Prince Zhuang is someone that is chronically ill, so he sleeps early; going back to his palace at this time would require him to wake up. Xi Ping didn’t want to disturb his Third Brother’s sleep two nights in a row. Expecting that the Marquis’ anger should have faded by now, he returned to his own home.
He’d just turned into the southern entrance of DanGuiFang when he ran into a carriage. Xi Ping saw the word “Dong” written on the lantern that was hanging from the carriage and immediately knew that it was from Official Dong of the HongLu Office.
The Dong family was a family of scholars and looked down on their neighbor, the Yong Ning Marquis, for his “flattery”. Therefore, although the two families both lived in DanGuiFang, they normally didn’t have much contact with each other.
Xi Ping went over to annoy them on purpose. Encountering a misfortune on the way, he perfunctorily greeted them by cupping one fist in his other hand, walked away in a hurry, and didn’t turn back.
He passed by them like a breeze, so the people in the carriage probably didn’t hear him clearly when he knocked on the door to the carriage and wanted to ask who it was.
The old coachman raised his head and saw that Xi Ping had already turned into the alley like a slip of smoke to enter the Marquis’ residence from a corner gate. He slowly replied, “Young Master, the one who just passed by was…”
Before he could finish, he heard a roar fly out from the backyard of the Marquis’ residence that had just closed its doors—Xi Ping had just slipped in from the corner gate when he ran into his father’s full-sounding bellow.: “Close the doors! Hold it! Don’t let him escape!”
A dozen burly chaps jumped out from either side of him. Some threw ropes at him while others locked the door, encircling and obstructing his way the whole time.
Xi Ping, seemingly experienced, dodged left and right, aimed for an empty space, and insistently ducked his way out of the encirclement like a vigorous weasel.
He ran to the inner courtyard, howling noisily with no actual action: “Marquis, spare my life! Spare my life! This son knows he was wrong!”
The Yong Ning Marquis, momentarily impulsive, wasn’t careful and was tricked. “Where were you wrong?”
Xi Ping grabbed at the topic, waving a chamberpot and tossing it onto his father’s head: “If I knew earlier that the lady you were always praising was Miss Qing Ke, then that day, no matter what, I wouldn’t have gone onto stage myself to help Jiang Li compete against you!”
The Marquis had just knelt for his wife for over half a night last night because he’d gone to ZuiLiuHua. He’d nearly developed rheumatism in his legs because of it, so when he was framed, his vision darkened—this unlucky child was so wicked!
“Catch this unfilial son for me and put him in the stable! Beat him until he’s split!”
On the road on the other side of the wall, the Dong family’s carriage rumbled past. The old coachman, listening to the ugliness going on at the Marquis’ residence, laughed in spite of himself and said, “Hey, you can hear that it’s from the Yong Ning Marquis’ residence.”
But the “young master” in the carriage didn’t react and kept knocking on the carriage door continuously.
The knocking sound was consistent and mechanical, hitting against the slightly damp wood, and sounded gloomy yet muffled.
Tok—tok tok—
“Young Master?”
Tok—tok tok—
The coachman felt like something was wrong and stopped the carriage.: “Young Master, do you have any other orders? We’re almost home.”
Tok!
The knocking on the door stopped abruptly, and silence fell around them. There was only the faint clamor from the relatively close Yong Ning Marquis’ residence.
The coachman slowly turned around, seemed to hesitate, and put his hand on the carriage door. But before he could pull the door open, it was suddenly and forcefully pushed open from the inside.
The coachman was not sitting firmly and fell. Right after, a bunch of white paper money flew out from the carriage, and as if it were a life-seeking ghost, threw itself at a living creature by pelting itself all over the coachman.
The paper money was filled with bloody letters, and eight characters of birth data were written on it.
The tangy smell of blood rose in the air and a hoarse wail came from the carriage: “Raise the coffin, two shelves of sutras—”
The strange paper money relentlessly tried to dig into the old coachman’s flesh, rotting wherever it stuck.
The coachman’s body seemed to be covered in white ringworms. He screamed and rolled all over the floor, but only managed to roll more and more paper money onto his body. Dark red flower shapes began to spread on his festering flesh. The old coachman was like a rotten peach, and liquid began to pour out like soup.
DanGuiFang’s quiet night was shattered by his wailing. The wind lanterns on the southern street lit up one after another, and the pale steam was tinted with the color of blood.
Xi Ping was just about to jump over the wall into the inner courtyard when he heard movement. While he was still straddling the wall, he glanced back instinctively.
At first, he didn’t realize what that rolling white ball on the street was, and only saw the paper money flying out continuously from the carriage without wind. It almost filled the whole street, and he wondered, Where did so many moths come from? It’s strange to look at, and disgusting.
Then he saw the white paper money intertwining together to form a human figure with a head and feet; the “feet” stepped forward and “walked” towards a door.
When the “paper money human” bumped into the door, it patted the door lightly. As it patted, the paper money on its body rustled and fell down, quietly sticking to the door and in the door cracks.
Tok—tok tok—
The tragic screams in the middle of the night disturbed more than one family, and soon there were doormen that opened a crack in the door and looked outside, thinking they were being secretive.
But even a crack that was as small as an iris was more than enough for the paper money to wiggle in.
The first doorman that opened the door saw an expanse of white outside and thought that it came from the steam when a street lamp exploded. Right when he was about to call for someone, a single piece of paper money fell into the yard from the crack in the door.
The doorman lowered his head to look at it, cursed “Unlucky!”, and planned to kick it aside using his foot. The paper money, however, flew up forcefully from the ground straight towards his face, catching him off guard. It was like he suddenly had a bowl of boiling oil splashed into his face, and he let out a shout as he fell backwards. The door was pushed inward from the outside, and even more paper money surged forward, completely swallowing the doorman.
Xi Ping, who witnessed the whole thing—from when the paper money tricked the door open to when it “ate” the man—was shocked speechless.
At that moment, the paper money in the carriage finally finished flying out, and the light from the lantern with the character “Dong” on it faintly spread out, illuminating the half-open carriage door.
Xi Ping glanced inside, following the light’s path, and all the foul language that he’d heard in his life surged forward in his mind.
He only saw a man… A male corpse was sitting inside the carriage, with large patches of festering flesh and corpse spots on his facial features, making it hard for someone to see who it was before death. That mottled face was staring straight at Xi Ping!
The male corpse seemed to feel his eyes on it, and its dead-fish eyes turned towards him, as if it wanted to smile at him. The corners of its mouth crooked upwards a little, and another piece of flesh was squeezed off of its face while he sang ridiculously: “Stop the spirit… for seven days full, the path returns to the sky… don’t wander, for the entire life… sorrow and joy are like bubbles… towards the west… towards the west…”
This scene was definitely not something of the living world, and Xi Ping’s mind was completely frozen.
And at this time, the corner gate of the Marquis’ residence also began to make noise!
He saw the moth-like paper money piled up in front of his house, around three feet tall, drooling at the sight of the fresh meat and blood of the living humans in the courtyard and knocking on the door as he watched!
“Don’t open the door! Outside… fuck!” Xi Ping nearly split his throat while shouting anxiously and forgot that he was still hanging off of the wall, his head plunging downwards.
“Young Master!”
When he recovered his senses, he was already surrounded by a group of people. The Marquis who had wanted to “split” him just now was stroking his back, repeatedly asking, “Did you fall? Where did you get hit? Did you hit your head? What did you see… Dad is here, don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid—LeTai, hurry and have someone look at what’s going on outside. Who’s making such a ruckus and knocking on the door outside?”
Right when the chamberlain Wu LeTai answered “Yes,” Xi Ping’s dizzy head snapped up and he sprang to his feet.
He didn’t bother explaining and struggled free from the Marquis. With one leg still a little numb, he limped towards the wall and tried to climb to the top of it. “You-you-you… move aside, don’t stand near the door! Don’t look outside! Who has fire? Give it to me!”
As he said this, he rolled up his sleeves and prepared to fight with those demons or ghosts. “See if I can’t burn you to death!”
“What are you planning to do? Did the fall just now not rattle you into obedience? You…” The confused Marquis was about to shout at his hopeless son to come down when he suddenly, heard a rapid strike of a bell.
The Yong Ning Marquis followed the sound, surprised.
The bell sound was from the Azure Dragon Horn Mansion in the Tianji Pavilion!
Among the Azure Dragon Towers, the Horn Mansion is located in DanGuiFang.
DanGuiFang was right next to the base area of the imperial palace, “afraid of disturbing the gods in the sky”. The building was no taller than three floors, so the six-story Horn Mansion in the northeast seemed particularly unexpected. At night, DanGuiFang residents would look up from their own courtyards and roughly estimate the time by observing the moon’s position in relation to the floor of the mansion it was next to.
Bronze bells, 9.6 inches in length, were hung on the outer eaves of the Horn Mansion. These bells were different from ordinary bird-scaring bells: there were no tongues on these bronze bells, so the bells were always moving soundlessly.
The Marquis had lived in DanGuiFang for more than 20 years, yet it was the first time he’d heard sound coming from the tongueless bronze bells!
There were high and low bell sounds, so when mixed together, it sounded like a crowd of noisy whispers. Afterwards, the Horn Mansion emitted a cluster of blinding white light that was even brighter than the lighthouse at the Maze Base. It pierced through the floating fog and landed directly on the spot where the screams were coming from.
The Horn Mansion’s reaction was faster than the Heart Mansion’s yesterday at the pleasure dragon boats’ crossing.
As soon as the bronze bells on the eaves of the Mansion started to move, three blue-robed shadows flew outwards with the white light, reaching South Street after a few jumps up and down.
At this time, DanGuiFang’s South Street was in full chaos, and there was almost nowhere to land. Many residences’ corner gates and back gates had been rammed open by the paper money, and the servants and guards were like sheep being chased by wolves. They were calling for people, reciting incantations, throwing kerosene and torches directly onto the ground… the ominous flames rose up higher and four or five people were on the ground, wrapped in paper money. Nobody knew if they were dead or alive.
A few blue-robed people landed on the surrounding courtyard walls and the tall street lamps. The clothes of the head of the group were a little different than the others’—there was an additional silver belt embroidered with a dark pattern of cranes around his waist.
Because the Horn Mansion is close to the imperial palace and is a strategic location for the imperial palace and its surrounding areas, the Mansion’s guards were all important figures in Tianji Pavilion.
The person on duty that night at the Horn Mansion was PangJian, the vice colonel of the commanding officer of Tianji Pavilion.
Sir Pang had wide shoulders and a narrow waist, naturally thick eyebrows and large eyes, and his face was plated with the bronze color of hardship. His grave-looking sapphire robe couldn’t suppress the aura of wildness that surrounded him. He didn’t look like a half-immortal from xuanmen, but instead looked like an unrestrained and unconventional swordsman that wandered around the martial world.
Pang Jian glanced at the paper money on the ground and pulled out a whistle from the front of his robes. The whistle was only a little more than an inch long, but the sound it produced was lower than a horn and rumbled like thunder. Before its sound had even hit the ground, another group of blue-robed people followed from the Horn Mansion.
In the blink of an eye, there were six people walking together in the alleys of DanGuiFang’s South Street—it was said that there were only seven people on duty at once at an Azure Dragon Tower.
Xi Ping, about to crawl along the inner courtyard’s wall to burn the papers, could barely take in the formation of blue-robed people. His eyes couldn’t keep up with the Mortal Realm Walkers who were traveling so fast that they seemed like phantoms.
Pang Jian pulled out a two-foot long banner and threw it forcefully to the ground.
Nobody knew how much strength he put into it, but with a clang, the wooden flagpole penetrated the limestone pavement like it was cutting tofu, standing upright stably.
The six people relied on the banner and made it the center of their formation. A huge “whirlwind” began to form on the ground and completely swept up all the surrounding paper money.
As soon as the paper money entered the formation, it immediately caught fire. The paper money tried to fly away as if they were struggling for their lives, but after straining for a long while, they were still sucked back into the “whirlwind circle”. For a short time, the sky was filled with fire butterflies that danced wildly, which finally turned to ash and fell to the floor. The originally colorless and invisible whirlwind pulled in paper money and smoke alike, turning into something that looked like a large chimney reaching to the sky and covering DanGuiFang in a foul black smoke similar to the factory area outside of South Street.
After a long while, the paper money that was scattered around the street burnt up and the ferocious wind stopped momentarily. The wailing corpse in the carriage had also shut up at one point.
With a “pop”, that corpse fell out and landed face first in the ashes.
Truly, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
Not a single sound could be heard on South Street, as if it had been entirely pulled into a grotesque and monstrous nightmare. No one—other than the Marquis’ residence’s shizi that was squatting on the courtyard’s wall—dared to move around or make a noise.
Only the luxurious lanterns around DanGuiFang were bright as daylight, making the disordered, scattered corpses look like they were plated with silver on their edges.
That night, the dragon boats were silent, JinPing was still, and on the opposite bank of the LingYang River came the distant yet indistinct sound of a watchman’s clapper.
It was already around 9:30pm.
Pang Jian glanced at Xi Ping and scraped him off the wall with a flick of his sleeves. “Whose family’s senseless thing is this, always itching to find some cheap entertainment?”
He took the lead and jumped down from the high spot he was at, gathering up the banner with a hand gesture—the originally light yellow banner had been blackened to a charcoal color, and there was even a whole piece of paper money stuck on it.
Like a tiger on guard, Pang Jian inched closer to the paper money and sniffed it. Then, with a flick of his finger, the last piece of trembling paper money turned into ashes and fell from the banner.
Pang Jian put on a pair of gloves that were as thin as a cicada’s wing and turned over the people that were on the ground one by one. A moment later, he shook his head.
There weren’t many intact bodies on the ground that still had shape, let alone people who were still alive, and the corpses would fall apart after being merely flipped.
“Call over some palace guards to give us a hand, then go to the Heart Mansion and call Zhao Yu over,” Pang Jian ordered as he stepped over the rotten flesh. When he walked next to the corpse that had fallen out of the carriage, he flipped it over and said, “Male, around twenty… carrying a personal seal engraved with… ’Dong Zhang’. Who is this, does anyone know him?”
“He’s the eldest son of Official Dong of the HongLu Office and the nephew of the Worthy Consort.” Someone walked over and quietly said, “You’ll arrive at the Dong residence once you pass another street.”
“He was still young, what a pity.” Pang Jian nodded and said, “Someone come and announce his passing… speak carefully and don’t give them a shock.”
After he finished speaking, he stood up and pointed out the two blue-robed people that were still there. “You two, go around to the residences in the area and inform them that the evils who wanted to start a rebellion have been eliminated. If they have any family members who were victims, please ask them to restrain their grief and not move the bodies yet. We’ll deal with that. By the way, did you notice anything unusual?”
The palace guards came very quickly, surrounding the entire southern half of DanGuiFang with three rows of people outside and three layers of people inside. Under Pang Jian’s command, they cleaned up the scene and thoroughly collected the corpses while warding off evil.
A little while later, Zhao Yu from the Heart Mansion of the Azure Dragon Tower also rushed over.
“Colonel, I heard there was someone else who had a ghost marriage forcibly conducted? This…” Zhao Yu was startled by the corpses at the scene and said, “How many people have died?”
“That one is the one who died from a ghost marriage,” Pang Jian pointed at Dong Zhang’s body. “He was in a carriage full of paper money that was soaked in corpse poison. Whenever the paper money saw a human, it would rush toward them and the flesh would rot wherever they stuck to. Fortunately, there aren’t many people in DanGuiFang at night; if this happened in broad daylight in the east’s downtown area, it would’ve been a huge mess.”
While he was talking, the palace guards had already carefully disassembled the Dong family’s carriage and only saw something drawn on the roof in blood. They couldn’t tell what it was. The intertwining lines were like a viper, and staring at it for a while would make people dizzy and nauseous.
“Flying Clump Curse.” Pang Jian glanced at the still-fresh bloodstains. “I guessed as much—the paper money was activated by the deceased… Dong Zhang before he died.”
Zhao Yu’s expression turned stern. “Mortals don’t know how to draw curses.”
“Of course,” Pang Jian replied. “The evil spirit that conducted the ghost marriage manipulated him to paint it.”
“But Colonel, making him only sing before death isn’t comparable to manipulating him to kill people with an evil curse.”
“Oh,” Pang Jian nodded thoughtfully, “It looks like the evil spirit is at least in its intermediate foundational cultivation stage, and the body that it used to write the ‘ghost marriage contract’ cannot be a new corpse. It should’ve had a secret method applied to it for at least fifty years… It’s strange, the method used is too valuable for killing this person.”
50-year-old wine is already rare, not to mention a 50-year-old corpse that’s been simmered with a secret method. Young Master Dong’s father probably wasn’t even 50 years old yet—who would use such an expensive method to kill such a weak young master?
With Dong Zhang’s small body that wasn’t even as thick as the width of a palm, wouldn’t it be easy to kill him with just a stab?
Was such a toilsome method used just so he could wail about his own bereavement and take out a couple of coachmen and servants before he died?
“Colonel.” A blue-robed man who had gone to check the surroundings had just come back. “The people of the LiGuo residence sleep early, and the husband is older so he probably cannot handle this in the middle of the night. The people of the residence dare not disturb him. The residences of Sun ShiLang from the Ministry of Rites and Official Lu from the Dali Office both have casualties. The bodies have been moved outside already; the exorcism array has been spread out and a soul-soothing amulet has been left with them. The Yong Ning Marquis’ residence didn’t open their door at the time, but his family’s shizi had just come back when he happened upon the Dong family’s carriage—and just now, he witnessed the paper money murdering people by chance…”
Pang Jian and Zhao Yu spoke up at the same time. Pang Jian asked, “That simpleton that was riding on the wall just now?”
Zhao Yu asked, “From the Yong Ning Marquis’ family?”
Pang Jian glanced at him. Zhao Yu hesitated for a moment but thought right afterwards that it was probably not hard to look into, so it was pointless to hide it, responding, “The last person the deceased met at the decorated pleasure boats’ crossing yesterday was also the Yong Ning Marquis’ eldest son. I’d just met him once this morning.”
“Go to the Marquis’ residence and make a report,” Pang Jian replied. “This is a serious matter; trouble the son to come out and let us see him.”
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Author’s Note:
[I wish everyone] great luck and great fortune during the year of the Ox =w=
Translator's Notes:
Horn - another one of the twenty-eight mansions (constellation system)
Please give this Wikipedia article a read to get a better feeling for the Azure Dragon Tower and its mansions that are mentioned!
Twitter: @jiyangtrans
Editor's Twitter: @heiyanquans Thank you for everything as always, mwah!