When Su Yunkai came out of the yard, the villagers didn’t know what he was going to do. Lord Xu greeted him, having only heard the phrase “digging treasure,” which some other villagers nearby also heard. The two words quickly spread among the crowd. The people behind didn’t dare ask Su Yunkai, so they asked the kind-looking little gongzi who was walking behind.
Qin Fang didn’t know what was going on at all, but the pestering villagers prevented him from moving at all. His clothes were all pulled in multiple directions. He gave out two shouts, but nobody would let him be. Suddenly, someone broke through the walls of people, grabbed his hand and pulled him out, shouting, “Don’t pester the lord while a case is being handled.”
Bai Shui’s voice was loud and powerful. The villagers didn’t dare get entangled anymore, so they retreated. Qin Fang’s ears rang due to the noise, but he felt happy. As he was pulled out of the crowd by Bai Shui, he looked at the back of her neck with a smile. Suddenly, he saw her turn around with a glare. “How come such a big person like you can’t even push people away? You were so crowded that you cried out. Are you made of soft mud?”
Qin Fang’s eyes curved and he laughed, not at all annoyed. He noticed, though, that the palm on his wrist was a little rough. It didn’t look like a girl’s hand at all. His joy died down slightly. It made sense when he thought about it. In recent years, she had kept up the guise of cross-dressing. She didn’t apply any powder or ointment. She handled cases everywhere, whether under the scorching sun or in the piercing wind. In fact, it would have been stranger if her hands were still tender and smooth.
Seeing that Qin Fang kept on staring at her hand, Bai Shui hurriedly drew back and kept silent as she caught up to those in front.
The words “treasure digging” had exploded in the crowd, which also confused Ming Yue. Upon reflection, she vaguely guessed something and asked, “You think there is a treasure under the banyan tree?”
Su Yunkai shook his head. “Not underneath. Inside.”
“But the banyan tree is so big. It must’ve grown with a solid interior, right?”
“Do you remember that half-a-man-tall stone bricks were built around the trunk?”
Ming Yue was astounded. “It’s empty inside?”
“If I’ve guessed correctly, yes.”
As they talked, a group of people had already arrived at the village entrance under the monstrous banyan tree. Su Yunkai and Ming Yue stood underneath its lush growth. Apart from Zhu Changrong, everyone else stood three yards away, causing Zhu Changrong to get exasperated, “Where is there anything unearthly? It’s clearly all in your mind.”
Su Yunkai respected Zhu Changrong for still not believing in the seemingly paranormal events after these six months. He was only passing by, but Zhu Changrong, as the village head, had been stuck in this situation for a while. Still, he was not afraid. Instead, he rebuked the foolish villagers.
“Tear down the fence.”
At this command, Lord Xu was stunned. He was immensely flustered. “My lord, this tree can’t be touched.”
Su Yunkai knew that as a county magistrate[1], Lord Xu was diligent and conscientious, which could be evidenced by the files of their inspections on patrol. However, he was undeniably superstitious and timid. “Tear it down.”
Left without any other method, Lord Xu could only order the officers to take it down. As the officers approached the tree, the villagers sucked in cold air and continuously yelled that it was not okay. However, since Su Yunkai had given out the order, the officers did not stop. The fence that had obscured any view of the inside was demolished little by little, which eventually made the whole banyan tree reappear in front of everyone’s eyes.
Around the enormous trunk, there were many roots penetrating directly underground, like a tight wall guarding the center of the city. Some of the stones built around the trunk were scattered on the ground, but the stone wall still surrounded the bottom of the tree tightly.
Su Yunkai’s ink eyebrows tightened slightly, and he opened his mouth to say, “Remove the stone bricks.”
The villagers sighed repeatedly, not daring to stop them but also unwilling to come forward. Instead, they gathered together and watched silently.
Zhu Ankang and the other two also stood in front, but not anywhere near. An Dexing smiled. “It is true. Straight figures are unafraid of crooked shadows[2]. Is Lord Su really not afraid of getting sick again?”
Su Yunkai heard and turned to look in his direction. “I didn’t fall sick. I was poisoned. I was poisoned on purpose by someone.”
The crowd was in an uproar. Someone said, “Poisoning is totally different from being ill. The village head is half a doctor. How could he not see it?”
“I asked the doctor to inspect the poison. Apparently, it comes from a kind of tree that grows deep within the mountains. It is called guizheyan, otherwise known as blindfolded-by-the-ghosts. Its venom can make people fall into a coma. The symptoms appear to be similar to those of a common cold. This kind of poison won’t kill people. It’s painful, but in two or three days, the poison will disappear by itself.” Su Yunkai said, “The poison that all of us have been afflicted by throughout the past half month was, without a doubt, guizheyan. That is the strange disease.”
Soon after that, someone in the crowd suddenly came to a realization and agreed. As for the rest of the people, they remained dubious and conversed among themselves.
Su Yunkai said again, “Although I don’t know who committed the act of the poisoning, I’m sure that their purpose was to prevent people from going near the banyan tree.”
“But my lord, illness is one thing. What about those who died?”
“I have checked; the three people who died in the past six months were truly just accidents. Those deaths had nothing to do with the poisoners. However, someone intentionally made up the nursery rhyme using those unexpected deaths. The ghost sister’s nursery rhyme, in addition to the deaths and the people who continuously got sick, finally caused you all to build a fence under the banyan tree. As you distanced yourselves from the banyan tree, that person’s goal was achieved.”
The people still wouldn’t believe it, so Su Yunkai continued. “Miss ah’Wan committed suicide here half a year ago, but the time when the nursery rhyme and the people with strange diseases appeared was half a month ago. If it was true that Miss ah’Wan had grievances and couldn’t leave the earth, why did it take more than five months for her to come out and disturb the people?”
“Even if what the lord says is true, why did that person spend so much effort to keep us away from the banyan tree?”
Someone suddenly remembered the “treasure digging” that Su Yunkai had mentioned earlier. In a high-pitched voice, that person shrieked, “It must be that there’s some treasure hidden in the banyan tree!”
One stone creates thousands of waves. The braver villagers had even hurried forward to stare at the banyan tree as the stone wall was gradually removed, wanting to see if there was any treasure.
Noting their fear and excitement, Ming Yue suddenly understood what a certain phrase meant. It was said that people were willing to die for assets and birds for food. Indeed, even after a long period of fear, people suddenly lost their scruples just for the sake of unknown treasure.
“It seems that the banyan tree does indeed have a big gap, which is why the previous village head used stones to support the tree and keep it standing.”
“Is that so? Could it be that someone hid some valuable things in it?”
“Probably. Otherwise, why would they make up that nursery rhyme to scare us away?”
As the villagers spoke over each other, their eyes never left the trunk, nearly boring holes into the tree with their gazes.
Boom.
The officers used pickaxes to smash at the stone wall. The stone wall, which was supposed to be sturdy, started unexpectedly crumbling apart, even at the faintest pressure. The easiness with which it fell apart caused Su Yunkai’s heart to sink. He had already suspected that he was just one step behind.
There was an empty hole in the broken stone wall. It was so big that a grown person could climb inside, but it was empty.
Once again, the villagers went into an uproar.
Su Yunkai’s eyebrows twisted as he walked forward. Ming Yue also stepped forward to look. There was nothing inside the empty stump. She bent over to tap the mud on the ground, trying to see if there was something buried under it, but Su Yunkai stopped her. Turning to look, she heard him say, “There is nothing below. There was once a chest in the hole, but it has been moved to another place.”
Ming Yue was curious. “How do you know it was a chest?”
“The marks.”
Ming Yue looked again, more carefully this time. She noticed the drag marks on the ground. The mark clearly had four corners. It could be seen that it was dragged directly from the inside to the outside. The chest seemed to have been very heavy, so it left a long, deep mark where it had been dragged over the soil. Once it had been dragged out of the tree hole, the traces disappeared instantly. She looked up and asked, “It was carried away?”
“Yes. If I haven’t guessed incorrectly, it hasn’t been long since it was carried away. Perhaps . . . just last night, in fact.”
“How d’you know?”
Su Yunkai crouched to the side and grabbed a fistful of mud. The soil was still very dry and the traces were undisturbed. “There was a lot of movement when we demolished the stone wall just now. It couldn’t have taken a short moment to move this heavy box to another place. To do this so secretively, even in the middle of the night, such a big movement would have been noticed.”
Ming Yue’s shining eyes were as bright as the full moon. “Last night, with the exception of the children, the adults in the village went out to find me, so last night was the best opportunity. If it was done before then, the suspect didn’t need to continue singing nursery rhymes and make you sick, because there would be no worries at all. Because the chest was still there, they wanted to scare us away, but they never had a chance until last night…”
“Yes. There seems to have been at least three perpetrators.”
Ming Yue asked again, “Why?”
“The box is so heavy that one person can’t lift it, so there should’ve been at least two. In order to have two people carrying such a large box without others discovering the act, there has to have been a watchman. Therefore, I’m guessing that there were at least three people. Or at least, to ship the box inside, there needed to be three. Perhaps the movement last night only required two of them. After all, the watchman wasn’t necessary. With so many villagers returning together, the perpetrators could’ve easily heard the noise from a distance.”
The two of them had this conservation in whispered tones as they stood in front of the empty tree stump. No one else could hear them, especially not the villagers who were blocked by the yamen officers. They could only watch as the two of them squatted there and muttered.
Ming Yue twisted her fingers and thought for a moment. Suddenly, she had a flash of inspiration. She couldn’t help swallowing as she whispered in his ear.
The whispering of her soft breath caused Su Yunkai’s ears and heart to itch. Just a short moment later, she left his shoulder, waiting for his reply with wide eyes. Su Yunkai suppressed his thoughts and said, “Although I cannot be sure, I doubt those people are bad at heart.”
“Mhm.” Ming Yue didn’t rebuke him. “If they were bad, they wouldn’t make up the nursery rhyme to scare people away. Instead, they would’ve just disposed of them. This would be far more effective than using the idea of a female ghost to scare them.” She raised her chin. “But now, there aren’t any clues. You don’t have enough evidence to prove who those people are.”
Su Yunkai was not in a hurry. He said with a smile, “It doesn’t matter who those people are. As long as we can determine what the things here were, it may not be difficult to find those people.”
Using backtracking to investigate the case was another tactic.
“Without any clues, how do we know where to start?”
Su Yunkai’s tone was a little heavy as he replied, “We should start investigating from events half a month ago.”
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[1] The author actually uses the words parental officer here, instead of county magistrate. The two words have identical meaning, but parental officer more specifically implies the closeness of county magistrates to the people, such that they are like the people’s parents. ↩
[2] Basically means that because Su Yunkai trusts in himself, he is unafraid of mishaps occurring. Other translations: A straight foot is not afraid of a crooked shoe; a clean head wants no washing; a clear conscience laughs at false accusation; a good anvil does not fear the hammer. ↩
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A Hint of Spring 