Volume 8: The Days of the Ghost Marriage
The Story of Baozhu
In the end, Shen Maomao’s hands never managed to touch the cold water.
Baozhu and Feicui constantly revolved around her, making her begin to suspect if she was some kind of royal relative1 who needed to be treated with such caution.
It just so happened that both of them were there. After the head chef had finished cooking the meal and everyone had idled down, she stealthily2 began to probe for information: “How many years have you two been working in the Shao Manor?”
At that moment, the other servants had all gone to busy themselves with their own tasks. Only the three of them had no work, so they sat together under a large tree in the courtyard, making idle small talk. Therefore, the question she asked didn’t seem that abrupt.
Baozhu had grabbed a handful of pumpkin seeds from somewhere and generously shared them with Feicui and Shen Maomao, but Shen Maomao refused on the grounds of “having bad teeth3.”
She wasn’t annoyed after being rejected. With a smile, she continued cracking melon seeds4, saying as she cracked, “It must be twenty years, right? Kacha kacha, when I was little, my family was poor, and couldn’t afford to raise so many girls, kacha, so the extra ones were sold to a large household to be maidservants, to give the child a place to live safely, kacha kacha.”
Shen Maomao blinked her eyes, saying in disbelief: “You’re actually over twenty years old?”
Baozhu: “What? Don’t I look it?”
Shen Maomao shook her head: “You don’t. I thought you were about my younger sister’s age.”
Baozhu grew curious: “You have a younger sister?”
Shen Maomao’s nonsense came right out of her mouth: “Yes, she’s sixteen this year. My family wants to marry her off to an old man to be his concubine5. I didn’t agree and resisted with all my might. Finally, with great difficulty, I got the opportunity to come to the Shao Manor to be a servant. I’m just waiting to quickly receive my salary6 and send it back home, to prevent them from selling my sister……”
A flicker went through Baozhu’s eyes. She didn’t press further, instead skipping over the topic: “Do we really look that young?”
Shen Maomao nodded: “Yes, you don’t look like you’re in your twenties at all. You two sisters are truly young and beautiful~”
Baozhu looked at her and suddenly extended her right hand towards her.
Shen Maomao’s heart leaped in alarm. She suppressed her desire to immediately dodge, allowing her to pinch her own cheek.
She revealed a silly-white-sweet7 type of confused expression and asked, “What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”
In the next second, Baozhu said something that made her heart pound wildly: “With such a sweet mouth, when you die in a little while, is there a particular way you’d like to die?”
The atmosphere instantly became heavy. Shen Maomao’s eyes darted everywhere, her entire body trembling with nervousness. She swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said cautiously: “Are you joking with me?”
Baozhu lifted her chin with her index finger, forcing her to look at herself: “What do you think?”
Shen Maomao burst out crying with a “wah”: “Baozhu-jiejie, I have elders and young ones to support, and my little sister is still waiting for me to go back and save her! It doesn’t matter if I die, but she’s still so young, the rest of her life can’t be ruined just like this!”
Baozhu patted her head again and again with her other hand, as if petting a small dog: “What are you afraid of? I will help you take good care of your little sister……”
Shen Maomao: “……Does there have to be blood?”
Baozhu looked at her with a profound gaze. After a long moment, she actually laughed out loud, and the originally strange and terrifying atmosphere instantly faded: “What on earth is going on in that head of yours, hahaha, you and I have no grievances or grudges, why would I kill you?”
Shen Maomao: “……??”
Beside them, Feicui couldn’t help but lift the corners of her mouth.
“I saw that you seemed a little afraid of me, so I deliberately scared you,” Baozhu explained. “In this broad daylight, under this clear and righteous sky, could I possibly commit murder on the street? If I really did that, I’m afraid the very next second I’d be sent to the authorities8, thrown into the imperial prison9 to await my execution……”
Shen Maomao didn’t believe it, but the current situation didn’t allow her not to believe it.
She gave two dry laughs and said, “Why did you suddenly scare me? I’m very timid……”
Feicui said: “If you’re timid, then you shouldn’t stay in the Shao Manor any longer.”
She hadn’t spoken before, and now the first thing she said was so loaded with information. Shen Maomao quickly pressed, “What’s wrong? Why do you say that?”
Baozhu continued: “Because, our manor is haunted!”
Shen Maomao thought to herself, not only do I know it’s haunted, I also know you two aren’t human, but on the surface, she still pretended to be startled, saying in surprise: “Haunted? Baozhu-jiejie, are you trying to scare me again?”
“I wouldn’t dare to joke about matters of ghosts and gods.” Baozhu continued to crack her melon seeds. “All the old-timers in the Shao Manor know about this, and it’s not allowed to be spread outside. Now that I’ve told you, you can’t tell anyone outside.”
Shen Maomao smelled a plotline and nodded repeatedly, stopping just short of raising her fingers to swear that if she told an outsider, she would be struck by heavenly lightning10.
Baozhu glanced at Feicui, and seeing she had no objection, continued: “This matter has been circulating in the manor for a very long time. Back then, the Master didn’t live in the east wing, but in the courtyard where the Eldest Young Master lives now.”
“I’ve told you about it before, but we weren’t very familiar then, so I just glossed over some things. The Spirit Water didn’t just recently appear. The specific time seems to be three years ago…… I don’t remember it too clearly either, but anyway, on a certain day three years ago, the water in the southeast courtyard suddenly turned into Spirit Water.”
“At that time, we were all dying of curiosity. We all ran over to crowd around the well and look, and some people even secretly drew water to drink when no one was paying attention…… But then one day, two maidservants went to steal water together. As a result, one of them was dragged into the well by something unknown, and the other one was scared witless.”
A small mountain of melon seed shells had already piled up in front of her. As she explained, the small mountain grew higher and higher, until it finally collapsed with a “hualala” sound, like a house collapsing in a great fire, scattering all over the ground.
“Aiya……!” She stood up at once, the half-told story cut short. “It’s over, I have to clean this up before the head chef comes back……”
Shen Maomao beat her to it, trotting over to get the broom and saying, “Baozhu-jiejie, you keep talking! I’ll help you sweep!”
This time, Baozhu didn’t insist on her not working, but instead scolded with a laugh: “Are you treating me like a storyteller11?”
Shen Maomao immediately put down the broom, rushed into the house to pour her a cup of water, then picked up the broom again: “Baozhu-jiejie, please have some tea!” The whole process took no more than a few seconds, and the degree of her sycophancy12 left Feicui somewhat dumbfounded.
Baozhu accepted her tea and said, “Then you sweep, and I’ll continue. Where was I? Scared witless, right? The one who went crazy insisted to the death that she had seen a ghost, and said the other person had fallen in. The Master sent people to retrieve the body, but in the end, they didn’t find anything……”
“And then?”
“And then? Later, that crazed maidservant would just sit here every day, staring blankly in the direction of the back courtyard, muttering things like ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘finally become a married couple.’ Sometimes she would even let out strange laughs. At first, we felt quite sorry for her and wanted to help her return to normal, but she only lived inside her own head and ignored anyone who spoke to her. Later, we all stopped bothering with her.”
The coincidence of the location made Shen Maomao a little nervous. In a daze, she seemed to really see a woman, sitting here in a stupor, reliving the scene of her companion being pulled into the well by a ghost over and over again—two ignorant and fearless girls standing by the well, craning their necks to look inside, when suddenly a ghostly face appears right in front of them, lets out a shriek, and pulls one of them into the water……
And the faces of these two girls, one moment were Baozhu and Feicui, the next were Milk Tea and Potato Chip, and finally, they turned into her and Lou Jingmo!
She shivered, not daring to brain-supplement13 anymore, and quickly focused on listening to Baozhu’s story.
“And then later, she disappeared. The Master said he gave her a sum of money and sent people to escort her home.” Speaking to this point, Baozhu beckoned to her.
Shen Maomao moved closer like a little puppy, her ears pricked up to listen.
Baozhu lowered her voice mysteriously: “That’s what was said, but we all suspect she was actually taken away by her friend. I saw her before she disappeared. At that time, she was so thin she was unrecognizable, and there wasn’t a trace of color in her face, as if her vital essence14 had been sucked dry by a ghost…… And ever since she went missing, people who were outside at night could always hear crying coming from all directions. So everyone stopped daring to go out at night.”
Shen Maomao asked thoughtfully: “What were their names?”
Baozhu: “It’s been too long, I can’t remember, but……”
Before her voice had fallen, Feicui said: “I remember. The one who went crazy was named Baozhu, and the other one was named Feicui.”
The hand Shen Maomao was holding the broom with trembled: “!!”
Feicui also smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes: “Look how scared you are. I’m teasing you.”
Shen Maomao: “!!!” That’s not funny at all, okay?! Baozhu already used this trick once, is it interesting to use it again?! Is it?!
However, she was furious but didn’t dare to speak, only daring to roar twice in her heart. On the surface, she still had to obediently play dumb: “Pei pei pei15! How can you say such inauspicious things! You quickly spit three times too!”
Baozhu was at a loss whether to laugh or cry: “Is that necessary? We don’t care about this.”
Shen Maomao’s attitude was firm: “No! Spit quickly! Just three times!”
Feicui raised her hands in surrender and spat three times perfunctorily.
Baozhu clapped her hands: “Alright, the story is finished. I’ll say it again, if you’re timid, you should hurry up and find another job.”
“Aigh……” Shen Maomao sighed pretentiously, “How could it be that easy? I’m getting old, and I don’t have any skills to support myself16. It’s just being a maidservant for a large household, but other households might not necessarily have a salary as high as the Shao Manor’s, and my family is pressing for money right now……”
Baozhu sighed along with her: “Every family has its own scripture that is hard to recite17.” After speaking, she snatched the broom from Shen Maomao’s hand: “I’ll handle this. Don’t always stay cooped up in the manor. You can go out and look for work. A person can’t hang themselves from a single tree18……”
Shen Maomao’s heart had long since flown to Lou Jingmo’s side. Hearing this, she didn’t refuse, and replied: “Then I’ll listen to jiejie, I’ll sneak out to have a look?”
Baozhu smiled: “Go on.”
Shen Maomao ran off. As she stepped out of the kitchen courtyard, she glanced back. The two of them maintained their previous posture, sitting on the stone stools and watching her with expressionless faces, like two rigid stone statues, completely devoid of the liveliness they had when they were talking just now……
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