The Truth Behind Ten-Li Slope

"Ten strokes! Ten strokes that'll leave me half-paralyzed and covered in my own piss and shit!"

After leaving the yamen, Rong Tianding was deathly pale, his face full of panic.

He had intended to follow the example of Daoist Mu from the Universal Cloud Daoist Temple, set up an altar and perform a ritual, then use some little wooden figures to bluff his way through. But the county yamen actually wanted him to catch a ghost, and someone would inspect and verify his work.

That left Rong Tianding with little confidence. He felt as though all the yamen's great wooden staves would fall on his backside at once.

He dared to fool ordinary villagers, but even if he had ten times the guts, he wouldn't dare deceive the county yamen.

He wasn't guilty of any serious crime to begin with. If he really produced a fake ghost and tried to fool the county yamen, Rong Tianding thought there was a very good chance he'd be beaten.

"Cousin, even if you do get beaten, at least you'll get one of your wishes," Zhang Xuezhou said comfortingly.

"There's an upside?" Rong Tianding asked in surprise.

"If they beat you that badly, I reckon you won't need to slaughter pigs at the East Market for half a year or more. You can stay home and study in peace!"

"Then I'd rather slaughter pigs every day than take that beating!"

Rong Tianding shook his head repeatedly, feeling he couldn't accept the life he'd have after the beating.

"Come on, come on! We'll slaughter a few pigs, then go catch the ghost!"

Hearing that Rong Tianding was willing to slaughter pigs, Rong Li felt that nothing in the world was too hard for a person who set their mind to it. Now that Rong Tianding had finally set his mind to slaughtering pigs, she felt that if they found the ghost and beat it to death sooner, everything would be happy and harmonious.

But Rong Li had her doubts about how to kill a ghost.

In fact, she had never even seen one in her life.

"I'll take two buckets of pig blood over to Ten-Li Slope in a bit, so the head of the Rong household can use them when the time comes," Li Erlang said.

"Then you'd better hurry, so you don't end up traveling after dark," Zhu Dan said.

"I'll set off as soon as I've collected two buckets of pig blood," Li Erlang said.

"Then we'll take care of the rest!"

Hearing Rong Li's instructions, everyone spoke up in turn, volunteering to handle the various tasks needed to keep the pork stall running.

"Should we go find Daoist Mu first?" Zhang Xuezhou suggested.

He followed behind them, feeling that no matter how he looked at it, their group was utterly ill-suited to catching ghosts.

Judging by how Rong Li hadn't even entered the house that night while holding a pig-slaughtering knife, she wasn't capable of killing a ghost. At most, she could make ghosts and evil spirits shrink back.

Of course, Zhang Xuezhou couldn't catch ghosts.

By all accounts, yin creatures mostly liked to come out at night, and nighttime was when he least liked to move. He couldn't take part in such a thing.

Besides, Zhang Xuezhou didn't have the ability to catch ghosts.

Professional work called for a professional. Zhang Xuezhou thought asking Daoist Mu for help would be a more reliable option.

After all, the old Daoist was a cultivator and possessed some abilities ordinary people lacked.

"That old Daoist nearly choked to death on smoke last time. I'm afraid he can barely walk, so there's no way he can come catch ghosts with us," Rong Tianding said.

"He performed a ritual at Ten-Li Slope before, so he might know something about it. It can't hurt to ask him first," Zhang Xuezhou said.

"Zhou'er is right!"

Rong Li nodded.

She was rash, but not stupid.

Considering that they had saved Daoist Mu before, the Daoist probably wouldn't drop a stone on them while they were down a well.

Asking Daoist Mu about it might accordingly prove of some benefit.

Pressed by the yamen, the group had no choice but to rush back to the East Market to slaughter pigs, then rush out of the city.

"My lord, word has come from the Northern Border prefect. Jin Chang, a subordinate of the King of Huainan, passed through while apprehending an important criminal and took some food along the way to stave off hunger!"

In the yamen, Lord Bao set down the brush he had been using to review official documents and looked at Adviser Li, who had received the message by falcon.

"So the matter at Ten-Li Slope had something to do with Jin Chang?" Lord Bao asked.

"Exactly." Adviser Li nodded. "The Northern Border prefect says he has already received compensation from the King of Huainan. It will be distributed to the affected areas in a few days. He needs us to report the details quickly so the disaster relief funds can be allocated!"

"Ten-Li Slope lost sixteen pigs and three oxen in a single night. Who was Jin Chang apprehending that needed to eat so much food at once?" Lord Bao asked, puzzled.

"I don't know, my lord!"

Adviser Li shook his head repeatedly.

Jin Chang of the Yin-Yang School's Nine People Sect might not have been known throughout the world, but he was indeed extremely famous, one of the top practitioners under the King of Huainan.

His strength was in no way inferior to that of the imperial court's top officials.

Even someone like Lord Bao, who held an official court post, could only gaze at his back from afar, to say nothing of Adviser Li.

He could hardly guess whom such a person had apprehended or what he had done.

Considering Jin Chang had acted on their territory, it was already quite courteous of the King of Huainan's Household to send compensation.

If the King of Huainan's Household had ignored the matter or even given them no further notice at all, there would have been nothing they could do.

The King of Huainan's Household had shown them this courtesy not for the Hibiscus City county magistrate's sake, but out of respect for Grand General Li of the Northern Border Military Region.

Having shown them courtesy, the King of Huainan's Household naturally hoped others would show it the same courtesy.

Whatever Jin Chang was doing in the Northern Border, or whatever it involved, the King of Huainan's Household evidently hoped that, so long as it did not harm the Northern Border Military Region, the local authorities would neither hold him accountable nor investigate.

Lord Bao's question was hard to answer, and Adviser Li had no ability to answer it.

He and Jin Chang were like people from two different worlds. He simply couldn't guess the motive behind Jin Chang's actions, nor could he easily guess what Jin Chang had done or what person with a huge appetite he had apprehended.

"In that case, the disappearance of the livestock at Ten-Li Slope had nothing to do with a yin creature feeding on them and harming people," Lord Bao said with a frown.

"That should be the case." Adviser Li nodded. "It seems we don't need to hire a ghost-catching practitioner to investigate Ten-Li Slope. That saves us some money!"

"If there was no ghost at Ten-Li Slope, why did Wang Fu'an lose his life?"

Lord Bao picked up his ink-stained brush.

When the facts did not match their conjecture, a death case plainly stood out.

"Order Li Shuang to take his blade and investigate Dragon Gate Village at Ten-Li Slope. If he finds any clues, he is to report them at once," Lord Bao said.

"Yes, my lord!"

Adviser Li acknowledged the order and hurried out.

"Damn it!"

Lord Bao stared at the bamboo slips for several seconds.

After a long while, he wrote the two characters for "Jin Chang" beneath an official document, then drew a circle around them and put a cross through it.

After spending so long making all sorts of preparations to catch a ghost, Lord Bao had not expected it to be a false alarm.

That meant all the trouble he had taken over the past ten-odd days had been for nothing.

Of course, he didn't like yin creatures appearing in the territory under his jurisdiction.

But he liked this sort of fruitless toil even less.

"Damn it!"

Lord Bao cursed twice in succession.

For a moment, he couldn't quite tell whether his curse was directed at Jin Chang or Jin Chang's master, the King of Huainan.

In the eyes of those great figures, there was no place for petty officials like them, nor did they care whether such officials were affected.

Yet in the end, they were the ones who had to clean up the mess.

Whether or not there was a ghost at Ten-Li Slope, the people wouldn't simply believe whatever the authorities said.

This wasn't something he could settle with a few words.

News of the haunting had spread far and wide, and after Wang Fu'an's death, people had become even more alarmed. The matter needed to be resolved quickly.

Lord Bao's gaze shifted. When his thoughts turned to Daoist Mu, who had dealt with all manner of monsters and demons in the past, he suddenly remembered that the Daoist had been caught in a great fire several days earlier and nearly burned to death. He probably couldn't perform a ritual.

That left him no choice but to consider Rong Tianding and the others who had swindled people by selling fake paintings in Hibiscus City.