Lin You and I took the house key and told him I would be sleeping here tonight.
"Give me the key, I'll stay here tonight."
Lin You was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly rummaged in his pocket.
"Master Chen, you...you're willing to stay the night? This...this is wonderful!"
He slapped the keys into my palms with both hands, his palms covered in cold sweat.
"You don't know, I'm living in another house now, and I sleep with all the lights on every night... I'm afraid that thing will follow me into my house and come looking for me. Please, you have to help me solve this!"
As he spoke, he suddenly bent over at a ninety-degree angle.
"If you can get rid of that thing, Master, I... I'll give you a big red envelope! This house is really..."
His voice trembled, and his eyes were bloodshot when he looked up: "My dad has cancer and is hospitalized, he needs money. I really can't afford to sell the house at a loss..."
I held his shoulder: "Don't think about these things now. I'll investigate carefully tonight. You should go back first. Don't come back until I've dealt with this."
Lin Youmeng nodded and then pulled out three red banknotes from his wallet and stuffed them into my pocket.
"Master, please take this and buy some cigarettes! I... I won't go home. I'll just stay at the 24-hour convenience store downstairs. Call me anytime if you need anything!"
He backed out the door, then poked half his head back in as he closed it: "Thank you, thank you... Master Chen!"
The moment the bedroom door clicked shut, the living room chandelier flickered twice.
I walked toward the bedroom with the key in my hand, and moonlight shone through the gauze window onto the bedside table.
There is a family photo of Lin You displayed there.
His wife's belly was slightly protruding, and in his eyes as he looked at the camera, besides the smile, there was also a hint of tension that was hard to detect, much like the trembling marks on a brush when drawing talismans.
I checked the house again, and apart from it being cold, I didn't find any other problems.
It's still a long time before midnight.
I took a quick shower and then went to lie down on the bed in the bedroom.
However, the sheets and duvet covers had all been taken away, and I didn't take off my clothes. I lay on the bed in my clothes, scrolling through my phone and watching short dramas.
Although the content of the short drama is somewhat absurd, it's fun and enjoyable.
Unlike TV dramas, where you have to endure being bullied.
Especially those stories about cultivating immortality, where the protagonist is originally a demon who has been suppressed, everyone wants to see the female lead eventually become a demon and turn the tables.
In the final episode, he became possessed by a demon. He thought he could wreak havoc, but things turned out differently.
The male lead won over the female lead with a single kiss and even let her former enemy go; it was so funny it made my teeth ache.
I was watching a short drama when my phone alarm went off.
It's midnight!
I sat up in bed, took the lightning sword, walked to the floor tile Yuan Ying had mentioned, and began to tap on it.
"Ding~ Ding ding~ Ding ding ding ding~"
I tapped the floor tiles slowly and deliberately, while listening to the sound of the wind.
I knocked until my hands were numb, but I still didn't hear anything.
What exactly happened?
Is something wrong?
I knocked for another half hour, but there was still no sound, and there was no movement around me.
Could it be that the filth hidden in the house has escaped?
I called Yuan Ying.
"Yingniang, I did as you said, but there's still no movement."
I held the phone to my ear and heard the beeping of the cardiac monitor coming from Yuan Ying's end.
She was panting heavily, as if she had just climbed the hundred steps of the back mountain: "Knock three more times... at dawn... cough... dawn is the worst time..."
"Please rest and don't talk."
I gripped the hilt of my sword tightly, and heard someone whisper beside her bed, "The patient's blood oxygen is low again."
My heart sank.
What happened to Yingniang?
She's having trouble breathing even when she speaks now, and she sounds like she's in a hospital.
During this period, her health deteriorated, and sometimes she would suddenly feel dizzy while standing.
I know it's almost time for her.
The sound of fabric rubbing came from the phone; it must be a nurse adjusting the IV drip: "Xiao Chen."
Yuan Ying suddenly raised her voice: "Remember... if you hear the sound of golden bells in the wind, quickly scatter glutinous rice..."
“Every time you knock, you are using your yang organ to shake the yin palace. If there are evil spirits lingering there, a yin wind will surely emerge to meet the calamity.”
I responded, seemingly understanding but not quite.
Yuan Ying continued, “The Qingwu Classic states that ‘Qi moves on the earth and gathers to form spirit.’ The wind you hear is not natural wind, but rather the sound of Yin and Yang interacting within the earth’s veins.”
"If there is a hollow space under the brick, a 'yin sound' will be produced, if there is something dirty..."
She suddenly started coughing violently. I heard the nurse call out "suction device" from the side, so I quickly said, "Please rest first, I'll do it."
After hanging up the phone, I took out my compass and placed it on the brick.
The compass needle at Tianchi trembled wildly, eventually settling on the Gui-Ding direction with a slight deviation towards Zi-Wu, which is exactly the "Yin encroaching on Yang position" configuration described in ancient texts.
Every ten minutes, I would slam the lightning sword heavily against the brick surface.
On the seventh tap, the compass needle suddenly spun three times counterclockwise, and a faint rustling sound came from the base of the west wall, as if someone was peeling off the plaster.
But soon, the compass needle stopped moving again.
There was nothing I could do but keep tapping.
I kept typing until 2:30 a.m., and my wrists were so tired I could barely lift them.
There was nothing I could do, so I called Yuan Ying again and told her that there was still no response.
On the other end of the phone came Yuan Ying's long, labored breathing, like an old bellows leaking air.
"Little Chen..."
She suddenly stopped, making a gurgling sound in her throat, as if something was blocking her trachea.
I gripped my phone tightly to my ear and heard the rapid beeping of the cardiac monitor by her bedside, so fast it sounded like a death knell.
"Yingniang, don't rush, tell me slowly!"
Yuan Ying suddenly lowered her voice, but was still out of breath: "The 'array's core' in that room... there's something wrong with it..."
Before he could finish speaking, a flurry of footsteps came through the receiver, and someone shouted, "Director Li is here!"
Then came the sound of metal instruments clashing, and Yuan Ying's voice was drowned out by the noise.
"Xiao Chen... I'll call you in an hour."
Before hanging up, Yuan Ying told me to wait an hour, as her attending physician needed to speak with her that very night.
After hanging up the phone, I felt quite upset.
Generally, attending physicians do not visit patients except during ward rounds.
Normally, it's just a regular doctor coming to conduct routine checkups or inquire about the patient's health.
It's already past midnight, and the attending physician is still at the hospital; something serious must have happened.
I lay in bed, my mind wandering.
One moment he was thinking about Yuan Ying's health, and the next he was wondering what had happened in the house, and whether the ghost causing trouble in the house was male or female.
I drifted off to sleep in a daze.
Then a loud banging on the door started.
"Bang...bang bang...bang!"
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