Chapter Thirty-Four

34

"Can you tell me how long someone in Zhuo Ran's situation might be locked up after she's arrested?" Liu Mumu asked.

"Hadn't you already guessed?" Yan Xiu glanced at her. If she hadn't suspected something, why would she have taken matters into her own hands?

He said, "Although life substitution is taboo, her attempt was unsuccessful. It depends on the specific circumstances, but the maximum sentence won't exceed ten years."

Liu Mumu pouted. Just as she'd thought.

Yan Xiu stood up and walked over to her, looking down at her. "I'll say this one more time: even if they're bad people, you have no law enforcement authority. You can't just get involved whenever you want. Do you understand?"

"We masters have always done as we please." Intimidated by his sternness, Liu Mumu shrank back into her chair, but still stubbornly talked back.

"Even masters have to listen. Be good." Yan Xiu softened his tone and tapped the Fat Rabbit on her head.

Fang Chuan came out of the conference room and stood by the door, talking to two subordinates.

He looked up and saw Yan Ling heading to the second floor.

"What brings you here?" Fang Chuan greeted her with a raised hand.

"I heard there was a case, so I came to take a look." Yan Ling walked over, getting straight to the point. "I saw the injured person downstairs. I heard she was one of the people behind this case?"

"That's right. Any thoughts?" Since she was from headquarters, Fang Chuan wanted to see what she could do.

"I have plenty of thoughts. That mastermind is in for a rough time." Yan Ling said.

"What do you mean?"

"I got someone to help me check her fate. Her life pattern is in complete disarray. It's not just a matter of the life substitution ritual being interrupted and her suffering backlash." Yan Ling asked curiously, "Do you know who did it?"

Fang Chuan tilted his chin toward the room. "The person in there. Your cousin's giving her a private lecture right now."

Yan Ling carefully pushed the door open a crack and peeked inside, then quickly pulled back.

"Liu Mumu?" she exclaimed. "How did she do that?"

"She figured it out."

"Are you messing with me?" Yan Ling's expression turned odd. "You really don't understand fortune-tellers at all. If they could figure out everything, they'd have taken over the world by now.

"Could someone really predict something as underhanded as life substitution so easily? If it were that simple, why would we investigate cases? We could just ask a master to figure it out.

"They must have done something to those two people beforehand. There's no way to read their fates."

"Then how did Liu Mumu know exactly what was going on, and manage to interrupt the ritual at just the right moment?" Fang Chuan asked, baffled.

Yan Ling glanced at the half-closed door, puzzled too. Liu Mumu was supposed to be a fortune-teller, but her abilities were strange.

Maybe her cousin knew something?

While the two of them were wondering, Yan Xiu opened the door and came out. Seeing Yan Ling there, he casually asked, "Did you check out the scene? What did you find?"

Yan Ling immediately felt a shiver, as if the Dean of Studies had caught her attention. She swallowed and answered cautiously, "After the backlash, Zhuo Ran and the Grass Gu master's fates were thrown into disarray. There's something strange: they've both been marked by ill fortune. They'll have to be careful from now on.

"As for life substitution, they can forget about it. Zhuo Ran's fate will probably never align with the girl she targeted again."

As Yan Ling spoke, she thought it was quite a coincidence. All the potential trouble had been cleared up at once.

Yan Xiu nodded. "Good. You've improved."

Yan Ling beamed, but remembering that her cousin was watching, she forced herself to stop smiling. Still, the corners of her mouth crept upward.

Her cousin had praised her! She really was capable! She could brag about this for a whole year.

"I'll go help out."

Yan Ling set off with renewed energy, ready to get to work. After she left, Fang Chuan asked Yan Xiu, "Your cousin just told me that a normal fortune-teller couldn't have predicted any of this, let alone stopped it so precisely. What's the deal with Liu Mumu?"

Someone so capable was exactly the sort of person Fang Chuan hoped to keep around.

There was no point trying to recruit her into the system, but maybe he could dream of asking her for help every now and then. After all, he had Yan Xiu on his side.

Fang Chuan had met plenty of masters. The capable ones all had strange tempers and weren't easy to get along with. Liu Mumu might cause trouble whenever she got the chance, but in a way, she was quite normal. She also knew where to draw the line.

"What do you want to know?" Yan Xiu glanced at him.

"Are there really people who can figure out anything just by doing a quick reading?"

"Yes."

Yan Xiu's answer was firm.

"What makes her different from ordinary fortune-tellers?"

"That's someone else's private business. Don't pry."

"Tsk. I can't even ask?" Fang Chuan was dying to know.

Yan Xiu's expression didn't change. He clearly had no intention of telling him.

"Fine." Fang Chuan gave in. "Your cousin isn't going to report her, is she?"

Ultimately, Liu Mumu was in the wrong. If they followed procedure, it wouldn't be good for her. Headquarters had always used a carrot-and-stick approach when dealing with masters and mystics outside the system. Liu Mumu would definitely be at a disadvantage going up against them, so neither Fang Chuan nor Yan Xiu planned to report her.

"She wouldn't dare."

"Good." Fang Chuan felt a little relieved, then added, "Make sure you lecture Liu Mumu properly. Next time she finds out about something, tell her to give us a heads-up instead of charging in on her own."

"I already did." Yan Xiu sounded calm. Whether she listened was up to fate.

The two men walked to the window. Yan Xiu looked down through the second-floor glass. The ambulance had already left, and some of the students had been allowed to go. Their faces showed both alarm and undisguised curiosity.

They were all young. Liu Mumu was about their age, yet completely different.

Fortune-tellers and mystics were somewhat different. Fortune-telling relied entirely on skill, along with a certain amount of talent. The barrier to entry wasn't high; ordinary people could try their hand at it at home, and some were even accurate.

But some people were born with their talent turned all the way up. They didn't need to learn the techniques at all to tell fortunes. Fortune-tellers called such people God's Sight.

It meant they could see into people's lives as if they were gods.

According to legend, people with God's Sight didn't need to calculate anything to tell fortunes. They only needed to look. One glance was like personally experiencing your future.

The records stated that there were two people with God's Sight still alive.

Liu Mumu was probably the third.

She was young, and there were some problems with her fate. So whenever she used God's Sight, she ran into all kinds of trouble. But it was still an incredibly powerful ability.

Powerful enough to make a lot of people covet it.

Did the grandfather she spoke of know this? If he did, why hadn't he taught her anything?

"Yan Xiu, what's going on downstairs?"

Fang Chuan's voice interrupted Yan Xiu's thoughts. He shook his head. "Nothing. Let's go."

After Fang Chuan questioned Xue Lan, another officer came to take her statement. Liu Mumu went through the same process.

After more than an hour of hassle, it was already completely dark outside. Only then were they finally allowed downstairs.

There were hardly any people left in the lobby. The guests had given their statements early, left their contact information, and gone home.

Zhuo Ran had been sent to the hospital. Several gift boxes that no one had taken were still on the table where they'd played cards earlier. The cards themselves had been collected as evidence.

Two people were still sitting on the stage. Looking closely, they turned out to be Wei Xue and Qian Xiaomeng.

Qian Xiaomeng had gotten sleepy waiting and had already dozed off with her head on Wei Xue's shoulder. At last, when the two of them came downstairs, she stretched hugely and walked over. "You two finally made it down. Everything okay?"

"I think so." Xue Lan looked at Liu Mumu. She still had no idea what had happened and figured Mumu was the only one who knew.

Wei Xue glanced around. "Let's go back to the dorm first, then we can talk."

No one objected. Then Xue Lan suddenly asked, "Have you seen Xu Anze?"

"You were taken upstairs, and not long after, they took him up too," Wei Xue replied. "He still hasn't come down. Should we wait for him?"

Xue Lan was about to say there was no need, when the police officer who had questioned her earlier came downstairs. The handsome man whose presence clearly marked him as something other than a police officer was there too, followed by several officers escorting Xu Anze.

Xu Anze looked ashen, as though he'd suffered a terrible blow.

When he saw Xue Lan standing nearby, he stopped as he passed her.

The officers escorting him didn't hurry him along. They seemed willing to let the two of them exchange a few words.

"Lanlan." His voice was hoarse. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was only thinking about our future..."

Xue Lan didn't really understand what he meant, but she still answered, "I don't know what you did to hurt me, but you got one thing wrong. Our future isn't yours to decide alone. The moment you thought it was, we were doomed never to be together."

Zhuo Ran had merely been the catalyst that exposed how unsuitable they were for each other.

Her appearance proved that they had never been right for each other in the first place. Xue Lan had simply been lost in her feelings for him in the small world she'd lived in back then, and hadn't realized it.

"I'd already made up my mind yesterday to tell you after Zhuo Ran's birthday party. I might as well tell you now." Xue Lan looked seriously at the young man standing before her. "Xu Anze, I don't think we're right for each other. Let's break up."

Xu Anze stared at Xue Lan's calm face. There was no resentment, no other emotion. At last, he gave a self-mocking smile. "I understand."

His gaze finally swept across the three girls standing with Xue Lan. They were all her friends. Ever since she started university, she'd become different from the way she'd been before.

In high school, the school had been small, and he'd had plenty of admirers. Very few people had sincerely befriended Xue Lan.

But after she started university, she met these people and no longer had to rely on him for everything. She had more ideas of her own and had become stronger.

Maybe she was right. They weren't suited for each other. Their relationship had been a mistake from the start, doomed not to last.

Everything before this had just been his self-deception.

"Take him away." Having witnessed the breakup, Fang Chuan waved for the officers to take Xu Anze away.

As an accomplice, since the life substitution ritual hadn't been completed, he could only be charged with an attempt. His crime wasn't that serious.

Xu Anze had kept dodging the key points, but Fang Chuan could more or less guess what he'd done. The things belonging to Xue Lan that had been used in the ritual were probably taken from her by him.

So much for being in love. He was a con artist, and the farther away she stayed from a man like that, the better.

Before leaving, Fang Chuan gave Liu Mumu a look that clearly said they'd talk another day.

Liu Mumu turned her face away. She didn't want to talk to him.

After the police left, the four girls went outside to catch a cab. By the time they got back to school, there were still thirty minutes before the dorm locked up. They'd made it back safely.

Once they entered their room, no one felt like washing up. Everyone gathered around Liu Mumu's desk, waiting for her to explain.

Liu Mumu took a moment to organize her thoughts before speaking. "Actually, when I read Lanlan's romantic fortunes, I found out that Zhuo Ran planned to switch fates with you."

Seeing their confusion, she explained further. "Basically, Lanlan and Zhuo Ran were born on the same day at the same time, which gave them the conditions for a life substitution. She thought your fate was better than hers, so she wanted to switch your life patterns. What she'd gone through would have happened to you instead."

Xue Lan understood immediately. "Was my poor health earlier connected to this life substitution?"

She'd gone from being healthy to frail, and then healthy again. Something was clearly wrong.

Before, she hadn't known why and had assumed her immune system had weakened. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong. Hearing Mumu explain it, everything suddenly made sense.

"Ah!" Qian Xiaomeng shrieked. "That charm! Was it the charm?"

She'd seen the charm turn to ash in Mumu's hands.

"That's right." Liu Mumu nodded. "Xu Anze was probably Zhuo Ran's accomplice. He gave you some things to help with the life substitution. The Peace Charm he gave you might have been one of them too. There's a good chance they used those things to temporarily switch your life patterns, which made your health deteriorate."

"If it was such a big deal, why didn't you tell us sooner?" Qian Xiaomeng couldn't help complaining. "We went to her birthday party without a care in the world. It was terrifying."

"If I'd told you earlier, would you have had a way to deal with it?" Wei Xue asked.

"We could at least have been on our guard. We didn't have to go to some birthday party."

Wei Xue shook her head helplessly. "Do you remember how long Xu Anze and Lanlan had known each other? They'd been setting this up a year in advance. They even arranged for Xu Anze to be her boyfriend. Do you think she would've had any chance to fight back if they'd decided to do something to her?"

As she finished, she looked at Liu Mumu.

Liu Mumu nodded. "If we'd avoided it this time, we still couldn't have avoided it next time."

The best option was to ruin their plans as soon as she saw what they were doing and get it over with, so they wouldn't get another chance.

"Fine..." Qian Xiaomeng thought it over and admitted there was some sense to it. "But you should've at least told us what was going on. You faced them alone. If you'd gotten into danger, we wouldn't have known what happened."

Everyone agreed with Qian Xiaomeng.

"Okay, I'll make sure to tell you next time." Liu Mumu agreed readily. Although there had been no real danger for her, she understood how much her friends cared.

She'd seen what Zhuo Ran planned to do and who was helping her carry out the ritual from beginning to end. There was little chance of anything going wrong. Even if something did, she wouldn't be the one in trouble.

With the Star of Solitude fate, if Zhuo Ran crossed paths with her, there was no way Liu Mumu would be the one to suffer.

Still, Liu Mumu apologized to Xue Lan. "Sorry, Lanlan. I kept this from you."

Xue Lan quickly shook her head. At the time, she'd only been thinking about her relationship and whether she should break up. Mumu, meanwhile, had been thinking about how to save her. How could she blame her?

After learning what she'd nearly gone through, she couldn't quite relax. Thank goodness it had all been resolved.

"Don't apologize. I'm glad I only learned the truth at the end. It wouldn't have made much difference if I'd known sooner."

If she'd found out beforehand, she might have completely fallen apart. Learning after it was all over left her with nothing but relief. Even her resentment toward Xu Anze had faded before it could take root.

By the time they'd taken him away in handcuffs, he'd already become an insignificant passerby in her life.

"Oh, right, Mumu. Does that police officer know you?" After dealing with the unpleasant matter, Xue Lan finally had time to ask about something else.

"Oh... We've crossed paths a few times. You could say we know each other a little." Liu Mumu answered slowly. They'd taken her to the interrogation room twice!

Liu Mumu suddenly remembered an old grievance: he still owed her an entire day's worth of apologies!

Seeing how interested Xue Lan seemed, Liu Mumu casually added, "The Peace Charm I gave you was drawn by the consultant at their police station. You saw the man in the suit, right?"

Before Xue Lan could answer, Qian Xiaomeng was already covering her face and squealing. "Ahhh, I saw him! He's so handsome!"

Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, long legs, and such a refined air. Too bad he seemed so unapproachable. He was the sort of man you could only admire from afar.

"Right? Right? I think so too." Liu Mumu's eyes instantly turned into hearts. She felt she had excellent taste.

How had the conversation gotten sidetracked?

Wei Xue gave her a look of utter disbelief. After a moment, she still decided to pour cold water on her. "Get a grip. You're not exactly a good match, whether you look at age, wealth, or life experience."

Though he was certainly easy on the eyes.

"It doesn't matter." Liu Mumu spun in place. "I used my ancestral coin to tell our fortunes. We're made for each other!"

Wei Xue couldn't help saying, "You also used your ancestral coin to predict Xiaomeng's first crush, and then she fell in love at first sight with a kitten the size of a hand on the street."

The kitten had been a little male cat a young woman had just bought at the pet store. Xiaomeng saw it on the way home and was so smitten she couldn't move.

So that was what a crush was? Couldn't she fall for a normal boy? They were different species. It was never going to work out!

Sometimes Wei Xue felt that Mumu's coin wasn't all that accurate. It was at least a little crooked.

Beside them, Xue Lan covered her mouth and laughed. It was too bad the kitten Xiaomeng had fallen for already belonged to someone else. She'd suffered heartbreak almost as soon as she'd fallen in love.

As the four of them chatted, the dorm lights went out without mercy.

It was eleven o'clock, lights-out for the whole building.

They weren't in the mood to keep chatting. Everyone turned on their phone flashlights and set their phones beside their beds, then hurriedly changed into their pajamas and washed up, ready for bed.

No matter what frightening things had happened, they were still ordinary students. Luckily, they had another day off tomorrow. After a good night's sleep, it would all be behind them.

Life would go on, and it would still be just as beautiful.

Liu Mumu was already sleeping soundly, but far away in the capital, the Zhuo family had fallen into a panic over losing contact with Zhuo Ran and Mr. Xu.

Though it was already late at night, Lin Qiu still couldn't sleep. She kept asking Zhuo Yongqi, who was sitting on the sofa, "Why hasn't Ranran contacted us? Did something go wrong with the ritual?"

Zhuo Yongqi remained calm and tried to reassure his wife. "Don't worry. Even if something went wrong halfway through, we can still fix it."

If the last operation hadn't gone badly in Qingcheng—costing him Ning Yuan and letting the police there outmaneuver him until they uncovered some of their secrets—he wouldn't have sent Mr. Xu alone. He'd been worried another major move would draw attention.

That substitute had insisted on going to school in Qingcheng, forcing his daughter to leave the capital. They'd really had rotten luck.

A little after one in the morning, the landline at the Zhuo home suddenly rang. Lin Qiu hurried to pick up. "Ranran..."

She hadn't even finished the sentence when the rest of her words caught in her throat.

The person on the other end of the phone said something, and Lin Qiu suddenly shrieked. "What are you talking about? What do you mean, my daughter performed an illegal life-swapping ritual? Where is she?"

"What? What did you do to her? She's in poor health. If anything happens to her, I'll make you pay!"

When she finished, she hung up with a click.

After putting down the phone, Lin Qiu stiffly turned to her husband. "The life-substitution ritual failed. Ranran was arrested. The police said she's unconscious and won't wake up. Honey, what do we do?"

Zhuo Yongqi stood up with a dark expression. "Come on. We're going to Qingcheng."

Zhuo Ran was their only child. Of course they couldn't just leave her to fend for herself.

"But what if they..." Lin Qiu hesitated. Though they had connections in the capital, Qingcheng was another matter.

As the saying went, a powerful dragon couldn't suppress a local snake. They didn't know what things were like in Qingcheng. If they went there rashly, might they give the police an opportunity to act?

"It's fine. I'll tell Jiayue first."

Zhuo Yongqi's younger sister, Zhuo Jiayue, had married into the Qi family, an occult lineage. The Qi family was in a completely different league from the Zhuo family—a prominent clan with a hundred-year legacy.

Even if he really was detained in Qingcheng, as long as his brother-in-law was willing to help, nothing serious would happen.

Lin Qiu hurriedly nodded. "All right. Call Jiayue, and I'll pack. We'll leave tonight."

The Zhuo couple arrived in Qingcheng the next morning. Lin Qiu first made a scene at the police station, insisting on seeing her daughter.

After some discussion, Fang Chuan agreed to take them to see Zhuo Ran, but said they couldn't go near her.

Lin Qiu reluctantly agreed. Once they reached the hospital, she saw her daughter lying in the ward and tried to rush inside, but luckily, the police guarding the door stopped her.

Standing in the doorway, Lin Qiu clung to Zhuo Yongqi and sobbed. "My poor Ranran, how could she be so unlucky? She only made a small mistake. Who could be so heartless as to hurt her like this?"

Zhuo Yongqi patted her back, his gaze fixed on his daughter. A murderous glint showed in his eyes.

He turned to ask, "Officer, even if my daughter did something wrong, the law can punish her. Why is she unconscious and unable to wake up? I expect an explanation from you."

Fang Chuan replied coldly, "This concerns an ongoing case. I can't disclose any details."

Zhuo Yongqi gritted his teeth, but there was nothing he could do about him.

Fang Chuan continued, "The two of you will also need to come to the police station to assist with the investigation. Zhuo Ran's life-swapping ritual went on for a year. A year ago, she was still in the capital."

In other words, the two of them couldn't escape involvement in this matter either.

"Of course we're willing to cooperate with the investigation. But if you want to charge us, Officer, show us the evidence first," Zhuo Yongqi said calmly.

Fang Chuan met Zhuo Yongqi's gaze and thought, The old man's pretty composed.

"Of course." Fang Chuan forced a smile.

Zhuo Ran had actually woken up, but she felt awful. She didn't even have the strength to open her eyes.

Lying in the hospital bed, she could clearly hear her mother sobbing and her father arguing with the police.

Her life-substitution ritual had failed.

Zhuo Ran remembered.

Just as she was about to open her mouth and call for her mother, she suddenly heard a rustling sound from beneath her bed.

The sound came with a faint, soothing fragrance. She could feel the Gu worms inside her, which had been restless and agitated, settling down amid the scent.

It was just like when she was little and the Gu worms tormented her so badly that she could barely bear it—until Xu Anze suddenly appeared and made them settle down.

Had Xu Anze come?

Zhuo Ran's consciousness began to sink. Amid wave after wave of fragrance, the Gu worms that had lived inside her body for more than ten years left her without her feeling a thing.