Chapter 2

Chapter 2

By the next day, there was still no sign of Ye Xiaolei, and the entire village was starting to worry.

The people of Ye Family Village were honest and simple by nature. Most of the villagers were related to one another in one way or another, and Ye Xiaolei had always been well-behaved and sensible. He did well in school too, so everyone in the village had been hoping he would get into a good university and bring honor to the village.

Ye Wenxuan also took leave from his internship and rushed home to help look for his younger cousin.

They searched for a full month.

The school’s surveillance cameras showed Ye Xiaolei leaving the school gates with his backpack. According to the footage traced by the local police station, when Ye Xiaolei passed through a small alley, he simply disappeared.

That area was an old residential neighborhood about to be demolished, and there were no cameras there.

At that point, the case reached a dead end. The old neighborhood was a maze of paths leading in every direction, and many of the residents were migrant tenants. Every day, cars and people streamed through the area nonstop. Finding someone who had vanished there was truly difficult.

Father Ye and Mother Ye posted missing-person notices everywhere, reached out to reporters and the media, and tried every method they could think of.

But news of Ye Xiaolei was like a stone sinking into the sea. Not even a single ripple could be seen.

In their despair, Father Ye and Mother Ye began seeking help from folk practitioners, only to be cheated out of a great deal of money. Even then, they still could not find any trace of Ye Xiaolei.

I glanced sympathetically at Father Ye and Mother Ye, who were sleeping heavily. A seventeen-year-old boy had been missing for a month. In all likelihood, something had happened to him.

“Prepare an article of clothing Ye Xiaolei wore close to his body, as well as his birth date and time. It would be best if you also have things like his hair or fingernail clippings.”

Ye Wenxuan picked up a cloth bag from beside Mother Ye’s feet and, as if performing a magic trick, pulled all sorts of things out of it.

He looked up with a bitter smile. “We’ve gone to a lot of so-called masters lately, so we do have all these things.”

“Well, well, Lu Lingzhu! You actually dared to take clients behind my back!”

I had just collected the items and was about to get started when my good friend Song Feifei burst in, making a huge fuss.

“You heartless woman! I only went out to buy breakfast, and you betrayed me!”

I rolled my eyes and raised a hand toward Ye Wenxuan. “This is my good friend and assistant, Song Feifei. Her brain isn’t especially good, so don’t mind her.”

Song Feifei was a well-known rich second-generation heir around here. After she found out I could catch ghosts, she latched on to me. With the power of her money backing her up, I had no choice but to endure the pain and take her on as my assistant.

“Stop messing around. We’re dealing with serious business. We’re looking for a missing boy.”

“Oh my, they were so anxious they fainted? Then we really do need to hurry!”

Song Feifei glanced at Father Ye and Mother Ye, who were sleeping soundly, and finally became a little more serious.

I took a mud figurine doll out of the drawer. This was specifically used to find people, and it had taken me an enormous amount of effort to make.

To make this figurine doll, the mud had to be taken from the middle section of a road.

Everyone had seen people burning paper money by the roadside before. That was because roads can connect yin and yang. They possess yang energy, but they also contain yin energy.

As society has progressed, however, roads nowadays are all asphalt.

To find a dirt road, I searched through several villages before finally finding one that met the requirements.

Once I had the mud, I still needed water to mix it with.

But this water could not be ordinary water. It had to be water of the living world, steeped in human presence.

Some villages have rivers nearby, where villagers wash clothes and vegetables, and children play in the water.

River water like that is imbued with the smoke and fire of everyday life, making it the very best water of the living world.

The mud doll had to be made in a yin year, a yin month, a yin day, and a yin hour. Then it had to be left under the strongest midday sun every day for nine days. Only then could it become a spiritually potent Soul-Tracking Doll.