“Old Jin, your car is a bit too cramped, why don't Brother Yan and I just take the bus?”
“Oh, why be so particular? Isn't my car faster than the bus?”
“But your car is really awkward. Apart from the horn, everything else makes noise!”
“What do you know, kid? My car is an antique, it has historical value!”
“Nothing else is a problem, but the key point is that yours is a motorcycle!”
Rumble, rumble…
Yan Shouyi and Long Feicheng, two grown men, sat on Old Jin's beat-up motorcycle, their buttocks hurting from the scorching sun as they bounced along.
Old Jin didn't seem to care at all. He held a cigarette in his mouth, riding fast against the wind.
Along the way, he ran red lights and swerved towards pedestrians. He even dared to corner while riding over drainage ditches. If you said his driving skills were good, Yan Shouyi and Long Feicheng were truly terrified. If you said his driving skills were bad, he still managed to deliver them to their destination smoothly.
After getting off the bike, Long Feicheng immediately ran to the roadside grass to vomit. Although Yan Shouyi didn't vomit, his complexion was also not good.
Old Jin got off the motorcycle with a chuckle, patting Long Feicheng on the back and saying, “It’s like this the first time. I’ll be gentler next time.”
“Get lost!” Long Feicheng pushed Old Jin away, wishing he could push Old Jin's broken motorcycle into a ditch right now.
Yan Shouyi recovered for a moment and looked at a small path by the roadside. The path was winding, but it ultimately led to a dilapidated abandoned factory.
That was where Zhou Mingyuan's altar and dojo were located.
“Old Chen’s soul is hidden here?”
Old Jin squinted and observed. On the way, Yan Shouyi and Long Feicheng had explained the whole story to Old Jin. As soon as Old Jin heard that it was Chen Dawei who was in trouble, he immediately said that even if he didn't owe Yan Shouyi a favor, he would help.
“Zhou Mingyuan was a disciple of the Lu Shan sect in the past and was skilled in ghost-raising techniques. When we go in later, you two stay by my side, just in case,” Yan Shouyi reminded them.
Although Long Feicheng had many complaints about Old Jin's driving skills, he still shared a ghost-exorcising talisman from his collection with him for self-defense.
The three followed the small path to the outside of the abandoned factory. They circled the exterior, and the main gate was locked, with only the window on the second floor open.
Yan Shouyi easily climbed to the second floor. Long Feicheng, with Old Jin on his back, let Old Jin climb up first, and then they both worked together to pull Long Feicheng up.
“This creepy place must have problems, it's so eerie!” Long Feicheng shivered and complained.
“A place that Zhou Mingyuan uses as an altar must be a place that gathers Yin and filth. Don’t scare yourself.”
Yan Shouyi sniffed his nose. He didn’t smell anything strange, so he told everyone to relax and go down.
Long Feicheng asked again, “Brother Yan, your nose is that sensitive, can you even smell if there are ghosts?”
“I’m not smelling ghosts, I’m smelling the stench of decay. This place doesn’t even have that, so what ghosts could there be?” Yan Shouyi replied.
“So that’s how it is…”
This was originally a textile factory. After it went bankrupt, the boss fled overseas, and the workers moved out the factory equipment to sell it for compensation.
Now the factory was a mess, with various garbage scattered on the ground, covered by a thick layer of dust.
However, there was one corridor that was slightly cleaner. Yan Shouyi looked down the corridor, and at the end, there was a statue. Before the statue were burned incense and candles.
“That should be it.”
Yan Shouyi walked at the front, followed closely by Old Jin. Long Feicheng clutched a palm lightning talisman at the back. The three arrived at the room at the end of the corridor.
“The door is locked,” Old Jin said with a frown.
Long Feicheng laughed, “Just smash it open. Zhou Mingyuan is dead anyway, no one will sue us for trespassing.”
“Smashing it is too much trouble.”
Yan Shouyi took out a pair of golden scissors from his bag, held the scissors, and chanted:
“I invoke the Jade Emperor of the Underworld, may the Lingxiao Palace shine brightly, quickly, quickly, I call upon Jin Xiao, Yun Xiao, Bi Xiao, and the Queen Mother to descend. Borrowing the power of the Golden Twisting Shears, descend and cut the hemp rope. The hemp rope cut to pieces, allowing no mercy. If any sorcerers or evil cults try to use their magic, heavenly thunder will strike you. I respectfully invoke the Six Stars of the Southern Dipper and the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper. I am ordered by Supreme Old Lord to proceed with utmost urgency, as the law commands!”
As the incantation ended, the golden scissors emitted a light. Holding the scissors, Yan Shouyi easily cut through the large lock on the door!
“Holy crap!”
Long Feicheng was shocked. “Brother Yan, what kind of scissors are those? You can cut through such a thick padlock just like that?!”
Old Jin laughed. “This is the Luban Sect’s ‘Golden Shears Spell’. Don’t let the scissors look golden; they are actually made of golden nanmu wood. They are also known as ‘Gold-Cutting Shears,’ and as the name suggests, these scissors can only cut metal. For anything else, they can’t even cut a piece of paper!”
Yan Shouyi nodded. “Old Jin is right.”
It was not surprising that Old Jin, as a successor of the ancient medical sect, knew so much about the Luban Sect. Yan Shouyi was not worried about them knowing the content of the Golden Shears Spell, because no matter how much they understood, without the oral teaching of a Luban descendant, they could never truly use the Golden Shears Spell.
“No more idle talk, be careful when we go in!”
Yan Shouyi finished speaking, kicked open the door, and cautiously looked inside.
Fortunately, there was only one room inside, and the furnishings were simple and in full view. It didn’t seem dangerous.
The windows in the room were covered with thick curtains, so almost no sunlight could penetrate from the outside. In the center was a long table with offerings and incense, as well as a memorial tablet for Lu Shan Jiulang, which was Zhou Mingyuan’s altar. In front of the altar, in addition to a meditation cushion, there were three black gourds. Red strings were tied to the gourds, and the wooden stoppers were sealed with yellow Taoist talismans.
Yan Shouyi had seen these black gourds before, in Zhou Mingyuan’s hands. Zhou Mingyuan used these black gourd magical artifacts to store malevolent spirits and lost souls.
“It seems there’s no danger. Let’s go in and take a look.”
The three entered the room. Long Feicheng relaxed his vigilance, walked around, and then slapped the offerings on the altar, cursing,
“If Lu Shan Jiulang helped Zhou Mingyuan do evil things, then he’s not a good person either. Still wanting to eat offerings, bah!”
Old Jin chuckled. “Their ancestral masters have been dead for a long time. It’s useless to curse them because all that’s passed down is their will. Besides, as the elder Mr. Jin Yong said, martial arts itself is not wrong, it’s the practitioners who are wrong.”
Yan Shouyi squatted in front of the meditation cushion and examined the three black gourds. “Uncle Chen’s soul should be inside.”
“But in which gourd? If we open them rashly, it’s very likely that the residual souls inside will be completely annihilated,” Old Jin was troubled.
“It’s fine, I have a way.”
Yan Shouyi whistled, and a wooden bird emerged from his bag, hopping lively. It jumped in front of the black gourds.
It pecked at them one by one, then tilted its head to listen carefully. Finally, it stopped in front of the middle gourd and looked at Yan Shouyi.
“This is it.”
Yan Shouyi picked up the black gourd, feeling that a major task was finally completed.
As long as he took the black gourd back to the hospital and with Old Jin’s help, Chen Dawei would definitely wake up safely. This was the most important thing he had to accomplish on his trip to Rongcheng.
Long Feicheng asked, “What about the other two gourds?”
“Let’s take them all. If we have the chance, we’ll return these souls to their owners.”
Yan Shouyi picked up all three gourds and put them into his bag. Long Feicheng was surprised to find that the three black gourds clearly filled the bag, but after Yan Shouyi put them all in, the bag actually didn’t change at all.
Could the bag contain something else?
Just as the three were about to leave, footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the door.
The three were instantly startled. Who would come to the abandoned factory at this time?
The other party was clearly related to Zhou Mingyuan, and might even be an accomplice!
Old Jin didn’t say a word and crawled under the altar table, but his large frame was too big to hide in the small altar.
In his panic, Yan Shouyi suddenly stuck a Taoist talisman on both of their heads and instructed,
“Hold your breath and don’t make a sound. If someone comes, they won’t see us. Remember!”
After saying that, he also stuck a talisman on his own head and stood against the wall.
A moment later, the person in the corridor arrived outside the door.
It was a young man in a white suit. He saw that the door was open and let out a surprised “Oh.”
Seeing that the black gourds in front of the altar had disappeared, the young man’s face immediately darkened.
What he couldn’t see was that on both sides of the altar, Yan Shouyi and the other two were standing straight, holding their breath.
“Damn it, the souls were stolen!”
The young man cursed angrily, kicked over the altar, turned his back, and took out his phone to dial a number.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the three quickly took breaths. Old Jin was particularly struggling, his face turning red.
“Hello? We’re late. The souls collected by Zhou Mingyuan were stolen!”
“My great-great-grandfather’s birthday is in a few days. If I don’t collect enough souls, how can I stand out among so many descendants?”
“Damn it… Liu Weiwu’s text message said that the one who opposed Zhou Mingyuan was the security captain of the Shanghang Art School. The one who killed my third brother is him, and it’s probably that kid who stole the souls too!”
“Forget it, my great-great-grandfather’s birthday is more important. That kid named Yan Shouyi can be dealt with later. Hurry up and contact others, you must help me gather enough souls, otherwise, you’ll look terrible!”
“What? You can’t do it? Say that again? You—say—that—again?! In front of Bai Yusheng, is there anything that cannot be done?!”
The young man hung up the phone, lit a cigarette, and stayed in the room for a while longer. He spat on the scattered altar before slowly walking out.
As soon as he left, Yan Shouyi and the others reappeared. Old Jin and Long Feicheng were panting heavily, and they looked like they were about to suffocate.
Yan Shouyi breathed evenly, seemingly at ease, but his brow was furrowed.
The young man just now was from the Bai family, and his name was Bai Yusheng—the powerful figure from the Bai family that Zhou Mingyuan mentioned could help him return to the Lu Shan sect?
This powerful figure was so young?
How could he control the Lu Shan sect?
What troubled him the most was that Wei Ge had reported everything he had done, including killing the Bai family’s little ghost and opposing Zhou Mingyuan.
It could be imagined that he would soon face retaliation from the Bai family.
Fortunately, Bai Yusheng’s great-great-grandfather’s birthday was approaching, so the Bai family wouldn’t have time to deal with other matters.
Leaving Rongcheng was impossible; he was still waiting to get his father out of prison in December.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Yan Shouyi muttered to himself.