Investigation

"Huh? There's no ghost?"

"The county yamen knows there's no ghost here?"

"How do they know?"

"Just because you say there's no ghost, that makes it so?"

Zhang Xuezhou remembered how everyone had still been racking their brains over how to catch the ghost last night, yet in the space of a single night, things had changed dramatically.

He looked at the injured man who had appeared in the room, unable for the moment to believe he had been sent by the county yamen to help with their work.

But the bailiff named Li Shuang hadn't been skilled enough and had nearly been hacked to death by Rong Li.

"That's how it is!" Constable Li Shuang spread his hands. "At least, the instructions I received were to settle the haunting at Ten-Li Slope as soon as possible, then investigate Wang Fu'an's death!"

Li Shuang looked rather dejected.

His ghost act had been exposed on the spot, and he still hadn't discovered the cause of Wang Fu'an's death.

In short, he was now badly injured and bedridden. He barely had the strength to walk and could only stay put and recover.

"So there's nothing left for us to do?" Zhang Xuezhou asked doubtfully.

Since the county yamen had determined there was no ghost at Ten-Li Slope, the whole basis for what they were doing no longer held.

Wang Fu'an hadn't been killed by a ghost, so they hadn't harmed anyone with a fake painting, and there was no need for them to take ten blows from the rod at the county yamen, either.

"That's not for me to decide," Li Shuang said. "The instructions I received don't conflict with the county yamen's ruling!"

"What do you mean?" Rong Tianding asked. "If we leave now, are you still going to seize me and give me a beating, even though there's no ghost at Ten-Li Slope?"

"I think you're right," Li Shuang said with a nod. "If you can't help the county yamen settle this matter, there's a ninety-nine percent chance you'll get beaten!"

"Heavens, I've been wronged! Who'll clear my name? The county yamen is persecuting an innocent man!"

Rong Tianding cried out a few times, his face mournful.

The information Li Shuang had brought them in private didn't conflict with the county yamen's ruling.

If they couldn't solve the county yamen's problem, even no ghost would become a ghost.

It wasn't up to them to decide, but the endless voices of the people.

As long as there was a ghost in people's hearts, even if Dragon Gate Village had no ghost, it would still be haunted. It would keep people living in fear and might even force the villagers to move away.

What they had to do was get rid of that ghost in people's hearts.

"You can only cooperate with me to finish this," Li Shuang said, enduring the pain.

"Then how about you go holler for a while in the middle of the night again? I'll hit you a little more lightly this time," Rong Li said with a frown.

"I can't do that anymore," Li Shuang said with a headache. "You stabbed me, and now I can't even beat the dogs at the village entrance. If I go hollering at night again, I'll probably be exposed and cause even bigger problems."

The first time, the villagers might have been so worried that they hid at home and didn't dare look, but once they grew used to it, there was a chance they would investigate the second time.

Li Shuang thought there was a good chance his mission would fail.

Besides, he was injured and couldn't run away after taking a beating.

"Then have someone else come," Rong Li said.

"I'm the best fighter in the county yamen," Li Shuang said helplessly. "The other fellows are just big and strong. They've never studied martial arts, and even with a knife, they couldn't beat a dog."

"Then there's no way I can pretend to be a ghost in the middle of the night," Rong Li said with a frown. "With a voice like mine, nobody would believe I was a ghost!"

Everyone felt there had been heaps upon heaps of fake ghosts lately. Daoist Mu had finished his act, and the yamen had picked up where he left off, making them question life itself for a moment.

But they still had their own problem to solve, and that didn't conflict with the yamen's efforts to settle the haunting.

"Don't you think the most important thing is to find the real killer?" Jia Zhiyuan asked quietly. "Even if we put on a grand ghost-catching show, if that killer strikes again, all our acting will have been for nothing!"

"That's right," Li Shuang said with a nod. "I originally intended to investigate after the show was over, once you'd left and the villagers had let down their guard. Now I can only ask you to help make some inquiries!"

"We're not good at solving cases," Rong Tianding said, waving his hand in refusal.

"Solving a case isn't difficult," Li Shuang said, shaking his head. "Once you're certain ghosts and gods aren't causing trouble, the reason for a case is no more than some grudge or tangled affair. Just ask who Wang Fu'an usually had conflicts with, and you'll have a pretty good idea who the real killer is!"

"It's that simple?" Rong Tianding asked in surprise.

"How complicated did you think it was?" Li Shuang said with a smile. "Could someone have traveled twenty or thirty li just to kill Wang Fu'an?"

"You never know," Rong Tianding said. "I've heard storytellers speak of heroes who traveled a thousand li to take someone's head..."

"It's not that far-fetched," Li Shuang said, shaking his head. "Wang Fu'an was just an ordinary man. He couldn't have gotten into a feud with someone a thousand li away. Besides, the haunting at Ten-Li Slope has everyone living in fear. What outsider would come running to Dragon Gate Village?"

"You mean?"

"There's a ninety percent chance the culprit is a villager, and he must have had a grudge against Wang Fu'an. That's why he used the water ghost's name to take his life in the Dragon Gate River!"

Li Shuang briefly explained his reasoning for solving the case. As he laid it out point by point, everyone nodded repeatedly, feeling that what he said made sense.

The county yamen knew the truth about the haunting, which was like having seen the hidden cards. Working backward to solve the case was naturally much easier.

"As long as you help the county yamen this time, not only can you clear your names and escape punishment, you can also use the ghost-driving affair to make your reputations soar. You'll be able to carry on selling those immortal paintings in the future," Li Shuang said. "You won't lose out!"

"I regret selling immortal paintings. I hardly made any money, and I've brought a whole heap of trouble down on myself!"

Rong Tianding gave a mournful cry. He thought he would have to be careful selling paintings in the future, or even change trades as soon as he could.

Walk by the river often enough, and how could your shoes stay dry?

This time he had a chance to escape punishment, but he might not be so lucky next time.

But never mind the future; first, they had to get through the trouble before them.

After discussing it for a while, everyone went out separately to make inquiries.

After Constable Li Shuang's ghostly cries that night, the fear of haunting in Dragon Gate Village had surged once more. Quite a few people were coming to the village chief's place, and many of them looked at Rong Li and the others.

That made it easy for them to mingle with the villagers of Dragon Gate Village.

"Wang Fu'an was an honest man. It's a pity he died so young!"

"If you do nothing to burden your conscience by day, you won't fear a ghost knocking at your door at midnight. A ghost took his life, so I'm afraid he might not have been as honest as he looked!"

"I heard that when Wang Fu'an was herding his sheep, he let them chew Wang Baoli's grass to shreds!"

"The grass turned yellow after autumn began. Sheep don't like eating dry grass, so I'd say he deliberately let them graze on it!"

"He definitely did it on purpose!"

"He only looked honest on the surface!"

"It wasn't just Wang Baoli's family. His sheep ate a big patch of our vegetables too! My wife and his wife shouted insults at each other for quite a while. Later, we pulled up a big pile of thornbushes for a fence, and only then did we manage to keep his dozen or so sheep out!"

It wasn't difficult to ask around the village for the relevant gossip.

In only a short time, everyone had found people who had conflicts with Wang Fu'an.

But getting the culprit to confess would be difficult.

Zhang Xuezhou watched Wang Baoli from a distance. The man looked perfectly ordinary, not at all like a murderer.

But Wang Baoli had indeed recently had a conflict with Wang Fu'an, and there was a considerable possibility that he had killed him.