Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Before we wrapped up, I had Peng You prepare a bundle of Buddhist incense and a bowl of Seven-Colored Rice for me.

Those things weren’t used often, but back when I was doing Yunfo, my Master always made me keep them on hand.

Peng You decided to have Old Zhang come with me. Old Zhang was scared, but he didn’t refuse.

I glanced at Wang Cheng, who still looked utterly clueless and indignant, and decided to bring him along too. After all, he was the one who had hauled the Buddha Body back.

At seven o’clock sharp that evening, the three of us set off.

Two small yellow silk lanterns hung beneath the left and right side mirrors.

In the old days, the lanterns were lit with incense candles from temples. Now they had all been replaced with little battery-powered bulbs.

They barely gave off any light. From a distance, they looked like a pair of fireflies.

Old Zhang drove the first half of the night. I lay down in the back seat to rest, while Wang Cheng sat in the passenger seat.

Maybe he thought I had fallen asleep, because Wang Cheng lowered his voice and said, “Uncle Peng really gave him all the payment? Then the two of us made this trip for nothing?”

Old Zhang replied helplessly, “You think the boss is going to short the two of us over this? You should be thanking the heavens that Brother Long was willing to take this job. Otherwise, who knows how we’d clean up this mess?”

Wang Cheng clicked his tongue.

“So what if he’s done Chongsha a few times? What’s so amazing about that?

“Isn’t Chongsha just when a truck has to take a new route, and since people are afraid something might happen, they get an experienced driver to run it first? Anyone with a bit of experience could do that.

“I already asked around. He got scammed so badly he even lost his company. Now he’s doing odd jobs all over the place just to pay off his debts, and you people still keep calling him Brother Long like he’s someone special.”

Old Zhang shot Wang Cheng a cold look through the rearview mirror.

“Then do you know what happened to the man who scammed him? The first time that man tried to do Chongsha on his own, he died on the road. In the end, Brother Long was still the one who cleared that route.”

Wang Cheng froze, suddenly at a loss for words.

But from the look on his face, he was still unconvinced. Old Zhang could only shake his head in frustrated disappointment.

Lying in the back seat, I drifted off at some point without realizing it.

In my dream, I was walking alone down an empty highway.

There were no cars. No other people either.

Everything around me was quiet. I kept walking forward, and all I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps.

But at some point, behind the sound of my footsteps, another set appeared.

I whipped around and saw a man standing outside the guardrail, half his face twisted crooked.

He stared straight at me, one leg raised as if he wanted to climb over the guardrail, but he couldn’t get across.

I knew him. He was Tang Dong.

The partner who had screwed me over back then. My best friend, the one I’d grown up with.

“Long Changdong, I won’t let you live in peace.”

Tang Dong’s dry, hoarse voice rang out. He would remain on that highway forever.

“You can’t cross over,” I said, staring at him coldly.

“Is that so?”

He glared at me, then suddenly split his blood-red mouth into a grin. His neck stretched out like a snake, shooting straight over the guardrail and lunging toward me!

I reached for my waist. Something hard and ice-cold stabbed pain into my palm.

My eyes flew open, and the nightmare receded like a tide.

The faintly swaying roof of the truck came into view. My hand was still clenched tightly around the Soul-Whip I had wrapped around my waist!

This Soul-Whip had been given to me when I was a child by a half-mad old Daoist priest.

When I was twelve, I saved him from a drainage ditch.

At the time, he said to me, “You have the face of an asura and the heart of a bodhisattva. In this life, you’re destined to make a living between yin and yang.”

I didn’t take it seriously back then. At eighteen, I left home to drive trucks.

In the end, he really had predicted it-

Leading trucks through Chongsha, cracking the whip to drive away evil. Now I was well into my thirties, still paying off debts with money earned between yin and yang.

That said, the fact that I suddenly dreamed of Tang Dong did surprise me a little. He had been dead for almost half a year.