The Buddhist realm in dreams (V)

Yang Jian walked over to the hospital bed and sat down, then said to Liu Jing, "Auntie, I'm Li Yang's friend."

Liu Jing was still rather weak, but she had also seen Li Jie's attitude toward Yang Jian just now. This department head, who had barely acknowledged her when she first arrived at the hospital, was as docile as a child in front of Yang Jian.

She forced herself to try to sit up, but Yang Jian held her down and said:

"Auntie, there's no need to be so formal. Li Yang and I are very good friends. I only came here to ask you a few things about him."

"Child... ask whatever you want. My Li Yang hasn't come home for half a year. He only went abroad on vacation..."

As she spoke, tears welled up in Liu Jing's eyes. Whenever Li Yang was mentioned, she could not stop grieving.

Yang Jian asked, "I'd like you to think back. Before Li Yang went abroad, did he show anything unusual, in the way he spoke or behaved, for example?"

Liu Jing thought for a long while before speaking. "No. Li Yang has always been a good boy who excelled in both character and studies. He never had any disputes with his classmates at school, either."

After speaking with Liu Jing for a while longer, Yang Jian confirmed that Li Yang had been an ordinary university student before being dragged into the Ghost Painting.

In other words, Li Yang really had become a ghost handler inside the Ghost Painting. But if that was true, who had brought him out of it...?

Surely he could not have taken control of a ghost even more powerful than the Ghost Painting while inside it.

Yang Jian continued, "Auntie, if you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at your home."

Liu Jing nodded. "Go ahead, child. The key is in my clothes. No one has lived there for a long time, so it might be a little dirty and messy."

Yang Jian stood up and tucked the blanket around Liu Jing.

"Auntie, the weather in DQ City isn't suitable for recuperating here anymore. Tomorrow, I'll arrange for someone to take you to Dachang City. Just focus on getting better. I'll do everything I can to find Li Yang."

A glimmer of hope appeared in Liu Jing's eyes. She understood that the young man before her must be someone important, though she did not know when her Li Yang had made a friend like this. She immediately said gratefully:

"Thank you, child. You're truly a good person. The Buddha will bless you."

Yang Jian went downstairs. Li Jie was instructing some medical staff to move medical equipment. When he saw Yang Jian coming down, he immediately went over to greet him.

"Officer Yang, I've already arranged Liu Jing's transfer. These people will accompany her to Dachang City. Rest assured, I'll do everything I can to treat her. She'll be able to get out of bed and walk normally in less than a month."

Yang Jian nodded. It seemed this Li Jie was very adept at handling things. Even without Yang Jian saying certain things, he understood what he should do.

"I have other business, so I'll be leaving."

"Yes, of course." Li Jie immediately bowed as he respectfully saw Yang Jian out of the hospital.

Beneath the night sky, there was a chill in the air. Although the New Year was approaching and temperatures were indeed low, to Yang Jian, this was an extremely abnormal phenomenon.

The Ghost Hand opened to catch a snowflake, and faint traces of cold spread through his palm.

Something flickered in Yang Jian's eyes. He could all but confirm that the falling snow was a medium for some supernatural force. It was merely in a relatively stable state for now and had not begun attacking ordinary people.

But Yang Jian had no energy to deal with this at the moment. Even the person in charge of DQ City was still in Dajing City, helping headquarters contain the ghosts that had run out of control. He himself had a pile of matters waiting to be resolved, so he could only send this information back to headquarters and leave it to Wang Xiaoming to consider.

He arrived at Liu Jing's home, an old six-story residential building. Yang Jian directly spread his Ghost Domain and entered her apartment.

A thin layer of dust had settled over the furniture inside. It looked as though no one had lived there for some time. He looked toward a photo frame on the table. In the photograph, Li Yang wore his school uniform and was laughing as he made a victory sign.

Within the Ghost Domain, Yang Jian inspected the apartment and found nothing unusual. It was simply an ordinary home.

Just as Yang Jian was about to leave.

"Knock, knock, knock..." A knocking sound came from the door.

Yang Jian's gaze instantly turned cold, and he walked toward the door with the billhook in hand.

"Excuse me, is Yang Jian here?"

A low voice came from outside the door. It was very familiar to Yang Jian, as though he had heard it somewhere before, but he could not recall where for the moment.

This voice...

Yang Jian opened the door. Outside stood a bald man, trying hard to give him a smile.

"Yang Jian, it really is you. I just went to the hospital looking for you. Liu Jing said you'd come here."

"Lin Bei?"

Yang Jian recognized the bald man at a glance. They had crossed paths on the bus before, and he was a fairly decent person. Before getting off, Lin Bei had asked Yang Jian to send some money to his family.

Lin Bei rubbed his bald head and said, "It's me. You really weren't easy to find. That money has arrived. I came because I wanted to thank you in person."

"Just for that?" To Yang Jian, it was only a sum of money, something that took no more than a word from him.

Lin Bei nodded. "Of course. I count as half a monk, at least. I place the greatest importance on this sort of karma."

Yang Jian looked at Lin Bei's bald head. This man had evaded the Mummified Bride's attack when the bus stalled. His supernatural power was not weak, and he was suspected of controlling a consciousness-type ghost.

"Weren't you on that bus? How did you end up here?"

"That's a long story."

The two spoke as they headed downstairs.

"After you left, a few more groups of people boarded the bus, and it stalled several times. There were some scares, but we came through without danger. Then one day, an old man suddenly appeared and drove all of us off the bus. A few people tried to resist, but he killed them all. That old man was too terrifying..."

Something unusual flickered in Lin Bei's eyes. It seemed the old man still cast a shadow over his mind even now. He continued:

"But the ghost inside me had already been thoroughly suppressed by the bus. I'd been planning to find a time to get off anyway, and the old man's appearance happened to give me that opportunity. As soon as I got off, I received word that Dajing City had gone out of control. Since then, I've been dealing with some supernatural incidents there."

Hearing this, Yang Jian thought the old man Lin Bei mentioned was probably Elder Qin. Elder Qin had once told him that he had driven a bus in his youth. Given the strength of Elder Qin's supernatural power, driving that eerie bus would not have been difficult.

Yang Jian listened to Lin Bei's account and pondered in silence.

Lin Bei's information was very important. Elder Qin had definitely driven that bus in the past. If that was the case, then everything lined up.

Elder Qin once drove that bus into my dad and killed him. Anyone who required that bus to kill them was definitely a ghost handler, and the ghost they controlled must have been extraordinarily dangerous, to the point that it took all of that bus's supernatural power to suppress it.