Chapter 17: Lord Aqing’s Fury

Learning that Chen Letong was safe and sound, Li Xuan let out a long sigh of relief. At least his hard work had not been in vain.

To see one's efforts bear fruit is perhaps the greatest happiness.

The smile in his eyes suddenly turned cold as he asked Zhang Zhengze, "Tell me... is that Li Ruonan there as well?"

Zhang Zhengze scratched the back of his head and offered an awkward smile. "Li Ruonan has gone missing. When we sent Chen Letong for emergency treatment, we called her cell phone, but no one answered."

Li Xuan propped himself up a little and asked, "Could she have run away?"

Zhang Zhengze nodded. "Legally speaking, Li Ruonan is Chen Letong's current guardian. Regardless of the outcome for Chen Letong, she should have been there! But when my colleagues went to her residence to look for her, they found no one. The place was a total wreck, as if a tornado had swept through it."

Li Xuan fell into deep thought.

This woman’s mindset was incredibly complex and unfathomable. Now that the curse on Chen Letong had been lifted, she should have been overjoyed. Why would she disappear? He had been hoping to use her to locate Chen Village...

Seeing the change in Li Xuan’s expression, Zhang Zhengze felt a secret pang of alarm. Could it be that the curse wasn't over yet?

Li Xuan, noticing there was no one else around, gave a detailed account of what had happened six years ago—from Li Ruonan and her boyfriend heading to Chen Village for the ritual, to the boyfriend's gruesome death, the massacre of half the village, and everything leading up to today.

Zhang Zhengze pondered for a moment. "So, Li Ruonan's boyfriend was named Chen Lidong, is that right? I'll see if I can find information on his hometown when I get back to the station. I’ll also have my colleagues check the surveillance footage from after Li Ruonan went missing to see if we can find any clues."

With Chen Letong back, Li Ruonan missing, and Xie Qiming serving as a witness, Zhang Zhengze, as an officer, had officially taken charge. Li Xuan was naturally cleared of suspicion; his record was clean, with no criminal history, so he was free to leave once he recovered in the hospital.

Zhang Zhengze left a contact number and hurried off to investigate Li Ruonan's whereabouts.

In his hospital room, Li Xuan felt bored. He first called Xie Qiming to check on Chen Letong's condition, then dialed Master A-Qing's number.

The "Tianpeng Ruler" had played a major role in lifting the curse. He needed to show his gratitude. He had several hundred thousand in activity funds on his bank card, so using someone else's money to offer a favor was the perfect plan.

The call connected.

Master A-Qing’s voice came through: "Young man, is the matter finished?"

"It is," Li Xuan replied. "The curse on Chen Letong is gone. I sustained some injuries during the process, but I’ll come up the mountain to thank you both properly once I’m discharged tomorrow."

Master A-Qing was silent for a moment before saying, "We are also in the hospital..."

Li Xuan: "..."

He asked, "Are both of you ill?"

"We suffered from the backlash of the ritual," Master A-Qing explained.

Li Xuan went silent as well. Chen Letong hadn't eaten anything, wait... she had bitten his finger and swallowed his flesh, but he had struck her in the abdomen with the Tianpeng Ruler, forcing her to spit it out.

He coughed twice. "Which hospital are you at?"

"Huanglou Hospital," Master A-Qing replied.

Li Xuan looked at the sign on his nightstand and said in surprise, "I'm at Huanglou Hospital too, in the inpatient wing, room 316. And you?"

Master A-Qing sounded equally shocked. "What a coincidence. I'm right next door in 317."

Li Xuan hung up the phone, feeling a bit of strength returning to his body. He sat up, pulled his IV stand, and left his room. Pushing open the door next door, he found Master A-Qing and the old woman inside.

Being elderly, they had taken the backlash much harder than he had. They lay motionless on their beds, with oxygen tubes in their nostrils.

Li Xuan felt a pang of guilt. He held up his right index and middle fingers and walked over. "I'm sorry. I didn't expect the curse to flare up at the end. She went mad in the Red Cypress Forest and tried to eat the leaves. I reached out to stop her, and she bit a piece of flesh right off my finger and swallowed it."

Master A-Qing asked in confusion, "If she consumed something, we should have suffered immediate, fatal backlash. How did we make it to the hospital? It’s strange; the backlash only lasted three seconds and then stopped..."

"That's because I used the Tianpeng Ruler to strike her until she spat the flesh back out," Li Xuan explained.

Master A-Qing stared blankly for a long time before muttering, "She's just a child."

The old woman beside him chimed in, "Old man, if this young man hadn't stepped in, we’d be crossing the Naihe Bridge by now. You're still worrying about that child? We've been here so long, and even though Chen Letong’s curse is broken, have you seen a single phone call from Li Ruonan, or even a hint of concern for us?"

Master A-Qing knew his wife was right.

Li Xuan added, "Seniors, Li Ruonan isn't coming. She's run off."

The two elders were stunned.

Master A-Qing couldn't wrap his head around it. "Breaking a curse relies primarily on willpower. Even a child like Chen Letong endured for seven days! Li Ruonan's curse is the same. Once we recover, we can perform the ritual for her again; she just needs to go seven days without food or drink."

In his view, Li Ruonan just needed to wait her turn; there was no reason to run around.

Li Xuan voiced his own thoughts: "I suspect that after coming into contact with the 'Mother of Black Buddha' in Chen Village six years ago, Li Ruonan was planted with a far more malicious curse. Her thinking has been compromised. Like a drunkard, her logic and behavior are no longer something a normal person can understand..."

Master A-Qing was kind-hearted to the end; even while lying in bed with an oxygen tube, he was still worried about the woman.

"Old man, worry about yourself first," the old woman scolded. "That woman has likely lost her mind. Her behavior is influenced by the evil deity. Unless the source is destroyed, she is finished."

The Mother of Black Buddha.

They had known of its existence six years ago, but they were powerless to destroy it. They had given everything they had just to seal a single video camera.

Seeing the thoughtful look on Li Xuan's face, Master A-Qing warned, "You aren't thinking of destroying the Mother of Black Buddha, are you? You have no cultivation; you can't do it with just that Tianpeng Ruler! That would be like standing on a battlefield with a pistol, trying to take out a tank..."

Li Xuan replied, "I recently discovered that for the past six years, Li Ruonan has been using the internet to spread the hand seals and mantras of the Mother of Black Buddha through videos. If she or the Mother of Black Buddha isn't stopped, I fear more and more netizens will fall victim to it."

Upon hearing this, Master A-Qing sat bolt upright, the needle in the back of his hand nearly popping out.

His kind face twisted in rage as he gritted his teeth. "I don't understand the internet, but I know people nowadays love watching videos. How dare she do such a thing!"

Li Xuan took out his phone, opened the webpage, and played one of Li Ruonan’s videos, skipping directly to the end.

Master A-Qing watched with his own eyes as Li Ruonan, under the guise of offering blessings, formed the Buddha Mother Lotus Seal with her hands and recited that mantra—the one phonetically identical to "Fortune and misfortune are interdependent; life and death are fated."

His fists clenched tight. He had spent the last six years trying to find a way to help Li Ruonan...

He never imagined she was such a monster.

Fine. Very fine!