7.
Without waiting for me to tell them, Hei Wuchang and Bai Wuchang had already recorded the Wang family’s testimony and told them to sign it.
The two ghosts used the new iPhones I’d given them last month.
They listened to the recordings over and over, laughing eerily, their eyes narrowing until even their bright red tongues slipped out like snakes’.
They kept praising them: “These recordings are so clear!”
“Thanks to Little Empress, we get to use such high-end products!”
“May Little Empress enjoy boundless good fortune!”
What a bunch of sycophants!
I stayed with the Wang family for another two days, taking care of almost all my Netherworld business.
Sigh, where else could you find a Ghost Queen like me, who works tirelessly and never forgets her duties?
At dawn on the third day, someone came knocking at the Wang family’s door.
“Are you ready? It’s time. We should head up the mountain!”
I glanced calmly at the Wang family, who were squatting in the corner as punishment.
Wang’s father hurriedly replied, trembling, “All right, all right, coming.”
The Wang family immediately sprang into action.
I told them to play their parts obediently in a little act with me. Once it was over, they could take their evidence of their crimes and turn themselves in. They’d spend two years in prison and still get to live.
If they didn’t do a good job… Sister Kayako made a throat-slitting gesture beside them.
The Wang family was so terrified they dropped to their knees.
“L-Little… We humble servants will do as Your Majesty commands!”
Good. They were quick learners.
I nodded in satisfaction, dressed in a deep-red wedding robe, and lay down in the coffin.
Don’t get the wrong idea—that wasn’t a wedding dress the Wang family had prepared for me. It was the ceremonial robe I’d worn when I married my husband, the Ghost King.
My husband was very jealous. If I wore someone else’s wedding dress, he’d definitely kill me.
The coffin was covered with all sorts of creepy decorations. They were all part of my dowry, haha.
As they closed the coffin lid, I gently touched the pink-glowing necklace around my neck, shut my eyes, and dozed a little longer.
A commotion woke me up.
Through my haze, I felt the coffin lid being opened.
“What’s in the coffin?”
“Look at that little guy with his tongue sticking out so far. He really looks like a hanged ghost. That’s terrifying!”
“Why isn’t this girl moving? Only a living person could do what Master Zhang, the Immortal, said!”
“Hmph. You’re too cheap to pay, so you bought a corpse to fool Master Zhang, the Immortal?”
They said I was dead?
I felt I needed to set the record straight.
I opened my eyes and smiled. “Hey!”
Everyone jumped back in terror.
An old man in an overcoat heard the commotion and came over to take a look. He let out an angry “Ah!” and said, “How could you let this happen? You didn’t even gag her? What if she violates the taboo?”
“Someone, get me a needle and thread!”
“Old Wang, go get some of your son’s hair!”
The Wang family nervously cut a handful of hair from Wang Ping’s older brother, who was in another coffin, and handed it to the old man. They glanced fearfully at me lying in the coffin, then quickly looked away and backed up a few steps.
A young man held up a needle and thread. “Master Zhang, here you go.”
Oh, so this was Master Zhang, the Immortal? More than half his hair had turned white, and he looked to be sixty or seventy. Rather than do good deeds, he’d chosen to do things that damaged his karma.
Master Zhang saw that I wasn’t struggling and stared at me, puzzled. “Is this girl stupid or something? I told you, you can’t buy an idiot just to save a little money. How’s she supposed to serve your son properly in the afterlife?”
I couldn’t stand being called stupid. I shouted at him, “You old bastard, what are you talking about? At your age, you’re still doing things that damage your karma. Aren’t you afraid you’ll be thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil in the underworld?”
Master Zhang was furious and called to the young men to come forward. “Hold her down!”
“You, hurry over here and throw out the stuff in the coffin, too. It looks creepy!”
Then he tried to force Wang Ping’s older brother’s hair into my mouth.
But before he could touch me, a flash of white light swept through the area, and Master Zhang’s whole group was knocked to the ground.
At the same time, the TV ornament in my coffin suddenly became real and grew larger and larger. Then static flickered across it, and it began to shake!
A girl with disheveled hair slowly crawled out of the TV, reaching out with a hand mottled by livor mortis.
It was Sister Sadako, who hadn’t appeared in ages.
Her voice came roaring toward us like an icy gale. “Leave them to me!”
“I still haven’t met my KPI!”
8.
The Wang family had been mentally prepared for this for a long time and didn’t struggle at all.
Everyone there froze for a few seconds, then ran for their lives.
Sister Sadako stood up furiously. Her long hair shot out in every direction, tightening around their necks. In no time, she’d brought everyone back, not one person missing.
Sister Sadako searched among them, then fixed her gaze on Master Zhang, the Immortal.
She grabbed Master Zhang’s already sparse hair and slammed his head against the ground several times, laying down the law as she did.
“You dare look down on Her Majesty? Take that!”
“You slandered Her Majesty and even tried to get rough with her. You’re dead!”
Just then, Master Zhang couldn’t hold it in and threw up. When Sister Sadako, who always liked to keep things clean, saw the filth on the ground, she flew into a rage and slammed him down even harder.
“That’s so disgusting! Aaaaaah! Lick it clean!”
In just a few minutes, the people who’d been so arrogant moments ago were all sprawled motionless on the ground after Sister Sadako dealt with them. Only faint breaths remained.
The whole thing was like an action movie. I loved watching it.
I smiled and said, “Sister Sadako, it’s been so long! You’re even prettier than before!”
“Let me think of a gift to give you.”
Sister Sadako blushed shyly and bit her lip. “I know a guy, and he treats me really well… I want a set of makeup, and I want a new dress!”
Oh, so Sister Sadako had been secretly dating someone. No wonder she hadn’t shown up in so long.
The sisters who’d been with me for so long deserved to have good lives again, too. That was what I wished for them.
I patted my chest and promised her, “No problem. When I get back, I’ll burn a set of Estée Lauder for you, and a—no, ten new dresses!”
Sister Sadako was so moved that tears came to her eyes. “Thank you, Little Empress!”
With that, she hurriedly crawled back into the TV.
Well, well, well. When you’ve got a sweetheart, you really can’t bear to stay away for even a minute.
The several hundred ghostly ornaments still crammed in the coffin were so anxious they all jumped up.
“Your humble servant is willing to ease Little Empress’s burden!”
“Your humble servant is willing to share Little Empress’s sorrow!”
“Please give us humble servants a chance, Little Empress!”
I waved a hand to tell them not to rush. Every ghost would get a chance!
Look, it’s not over yet, is it?
I waved my hand, and a ghost clutching an enormous head appeared. His head was ten times bigger than an ordinary person’s. He materialized and planted a foot on Master Zhang’s chest. “How many people have you harmed? Who else was in on it? Confess everything!”
Just then, Master Zhang’s son tried to slip away amid the confusion. Quỷ Đầu To grabbed his own head and hurled it at him. It smacked right into its target!
That head was heavier than a metal weight. It was probably enough to put Master Zhang’s son in the hospital for a month.
Quỷ Đầu To turned to Master Zhang and acted like he was about to take his head off again. Master Zhang nearly got hit. “Don’t… don’t! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything!”
Hei Wuchang and Bai Wuchang quickly stepped forward, fiddling with their phones to record videos and document these crimes.
9.
Back in the day, Master Zhang had apprenticed himself to a master with real spiritual power. Afterward, he made a living telling fortunes.
But he hadn’t mastered the art, and his talent was limited. Most of his predictions were wrong, so he barely made enough to eat.
He could only get by, sometimes introducing people to ghosts who were their relatives.
At first, it was just to match deceased relatives of similar ages and make a little money.
Then wealthy families started making demands. Suitable partners for ghost marriages weren’t easy to find. For money, he went elsewhere to deceive suitable young women into coming back with him, kill them, and marry them to the dead.
A few years ago, a mining disaster struck a neighboring village, killing many people. Quite a few of them were young, unmarried men. Master Zhang used the little knowledge he had to make things up. He claimed that when an unmarried person died suddenly, their resentment was immense, and only a ghost marriage with a living person could soothe it.
Most people in that backward village had never gone to school, and they really were frightened by his claims.
What living person would willingly come here?
Master Zhang was a truly ruthless mastermind.
He had built up a whole network of accomplices, kidnapping innocent young women from elsewhere and tricking them into marrying the dead.
His methods were utterly vicious.
Over the years, who knew how many innocent lives he had taken? It was infuriating beyond words.
In the cellar beneath his house, we found several young women so filthy that we couldn’t even make out their faces. Master Zhang had deceived every one of them into coming there.
The girls were lucky enough to have escaped with their lives.
Who knew how many young women were buried in the mountains behind the village!
Master Zhang pointed out the locations and described how he had committed the crimes.
A man like him deserved to die ten thousand times over, but I had to follow the rules. All I could do was use my own methods to document evidence of his crimes and hand it over to the police.
As I sat on the train back, I still couldn’t shake my unease.
I unzipped my backpack. Hei Wuchang and Bai Wuchang, their faces deathly pale and their lips bloodred, smiled eerily at me. “Congratulations, Little Empress! You’ve earned more merit!”
I tried to smile, but couldn’t.
I just felt like something wasn’t right.
Master Zhang had so many vengeful spirits attached to him, yet with his abilities, he hadn’t suffered any backlash. It was unbelievable!
Could he have a powerful master backing him?
Seeing my expression change, the ghosts all rushed to say, “Your humble servants are willing to ease Your Majesty’s burden!”
“Little Empress, seeing you unhappy makes this maid’s heart ache as if I were dying!”
“Little Empress, please smile!”
“Let your humble servant sing you a song.”
Their comical manner cheered me up.
Just then, the train compartment door slid open, and a figure walked in.
The passenger smiled warmly at me and said, “Hello, miss. I’m going to need your help during the trip.”