“How can there possibly be this many coincidences in the world?”
Qin Shu was stunned all over again. Every time something happened to Xing Yong, Qin Shu somehow happened to run into it.
Pei Zhao was not surprised. After glancing at Qin Shu’s phone screen, he said calmly, “It is actually because… he interferes with your affairs too often, yet lacks sufficient strength to protect himself. Even if he predicts danger ahead of time, he usually will not retreat.
“After becoming involved again and again, he naturally keeps getting dragged into incidents connected to you. Karma and relationships become entangled. There is no avoiding it.”
“Wow, that’s unlucky. Poor guy.” Qin Shu hissed, quickly unlocked a shared e-bike beside the road, and swung onto it. “Come on, Zhaozhao. Sit tight and hold on. I’m going to speed!”
Before the words had even finished, the bike shot forward at maximum speed. The early-spring air instantly became thin streams of cold wind brushing across Qin Shu’s face.
Without blinking, Qin Shu ran a red light.
“It cannot exactly be called bad luck. He is a good police officer and has worked conscientiously for many years. His merit is considerable, so the Heavenly Dao naturally shelters him to some degree.” Pei Zhao wrapped his arms around Qin Shu’s waist and rested his cheek against his shoulder. His voice remained perfectly clear even through the rushing wind.
The coldness of Pei Zhao’s face made Qin Shu relax slightly. “That actually makes sense. So Brother Yong probably isn’t that easy to kill?”
Pei Zhao sighed. “More accurately, whenever he encounters danger, you always manage to arrive in time. These should originally have been your karmic entanglements, your problems… Yet he keeps investigating them blindly and triggering them first.”
“Hahahaha, that really does sound exactly like something Brother Yong would do. Then I should thank him for saving me investigation time.”
Qin Shu felt much more reassured, but he did not slow down at all. They tore through the main and side roads of eastern Jiangcheng by the shortest possible route and arrived near Living Water Ridge.
Looking back from the foot of the ridge, they could still clearly see the highest point of St. Maria Cathedral. The hole Qin Shu had smashed through the roof had already been repaired, restoring the elegant classical appearance so perfectly that no difference could be seen.
He did not look for long. After parking the bike, Qin Shu immediately checked Xing Yong’s location again. Relying on eyesight alone would actually make him harder to find.
Living Water Ridge was a small hilly region centered around its tallest outer hill, with several smaller rises and earthen slopes surrounding it and blocking both wind and sightlines. Since it lay near the end of the river, the soil was unusually rich and fertile.
Ever since spring arrived, the mountain vegetation had been recovering rapidly and was already lush again. After a nourishing spring rain, the wild grasses and flowers had grown especially tall and dense, nearly reaching two-thirds of Qin Shu’s height.
“…The signal’s really weak. His location keeps cutting in and out. I’ll try calling him.”
After sharing his location, Xing Yong had sent no further messages. Qin Shu could think of nothing else, so he tried phoning him first.
Pei Zhao did not stop Qin Shu from attempting to contact Xing Yong directly, but neither did Pei Zhao remain idle.
He found a wooden stick in the grass, chose a relatively clean patch of bare earth, and slowly drew several circles of complex patterns into the soil.
Qin Shu waited for Xing Yong to answer while turning to watch. Perfect circles. Absolute symmetry… After Pei Zhao layered the pattern several times, the formation was completed, faintly emitting strange flowing light that resembled a whirlpool.
Looking at it for too long produced an eerie sensation of losing balance and becoming drowsy.
“Give me your jade bracelet,” Pei Zhao said softly.
“The one Sister Chang gave me?” Qin Shu immediately understood the logic of the formation. Without hesitation, he removed the bracelet and handed it over.
The blood-red bracelet landed at the center of the circular vortex. Moments later, brilliant golden light erupted, forming an extraordinarily conspicuous pillar that shot into the sky before slowly curving downward. The beam pointed directly toward the place where several hills of Living Water Ridge intersected, its destination unmistakable.
“Let me see… a little over a kilometer away. There’s a small private reservoir there that isn’t open to the public.” Qin Shu followed the descending beam with his eyes. The location was fairly distant.
But for Qin Shu, seeing the details posed no difficulty at all. One brief look was enough for him to identify the fastest route through the terrain, and he immediately grabbed Pei Zhao to start moving.
Then, without warning, weightlessness struck. Qin Shu’s eyes widened as his feet suddenly left the ground and he found himself floating steadily in midair.
His only point of support was Pei Zhao’s hand.
Pei Zhao squeezed his fingers, then calmly walked through the air toward the beam’s endpoint, his hair showing absolutely no sign of being disturbed by the wind.
“Did you forget that I can fly?”
“…Right.”
Qin Shu looked around with fresh curiosity, hugged Pei Zhao’s arm, and carefully adjusted his balance as he adapted to the strange floating sensation.
Then he leaned over and kissed Pei Zhao once, speaking quietly and gently but with deliberate emphasis. “Speaking of that, Pei Zhao, just because you can fly doesn’t mean you’re allowed to casually jump off buildings in front of me. No means no.”
Pei Zhao turned toward him. Meeting Qin Shu’s black eyes, faintly curved with a smile, his face suddenly reddened a little. “Mm.”
“That’s all?”
“I understand. I won’t jump off buildings.”
Pei Zhao’s face grew even redder as he answered again, extraordinarily obedient.
He really did especially like this kind of… slightly unfriendly attitude from Qin Shu.
Qin Shu stared at the blush spreading across Pei Zhao’s cold pale profile and felt something subtly strange stir inside himself too. If they had been at home right now, he absolutely would have pulled Pei Zhao into his arms and kissed him several more times.
They were discussing something completely serious. How had the atmosphere inexplicably turned strange…? Qin Shu genuinely could not figure it out.
Pei Zhao definitely understood, but Pei Zhao refused to tell him.
Just then, a weak, teeth-clenched voice drifted up from beneath them.
“…I have to ask. Are you two here on a date or are you here to save someone?”
It was Xing Yong, his voice wrapped in unmistakable pain and an uncontrollable urge to complain.
He was trapped inside some sort of thorny plant vines, wrapped tightly from his neck all the way to his feet and even hanging upside down. He looked like a bizarre round egg suspended from a bare crooked tree, with only his head exposed.
The tiny thorns covering the vines were sharp and densely packed. Xing Yong had already been stabbed bloody all over, and his blood seeped slowly through gaps in the vines before gathering into drops that fell drip, drip, drip into the damp earth around the roots.
His phone had also fallen to the ground and was covered in a thin layer of blood. Qin Shu’s incoming call kept the screen illuminated, but Xing Yong could only see it. He could not reach it.
It was a genuinely disturbing nightmare of a scene.
If Xing Yong had not contacted Qin Shu in advance, nobody would have known where he was or what had happened for quite some time. Even if the police eventually noticed he had disappeared, rescue might have arrived too late. Severe blood loss, remaining upside down for too long, or hypothermia during the mountain night could all have been fatal.
Still, Xing Yong’s life really was extraordinarily stubborn. Even after suffering all this, he remained quite far from death.
The blush on Pei Zhao’s face disappeared as quickly as it had come. He gave Xing Yong’s flushed face a cool glance, and a flash of golden light instantly sliced every vine wrapped around him into pieces.
Xing Yong reacted quickly too. Gritting his teeth, he twisted in midair and immediately adopted a landing posture designed to reduce the impact. He hit the ground, rolled twice, then lay flat and released a long breath.
Aside from being covered in blood from the punctures, having his clothes shredded, and suffering some light bruising and strain, he did not appear to have any serious injuries for the moment.
“Hiss… thanks.” Xing Yong waved a hand. His voice was hoarse from mild compression around his throat. “I already checked. There’s nothing dangerous within about a kilometer, aside from this tree.”
Only then did Pei Zhao slowly descend with Qin Shu, precisely avoiding the soil soaked in Xing Yong’s blood.
“What the hell is this thing?” Qin Shu immediately crouched down and carefully examined the severed vines.
The cuts were smooth and flat from Pei Zhao’s magical attack, which had actually preserved nearly a hundred thorn-covered vines in remarkably intact condition.
The internal structure at the cut ends had not dissolved and still oozed a liquid resembling fresh blood. Qin Shu leaned closer and smelled it, only to realize immediately that it was not plant sap at all. It was human blood.
He did not dare pick anything up with his hands. Turning toward Pei Zhao, he asked, “Zhaozhao, ever seen one?”
Pei Zhao still held the long, straight, sturdy wooden stick he had used to draw the formation. He used the tip to turn over a short section of vine, squeezed it, then split it lengthwise for a closer look before thoughtfully shaking his head.
“I have seen similar plant spirits. There are many varieties of carnivorous plants. Once they kill enough living creatures for their blood aura to overflow, then coincidentally absorb sufficient moonlight spiritual energy and receive an opportunity for transformation, they may become spirits… That alone is rare. But I have never seen this type of carnivorous vine.”
“Even you’ve never seen one?” Qin Shu startled. “Then we’re in trouble. It might be a newly mutated monster. Hiss. As expected of Living Water Ridge.”
Xing Yong, who was treating his wounds nearby, frowned in confusion when he heard this and coughed before joining the conversation. “Isn’t that just a prickly vine? It’s common in the mountains. I know this kind of weed.”
“Prickly vine? Brother Yong, elaborate.”
“You two young guys seriously don’t spend enough time outdoors, do you?” Xing Yong pulled a thorn from his palm, grimacing as he leaned closer to inspect it. His certainty increased.
“Back when I worked in the capital, a hiker suddenly collapsed during a trek. I happened to be nearby and got called in on an emergency dispatch. We barely managed to save him. Turned out he was severely allergic to the little prickles on this kind of weed. Two tiny stabs nearly killed him. It was terrifying. I’ve never forgotten them since.”
“This is not that plant. Its external features are identical, but its internal structure has completely changed. It is a fundamentally different life-form,” Pei Zhao quietly objected. “Ordinary weeds do not actively attack people either.”
“Really? Internal structure…” Xing Yong’s eyes swept over the ground carpeted in blood-soaked vines, and the sight alone was enough to bring back the suffocating fear of what had happened. His curiosity was strong, but the psychological shadow remained, and he temporarily did not dare touch anything directly.
“It’s fine. You wouldn’t be able to see it clearly anyway.”
With that, Pei Zhao stepped around the blood on the ground and approached the bare crooked tree. Then he raised the wooden stick and gently tapped the trunk once.
A crack sounded. The crooked tree snapped instantly, tearing loose more writhing vines as it crashed down, leaving only a thick stump behind.
Xing Yong’s eyelid twitched. He blurted “Holy shit!” and ignored the pain all over his body as he scrambled farther away.
The inside of the stump was hollow. The entire tree had been excavated from within, drained dry, and consumed completely.
The cavity was filled with blood, nurturing fine root systems belonging to immature vines, densely packed and tangled together. These roots seemed unable to tolerate light. Exposed suddenly to natural sunlight, they began convulsing violently, desperately trying to burrow deeper into the trunk and soil for shelter, but there was nowhere left to hide.
The tree had long since become an enormous incubation chamber for carnivorous vines.
Pei Zhao pushed the wooden stick into the blood and stirred several times, but did not immediately kill them.
He truly had never seen such a mutated spirit before, so he studied it with genuine interest and said, “Xing Yong, you were extremely lucky to survive. If all these vines had reached adulthood, the instant you encountered them, they would have drained away your blood and flesh, leaving behind a thin human husk. No immortal could have saved you.”
“That’s horrifying… Brother Yong, what were you even doing here?” Qin Shu’s scalp prickled.
“Investigating possible accomplices of Blind Granny. I think she had accomplices. Captain keeps insisting she didn’t, but I don’t believe him.” Xing Yong rubbed the goosebumps on his arm and lowered his voice. “I’m not exaggerating, Qin Shu. My intuition is extremely strong. Probably something I was born with. Every matter I’ve ever suspected of having something wrong with it really did have something wrong with it. No exceptions.”
Although he had half willingly, half unwillingly stepped into a much more dangerous world, Xing Yong’s confidence remained intact.
That confidence came not only from years of solving criminal cases, but also from… his suspicions toward Pei Zhao, Liang Mingyue, and Qin Shu. Layered together, all of them had ultimately proven valid in one way or another.
The exact contents of Xing Yong’s suspicions were not always perfectly accurate, but Qin Shu thought carefully about it and realized it was genuinely impressive.
Anyone Xing Yong had ever suspected could basically be described as “hiding something.” Good or bad did not matter. They were hiding something.
“All right, I believe you. So Blind Granny’s case still isn’t over.” Qin Shu paused and looked toward Pei Zhao. “But she herself is definitely dead. Pei Zhao and I can both guarantee that.”
“Mm. I killed her. She could no longer truly be called human. She was merely a mass of evil constantly searching for hosts and offerings to feed upon.” Pei Zhao nodded calmly. “I ate her. She tasted bad.”
Xing Yong: “…”
Xing Yong gritted his teeth. Every time he remembered that night, cold sweat still broke across his body. “I knew you ate her! Next time, could you possibly… use a less horrifying way of eating?”
“I did not know you then.”
Pei Zhao explained calmly, though he felt absolutely no remorse regarding what he had done that night.
They both knew exactly what the other was referring to. Xing Yong had merely stepped directly on Pei Zhao’s greatest taboo. Beyond that, there had been no personal grudge between them.
In fact, Pei Zhao could even be said to have saved his life that night. If Blind Granny had attempted to attack or escape, Xing Yong, who had been completely defenseless, might have suffered terribly.
Xing Yong had genuinely learned his lesson. It had been extremely memorable: no matter how badly he wanted intelligence or information, he could never use Qin Shu as bait for testing Pei Zhao.
Because if there were ever another time, Pei Zhao would tear out his heart. Simple, direct, easy to understand.
Qin Shu could only guess that Pei Zhao must have frightened Xing Yong somehow. He knew none of the details.
Noticing Xing Yong’s inexplicably complicated expression, Qin Shu coughed and tried to break the stagnant atmosphere. “Um, Brother Yong, can we get back to the actual problem? You were following Blind Granny’s trail. How did that lead you all the way to Living Water Ridge? This is not a safe place.”
“If everyone only investigated safe places, what would we need police officers for?” Xing Yong coughed hard twice and forced himself back into work mode.
“There are abnormal spiritual fluctuations around Living Water Ridge, possibly caused by rampant evil entities. My wife asked her family back home to help investigate and found the information that way. I don’t know yet whether it’s connected to Blind Granny, but something is definitely wrong, so I came here to take a look.”
“Your wife’s family… Fengqi Mountain?”
Qin Shu looked thoughtful. Apparently some powerful snake yao from there had investigated Jiangcheng. The information was extremely timely and accurate.
But precisely because it was so accurate, and because Qin Shu was already considering the many possible dangers caused by contamination in the dragon vein, another look at Xing Yong’s puncture wounds made him frown deeply.
“Brother Yong, if you already knew evil things were active here, you shouldn’t have come investigating alone. Can you please think about your wife? If both of you came, at least you could watch each other’s backs. Why did you insist on running around the mountain by yourself? What were you thinking?”
After Qin Shu lectured him, Xing Yong unusually listened without arguing and nodded obediently. Being scolded by a kid was embarrassing, but things had already gone this far. What use was pride now?
Only at the end did he sigh. “…She was urgently taken back home. As soon as her clan discovered something was wrong with Living Water Ridge, they demanded she leave Jiangcheng immediately. Ideally, she should stay inside Fengqi Mountain until after giving birth and not return casually.”
“Then why didn’t you go with her and take care of your wife?”
“Her clan almost never interferes with her. The fact that they’re being this serious about ordering her back into the mountain for safety means Jiangcheng really has a problem. And not only Living Water Ridge. There has to be something wrong with Jiangcheng itself. Millions of people live here and haven’t left. I can’t leave either.”
After explaining quietly, Xing Yong suddenly laughed. “It’s not like I don’t have a final emergency plan. If Jiangcheng really turns into the apocalypse or some biochemical disaster, I’ll hide at your house. As long as you two are fine, I’ll probably survive too, right?”
“You actually got that exactly right.” Qin Shu listened quietly until his earlier burst of anger gradually faded.
Xing Yong was a good person.
Truly good people were rare in this world, but Xing Yong genuinely was one.
So Qin Shu spoke seriously. “Brother Yong, from now on, whenever you encounter anything suspicious, you have to tell us immediately. Things are unusual right now. Just go to work normally and stop running around everywhere.”
“So Jiangcheng really is about to change, isn’t it?” Xing Yong slowly nodded without refusing.
“Yes.”
Pei Zhao was the one who answered.
He had not joined their conversation. He had been concentrating seriously on the task at hand.
After pushing the wooden stick into the wet soil beside the stump, Pei Zhao quietly uttered one word. “Break.” Immediately, dazzling molten-gold light surged from beneath the soil, brighter even than the afternoon sun.
Every writhing, struggling vine root released a shrill scream beneath the golden light, but the sound lasted only a moment before they dissolved completely into a smooth cream-like substance, forming an enormous pool of dead, viscous remains. The thick blood-red mass lay completely still.
They had possessed absolutely no power to fight back.
Spell cultivators really were flashy!
Qin Shu watched with yearning admiration. At last he could approach safely, so he carefully crouched beside the stump and looked inside.
He borrowed Pei Zhao’s stick and stirred the sticky plant remains several more times. Activating See Through took only a second. Understanding followed immediately, and Qin Shu stood with a chill crawling through him, pulling Pei Zhao several steps backward.
“It’s obvious. This is absolutely mutation caused by contamination. The vine roots look thin, but inside they’re packed with absurd numbers of tiny proliferating spore-like structures. Just looking at them is triggering my trypophobia.”
“What? Spores? Vines can grow spores?” Xing Yong startled and shuddered visibly.
“If Pei Zhao hadn’t destroyed everything inside the stump in one attack, and if we had simply pulled the roots out directly, the spores would’ve burst out immediately and scattered everywhere searching for new hosts. Then they’d keep planting themselves, parasitizing, reproducing… What a disgusting survival strategy.”
Qin Shu explained quietly, all while growing increasingly suspicious. Living Water Ridge was covered in lush vegetation. There was no reason only this “prickly vine” would have mutated. Other plants could easily be infected too.
But dragon veins naturally concealed themselves, and powers associated with them were equally difficult to detect. Searching the mountain with ordinary investigative techniques would reveal absolutely nothing. They had to approach mutated targets personally to confirm them, or accidentally trigger them the way Xing Yong had.
And examining and destroying every individual plant one by one would be far too inefficient. The most important task now was finding a way to reduce losses and prevent the contamination from continuing to affect the natural environment.
Pei Zhao agreed. “I already took some samples. I’ll study them when we return. Take Xing Yong to the hospital.”
“All right. I’ll call a car now. Let’s get down the mountain first.” Qin Shu immediately pulled out his phone and walked toward Xing Yong.
Xing Yong had not yet reacted when Qin Shu took his arm and started helping him downhill. “Wait, hold on. I really don’t need to go to the hospital. They’re just small punctures from thorns. I can disinfect them with iodine later. You two can continue your work. I can get home by myself.”
“Zhaozhao told me to take you to the hospital.” Qin Shu looked at him. “Brother Yong, do you think Zhaozhao normally says things like that?”
“…”
Xing Yong instantly fell silent. A chill and cold sweat rose uncontrollably across the back of his neck.
Pei Zhao would never care whether Xing Yong was healthy, nor whether his wounds required medical treatment.
Unless he was about to die. Or… unless something worse than death had happened to him.