Chapter 191: The Zhang Family in Turmoil

After Yin Mao had put on the calamity-warding robe Zhou Qing had given him, he was tidying away his thick cotton clothes when Yue'er came into the hall.

“Oh dear, Master, it is the dead of winter. Why are you dressed so lightly? What if you catch cold?”

“As if that were not enough, Master,” Gui'er said as she entered behind Yue'er and saw Yin Mao folding his padded coat and trousers so neatly that he seemed not to intend to wear them again. “You must not imitate those young fellows like Jiujin and Changshou. Looking fine over staying warm will not do. You’ve only just recovered from a serious illness. If the cold brings sickness back on you, how will you bear it?”

“From this day on, your master bids farewell to cotton coats and cotton trousers. Ha! You don’t understand. Take these heavy clothes and throw them away. I won’t need them anymore.”

After instructing the two maids, Yin Mao left the hall and headed for the front courtyard.

Stepping onto the thick snow, he felt not the slightest chill. He was extremely satisfied with this New Year’s gift from Zhou Qing.

“Well, then. Do you like the robe your master gave you?” Zhou Qing asked with a smile when he saw Yin Mao’s excited face.

“Like it? For my master to bestow such a treasure upon me, it is truly making me...”

After master and disciple had spoken for a while in the snowy courtyard, Zhou Qing told Yin Mao to lead him to Zhang Zhiming’s home in the western part of the city.

The disciple walked ahead, the master behind. The two of them made straight for the Zhang residence in the west of the city. Though both wore brilliant red robes, such clothing was not strange at all on a festive holiday.

“We’re here, Master. This is the Zhang manor.”

“Mm. Go knock.”

Standing before the gate, Zhou Qing nodded and gave the order. Yin Mao raised his hand and pounded on the door.

Before long, a servant dressed as a household attendant opened the gate.

“Well, now, aren’t you Master Yin? Happy New Year, Master Yin.” The servant clearly knew Yin Mao, and greeted him at once upon seeing him.

“Where is your master? Bring him here. Tell him I have business with him.”

“That is unfortunate, Master Yin. Our master has just gone out to the Western Mountain to pay respects at the old master’s grave. If you would like, you may come in and wait a while.”

The servant was very polite to Yin Mao, for his reputation in Turtle County was enormous.

In this world, there was a custom of rising on the first day of the New Year to visit one’s ancestors.

So Yin Mao found nothing strange in Zhang Zhiming going out early in the morning to make offerings at the ancestral graves on Western Mountain.

“What shall we do, Master? Should we go inside and wait for him?”

“Do you know the way to the graves on Western Mountain? If you do, then let us go there and seek him out.”

Since Zhang Zhiming was not at home, and Yin Mao knew where the Zhang ancestral graves were located, the two of them ultimately did not remain at the Zhang manor to wait. Instead, they went directly to Western Mountain.

The road out of the city toward Western Mountain was lively, because on this first day of the New Year, nearly every household had risen early to go to the graveyards at the city’s edge and pay respects to their ancestors.

Western Mountain was not high. Yin Mao had once gone there before, when he was dealing with Zhang Zhiming’s first wife. He had learned from her that the Zhang family patriarch’s grave was buried at the summit.

That mountain was no wilderness. Many years ago, Zhang Zhiming’s father had bought it, so aside from the Zhang family graves, no other family’s burial place was there.

When master and disciple reached the foot of Western Mountain, they discovered in the snow a trail of footprints leading toward the summit, and they immediately followed them up.

Tracing those footprints all the way to the top, the two eventually found on the summit a small shrine built of black bricks, which looked exceedingly strange, because there was no snow around the shrine, just as in the graveyard of Zhang Zhiming’s first wife.

“Master, look how strange this is. When I came here to exterminate evil at the graves on the mountainside before, there was not a trace of snow there either.”

As he climbed to the summit, Yin Mao looked at the snowless shrine and spoke in wonder.

“There is nothing strange about such an anomaly appearing where a malignant thing dwells.”

Standing not far before the black shrine’s gate, Zhou Qing lifted his head and glanced at the leaden sky, where heavy snow continued to fall, then instructed, “Go and have the door opened.”

At Zhou Qing’s words, Yin Mao said nothing more. He strode straight to the tightly shut shrine door and banged on it with his hand. Very soon, footsteps sounded within.

After a moment, the black wooden door creaked open, and Zhang Zhiming’s figure appeared behind it.

“What are you doing here?”

When he saw Yin Mao at the door, Zhang Zhiming’s face flashed with surprise and fear.

Seeing the expression on the other man’s face, Yin Mao could already determine that the one who had tried to kill him was indeed this Magistrate Zhang before his eyes.

“Aren’t you very curious why I am not dead?”

Yin Mao asked. At first he had thought Zhang Zhiming would explain that this matter had nothing to do with him, but unexpectedly, one sentence from the other man made him unconsciously take two steps back.

“I am surprised, yes. But since you are not dead, killing you once more would make no difference.”

Zhang Zhiming’s tone was icy as he spoke.

From his words, one could tell that he regarded Yin Mao with utter contempt. As for Zhou Qing standing beside Yin Mao, merely by his age, he looked even less worthy of notice.

“Straight to the point, are you? Those words of yours are far too arrogant. I simply cannot understand where I offended you, and why you wanted to kill me. I do know something of your family’s affairs, but I never intended to spread them. And no matter what, your first wife was your lawful spouse. To think that you would actually...”

“You useless sham of a Daoist knows nothing at all. That shameless woman was never my lawful wife. Behind my back, she had no shame in carrying on with my own disgraceful father. And as for my foolish eldest son, do you think he was truly my son? Let me tell you, he was my brother. Back then, they...”

Zhang Zhiming spoke with great agitation, and from his words, a wealth of information could already be heard.

From this one outburst, a whole string of sordid scandal could be pieced together.

“Since you hate your lawful wife so much, and hate your father so much, why did you buy this mountain and give them a grand burial here? And why did you honor them so properly, with such lavish graves and shrine?”

“Honor them? I think you may have misunderstood something, you foolish simpleton.”

Laughing wildly, Zhang Zhiming stood at the shrine door and went on.

“That shameless father of mine was ground to ash by my own hands long ago and scattered into East Lake to feed the carp. The thing honored in this shrine is not that old lecher.

“And my lawful wife? That little slut—do you think I buried her halfway up the mountain? Ha! She was nothing more than a ghost thrall, abused day after day until she was worn out. As for my foolish eldest son, he was never actually a fool to begin with. It was just that...”