"It happened in the middle of the night!"
In the room, Sha LiFei wore a bitter expression. "I heard a noise and woke to find Daoist Wang had fallen off the kang. No matter how I called, he wouldn't wake up. I thought he'd suddenly fallen ill, so I quickly took some men to find the village doctor."
"The doctor couldn't make head or tail of it either. Fortunately, an old carpenter from the Wan household sensed something was wrong and immediately sent someone back to the city to ask Senior Wan for help. That was when we learned he'd been ambushed..."
Listening to Sha LiFei's account, Li Yan's expression turned icy.
On the opposite bed, Wang Dao Xuan's teeth were clenched tightly, both fists balled, his entire body taut. Around him, twelve oil lamps had been lit according to the positions of the Twelve Earthly Branches.
Manager Wan wore a solemn expression. He held half a bowl of clear water in his left hand and three chopsticks in his right, muttering an incantation.
Then he picked up one chopstick, tapped Wang Dao Xuan three times on the forehead, dipped it into the clear water, and stuck it into the center of the bowl.
Clack!
The chopstick failed to stand and fell to the ground.
Manager Wan narrowed his eyes slightly and continued using the method.
Li Yan knew this method was called Grave Measurement, or "standing chopsticks" in the local dialect. It was a folk sorcery that had spread far and wide.
Wang Dao Xuan had told him about it before. It counted as a form of divination.
Clack! Clack!
As the remaining two chopsticks fell, Manager Wan finally sighed and shook his head. "There's no reaction. His Living Soul has been seized."
As he spoke, he looked toward