Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Yueyue, it’s your auntie’s birthday this Saturday. Are you coming home?” Yun Luhua’s voice came through the phone.

Yun Jianyue had grown up in a single-parent household. She had never met her father and had always lived with her mother, whose surname she had taken. Everyone in the family said her mother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock after being deceived by a man.

There had been no shortage of gossip in their small county town, but her mother had run her own business and supported Yun Jianyue by herself.

Then, when Yun Jianyue was eleven, her mother died in a fire caused by an accident. Her auntie’s family took her in and raised her until she turned eighteen.

After Yun Jianyue finished the college entrance exam, her auntie even handed over the nearly two million yuan her mother had left her without pocketing a single cent.

It was no exaggeration to say that her auntie, Yun Luhua, was like a second mother to her.

“Okay. I’ll buy a ticket tomorrow and come home,” Yun Jianyue said.

The timing was perfect. After celebrating her auntie’s birthday, she could ask about her mother.

It was already Wednesday, so Yun Jianyue bought a ticket for Thursday. City A wasn’t far from her hometown. The high-speed train ride only took an hour and a half.

Unfortunately, the only ticket left for Thursday was for the seven o’clock train that evening. She wouldn’t arrive until eight thirty, and it would be nine by the time she reached her auntie’s house.

After packing two days’ worth of clothes into her backpack, Yun Jianyue opened the book Cai Zeyu had given her.

“Guiding Qi into the Body. Sense the Innate Qi…”

Following the book’s instructions, Yun Jianyue sat cross-legged, formed a hand seal, cleared her mind, and focused.

Once again, she sensed the energy that had circulated through her body when she drew the talismans.

This time, however, it surged with far greater intensity.

The energy contained in the air around her also began pouring into her body.

After two hours, Yun Jianyue felt refreshed and invigorated. It was already eleven at night, so she sent Cai Zeyu a message.

“Guiding Qi into the Body isn’t that hard.”

Cai Zeyu replied almost immediately. “You succeeded?”

Yun Jianyue: “Yep.”

Cai Zeyu: “!!!”

After that, he stopped responding altogether.

At a bar Yun Jianyue knew nothing about, Cai Zeyu clung to Du Minghao and sobbed his heart out, every tear steeped in bitterness.

“Why? How could she accomplish Guiding Qi into the Body in a single night? And her first time lasted two whole hours!”

Du Minghao had been in an excellent mood, but after hearing that, he downed a huge gulp of alcohol, threw his arms around Cai Zeyu, and started bawling with him.

“One genius like Si Wuming was already enough! Why did there have to be another one? I began my training at six, the ideal age for Guiding Qi into the Body, and it still took me an entire month just to sense Qi!” Du Minghao wailed.

“I had it even worse! It took me a month and a half to sense Qi! Boohoo!” Cai Zeyu burst into even louder sobs.

Du Minghao kept crying. “Then it took me another month to go from sensing Qi to Guiding Qi into the Body! The first time I did it, I only lasted ten minutes! I was so damn exhausted I had to lie in bed for an entire day!”

Cai Zeyu wailed in heartfelt agreement. His experience had been exactly the same.

While the two brothers in misery cried themselves inconsolable, Yun Jianyue remained blissfully unaware and slept like a log.

At eight thirty on Thursday evening, Yun Jianyue stepped off the high-speed train.

The air in the small county town really was much better than in the big city. There was also something distinctive about the scent of one’s hometown, and breathing it in left Yun Jianyue relaxed and refreshed.

After leaving the station, Yun Jianyue booked a ride through an app. While waiting for her car, she spotted a hardware store across the street and walked in without a second thought to buy a small electric saw.

Night had fallen, so Lu Changxue emerged in her spirit form and floated beside her. The moment she saw that Yun Jianyue had bought yet another electric saw, she let out an ear-piercing shriek.
“We’re only going back to our hometown for a visit. Why are you buying another chainsaw?!”

Chainsaws weren’t allowed on the high-speed train, so Yun Jianyue hadn’t brought hers. But after getting off the train, she couldn’t shake a nagging sense of unease.

The moment she had a chainsaw in her hands again, she finally felt reassured.

“Nothing beats a chainsaw. Just holding one makes me feel so safe.” Yun Jianyue grinned. Her ride arrived right on time, so she confirmed the last four digits of her phone number and climbed in.

The car dropped her off outside her aunt’s residential complex, and Yun Jianyue made her way home with practiced ease.

But when she opened the door, she found dirty dishes still sitting on the dining table and not a single person in the apartment.

It looked as though something had happened without warning, forcing the entire family to rush out before they could even finish their meal.

A terrible thought crossed Yun Jianyue’s mind. She pulled out her phone and called her aunt.

It rang for quite a while before someone finally answered. Her aunt’s anxious voice came through the phone.

“Hello? Yueyue, are you home? Something happened to your cousin. We’re out in the countryside right now.”

Yun Jianyue’s cousin was named Xia Huiqing. Once summer vacation ended, she would begin her senior year of high school. She was the daughter of Yun Jianyue’s aunt, Yun Luhua.

After Yun Jianyue was taken in by her aunt, she and Xia Huiqing had shared a room every night.

For the past three years, Yun Jianyue had been attending university in another city and was hardly ever back home. As a high school student, Xia Huiqing was only allowed two hours of phone time a month, and she spent one of those hours calling Yun Jianyue.

The two of them were closer than most biological sisters.

“What happened to Huiqing?” Yun Jianyue asked.

“Your cousin… she’s been afflicted by something evil!”
One week earlier.

Xia Huiqing was a day student. Although her family lived in an old, run-down residential complex, it was only a ten-minute walk from her school, making their apartment prime school-district real estate.

Ever since starting high school, she had followed the same routine every evening after coming home from night study: eat a late-night snack, study for another hour, then wash up and go to bed before twelve thirty.

That night was no exception.

As usual, Yun Luhua had prepared a late-night snack. The instant the door opened, she hurried over and took Xia Huiqing’s schoolbag. “Sweetheart, I made you noodles with soybean paste. Would you like some milk too? I’ll get you a bottle.”

Xia Huiqing raised her eyes to look at Yun Luhua. Her face was rather pale, and she seemed to have trouble processing what her mother was saying.

After a delayed reaction, Xia Huiqing forced a weak smile. “Thanks, Mom. I’m not hungry.”

With that, she went into her room.

As her mother, how could Yun Luhua possibly miss that something was wrong? She followed Xia Huiqing into the bedroom, only to find that in less than half a minute, the girl had already collapsed onto the bed and fallen asleep.

“She didn’t even change before passing out. Is she sick?” Yun Luhua murmured worriedly as she felt Xia Huiqing’s forehead, but it wasn’t hot.

In the end, Yun Luhua still prepared a packet of cold medicine, woke Xia Huiqing long enough to drink it, then tucked her in beneath the covers.

Xia Huiqing had always been healthy. Even if she caught a cold or developed a fever one day, she would usually be mostly recovered by the next.

But early the following morning, when Yun Luhua came to call Xia Huiqing for breakfast, she was still asleep. Normally, Xia Huiqing would already have gotten up and finished washing by then without needing to be reminded.

Her brows were tightly furrowed, as though she were trapped in some horrifying nightmare, and she kept muttering unconsciously under her breath.

“Sweetheart?” Yun Luhua tentatively shook Xia Huiqing.

Xia Huiqing’s eyes flew open. She practically sprang upright in bed, gulping down air like a fish on the verge of death.