The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 102

The fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Night.

Beneath the night sky, the mountain ridge crouched against the earth. With the mountain wind howling around it, it resembled an enormous beast lying in ambush.

Zhao Li stood amid a field of graves.

Steward Li of the Zhang household, who had led her there, held a lantern in one violently trembling hand. “Commander Zhao, will you truly be all right here alone?”

His heart was in turmoil. If someone from the Jingning Guard met with an accident here, not a single person connected to the matter would escape responsibility.

Unaware that he was thinking so far ahead, Zhao Li waved him off. “I’ll be fine. You may go. Be careful on your way back. No matter what happens, don’t turn around. And if something calls your names, don’t answer.”

Steward Li and the two guards instantly broke out in cold sweat. Who would be calling their names?

The more they thought about it, the more frightened they became. They looked at one another and decided to hurry down the mountain while it was still not too late.

Zhao Li watched them leave, then surveyed the terrain. Upwind, she found a concealed spot that still offered a view of Miss Zhang’s grave and sat down.

From inside her robes, she took out an apron embroidered with a little tiger.

It was the reward from the hide-and-seek mission—Zhang Hui’s Apron.

It could mildly conceal her presence.

Zhao Li tied the little apron securely around her belt.

Some snacks would have been perfect for passing the time, but for fear of revealing her hiding place, Zhao Li did not dare eat anything aromatic at night.

Instead, she closed her eyes, leaned against a rock, and settled into a feigned sleep.

The three men who had guided Zhao Li walked along the mountain path. Their only light came from the lantern in Steward Li’s hand.

A hazy moon hung high overhead.

Frightened by Zhao Li’s warnings, the three kept their heads down as they walked. None dared speak.

Their shoes rustled over the path.

People could be perverse that way. If no one had said anything, they would have paid it no mind. But after being warned not to turn around, actually resisting the urge only made the backs of their heads prickle as their imaginations ran wild.

One guard became increasingly convinced that something behind them was watching him.

So alert was he that he noticed the anomaly immediately. “Steward.”

His voice held the edge of a sob. “Steward, listen. Doesn’t it sound like there’s an extra set of footsteps?”

Steward Li and the other guard both shuddered, their scalps going numb.

“Don’t make trouble. Don’t speak. Don’t look back. Keep walking.” Steward Li, at least, was quick-witted.

He gave the quiet warning and continued forward with his head down.

The two guards no longer dared speak and quickened their pace.

But this time, all three of them heard it clearly.

An extra set of footsteps trailed behind them, neither near nor far.

When they walked faster, the footsteps sped up. When they slowed down, the footsteps slowed too.

Like an experienced hunter pursuing its prey from a distance.

The three were not fools. None of them courted death by actually looking back.

They hurried onward until at last the lights before the Zhang residence came into view in the distance. All three breathed sighs of relief.

With a final burst of energy, they reached the entrance.

Bang, bang, bang. They pounded on the door.

The gatekeeper quickly opened it, and the three scrambled over one another to get inside.

“Close the door! Hurry, close it!”

Steward Li urged him on, his forehead drenched in sweat from the walk.

The gatekeeper had no idea what was happening, but obediently shut the door.

At the very instant the bar slid into place, something smacked against the wooden panels.

The sound was exceptionally loud in the night.

“What was that?” the gatekeeper muttered in confusion, preparing to open the door and look.

Just then, someone knocked.

Knock-knock. Knock-knock.

After four knocks, a man’s voice asked from outside, “May I come in?”

The gatekeeper was baffled. He had seen perfectly clearly that no one was behind the steward just now!

What was more, the voice sounded terribly familiar.

He stepped forward, intending to open the door and find out what was going on.

But Steward Li clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him aside.

The steward’s palm was slick with sweat, smearing the gatekeeper’s entire face. As the gatekeeper recoiled in disgust, the voice outside asked again, “May I come in?”

The gatekeeper thought it over and sensed that something was wrong.

Wouldn’t a normal person knock and call for someone to open the door?

Why was the person outside asking whether he could come in?

And that voice… The gatekeeper thought carefully, and sweat instantly poured from his brow.

It was his own voice!

Something outside was using his voice to ask whether it could come in!

His legs gave way. He spun around, clung to Steward Li, and tried to burrow into his arms.

Steward Li did not find him disgusting now. Terrified as he was, the person in his arms might be a grown man, but at least he was warm and alive.

Still locked in an embrace, Steward Li and the gatekeeper edged inward with the two equally terrified guards.

Receiving no answer, the thing outside grew agitated and slapped the door with a series of loud cracks.

“May I come in?”

“Let me in!”

Strangely, although the pounding and battering were loud, they did not shake so much as a speck of dust from the door.

Steward Li and the others slowly moved farther away.

As though realizing they would not answer, the commotion outside subsided.

Just as their hearts began to settle, a voice came from behind them. “You may come in.”

The steward and the others could have murdered whoever had spoken. They turned—then froze.

The thing outside had finally received permission and was delighted.

“Hee-hee.”

“Hee-hee, I’m coming in. I’m coming in.”

The drifting laughter sounded near, then far.

The door suddenly creaked.

By the courtyard lights, Steward Li saw a sight he would never forget as long as he lived.

A flattened head squeezed through the crack in the door.

Its face was nothing but a blank sheet of skin.

As it forced itself farther inside, the thing raised its head and met Steward Li’s gaze.

“Hee-hee. Face.” It laughed, and the blank skin on its face writhed.

A pair of eyes emerged from nothing.

Steward Li knew those eyes all too well.

A chill flooded his heart. Every animal instinct he possessed told him that the thing was growing into his likeness.

If it completely assumed his appearance, something terrible would happen.

Despair surfaced in Steward Li’s eyes.

But at that moment, a sheet of yellow paper stained red with chicken blood slapped onto the half-formed face and covered its newly grown eyes.

Hiss—

A plume of blue smoke rose. The thing shrieked and tried to withdraw.

A long saber came down on its head and severed it.

Thump.

The head rolled across the ground.

A rank, fishy stench spread through the air.

Zheng Lian smoothly drew back his saber. Li Qing, who had thrown the chicken-blood-stained yellow paper, coughed lightly twice.

Only then did Steward Li gasp for breath, still shaken. He repeatedly cupped his hands to Zheng Lian and Li Qing in thanks.

Zheng Lian ignored him and lowered his head to examine what he had cut down.

It turned out to be a scarecrow of the sort planted in fields to frighten birds.

Zheng Lian opened the door, and the scarecrow’s headless body, which had been pressed against it, toppled inside.

“The world truly is descending into chaos,” Zheng Lian said to Li Qing.

Zhao Li knew nothing of Steward Li and the others’ brief ordeal.

After resting with her eyes closed for a while, she finally saw what she had been waiting for.

Loose soil began to whisper down the sides of Miss Zhang’s grave.