Chapter 4

That was so cool!

Tân Di looked around.

At last, her gaze settled on the woods to our left.

I followed it.

Apart from pitch darkness, I could see nothing.

Wind passed through the trees with a low, eerie moan.

“Master Tân Di…”

“Is Cố Tu Minh’s soul over there?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“He’s… crying.”

The creature had smashed the phone.

It had also forcibly erased the remnants of Tu Minh’s consciousness within it.

Two green lights flickered in its empty eye sockets.

“It’s gone mad.”

Tân Di drew the peachwood sword from her back, bit her fingertip, and quickly smeared blood along the blade.

“I’ll hold it off.”

“Run!”

“Master Tân Di,” I asked anxiously, “can you manage alone?”

“Should I get help?”

Her lips curved.

“Who said I was alone?”

Turning toward her right and behind her, she called:

“Third Martial Uncle! Get out here and help me!”

I looked back.

An old man was running toward us from the end of the path.

He seemed slow, yet in the blink of an eye he was standing before us.

“Coming! Coming!”

My eyes widened.

Wasn’t that the blind bone-reader from the eastern overpass?

He wasn’t wearing sunglasses now.

Quite casually, he drew a ritual implement from inside his shirt.

“Master…”

“You can see?”

He scratched his nose.

“Business is better when I pretend I can’t.”

“Get out of the way, girl.”

“Don’t stand there hindering us.”

“This centuries-old scholar-tree corpse won’t be easy to handle!”

I fled the battlefield at once.

I wasn’t going to get in their way.

Tân Di had told me her Third Martial Uncle was good at more than reading the age of bones.

When it came to skeletal demons and corpse spirits, he had the most experience.

“Third Martial Uncle.”

“Did you get a good look while I was fighting it?”

He nodded.

“I did.”

He raised a hand and pointed just below the waist, at the second rib.

“The scholar-tree corpse’s fatal weak point… is here.”

Tân Di looked up at him and nodded.

Just then, the creature broke through the illusion formation she had laid.

It charged with a howl.

“Six Wu, Six Ji—halt, evil spirits! Six Geng, Six Xin—scatter, evil spirits! Six Ren, Six Gui—be destroyed!”

Tân Di held the peachwood sword upright before her chest.

The blade, stained with blood from her fingertip, gave off a faint red-gold glow.

The old man unhooked the bell at his waist.

With every ring, the creature’s steps slowed further.

“Heaven is round, Earth is square; the ninefold laws prevail. I inscribe this command—let every ghost submit and hide!”

They rushed forward together.

Their ritual weapons struck the creature again and again, forcing it back.

More and more holes opened in its body.

Its howls grew distorted.

The branches crawling over to heal it slowed.

Gradually, the wounds stopped closing.

I watched, my heart in my mouth.

Tân Di and her Third Martial Uncle worked seamlessly together.

One move followed another.

Every strike targeted that second rib at its side.

I clenched my shirt.

My palms were already drenched in sweat.

While my attention wavered, the creature struck Tân Di’s shoulder.

She flew backward.

Yet she smiled.

“Third Martial Uncle!”

“Here!”

The old man laughed and surged forward.

He caught the peachwood sword she threw him.

One thrust—

Straight into the hole at the creature’s waist.

Right into its fatal weak point.

It froze.

The writhing branches stopped at once.

Then they slowly withered, all life draining from them.

“Hhh… hhh…”

The creature’s jaw opened and closed as though it wanted to speak.

But it couldn’t form a word.

Its whole body pitched forward.

Thud!

At last, everything was quiet.

Tân Di dropped to one knee, panting.

A smile touched her lips.

“Disgusting thing…”

“Finally dead.”

Dead.

It was really dead!

Trembling with excitement, I rushed from my hiding place.

I helped Tân Di up, threw my arms around her, and sobbed until tears and snot covered my face.

“I’m alive!”

“Master Tân Di, thank you!”

“I can’t believe I survived!”

When I had cried myself out, she quietly disentangled herself.

Then she took something from her bag.

A calculator.

She checked her watch and began tapping, muttering to herself.

“Basic reading fee…”

“Plus the callout charge.”

“I’ve been out for almost two hours.”

“Round it up to two.”

“Six thousand yuan an hour…”

“Two hours makes…”

I stared at her.

She held the calculator in front of me.

“Seventeen thousand yuan altogether.”

“How would you like to pay?”

Beside us, the old man called out as he packed his things.

“Tân Di, girl!”

“Don’t forget we agreed to split it fifty-fifty!”

I looked from one to the other.

The oppressive terror of a moment ago evaporated.

These masters were certainly practical.

I laughed and cried at once.

After one shock too many, my vision went black.

I fainted.

When I woke, I was in hospital.

There were several stitches in the back of my neck.

The doctor said I had passed out from blood loss.

After two days, I was discharged.

From then on, like A Đóa, I became a devoted fan of Tân Di’s livestream.

Every evening, I arrived on time and enthusiastically sang her praises.

Some viewers disliked it.

[You’re a shill this fraud hired, aren’t you?]

I fired back at once.

[Like hell! Master Tân Di saved my life!]

With Tân Di’s livestream to look forward to each day, my life gradually became more interesting.

Little by little, everything returned to normal.

Master Tân Di treated Tu Minh’s skin with a special method and returned it to his family.

She also divined the location of his actual remains.

But she wouldn’t let his family go looking.

“The Ailao Mountains are too dangerous.”

“Almost no one who goes in comes back.”

“Let Cố Tu Minh stay there.”

“It’s… peaceful.”

Following her advice, I went to Huyền Thanh Temple and burned a great deal of incense.

I donated to the temple and asked its Daoist priests to chant scriptures for Tu Minh’s soul for several days.

Oh, right.

There was something else.

Tiêu Dao and I became friends.

She was a very gentle woman.

After learning what had happened to Tu Minh, she gradually began to let go of her grief and fixation.

A year later, she married the boyfriend who had quietly stayed by her side.

I attended the wedding to wish her well.

Standing among the guests, I watched Tiêu Dao in her pure white wedding dress embrace her handsome groom.

Flower petals drifted down from above.

Everyone was smiling.

Tiêu Dao looked at me and smiled too.

Then she suddenly stopped.

Her gaze drifted toward the entrance of the hall.

I turned to look.

No one was there.

Yet something told me someone was.

A soft breeze blew in through the doorway.

It gently brushed the loose strands of hair at Tiêu Dao’s temple.

As though a tender young man were stroking the hair of the woman he loved.

Cố Tu Minh…

He had come to see Tiêu Dao off into married life.

She smiled.

Then, still smiling, she began to cry.

The emcee urged them on. Cheers filled the hall.

Tiêu Dao took her groom’s hand and exchanged vows.

They kissed.

The breeze fell still.

I looked toward the entrance.

My eyes stung.

…

By the time I got back from the wedding, it was almost nine.

The light in the corridor of my rented building had broken at some point.

I switched on my phone’s flashlight and walked slowly toward my room.

Someone approached from the other direction.

As we passed, he said quietly:

“Miss, there’s something in your hair.”

“Oh, thank you!”

I thanked him repeatedly.

It must have been a petal from the wedding.

I reached up and picked it out.

The flashlight shone on my palm.

When I saw what lay there, my blood froze.

It wasn’t a petal.

It was… a scholar-tree leaf.

I spun around.

The dark corridor behind me was empty.

Not a soul.

Then…

Who had that person been?

An immense terror swallowed me.

I raced to my room, switched on my computer, and opened the familiar livestream.

My fingers shook as I typed:

[Master Tân Di… I think I’m in trouble again!]

—THE END—