Chapter 143
Chapter 143
The Buddha Eyes had remained in the refrigerator all this time. I didn’t dare touch them recklessly, afraid they might spoil once I took them out.
I intended to give them to Yu Nian, but for now, I hadn’t told anyone about that-not even Yu Nian herself.
After all, the Buddha Eyes had an extremely complicated origin. There was likely a great deal of trouble hidden behind them.
Besides, I still needed to find a doctor capable of implanting them.
There were simply too many uncertainties involved.
I had actually wondered whether Jin Wuya might be able to help. He was a Guijiang, after all.
A Guijiang specialized in modifying objects and forging a cursed artifact. Jin Wuya had even embedded the Golden Scale before, hadn’t he?
But the Buddha Eyes were different. They weren’t merely living things; they were most likely spiritual objects as well, treasures rarely found in this world. I didn’t dare take the risk.
For the next few days, I stayed at the Pawnshop to recover. Liu Junyan seemed extremely busy, but as soon as mealtime came around, he would appear right on schedule and watch me consume all kinds of nourishing tonics.
My complexion improved by the day, and I recovered quickly.
Once strength returned to my body, even my mood brightened considerably.
Strangely enough, that corpse never appeared again.
It was as though the Buddha Eyes had been completely abandoned following Gu Die’s Reincarnation.
Hui Moqiong’s people had continued investigating, but all they could confirm was that the name Gu Die did indeed seem to come from the Miao Frontier. Her appearance had been so abrupt, however, that they couldn’t uncover a single clue about her.
“Little sis, no matter how far my reach extends, it can’t stretch all the way to the Miao Frontier. Give your bro some time. I’ll figure something out,” Hui Moqiong said, leaning against the doorframe.
Before I could speak, Li Qingying objected. “Watch how you address her, Fifth Master Hui. Who do you think you’re calling your little sister? Xiao Jiu belongs to Seventh Master.”
The implication was obvious: Was he trying to make himself Seventh Master’s brother-in-law?
With a tongue like Hui Moqiong’s, there was no way he would let Li Qingying get the better of him. He immediately shot back, “Say, Yingyingzi, why does everything I do rub you the wrong way? I haven’t offended you. Come on, let’s go outside and hash this out in private.”
As he spoke, he walked over, pinched the tiniest bit of fabric at Li Qingying’s shoulder between two fingers, and towed her outside just like that.
Li Qingying raised a hand and smacked his away. The slap was so loud that even I winced.
Hui Moqiong acted as if nothing had happened. Extending his long arm, he hooked it almost all the way around Li Qingying’s shoulders and herded her straight outside.
Li Qingying was clearly a trained martial artist, yet in Hui Moqiong’s hands, she was like a little rice dumpling he could squash or mold however he pleased. She was utterly helpless against him.
I couldn’t help marveling that everyone truly did have their match.
Two more days passed before Jin Wuya arrived with another man.
When they came, I was in the Main Courtyard presenting Incense. Li Qingying showed them in and brewed tea for them.
By the time I finished and joined them, Li Qingying was seated beside Jin Wuya, chatting with him about something.
A middle-aged man sat nearby. He looked to be around fifty and wore a traditional Tang-style outfit. In his arms was a large object wrapped tightly in a single piece of red cloth.
The man appeared deeply troubled. I swept my gaze over his Facial Features. He had a broad forehead, a high nose, fleshy and rosy cheeks, and large, thick earlobes — the face of a man blessed with good fortune. At present, however, a faint dark aura lingered between his brows, though a glimmer of light was concealed within it.
I frowned. Judging from his surface Facial Features alone, he had suffered some bad luck recently. But he was a man of profound blessings, and whenever he fell into difficult circumstances, a Noble Person would always come to his aid.
As I considered this, my gaze happened to fall on the outer ends of his eyebrows.
They tilted slightly upward, and their tips were tinged red. That was a sign of an upcoming joyous occasion involving one of his children.
Once we were seated, Jin Wuya made the introductions. “Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu, this is Mr. Guo Zaimin. He has something he’d like to pawn at our Pawnshop.”
Guo Zaimin immediately gave me a broad, ingratiating smile. “Here’s the situation, Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu. Years ago, I opened a ceramics factory in the provincial capital that specialized in making Buddha statues. When the factory first got off the ground, strange things kept happening at home, and business wasn’t doing well either. I asked a master to take a look, and he said Buddha statues had spirits of their own. Ordinary people couldn’t keep them in check, so I needed to invite a powerful Buddha home and enshrine it to suppress them. Only then would I be able to keep the business going.”
As he spoke, he gently placed the object in his arms on the coffee table. With a solemn expression, he pulled away the red cloth covering it.
Beneath it sat an enormous gilded Buddha Head.
Guo Zaimin continued, “After I brought this Buddha Head home, everything at my house and factory really did settle down. Business boomed too, and I made a fortune. But the economy’s been in a terrible slump these past two years, and I’m getting on in age, so I decided to transfer the factory and return home for good.
“Before handing the factory over, I sold all the remaining ceramic Buddha statues to others in the trade at a low price. This Buddha Head was the only thing left. They say inviting a god in is easy, but sending one away is hard. When I first invited this Buddha Head in, the master also told me that if I ever no longer needed it, I couldn’t throw it away or casually pass it on to someone else. I had to cover it with a piece of red cloth and bury it deep in the mountains.”
Jin Wuya and I nodded at the same time. I said, “The spiritual energy deep in the mountains is abundant and would help the Buddha Head continue cultivating. That was indeed a good way to handle it. Did you do as he said?”
“I did.” Guo Zaimin looked deeply troubled. “I specifically searched several places. After comparing them, I settled on a particularly remote mountain and buried the Buddha Head there. Oh, there was a Temple in those mountains too. I heard an eminent monk who’s cultivated for a hundred years lives there.”
Guo Zaimin paused to catch his breath before continuing. “After the Buddha Head was first buried there, things at home were peaceful for a while. My wife and I built a house in our hometown, but on the very night we moved in, the Buddha Head… suddenly appeared in our bedroom all by itself.”
That was genuinely bizarre.
I asked, “What happened after that?”
“After that, it didn’t matter whether I buried it on the same mountain again or chose somewhere new. Nothing worked. On the very night I buried it, it would return to my home on its own.”
As Guo Zaimin spoke, cold sweat began beading on his forehead.
Anyone would be terrified by something like this involving the Buddha Head.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to the story. So what if the Buddha Head kept coming back? If it didn’t want to leave, he could simply enshrine it at home. It wasn’t harming him either way.
I was just about to question him further when Hui Moqiong’s voice suddenly rang out from the rear door of the living room. “Buddy, you’ve come all the way here and you’re still holding out on us? If I’m not mistaken, your family has had something to celebrate recently, hasn’t it?”
I shot Hui Moqiong a sidelong glance. He had noticed it too?
Guo Zaimin froze, and Jin Wuya beside him was startled as well. Jin Wuya immediately demanded, “No wonder even I couldn’t see anything wrong with the Buddha Head. So you haven’t been telling us the truth.”
Even more cold sweat broke out across Guo Zaimin’s face. The hand holding the tissue he used to wipe his brow was trembling.
He had once been an imposing business tycoon, yet this matter had reduced him to a nervous wreck.
“Is it really that hard to talk about?” Hui Moqiong gave Guo Zaimin no chance to catch his breath. He continued, “Let me work it out. I’d say… the Star of Romance is stirring for your daughter. Am I right?”