After roughly calculating the nanny's location, Qi Gu had the Han Family call the police.
Later, the nanny was caught. She said breaking Han Song's finger had been purely accidental: she had carelessly caught his little finger while closing the car door. His finger could still have been treated then-it had only been fractured-but she had been unwilling to spend the money.
And she had taken the child away merely because Vivian had reminded her to wash her hands after using the toilet before picking him up.
Even in the interrogation room, the nanny remained indignant, cursing Vivian bitterly. "Who does she think she is, acting so clean? That's how I look after children at home, and nothing ever happened to any of the others!"
The police asked her whether she knew that the family who had bought Han Song had later had a child of their own and drowned him because of his disability.
The nanny lived in the same village as that family. Her eyes shifted at the question; clearly, she had known.
Both sides were therefore sentenced to prison, and the Han Family brought Han Song's remains back and buried them in their ancestral graveyard.
But all that came later.
In the hall, Qi Gu performed the life-swapping ritual on Han Jiahao and Han Song.
The instant their fates were restored, Han Jiahao immediately withered, his face turning ashen. Before long, he was taken to the ICU.
As for the Han Family's uncle and aunt, neither was young anymore. The shock sent them to the emergency room one after the other, and their faces bore the signs of people with little time left.
Vivian gazed at Han Song, her eyes filled with reluctance to part and longing. "Master, does my baby have to go and be reincarnated now?"
She had not even had the chance to treat this child well.
She thought that their bond as mother and son had been far too brief after all.
Qi Gu looked at Han Song, who lay in Vivian's arms with a peaceful smile. "Reincarnation is a good thing."
Han Yunshu gave a bitter laugh. "Yes, we know it's a good thing that he can be reincarnated. It's just so hard to let him go..."
The two Han elders also asked whether he could wait a few days before being reincarnated. They wanted to spend a little more time with the child.
Qi Gu did not agree. He merely looked at Vivian's belly and said softly, "Everything has its destined course."
His hint was far too obvious. The Han Family were all shrewd people; how could they fail to understand? Joy appeared on all their faces.
Han Yunshu, however, was somewhat anxious. "Master, Vivi is already forty-two. Wouldn't giving birth now be too dangerous?"
"She has done good deeds and accumulated profound merit for years. Both mother and child will surely be safe," Qi Gu said. "If not for her merit, even after Han Song regained his fate and became her son in name, he would probably still have needed to accumulate some merit before he could be reincarnated."
Hearing this, the Han Family were naturally overjoyed. Even watching Han Song being taken away by an underworld officer did not bring them much sorrow. They only wished desperately for the days ahead to pass faster, and faster still.
So their baby could return to them as soon as possible.
Once everything had settled, Vivian took out a check to pay him. Qi Gu politely declined and asked instead, "Do you two happen to know a good renovation crew? I'd like to restore the Taoist temple my master left me."
He did not know how long his current popularity would last, but he truly had no desire to go back to acting or singing.
He therefore thought he would take advantage of his current popularity to draw some worshippers to Floating Mist Temple and give his late master's spirit in heaven something to be happy about.
Vivian immediately caught his meaning and offered to find specialists to handle the matter. All the master needed to do was state his requirements; she guaranteed they would work until he was completely satisfied. She also said that once the temple's restoration was finished, her entire family would certainly bring Han Song there to fulfill their vow.
Her words covered every detail, and Qi Gu was very pleased.
The Han Family's driver courteously drove him back to his rented room in the urban village. Stepping into the single room, which was as scorching as an oven, Qi Gu instinctively wanted to ask Green Ghost to release some ghostly energy to cool things down. Then he remembered that Green Ghost had already gone to be reincarnated and sheepishly switched on the air conditioner.
Perhaps because its filter had gone too long without cleaning, even the air blowing out of the unit was hot.
Qi Gu turned over on his cooling mat, feeling like a piece of meat on a grill that obligingly flipped itself. Sprinkle on some cumin, and he could be served straight up.
After his master passed away, he had lived with Green Ghost... Now Green Ghost was gone too.
Oh well. It was all fate.
Qi Gu stopped dwelling on it and opened his phone, which had been vibrating the entire journey, to see just what messages were pouring in.
The moment he unlocked the screen, the flood of notifications completely crashed the budget phone he had bought for a thousand yuan and used for several years. It was utterly frozen.
With a calm expression, Qi Gu went straight downstairs, found a nearby phone shop, and bought a smartphone costing around three thousand yuan.
The reason he bought an expensive one... was that he feared another flood of messages would crash it.
He logged back into his various apps, then opened Weibo, which had the most notifications, and saw over a thousand alerts for private messages, likes, and comments.
He quickly skimmed through them and found that most of the private messages and comments were extravagant praise. Next came people asking where Floating Mist Temple was, hoping to offer incense and make wishes there, followed by messages of thanks from the victims' families from before.
Seeing how many people wanted to visit Floating Mist Temple, Qi Gu's lips curved into a faint smile, and he began to type.
Qi Gu gugugu (master of Floating Mist Temple) V: The temple is under renovation. I'll let everyone know when it's finished.
[Aaaaah, claiming a spot up front!]
[Can't wait, can't wait! I've already saved up my incense money!]
[If we go to the temple to offer incense, can we ask Gugu to tell our fortunes?]
[So is the temple still hiring? I can sell incense at the entrance!]
[Then I'll sell ice cream.]
[I'll sell hand-muddled lemonade.]
Qi Gu skimmed through the comments and felt that if that many worshippers really did come, he would genuinely be unable to handle them all alone.
But hiring was another troublesome issue. Managing people was a major challenge for Qi Gu, let alone the actual operations. What did someone who had studied programming know about management?
Qi Gu sighed and searched online for a practical article on managing staff.
Less than three seconds into reading it, the densely packed, tedious text whetted his appetite.
He snapped the webpage shut, opened Meituan, and began looking for food.
Management and all that... really ought to be left to professionals.
The money he had yet to receive included fifty thousand yuan for the first episode of the show, plus the share of viewer tips the director had promised. After splitting those with the platform, that would come to roughly another fifty thousand, making a hundred thousand in total. After taxes, he should have seventy or eighty thousand left.
However he looked at it, that seemed a paltry sum with which to hire an excellent manager.
Qi Gu thought for a few seconds and finally decided... when in doubt, eat takeout first.
Before you continue