Chapter 684 - A Pair of Shoe
Inside the ancestral hall.
Ji Yunshu could clearly see many ancestral tablets arranged in the centre of the hall. There was a small shelf in the top centre, that looked like it used to hold some kind of offering, but it was completely empty right now.
As she pondered, a sudden gust of wind came from behind her and extinguished the two candles in the hall. How unlucky! After so long, she finally found a flame to relight her candlesticks, but they were extinguished again.
Just as she was fretting over this problem, a shadow suddenly flashed past her quickly. It was so fast that she couldn’t catch a good look at it even though she turned her head immediately. This was too strange!
Of course, Ji Yunshu was an atheist that believed in neither deities nor ghosts. There were simply no such things in the world, so she didn’t believe in buddha either. As she puzzled over it, a person suddenly appeared in front of her when she turned. A world-weary face suddenly loomed large before her!
“Ah!” Ji Yunshu was spooked and took a few steps back involuntarily.
“Teacher, please don’t be scared.” The person who entered was an old woman in her fifties or sixties, with a stooped back. The candlestick in her hand was lit with a faint flame that trembled slightly in the night wind, illuminating her wrinkled face.
“You are…?”
“I’m Granny Lin, who watches over the ancestral hall. I saw that the candles had been blown out by the wind so I came to relight them.” As she spoke, she went over to light the candles.
Ji Yunshu really had been scared rather badly. She didn’t believe in either deities or ghosts, but people really could scare other people to death! “Granny Lin, are you usually alone in the ancestral hall?”
“I’m here alone at night. Those maids don’t dare to stay in the ancestral hall at night, so I keep watch over it instead. Just look, what could there be in this ancestral hall?”
That’s right! What could be here? Ji Yunshu asked, “Right, why did I not see anyone at all on my way here?”
Granny Lin was done with the candles and looked towards her. “The estate has not been peaceful lately. Nobody dares to walk around at night, so they have all gone into their rooms to rest early on.”
So that’s why! “Not peaceful?”
“There’s a ghost around.”
Ji Yunshu laughed. “How could ghosts exist in this world?! It’s merely people’s minds playing tricks on themselves.”
“Teacher, you may think so but others don’t. People’s hearts all house a shade, and that ghost is one that cannot be expelled no matter what.”
“A ghost in people’s heart?”
“Could it be that Teacher doesn’t have a single shady secret housed in your heart?”
Ah, the shades in her heart!
“Whatever a person is most afraid of is a ghost. Everyone has things that they are afraid of, so everyone has a shade housed in their hearts.” Granny Lin had spent many years in the ancestral hall and must have thoroughly grasped this concept long ago.
Ji Yunshu nodded. “Granny Lin is right.”
Granny Lin narrowed in a smile. “Let me send Teacher back to your room.”
“There’s no need. I just need to borrow a lantern. It’s already better late and Granny should rest earlier.”
“It’s fine, it’d be good for this old bag of bones to take a bit of a walk. The estate is too big and I’m afraid that Teacher will get lost.”
Thus, Granny Lin found a lantern and accompanied Ji Yunshu all the way back into her room. After she helped her relight the candles in the room, she left a firestarter behind as well. “Once dark falls, especially in the later half of the night, the candles are easily extinguished by the wind. Teacher, do remember to close the windows properly.”
“Many thanks.”
“I won’t disturb Teacher further then.” Granny Lin left with her lantern.
The entire Marquis’s estate was really rather uncanny. Ji Yunshu didn’t continue dwelling on it and went to bed.
The next day, Marquis Kang had his people prepare a banquet. The tables were laden with fish, poultry, and meat of all kinds. He really didn’t skimp on anything!
However, Tang Si, who usually could never restrain herself whenever she saw delicious food, was in a strange state. She sat down listlessly, looking at the food in front of her with no life in her eyes. Ji Yunshu happened to sit down next to her and reached out to poke her, asking, “What’s wrong with you?”
She sighed heavily. “I didn’t sleep a single wink last night.”
“Why?”
“Someone kept knocking on the door, but there was never anyone there when I went to open the door.” Her voice was toneless and lethargic as well.
Ji Yunshu’s brows wrinkled when she heard that. “Do you mean that there was someone knocking on your door the entire night?”
“That’s right. I don’t know which mischievous brat it was; he started knocking on my door the minute I lay down on the bed. If I didn’t get up to open the door, he would keep knocking and giggling. Tell me, why would a child not sleep and come knocking on others’ doors all night? Is there something wrong with him? I’m so fed up with it.” She clenched her fist and pounded weakly on the table.
Mo Ruo glared at her from opposite the table. "Eat properly! What are you throwing a tantrum for?"
Marquis Kang asked, "Miss Tang, are the dishes not to your taste? If you don't like it, I can have them make new dishes for you."
"That's not it!" She started complaining angrily, "I say, Marquis Kang, why are the children in your estate so mischievous? Last night, they knocked on my door no less than fifty times, causing me to be near death from fatigue! Each time when I opened the door, there wouldn't even be a ghost there! Who on earth was it? You'd better hand that child over right now and I'll teach him a good lesson!" She gnashed her teeth in anger.
Immediately, Marquis Kang and the surrounding servants shivered simultaneously.
Eh? What's going on? Jing Rong, Ji Yunshu, Mo Ruo, and Tang Si didn't understand what had just happened. The banquet suddenly took on a solemn air out of nowhere.
Marquis Kang then sighed heavily, “Evil happenings!”
Eh?
After he said that, he suddenly turned to Ji Yunshu. “Teacher Ji, about this… I’ll have to trouble you.”
Eh? What do you mean?
Jing Rong asked, “Marquis Kang, could you explain it a little more clearly?”
Actually, Marquis Kang had already intended to tell them about this matter. “To tell the truth, actually…” He sighed again. “Actually what I should have said yesterday, is that my most beloved treasure has gone missing.”
His most beloved treasure? Isn’t Marquis Kang’s most beloved treasure the Golden Woven Armor bestowed by the Emperor? Jing Rong was puzzled. “Isn’t the Marquis’s Golden Woven Armor still there?”
“It’s a pair of shoes!”
Pfft! Someone laughed. It was Tang Si. “A pair of shoes? Is it made of gold? But Marquis, your estate is dazzlingly blanketed in gold and jade; you don’t seem to lack for gold.” That’s true.
Mo Ruo glared at her and warned her softly, “Let Marquis Kang finish speaking. Don’t interrupt.”
“Oh.” She answered.
In contrast, Ji Yunshu held on to her professional mein and asked Marquis Kang with a straight face, “I wonder what kind of shoes these were to let Marquis Kang be so troubled over them? And what does this have to do with whoever was knocking on Miss Tang’s door?”
Marquis Kang started sighing despondent again. He looked tragically at Ji Yunshu. “If the shoes didn’t go missing, I wouldn’t trouble Teacher Ji to come here either.”
Oh? She asked, “I don’t understand what Marquis means. Please feel free to speak plainly.”