."

"How is that the same?"

Zhang Chuanshi argued weakly: "The Lord herself said those were dead people, but Zhuang Laoqi is—is a living corpse, a ghost—"

"You have corpse slaves in your shop too, and I never saw you minding them," Zhao Fusheng retorted.

"That's different, corpse slaves don't harm me," Zhang Chuanshi said.

"Zhuang Laoqi didn't intend to harm you either."

As soon as Zhao Fusheng finished speaking, Zhang Chuanshi let out a massive sigh of relief, a smile breaking across his pale face.

"Since the Lord says so, I can rest easy."

"You are resting easy far too soon."

Zhao Fusheng said flatly.

"What does the Lord mean by that?"

Her words instantly pulled Zhang Chuanshi's newly settled heart right back up into his throat, and he asked with a trace of nervousness.

At that moment, the grief-stricken Gou Laosi suddenly spoke: "My Lord, Zhuang... Zhuang Family Village—"

He looked toward the direction of Zhuang Family Village, horror dawning on his face as he raised a trembling finger to point into the distance.

The others turned their heads and saw that a strange transformation had befallen the distant village.

A wave of grey mist rolled from the fields before their eyes toward the distant village houses. Wherever the mist passed, the golden wheat fields and the fruit-laden tree branches were flattened one by one.

The fields grew barren, the soil parched, its surface turning ashen with unfinished rice stubble already beginning to blacken.

Many unharvested vegetables had rotted, decomposing into the dirt one by one.

The fruit trees had withered, their leaves and branches nearly stripped away, leaving only bare, skeletal boughs.

The distant houses no longer billowed with cooking smoke; this village, which had originally resembled a utopian paradise, seemed to be instantly beaten back to its true form following Zhuang Laoqi's death.

"What is happening here—"

Wu Shaochun glanced at it and asked with a hint of shock.

"What we saw earlier was merely an illusion," Zhao Fusheng mused, explaining: "Roughly speaking, the scene we witnessed before should be what Zhuang Family Village looked like in the depths of Zhuang Laoqi's yearning. The moment his consciousness died, the village's true appearance was naturally revealed."

Her words stirred up the sorrow in Gou Laosi's heart once more, and he began to weep softly.

"My Lord—"

In such a mournful moment, Zhang Chuanshi felt entirely ill at ease.

In his heart, he was still worried whether plucking the flower that grew from a dead person would leave him with any lingering aftereffects.

Pity that just as Zhao Fusheng was about to speak, she was interrupted by Gou Laosi.

At this point, he didn't care what weirdness plagued Zhuang Family Village. Calling out to Zhao Fusheng, he asked: "My Lord, what did you mean when you said I was resting easy too soon?"

Zhao Fusheng sighed and withdrew the ghostly arm she had summoned: "Zhuang Laoqi was a person marked by an evil ghost, and he also died at the hands of an evil ghost." The reason he hadn't died or turned into a ghostly minion was likely because, while at the Demon Suppression司 (Department of Demon Suppression), Zhao Fusheng had nearly experienced a ghost recurrence, driving back the aura of the evil ghost that was borrowing his flesh.

When the evil ghost receded at that time, his consciousness survived by a fluke, keeping him in a delicate state suspended between life and death.

Initially, he didn't know he was dead, so his state remained relatively intact. Later, however, sensing the fear and rejection from Gou Si, Wu Shaochun, and the others, he must have guessed something, which was why the corpse stench on him grew increasingly pungent and he constantly leaked water along the way.

While in the carriage, as he and Gou Si discussed the past, Gou Laosi temporarily lost control and shouted "Cousin," dragging back a portion of his humanity and greatly improving Zhuang Laoqi's condition of dripping water.

Yet by then, he must have had an intense, desperate urge to return to his hometown.

As the old saying goes, falling leaves return to their roots.

Influenced by his power, shortly after the carriage left Wan'an County, it entered the ghost domain and returned to Zhuang Family Village at an unfathomable speed. The very moment Zhuang Laoqi laid eyes on his hometown, he stepped down from the carriage and died instantly.

"Though he didn't harm anyone before his death, he was ultimately tied to an evil ghost. His skeleton sprouted flowers after his death; for now, old Zhang seems fine, but no one can say for sure with such a situation."

As Zhao Fusheng reached this point, Zhang Chuanshi shivered twice and pulled a long, weeping face: "My Lord, please don't scare me—"

"Take off your clothes, let me look at your back."

Zhao Fusheng said.

Her words frightened Zhang Chuanshi out of his wits.

Yet Zhang Chuanshi also knew the gravity of the situation. Despite the terror in his heart, he forced himself to stay calm, tore open and shed his upper garments, and turned his back to the group.

To everyone's surprise, Zhang Chuanshi's back was lean, pale, and clean.

Zhao Fusheng focused her observation on the area behind his left chest and upper back; there were no purple-black marks like the ones on Gou Laosi's back to be found.

"Nothing," Zhao Fusheng declared.

***

For Zhang Chuanshi, these words were nothing short of gospel amidst despair, and he let out a massive sigh of relief.

"Really?"

"Really."

Zhao Fusheng nodded and said: "There isn't even a trace of a mark."

"Hahaha—"

Zhang Chuanshi first burst into hearty laughter, then, for reasons unknown, his gaze suddenly shifted toward the remains of Zhuang Laoqi.

Only his skull remained relatively intact among his bones, looking rather gruesome.

Yet after the incident, to maintain stability, Zhao Fusheng had lied to him and said nothing was wrong when he was clearly a living corpse.

Zhang Chuanshi possessed a deeply suspicious nature. Thinking of this, he asked doubtfully once more: "My Lord, you aren't trying to fool me, are you? I am not a fool like Zhuang Laoqi."

"There really is nothing wrong, there isn't even a ghost mark on your back. Could it be that I overthought it, and the flowers growing from Zhuang Laoqi's skeleton after death carry no other meaning?"

Zhao Fusheng frowned. She glanced at Zhang Chuanshi's back once more; it bore no imprint of a ghostly mark, and for now, no eerie clues could be discerned.

Yet drawing on her experience with multiple ghost cases, she always felt this matter was far from over.

"Forget it, old Zhang, put your clothes back on first."

After all, if nothing bad happened, it was a joyous occasion for everyone; if Zhang Chuanshi had indeed been caught, what was bound to come could not be avoided, and anxiety served no purpose.

Though Zhang Chuanshi had been somewhat pleased upon hearing there was no mark on his back, seeing Zhao Fusheng's solemn expression left him feeling rather unsettled.

"What should we do now?" Fan Wujiu asked in a low voice.

Seeing that Zhang Chuanshi's back bore no ghost mark, he too breathed a sigh of relief, otherwise the old man probably would have fought him to the death.

"Let's go into Zhuang Family Village for a quick round first, and see if there are any living people—"

Zhao Fusheng pondered for a moment and spoke.

Gou Laosi's lips moved, but no sound came out.

Viewed from afar at this moment, Zhuang Family Village resembled a ghost village, looking entirely devoid of any living presence.

The group had stood here for quite a while without a single living soul attempting to spy on them; if they entered the village now, they would likely draw a blank.

Gou Laosi said: "My Lord, when I came last time, I felt the village was creepily quiet, and a great many people were missing—"

Seven or eight days had passed since his last visit to Zhuang Family Village. With the evil ghosts wreaking such havoc now, the villagers were undoubtedly facing more misfortune than fortune; perhaps Zhuang Laoqi had been the very last survivor.

At the thought of Zhuang Laoqi, Gou Si's expression grew somewhat desolate once again.

Zhao Fusheng said calmly: "No fear, we will quickly dart into the village for a spin. Mostly, I want to check out the village chief's house."

"The village chief?" Hearing this, Zhang Chuanshi's eyes darted around. "Does the Lord want to go check on Kuai Mancai's corpse?"

This old man usually shirked responsibility, dodging trouble whenever possible and wriggling out of tasks, yet now his wits had suddenly sharpened and he was willing to participate in a ghost case—likely because he had plucked that flower.

"Yes," Zhao Fusheng nodded.

Zhang Chuanshi could no longer sit still: "Let's go, let's go."

"Gou Laosi, do you know where the village chief of Zhuang Family Village lives?" Zhao Fusheng turned to look at Gou Si, who nodded apprehensively.

"I know."

"Good. We will split into two groups, that will be faster." Zhao Fusheng looked at Fan Wujiu. "Second Brother Fan and Shaochun in one group, old Zhang by yourself—the three of you go check if there are any living souls in the village. Gou Si and I will take the same path to the village chief's house, and we'll regroup at the village chief's place."

Her words made the others somewhat nervous, but Fan Wujiu had handled two ghost cases with her and knew well that once she made up her mind on a ghost case, her word was final, leaving no room for refusal.

Furthermore, before setting out, his older brother Fan Busi had admonished him to obey Zhao Fusheng's instructions and banish any stray thoughts.

Suppressing his unease, he nodded in assent: "Alright."

Wu Shaochun was loyal to Zhao Fusheng and likewise nodded: "Understood."

Only Zhang Chuanshi felt rather terrified: "My Lord, why are you all pairing up in twos, leaving me all alone? Old Zhang doesn't dare—"

"Look at that cowardice of yours!" Zhao Fusheng reprimanded him. "The source of the ghost disaster erupted in Kuai Village. I suspect the people of Zhuang Family Village were marked by Kuai Mancai and lured over to Kuai Village en masse. For now, this place is merely shrouded by the ghost domain and shouldn't face any major crisis."

She then added: "Although you currently bear no ghost mark, I suspect that flower is weird—perhaps it's a form of mark as well, though we can't tell what kind just yet. If it's a special mark, ordinary enslaved ghosts will flee the sight of you, making you the safest one here!"

Zhao Fusheng's words left Zhang Chuanshi speechless and choked with emotion, forcing him to accept through unshed tears.

Time waits for no one. Once assignments were settled, the group split into three directions and marched straight into the village.

The two men, Fan and Wu, sprinted toward the left side of the village; Zhang Chuanshi hurried off alone toward the right; while Zhao Fusheng and Gou Si entered straight from the center, heading directly for the village chief's old residence.