Chapter 31: There is a faint sound of thunder
The ninth day of the second month, the hour of Chou.
Yang Wei De didn't know what had happened for a moment, and the prince consort didn't seem to have recovered enough consciousness to tell the story.
Fortunately, Shen Kuo knew some of the details, so he told Yang Shaoqing all the key points, including that the stolen jade axe was at the scene, the terrified expression of the prince consort, and his words: "It was the emperor of the Zhao family who caused your family to be destroyed..."
This sentence is extremely strange, but if combined with the story told by Taoist Li and the damaged screen and palace lanterns at the scene, it seems to be associated with a horrifying story. Although Shen Kuo was reluctant to imply the existence of supernatural powers, he could only piece together this context for the time being.
Yang Wei De glanced at the prince consort who was sobbing like a baby not far away and seemed to be still emotional, so he walked into the study and picked up the jade axe from the ground.
"It seems that the prophecy has come true." Yang Wei De said solemnly.
"Where should it be?"
"Alas... the capital city is now in chaos. And it involves old events in the palace, which can be called a dispute."
"This explanation is a bit far-fetched, isn't it? Maybe this jade axe was just placed here by someone to create mystery?"
"Cunzhong, at this point, you are still obsessed and think that all this is caused by someone behind the scenes? This is clearly a ghost playing tricks on people."
"Students don't dare to be obsessed, but they always feel that something is very strange."
"That's right. Since it's related to the prophecy, this matter is within our responsibility. You should appease the prince consort first, and we will ask about it in detail later."
"One more thing. I think we should first take an inventory of everyone in the mansion, including the list of guests who came in last night."
"Well, since it's important, you should do it quickly, otherwise that black old Bao will cause trouble again." Yang Wei De obviously felt that these things were actually useless and could only be used to deal with Old Bao.
Shen Kuo asked the housekeeper who was also panicking. Although there were many guests last night, the city gates were closed when the banquet ended. However, all the guests who came were wealthy and noble, and most of them had manors and villas outside the city. They all had their own places to go, so only a dozen ladies from Baifan Building stayed in the mansion. The ladies were gone now. Their carriages were all outside the back wall. They were gone now. They were probably scared away. As for the city gates not opening, no one knew where they went. Maybe they were waiting outside the city gates for them to open.
Half an hour later, the prince consort finally recovered and could communicate. Yang Wei De asked about the whole incident in a room in the prince consort's mansion, while Shen Kuo took notes. He had not seen Xiao Ping yet, but he only heard from the housekeeper that the group of women got on the carriage and left, and no one was injured. It seemed that the only victim of this incident was the prince consort. This also made him feel a little relieved.
The prince consort calmed down a bit and started to tell the story. His new story enriched the horror story. The prince consort said that he saw the lotus on the screen in full bloom, and there seemed to be a delicate woman dancing in the lotus stamens. Then the flower buds split open, and the dancing flower demon came out of the screen and hit his neck with something white. Obviously, he didn't see clearly what the murder weapon was, and he hadn't heard the story of Li Cheng'an, so he naturally didn't accept the hint and made preconceived assumptions.
The hint the prince consort received came from the painting, so he naturally guessed that the dancing figure in the pistil was the wronged soul of Lady Huarui. According to him, before the flower demon appeared, Lady Huarui's suicide poem appeared on the screen, and a soft voice read it aloud.
He muttered in a mysterious way, not sure if it was really the banshee who recited it, because the ethereal voice seemed to appear only in his mind.
As for the appearance of the flower demon that rushed out of the screen, the prince consort described it with certainty: it was exactly the same as the portrait he had seen in the palace, except that its face was pale and very scary.
Yang Weide believed that if he told the prince consort the information that Taoist Li knew, even if the prince consort did not look very smart, he would guess who was using ghosts to harm him sooner or later, which would inevitably be a tricky situation. Therefore, even if someone wanted to expose this layer, this person would not be him. He decided to stop at that point.
Old Yang stopped talking, and the prince consort also sat there in a daze. The bandage on his chest began to bleed slightly again. The edge of the jade axe was still quite sharp. If it hit the neck, it could still kill someone, but the female ghost missed. In any case, the flower demon transformed by Lady Huarui was not so ruthless and accurate, or maybe she didn't intend to kill anyone, but just wanted to spread this horror story through the prince consort's mouth, so that the capital would fall into an even more crazy dance of demons. The seventh line of the prophecy poem: The birth of disasters, fighting and arguing over wine and food, seems to be difficult to be involved with what happened today, but when things have come to this point, the folks will naturally force the prophecy and the story to be involved, and they will inevitably modify the rationality, which is almost inevitable.
"Is that female demon like a human?" Shen Kuo asked, breaking the silence.
This question brought the prince consort back to fear. He stared at Shen Kuo blankly, his pupils beginning to dilate .
"Her hair covered her face... Her face looked very pale. As white as paper. Didn't you ask about her appearance just now?"
"No, I'm not asking about your appearance, but... your height."
"Is it also the average height of a woman?"
The prince consort did not stutter when he was deeply frightened. He probably only stuttered when he was extremely angry.
"Because, the female ghost we just talked about was actually dancing on the pistil. If it was like that, it obviously wouldn't be too big. But when she tore open the screen and came out, she was the size of an ordinary woman?"
Yang Wei De coughed lightly. He felt that Shen Kuo was wasting his time investigating the minutiae of the underworld, but this question brought back some memories for the prince consort.
"She danced among the hibiscus flowers first. She was still very small at that time." The prince consort stretched out his hand and laid it flat, as if the flower fairy was small enough to dance on his palm. "Then the screen caught fire, and then...then she broke through the screen and jumped over. I saw her red shoes. Her hands were very pale and very strong."
"Then what?"
"Then she stabbed the thing towards my throat. I dodged it and it slashed my chest, knocking over the lantern."
"And then the palace lanterns started burning?"
"That's right. Thinking about it now, it's scary. If I hadn't dodged, wouldn't I have been killed?" The prince consort touched his neck subconsciously.
Shen Kuo always felt that something was wrong. The plot before the female ghost appeared was so detailed, with the changing of poems, the blooming of stamens, and the dancing in the center of the flower. But her final attack missed. It looked more like she deliberately knocked over the palace lantern by mistake, causing it to catch fire and thus destroying the evidence.
"General Yun Hui, you and I just saw the lotus on the screen. It wasn't completely burned, but it's still the same, budding but not fully bloomed."
"I opened my eyes wide and saw clearly, it was clearly blooming like a real flower, the buds slowly unfolding layer by layer, the innermost layer was the dancing flower fairy. Not only the stamens, but also the dark clouds in the painting were spreading, and I could faintly hear thunder coming from the painting. It must be some kind of magic used by the wronged soul?"
The son-in-law looked at Yang Wei De, and Old Yang had no answer. He did not study the supernatural, that was Taoist Li's specialty. His expertise came from the "Book of Changes", which was derived from the speculation on the alternation of yin and yang, and the summary of the transformation of qi and momentum as well as attack and defense. In his works, the word "ghost" usually did not appear.
"Witchcraft? Taoist Priest Li will come tomorrow."
"Sir Yang, the screen is contaminated by wronged souls. Why don't we burn it?" said the prince consort.
"Absolutely not, the evidence must be kept." Old Yang thought, if he really burned it, wouldn't he be skinned alive by Old Bao?
"I'm afraid that the wronged ghost will come out again."
"We'll move it tomorrow."
"How about we move out now? Why not move to your house first? It's not far away anyway."
"As for this evidence, it has to stay at the scene for the time being. Don't worry, the sky will be bright soon. Those evil spirits are afraid of the three lights and will not dare to come out..."
"Prince Consort, did anyone enter the mansion last night?" Shen Kuo couldn't help but interrupt them. "I think we need to record the people who enter and leave the mansion."
"You can ask the accountant to copy the list."
" Has anyone touched the burnt palace lantern and the four-fold screen? I saw that the placement of the screen is somewhat different from what I saw yesterday?"
"Yesterday's banquet was originally held in the name of admiring palace lanterns and screens, so naturally people came in and out, and some people moved around a few times. There were so many people and so many things going on that I can't remember what happened."
Yang Wei De coughed again. He felt that Shen Kuo's childish questions were somewhat distracting.
Shen Kuo was sensible and stopped asking questions.
In the early morning, the prince consort calmed down and went back to his bedroom to sleep. The burnt palace lantern and screen were placed in the woodshed, because it was farthest from the prince consort's bedroom and there were many cut peach branches facing it. It was said that peach wood could suppress evil spirits.
Yang Wei De and Shen Kuo also returned to their own homes, each thinking about their own things and waiting for different people.
In Shen Kuo's opinion, there are still many strange things about this matter. The hibiscus flowers on the screen are in full bloom and the flower demon jumps out of the stamens, but it is impossible to explain it in any way. It may be some kind of illusion. Of course, this is just the prince consort's family's words, but the jade axe found at the scene is real. However, the most strange thing is that the female ghost laid out too much foreplay, and finally just swung a soft blow on the prince consort's chest. It would be fine if she didn't kill the prince consort, but she actually left the jade axe at the scene. It doesn't seem like a mistake, but more like a deliberate clue.
Another suspicious point is the location of the palace lanterns and screens.
When Shen Kuo left yesterday morning, the screen was farther from the palace lantern. And it was spread out in a straight line, as is usually done to partition a room. But when he entered the study just now, the screen was spread out in a semicircle, and it had a strange positional relationship with the fallen palace lantern. In short, the distance between each screen and the palace lantern was about the same.
He had seen shadow puppetry in the tile house, and it seemed that if the light and the screen were in the right position, it was not impossible to create a moving picture, but the paper figures in the shadow puppetry only had a few joints that could move, and the movements were funny and stiff. It was obvious at a glance that they were fake and could never be mistaken for the real thing, and the relationship with the light source was more direct. He could not understand the principle at the moment, and it seemed that he had no choice but to wait for Master Huailiang to give him some advice.
