Edited—

Zhou Jiayu had thought that once his soul returned to his body, there would be no more problems. Who knew that Shen Yiqiong would tell him that having one’s soul leave the body came with aftereffects—mild cases meant physical weakness, severe cases meant illness.

Zhou Jiayu didn’t feel like he was sick, but he definitely felt that his body had no strength. He’d be panting after a few steps. Fortunately, this condition was recoverable. Drink more tonic medicine, and in a few days he’d be more or less back to normal.

When Shen Musi and the others came over, they brought Little Huang and the little paper person along. The moment the little paper person entered the room, it rushed to Zhou Jiayu’s side, hugging his arm and refusing to let go, looking exactly like a spoiled child. Zhou Jiayu quickly stroked its paper head to comfort it for a while.

Little Huang had also wanted to slip over to Zhou Jiayu’s side for a hug, but after seeing the cage placed in the corner of the room, his bean-sized black eyes went straight.

Big Huang, on the other hand, looked utterly ashamed to face Little Huang. Little Huang rushed to the side of the cage and chattered at Big Huang. Although Zhou Jiayu couldn’t understand what was being said, he could clearly sense the anger in those cries.

Big Huang was in the wrong, so she scrunched up her face and listened to Little Huang speak, occasionally sneaking glances at Zhou Jiayu. Seeing this situation, Zhou Jiayu was both amused and exasperated: “Alright, alright. If you two want to chat, go outside and chat. You’re making my head hurt.”

Hearing this, Little Huang finally carefully opened the cage and dragged his grandmother out.

Later, Zhou Jiayu learned that when Shen Musi had brought Little Huang back, Little Huang’s family had all thought he had met with a terrible fate. Their yellow weasel clan was especially protective of their own, so they were all thinking of avenging Little Huang. But Little Huang’s grandmother was particularly bad at recognizing human faces—just like humans looking at yellow weasels, all people looked the same to her. Therefore, Zhou Jiayu, who was closest to Little Huang, had instead become the grandmother’s target because of the dense aura on his body.

And the coincidence lay right here: if the grandmother had slapped an ordinary person, that person would have had at most one soul and one spirit slapped out, becoming somewhat dull-witted. But it just had to be Zhou Jiayu, who was nearly slapped to death by one palm.

When the grandmother saw Zhou Jiayu’s entire person collapse, the first thought that popped into her head was: had her power grown, or was this person’s acting too exaggerated?

Fortunately, when his soul left his body, Lin Zhushui was right beside Zhou Jiayu. He immediately sealed Zhou Jiayu’s five orifices, preserving his physical body, then searched for his soul that night. But even for Lin Zhushui, this matter only had a seventy percent chance of success, because he couldn’t be certain whether Zhou Jiayu below could survive that night.

When Zhou Jiayu woke up, Lin Zhushui had already returned to his normal state. Later, Shen Yiqiong privately told Zhou Jiayu that when they returned from the temple fair that day, Sir had looked terrifying. No one had dared to speak the entire way. After he set up the array to help Zhou Jiayu retrieve his soul, he went out again, and when he returned, he was holding a cage with a yellow weasel in it. That yellow weasel had been cowering in the cage, trembling all over, its eyes full of terror—who knew what Lin Zhushui had said to her.

Because Zhou Jiayu felt unwell, he was sprawled on the sofa. He said, “Was Sir really that angry?”

Shen Yiqiong said, “Sigh, why would I lie to you? I’ve followed Sir for so many years, and I’ve never seen him with that kind of expression.” He recalled it and showed lingering fear. “At the time, even Eldest Shixiong, whom Sir likes the most, didn’t dare make a sound.”

For some reason, hearing Shen Yiqiong’s account, Zhou Jiayu felt secretly delighted inside, and the corners of his eyes curved up.

That big yellow weasel didn’t stay here too long. After catching up with Little Huang, she left. But before leaving, she quietly placed three or four pelts on Zhou Jiayu’s bed. When Zhou Jiayu returned to his room, he was startled.

These pelts looked quite beautiful, soft and thick, very warm. And each one was especially large—Zhou Jiayu could spread them on his bed as a mattress.

Zhou Jiayu couldn’t identify what kind of pelts they were, so he took them to ask Lin Zhushui.

Lin Zhushui simply said, “Good things. Keep them for yourself.”

Zhou Jiayu said, “Then I’ll keep one. I’ll give the rest to Sir.” Now, every time he saw Lin Zhushui, he would remember the sounds he had heard in the underworld that day, and he felt inexplicably embarrassed. “Thank you for your trouble, Sir, in retrieving my soul.”

“I don’t want them.” Lin Zhushui said, “These things are good for keeping out the cold. I don’t need them.”

Zhou Jiayu opened his mouth.

Lin Zhushui said, “If you really want to thank me, then properly learn to draw the talismans I gave you. There will always be a time when they’re useful.”

Zhou Jiayu had no choice but to agree obediently.

He never quite figured out what kind of pelt it was. Later, Lin Zhushui had someone help him make it into a coat. After putting it on, it was indeed incredibly warm. What’s more, as long as he wore this coat, the dirty things Zhou Jiayu could always see disappeared. But this coat could only be worn in winter; wearing it out in summer would probably make people think he was an idiot. And according to Shen Yiqiong, when Zhou Jiayu wore this coat, he looked like a bear, so he should absolutely not go into the forest…

Because Zhou Jiayu was unwell, the task of cooking once again fell to the other four people in the house. Having already tasted Shen Yiqiong’s noodles, Zhou Jiayu had thought that was a peak that would be hard to surpass. Who knew that after tasting Shen Erbai’s egg fried rice, Shen Chaosan’s stir-fried meat, and Shen Musi’s desserts, he actually felt that Shen Yiqiong’s noodles weren’t so hard to swallow after all.

In the end, there was really no other way. Zhou Jiayu sat on a stool, leaning against the wall, directing them as they cooked. But what Zhou Jiayu couldn’t understand was: clearly the same steps, the same ingredients, the same heat—why could the resulting taste differ so much? Could they have been cursed?

After this incident, the people in the house reached a consensus: anyone could get injured except Zhou Jiayu. If Zhou Jiayu’s body was weakened, it was equivalent to cutting off their food supply, and their quality of life would approximate being better off dead.

“I will protect you with my life.” Shen Yiqiong said this in front of Zhou Jiayu.

Zhou Jiayu said, “Then can you help me finish some of the fried rice?”

That bastard Shen Yiqiong heartlessly rejected Zhou Jiayu: “No, I would die.”

Zhou Jiayu: “…”

Dying was acceptable, but eating more fried rice was absolutely not—when Shen Yiqiong said this, he was hit on the back of the head by Shen Erbai, who had made the fried rice.

During the days when his body was weak, Zhou Jiayu would be panting even going downstairs, just like Lin Daiyu. But the people in the house were all very understanding of his situation and even added cushions to his seat…

Even in such poor physical condition, Zhou Jiayu didn’t forget the promise he had made to the Buddha statues in the temple while in the underworld. He briefly described his experiences below to Lin Zhushui and asked how he should thank those few Buddhas that had sheltered him.

“What did the Buddha statue look like?” Lin Zhushui asked.

“It seemed to have six arms.” Before leaving, Zhou Jiayu had been afraid he wouldn’t remember, so he had observed carefully several times. Recalling it now wasn’t difficult. He said, “Its body was blue, wearing a tiger-skin garment, with a necklace of human skulls… right leg bent, left leg straight. The things held in its six hands were all different too.” He slowly said, “It seemed to be a trident, a knife, and a bowl or something…”

After hearing Zhou Jiayu’s words, Lin Zhushui pondered for a moment: “The Buddha statue you saw should be Mahakala in that street temple, also known as the Great Black Heaven. In Buddhism, Mahakala presides over wealth and disease, and also often guards graves for people.”

Zhou Jiayu was a bit surprised: “But their appearances are different.” He remembered that the Buddha statues in the temple had very gentle expressions, completely different from what he had seen in the underworld.

“Buddha statues also have many forms. The wrathful form is one of the Buddha’s postures. What you saw was his angry appearance.” Lin Zhushui said, “In a couple of days, we’ll go again and donate more incense and offerings to the temple.”

Zhou Jiayu nodded in agreement.

A few days later, Zhou Jiayu went to that temple again, bringing abundant incense and candles, and also donated a sum of money for incense. He knelt on the prayer mat and earnestly thanked the Buddha statue. While he was thanking it, he distinctly felt a gaze. This gaze was very gentle, carrying a compassionate flavor.

Zhou Jiayu felt that his luck was actually not bad. Although he always ran into unfortunate things because of his constitution, within those unfortunate things, there were always noble people helping him.

Of course, Lin Zhushui was the greatest noble person he had encountered in this lifetime. Thinking of this, Zhou Jiayu grinned foolishly.

Although he had encountered an accident, the New Year still had to be celebrated.

Starting from the fourth and fifth days when visiting relatives began, more and more people came to pay respects at Lin Zhushui’s main residence, but most of them were stopped at the door.

Zhou Jiayu hadn’t realized this at first. It wasn’t until the morning of the fifth day that he heard the sound of a car horn at the door.

“Shibo is back?” Shen Yiqiong shot up from the sofa.

Zhou Jiayu said, “Shibo?”

Shen Yiqiong said, “Sir’s cousin!” His eyes were full of stars as he charged toward the door in a flash. Seeing Shen Yiqiong so excited, Zhou Jiayu also slowly followed behind to watch the excitement.

When he reached the door, he discovered that the empty space next to Lin Zhushui’s entire residence was actually filled with all kinds of luxury cars. There were even people just getting out of their cars, talking to the security guard at the door about something.

Zhou Jiayu said in surprise, “Why are there so many people outside?”

“This doesn’t even count as many?” Shen Yiqiong said disdainfully. “This is thanks to Sir being much more low-key these past two years. If you had come a few years earlier, the cars could have parked on another street.”

Zhou Jiayu: “…” That impressive.

“But none of these people can get in.” Shen Yiqiong smiled. “With Sir’s temperament, not having them chased away is already giving face.”

As he was speaking, a red sports car drove in through the gate. Shen Yiqiong stood by the roadside waving at the car: “Shibo! Shibo!! You’re back!”

The car window slowly rolled down, revealing a woman’s face. She wore exquisite makeup, a well-fitted qipao, and a mink-fur shawl. Her unique temperament made Zhou Jiayu feel as if he had returned to the Republican era: “Yiqiong.”

“Shibo!” Shen Yiqiong really seemed to especially like this shibo. It made sense—with only men around him, being able to see a good-looking female was practically an oasis in the desert for a teenager like Shen Yiqiong.

“You’re Zhou Jiayu, right?” The woman smiled sweetly. Though her appearance was gorgeous, it wasn’t very aggressive. “I’ve heard your name. I’m Lin Jue.”

“Sh… Shibo, hello.” Zhou Jiayu hesitated a bit, but in the end decided to follow Shen Yiqiong’s address.

“Don’t call me shibo, just call me by my name.” Lin Jue smiled meaningfully, her tone quite amiable. “Or, if you’re willing, you can call me jiejie too.”

Zhou Jiayu was stunned: “Is that okay?”

Lin Jue giggled. She propped her chin on her hand, her eyes sweeping over Zhou Jiayu: “I understand now.”

Zhou Jiayu was completely baffled, having no idea what Lin Jue was laughing about, nor what she meant by “I understand.” But regarding the matter of address, Lin Jue didn’t insist. She gently said to follow Zhou Jiayu’s preference; they weren’t particular about this, he could call her whatever he wanted.

In the end, Zhou Jiayu still felt that calling Lin Jue jiejie was inappropriate, so he followed Shen Yiqiong in calling her Shibo.

Lin Jue found a place to park her car, then followed the two of them toward the residence, chatting with them the whole way.

“Right, I bought some things for Zhushui.” Lin Jue said, “Yiqiong, remember to sign for them this afternoon.”

Shen Yiqiong said okay.

Zhou Jiayu later learned that after Lin Zhushui’s parents passed away, this cousin Lin Jue had helped him a lot. They say an elder sister is like a mother. During Lin Zhushui’s childhood years, it was Lin Jue who had taken care of Lin Zhushui’s daily life. Knowing that Lin Zhushui’s eyes were inconvenient, she would buy clothes for Lin Zhushui at regular intervals and match them up to hang in his wardrobe, making it convenient for Lin Zhushui to wear them. Zhou Jiayu thought no wonder Lin Zhushui’s outfit combinations always looked so good. Although he himself didn’t care, there were always people around him who did.

At this moment, Lin Jue smiled meaningfully and said: “Right now, these things are all done by me, this elder sister. In a few years, there will be someone else to replace me in doing them… That’s a good thing too.”

Lin Jue’s arrival made the Lin family’s New Year even livelier.

The only slight imperfection was that Zhou Jiayu’s physical condition had been poor recently, so he couldn’t cook. Lin Jue wasn’t as particular as Lin Zhushui. With a wave of her hand, she ordered a pile of takeout.

The five people who had been eating food they cooked themselves for several days had green eyes when they heard what Lin Jue ordered.

“How on earth were you guys living before I came?” Zhou Jiayu felt it was truly unbelievable.

“Some things are fine if you never had them, but once you possess them, you can never lose them again.” Shen Musi said very rationally, “You finally climbed out of the pit, and then someone throws you back in. Can you endure it?”

Zhou Jiayu thought about the taste of the meals these four people cooked and felt that he indeed probably couldn’t endure it.

Lin Zhushui came over at lunchtime. He wasn’t very interested in takeout and only ate a little before putting down his chopsticks.

Lin Jue looked at him with a smile and said, “Zhushui, you’ve been in a good mood lately.”

Lin Zhushui took a sip of the tea at hand and didn’t speak.

Lin Jue said, “Since you’re in such a good mood, help me out with something.”

Lin Zhushui raised an eyebrow: “No peach blossom talismans.”

Lin Jue: “…” Her expression instantly twisted.

The other five people at the table all kept their eyes on their noses and their noses on their hearts, pretending they hadn’t heard anything.

“I’m popular not because of peach blossom talismans!!” Lin Jue said angrily. “And the ones your talismans attract are all rotten peach blossoms—”

Lin Zhushui continued to remain silent.

Lin Jue didn’t continue arguing with Lin Zhushui about this. She turned around and took out several newspapers from her bag, threw them on the table, and tapped them with her finger: “Shen Yiqiong, read!”

Shen Yiqiong had no choice but to put down the chicken leg he was gnawing on, wipe his fingers with a napkin, pick up the top newspaper, and start reading: “Another accident at S High School, a female student unfortunately dies from a falling ceiling fan.” He read out the headline and roughly scanned through it: “Wow, is this real or fake? It sounds so much like a ghost story.”

“Ghost story?” Lin Jue said, “Can a ghost story make it into the newspaper? Keep reading.”

Shen Yiqiong nodded, used his chopsticks to pick up a shrimp, chewed twice and swallowed it whole, then read out the news from the remaining newspapers.

It turned out that a high school in S City had had six fatal cases within one year—an average of one accident every two months, and all the victims were female students. The ways these girls died were also bizarrely varied. Some fell into toilets and drowned, some fell directly down stairs and broke their spines, dying on the spot. And one death in particular could be completely described with the word absurd—while using a teaching compass to do her homework, the compass went directly from her eye into the back of her skull, and she couldn’t be saved either. At first glance, these accidents all looked like accidents, but connected together, they were truly somewhat bizarre.

“There’s a dirty thing.” Shen Yiqiong also caught the scent. “This thing is quite fierce. The school didn’t hire anyone?”

“Of course they did.” Lin Jue said, “And they hired more than one, but none of them could fix it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone around in circles to ask me.”

Lin Zhushui said indifferently, “When did it start?”

Lin Jue replied, “Last year.”

Zhou Jiayu took the newspaper from Shen Yiqiong’s hand and read it himself. The news in the paper didn’t mention any details, nor did it mention the previous fatal cases. Instead, it shifted the focus to improving school safety facilities, obviously trying to deliberately change the subject.

Lin Zhushui closed his eyes, looking as if he was thinking about something.

Lin Jue said, “I wasn’t planning to trouble you with this matter, but I went over to take a look and couldn’t find any problems.”

Lin Zhushui said, “You couldn’t see anything either?”

Lin Jue sighed: “Yeah, I couldn’t see anything either.”

Hearing this, everyone showed expressions of surprise. It seemed that the situation where even Lin Jue couldn’t find clues was indeed somewhat extraordinary.

Zhou Jiayu didn’t know Lin Jue’s strength, but seeing Shen Yiqiong’s expression, he guessed that Lin Jue’s abilities were definitely not weak.

Lin Zhushui’s fingers lightly tapped the tabletop: “Isn’t it winter break right now? Why would there be students at the school?”

Lin Jue said, “The third-year students were still holding remedial classes… Of course, with this incident, they’ve definitely stopped now.” She pinched up her wine glass, swirled the red wine inside, and said, “Because of this matter, the school has changed principals three or four times. If this high school didn’t have such a high college admission rate and wasn’t a local key school, the higher-ups probably would have shut it down long ago.” Six students dead in one year, and in such bizarre ways—the Education Bureau probably had to put in quite some effort to suppress this matter.

But nowadays, students faced immense pressure for college entrance exams. Even if the school wanted to suspend classes, the parents probably wouldn’t agree.

“Tsk, is going to school more important than life?” Shen Musi expressed some disapproval. “One every two months. Who knows if it won’t be their own child’s turn?”

“Before the knife falls, no one knows the pain.” Lin Jue said, “It’s useless to say this now. We can’t just watch those children die one by one.”

She took a sip of red wine and sighed: “Some things just can’t be helped.”

Lin Zhushui said, “What about the characteristics of the deceased? Did you find any?”

Lin Jue pondered: “I went to check. They were all girls. Three were third-years, three were second-years. All had long hair…”

“Third-year and second-year, so wouldn’t it be the first-years’ turn next?” Shen Yiqiong said, “The school didn’t react?”

“What good is reacting?” Lin Jue seemed a bit irritated when mentioning this matter. “They came to ask me, and I couldn’t find the reason either. I still have to trouble Zhushui. Naturally, others are even more helpless.”

These words were spoken with near arrogance, yet they didn’t seem wrong. At least up to now, Zhou Jiayu hadn’t seen anything that Lin Zhushui couldn’t handle.

“Then let’s go take a look.” After being silent for a long time, Lin Zhushui still agreed to Lin Jue’s request.

Lin Jue visibly breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, she hadn’t been entirely certain that Lin Zhushui would be willing to take this on.

“Send me the specific materials.” Lin Zhushui said, “I need to understand the situation before going.”

Lin Jue nodded and said okay.

For the rest of the meal, everyone discussed this matter. Shen Musi said that these kinds of violent incidents related to schools were quite troublesome, because most schools were built over cemeteries due to land prices. The students’ heavy yang energy happened to achieve yin-yang harmony. But once something happened, it meant this yin-yang balance had been broken. And with so many people killed, if it really was a dirty thing, then that thing was definitely especially fierce.

“Right.” Shen Chaosan, who usually didn’t like to speak, also said, “Do you still remember the school that had an incident three years ago?”

Shen Yiqiong’s eyes were full of terror: “You mean the one where two people were hanged?”

Shen Chaosan nodded.

“How could I forget?” Shen Yiqiong had only been fifteen at the time, having followed Lin Zhushui for just over a year. He had been so scared he couldn’t even remember his own surname. It was all thanks to Shen Chaosan’s quick thinking in sending a message to Lin Zhushui at the critical moment, allowing Lin Zhushui to save them.

“This time, six died.” Shen Musi sighed, “I reckon it’s quite serious.”

Zhou Jiayu listened from the side with his heart in his throat. Shen Yiqiong also turned pale because of that terrible memory, even eating a few less bites of food.

“Let’s go as soon as possible.” Lin Zhushui finally concluded, “Beware of further changes.”

Lin Jue also nodded in agreement.

This New Year was truly lively. Zhou Jiayu had just had his soul returned to his body, and now Lin Zhushui had taken on another fatal case.

But Lin Jue had originally thought that Lin Zhushui wouldn’t bring Zhou Jiayu along when going to handle this matter. Who knew she would still hear him tell Zhou Jiayu to prepare, that they would set out in a few days.

“Is it okay for him to go like this?” Although Lin Jue wasn’t completely clear, she had some understanding of Zhou Jiayu’s constitution.

“There are some things he should see sooner or later.” Lin Zhushui said indifferently, “I can protect him for a moment, but I can’t protect him every single moment.”

That made sense too. With Zhou Jiayu’s constitution, unless he stayed cooped up at home and never went out for his entire life, he would definitely encounter these things. Lin Jue roughly understood Lin Zhushui’s thinking and didn’t say anything more.

Of the remaining four disciples, Lin Zhushui picked Shen Yiqiong. Shen Erbai also seemed to want to go, but Lin Zhushui said to him: “Finish your own matters first.”

Zhou Jiayu didn’t know what matter Lin Zhushui was referring to, but he clearly saw that after Shen Erbai heard these words, his expression showed some embarrassment. Honestly, this was the first time he had seen such an expression on Shen Erbai’s face…

High school students’ winter break was only a short twenty-plus days. After confirming he would take this on, Lin Zhushui booked the plane tickets for the morning of the ninth.

The reason for the delay of a few days was to allow Zhou Jiayu’s body to recover, so that he wouldn’t experience soul instability.

This trip would probably be quite dangerous. Zhou Jiayu brought all his talisman papers. Shen Yiqiong, as usual, went to buy glutinous rice. But this time he was a bit clever—he found some cloth and sewed three glutinous rice pouches, sandwiching them in the lining of his clothes. Normally they could also be used as sandbags for weight training.

For the remaining few days, Lin Zhushui was nowhere to be seen. He was probably studying up on that high school. Lin Jue stayed in the guest room of the Lin residence. Everyone welcomed this, because only when she was around would Lin Zhushui let them order takeout.

“This paper person is so cute.” With just one extra person, the whole house became much livelier. Lin Jue watched the yellow weasel fighting with the paper person and smiled, “You raised it?”

“Mm.” Zhou Jiayu nodded, “Someone gave it to me.”

“Stay safe on this trip out.” Lin Jue cautioned. Her expression showed some depth of meaning. “Don’t stray too far from Zhushui… Right, Zhou Jiayu, have you ever been in a relationship?”

Zhou Jiayu himself had never been in one, but this body had had a girlfriend before, so he hesitated: “I… guess that counts?”

“Oh?” Lin Jue didn’t believe it. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

Zhou Jiayu: “…” You can tell whether someone has or hasn’t?

Lin Jue suddenly reached out and tapped the corner of his eye: “To be honest, before I came, I calculated your birth chart.”

Zhou Jiayu was stunned.

Lin Jue said, “Your birth chart has all four of the Zi, Wu, Mao, and You hours. Do you know what kind of fate this is?”

Zhou Jiayu didn’t know, so he could only shake his head.

“It’s the classic Four-Fate Peach Blossom.” Lin Jue said, “Ordinary people only need to have two of these hours in their fate, and their romantic luck would be incredible. But you have all four—”

Zhou Jiayu had no idea about any of this and was completely dumbfounded the entire time.

Seeing his expression, Lin Jue, who had been keeping a straight face, suddenly burst out laughing. She reached out and poked Zhou Jiayu’s cheek: “Aiya, alright, I won’t tease you anymore. You’re truly cute.”

Zhou Jiayu: “????” He was completely confused by Lin Jue’s words, almost having black question marks pop up above his head.

“Stay safe.” Reiterating this once more, Lin Jue ended their conversation.

Regarding the matter of the Four-Fate Peach Blossom, Zhou Jiayu had initially thought Lin Jue was joking with him. Later, after Jiba’s reminder, he discovered that the original owner’s birthday really did correspond to these four hours. Year, month, day, hour, minute—he really found the four time points of Zi, Wu, Mao, and You inside. Zhou Jiayu even looked up some materials and saw that books said as long as a person’s fate contained two of these times, their romantic luck would be extremely prosperous. And this original owner actually had four—no wonder his romantic luck was so strong. But that was the original owner. Zhou Jiayu himself was a poor little thing who had been single for over twenty years.

During the days Lin Jue stayed here, she especially loved teasing Zhou Jiayu. At first, Zhou Jiayu treated Lin Jue seriously as an elder, but later he gave up. He discovered that Lin Jue’s personality was completely different from Lin Zhushui’s. He couldn’t imagine at all that Lin Jue was actually Lin Zhushui’s elder.

Shen Yiqiong and the others were more experienced than Zhou Jiayu. They said that although Lin Jue was steady in front of outsiders, she was actually very playful at home. She even had the great achievement of burning down three kitchens, after which she completely gave up on the culinary arts and devoted herself to the takeout industry. Now she knew exactly which takeout restaurants in the city were delicious and which were clean.

Zhou Jiayu was speechless about this. He felt that the Lin family was probably cursed by the Kitchen God to have reached such a consistent level in cooking.

On the morning of the ninth, the sky was very clear.

Lin Jue also flew to that city with them, saying she wanted to see if there was anything she could help with.

This high school was located in a prosperous city in the southwest corner. The temperature in the south was higher than in Zhou Jiayu’s city. As the plane flew there, one could clearly see the white snow gradually decreasing. By the time they got off the plane, there wasn’t a trace of snow to be seen. But the sky was overcast, with a chilly drizzle falling.

If they say the cold in the north is physical damage, then the cold in the south is definitely magic damage. Zhou Jiayu wrapped himself up like a ball, yet still felt the gloomy wind piercing through his clothes into his bones.

Zhou Jiayu: “S-so cold.”

Shen Yiqiong also stopped pretending to be young and vigorous. He was dressed about the same as Zhou Jiayu, only exposing his dark face: “Yeah, it’s fucking cold.”

Lin Jue and Lin Zhushui were both dressed quite thinly. Lin Zhushui was one thing—everyone was used to his clothing. But Lin Jue was actually still wearing that qipao and shawl. Zhou Jiayu’s eyes went straight looking at her outfit. Not because he thought it looked too good, but because he thought it looked too cold…

Shen Yiqiong expressed understanding of Zhou Jiayu’s feelings.

After getting off the plane, Shen Yiqiong couldn’t hold back in the end and asked, “Shibo, aren’t you cold?”

Lin Jue pointed to her lips: “Does my lipstick look good?”

Shen Yiqiong nodded: “It looks good. The jujube red is quite elegant.”

Lin Jue said: “Jujube red my ass, I’m frozen!”

Everyone: “…”

In the end, they reached a conclusion: never ask a girl if she’s cold again. Not everyone is Lin Zhushui. How could she not be cold? It’s all for beauty. Asking again would simply be making a girl uncomfortable.

But the car was warm. The person picking them up was someone Lin Jue knew. She gave them a simple introduction, saying he was a small leader at the school.

This person’s attitude toward them was fairly enthusiastic, but his forced smile made it obvious how much the fatal cases at the high school were affecting the school.

“They invited another master over.” This person’s name was Li Jinjiang, around forty years old. He spoke while driving, “Apparently a master from some Daoist temple, quite powerful.”

Hearing this, Lin Jue frowned: “You’re still running to the school this late?”

Li Jinjiang said, “That master insisted on going at night. We had no choice.” It was currently winter break, and with the fatal cases, the entire high school was empty. Besides a few security guards at the gate, the school authorities practically wanted to seal the school shut.

“What’s that master’s name?” Lin Jue asked.

Li Jinjiang said, “I think he’s called something like Celestial Master Zhang…”

Lin Jue said, “Celestial Master Zhang? Could he be a descendant of Zhang Daoling?” Zhang Daoling was the founder of the Way of the Celestial Masters. Most Daoists with the title of Celestial Master came from his lineage.

“I don’t know.” Li Jinjiang shook his head. He occasionally glanced at Lin Zhushui in the back seat through the rearview mirror, his eyes full of curiosity. He was probably wondering what was so special about this man with his eyes closed sitting behind him that Lin Jue would go to such great lengths to bring him over from elsewhere.

“Zhushui, should we go take a look?” Lin Jue asked.

“Sure.” Lin Zhushui said indifferently.

“Then let’s go to the school.” Lin Jue said, “Let’s see the situation.”

Li Jinjiang hesitated: “But it’s almost evening…”

Lin Jue raised an eyebrow: “What are you afraid of? We’re here.”

Hearing this, Li Jinjiang had no choice but to turn the car around and drive toward the school. Judging from his expression, he clearly loathed the school at night. If Lin Jue hadn’t insisted, he definitely wouldn’t have gone.

When the car reached the school gate, the security guard was a bit surprised to see Li Jinjiang and said, “Teacher Li, what are you doing here so late?”

Li Jinjiang casually made up an excuse, saying he had friends who wanted to tour the school.

The security guard looked at Li Jinjiang like he was an idiot as he went in.

Zhou Jiayu sat in the back seat and clearly felt that the school’s atmosphere wasn’t right. Looking out the window, he saw the trees and tall teaching buildings standing in the school. He felt that the school didn’t have the unique vitality of students at all; instead, it was lifeless. At first glance, it actually looked like a cemetery.

They got out of the car and walked toward the teaching building. Apparently, Celestial Master Zhang was performing his rituals there. However, they had just reached the entrance of the teaching building when they heard a scream from inside. Then several people rushed out in a sorry state. Seeing the people outside, they shouted like mad: “Help! There’s a ghost!!”

Zhou Jiayu: “…” They had arrived at just the right time.

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Author’s Note:

Zhou Jiayu: I want to take good care of Sir.

Lin Zhushui: I want to take good care of my little stupid fish.

Zhou Jiayu: Huh… hey, wait… mmph… (This kind of care is different from what he had in mind.)