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The two brothers made up their minds and slipped out from behind the side room. Before they could even get close to Zhao Fusheng, they heard her voice, soft and haunting:
"My parents... they didn't die in an accident like you originally said, did they? They were killed by a ghost, weren't they?"
Her sudden question caught the Fan brothers off guard.
Fan Bisu, who had been planning to seize the initiative and intimidate Zhao Fusheng with his words, was instead startled by her. Fan Wujiu's face grew wary, and the two brothers exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with panic.
"..."
"..."
Fan Bisu, usually the quickest thinker, found his mind blank. It took him a while to regain his composure before he forced himself to respond calmly:
"That's right—"
Zhao Fusheng's parents were already dead. Their bodies lay in the mourning hall, and the evidence of their death at the hands of a ghost was irrefutable. There was no point in denying it.
"So, I was also killed by a ghost yesterday?" Zhao Fusheng pressed.
"...Yes," Fan Wujiu reluctantly answered. Before he could say more, Zhao Fusheng continued:
"Let me speak, and you two listen. See if I get it right."
She stood with her back to them, still wearing the same clothes from the day before. The ghost had pierced her heart and lungs when it killed her, and her blood had soaked through her clothes, now dried and blackened, making her silhouette look eerily unsettling.
On top of that, she might have tamed the ghost, which was now likely hidden within her body.
The more the brothers thought about it, the more wary they became, instinctively taking a small step back.
"Go ahead," Fan Bisu said, his courage slightly greater. At this point, he just wanted to cut through the chaos and resolve the situation quickly. He forced himself to muster his courage and nodded.
"Normally, the Demon-Slaying Bureau should have a Chief Commander and deputies to maintain peace in the region. After the Chief Commander of Wan'an County's Demon-Slaying Bureau died, there's no way a rural girl like me would be chosen to take his place."
Zhao Fusheng had been pondering these thoughts for a while.
This world had ghosts!
She was new here, with only fragments of the original host's memories and what she had seen in her dream last night. She knew little about the people and events of this place and time. She was deeply wary of the Fan brothers, but she could also see that they were equally wary of her, who had returned from the dead.
Though she didn't know the reason, Zhao Fusheng decided to test them first, to see if she could extract some useful information.
"I suspect that what you told me and my parents that day—about being guided by the former Chief Commander to find me—was just a lie to deceive us."
She suppressed her inner unease and deliberately put on a calm and collected demeanor, saying:
"Has the Demon-Slaying Bureau suffered a great calamity? A disaster akin to a curse that affects everyone within the bureau?"
This wasn't just a wild guess.
Based on Zhao Fusheng's memories, aside from the Fan brothers and the later 'her,' there were no other survivors in the Demon-Slaying Bureau.
The Demon-Slaying Bureau was supposed to protect the region's peace. If ghosts killed indiscriminately, causing widespread panic, the safest place in the world should have been near the bureau. Yet, almost everyone in the surrounding streets had moved away.
The few remaining shops were only coffin shops and stores selling paper money and incense. And the people there treated Zhao Fusheng like a plague, fleeing as soon as she approached.
The previous Zhao Fusheng had been muddle-headed, thinking that as a country girl, she was unworthy of her position and thus disliked. But the current Zhao Fusheng felt that these people weren't afraid of her personally, but rather of the curse of death she carried.
She thought of the nightmare where Zhao Fusheng had been killed by a ghost, and her heart grew uneasy. At the same time, it confirmed that the 'curse' on the original Zhao Fusheng might have been the ghost haunting her.
However, she deliberately misspoke, aiming to mislead the Fan brothers.
The Fan brothers were indeed caught off guard by her sudden counterattack, but Fan Bisu still tried to regain control, explaining:
"This isn't a curse..."
Before he could finish, Zhao Fusheng nodded:
"Indeed, it's not a curse. It's a ghost calamity."
"..."
Her words made the Fan brothers exchange a look, their eyes filled with a mix of fear and helplessness.
Neither of them had expected that Zhao Fusheng, who had been as timid and ignorant as a quail, would become so much sharper after returning from the dead.
Her reactions even made Fan Bisu feel somewhat overwhelmed, as if he was being suppressed by her.
Could it be that taming a ghost not only increased one's power but also sharpened one's mind?
The brothers' thoughts were in disarray. Fan Wujiu looked at his elder brother and called out, "Brother—"
Fan Bisu steadied himself, reassuring himself not to lose his composure. He took a deep breath to calm his inner turmoil and said:
"That's correct."
He had a vague premonition that he and his brother might have chosen the wrong person to deal with, and now they were reaping what they had sown.
Zhao Fusheng's current performance wasn't just clever—it was clever enough to make him uneasy.
"What do you want to know?" he asked decisively, deciding not to confront Zhao Fusheng head-on for now and instead trying to find a way to negotiate with her.
"What can you tell me?"
In this verbal sparring, Zhao Fusheng had the upper hand.
She realized that the Fan brothers' tolerance of her wasn't solely due to her resurrection. There was likely something else about her that made them wary.
She didn't know what that was yet, and the uncertainty made her uneasy. But she forced that unease down and instead calmly countered Fan Bisu's question.
Fan Bisu fell silent for a moment before suddenly saying:
"Alright, I'll tell you everything from the beginning."
As he spoke, he wiped his face and kicked his brother:
"Wujiu, go and bring the past records of the Demon-Slaying Bureau, and get a chair for the Chief Commander to sit on."
His words seemed to tacitly acknowledge Zhao Fusheng's position as Chief Commander. Zhao Fusheng felt even more strange but didn't stop him.
Fan Wujiu hesitated, glancing at his brother and then at Zhao Fusheng, before finally going inside to fetch the items.
"Three years ago, the Demon-Slaying Bureau in Wan'an County had one Chief Commander, two deputies, and eight officers."
After some probing, both sides had a rough understanding of each other. Seeing that some things couldn't be hidden from Zhao Fusheng, Fan Bisu decided to start from the beginning.
"So, three years ago, there were eleven people in the Demon-Slaying Bureau of Wan'an County."
This number still seemed small, but considering that those who dealt with ghosts were a rare and special group, having eleven ghost-handlers in a county matched Zhao Fusheng's initial expectations.
"Not just that."
Perhaps because Zhao Fusheng had returned from the dead, the Fan brothers felt pressured in their conversations with her. Fan Bisu, unwilling to be outdone, couldn't help but try to correct her, as if wanting to regain some ground:
"Including twenty-three servants, there were actually thirty-four people in total."
At that time, the Demon-Slaying Bureau in Wan'an County was one of the most powerful in the surrounding regions.
"Oh," Zhao Fusheng responded indifferently.
"..." Fan Bisu felt like he had punched cotton, his frustration growing. Just as he was about to lose his temper, he noticed that Zhao Fusheng hadn't turned to look at him.
Her gaze remained fixed on the hall. Fan Bisu's anger suddenly cooled, as if doused with a bucket of cold water, and his thoughts cleared.
After her resurrection, Zhao Fusheng's temperament had completely changed.
In their verbal exchanges, she remained calm, while he, like Fan Wujiu, seemed to be losing his composure, as if being led by the nose.
Arguing over how many people were in the Demon-Slaying Bureau was something he would have considered pointless in the past, yet he couldn't control his anger.
Realizing this, Fan Bisu frowned.
He quickly regained his composure and stopped beating around the bush, saying:
"There were indeed only eleven people in the Demon-Slaying Bureau who could handle ghosts."
This man's temperament was quite steady. Despite her provocations, he had calmed down quickly. Zhao Fusheng grew even more wary of him, while Fan Bisu continued:
"Our officer at the time was named Zhao Qiming, a man who tamed ghosts."
When he mentioned Zhao Qiming, his tone was complex, but this emotion only lasted a moment before he controlled himself again.
Zhao Fusheng, however, keenly caught this subtle change. She guessed that Zhao Qiming must have had some connection with the Fan brothers.
But she didn't rush to explore this point. Instead, she asked about something that concerned her more:
"Taming ghosts? What does that mean?"
Even though she had returned from the dead and displayed extraordinary abilities, she had previously been just a country girl with limited knowledge.
In this world, the original Zhao Fusheng only knew that ghosts existed and that they killed people. But where ghosts came from and how to deal with them, she had no idea.
Fan Bisu, seeing her question, felt a strange sense of relief.
Perhaps her earlier dominance, deducing so much from limited information, had made him feel threatened. Combined with the possibility that she was possessed by a ghost, it had thrown him off balance.
"Ghosts cannot be completely killed," he said calmly.
"Didn't you know that?"
"No, I didn't," Zhao Fusheng replied. Though her heart skipped a beat at this revelation, she genuinely didn't know about ghosts and couldn't pretend otherwise. She shook her head honestly.
Her reaction was normal. Fan Bisu pondered for a moment, organizing his thoughts:
"Indeed, many people don't know this. The court has been keeping it hidden to avoid inciting panic."
Those who knew were the people within the Demon-Slaying Bureau, who were bound by the Soul Registry and thus dared not disobey the court's orders by spreading this information.
After a pause, he continued seriously:
"Ghosts cannot be completely killed. Currently, there are only two ways to deal with them." He paused. "The first is to drive them away, forcing them to leave Wan'an County."
"What?" Zhao Fusheng was genuinely surprised by this method.
"Drive them away?"
"Exactly," Fan Bisu nodded.
"If you just drive them away, wouldn't they still kill people wherever they go?" Zhao Fusheng asked, puzzled.
From the deaths of Zhao Fusheng's family, it was clear how terrifying ghosts could be. If such creatures couldn't be subdued and were only driven away, wasn't that just treating the symptoms rather than the root cause?
"Correct. In fact, the more people they kill, the more resentment they absorb, and the stronger they become. They can even evolve, causing large-scale ghost calamities."
Fan Bisu knew she wasn't familiar with these details, so he explained further:
"The larger the area a ghost's domain covers, the harder it is to deal with."
"Then what happens then?"
Zhao Fusheng found this utterly baffling.
"There's no solution," Fan Wujiu said.
"If you drive them to another county, what happens to the people there?" she pressed.
"As long as it's not in Wan'an County, it's not our problem. Wherever the ghost goes, it becomes that county's headache. If the calamity grows too large, it becomes the court's problem," Fan Bisu said, his expression cold.
"And what if the calamity becomes too big for even the court to handle?" Zhao Fusheng, who considered herself hardened by life's trials, was still shocked by Fan Bisu's words.
"If the court can't handle it, then that area is simply abandoned, left to its fate."
"..." His words left Zhao Fusheng momentarily speechless. She fell silent for a while, unsure how to respond.
"Go on," she finally said, sighing silently and pushing down the discomfort in her heart.