The Night Watcher of Great Jing - Chapter 8

The night was deep and silent. A hazy full moon hung in the sky.

In the rear compound kitchen of the Northern Pacification Office, a single lamp burned with a bean-sized flame.

Zhao Li, Lu Zhao, and Qi Hai sat around a square table.

The original owner of Zhao Li’s body had spent sixteen years on the frontier, poor and cut off from information.

After arriving in the capital, the Zhao family had feared her coarse manners would embarrass them. They claimed she was ill and confined her to the estate.

In four months, she had not set foot outside the Zhao gates, much less explored the city.

As a result, her understanding of this world mostly consisted of things like how many copper coins she could earn washing and remaking someone’s quilt, the fact that one should not go outside at night, how enormous the Zhao estate was, how she had not eaten enough again today, and how terribly annoying Zhao Yaoguang was.

Now Zhao Li could finally learn something about the world from Lu Zhao and Qi Hai.

The dynasty was called Great Jing. It faced troubles both within and beyond its borders, but remained generally stable.

Its customs resembled those of the Ming dynasty.

Women in the Jiangnan region had begun binding their feet, though the vile practice was still confined to officials’ households and wealthy families there.

Among ordinary townspeople, a woman could register an independent household or conduct business. Heroines roamed the martial world freely.

The Jingning Guard even had female banner officers who held the rank of Thousand-Household Commander.

Zhao Li could sit at the same table as Lu Zhao and Qi Hai without any particular concern for propriety.

Zhao Li breathed an inward sigh of relief.

It meant she could shelter with the Jingning Guard for the time being, use the system to build her resources, and rise in rank and wealth.

Once the time was right, she would find some beautiful place of mountains and clear water, retire, and live in seclusion.

What could be better?

With a new goal established and her future pleasantly imagined, Zhao Li cheered up again.

While she considered her plans, Lu Zhao was doing some thinking of his own.

He was only a Hundred-Household Commander in the Jingning Guard, but he had access to an enormous volume of intelligence.

Nothing in Miss Zhao’s history could explain how she handled these strange incidents with such practiced force.

Earlier, when he had watched her move, she had shown no sign of martial training.

Lu Zhao kept his thoughts from his face and poured Zhao Li another cup of tea.

Footsteps sounded outside.

“They’re in here.”

Slightly out of breath, Steward Li led in an old man in blue robes and a smartly dressed girl.

The old man was a physician attached to the Jingning Guard’s government office. The girl was his granddaughter.

Urged onward by Steward Li, the old man hurried inside. The moment he looked at Zhao Li, he frowned.

He had treated her injuries the night before as well, and his granddaughter Ling’er had helped Madam Zhang wash Zhao Li and change her clothes.

“Young lady, why have you not been resting properly?”

He set down his medicine chest as he spoke.

Zhao Li did not recognize him, but she could make an educated guess. She managed a wan smile and said nothing.

Since her wound needed treatment, Lu Zhao and the other men closed the door and withdrew.

Only Physician Zhang and his granddaughter Ling’er remained.

With Ling’er’s help, Zhao Li unwrapped the bandages. One look at the wound made her close her eyes.

It was as long as a hand, the irregular edges of flesh curling outward from her upper arm. The sight was ghastly.

The old physician washed it with a brown herbal decoction from a crane-spouted pot, applied fresh medicine, and rebound it in one smooth sequence.

“Shouldn’t it be sutured?” Zhao Li asked without thinking.

Only then did she remember that this world might not possess suturing techniques.

Her words caught the old physician’s attention.

“What do you mean by *sutured*?”

“Using needle and thread to sew the wound closed, like mending clothes…”

Zhao Li trailed off.

The old man’s eyes had lit up so suddenly that she thought he was possessed. She nearly bit her tongue again.

“Sew it closed?”

The old physician sprang to his feet and paced in several excited circles. Zhao Li and his granddaughter exchanged an instinctive look.

“Ling’er, go find a needle and thread! I’ll try sewing it!”

Zhao Li jolted. “Who would dare let you experiment on them?”

“Oh, come now!” The old physician rolled up his sleeves and glared at her as though disappointed by her cowardice. “It was your idea. What are you afraid of? Be brave!”

The old man had once served as an imperial physician. Simply managing to retire alive proved that he was highly capable.

Even the arrogant agents of the Jingning Guard respected him, and this had nurtured an imperious temperament.

Zhao Li’s suggestion was wonderfully novel. He could not wait to try it and repeatedly urged his granddaughter to fetch the supplies.

Zhao Li clutched her upper arm. She was the one who would suffer, so of course she did not feel brave.

She shook her head like a rattle drum. His granddaughter joined in persuading him, until at last, the old physician clicked his tongue.

“Then I’ll find someone else.”

The Jingning Guard might lack many things, but it would never lack prisoners.

The old physician considered asking for a pair of condemned inmates with no family to claim them.

The sight of him preparing to treat human lives like weeds frightened Zhao Li. If his experiment actually killed someone, the karmic debt might fall on her.

She hurriedly explained anesthesia, disinfection with strong liquor, and suturing with sheep-gut thread.

Lu Zhao and the others, who had come back inside, listened with fascination.

“Disinfection… sutures!” The old physician’s eyes shone. “By anesthesia, do you mean something like numbing powder?”

“Yes, yes, exactly.”

Seeing that he intended to question her without end, Zhao Li claimed she was exhausted.

Since she was the patient, the old physician temporarily relented.

Zhao Li was genuinely worn out. With Ling’er’s soft shoulder to lean on, she accompanied the others back to Fragrant Orchid Courtyard.

When they reached the gate, Steward Li, Qi Hai, and the rest refused to go any farther. They remained outside, smiling apologetically.

Lu Zhao rolled his eyes at them.

Zhao Li was weak and leaned against Ling’er.

The two girls were about the same age. They had chatted animatedly on the way over and become somewhat friendly.

As they approached the gate, Zhao Li stopped and looked at the stone figure standing before it.

She had not examined it closely when they left.

Now she saw it standing in the middle of the path, hands hanging down, body bent at the waist, mouth stretched into a grin.

Its features were indistinct. Only the profoundly malicious smile stood out.

Zhao Li gave a dry laugh. “What a distinctive statue.”

What kind of twisted taste would inspire someone to carve a pose like that?

The figure made Lu Zhao uncomfortable as well. He rolled his neck.

“It did not look like this originally. That ghostly thing affected it.”

He was about to step through the gate when a hand reached from behind and yanked him back.

He turned in confusion and saw Zhao Li’s pale face.

“Don’t go in. Fall back!”

Zhao Li knew perfectly well that the thing she had dispersed with the willow switch was nothing more than a wandering spirit.

Once it vanished, everything should have returned to normal.

Lu Zhao was a veteran of many dangerous situations. His expression changed at once. He withdrew his advancing leg, turned, and shielded Zhao Li and Ling’er as they retreated.

Tension spread through the group.

No one spoke. They slowly backed away.

The night wind sighed around them. The courtyard gate stood open, and the lantern hanging from the lintel flickered to life.

Weak, blood-red candlelight swayed in the wind, illuminating only the few feet directly before the gate.

Lu Zhao was about to ask for an explanation when he heard Steward Li’s teeth chattering.

He turned around, and a shudder crawled up his spine.

Gray mist had risen before the previously empty entrance to Fragrant Orchid Courtyard.

Eight figures of varying heights stood within it.

They were the registrar’s family who had hanged themselves in Fragrant Orchid Courtyard years ago.

Thick hemp nooses had bitten deep into their necks, cinching the flesh to the width of a teacup. The long ends of the ropes disappeared into the gray mist, their destination unseen.

Smiles split their ash-gray faces from ear to ear. They beckoned continuously from the fog, as if welcoming guests.

A figure in red wedding robes, its face hidden beneath a bridal veil, floated out of the dense mist surging through the gate.

Its terrifyingly red shoes were embroidered with mandarin ducks. Toes pointing downward, they hovered above the threshold and swayed gently.

“Ahhh…”

An ethereal woman’s voice sounded beside Zhao Li’s ear.

“I see you,” it said.