Chapter 81

The Zou Mansion in the small town wasn’t among the wealthiest households, but they had enough money to hire maids and manservants. In any case, they barely qualified as a proper landed family.

Tao Chuyi finished reading the storybook, her head buzzing with all sorts of ghost-exorcism rituals. She mimicked them to perfection, and the Zou Mansion servants never suspected a thing about her state of mind.

The two of them followed the servants back to the Zou Mansion. In the blink of an eye, Tao Chuyi had transformed into the secular disciple of a Maoshan Taoist, while Nangong Yunshang inexplicably ended up being treated as the master’s attendant.

She couldn’t fathom where she looked like an attendant.

Tao Chuyi rattled off the items needed to set up the altar and perform the ritual just as described in the book. The Zou Mansion servants immediately bustled about to prepare everything, taking her every word as gospel.

A six-foot peachwood table, an incense burner filled with sandalwood, a copper basin holding paper money, offerings arranged on either side—two taels of peach longevity cakes, three qian of almonds, a pig’s head, and a handful of rice.

Tao Chuyi clutched the peachwood sword, spinning left three times and then right three times, mumbling incantations under her breath.

Nangong Yunshang: “…”

When would this farce end?

Everyone from the Zou Mansion had gathered in the courtyard. Old Madam Zou sat in a chair, with Young Master Zou and his big-bellied wife standing to either side. The maids and manservants hovered behind them.

Suddenly, Tao Chuyi grabbed a handful of ash and tossed it into the copper basin. Flames erupted in a spectacular burst, drawing cries of alarm from the crowd around her. This only solidified their faith in her identity.

“Master, has the ghost been exorcised?” Master Zou of the Zou Mansion asked cautiously.

Tao Chuyi cracked open one eye. “The yin energy is too heavy. One ritual can only suppress it for now. Perform two more at midnight tomorrow and the day after, and it will be completely banished.”

Nangong Yunshang’s eyelid twitched. How had she missed that detail? Had Chuyi read the entire book? If only she put that kind of effort into proper studies, she’d have memorized the Four Books and Five Classics by now.

The Zou family treated her instructions like an imperial decree, obeying without question. They not only prepared a comfortable guest room but also laid out a lavish feast.

Once the door was shut, Tao Chuyi revealed her true nature. She pounced onto Nangong Yunshang, grinning like an idiot.

“Wasn’t Chuyi awesome?”

“Awesome. Chuyi was especially awesome.”

Nangong Yunshang sighed. Right now, no one was there to protect them, and Chuyi’s performance was unreliable at best. If they were found out, they’d be chased off with clubs.

“Chuyi, what if the ghost acts up again two days from now?”

Tao Chuyi pondered for a moment, then declared solemnly, “Run.”

Nangong Yunshang took a deep breath and gave her a thumbs-up in sincere admiration.

Before the ritual the next day, Tao Chuyi quietly dragged an old mam back with her. No one knew where she’d nabbed the woman from, but the old mam looked over fifty, paranoid and not entirely right in the head.

“Chuyi, why did you grab her?”

Tao Chuyi scratched her head. “I need to find out who the ghost is.”

Nangong Yunshang teased her. “Can’t you just perform the ritual and ask the ghost yourself?”

“The stuff in the book is fake. There aren’t any ghosts.”

Faced with Tao Chuyi’s frank gaze, Nangong Yunshang thought to herself, You’ve really been corrupted by bad influences.

The old mam muttered to herself but refused to speak no matter how they pressed her. Unexpectedly, Tao Chuyi didn’t threaten her—instead, she disguised herself as a ghost to scare her.

The old mam let out a shriek and dropped to the ground. “This servant didn’t mean to! It was Old Madam and Young Master who gave the orders. Eldest Miss, please don’t come for this servant. It’s just that you weren’t a boy.”

Nangong Yunshang sensed something off and quickly asked, “Your lady gave birth to a daughter before? What happened to her?”

The old mam shook her head frantically. “This servant doesn’t know! Doesn’t know!”

Seeing they could get nothing more out of her, Tao Chuyi raised her hand and knocked the old mam out cold, then hauled her back the way they’d come.

Under cover of night, the two slipped through the Zou Mansion courtyards. The place wasn’t large—just a front yard, middle yard, and back yard connected together.

No one was about. It was pitch black everywhere; they were all too scared of ghosts to venture out.

That’s when they heard chanting coming from the dry well in the back yard. It was very close to where Crazy Old Mam lived.

Tao Chuyi instinctively shielded Nangong Yunshang. Pressing forward, they caught sight of Crazy Old Mam perched on the well’s edge, singing under the harsh moonlight. It sounded like a nursery rhyme, but one they’d never heard before.

“One, two, three, four.”

“Southeast, northwest, purple qi from the east!”

Nangong Yunshang frowned. It didn’t sound like a nursery rhyme anymore—like some demonic incantation from an evil cult.

“Old Mam.”

Tao Chuyi’s shout startled Crazy Old Mam badly. She scrambled away on all fours.

Did she look that frightening?

Before they could get to the bottom of it, lanterns suddenly flared to life elsewhere.

“The lady’s gone into labor!”

“Quick, fetch the midwife!”

The maids scrambled in a panic, while the manservants dashed out of the mansion. Madam Zou was only a little over seven months along; giving birth now counted as a severe premature delivery.

The two women stepped aside. Basin after basin of bloody water was carried out. The maids kept crying out that the lady was having a difficult birth, hemorrhaging badly, that she wasn’t going to make it.

Old Madam Zou prayed to the heavens from the walkway. “Please bless our Zou family with a baby boy.”

When the midwife arrived, she first exchanged a few words with Old Madam Zou before entering the birthing room.

Moments later, the midwife burst out covered in blood. “Old Madam! Young Master Zou, the lady bled out and died!”

Young Master Zou immediately covered his face and sobbed.

Old Madam Zou asked frantically, “What about my grandson?”

“One corpse, two lives—the girl was a stillborn.”

Old Madam Zou cursed. “Another damn girl. Good riddance—dead and done with.”

With that, she pounded her son’s back. “You useless thing. One wife’s gone; we’ll just get you another. You think we can’t find you a new bride?”

Young Master Zou choked through his tears. “But she was so gentle and virtuous. She did everything I said.”

“What’s the use of gentle and virtuous if she can’t give you a son? She’s worthless.”

Old Madam Zou glared at her son in disgust and stormed off.

The midwife hurried away from the Zou Mansion. The next day, Madam Zou and the little miss were hastily sealed in coffins and buried.

Tao Chuyi hadn’t even performed her third ritual yet when the new bride was carried through the gates in a grand wedding sedan. The wedding and the funerals were only a day apart. Rumor had it the new bride had been sold to the Zou Mansion by her drunken wastrel of a father, so there hadn’t even been time for proper betrothal gifts or a wedding ceremony—they’d rushed her in.

“What kind of family is this?”

Nangong Yunshang found the whole thing absurd.

Tao Chuyi spat, “Not people at all!”

“Right—worse than animals.”

Nangong Yunshang’s repertoire of curses was limited; it didn’t satisfy her in the least and only left her fuming.

Because of the wedding, the ritual was postponed by a day. That night, red candles blazed in the new bridal chamber. The new bride was much younger than Young Master Zou.

Watching as the lights in the bridal room went out, Nangong Yunshang blew out her own candle. Out of sight, out of mind.

A bloodcurdling scream suddenly pierced the night. It came from the bridal room.

By the time everyone rushed over, Young Master Zou’s body had gone cold. A gaping hole in his chest still oozed blood, a sharp dagger plunged straight through his heart. The room held nothing but the corpse—no trace of the new bride.

“My son! Oh, my son!”

Old Madam Zou collapsed to the ground. The maids struggled to help her up but couldn’t budge her.

In the span of just three days, both Young Master Zou and his wife had died, taking their unborn little miss with them. The second wife and her drunkard father had vanished without a trace, and even the midwife couldn’t be found.

Only then did Nangong Yunshang piece it together. Someone had carefully plotted this to wipe out the entire Zou family. Old Madam Zou was next.

“Old Madam, please take your medicine. The young master won’t come back no matter how much you grieve.”

Xiao Lan, the old lady’s trusted maid, soothed her. Sometimes her words carried more weight than those of her own son.

Sure enough, Old Madam Zou calmed down enough to drink the medicine. With her watching over the old lady, the other maids withdrew.

Tao Chuyi pulled Nangong Yunshang to the dry well and circled it once. Then she stomped and kicked at the dirt beneath her feet.

“Chuyi, what are you doing?”

Nangong Yunshang had no idea until, amid the churned-up soil, a bone poked through.

“This is…”

Tao Chuyi stared down at it for a moment, then dashed off for a shovel. She dug up all the surrounding dirt, revealing something horrifying beneath.

Red strings stretched out in the four cardinal directions, each tied to a tiny skeleton. There were three of them, all child-sized.

As they examined the bones, Crazy Old Mam emerged. She was muttering to herself as usual, but this time she wasn’t afraid. Instead, she knelt before the remains and cackled, “Second Miss, Third Miss, Fourth Miss—time to eat.”

She pulled out crumbs from a steamed bun and scattered them over the bones.

Nangong Yunshang shoved her aside. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“This servant is feeding the young misses. Old Madam said they all need to eat their fill to bless the Zou family with thriving heirs.”

Crazy Old Mam laughed maniacally. “Old Madam said it: girls get killed, boys bring joy. That’s why all four young misses were buried here.”

Tao Chuyi pointed to the empty spot. “One missing. Four misses, but only three.”

Nangong Yunshang noticed it too—only three sets of bones. “What about the other young miss?”

“Eldest Miss ran away.”

Crazy Old Mam knelt in the center among the corpses. “Fourteen years ago, this was the first time this servant was ordered to bury one. Eldest Miss suddenly came back to life and started wailing. This servant couldn’t bear it, so she threw her out of the mansion to fend for herself.”

The two women exchanged glances. So the eldest miss was still alive.

Though Crazy Old Mam was quite mad, she remembered the events clearly.

Nangong Yunshang pressed her advantage. “Has anyone new come to the mansion in recent years? Especially any women?”

Crazy Old Mam thought for a long while. “Three years ago, three little maids came—about eleven or twelve years old. But one later died of illness, another fell to her death. Only one was left. And now there are… four maids in the mansion.”

Tao Chuyi glanced back casually and pointed behind them, shouting, “Fire!”

Nangong Yunshang spun around in an instant. Sure enough, flames were shooting skyward from Old Madam’s bedroom, thick smoke roiling in the air.

“The house is on fire!”

“Quick, put out the fire!”

The servants flew into a panic, dashing back and forth to haul water and fight the blaze.

Suddenly, Crazy Old Mam let out a burst of laughter. The sound was shrill and chilling, amplified by the flickering firelight.

In the blink of an eye, she drew her dagger and plunged it into her own abdomen before collapsing to the ground.

“My sins are redeemed.”

Tao Chuyi leaped into the dirt pit and checked her breathing. She was already gone.

Meanwhile, the fire raged fiercer on the other side. Tao Chuyi grabbed Nangong Yunshang’s hand and fled the Zou Mansion. Glancing back, they saw the entire estate engulfed in a sea of flames.

Eaves crashed down, beams toppled, and the inferno lit up the night sky—as if it meant to bury decades of wickedness beneath the ashes.

Tao Chuyi blinked. “That Xiao Lan is the eldest daughter, right?”

Nangong Yunshang nodded. In this saga of vengeance, the Zou family’s eldest daughter and Crazy Old Mam had joined forces to bring down the Zou Mansion. It was the fate they deserved.

A moment later, Tao Chuyi seemed to remember something.

“They haven’t given us the silver yet.”

How were they supposed to buy birthday gifts now?