Chapter 3

Just then, a colleague passed by and tossed a document bag to him: "Brother Fei, you have a delivery."

Qi Fei picked up the document bag nonchalantly, but the shipping information on it made him alert immediately. The package was sent from Sanwu Town, and the sender wasn't a name, but the two words "Answer."

He hurriedly tore open the bag, only to find an anti-fraud manual issued by their police station inside.

In his mind, the image of Zhong Kui leaving that day appeared—her holding the manual, looking mocking.

Qi Fei held the manual in one hand and the business card in the other, suddenly laughing at himself, murmuring: "Alright, alright, a codebook, is it?"

He used the numbers on the business card to look up information in the anti-fraud manual: 1-2-1, the 1st character on the 2nd line of the 1st page. He was somewhat disappointed; unfortunately, it was still a number, the serial number "1." Then he found "2," and the third number "0."

"120?" Qi Fei's brow furrowed. This was different from what he expected; he thought it would at least be a sentence.

It took him quite a while to find all the corresponding information from the anti-fraud manual, but all the results were still numbers.

The good news was that the business card was the code, and the anti-fraud manual was the keybook; that was correct.

The bad news was that the answer was still a bunch of confusing numbers.

"Brother Fei, are you in such a mood to do math problems?" Wu Shanqiu didn't know when she had walked up to his side. Her sudden speaking startled Qi Fei, who was focused on solving the puzzle.

"No, Zhong Kui's business card is a string of codes." Qi Fei pointed to the anti-fraud manual he had circled and drawn on, and the small business card.

"Hmm?" Wu Shanqiu glanced at it, confused, and took out an express package to hand to Qi Fei. "Oh, right, I just went downstairs and happened to have a delivery for you."

"Another one?" Qi Fei's brow tightened. Sure enough, the sender's name was written: "Second Answer."

He hurriedly tore it open, and a USB drive fell out. It seemed this was the second hint Zhong Kui had given him.

Qi Fei hurriedly plugged the USB drive into the computer and opened it. Inside, there was only one image: a world map.

"A map?" Qi Fei murmured, looking at the two rows of numbers he had deciphered. The first row was 【numbers】, the second row was 【numbers】. He muttered: "120... 30..." Suddenly thinking of something, he picked up a pen and added a few decimal points between the numbers, hurriedly entered this set of numbers into the computer, and pressed the Enter key. When the result came up, he couldn't help but excitedly slap the table.

Wu Shanqiu leaned over to the computer screen and saw: "Huh? This is a latitude and longitude? The location is near Sanwu Town."

"To be precise, it's Zizai Shan next to Sanwu Town. Isn't it said she lives in the mountains nearby? It seems this is her address," Qi Fei said, feeling the unpleasantness of being led by the nose by Zhong Kui.

"Why not just write down where she lives clearly? Why use so many codes? It's not like she's doing underground work," Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but complain.

"Hmph, she's enjoying the pleasure of manipulating others. The anti-fraud manual... it seems this business card was customized for us."

"What is her purpose in doing this?"

"Didn't she say it? She told me to come find her." Qi Fei's eyes were bright; clearly, Zhong Kui had already aroused his great interest.

"Ah, Brother Fei, is she really interested in you?" Wu Shanqiu had an expression of watching a good show.

"Don't talk nonsense. The business card was prepared before she came; we didn't know each other then, so I have to figure out what her intention is." Qi Fei packed up all his things and left, running off to drive by himself.

It was a drive of over an hour from Nancheng to Sanwu Town. Qi Fei had been there several times, each time to solve a case; only this time was it to meet a "half-immortal."

He didn't go directly up the mountain according to the latitude and longitude Zhong Kui gave him, but first went to Sanwu Town. He remembered Wu Shanqiu telling him that Zhong Kui had become famous in Sanwu Town over the past two years because her fortune-telling was accurate. Out of professional habit, he had to visit and understand this person first.

Sanwu Town wasn't large. He walked into a shop at random and asked, and sure enough, everyone knew Zhong Kui.

"Are you here for fortune-telling too?" the owner asked, sizing Qi Fei up.

"Yeah, I heard it's very accurate. Is that true?" Qi Fei went along with it.

"Heh, you bet! No matter who it is, as long as she's willing to tell their fortune, whether they're dead or alive, it's especially accurate. It's just, are you prepared enough?" The owner rubbed his fingers together, making a gesture of counting money.

"Does it cost a lot of money?"

"Very expensive. One session, and you won't get out of the mountain without five figures. But everyone who has been there says the money is well spent! If you want to see someone from your family who has passed away, you must find her. I heard a woman whose husband died went to find her, and as soon as she heard her, she knew it was her husband's ghost possessing her. She almost cried herself into a faint on the spot. There are many similar stories! I see you're young, who in your family has passed away?"

Qi Fei listened and resisted the urge to roll his eyes, thinking, what era is this, and people still believe in such feudal superstition.

No matter how supernatural Zhong Kui appeared now, he would never believe she could communicate with the dead, even if it killed him.

"I see that place of hers is hard to find. How do you go up by car?" Qi Fei didn't answer and asked for himself.

Unexpectedly, the owner showed a surprised expression: "You know where she lives?"

Qi Fei was also puzzled: "Why? Don't you know?"

"No one knows where she lives."

"Then I'm curious, how do you find her for fortune-telling? Does she provide door-to-door service?"

The owner pointed outside the door and said: "Well, walk west from here for two intersections, and you'll see a Huang Daxian Temple. There's a black merit box inside. If people in our town want to find her, they put a packet of money in the merit box and write down what they want to know. Within seven days, if the money and the note in the merit box are taken, it means she's willing to take the case. If the money is still there after seven days, it means she won't."

"You don't know where she is, so what happens if she takes it?"

"If she takes it, then on the 15th of the month, at 7 o'clock in the evening, go to the Huang Daxian Temple and wait. Someone will come to pick you up. But on the way there and back, your eyes are covered and your ears are plugged. We only know she lives in those mountains; we don't know exactly where."

Upon hearing this, Qi Fei's doubts increased by another layer—Zhong Kui went to such lengths to hide her residence, so why expose the exact location to him?

He followed the shop owner's directions and went to the Huang Daxian Temple.

It was overcast and rainy that day, looking like it was about to rain.

The small temple door was open, but there was no one there. Qi Fei walked in, and he didn't know if it was psychological, but he felt a chill down his spine.

A statue of Huang Daxian stood prominently in the main hall, dressed like a fairy, but with the head of a weasel, looking ferocious in the flickering candlelight. Qi Fei's hand pressed against his service weapon. The glazed eyes of the Huang Daxian statue seemed to suddenly turn toward him as he blinked. The candle on the offering table "popped" and flared, and the blue smoke condensed into an old human face in the air: "Qi Fei, you've come." A voice of an old woman came from the empty temple.