Chapter 1 The Agreed-Upon Matter

The day after they had agreed on this matter, Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) indeed wrote a letter and brought it over.

Hu Ma then had Zhou Liang make a trip to the city to find a mule and horse trading company. He gave them some silver and asked them to deliver the letter.

They traveled north and south, so there would always be someone heading to Anzhou. With a little extra silver, they could be persuaded to take a slight detour and deliver the letter.

Now, all that was left was waiting. Setting aside the strangeness of this girl, Hu Ma felt quite pleased that he could help this child he had rescued find her home.

However, whether it was because doing such a thing invisibly accumulated some kind of unclear and inexplicable yin virtue, or simply because he had been diligently replenishing his blood food lately and putting in the work with his cultivation...

About two months after the haunting incident, Hu Ma suddenly felt a thunderous roar in his ears.

He felt as if something had suddenly been expelled from his body.

His body first experienced a moment of deathly stillness, as if all vitality had vanished.

Then, in the next moment, a torrent of heat surged through his limbs, banishing the cold from his body.

"Hmm?"

Hu Ma subconsciously opened his eyes and found himself in his Natal Spirit Temple.

He used the statue in this temple to examine his own cultivation. Every time it reached a crucial moment, he would come here to observe carefully. Now, as he opened his eyes, he saw the space in front of him, swirling with dark red mist.

Behind the incense table, it was pitch black, and only the outline of the statue could be vaguely seen. But in several places, the statue that was hidden in the darkness was now shining brightly.

These were the statue's limbs and five organs.

Because the statue was hidden in the darkness, it was not clear, and it vaguely seemed as if only these limbs and five organs were floating in mid-air.

Mysterious and magnificent.

Among them, the heart, as the head of the five organs, was beating vigorously.

Each time it beat, faint golden light seemed to emerge, surging towards the limbs, as if to illuminate the entire statue. However, because the statue seemed to be extremely profound, the change brought about by each heartbeat was not enough to truly illuminate the statue.

But this continuous vitality still made Hu Ma feel as if the statue had come to life.

He stared at the statue, speechless for a long time.

He felt inexplicably relaxed, touched, and even a sense of awe.

Success.

At this moment, he had refined his heart, officially completing the five-organ stage of the Watchman cultivation...

Logically speaking, this was not a great achievement.

But why was there such a strong shock and heartfelt joy in his heart?

This joy made Hu Ma sit silently in this Natal Spirit Temple for a long time before he sighed softly and returned to the real world.

Sitting up in bed, he could feel his heart beating.

This beating was different from before. Before, it was mechanical, being forced to beat; now, it was beating spontaneously.

Since being reborn into this world, Hu Ma felt that he had never been closer to being "alive" than he was now.

However...

...Turning his head and glancing at the bottles and jars in the box by his bed, he couldn't help but smile wryly.

This consumption is truly terrifying...

Perhaps it was time to urge Steward Xu to settle his earlier accounts?

Although Red Lantern Niangniang (Red Lantern Goddess) gave him an extra reward, that was completely different from the accounts he was preparing to submit!

He felt an unspeakable joy in his heart. If it weren't the middle of the night, he would have liked to go to the tavern for a drink to celebrate. But unexpectedly, at this moment, he heard the tavern owner's voice outside:

"Little Master, are you asleep? Come and take a look, Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) is sick..."

"..."

"Hmm?"

Hearing this, Hu Ma frowned and got up, put on his clothes, and went to the courtyard.

Now that Red Lantern Niangniang (Red Lantern Goddess) had built a temple, although the major rules of the village had not changed, there were some minor rules. For example, the gate was not closed at night, so he heard the shouting in the courtyard and recognized that it was the tavern owner from the town.

However, if she was sick, he should have just asked a doctor to prescribe medicine. Why did he come to the village to say so?

Thinking this, Hu Ma put on his clothes and left the inner courtyard. He saw the tavern owner's anxious expression and immediately knew that it was not a normal illness. When he stepped forward and asked a few questions, the shop assistants in the side room were also awakened and ran out.

Now, in this village, the name Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) had an extraordinary charm. Its appearance caused a stir, second only to the phrase "Brother Ma is here."

"Let's go take a look first!"

Hu Ma asked the owner a few questions and saw that he was also confused and couldn't explain clearly, so he said in a low voice.

It was already midnight. He wouldn't have gone out before, but now the rules had changed, and the area outside the village was peaceful. In addition, the shop assistants in the village were all familiar with Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou), so they all put on their clothes and followed the tavern owner out of the village.

Originally, Hu Ma had planned to come and see for himself, but seeing the shop assistants' concerned expressions, he let them follow.

They also carried the Red Lantern, as the current Red Lantern Niangniang (Red Lantern Goddess) could suppress evil spirits.

Only the sleepy Li Wa Zi stretched his head out and said, "You go, I'll stay here and watch the house."

When the shop assistants heard that Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) was sick, they were all filled with concern and came all the way with murderous intent, scaring the yin and filth they encountered on the road two miles away.

When they arrived at the tavern in the town, they saw that the door panels had been removed and not yet installed. In the inner courtyard, the small room where Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) usually lived was lit with an oil lamp. When Hu Ma came in, he saw the town's doctor shaking his head with a worried expression.

"Doctor Yang, have you seen her?"

Hu Ma also knew this doctor from the town, so he stepped forward to greet him.

When the doctor saw that Hu Ma had come, he hurriedly got up and respectfully bowed to Hu Ma, saying, "I've seen her. As soon as Old Sun called me, I came over."

"But I've taken her pulse and pricked her with needles, but it's not working. I think this isn't a problem I can solve. I think only Shopkeeper Hu can understand..."

The doctor was from the town, not a famous doctor, but he was an honest man. If he said it wasn't an illness, then it must be something else. Hu Ma didn't dare to be careless. He entered the room and saw Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) lying on the bed with her eyes tightly closed and her face flushed red.

He tested it with his finger, and the breath coming from her nose was scalding hot.

Fine, white skin

"Could it be a haunting?"

Hu Ma frowned and pried open her eyelids. He saw that her pupils were normal, which was a sign of a comatose person.

He also looked at her fingertips, and they weren't black.

After looking at it with his own knowledge, he looked at the safest place.

Little Red Tang had already climbed onto the roof beam and shook her head when she saw Hu Ma looking over.

"Hiss..."

Hu Ma understood Little Red Tang's meaning. It wasn't a haunting?

For a moment, his heart sank slightly. If it wasn't an illness, and it wasn't a haunting, then there was only one answer...

...Was she hit by a spell?

Looking at Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou)'s current appearance, he was reminded of his experience in the Da Yang village. At that time, he was unknowingly hit by a spell, and he burned with fever and almost lost his life.

Looking at Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou)'s appearance now, it wasn't exactly the same as his, but there were some similarities. So he bent down, patted her cheeks, and tried to call her a few times.

"It's useless, she can't be woken up..."

The tavern owner and his wife said, "We've called her several times."

Even the doctor nodded.

Hu Ma frowned and asked the tavern owner, "When did she get sick?"

"It was like this after dark."

The tavern owner said, "Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) is diligent. After washing the dishes, she also rubbed the clothes for a while. It was dark, but she didn't sleep. She still wanted to light an oil lamp to make shoes, saying she wanted to give them to you..."

He glanced at Hu Ma, afraid that his words would be disrespectful, and changed his words, saying, "She wanted to make a pair of shoes for the shopkeeper of the village. My wife and I laughed at her, saying that such a big shopkeeper wouldn't be short of a pair of shoes."

"..."

Hu Ma was a little helpless and said, "Tell me what happened."

"Yes, yes."

The tavern owner said, "Anyway, she didn't listen to what we said. She insisted on making these shoes. My wife and I went to bed early, but after sleeping for a while, we suddenly heard her shout, and there was a sound of something being knocked over. We hurried over to see, and she was like this."

Hu Ma said, "Did anything break in?"

"No, no."

The tavern owner hurriedly said, "The door panels in the village are in good condition, and the door of her room is also bolted from the inside."

"I crawled out of the window to open the door."

"..."

As he spoke, he glanced at the window that had been kicked with a hole in it, seeming a little distressed.

But when he saw the person in the room had fainted, he couldn't care about it and could only kick open the window to come in and take a look.

Hearing this, Hu Ma knew that he couldn't ask anything else. He just looked at Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) lying on the bed. Seeing her unconscious appearance, she seemed very weak. If he could wake her up first, he could ask some things, but how could he wake her up?

Use the Four Ghosts Bowing at the Door? (Si Gui Yi Men)

When he was dealing with hauntings in the surrounding villages, he did use the Four Ghosts Bowing at the Door (Si Gui Yi Men) to temporarily calm those crying babies.

But that was during the day. Now it was night, and the power of the Four Ghosts Bowing at the Door (Si Gui Yi Men) was a little too strong.

Moreover, Hu Ma roughly judged and vaguely felt that this Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) seemed different from those babies. Those babies were confused by evil spirits, which was like having something more on their bodies, but Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou) wasn't. It seemed like she was missing something.

He took a low breath. The Watchman was good at head-on confrontation, but he was really afraid of such things.

He could only suppress his temper and carefully asked the tavern owner, "Think carefully, have any strange people come here today?"

"People with unfamiliar faces who don't look like they're from good families."

"Think about whether anyone has spoken to Xiang丫头 (Xiang Yatou), asked her name or background. If someone took her hair or asked for her Bazi (eight characters of birth), that would be even more likely."

"..."

Hearing this question, the tavern owner was even more embarrassed, "We do business with passing guests, and most of them are unfamiliar faces..."

"Hey, there was someone..."

The tavern owner's wife suddenly said at this time.

(End of this chapter)