Grain-Collecting Ghost

The ninth day of the ninth month, the day of the autumn levy.

Qingwu County of Great Qian, at the entrance to Li Family Village.

The grain-paying farmers formed a line like a winding dead vine. Clad in padded clothes and carrying sacks of grain on their shoulders, they grumbled amid the clanging of bronze gongs. The air reeked of rotting mud, old rice, sour sweat, and rancid stench.

From the crooked old locust tree not far away hung dense rows of upside-down, bloody corpses, like gnawed pork ribs.

Beneath the tree, an old Daoist in a yellow robe had set up an altar and was performing a ritual. He scattered spirit money with his left hand and shook a soul-summoning bell with his right. "Heaven is vast, earth is vast. This tree is bound to a Yama Stake. Let no living man answer upon reaching this place. Do not answer..."

At that moment, Xie An sat in a carriage beside the old locust tree, watching the spectacle.

He wore a blue brocade robe patterned with clouds. A jade Buddha pendant hung from his gold-threaded belt, a mutton-fat jade hairpin ran through his topknot, and a gleaming string of rosewood prayer beads circled his right wrist.

Incense burned inside the carriage, but it could not suppress the stench of corpses in the air. Xie An's stomach churned from the smell.

What a chaotic age, where lives were cheaper than grass.

Five days ago, he had still been a seasoned office drone muddling through his workdays. After one night's sleep, he had awakened as a young man named Xie An in Qingwu County.

Fortunately, his father, Xie Zhengtang, was a salt merchant in the county, with businesses spread across every trade. Xie An could only continue muddling through life while waiting to inherit the family business.

The only proper task he had was inspecting the family's various properties for his father.

Everyone in Li Family Village was a tenant of the Xie Household, and they handed over a thousand taels in rent each year.

For some unknown reason, a great number of tenants had recently fled the village.

Though harsh rule was fiercer than tigers, and the government enforced a policy requiring tenants to pay grain taxes, no tenant had ever fled Li Family Village before.

Xie An had come today to investigate the reason.

"Young Master!"

A martial man in a black brocade robe, a broad saber at his waist, squeezed through the crowd and rushed to the carriage to report. "I've asked around. The people hanging from the tree were all tenants who fled the village. Village Head Li Degui had them brought back and hanged from the tree. That old Daoist was hired by Village Head Li to perform the ritual."

Those corpses clearly bore bite marks... Had they truly been hanged?

Xie An frowned deeply. "Zhao Hu, did you find out why the tenants fled the village?"

Zhao Hu said, "That old Daoist claimed grain collection officials entered the village every night to collect taxes, and the tenants fled because they could no longer survive. But the tax official said he only came once a year."

Xie An glanced at the tax official in dark clerk's robes some distance away.

The tax official happened to turn around and spot him. Smiling, he greeted him, "So it's Young Master Xie, here to inspect the village. Refugees outside the city have been running rampant lately, and it isn't safe. Young Master should return to the city early."

Xie An nodded and gave an "Mm," then instructed Zhao Hu, "Go into the village and ask Li Degui about it."

Once they entered the village, Xie An looked around through the side window.

Every household had a yellow lantern hanging above its door, inscribed with the words "Blessings of the Dragon King." Children chased and played in the alleys while peddlers hawked their wares.

The air carried the fragrance of wine, meat, and fried pastry.

When they reached the entrance of a courtyard with blue brick walls and black-tiled roofs, a middle-aged man in a scholar's robe came out with cupped hands. "This humble one is Li Degui. I have awaited the young master for some time."

Holding a hand warmer, Xie An stepped out of the carriage and strode into the courtyard. "Why have the tenants recently fled the village in such large numbers?"

Li Degui said, "The tenants claim grain collection officials come to their homes every night to collect taxes, and they fled because they could no longer live on. I say they merely want to use this as an excuse to force the master to reduce their rent. Such petty tricks cannot fool me. Killing a few and hanging them at the village entrance will make the tenants learn their place."

That explanation matched the old Daoist's... but Xie An did not wholly believe it. "Where are the ledgers?"

"All the ledgers have been prepared in the study."

After entering the study, Li Degui served tea and pastries while offering flattering remarks.

Xie An sat in a chair and reviewed the accounts. Whenever he came across something questionable, he questioned Li Degui until he understood it clearly.

If the servants came to think he was easy to deceive, they would inevitably conceal matters from him and cheat him. If he was strict and meticulous, they would behave themselves much better.

According to the accounts, every household should have had surplus grain.

Why, then, had the tenants fled the village?

Xie An could not shake the feeling that something strange was going on.

When he looked up again, the sky had already darkened, and snow had begun to fall.

Li Degui said ingratiatingly, "It is getting dark. Why not stay the night in this humble home, Young Master? Tomorrow, I will take you door to door to investigate."

Looking at the darkening sky, Xie An felt an inexplicable unease. He handed his hand warmer to Li Degui. "There is no need to stay overnight. Just refill this hand warmer with hot water for me."

"Right away!" Li Degui accepted the hand warmer with both hands, ran to the kitchen, and soon returned with it filled with hot water.

Xie An took the hand warmer and was about to leave when he heard a piercing series of bronze gong strikes.

"Clang, clang, clang... Grain collection! Pay your taxes..."

At first, Xie An paid it no mind. As he walked out of the study, he asked Li Degui, who followed behind him, "Village Head Li, didn't the tenants pay their autumn tax during the day? Why is someone collecting taxes again?"

No answer came from behind him.

Xie An turned around curiously, and his brow immediately furrowed.

Li Degui, who had been perfectly fine moments ago, now stood frozen in place as though possessed.

Xie An called again, "Village Head Li?"

Li Degui still seemed oblivious, standing there blankly.

Xie An sniffed and faintly caught the stench of a corpse.

He instantly became alert. "Zhao Hu! See what is wrong with Li Degui."

"Yes, Young Master!"

Zhao Hu immediately ran to Li Degui. When calling "Village Head Li" got no response, he reached out and patted Li Degui's shoulder. With a sudden thud, Li Degui's entire body toppled stiffly to the ground.

The back of his head struck the corner of the blue bricks, leaving a dent, yet no blood flowed. Instead, a foul stink rose from him.

Zhao Hu immediately checked Li Degui's breathing, then tore open his clothing to examine him. Finally, he abruptly looked up. "Young Master. Li Degui's entire body is covered in livor mortis. He has been dead for seven days!"

Hiss!

Xie An sucked in a cold breath, feeling icy chill pour from the crown of his head all the way to his toes.

Dead for seven days?

But just now... Li Degui had clearly been speaking to him normally.

Hadn't taxes been collected during the day? Then who was collecting taxes outside now?

He suddenly recalled what the old Daoist and Li Degui had said earlier: the tenants had fled because grain collection officials came every night to collect taxes...

Could it be that the tenants had not been lying?

Tax collection was not like ordinary oppressive levies. Every payment had to be recorded and reported to the Ministry of Revenue for verification.

What grain collection official would dare come to collect taxes every single night?

"Clang, clang, clang... Grain collection! Pay your taxes..."

That hoarse, shrill bronze gong continued ringing. It sounded like someone laughing, yet also like someone crying. It was no festive tune, but rather a funeral dirge played all the way to a grave.

Moreover, the gong was drawing closer and closer to the Li residence.

In an instant, the surrounding temperature plummeted, and cold seeped relentlessly into the cracks of Xie An's bones.

Xie An frowned and looked down at the hand warmer in his arms.

The hand warmer... had gone completely cold!

The water had just been heated...

"Clang, clang, clang... Grain collection! Pay your taxes..."

The gong and cry gradually approached the courtyard gate of the Li residence. The instant they reached it... they abruptly stopped!

Then—

Knock, knock!

Two slow, mechanical, stiff knocks sounded.

Zhao Hu stood before Xie An with his saber drawn, staring fixedly at the courtyard gate.

A cold, faintly tingling sensation slowly crept up Xie An's spine.

Then—

Bang!

The third knock suddenly became much heavier!

It was as though some dull, immense force had struck the door, carrying a bizarre rhythm that was mechanical, slow, and unmistakable.

Xie An instinctively felt that... whatever was knocking did not seem human!

Immediately afterward, the barred door latch, which had clearly been locked tight, began to scrape sideways inch by inch with a scree, scree, despite nothing touching it.

A scent of sandalwood mixed with rotten fruit seeped through the crack in the door.

Crack.

A pallid hand slowly pushed through the door crack.

The hand had no fingernails. Like a piece of wax swollen by water and then dried out, it slowly pushed the door open.

Tap!

Then, a "person" appeared outside.

It was the tax official who had greeted Xie An during the day. He wore blue clerk's robes, held a ledger in his left hand and a wolf-hair brush in his right, and had a blackened bronze gong and mallet hanging from his waist. His pale facial skin clung in wrinkles to his skull, his eye sockets were sunken like those of a dried corpse, and he emitted the corpse stench of rotten fruit.

That tax official had long been dead too?

Then what kind of tax had he collected during the day...

Every hair on Xie An's body stood on end, and a layer of fine sweat emerged on his forehead.

"Grain collection! Pay your taxes... Mark it with straw labels, settle accounts with vermilion ink. Those with money weigh out silver; those without... use their lifespan to fill the granary. No credit is recorded in the Underworld Ledger, hee hee..." The tax official outside the door dragged out those hoarse, sobbing words as he looked at Zhao Hu in the courtyard. "Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

Zhao Hu did not answer.

The tax official asked several more times. When Zhao Hu still did not respond, he opened a mouth split all the way to his ears, revealing two rows of dense, crocodile-like pointed teeth. Foul saliva slid down from the tips of his teeth and dripped onto the ground with a drip, drip.

The tax official made to enter, but the yellow lantern inscribed "Blessings of the Dragon King" above the gate shone upon him. His body crackled with a sizzle, sizzle like beans frying in a pan. Finally, the tax official gritted his teeth and unwillingly withdrew his foot, remaining outside the gate.

Then the tax official turned to Xie An. "Grain collection! Pay your taxes—mark it with straw labels, settle accounts with vermilion ink. Those with money weigh out silver; those without... use their lifespan to fill the granary. No credit is recorded in the Underworld Ledger, hee hee... Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

Xie An suddenly recalled the old Daoist's final words during the day: let no living man answer upon reaching this place. Do not answer...

At the time, Xie An had taken it for a ritual incantation. Remembering it now... sent a chill down his back!

Besides, there was a common folk taboo: when a ghost asked you a question, you must not answer.

Xie An had previously considered such tales nothing more than strange stories and had not taken them seriously. Now that he had encountered one for real, how could he dare answer?

The tax official asked several more times. Receiving no response, he turned away in furious frustration, took the bronze gong and mallet from his waist, and went door to door knocking as he struck the gong.

"Clang, clang, clang...

Grain collection! Pay your taxes—mark it with straw labels, settle accounts with vermilion ink. Those with money weigh out silver; those without... use their lifespan to fill the granary. No credit is recorded in the Underworld Ledger, hee hee... Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

"...Hee hee... Have you paid your Grave Tax?"

As the gong and cries gradually faded into the distance, calm returned to the courtyard, and the rotten-fruit smell lingering around them slowly dissipated.

Xie An's legs went weak. Only then did he realize that even his inner clothes had been soaked through with sweat.

That tax official just now... was absolutely not human.

What exactly had happened to Li Family Village?

Everything had seemed perfectly normal during the day, but once night came... it was as though the place had turned into another world.

Gulp.

Beside him, Zhao Hu swallowed, his voice trembling. "Young Master, I fear we've run into some ghostly folk horror... Damn it, that was terrifying. How about we wait until tomorrow before leaving?"

Holding the now-cold hand warmer, Xie An gradually calmed his thoughts. "Li Family Village is even more terrifying during the day than at night. We are not waiting. Go take down that yellow lantern over the gate and hang it on the carriage. We will leave tonight."

"Yes."

Zhao Hu was a trusted enforcer who had served the Xie Household for many years, a Bone Tempering martial artist. With several quick bounds, he rushed over, took down the lantern above the gate, and hung it on the carriage. "Young Master, get in quickly."

Xie An did not dare linger either. He quickly ran over and leaped into the carriage.

"Hyah!"

Zhao Hu snapped the reins and drove the horse swiftly toward the village entrance.

Still shaken inside the carriage, Xie An could not help lifting the curtain of the side window to look outside. The sky had become completely dark, and the empty streets were littered with reeking corpses lying in every direction.

The children he had seen chasing and playing earlier now lay stiffly on the ground, already rotten.

The wandering peddler who had been shouting to sell his wares was slumped over his stall, dead for many days.

Even the yellow-robed old Daoist who had performed the ritual at the village entrance had become a dried corpse wrapped in yellow robes!

The entire village was filled with a bleak, withered, oppressive atmosphere. The stench of rotting corpses struck them head-on, turning their stomachs.

Not one of the villagers who had bustled about during the day... had been alive. Every one of them was a corpse that had died long ago.

Only... the corpse of that grain-collecting tax official was nowhere to be seen at the village entrance!

"Zhao Hu, faster! Faster!"

How could Zhao Hu dare linger? He drove the horse as if it were flying.

Only after the carriage burst out of the village entrance and onto the official road did Xie An relax slightly. Looking back from afar, he saw a layer of dark red fog enveloping the entire Li Family Village.

Li Family Village was far too sinister.

Xie An held his chest, trying to calm his wildly pounding heart.

The sudden upheaval greatly awakened the vigilance buried deep in Xie An's heart.

The imperial court was corrupt, natural disasters struck frequently, and man-made calamities never ceased. Locust plagues and epidemics left the people unable to live, while resentment soared to the heavens...

That alone would have been bad enough, yet now there was also the sinister incident in Li Family Village.

I thought this was just an ordinary martial arts dynasty... I thought having a decent family fortune meant I could lie back and live comfortably for the rest of my life. But now it seemed... this world held unspeakable terrors!

With demons and ghosts around, no amount of money would be enough.

I finally transmigrated once. I cannot die again.

With that thought, Xie An squeezed his eyes shut.

When he opened them again, a red mirror that only he could see appeared before him. Several lines of text surfaced on its surface:

[Ten-Thousand Questions Martial Arts Model Lv1: Awaiting Activation]

[Host: Xie An]

[Gender: Male]

[Age: 16]

[Identity: Legitimate eldest son of Xie Zhengtang, salt merchant of Qingwu County]

[Qi and Blood: 0.8 (baseline for an adult male: 1)]

[Spirit: 0.9 (baseline for an adult male: 1)]

[Martial Arts Realm: None]

[Talent: None]

When he had just transmigrated here, this mirror had appeared.

It simply needed to be activated.

At a glance, it seemed like an AI large model similar to some Bao-something or Wen-something from his previous life. Except this Ten Thousand Questions was a large model specifically for martial arts.

Xie An looked at the dark mountain ranges outside, his brows tightly furrowed.

"The imperial court is corrupt, the world is rotten to the core, dried corpses hang from locust trees, Grain-Collecting Ghosts roam at night... I wonder if this martial arts large model can help me survive and make a living?"