31 A Day Off and a Haunted Home

Xiao Ying sat outside the kitchen as Ming Cheng, now grouped up with the rest of his friends in one corner, spent their time peeling and washing vegetables and grains, the regular life of a kitchen servant in the Imperial Palace restored to normal, with no banquets, events, or particular special occasions to prepare for.

The Emperor had sent a messenger to express a fondness for a soup dish tonight, with various other ministers having submitted their preferences to keep to their regular rota of scheduled meals.

Without any looming occasions to prepare for, the kitchen was more lax than it had been when Ming Cheng arrived, with the quiet lull of chatter from all the various kitchen staff making their conversations about the clothing that the ministers and the concubines had worn, the juicy gossip that they had picked up on when the alcohol began flowing, and their own personal lives, outside the palace and what they would be doing on their off days.

The old woman who sat near the formal exit doors relaxed with a cup of tea, simply staring out into the garden aimlessly without any urgent tasks to complete, laid back and giving out the occasional peaceful sigh.

The head cook had also calmed down as well, her face no longer glowing like a piece of coal, and lightly mixing a broth at the stove, readying it to be served with the rice and steamed vegetables for lunch; a light meal in contrast to the excesses of the night before.

She made all the doughs, sitting laxly off to the side to settle in their correct flavours and textures, for the snacks that would be served in the late afternoon, serving as a prelude to the supper time meal.

A few of the other kitchen staff were making dumplings and other treats involving sticky rice, apparently the newest trend between the ladies of the higher classes, and were preparing them in groups with different fillings assigned to different groups.

With apparently nothing to see, Xiao Ying stood up and stretched his arms, and began wandering away from Ming Cheng.

He rationalised to himself that the boy was in good hands and would be safe for the time being, other pressing matters probably needing his attention, including but not limited to, Concubine Jing.

Ming Cheng let his head rise and look away from the radishes that he had been scrubbing with his bare hands to remove all the tiny grains of soil.

The ghost that had appeared in his room the night before was now following him around, and had not vanished when the sun rose, going against one of the core principles that everybody knew that was related to ghosts, monsters, and everything supernatural: they always disappeared when the sun rose and the morning came.

There had one been a small, innocuous house that had sat at the end of one of the streets that Ming Cheng had once stayed on, finding himself a home in the narrow space between two buildings where a cart had gotten stuck and then been subsequently abandoned, because it's owners had enough money to buy a new one, rather than pull out the old one that they had stupidly gotten stuck.

The place was good for a while, until the other, bigger children had discovered the place, and Ming Cheng had been forced to move away to somewhere else.

The house that had sat there, so innocently, was the location of where a young couple had once been slaughtered when robbers had broken into their home, and had callously cut them down in their attempts to steal as much as they could from the budding family.

The young wife had apparently returned as a ghost, wrathful that she had been robbed of her chance to have the happy family that she had dreamed of her entire life, being murdered in cold blood just as soon as she had discovered that she was pregnant.

A few of the children, mostly the older, and much more tired ones, hardened to the world and unafraid of the rumours of the place, had attempted to use the house as their new homes, but they had all suffered nightmares, forced over and over again to relive the death of the young wife that was now taking her wrath on the squatters.

The nightmares were enough to make the toughest of the boys go pale, and the house quickly gained the reputation of a place to never enter, lest whoever does suffer through the nights spent there.

The moral of the story was that the house made a mighty fine base of operations during the day time, when nothing of note ever happened; no floating furniture, no poisonous food, no bloody writing on walls, and no wailing moans.

At night, however, if you entered, then you would be subjected to the ghost's whims until sunlight touched the home once more, keeping away the spirit until the light disappeared once more.

Ming Cheng had believed the story that had been passed around at the time, and in his fear, he had quickly left the area, and found himself a new home elsewhere, but now, older and hypothetically wiser, he was convinced that the story was false and only used as a cover up to keep any unsavoury characters out of the building, leaving it empty to whoever had made up the story and claimed the place.

It made far more sense, since Ming Chang was now being stalked by a ghost who walked in sunlight and was unafraid of being spotted.

But maybe...

Maybe he was the one that could see it.

Lan Chang had not at all reacted when it appeared in her room and had crashed into her door, making a banging noise as it did so. She did nothing when the ghost had panted and whimpered, and she did not react at all when it had joined them in the morning, and had followed them all the way to the kitchen.

None of the staff had and none of the children had.