I frowned, baffled. “I know you’re kindhearted, but there’s no point being so kind it makes you foolish. I thought the first thing you’d do once you recovered was take revenge. Who knew you’d want to save someone? Those two are already marked for death. You could take revenge before they die, but there’s no saving them!”
Blood tears streamed from her empty eye sockets again. Tào Tiểu Tinh was frantic. “Tiểu Thu didn’t hurt me! She’s a good girl. She only wants revenge for me! I have to go save Tiểu Thu. If I don’t go now, it’ll be too late!”
With that, her spirit glided away. I formed a hand seal and confined her soul inside the paper figure. “Your soul is too weak to withstand the yang energy out there. We’ll go together.”
Mother Tào and I worked together to close the coffin again. We’d deal with the rest later.
On the way, Mother Tào drove like the wind. As soon as we reached the building where Tào Tiểu Tinh lived, we saw waves of black qi billowing from an upstairs window.
“Auntie, the yin energy up there has become tangible. If it touches you, at best you’ll lose money; at worst, you’ll suffer a bloody calamity. Wait here. Tào Tiểu Tinh and I will go up and come back.”
But Mother Tào shook her head vigorously and even rushed ahead of me. “Tiểu Tinh has already ended up like this. I can’t let anything happen to Tiểu Thu. Besides, Viên Viên is up there too. I have to protect her!”
I couldn’t talk her out of it, so I had to let her come with me.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Mother Tào rushed over in a panic and pounded on the door. “Tiểu Thu! It’s Mom! Open the door!”
The black qi inside the apartment grew heavier and heavier, seeping through the cracks around the door.
Mother Tào called twice. When no one answered, she turned to me. “Could Tiểu Tinh be mistaken? Is no one home?”
I took cinnabar from my bag and dabbed two red dots on her eyelids.
Mother Tào opened her eyes. Seeing the black qi swirling around her, she immediately understood and pounded on the door again. “Tiểu Thu, are you doing something foolish? Open the door and let Mom in! I’ve already lost Tiểu Tinh. I can’t lose you too! Viên Viên, open the door for Grandma!”
But no matter how hard she pounded, no one opened the door. From inside came a man’s moans.
Mother Tào was so frantic she began to cry. “Master, please find a way to open the door!”
I looked at the coin formation stuck above the door. “I can get in, but you can’t. I can have the child inside open it, though. Wait a moment.”
I cut out eight paper figures and tossed them. They stuck to the spots where the coins were hidden.
The coin barrier broke, and the black qi immediately poured out of control.
Tào Tiểu Tinh hurriedly escaped from the paper figure too, and rushed in with me.
The moment we stepped inside, an immense pressure bore down on us.
Tào Tiểu Tinh’s spirit immediately grew solid, strengthened by the yin energy.
I formed a hand seal to drive away the black qi, and only then did the scene inside gradually come into view.
Vương Văn Viễn was clutching his chest and writhing on the floor, while Tào Tiểu Thu lay in a pool of blood, her face deathly pale and a smile on her lips.
When she saw Tào Tiểu Tinh, she wasn’t afraid. Instead, she smiled and reached out. “Sister, have you come to take me with you? I heard that before people die, they see their loved ones come to take them away. It’s so nice that you’ve come for me.”
Tào Tiểu Tinh wept tears of blood and clutched her sister tightly. “Tiểu Thu, I’m already dead. You don’t have to give up your life for me!”
Tào Tiểu Thu smiled bitterly. “If it weren’t for you and Mom, I’d have died long ago. I don’t know how to repay you for that kindness. All I can do is kill this beast and get justice for you!”
As soon as she finished speaking, a sharp pain tore through her abdomen, and a groan escaped her.
Vương Văn Viễn screamed too, clutching his chest and thrashing. “You crazy woman! What did you do to me?”
Tào Tiểu Tinh knelt before me and kowtowed. “Sister Văn Văn, please! In my next life, I’ll be your ox or horse to repay you! Please save my sister. She’s doing all this for me!”
I studied the furnishings, then looked at the two of them writhing on the floor. At last, I understood. “Your husband and someone else switched your fate, causing you to die unjustly. The underworld will punish him for his wicked deeds. He’s sure to suffer in his next life. You’re already dead, and clinging to revenge won’t do your sister any good! Your sister knows what happened, so she bound her fate to his. If she dies, he dies too. To save her, we have to find the token binding their fates and destroy it. Then we need to get your sister to the hospital…”
Before I could finish, Tào Tiểu Thu struggled to her feet. “Don’t break the fate bond! It took me so much effort to make it!”
I frowned, baffled. “Vương Văn Viễn switched your fate and caused your sister to die unjustly. The underworld will punish him for his evil deeds. He’s sure to have a miserable next life. Your sister is already dead. Obsessing over revenge won’t do you any good!”
Tào Tiểu Thu clutched her stomach and cried in pain. “He’s living in comfort on the insurance money from my sister’s death. That money belongs to my sister! I can’t wait for him to suffer in his next life. He has to die in this one. He bought a ton of insurance policies for my sister and named himself the beneficiary. He used black magic to switch her fate and made her die of heart disease, then collected a huge payout.”
“But my sister cared about me and transferred a few of the policies into my name. He was greedy and wanted more, so he made a move against me. He used Viên Viên as an excuse to lure me to his house all the time, and then… he got me pregnant. I happened to overhear him on the phone and learned his whole scheme.”
“He planned to take out an insurance policy on me so I’d die in childbirth. So I bound our fates together. If I die, he dies too!”
Her voice grew weaker, but she laughed through her tears. “Once we’re dead, all the money will go to Mom and Viên Viên. It’ll be enough for them to live in peace. If you break the fate bond, I’ll have died for nothing!”
As Vương Văn Viễn cursed and the two sisters clung to each other, I took out a pair of scissors and some yellow paper. “Not necessarily.”
I quickly cut out a paper figure the same size as Tào Tiểu Thu, dipped it in her blood, and drew on its eyes and mouth. I set it beside the incense burner, scattered the five grains, lit three sticks of incense, and borrowed power from the ancestral master.
Following the incense smoke, the paper figure absorbed all of Tào Tiểu Thu’s blood from the floor.
When the last drop of blood disappeared, the paper figure turned into Tào Tiểu Thu.
Then I took a hammer from the toolbox and brought it down on the floor.
The tiles broke apart, revealing an inverted bagua formation.
I walked over to Vương Văn Viễn.
He reached out to grab my leg, but his hand passed right through me. He screamed in terror.
When screaming did him no good, he started begging. “Master, spare me! I’ll give you money. I have plenty!”
I gave him a cold smile. “What am I supposed to do with it? I can’t spend money from the living world.”
He panted, his lips turning purple, like a fish stranded on shore. “Then I’ll… burn… paper money… lots of it…”
I picked up the scissors and stabbed him right between the nose and upper lip, then used his blood to soak the paper figure and tossed it into the bagua formation. “Burn it for yourself.”
The paper figure burst into flames and turned to ash in an instant.
Just then, Tào Tiểu Tinh wailed behind me, “Tiểu Thu! Don’t die! Văn Văn, Tiểu Thu isn’t breathing anymore!”
I motioned for her to be quiet.
A moment later, two underworld bailiffs appeared like a passing breeze, silently standing behind us.
Tào Tiểu Tinh backed away, holding her sister’s body. The bailiffs’ pressure made her tremble, her spirit form shuddering as if it might dissolve.
I glowed from head to toe, using what little merit I had to protect myself as I stepped forward and bowed. “Honored bailiffs, thank you for your hard work. If you ever pass by my little shop, please stop in.”
It was a way of currying favor with incense offerings. The unfamiliar bailiff looked at the merit surrounding me but said nothing, focusing only on the matter at hand.
One of the bailiffs pointed at Tào Tiểu Tinh. “Your allotted yang life wasn’t over, yet you died unjustly. You must not act against the natural order. Otherwise, I’ll bind you with a rope and cast you into hell, where you’ll never be reincarnated!”
Tào Tiểu Tinh lowered her head, her voice trembling. “I wouldn’t dare. I wouldn’t dare!”
Then the two of them looked at the two Tào Tiểu Thu figures lying on the floor, identical in every way. “How can these two people look exactly alike?”
I stepped forward again. “Things can resemble one another, and so can people. Bailiff, just follow the time recorded in the fate register. There’s no need to concern yourself with appearances.”
The bailiff frowned at the register in his hand. “Vương Bích Hà, July 15, 3:12 p.m., died in childbirth.”