Chapter 23 Xuanlin

At that moment, I saw the man clearly. To be precise, it should be the appearance of a boy. He looked very young, but in his early twenties. He was very thin, with a very handsome face. He looked very gentle with his glasses on, but his face was unusually pale.

He looked at me with a calm gaze, without any emotion. We looked at each other for about a second, and then he suddenly smiled, a somewhat wan smile, and then said three words: “It’s a pity.”

I knew in my heart that this young man was most likely the one who had set the trap. I myself was disgusted by this cruel setup, but I didn’t know why I didn’t hate this young man. When he said the three words “it’s a pity,” I froze for a moment, and then said, “You just wait there for me. I’ll be right down.”

He still looked unusually calm, and said only three words: “I’ll wait for you.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself down, then turned and rushed downstairs. On the ground floor, Su Rou was waiting for me on the sofa with a worried look. He looked at me rushing downstairs and suddenly shouted, “Sanwa, is everything settled?”

“It’s fine. Go upstairs and keep an eye on An Yu. He’s about to wake up. I have to go out for a while. Wait for me in the house.” I said to Su Rou as I quickly went downstairs.

Su Rou opened his mouth and wanted to ask something, but seeing my hurried and anxious look, he didn’t ask after all, and just promised and went upstairs.

I ran to the door and as soon as I opened it, I saw that the young man had already come to the door to wait for me. I was still panting, but he looked at me and said, “You broke my game, you’re really amazing.”

At this point, my breathing finally calmed down, and I looked at him and said, “This kind of game is so cruel, it almost killed a pregnant woman. How could you do it?”

He said in a low voice, “This was just an accident. I was only targeting one person from beginning to end. If it had succeeded, his luck would have been at its lowest point, he would have lost everything, and then his ‘son’ would have ended his life. Isn’t that perfect?”

I looked at him in disbelief. How could he describe such a cruel plan in such a calm tone of voice?

After a long silence, I said, “Do you think you can get away with it?”

“Why can’t I escape? Have I broken the law? Which law forbids burying a baby’s body in the wall? Or will you use your Taoist theory as evidence in court?” He shook his head and continued, “You’re very good, but you’re not that naive, are you?”

Yes, this kind of setup is so subtle that it is impossible to do anything about him. I said that he would not escape, which was indeed a bit naive, but this naivety is only relative to worldly punishment. I believe that under the law of heaven, this is definitely not naive.

Facing my silence, he sighed and said, “I actually vaguely know that the state may have a department that oversees these matters, but it only deals with major issues. For minor issues like mine, no one should be in charge, right? Or are you from that department?”

I looked at him speechlessly. He actually asked me for information? I didn’t expect the person who set up such a dark plot to be quite talkative.

“Maybe, the state’s regulatory authorities won’t care about you. But as far as I know, any harmful technique has a price, whether it succeeds or fails. At the very least, it will shorten your life. I think you’d better be careful! According to the rules, you can only do it once, whether it succeeds or not. If you do it again, you will definitely fail! And the price is extremely high! This is a little unspoken rule that everyone knows. You can go now.” I have made myself very clear. In fact, I don’t need to punish him for An Yu. I know who An Yu is, and I believe he has already paid the price. I don’t instinctively dislike him. It’s an instinct that I don’t want to punish him.

But after I finished speaking, I remembered something else, and I continued, “Your trap killed an innocent baby, and his soul was imprisoned by one of the baby spirits. Originally, I thought that if I couldn’t find the person who set the trap, I would just let him pass on. Since I’ve found you, you planted the cause, and you’ll reap the consequences. It’s good for you and him. You can set this trap, and you’re also a knowledgeable person. I don’t think you’ll refuse, right?”

He looked at me with a helpless expression and said, “I refuse.”

“Why?” If he had passed the soul of the baby, it would only be good for him, not bad. I don’t know why he refused.

I was sure that I was not being soft-hearted this time. I believed in my own intuition. I had a hunch that this person was not a bad person or a malicious person. So, I instinctively wanted to leave a way out for him.

Facing my question, he smiled again and said, “You really are a kind Taoist priest. This is not the place to talk, let’s go somewhere else.”

I nodded and said, “You wait for me to tell my friends.”

“Okay!”

When I returned to An Yu’s bedroom, An Yu had already woken up, but he was very depressed. His memory of what had happened was a bit fuzzy, but this was a normal reaction. I said to Su Rou, “Get him some plain water to drink. When he’s a bit more awake, you can let him call someone to take care of him. If you have something to do, you can go first.”

Su Rou asked, “Sanwa, where are you going?”

“I have some things to take care of here. I’ll tell you what’s going on when I’m done.” I didn’t need to be polite with Su Rou. I told him directly.

“Okay, then you go first. I think the kid will sober up in a while. He has food, drinks and entertainment here. I don’t mind staying a little longer.” Su Rou saw that I really had something to do and agreed very quickly.

This is also the tacit understanding of brothers for more than ten years. I patted Su Rou on the shoulder, which is a way for us to express our feelings, and then turned and walked away.

After going downstairs, the young man was indeed waiting for me downstairs.

As he said, this really wasn’t the place to talk, so I took him to a nearby teahouse and ordered a private room. It wasn’t until two cups of tea were served that we broke the silence again.

He spoke first, saying to me, “You say I know my stuff, but I don’t really know my stuff either. At least I don’t know what you do to break this situation.”

“Chen Chengyi, I am a Taoist priest.” I was very direct.

“My name is Xuan Lin, I’m a student, a student at the Medical University.” My candor was met with his candor, and he was also very direct.

Although I had expected his age, I was still shocked. I really didn’t expect him to be a college student.

Facing my shock, he adjusted his glasses and said slowly, “I’m doing an internship this year. If things go well, I should graduate next year. The bodies of those children you saw were obtained by me using this convenience and some means. As you know, there are too many abortions among young people nowadays, and it is actually very convenient to obtain them…”

Actually, I didn’t care about the source of the children’s bodies. If he was determined, he could have easily collected them. I was just curious about what he would say to me at first, because although I didn’t feel disgusted with him, I definitely couldn’t call him a friend.

But now I’m concerned about why he would use such a vicious evil spell and what the whole story is.

I didn’t say anything, just listened quietly. I knew he probably had a lot to say.

Sure enough, he just listened for a while, then took something out of his jacket pocket that looked like a medical certificate and put it on the table, asking me, “Can you read the medical certificate? If I’m optimistic about my life expectancy, I have three months left.”

Only three months? I suddenly felt a strange feeling in my heart.

“Three months is only an optimistic estimate. In fact, it may be even shorter. Before doing this, I found out that I had a disease. As you can see, it is lung cancer, but it is in the early stages. I didn’t think about treatment. In fact, I couldn’t afford it. As you expected, doing this had a backlash. After doing it, my tumor deteriorated rapidly. What you see is my latest test results. And I know that something has been lost in my body. It has completely collapsed. Maybe I will die tomorrow?” His expression was unusually calm. When he said these things, it was as if he wasn’t talking about himself.

“Then why did you do it? And why did you give up on treatment?” I asked, not knowing whether I was feeling sorry for him or sighing for him.

“Haha, I have a short life span, so it’s probably the retribution for my family’s generations. As for why I want to do it, why I use these evil arts, you must be very curious, right? Do you want to hear a story? And I will give this story an ending.” Xuan Lin said indifferently.

What does he mean by giving this story an ending? I felt a little uneasy, and I decided to listen to him continue.