Chapter 2

Chapter 2

In the end, although I managed to scrape together the money for the surgery, I still couldn’t save my wife.

As she lay on her deathbed, she took my hand and spoke.

“Changdong, don’t blame yourself. Tang Dong is a viper, a petty man. Someone like him isn’t worth being kind to, and he isn’t even worth hating.

“Take the children and live a good life. Stay far away from Tang Dong. Don’t make things hard for yourself, and don’t work yourself to exhaustion.”

I collapsed by her side, weeping uncontrollably.

I had only just come to terms with the passing of my parents, and now I had to say goodbye to the love of my life.

When the sun rose, I had lost yet another family member.

Tang Dong went on to start his own logistics company, acting like a pillar of the community.

Meanwhile, I had to sell off my family assets and was still left with a mountain of debt to repay.

I knew I couldn’t be impulsive.

I had a son and a daughter to raise, and an elderly mother-in-law to care for.

But I also made a silent vow.

The debt between Tang Dong and me would be settled sooner or later.

“Mr. Long, how much longer until we arrive?”

The mother of the girl sitting in the back seat asked tentatively, perhaps because I had been silent for too long.

“Not far now. About half an hour.”

I glanced at the navigation. Our destination today was Qingsong Mountain Cemetery, Golden Crane Bridge, Yangfeng County.

It was called a cemetery, but in reality, it was just a stretch of abandoned, desolate graves.

I had taken the train to Yangfeng County with the mother and daughter. We tried to hail a taxi, but as soon as the drivers heard the address, they wouldn’t even open their doors for us.

In the end, we had no choice but to rent a car ourselves.

I glanced at the passenger seat, where the tools I had just bought were laid out.

A shovel, gasoline, an axe, a crowbar…

And that Soul-Striking Whip I had pulled out from under the cabinet.

To be honest, this was the first time I had ever taken on a job like this.

Previously, to pay off my debts, I had helped a friend in real estate “cleanse” several haunted houses.

That involved staying in properties where people had died for a period of time.

I’m not usually afraid of anything, and I certainly don’t fear ghosts or gods.

As long as the pay was right, I’d stay in any kind of house.

As it turned out, word of mouth spread among the agents, and I gained a bit of a reputation.

This mother and daughter had come to me after hearing a recommendation from one of those agents.

However, the task they commissioned me for wasn’t to “cleanse” a haunted house, but to “sever” a peach blossom entanglement.

The victim was a young girl named Chen Mengmeng.

In her early twenties and a recent college graduate, she was currently huddled in her mother’s arms.

She looked listless, her face deathly pale, with dark circles under her eyes.

According to her story, it all started three months ago, just after the Qingming Festival.

She began to frequently dream of a strange man.

At first, she thought she just wanted a boyfriend-the classic case of “thinking by day, dreaming by night”-so she didn’t take it seriously.

In her dreams, she and the stranger talked happily. They even went on outings and dates together.

The only thing was that she could never see the man’s face clearly.

She just had a gut feeling that he must be a young, handsome man.

After a while, the man asked her if she was willing to be with him officially.

Deeply immersed in the sweetness of the dream, Chen Mengmeng agreed without a second thought.