Si Jiangchen was well-rested, but his tossing and turning had caused me to fall asleep again.
The sky gradually darkened. Sparrows returning to their nests on the old pagoda tree in the courtyard chirped noisily.
I vaguely heard someone gently pushing me.
“Mmm...”
My body ached as if it had been run over by a large truck. I forced myself to open my eyes.
A red shadow was floating half-suspended beside my bed. Wang Yingxiu’s fair face stared at me, a trace of desolation on it.
“Axiu, why are you back?”
I sat up in a flash, reaching out my hand to grab Wang Yingxiu’s arm. A bone-chilling cold seeped into my body from my fingertips, but I did not dare to let go. Wang Yingxiu had been led away by the Underworld guards. If there were no mishaps, it was highly likely that she would not be able to return to the human world!
I was afraid that she had escaped from the Underworld again.
“Wuuu... Xiao He, I am not willing!!”
Wang Yingxiu cried out mournfully. There were still no tears in her eyes, but her red eyes almost seemed to bleed. She glared at me, “The Ten Judges of the Underworld are unfair!! It is unfair!”
The shrill cries of the ghost pierced my eardrums, like a needle that was constantly being stirred in my mind, but I could not let go.
“Axiu, no matter how the Underworld decides, they must have their own considerations!”
I tried to console Wang Yingxiu. Clearly, she was very dissatisfied with the Underworld’s judgment of that scumbag, Song Yixuan.
“He is innocent!! He has been judged innocent!”
Wang Yingxiu’s eye sockets finally split open. A string of dark red blood slid down her pale cheeks. “He killed me and my child. How can I be willing?”
“How is that possible?!”
I could not help but be shocked. Song Yixuan had deliberately made Axiu fall from the second-story window. She had laid on the cold ground until she had bled to death... Even if the law of the human world could not convict him, there should be a record of his crime in the Underworld’s account. How could Axiu say that he would be innocent?
“I am not convinced!”
Wang Yingxiu wailed. Only then did I notice that the red dress on her body was already tattered, as if it had been corroded, with wisps of black air seeping out of it. “The ghost guards who led us down secretly told me that someone in the mortal world had paid a large sum of money to bribe the Underworld. He had been released back into the human world without being judged! My death! My child’s death! And the souls of those poor little ghosts that had scattered... How could it all be wiped out with a single stroke?”
“Axiu, don’t...”
I could tell from Wang Yingxiu’s screams that her tone had changed. I felt as if she was about to mutate. I quickly reached out my hand to draw a spell to pacify her spirit. However, Wang Yingxiu suddenly broke free from my grasp. I was immediately pulled from the bed and fell to the ground. I immediately woke up.
It was just a nightmare!
I was still lying on the soft pillow. In front of me was the familiar ceiling of my room under the dim light...
I let out a long sigh of relief. Only then did I slowly sit up from the bed.
“... Thank you.”
I faintly heard Si Jiangchen’s voice coming from the window where the curtains were drawn. The window of my room opened into the courtyard. Si Jiangchen seemed to be chatting with the tenants in the courtyard?!
Sure enough, the loud voice of Landlady Xu rang out, “CEO Si, if you need anything, just say so. There are all kinds of ingredients and seasonings in our supermarket.”
“En, a bottle of light soy sauce is enough.”
Si Jiangchen’s voice carried a faint smile.
“No problem!” Landlady Xu was overjoyed.
The commotion outside caused me to subconsciously draw the curtain in front of the window.
I saw Si Jiangchen wearing his expensive shirt and pants, wearing a powder-blue checkered apron as he bent over to cook in Landlady Xu’s half-open kitchen.
A few of Landlady Xu’s neighbors were standing around him like they were watching a show. They occasionally let out low cries of surprise.
“Mr. Si is so amazing. He can cook?”
“Aiya! Look at his knife skills. He must have had more than ten years of experience!”
“He is cooking congee...”
As everyone exclaimed, I saw Du Wenzhong sneak over carefully. He was peeping at Si Jiangchen, the natural protagonist, behind a group of nosy old men and women.
As if he had sensed my gaze, Si Jiangchen raised his head. His gaze locked onto me precisely over the crowd. “You’re awake. Get up and eat later.”
He curled his lips and gave me a charming smile.
“Xiao He, you are so lucky!”
Landlady Xu had walked out of her supermarket with a bottle of Golden-label Light Soy Sauce in her hands. “The first time I saw CEO Si come looking for Xiao He, I thought that they looked like a couple.”
“Who knew that a rich man like Mr. Si would be so good at cooking?”
“It’s true. Xiao He won’t have to order takeaways every day from now on. Hahaha!”
I did not know which nosy uncle had shouted out my embarrassing secret of not knowing how to cook, causing everyone to burst into laughter.
My face flushed red. I immediately dropped the curtain and climbed out of the small bed.
My legs hurt, my back hurt, my arms hurt... In short, it seemed like all the bones in my body were shouting that they were about to fall apart!
Si Jiangchen had already changed me into a pure cotton, off-white nightgown. The short-sleeved, knee-length tube dress just barely covered up the embarrassing hickeys that he had left on my skin.
I struggled to support myself against the headboard of the bed to find my backpack. There were the soul bottles that had once held Axiu and the little ghosts. The seals on them had already expired. There was also the bottle that still burned to the touch, the bottle that had the real body of the One-eyed Buddha Mother sealed within it.
The seal on it had already turned a light yellow, as if it had been roasted. It gave the impression that it would break at any moment!
I held the small bottle with both hands and placed it in front of the portrait of the Three Pure Ones.
There was ready-made cinnabar and chicken blood on the altar. This should have been the things that Du Wenzhong had used to fool his new and old customers in the day. I grabbed the writing brush on the pen holder and quickly drew a Blood Killing Talisman on the bottle.
The Blood Killing Talisman did not require the person who drew it to have too deep a cultivation. It mainly relied on the special properties of the materials used to draw the talisman to seal the evil beings that were about to break out of the magic tools!
The soul bottle that had been struggling finally quietened down. I let out a soft sigh of relief and lit three sandalwood incense sticks before placing them in the incense burner.
“Time to eat, time to eat!”
Just as I had finished tidying up the altar, I saw Du Wenzhong happily muttering to himself as he walked back from the store outside.
I guessed that he felt a “homesickness” for Si Jiangchen. After all, the last time he had seen Si Jiangchen, he had been a little boy who was not even ten years old.
Now, Si Jiangchen was still in his prime, but he had already passed his eighties.
He did not know what kind of face to use to face Si Jiangchen, so he simply pretended that he did not know him.
He walked into the small dining hall that we usually ate in. He took out three sets of bowls and chopsticks from the cabinet, humming a tune as he placed them on the small table.