By the time Ji Nanshu saw the private message, half an hour had passed. He sat cross-legged on the bed while Chu Mo blow-dried his hair.
Ji Nanshu frowned as he finished reading the other person's account, then replied-
[Send me a recent photo of yourself.]
A photo arrived almost immediately. The man in it had lifeless eyes, with large, dark blue-black bags beneath them. Endless worry showed between his brows, and his lips were as pale as paper.
Most importantly, the space between his brows was dark. If this man had not messaged Ji Nanshu, or if he did not believe in feng shui and the mystic arts at all, then his wife and daughter would certainly die within two days, and he himself would not live past five.
Ji Nanshu replied-
[Where are you now?]
The reply came instantly-
[By the fountain in South Star Park.]
Ji Nanshu told him to stay there, quickly changed his clothes, put on a hat, and prepared to leave.
Chu Mo caught his arm, looking aggrieved. "Aren't you taking me?"
A certain award-winning actor declared: he was utterly wronged. His wifey was going out without him (Ｔ▽Ｔ)!
A little hesitation crossed Ji Nanshu's face. It was not that he could not take Chu Mo; his face simply attracted too much attention... Besides, although he had the golden light of merit, yin energy also clung to him.
It was not fatal, but it did make him prone to bad luck over little things. The only reason those little things had gone relatively smoothly for Chu Mo lately was that Ji Nanshu had purified all that yin energy.
"Can't you take me? I understand... I just won't go." Chu Mo lowered his eyelids, looking dejected and utterly pitiful.
"...No, I'm worried someone might photograph you and start some nasty rumors," Ji Nanshu explained awkwardly. "Could you cover your face...?"
In under a minute, Chu Mo briskly put on a mask and hat, full of energy. "I'm ready!"
Ji Nanshu: "..."
He really was faking it!
What a bastard!!
Pah!!!
Mei Liang had waited in South Star Park for almost forty minutes. Just as he began to think Ji Nanshu had only been saying it casually and would not come at all, two people stopped in front of him.
He looked up-
Mei Liang cried out in delighted surprise, "You really came?!"
Ji Nanshu frowned. He could see that the darkness between the man's brows had deepened.
"Don't waste time talking. Let's go to the hospital where your wife and daughter are right now."
Mei Liang nodded hastily and got into the car with them. They soon arrived at Hai City First Hospital.
By the time they arrived, Mei Liang's daughter was asleep, though traces of pain were still visible on her little face.
Chemotherapy had made almost all of Mei Liang's wife's hair fall out. She wore a hat even at night.
She sat on the hospital bed, terribly weak. "A-Liang, are these two your friends?"
Mei Liang scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "Xinya, this is... a Celestial Master! I really didn't know what else to do, so..."
Qian Xinya shook her head and smiled bitterly. "A-Liang, I understand. May I ask your names?"
"Ji."
"Celestial Master Ji... have you noticed anything?" Qian Xinya's eyes were filled with hope. "I don't know whether A-Liang explained everything clearly, but our whole family had very comprehensive full-body checkups every year. There was nothing wrong with us. You could say these illnesses appeared overnight!!"
"It doesn't matter about me, but... but Meizi is so young! I... it doesn't matter if I die, but can you keep my daughter from suffering like this???"
As she spoke, Qian Xinya could no longer hold back her tears. Her daughter was still so little and had yet to see the beauty of this world. How could she have gotten this illness??
She truly could not understand!! If it were possible, she would accept dying herself. She only begged heaven to spare her daughter!
Ji Nanshu was accustomed to seeing partings in life and death, but even he found this a little hard to bear.
Women were weak, but mothers were strong.
He had always scoffed at that saying. It was nothing more than a shackle forced upon women: sacrifice and devotion were taken for granted, and anything else meant you were not a qualified mother.
Now, though, he had gained a different understanding of it.
"Don't worry. Neither you nor your daughter will die."
Mei Liang's eyes lit up. "Master Ji!!! Have you figured something out?! Can our family be saved?!" he asked excitedly.
"Luck Borrowing."
"Luck Borrowing?!" Mei Liang clearly did not quite understand.
Ji Nanshu did not explain at length. He only asked, "In the past two months, have you bought anything strange, or has anyone given you anything strange?"
Mei Liang had said that his parents had died one after the other over the course of a week within the past half month. Less than a week after their deaths, his wife and daughter had been diagnosed with leukemia, and his company was also on the brink of bankruptcy.
Luck Borrowing required a medium, and the medium had to remain in the possession of the person whose luck was being borrowed for at least a month before it began to work. Combining that with the timeline Mei Liang had described, he had asked whether they had bought anything strange or received anything strange from someone in the past two months.
Mei Liang thought for a long time but could not recall anything. He even looked utterly baffled. "No?"
Just then, Qian Xinya seemed to remember something, and her face grew even paler. "Could it have been a delivery...? I... I signed for a package at the beginning of last month. Mom and Dad were traveling then and often sent things back. I thought it was something they'd bought... Later, they said they hadn't bought it, but it looked quite pretty, so we hung it up at home and didn't give it any more thought..."
"What was it?"
"A set of wind chimes..."
Mei Liang shot to his feet and was about to rush out of the ward. "I'll go home and throw those wind chimes away right now!"
Ji Nanshu glanced at him. "Come back. Destroying the medium now won't help. It'll also alert whoever is behind this."
"Then... then what do we do?!" Mei Liang crouched on the floor, on the verge of sobbing aloud, nearly tearing his hair out.
His wife and child were about to die. He might as well die with them!!!
Ji Nanshu asked, "Do you only want to undo the Luck Borrowing, or do you want to repay them in kind?"
Mei Liang fell silent for a while. Thinking of his parents, who had died tragically and innocently, then looking at his sickly wife and young daughter, he gritted his teeth and answered, "An eye for an eye!!!"
"Good."
He liked that kind of temperament. Ji Nanshu had always lived by this rule: if others left him alone, he left them alone; if they crossed him, he cut out the roots.
"Bring me a cup."
Ji Nanshu took out a talisman and gave it a gentle shake in midair. The talisman paper burst into flames, and he dropped it into the cup. Once it had finished burning, he said, "Add water and give it to your daughter."
Mei Liang did not doubt him. He poured in a little under half a cup of warm water. The moment the talisman ashes touched the water, they turned transparent. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, who could have believed there were talisman ashes in that water?
"Sweetheart, sweetheart! Wake up. Have some water before you go back to sleep, all right?" Mei Liang coaxed gently.
The little girl was bleary-eyed with sleep, but her eyes were full of happiness at seeing her father. She gulped down the water Mei Liang handed her in two swallows, then reached out to be held.
Ji Nanshu repeated the process, and Qian Xinya drank the talisman water too.
"The two of them will sleep well tonight, and their conditions will improve." Ji Nanshu rubbed Meizi's head as she looked at him curiously. "Add me on WeChat and send me your home's location. Tomorrow at two in the afternoon, outside your door."
"Thank you! Thank you, Celestial Master Ji!!" Holding his daughter, Mei Liang bowed again and again in thanks. Wonderful!! They were saved!!!
Ji Nanshu chuckled. "You don't have to be so tearfully grateful. You'll have to pay me. Besides... this isn't over yet. Aren't you afraid I won't be able to resolve it?"
Mei Liang smiled bitterly. "If you can't resolve it, then that's our fate! That doesn't stop us from thanking you!"
"The fact that you met me proves your lives aren't meant to end yet!"
Working hard to build up a backlog...
I'll try to update 4,000+ characters a day once the verification period starts.
Thank you for your support, cuties!!