After dodging the crippled-leg table's crushing blow, Liu Mumu finally managed to get to her feet. She had taken barely two steps toward the door when she slipped and pitched forward. Yan Xiu rushed up and caught her by the shoulders.
Liu Mumu looked up and flashed him a brilliant smile, showing off a row of little white teeth. "Thanks."
After setting her upright, Yan Xiu surveyed his office, which he couldn't tell had been destroyed by natural disaster or human hands. He was speechless for a long while.
Fang Chuan cautiously poked his head into the room and asked Liu Mumu, "What happened to you?"
Liu Mumu didn't hide anything. She told him straight out, "A side effect of fortune-telling."
"Whoa... That's one hell of a side effect." Fang Chuan looked at her with deep respect. "I thought Consultant Yan had rejected you last time, so this time you planned to take his office down with you."
Liu Mumu gave a dry laugh, thinking, If you'd left me in the office outside just now, your office would be gone too.
"When will this side effect end, and what should we do next?" Fang Chuan asked.
"Next, could you call my dad and ask him to come pick me up?" The only person who could save her now was her dad, Old Dong.
"Huh? Where's your phone?" Fang Chuan asked, confused. Why did she need him to make the call?
Liu Mumu pointed to the phone lying in two pieces in the corner. It had taken one of Consultant Yan's treasured ornamental stones down with it.
Fang Chuan sucked in a breath. Good heavens! He'd heard that stone was worth over a hundred thousand yuan!
He knew this mess was beyond him. He'd better call Liu Mumu's father and let him know what was going on.
Maybe, given that her father could afford to pay for the damage, Consultant Yan wouldn't take it out on him.
The call connected quickly. Dong Zhenghao thought his own scandal had come to light again, and he was immediately on edge.
He hurriedly said, "Officer, may I ask what this is about? I've been especially law-abiding lately. I absolutely haven't been associating with those people again."
Fang Chuan's mouth twitched. "It's unrelated to a case. Liu Mumu is your daughter, right?"
Dong Zhenghao didn't wait for him to continue. He declared firmly, "My daughter's an upstanding citizen too!"
Fang Chuan found Mr. Dong rather hard to describe. It seemed this man's sense of humor operated on a completely different wavelength from everyone else's.
"Here's the situation. We have a case that requires her assistance, so we brought her to the station a little while ago. She'd like you to come pick her up."
"But I'm not in Qingcheng..." Worried the other man might misunderstand, Dong Zhenghao quickly explained, "I'm just on a business trip in the neighboring city. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon. I absolutely haven't fled to avoid prosecution."
After he'd been released that day, the police had only told him verbally not to leave the province for the time being, but he still made sure to explain himself.
"We're not accusing you of anything... So you can't come pick her up right now?"
"That's right. How about I ask her aunt to take her younger sister to pick her up?" Dong Zhenghao figured his eldest daughter might be upset about being brought in for questioning and want her father to comfort her.
If he wasn't there, his younger daughter could comfort her instead. But she couldn't go alone, so it would be perfect if her mother went with her.
Although Dong Zhenghao was hopelessly devoted to favoring sons over daughters, he knew perfectly well that, in his eldest daughter's eyes, his precious son ranked a whole level below her younger sister.
Didn't she offer to tell her younger sister's fortune every day? As for him, her father, if he wanted a free fortune-telling session, he had to sweet-talk her and put her in a good mood first. Sigh, it was hard.
He used to be the one people flattered and fawned over. Ever since Mumu came home, the tables had turned.
"Wait a moment. I'll ask her."
Fang Chuan set his phone down and went back to ask Liu Mumu, "Your dad's on a business trip in the neighboring city and won't be back until tomorrow. Is there someone else you'd like to have pick you up?"
Liu Mumu covered her face in despair. Old Dong, you've let me down!
"No need."
"All right..." Fang Chuan suddenly felt a chill. He had a bad feeling something was about to happen.
Fang Chuan turned down Dong Zhenghao's offer and hung up after promising to get Liu Mumu home safely.
"Should I have someone drive you home in a bit?" he asked tentatively when he returned.
Yan Xiu didn't stop him. It seemed he wasn't planning to make Liu Mumu pay for an entire office just yet.
"I don't think that'll work," Liu Mumu said regretfully.
The reason she'd made it home safely after telling fortunes that day was that the breakfast shop she'd chosen was close to home.
The City Bureau was still quite a distance from her place. If she took a car home, who knew whether it might cause a chain of horrific accidents along the way?
"Why not? We won't take a police car. I'll drive you in my car." He thought Liu Mumu was worried people would stare if they saw a police car dropping her off.
Captain Fang had bought his new car on credit the previous month, and he hadn't given anyone else a ride in it yet.
"I'm afraid..."
Before Liu Mumu could finish, an officer ran in. He was moving so fast that he knocked the office chair near the entrance as he came through the door.
The chair had wheels underneath. They watched helplessly as it dodged every obstacle in its path and headed straight for Liu Mumu.
Fang Chuan reacted quickly and planted his foot on it. The chair tipped sideways, sending one of its wheels flying into the air. It smacked Fang Chuan on the head, bounced, then flew away.
Fang Chuan clutched his head and turned to Liu Mumu. "Why doesn't this side effect spare innocent bystanders who are just trying to help?"
Liu Mumu shrugged. "For the next two days, accidents like this could happen at any moment. If you insist on driving me home, I'm worried your car might not make it there."
"A car accident?" Fang Chuan panicked a little. He'd never run into anything like this before.
"Something might fall from the sky too. A person, for example, or a meteorite."
When she'd first gained this ability, her grandfather had actually found a meteorite near her. And, believe it or not, it was worth quite a bit.
Fang Chuan was already regretting inviting Liu Mumu over. What was that saying? It was easy to invite a god, but hard to send one away.
He'd met plenty of masters in his time, but this one was the most troublesome—and the most dangerous.
"Consultant Yan, why don't you help her figure something out?" Fang Chuan tentatively asked Yan Xiu for help. "Don't you mystics have some kind of lucky charm to cancel it out?"
Liu Mumu looked at Yan Xiu hopefully too.
Yan Xiu was quiet for a moment, then rummaged through the ruins of his office for cinnabar and yellow paper. He took them out and found a flat surface to draw a talisman.
The moment he folded the talisman and placed it in Liu Mumu's hand, it seemed to catch fire. A few seconds later, it had turned to ash.
The officers watching from the side all swallowed at once and stepped back. What a fearsome power!
When they'd worked on the case involving the bone-urn, anyone who touched it had bad luck. Consultant Yan had solved the problem with a single talisman.
Liu Mumu was roughly equivalent to a hundred bone-urns.
Next, Yan Xiu squeezed a drop of blood from his fingertip and mixed it with the cinnabar. His brush swept across the paper in flowing strokes as he drew another talisman.
This time, the paper still began to blacken, but much more slowly. It looked as if it could last at least an hour or two.
When he placed it in Liu Mumu's hand, she felt warmth envelop her from head to toe. The chilling sensation that malice was closing in from every direction disappeared.
"Does it seem to be working?" She cautiously took a few steps forward and nothing went wrong.
Her face full of hope, she approached Yan Xiu. "Could you draw twenty for me? No, fifteen would be fine!"
This side effect would gradually weaken with time. By the final day, it wouldn't be so dangerous. She figured that if she used them sparingly, fifteen talismans would be enough to keep her safe for two days.
Judging by how fast Yan Xiu drew, it didn't seem like an unreasonable request.
"No."
Liu Mumu looked disappointed when he turned her down so bluntly.
Seeing how pitiful she looked, Yan Xiu made the rare effort to explain. "Blood talismans have a shelf life. They lose their effect after two hours."
In other words, stockpiling talismans wasn't an option.
Liu Mumu grabbed his sleeve. "Isn't there anything else we can do?"
Between the side effect of fortune-telling and the extremely inauspicious fortune she'd drawn that morning, she felt she might end up joining her grandfather in the afterlife today if they didn't come up with something.
"Hey, why bother looking for another solution? Just have him draw you one every two hours," Fang Chuan said, thinking he was brilliant.
An officer beside him nudged his waist and whispered, "What about tonight?"
Fang Chuan looked at Yan Xiu's expressionless face, then at Liu Mumu, whose eyes had suddenly lit up, and silently shut his mouth.
In the end, Yan Xiu neither agreed nor refused, but he didn't send Liu Mumu away either.
It was noon, and they'd just arrested Ning Yuan. Fang Chuan and Yan Xiu had to head to the interrogation room, so Liu Mumu was left in the office outside. An officer even went to the cafeteria to bring her some food.
Once they left the office, Fang Chuan moved closer to Yan Xiu and lowered his voice. "That girl ended up like this because she helped us catch the culprit. Her side effect is terrifying. We can't just leave her to fend for herself, can we?"
Yan Xiu glanced at him. "Why haven't you ever been so eager to help anyone before?"
"Because she's your future girlfriend." Fang Chuan hadn't forgotten that part. After all, a fortune-telling master had said it. How could it not be true?
Yan Xiu, normally so cold he barely showed any emotion, paired with a troublesome little girl who was as difficult as she was good at causing problems—it was a perfect match!
He couldn't wait for the day they got together.
"I already told you she got it wrong. And there were other people on that floor at the time, including you."
Fang Chuan waved a hand. "Come on, we don't have the same taste. There's no chance. The girl actually thinks my face is a bit square. Does this look square to you? It's called manly."
Yan Xiu pinched the bridge of his nose. As if being worn down by Fang Chuan every day wasn't enough, now there was another person to deal with.
When Yan Xiu didn't respond, Fang Chuan pressed on. "It probably wouldn't be a good idea to take her home. Why not get two rooms at a nearby hotel and have someone bring her a talisman every two hours? We'll just get her through tonight.
"There's nothing urgent tomorrow. Apart from interrogating Ning Yuan, we're just waiting for the Zhan siblings to wake up. We can take half a day off and come back to the station later. What do you think?"
There were degrees of urgency, and Liu Mumu's situation did seem more serious. Fang Chuan didn't bother being polite.
They reached the interrogation room before Fang Chuan heard Yan Xiu respond with a quiet "Mm."
Their interrogation of Ning Yuan that afternoon didn't go well.
He was cooperative and answered every question, but none of his answers gave Fang Chuan and the others what they wanted. Without crucial evidence, they couldn't pry anything out of him.
"Officers, I've told you everything I can. If you want to call me a fraud, I admit it. Whatever the court decides, I'll accept. As for Mr. Zhan Hongye, we had nothing more than the relationship between a fortune-teller and his client. I regret that he died, but this really had nothing to do with me."
"Zhan Hongye had a son and a daughter. Did you know them?" Fang Chuan had already heard him repeat the same things several times, and wasn't swayed.
"I knew them. I'd met his son when we went out to eat before. I met his daughter at Mr. Zhan Hongye's funeral."
After arriving, Ning Yuan had realized where he was. But he was confident that nothing could happen to him.
He'd covered his tracks very thoroughly and left no clues behind. Even if these police officers specialized in the occult, they couldn't convict him without physical evidence or witnesses.
"When did you last see the Zhan siblings?"
"I saw them once at the funeral."
"Is that so?" Fang Chuan looked up at Ning Yuan. "Zhan Ni didn't say that."
Ning Yuan's body stiffened for a moment, and his eyes widened slightly. It was only a brief change, but the people watching him closely saw it clearly.
Ning Yuan tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Officer, I have no grudge against the young lady from the Zhan family. I honestly don't know why she'd say that."
Fang Chuan didn't go along with him. Instead, he said, "You got nervous when I mentioned Zhan Ni."
He leaned forward slightly. "Was it because you thought she was already dead?"
This time, Ning Yuan didn't speak. He shut his mouth, apparently unwilling to say anything more.
Fang Chuan asked a few more questions, but Ning Yuan no longer gave him any response.
After gathering their things and leaving the interrogation room, Fang Chuan said to Yan Xiu, who was waiting outside, "Liu Mumu really is impressive. That guy is almost certainly the mastermind."
Ning Yuan's confidence at the beginning, and the way he reacted when they told him Zhan Ni wasn't dead, both pointed to the truth.
"It's a shame he covered his tracks so well. We can't find a single lead on who hired him."
"It doesn't matter." Yan Xiu stood with his hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the interrogation room. His profile was stern. "News that the Zhan siblings are still alive has been sealed off. If our guess is right, someone will come forward to take over the Zhan family's affairs sooner or later."
"Let's hope so."
"The hospital just sent word that Zhan Huitian woke up sometime after four," Yan Xiu told Fang Chuan.
Fang Chuan brightened. "Let's go see him at the hospital."
After taking a few steps, Fang Chuan turned back. "Should we bring Liu Mumu along? If nothing happens tonight, you two can head straight to the hotel afterward."
Yan Xiu didn't object, so Fang Chuan took that as agreement.
Liu Mumu had been stuck in the office all afternoon. Yan Xiu changed her talisman every two hours, but she didn't see him at any other time.
She had no phone, and no one to chat with. All she could do was lie on the desk and draw little birds over and over.
Fang Chuan walked over and looked down at her. "What are you drawing? Why is it so round?"
Liu Mumu turned around and looked at the two men who'd appeared in the office with a mournful expression. "Angry Birds. They represent how I feel right now."
Fang Chuan quickly took two steps back. He had no desire to be caught in the crossfire of an angry bird.
"We're going to the hospital to see Zhan Huitian. Want to come with us? You can also check on the classmate you saved."
"Let's go!" Liu Mumu immediately jumped up and dashed for the door.
Fang Chuan walked out with his car keys. When they reached the parking lot, he suddenly remembered something and quietly asked Yan Xiu, "Why don't we take your car instead?"
He'd only brought his "wife" home a month ago. He wasn't ready for something to happen and leave him single halfway through the drive.
Yan Xiu took out his car keys and tossed them to him. Fang Chuan caught them with a grin, then tossed his own keys to the two subordinates following behind.
When they came closer, Liu Mumu leaned over to look at the car badge. It showed a little angel with outstretched wings. She didn't recognize it, but she still said, "This car looks really expensive."
After getting into the driver's seat, Fang Chuan explained, "It's one of Consultant Yan's cars."
Liu Mumu got in and asked Fang Chuan, "You're so broke. How can you afford to hire him?"
Fang Chuan's features didn't have much to do with money, but his career prospects looked pretty good. She hoped she'd read him right.
Fang Chuan sighed. "How could I afford him? Our bureau can't afford him either. Headquarters covers his expenses, and his salary comes directly from the higher-ups. He's not even in the same system as us."
Their department had only been established recently, with one consultant assigned to each region. Apparently, more officers who'd received special training would be transferred over later. For now, they were short-staffed, and people in every region were complaining.
Still, Fang Chuan thought Yan Xiu was better than the other consultants. The few cases they'd handled had gone rather smoothly, and none of their colleagues had been lost.
The cases might not look difficult, but they were full of hidden dangers. One wrong move could cost someone their life.
"Wow, how much do you get paid?" Liu Mumu asked curiously.
"Anyway, he makes a lot more than we do."
The two of them treated Yan Xiu as if he weren't there and openly started discussing his salary.
"He's really rich..." Liu Mumu ran her hand over the expensive leather seat, genuinely envious.
Fang Chuan glanced at Liu Mumu in the rearview mirror. "Don't fortune-tellers make money? It's perfectly normal to charge a wealthy businessman tens of thousands for a reading, right?"
"Look at me. Do you think I can just tell anyone's fortune?"
"That's true." Fang Chuan wholeheartedly agreed. He'd looked into Liu Mumu before and knew Dong Zhenghao had only recently found her. He figured that, in her situation, having a rich father support her was much better than struggling on her own—at least she'd be more likely to stay alive.
"So the master who taught you fortune-telling... or..." Fang Chuan hesitated, unsure what to call him.
"My grandfather. He wasn't famous. The Blind Liu who lives on the next street did better business than he did." Liu Mumu didn't mind Fang Chuan probing. She didn't mind telling him who'd taught her, either.
"If he taught you, he must have been pretty impressive." Fang Chuan wasn't convinced.
The two of them chatted all the way to the hospital, and Fang Chuan still had more to say when they arrived.
After they got out, a doctor guided them discreetly to a corner on the fifth floor of the inpatient building. They went into a private room.
Zhan Huitian lay on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling with his eyes open, seemingly lost in thought.
He only turned his head when he caught sight of Fang Chuan and the others out of the corner of his eye. Then he noticed Liu Mumu, who was walking at the back. His eyes shifted, and a little light returned to them.
"How are you feeling?" Fang Chuan asked.
"Pretty good." Zhan Huitian's voice was hoarse. "It feels good to be alive."
He'd nearly thought he would die there. Who wanted him dead? Mr. Ning? Zhan Huitian sank back into his thoughts.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Fang Chuan, captain of the Special Case Investigation Section. I handle cases involving the occult. We have conclusive evidence that you used a cursed artifact to kill your father, Zhan Hongye. Do you have anything to say?"
Fang Chuan's question interrupted Zhan Huitian's thoughts.
He stared blankly for a moment, then shook his head. "No."
He had lost a lot of blood at the time, but he still remembered that person, including the man standing behind him.
That person had drawn something on his face, and then the bleeding had stopped. That wasn't a power ordinary people could have. He had always thought Mr. Ning was incredibly capable, but now he knew he'd just been a frog in a well.
And he really had killed Zhan Hongye with his own hands.
"Do you know Ning Yuan? Tell us everything about him."
Fang Chuan and the other officers were still taking Zhan Huitian's statement, while Liu Mumu quietly went to the hospital room next door.
A police officer stood guard outside the room. Knowing she had come with Fang Chuan, he didn't stop her from peering inside through the window in the door.
Zhan Ni lay in the hospital bed, surrounded by monitoring equipment. She still hadn't woken up.
Liu Mumu sensed someone approaching and glanced back. It was Yan Xiu. She didn't know when he had come to stand behind her, and he was looking inside too.
"Zhan Ni only hit her head when she fell. Why hasn't she woken up? Didn't the doctor just say her concussion wasn't serious?" Liu Mumu asked. She hadn't expected Yan Xiu to answer.
But he did. "Your earlier guess was right. Ning Yuan may have used methods that damaged her brain. For now, the equipment can only detect abnormal brain waves."
"What about you? Can't you do anything?"
Yan Xiu shook his head. This wasn't his specialty. He could only tell from her current condition that Zhan Ni's inability to wake up wasn't caused by her fall.
"Is it possible she'll never wake up?" Liu Mumu couldn't quite explain how she felt. She just suddenly felt low. Was this what Zhan Ni deserved for her crimes?
"Possibly. If she remains unconscious, we'll send her to the capital."
Even if they couldn't wake up, they were still criminals. She and her brother would both be sent to a special prison. One would receive ordinary punishment, while the other would probably be sent to the special prison's treatment center.
After visiting Zhan Ni, Liu Mumu went back to Zhan Huitian's room. As soon as she entered, she heard him ask, "Officer, does my sister know I'm in the hospital? Where is she now?"
Fang Chuan glanced back at Yan Xiu, then looked at Zhan Huitian. "Your sister..."
"She's in the room next door," Yan Xiu said coldly. "After cursing you to death, she tried to kill herself but failed. She was rescued, but hit her head when she fell."
"C-cursed me to death?" Zhan Huitian looked incredulous. "Why? Why would she want to kill me? I already returned the vase to Mr. Ning. How could she...?"
Zhan Huitian became extremely agitated. The doctor waiting outside hurried in to help, and it took quite a while for him to calm down.
"So the person who wanted to kill me was Zhan Ni," Zhan Huitian murmured, as if all his strength had left him in an instant. "I guess this is karma."
Before you continue