The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 104

The eastern sky brightened. A brilliant red sun rose and drove away the darkness.

Li Daniu opened his eyes apprehensively.

Lying in a bed at the Zhang residence, he swallowed, twitched his nose, and looked beside him.

“Nothing! There’s nothing!”

He cried out in delight.

No corpse. No stench of death.

He had awakened to a clean, fresh morning.

Light streamed through the lattice window. Li Daniu lay facedown on the bed and burst into sobs.

Only after crying out all the fright and misery of the past few days did he hurriedly shuffle into his worn shoes and head outside.

He wanted to tell his father the good news.

The moment he stepped out, however, he saw white mourning decorations hanging throughout the Zhang residence. It still looked as though a funeral was underway.

Li Daniu had become allergic to funerals by now. At the sight, he stopped short, not daring to go forward.

“What are you doing, son-in-law?” The steward overseeing the funeral preparations saw him and came over to greet him.

Faced with this sudden change from the man’s former arrogance and tyranny, Li Daniu retreated half a step.

The steward gave a bitter smile. “Don’t be afraid, son-in-law. I’ve seen the error of my ways!”

In the past, servants like them who carried out their masters’ business had never believed in karmic retribution. They simply helped the wicked commit their abuses.

But after what the steward had witnessed yesterday, he had begun to believe.

He could not stop wondering: if he had helped his master force the Li father and son to their deaths that day, would they have come back for him?

Steward Li had spent the entire night thinking about it.

He bowed solemnly to Li Daniu. “I wronged you. I’m sorry.”

This steward was normally insufferably arrogant. His present behavior left Li Daniu deeply uneasy, and he hurriedly waved his hands. “There’s no need, no need at all.”

Then he asked nervously, “Steward, this funeral is for…?”

Relief appeared on the steward’s face. “Yes, the young mistress. The matter has been resolved. She won’t come back again.”

Li Daniu was startled, then overjoyed. “Was it those three officers from yesterday?”

The steward nodded. “That’s right.”

Li Daniu thought for a moment. “Do you know where those officers are now? I-I would like to thank them.”

“They went to the village entrance. They said they were going to tear down Lord Earth’s shrine.”

Li Daniu thanked him and hurried that way.

By the time he arrived, a large crowd of villagers had already gathered to watch.

Zhao Li was directing the Zhang household guards as they demolished Lord Earth’s shrine.

Calling it a shrine was generous. It was merely a small earthen structure as tall as a person.

Li Daniu saw Master Zhang standing at the front and felt afraid.

Master Zhang turned and studied him for several moments. Then he sighed and approached on his own initiative.

“I wronged you and your father before.”

Li Daniu hastily turned sideways to avoid him.

“Pretend the wedding and all that kneeling and kowtowing never happened. Go and live your life in peace.”

Master Zhang had lost his only daughter and had personally witnessed the headless scarecrow in his courtyard.

He had traveled as a merchant in his younger years and could keenly sense certain shifts.

He was already contacting people to sell his estate and fields, intending to purchase a residence in Shengjing and settle there.

He and Li Daniu would likely have no further dealings in the future.

Looking at Master Zhang’s aged face and sincere expression, Li Daniu was filled with complicated emotions.

In the end, he merely cupped his hands in salute and said nothing.

After this exchange with Master Zhang, Li Daniu went over to Zhao Li, Zheng Lian, and Li Qing.

Zhao Li watched from a distance as the Zhang guards swung sledgehammers into the walls. A woven bamboo snake cage hung at the small of her back.

Li Daniu stole a cautious glance at her. “Greetings, my lords. Thank you, all three of you, for saving my life.”

Zhao Li glanced at him and waved a hand. “It was nothing. This is our duty.”

“But after what you have endured, you must not let resentment take root in your heart. You did nothing wrong.”

Zhao Li offered the unfortunate man a few words of comfort.

Li Daniu murmured his assent, his face reddening despite himself.

Zheng Lian and Li Qing exchanged a look, then stepped simultaneously between the two of them.

“What are you doing?” Zhao Li asked, puzzled.

They smiled bitterly. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

They were merely obeying the orders of their immediate superior.

Still baffled, Zhao Li turned away. Lord Earth’s little shrine had already been torn down, revealing a bowl-sized hole behind the clay statue.

The walls of the hole were smooth, and a white snake scale still clung to one side.

There was no need to guess. The white snake’s nest lay beyond it.

It had lived there for years. After the spiritual resurgence, the villagers’ incense and worship had awakened its intelligence, and it truly began to think of itself as Lord Earth.

Miss Zhang had ample spending money and often came here with offerings.

That day, the snake had heard her literary-sounding wish. The ignorant little fool had crudely interpreted “never part till our hair turns white” to mean that the two simply had to be kept together.

Miss Zhang’s lingering obsession had already dissipated after the ghost marriage.

Yet the snake insisted on crawling into her grave and disturbing her corpse, then laboriously delivered it to Li Daniu’s bed every day.

Had Zhao Li arrived a few days later, Li Daniu would have personally witnessed the entire process of a corpse decomposing.

At the thought, Zhao Li could not help smacking the snake cage hanging behind her waist.

A sound immediately came from inside, followed by the hiss of a flickering tongue.

After watching Lord Earth’s shrine be destroyed with her own eyes, Zhao Li drew her badge, raised it, and called loudly, “By order of the Jingning Guard, from this day forward, no one is to erect private shrines or altars for worship.”

The villagers who had come to watch scattered in an uproar the moment they heard that name from her lips, fleeing as though from snakes and scorpions.

Zhao Li had no idea how much of her warning they absorbed. She put away her badge.

With the matter settled, the three prepared to return to Shengjing.

Master Zhang came over with his people carrying nearly half a tray of silver ingots.

For a rural landowner like him, it represented a sincere effort.

Zhao Li did not take it all, but neither did she break convention. She selected a single ten-tael ingot and divided it between Zheng Lian and Li Qing as money for tea. She refused the rest.

After bidding farewell to the profusely grateful Master Zhang, the three mounted their horses and set out.

They made it back to the Pacification Office before lunch.

Zhao Li did not return to her courtyard at once. Instead, she had Zheng Lian fetch two eggs and placed a rock riddled with holes beside a corner of Bian’an’s altar in the main hall.

“Lord Bian’an, this little snake demon has committed an offense. Please keep watch over it and make sure it devotes itself to the Jingning Guard!”

With that, Zhao Li took the snake cage from her waist. A listless white snake wriggled out.

After the threats of the previous night, Zhao Li’s Enforcer’s Intimidation skill had terrified the newly awakened snake out of its wits.

She had made it agree to come work as child labor for the Jingning Guard.

The snake might be stupid, but its intelligence had awakened. With the Jingning Guard feeding it and providing incense offerings, it would not be long before the creature became useful.

It could also keep the newly awakened Bian’an company.

Seeing the snake crawl at a snail’s pace, Zhao Li coughed lightly. It immediately began wriggling faster.

Disgusted that it had coiled inside a dead person’s stomach, Zhao Li had scrubbed it with wine the previous night until it had nearly shed a layer of skin.

To this little snake, Zhao Li was probably more terrifying than any ghost.

It slithered meekly into the hollow in the rock. Tears filled its bead-like eyes as it opened its mouth and caught the egg Zhao Li tossed over.