They thought he had probably gone to the bathroom, so they didn’t pay much attention and kept pushing the gurney.
This time, it rolled along smoothly.
But just before they wheeled it into the crematorium, one of them suddenly felt his heart pounding.
At that moment, the copper coin in his pocket fell to the ground. A faint groan came from the gurney. Startled, he pulled back the white sheet…
The person lying on the gurney wasn’t Huo Weiwei. It was the employee who had gone missing.
Huo Weiwei had vanished.
The Zhang family was notified at once. They called Hu Xin to ask if he’d seen Huo Weiwei’s body. Hu Xin was so terrified he broke out in a cold sweat.
“What do I do now?! Miss An, please save me! Save me!”
“Look at the face on your mother-in-law’s niece’s cousin’s aunt’s nephew!”
I replied coldly, “Right now, build a room in the middle of your living room. No bed, no windows. Then sit right in the center. No matter what you hear, do not open the door.”
“Don’t make any phone calls.”
“Don’t look up.”
“Understood?”
“Understood! I understand!”
“How long do I have to sit there?”
“Until sunrise.”
“Only after the sunlight shines in may you open the door. Then go straight home.”
“Got it! Got it!”
He hesitated. “Miss An… The Zhang family is in total chaos. They asked me for your number…”
“You gave it to them, didn’t you?”
“…”
“How much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“Send me twenty thousand. Transfer it to my account.”
“Don’t call me. I have an exam tomorrow. Your daughter is about to arrive. Get a mirror and hang it upside down in front of you. If she can’t see your face, she’ll leave on her own.”
At last, things quieted down. There was less than an hour until dawn.
Evil spirits had to hide during the day. Huo Weiwei wouldn’t go after him today, at least.
But if she really did come for someone, the first person she’d look for was probably Zhang Yan.
Early that morning, I woke up and couldn’t help frowning.
It was pouring. Thunder rumbled, and the rain came down in sheets.
I grabbed an umbrella and went outside.
In the elevator, I ran into Master Lü again.
He asked eagerly, “Going to take an exam?”
Then he enthusiastically offered me a ride.
I looked him straight in the eye. There was no malice there, so I nodded.
It was on his way, after all. It would be hard to get a cab in weather like this.
“We’re in the same line of work. It’s only natural to help each other out.”
He chatted happily with me the whole way.
In the end, he dropped me right at the entrance to the exam site.
Then he suddenly asked, “For such an important exam, how come no one in your family came to bring you?”
“I don’t have any family. My ties to anyone never last more than nine years. That includes family.”
Over the years, I’d grown used to distance and parting.
Master Lü blinked his long lashes, looking a little apologetic. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s not what you think.”
I got out of the car. “Thank you.”
“No problem. It was on my way,” he said with a smile.
But he’d just said his office was in the north of the city.
I lived in the south. How was that on his way?
Master Lü glanced to the side, then finally warned me, “There may be a little problem with today’s exam.”
“But… good luck.”
The driver of a luxury car stepped out into the rain and held an umbrella over Zhang Yan, who was wearing sunglasses.
The moment he saw me, a sneer appeared on his pale face behind the lenses.
“You’re taking the exam too? I thought you called yourself some kind of master. You have to take exams too? What a fraud.”
Several paper dolls were stuck to his chest.
It seemed Master Lü didn’t know nothing, after all. Breaking the Châu Thai Sát curse wasn’t difficult. All you had to do was use a substitute to suppress the malevolent force.
Use paper effigies of infants to lure out the surplus fetal spirits, then perform rites to send them on their way.
But this method required the father’s blood.
Only, there was something wrong with the blood.
It was thick and dark, unlike the blood of a living person.
It definitely wasn’t Zhang Yan’s blood.
And there was something wrong with the paper effigies on him, too.
They were all figures of little girls.
I asked, “What’s that thing on you?
“You don’t even know what this is, and you still dare call yourself a master?” He sneered and took a step closer.
This time, I caught a faint whiff of something foul coming from him.
The smell of a corpse.
“This is a special gift Master Lü prepared for us. Want to know what it is? Come find me after the exam. I have the key to the school infirmary. I can teach you all about it, one by one.” He laughed.
“I heard Huo Weiwei’s body went missing.”
I looked at him coldly. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll come for you?”
Zhang Yan shrugged, completely untroubled.
“Afraid of her? Master Lü said she can’t get out. If anything, I’m hoping she’ll come find me. She once said she’d come watch me take the college entrance exam. She wanted to cheer me on and help me get a high score. And then… talk about marriage.”
He sneered.
“Come on, then. Why isn’t she here?”
He was arrogant and overbearing.
He walked into the exam area.
Behind him, dark red streaks mingled with the rainwater streaming across the ground, carrying a faint, fishy smell.
The trails of water gradually flowed into the storm drain.
I suddenly remembered something.
At the funeral home where Huo Weiwei’s body had been kept, everything had been sealed off by the barrier except one place.
The drains.
And she… had died in a drainage ditch.
If that was true—
Good.
Huo Weiwei would be coming for him soon.
The first exam that morning was Chinese.
There were still twenty minutes before it began. I hurried into the exam room and put my things down.
Just then, I saw an invigilator standing outside the door… the very man who had been close to Zhang Yan’s father.
He was waving me over.
I stepped outside.
The teacher quickly told me, “Zhang Yan’s father suddenly had a stroke this morning, but thankfully… his mother fell from the floor above and broke her leg. Before she passed out, she told me I had to find you. She’s begging you… save Zhang Yan.”
I showed no reaction.
The teacher looked a little uncomfortable and added, “I’m only passing along the message. I shouldn’t be disturbing you right now, in principle. But Zhang Yan’s parents got down on their knees and begged me. They said he’s their only child. They begged you to help.”
“What’s more… The feng shui master they hired took one look at the situation, realized something was wrong, and ran off. They can’t reach him anymore. The house is full of…”…the sound of children crying.”
“They even sent me voice messages to pass along. They said they’d been blind before and failed to recognize someone truly talented. They’re begging you to save them. They’re coming to the school gates now, where they’ll kneel and beg you.”
“They’ll pay you a large sum of money. From now on, they’ll do good deeds and build up their karma. They’ll make sure Huo Weiwei gets a proper funeral, with all the right grave goods.”
A funeral.
At a time like this, they still thought they could solve everything with money?
Before I could say anything, Zhang Yan stepped forward.
He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were bloodshot, and a dark haze covered the space between his brows.
Clearly, bad luck had latched onto him, eating away at him to the bone.
I instinctively took a step back.
What an eyesore.
The invigilator looked at me awkwardly and quietly reminded me, “The exam’s about to start. Don’t let anything happen.”
I sighed softly.
After all, the college entrance exam could affect a student’s entire life.
I didn’t want anything to happen right now, either.
“Zhang Yan, if you want to live, no matter what happens during this morning’s exam, don’t leave the exam room.”
“Don’t go outside.”
“Don’t go to the bathroom.”
“Got it?”
Zhang Yan curled his lip, wearing a contemptuous smile.
“Trying to boss me around? Only my woman gets to do that.”
He gave a quiet snort, hummed as he walked into the exam room next door.
First comes fate, then luck, then feng shui.
A person’s fate could change, but at the same time, they could also be hurried toward their death.
I found it truly strange. Given the Zhang family’s fortune, their ancestors must have enjoyed the protection of good karma. In theory, they shouldn’t have declined so quickly.
And yet their downfall was like a mountain collapsing. But their faces were already urgently showing signs of it.
There was only one possibility… someone was deliberately driving the Zhang family over a cliff.
“Ding!” The exam bell rang.
I gathered my thoughts and lowered my head to begin the test.
The room was completely silent, save for the footsteps of the invigilators and exam proctors making their rounds.