The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 111

By this point, Zhao Li was certain that both families had been cursed to death by suppression magic.

The practitioner had also been exceptionally vicious.

Ordinarily, suppression magic altered a location’s feng shui and required a considerable length of time to harm someone.

This time was different. To kill the fur merchant’s family quickly, the practitioner had employed extremely ruthless methods.

Using covert suppression to curse a living person brimming with yang energy was no simple matter.

So the practitioner had set his sights on the fur merchant’s elderly mother, whose vitality was already declining.

First, he tricked her in a dream into buying burial clothes for the entire family.

Once that opening existed, the ritual charms hidden throughout the house began to work.

Different nightmares and terrors wore away the residents’ essence, energy, and spirit, weakening their vitality and feeding the ritual charms with human life essence.

At a certain point, the charms erupted all at once and turned the house into a man-eating monster.

Zhao Li rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Ordinarily, anyone who laid such charms must have borne a mortal grudge.

She asked, “Auntie, I examined the fur merchant’s window lattices. The carving was intricate and still looked new. Did they renovate the old house?”

Auntie Li thought, then nodded.

She might not have remembered some other affair, but when a house was repaired and its roof beam raised, all the neighbors helped and brought housewarming gifts.

That was why she remembered it particularly well. “They did, in the summer of the year the deaths occurred.”

“They spent a great deal of money renovating the old residence.”

Auntie Li added, “They hired two craftsmen. Their work was excellent, their materials carefully chosen, and their carving meticulous.”

At this point, Auntie Li seemed to recall something and hesitated.

Zhao Li immediately saw there was more to the story. “Was there some hidden complication?”

Conflict showed on Auntie Li’s face. After a pause, she said, “Something did happen.”

“I thought the dead should be left in peace and did not want to gossip. But since you asked, I’ll speak out of turn this once.”

“The craftsmen they found were a master and his apprentice. Their price was low and their skill good.”

“But something unpleasant happened halfway through the work.” Auntie Li lowered her voice. “While the apprentice was standing on a wooden ladder repainting the main beam, one of the family’s children played underneath and knocked the ladder over.”

“The young carpenter fell from a height and split his head open. Then the falling ladder broke his right hand.”

Zhao Li’s brow twitched. The course of events instantly became clearer. “What happened afterward?”

Auntie Li sighed. “There was a bitter dispute.”

“The master’s apprentice—like a son to him—had injured the hand he relied on to earn a living. Naturally the master refused to let it go. He demanded compensation and insisted the child kowtow in apology.”

“But the old lady and daughter-in-law doted on the child. They kept saying the child was too young to know better and refused to pay.”

“They insisted the carpenter’s apprentice had been careless and that it had nothing to do with them.”

“The dispute dragged on for more than half a month and reached the court. The family spent silver, and then…”

Auntie Li did not explicitly say what the fur merchant’s family had done.

Everyone present understood. They had bribed the right people.

Zhao Li suddenly thought of the carved windows. “Don’t tell me that even after all this, they forced the two carpenters to finish the work?”

Auntie Li looked at her in surprise. “How did you know?”

“Ordinarily, a dispute like that would have ended the arrangement. But the family was unwilling to let them go. Carpenters this skilled and inexpensive could not be found anywhere else in the capital. Claiming that the wages had already been paid, they forced the carpenter to complete the job.”

“The craftsman brought his still-injured apprentice back and worked another seven days before finishing everything.”

Zhao Li nodded in understanding. Now the truth was finally clear: a classic revenge killing.

She asked whether Auntie Li knew the craftsmen’s surname or names.

Auntie Li only knew they were on Sanshan Street and that the carpenter was surnamed Chang.

With the broad outline established, Auntie Li needed to return home and prepare lunch. Zhao Li gratefully saw her off and gave her a packet of sweets for her young grandson.

Only then did Zheng Lian, who had remained silent, ask, “Commander Zhao, have you found a lead?”

Zhao Li nodded. “It is suppression magic.”

Once she identified the cause, Zhao Li became cheerful. Suppression magic was, in truth, easier to handle than a supernatural anomaly.

She checked the sun. There was more than enough time to deal with it.

Zhao Li sent Zheng Lian to prepare a ladder and chisels.

Han Yin was frightened but also curious, and volunteered to go with him.

Zhao Li returned to the Pacification Office and went to the Bian’an statue in the front hall.

After offering Bian’an a stick of incense, she searched under the altar table for the white snake.

The snake had adapted over the past few days, and everyone in the Pacification Office treated it like a dog.

Whenever they offered incense, they stroked it in passing. From time to time, someone tossed it two eggs or strips of meat.

Just now, some bored soul had dug open a mouse nest, caught several plump pink newborns, and brought them over.

The snake lay in its nest, swallowing the blind baby mice one by one.

Zhao Li crouched and met its eyes.

It shuddered in fright and spat out the mouse it had been swallowing.

The pink newborn was coated in slime, its tiny limbs still twitching. Disgusted, Zhao Li raised her head and shouted, “Which idle bastard fed it mice? You could have given it anything else!”

A commandant drinking tea nearby smiled sheepishly. “I won’t do it again. I won’t.”

At the sight of Zhao Li, the snake crawled deeper into its nest.

“Come out,” she threatened darkly, “or I’ll steep you in wine.”

The little white snake froze. It was about to crawl out under duress when a voice called, “Li?”

The voice arrived with the scent of pine.

Hearing it, the snake forgot Zhao Li’s threat and shot into its hole, refusing to emerge no matter what.

“Lord Shen.”

Shen Yan approached in ordinary clothes, an elementary copy of the *Thousand Character Classic* in his hand.

While Zhao Li stared in confusion, Shen Yan turned to the snake’s nest and said sternly, “A-Bai, come out. It’s time for class!”

Zhao Li: ???

Who was A-Bai?

Time for what?

She stared blankly at Shen Yan. Why was he calling the snake?

Shen Yan saw it coiled like a pile of dung with its head buried firmly beneath its body, refusing to come out.

He frowned and nearly lost his temper. Remembering Zhao Li beside him, he restrained himself and softened his tone. “A-Bai, it is time for your literacy lesson. You must learn the *Thousand Character Classic* this month.”

What kind of demonic scheme was making a snake study—and requiring it to master the book in one month?

Seeing Zhao Li’s shock, Shen Yan explained patiently, “That ridiculous affair before happened because it had never been educated. Now that it is a snake of the Jingning Guard, it naturally cannot continue disgracing us.”

He sighed, a rare occurrence. “I do not expect it to master the Four Books and Five Classics. It is too stupid.”

Zhao Li stood frozen, uncertain whether to console him or the snake.

After some thought, she chose flattery. “You have gone to great trouble, Lord Shen. The snake is simply stupid.”

Shen Yan sighed and shook his head. Then he saw the regurgitated pink mouse in the nest, and his gaze sharpened. “Which idle bastard fed A-Bai mice?”

For the second time, the commandant nearby apologized sheepishly, then fled at a run.

After watching him escape, Shen Yan looked back and called, “A-Bai. Shen Bai!”

Zhao Li abruptly covered her mouth. The extreme contrast nearly made her laugh aloud.

He had actually given the snake his surname—and such a perfunctory name!

At Shen Yan’s stern tone, the white snake coiled like dung shifted.

It poked out its head with an expression of utter despair.

Seeing that it was about to be dragged away to study, Zhao Li decided to save its life. “Lord Shen, may I take A-Bai out today? I need its help.”

Shen Yan raised a brow. “What happened this time?”

Had she not gone out to shop and have fun?

Zhao Li chuckled and briefly explained. “We need to locate the ritual charms. A-Bai’s intelligence has awakened, so it can sense foul yin objects. That will work much better than my randomly chiseling the house apart.”

“A-Bai, do you want to come with me?”

At Zhao Li’s smiling question, the white snake nodded so fast its head nearly blurred. Another child who hated studying.

Zhao Li waited for Shen Yan’s answer, only to hear him say, “I’m going too.”

“What?”

Zhao Li froze. Since the moth-woman incident, when Shen Yan mobilized the Capital Garrison, the memorials impeaching him from the Censorate had piled high on the emperor’s desk.

He had been so busy for a long time that she barely saw him.

“Lord Shen, you rarely get a day off. You should rest properly,” Zhao Li urged.

Shen Yan gave her a cool look. “Now you remember to worry about me?”

He did not lack money, but whenever this girl found some benefit, she thought only of those brothers of hers. Ordinarily, she never seemed to remember him at all.

Zhao Li felt guilty. “You don’t need money.”

Shen Yan tugged at the corner of his mouth. He rose, straightened his robes, and extended a hand to the snake. “Come.”

The white snake crawled along his palm and into his sleeve.

It coiled around his arm like an armlet.

Shen Yan lowered his broad sleeve to hide the short length of tail dangling out.

As it was getting late, Zhao Li led him toward Xinghua Ward.

They neither rode nor took a sedan chair, but walked the entire way.

Along the road, Shen Yan wore a dark expression as he bought one snack after another and stuffed them into Zhao Li’s arms.

He also bought a tea egg.

Zhao Li watched him slowly peel the shell, then expressionlessly push the egg into his sleeve.

The sleeve stirred. Soon he withdrew empty fingers, took out a handkerchief, and wiped his hands meticulously.

Zhao Li found the sight inexplicably funny.

Noticing her gaze, Shen Yan frowned. “Do you want one too?”

Zhao Li was already holding a large bag of fragrant candies, melon seeds, and peanuts. She hurriedly shook her head. “I only thought it was amusing.”

More precisely, she found Shen Yan himself amusing.

How had she ever thought this man was a possessive lunatic? He was plainly overflowing with fatherly concern.

Shen Yan had watched her expression all along. At her relaxed smile, the corner of his mouth curved almost imperceptibly.

By the time they strolled into Xinghua Ward, Zheng Lian and Han Yin were waiting outside the residence. A-Bi was absent, and a pile of tools lay by their feet.

Han Yin was listening intently as Zheng Lian told her about the previous child-snatching case.

Seeing Shen Yan and Zhao Li approach side by side, Zheng Lian immediately abandoned his lazy posture against the wall and stood straight. “Lord Shen—”

Shen Yan waved a hand. “No formalities.”

Han Yin was somewhat afraid of him and gave an uncomfortable nod in greeting.

Zheng Lian opened the gate, and they entered.

Shen Yan patted his sleeve and handed Zhao Li the white snake, whose belly now bulged slightly.

Pointing at its head, Zhao Li instructed, “Find everything wrong in this place.”

A-Bai cocked its head and took a moment to understand. Zhao Li set it on the ground.

It raised its head, flicked its tongue, and hissed.

Suddenly sensing something, it crawled a short distance, then looked back.

They hurried after it.

It soon stopped on a blue brick in the front courtyard and slapped its tail against it.

Without waiting to be told, Zheng Lian pried up the moss-edged brick with a shovel and dug twice into the soil below.

A palm-sized black wooden box soon appeared.

Zheng Lian pulled leather gloves from behind his belt and carefully lifted it out.

The box was not tightly sealed. He gently opened it, revealing a small wooden figure.

It was carved as a soldier, down to the cords fastening the plates of his armor, but its face had no features.

It held a tiny drum.

“With it beating the Troop-Mustering Drum, no wonder footsteps of ghost soldiers pass through every night.”

After briefly explaining, Zhao Li had Zheng Lian place it in the sunlight.

The white snake continued searching.

Directly above a heated bed, it found a raccoon-dog-faced old woman carrying baskets on a shoulder pole.

Then it crawled throughout the compound, uncovering a naked black figurine; a malicious ghost holding scales in its left hand and scissors in its right; a little figure covering its face as it peered out; and an old woman brewing medicine.

Almost every room contained an exquisitely carved suppression figurine.

Soon they stood in a row in the front courtyard.

But Zhao Li’s brow remained furrowed. She knew the most important and harmful object had yet to be found.

As she thought, the white snake entered the main hall, reared upright, and flicked its tongue toward the beam overhead.

Covered in dust from head to toe, Zheng Lian brought the ladder and climbed up.

He soon carried down a long box with great care.

Contrary to expectation, it contained no wooden figure.

Inside was a rolled painting.

Zhao Li was about to step forward when Shen Yan wrapped a handkerchief around his hand and took one end.

He untied the silk cord. Then he and Zheng Lian drew the scroll open from opposite sides.

The scene within was revealed.

Its background depicted a frozen hell.

A neat row of tormented figures filled the painting, their number exactly matching the people who had died in the residence.

Old and young alike were naked, their bodies covered in frost. Their bellies were hollow and every rib sharply visible.

“Ah—”

Han Yin cried out softly and seized Zhao Li. “The people inside are moving.”

“Of course they are.” Zhao Li sighed. “All the dead souls are imprisoned in the Frozen Hell Scroll.”

“They are still living inside this image of hell.”