Chapter 4

An old woman, looking to be in her sixties, walked out from behind the statue. As soon as she saw him, she smiled, her wrinkles bunching together: "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

"How do you know me?" Qi Fei's hand was already on his service weapon.

The old woman didn't answer, but walked up and simply extended her hand to give him a compass for feng shui: "Go, she's waiting for you."

"Did Zhong Kui tell you to give this to me?"

"Go where it tells you to go." The old woman didn't say much more and turned to go to the back hall.

Zhong Kui had calculated that he would arrive at the Huang Daxian Temple at this time. This level of scheming made Qi Fei shudder. However, this compass was of no use to him; he had made full preparations for this trip, and he had brought a compass of his own long ago.

Qi Fei drove his car to the foot of the mountain and walked toward the mountain road according to the location Zhong Kui gave him.

After walking for about half an hour, his phone suddenly froze and wouldn't work even after restarting it several times.

Qi Fei looked at the fork in the road ahead and scratched his head in frustration.

Suddenly, he remembered the feng shui compass and hurriedly took it out of his backpack.

Soon, he discovered the trick with the compass; the needle in the center was strange. He took out the compass he had brought, and sure enough, the compass's needle was off, not pointing to true north or south.

Clearly, this was another hint Zhong Kui had given him.

She knew his phone would fail, and from here on, he could only rely on this compass.

"Heh, she hides herself well enough!" Qi Fei muttered to himself, having no choice but to continue forward in the direction of the needle.

Passing through the dense forest that blocked out the sky, there was an open meadow ahead, and in the distance of the meadow, a few wooden houses had lights on.

It seemed he had finally arrived at Zhong Kui's residence.

There was a small wooden gate in front of the residence, and when pushed, it would stir the wind chimes above, making a crisp sound.

Suddenly, a black shadow attacked, scaring Qi Fei into drawing his gun in preparation to shoot.

Looking closely, it was a huge cat that landed in front of him, at least half a person's height, with blue-gray fur and large golden eyes, staring at him with full vigilance.

"Luosha, it's a guest." Zhong Kui appeared at the door of the wooden house at some point and scolded the big cat.

Luosha bared its teeth at Qi Fei and retreated to Zhong Kui's side, inseparable like a guard.

"We meet again, Officer Qi." Zhong Kui said to Qi Fei with a smile, carrying an eerie sense of intimacy, "You are a good policeman."

"I went to all this trouble, not to hear your praise. How did you know Chen Xiaojing's body was soaked in yellow rice wine?"

"Chen Xiaojing told me."

"This trick of yours can only fool ordinary people. You said I'm a good policeman, so I can still tell whether you're lying or not."

Zhong Kui sneered: "Chen Xiaojing also told me that you caught the wrong person."

"Zhu Qi has already confessed. What is your purpose in confusing the public? Unless you are involved in this case." Qi Fei stared at Zhong Kui, his gaze sharp.

Zhong Kui walked to Qi Fei's side, extended her finger, and traced her nail across Qi Fei's neck.

Qi Fei knew he should dodge, but he didn't know why he didn't. It was as if he had been hit by a freezing spell. The cold nail felt like it could cut his neck at any moment. A massive terror struck him, and in a trance, he saw Chen Xiaojing's head soaking in the wine jar, cleanly severed along the neck...

"Come in and have some tea." Zhong Kui's voice interrupted Qi Fei's daydream.

As if she had teleported, Zhong Kui had already entered the house.

Incense was lit in the room, smoke curling, with clean straw mats, a tea table, and meditation cushions—it was just a tea house in the deep mountains. There were also wind chimes hanging by the tea table; she seemed to like wind chimes very much.

She signaled for Qi Fei to sit in front of the tea table and poured him a cup of tea in an ancient-looking tea cup.

Qi Fei knew that asking directly would be useless, so he followed Zhong Kui's lead and asked: "What did Chen Xiaojing tell you?"

Unexpectedly, Zhong Kui looked up and gave him a faint smile: "You went to such trouble to find me here, wouldn't it be a pity if you only heard some ghostly nonsense?"

This was an indirect admission that she hadn't communicated with Chen Xiaojing's ghost.

Zhong Kui tidied the tea set in a leisurely manner and said: "At this time last year, someone came to make a request. I looked at the content, it was very boring, and I didn't want to take it. However, I saw the cash in their merit box; they gave too much. The cost-effectiveness was so high that I changed my mind." Zhong Kui said slowly, still in that lazy tone, "The person who came to find me was a twenty-seven-year-old man who said he always dreamed of a great flood, where he was drifting in a wooden barrel, and a monster was chasing him in the water, but he couldn't row the barrel no matter what. In the end, he would be caught by the monster, and all his clothes would be stripped off."

"Hmm? Funny." Qi Fei only felt it was nonsensical when he heard this.

"Funny? I only felt that this person's heart was full of secrets, fear, and despair," Zhong Kui said. "I talked to him in depth, and in the end, I returned the money to him."

"You couldn't handle it?"

"Heh, it's not that I didn't need to handle it; he knew what this monster was, but didn't want me to know. So what else could be said? Until the second year, someone else gave a lot of money, asking me to summon a wronged soul named Chen Xiaojing and ask her if she was killed by someone named Zhu Qi. It was very interesting; it reminded me of that person before."

"Are these two things related?" Qi Fei couldn't help but ask.

Zhong Kui didn't answer immediately, extending a hand: "If you want me to tell you, first give me my business card and your answer sheet."

Qi Fei had no choice but to fish out the customized code business card Zhong Kui gave him and the handwritten latitude and longitude he had deciphered from his pocket.

Zhong Kui took them and threw them directly into the incense burner. A ball of fire flared a few times and then went out.

As a wisp of blue smoke rose, Zhong Kui said leisurely: "Let me tell you what that person's dream was saying. A disaster like a flood is something he has always been afraid of, often related to death. The wooden barrel he couldn't row and the chasing monster were all shadows he couldn't break free from. It doesn't matter; everyone has fears they can't escape. What's interesting is the ending of this dream: he was stripped naked by the monster. Officer Qi, imagine, what does being stripped naked mean? The most private things about a person are exposed. In the entire dream, what he feared most wasn't the monster, but what the monster did to him." Speaking of this, Zhong Kui flicked the wind chime hanging on the side, "ding-ling," accompanied by her words, "The first person had his first nightmare thirteen years ago, and he also has the surname Zhu."

Qi Fei's head "buzzed." A policeman's intuition told him this couldn't be a coincidence.

Zhong Kui walked to his side, staring at him with deer-like eyes, and continued: "He has unspeakable secrets related to death and loss of control, but he had no intention of telling me at all, only hoping I would drive away the monster chasing him."