Chapter 46
Chapter 46
The next day, Yu Lu took Wu Sulian to see Granny Chang. Granny Chang shut herself in a room with the mother and daughter.
No one knew what they were doing inside. The doors and windows remained tightly closed until, three hours later, Yu Lu’s scream erupted from the room.
“Aah!”
Most houses in the countryside had poor soundproofing. Yu Lu’s scream was so loud and eerie that it carried to several nearby homes.
“What’s going on? What’s Granny Chang doing in there? Why’s some girl screaming her lungs out?”
The villagers who heard the commotion came out to the main road and gazed toward Granny Chang’s house from a distance.
“Sounds like that girl from the Yu Family. She brought her mother here first thing this morning. No idea what they’re doing inside.”
“Didn’t they say something happened to the Yu Family? That they ran into…”
“What are you talking about in broad daylight? Go on, get out of here!”
The villagers quickly scattered. Not long after they left, Yu Lu and Wu Sulian emerged from Granny Chang’s house.
Wu Sulian’s eyes were red as she supported Yu Lu, whose face was deathly pale. She looked as though she had just endured something unimaginably horrific.
“Mom, it’s over. Our family’s going to be fine now.” Yu Lu was the one comforting Wu Sulian. She solemnly thanked Granny Chang and pressed a thick red envelope into her hands.
On the way out of the village, Yu Lu gripped Wu Sulian’s hand with the urgency of someone making her final arrangements. “Mom, if the court sentences me to prison, you and Dad need to stay home and wait for me to come back. If the court orders us to pay compensation, we can pay one or two hundred thousand yuan. If we don’t have enough, sell the car to make up the difference.”
“But if they refuse to let this go and demand a million, you two should move away.”
Wu Sulian sobbed uncontrollably. In the end, she threw her arms around Yu Lu and broke down wailing in the middle of the country road, in full view of several passing villagers.
The next day, a court summons arrived at the Yu Family home, and the police discovered that Yu Lu had gone insane.
They took her in for a professional evaluation. The doctor’s official conclusion was that Yu Lu had suffered such a severe psychological shock that it had driven her mad.
After learning everything that had led up to the incident, Zhang Qixi called in favor after favor until she finally tracked down Chen You. She insisted that Yu Lu had been wronged somehow and even fell to her knees before him, begging him to help her friend.
With no other choice, Chen You first tried to calm Zhang Qixi down. He had only intended to accompany her for a quick look at Yu Lu before leaving, but the moment he saw her, he realized something was wrong.
“What was wrong?” Yun Jianyue handed Chen You’s phone back to him. The record ended there, as though he had not had time to finish writing it.
Chen You’s expression was grave. “Yu Lu hasn’t gone insane. One of her hun and one of her po have gone missing.”
Every person possessed Three Hun and Seven Po. The Three Hun were Taiguang, Shuangling, and Youjing, while the Seven Po were Shigou, Fushi, Queyin, Tunzei, Feidu, Chuhui, and Choufei.
An ordinary person possessed all Three Hun and Seven Po, allowing them to experience love, hatred, anger, obsession, greed, delusion, and desire as they passed through birth, aging, sickness, and death.
But Yu Lu was now missing Taiguang, one of her Three Hun, and Fushi, one of her Seven Po. Her soul was no longer whole. Worst of all, Taiguang governed life and death, while Fushi governed consciousness.
If they failed to recover the missing hun and po soon, Yu Lu would grow weaker and die within a month!
The group arrived outside her hospital room and looked through the glass window.
Yu Lu sat listlessly on the edge of the bed, staring silently out the window. Her long hair hung down on either side of her face, and for the moment, she looked perfectly peaceful.
Several minutes later, she abruptly flew into a frenzy. She hurled her pillow and blanket to the floor, stomped on them wildly, and screamed without pause.
Then her head snapped up. The moment she saw Yun Jianyue and the others through the glass, she lunged at the door and began hammering on it with all her strength.
“Let me out! He’s coming to take me away! He’s coming for me tonight!”
“I saw Him! God is outside! God, save me! I am Your believer!”
A doctor and several nurses rushed over. A burly male nurse strapped Yu Lu to the bed, and they forcibly injected her with a sedative. Before long, she fell asleep.
“I’m terribly sorry. Her episodes have been getting more and more frequent over the past two days, so we had no choice. Also, officers, as her doctor, I must remind you again that she is mentally ill. Anything you get out of her cannot be used as evidence in a case.”
Mistaking the people from the Paranormal Bureau for ordinary police officers, the doctor gave them one last warning before leaving with a sigh. “Such a young woman, and she suddenly went insane. What a shame…”
Chen You looked at Yun Jianyue. “As you can see, Yu Lu’s condition isn’t promising.”
“Haven’t you spoken to Granny Chang or Yu Lu’s parents? What about Yu Lu’s best friend, Zhang Qixi?” Yun Jianyue asked.
“Yu Lu’s parents couldn’t withstand the shock. They’re both in the hospital now. The victims’ families have been gathering outside the hospital, the psychiatric hospital, and the police station every day, demanding an explanation.”
“Zhang Qixi is still going to work as usual, and she’s been extremely cooperative. We can speak to her now if you want.”
“As for Granny Chang… she’s missing.”
Yun Jianyue knitted her brows. “Missing? She’s a spirit medium with some genuine skill. How could she disappear so easily?”
If someone had tried to hurt her, she could have escaped simply by summoning a minor ghost.
Unless Granny Chang had gone into hiding of her own accord, or she had encountered something far more powerful than herself.
Chen You took out a glass bottle. The bottle was a specially made ritual artifact, engraved with transparent runes that prevented the power of whatever was contained inside from leaking out.
Inside the bottle was a long strand of ink-black hair.
“We found this in Granny Chang’s home. It carries Evil God’s Power. I searched through every file in the Paranormal Bureau, but couldn’t find any information on the Evil God it came from.”
The hair looked vaguely familiar to Yun Jianyue. Before she could figure out where she had seen it, the Red Thread of Fate around her wrist went berserk. It shot toward the bottle and began rubbing itself frantically against the glass.
No, the Red Thread of Fate wasn’t trying to rub against the bottle. It wanted to rub against the strand of hair inside!
In that instant, Yun Jianyue remembered why the hair looked so familiar.
Wasn’t this the lock of Mo Chen’s hair she had cut off?!
“Let me confirm it.” Yun Jianyue took the bottle, intending to remove the stopper and sense whether it held Mo Chen’s power.
The moment her fingers touched the stopper, Si Wuming’s pale, slender fingers deftly plucked the bottle from her hand. “It’s his.”
He didn’t say the name, but they both knew he meant Mo Chen.
“She carries a similar aura.” Si Wuming glanced at the sleeping Yu Lu, then pointed at the bottle.
Yun Jianyue frowned. “Could Mo Chen be involved in this? He’s a mighty Evil God. Why would he suddenly make trouble for a family of ordinary people?”
Chen You immediately picked up on the key detail. “You know who this hair belongs to?”
“Know him? She knows him intimately. They’re married!” Secure inside the jade pendant, where no one but Yun Jianyue and Si Wuming could hear her, Lu Changxue freely spouted whatever nonsense she pleased.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. First, we’ll talk to Yu Lu’s parents and Zhang Qixi.” Yun Jianyue avoided answering Chen You’s question directly.
She didn’t like Mo Chen. The bastard wanted to kill her, and he had killed Zhou Benxin before.
But based on what little she knew about Mo Chen, he wasn’t the type to casually attack ordinary people.
Besides, Yu Lu’s one utterly ordinary hun and one equally ordinary po couldn’t possibly be of any damn use to an Evil God as powerful as Mo Chen, could they?