Chapter 38: 37 Why Bother

37 Why Bother

Lin Ling tilted the watering can to water the Stone Leek on the table. While admiring the way the Stone Leek shivered under the cold water, he asked Wei Jiang, who was doing his daily shop cleaning: "Stone Leek is also called Other Shore Flower. Do you know what the other flower that corresponds to it is?"

Faced with Lin Ling's sudden question, Wei Jiang was already accustomed to it. He pondered for a moment and replied: "In Sanskrit, Stone Leek is called Manjusaka, a red water lily. Legend has it that it blooms on the Road to the Yellow Springs. The one that corresponds to it should be a white flower named Mandarahua, which blooms on the path leading to Heaven. But in fact, it is also said that they are both flowers of Heaven, two of the four flowers that are omens of good fortune sent from the sky."

"It seems you have done your homework for this," Lin Ling laughed. "Then, according to your former explanation, do you think there are any similarities or differences between the Manjusaka blooming on the Road to the Yellow Springs and the Mandarahua blooming on the path to Heaven?"

Wei Jiang thought for a while: "The similarity is that they are both responsible for receiving the souls of the dead, guiding the deceased souls to their next life. As for the differences..." He could not figure it out and shook his head.

Lin Ling chuckled and said: "If one sees Manjusaka, they fall into Hell; if one sees Mandarahua, they ascend to Heaven... Although both possess the meaning of death, the former leans toward the negative side of death, toward the void of death, implying degeneration, while the latter leans toward the positive side of death, toward the life of death, implying rebirth. The two are actually not different in essence."

Wei Jiang seemed to have a realization. After a long while, he said as if bowing in admiration: "I have been taught."

"By the way, do you know what the flower language of Manjusaka is?" Lin Ling lightly patted the cat's paw that had reached out from the darkness, stopping it before the troublesome paw could ruin the petals of the Stone Leek.

Wei Jiang seemed to have thought of something, sighed deeply, and said: "Never to meet again... hopeless love..."

Thump, thump, thump!

"Mrs. Xue! Xue Hanlei!" Li Jiahong pounded violently on the door of the apartment where Xue Hanlei lived, shouting loudly at the door.

Seeing no response from inside, Li Jiahong put his eye to the peephole. He could barely see flickering candlelight inside and vaguely saw a human body lying down. Feeling that something was wrong, he gritted his teeth and began to ram the door with all his might.

The commotion Li Jiahong caused attracted the neighbors around Xue Hanlei. Seeing a grown man suddenly appear in front of an orphan and widow's apartment in the middle of the night, anyone would be suspicious and think Li Jiahong had ill intentions.

Fortunately, Li Jiahong explained in time and let the apartment security guard who arrived later look through the peephole. After confirming there was an unmoving figure inside and receiving no response to continuous knocking, all the men gathered in front of the apartment door turned grave.

Regarding this, everyone unanimously decided that saving a life was urgent, so they rammed the apartment door open with Li Jiahong. Immediately after, the scene that met everyone's eyes left them all horrified.

The room was dim, with only a dozen candles arranged in the pattern of a Strange Array emitting light in the darkness. One could vaguely see a plump woman lying on the Strange Array. But when the electric lights were fully turned on, where was there any fallen woman on the Strange Array?

It was a headless female corpse! Xue Hanlei's corpse!

The onlookers, seeing such a cruel scene for the first time, all screamed in shock.

"I'm too late." Li Jiahong looked at the scene before him in disbelief. He suddenly sat on the ground, utterly dejected, and muttered, "Why couldn't you just wait a little longer? Why did you have to use this method..."

Xue Hanlei's death soon caused a sensation among the Enforcers, but because this case involved an Abnormal matter, it was quickly transferred to the Xuanmi Group for processing. Before long, Li Jiahong saw He Jia'an and the other two at the scene of Xue Hanlei's death.

"What an unspeakable tragedy." He Jia'an looked at the corpse lying in a pool of blood and could not help but shake his head. After examining the scene, he had basically guessed the sequence of events.

"She had a daughter from a remarriage who is now missing." Li Jiahong grabbed He Jia'an's shoulder as if clutching a Life-Saving Straw and said urgently, "I suspect her daughter has already been taken away by the Huogu. We must save her."

Soon, the discovery by the Mysterious Investigator responsible for scouting the scene—a rubbing of ancient text—proved Li Jiahong's conjecture.

He Jia'an only flipped through the contents of the document for a few pages before immediately understanding. He looked at the ritual array left at the scene and said: "This Mrs. Xue didn't know where she got the evil ritual process used to summon the Huogu back in the day, and she actually managed to replicate it successfully all by herself. The deal was struck, and her daughter, who was just shy of four years old, naturally became the target of the Huogu and was forcibly taken away. It's just unclear what wish Mrs. Xue actually made."

"But they kill when they kill, why did they specifically take Xue Hanlei's head this time?" Li Jiahong's heart was full of doubts.

He Jia'an bit on a cigarette butt and said: "Unclear. Perhaps Mrs. Xue's head was processed and discarded in various places nearby. Of course, there is another possibility, which is that it was a wish Xue Hanlei specifically made to the Huogu."

Li Jiahong pondered for a moment and guessed: "Mrs. Xue's strongest wish must have been to see her missing child one last time. The Huogu granted Mrs. Xue's wish, so they took Mrs. Xue's head in a way we cannot quite understand and truly took her to the dimension where they live, to see her long-lost biological child."

"That is not impossible," Yu Lianyun said. Her gaze swept back and forth over the corpse at the scene, her attention fixed on the neck that had lost its head. "There are countless ways to kill, yet they chose the inconvenient method of decapitation. And... if it wasn't done deliberately, the neck couldn't possibly have such a clean cut."

"Brain in a vat?" Li Yingqi thought of a conjecture circulating in the scientific community. "If the Huogu are a race possessing a technological civilization that surpasses humanity, perhaps they can allow a human to continue living with only a head remaining. That would explain why Mrs. Xue's head disappeared; the logic holds up."

Li Jiahong held his forehead. "But why go to such lengths..."

"Indeed, if she could have waited a while longer, perhaps she wouldn't have had to die." He Jia'an bit his cigarette filter, his eyes filled with complex emotions. "We had just managed to inquire about the location of the Huogu Graveyard. I didn't expect her to have missed it just like that."

"Found it?" Li Jiahong was stunned. He did not know whether to be sad or happy, his heart filled with conflicting emotions.

He Jia'an did not explain too much about this, only saying: "Mrs. Xue may be beyond saving, but her daughter who was just taken should still be saveable... Although this is not a good choice, human life is at stake, and there isn't much time to consider. We must set off for the location of the Huogu Graveyard now."

"Please, let me go with you." Seeing He Jia'an, Yu Lianyun, and the others turn to leave, Li Jiahong hurriedly blocked their path and said earnestly.

"No." He Jia'an refused Li Jiahong's proposal without a second thought, then ignored him and left.

Li Jiahong's fists clenched for a moment before quickly deflating and loosening. He felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

Just after he chased them for a distance and stopped in exhaustion, he could only stand at one end of the street panting, watching as He Jia'an and the others drove around the other end of the street, their taillights disappearing into the darkness.

Flap!

Suddenly, the sound of flapping wings abruptly entered his ears. A shadow blocked the light of the street lamp, enveloping Li Jiahong. Before he could even lift his head to look, the next moment he discovered he had been lifted far off the ground, carefully gripped by the arms by a pair of sharp talons, and hoisted high into the air.