All the crew members of the show Guess Where It Is, except for those following the guests, were now crammed into the temporary office at the hotel.
They gathered around Zhang Song, all watching Han Fengchen’s live stream together.
The cameraman who had been replaced by Jiang Mao wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said in a low voice, “Good thing I got replaced, otherwise…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He was never taking on this kind of job again.
Someone asked Zhang Song, “Director, what do we do now?”
The show absolutely had to continue broadcasting live, but the way things were unfolding was clearly beyond their control.
Zhang Song watched the live stream feed, a mix of excitement and worry on his face. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said, “I’ll talk to Mrs. Han tomorrow. By the way, does anyone have an extra talisman? Spare me one.”
Everyone: “…”
After an agonizing half-hour, the terrified driver finally followed Chu Mingjia’s directions and drove them to Linjia Village.
Many people had moved away from Linjia Village, leaving only a small population behind. Xu Chen had come here once before with Lin Xiao. Now, returning to this place, he suddenly began to feel a creeping sense of fear.
When Han Fengchen got out of the car, he looked around furtively. Finally, unable to hold back, he quietly asked Chu Mingjia, “Where’s that woman?”
She hadn’t gotten in the car, hadn’t even stepped out the door, but her child had been clinging to Xu Chen’s neck the whole time.
Chu Mingjia shone her flashlight around the surroundings and said, “She’s right here.”
Han Fengchen: “…”
Damn it. He shouldn’t have asked.
In the pitch-black mountain village without streetlights, the darkness was so thick you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face. The late-night fog was heavy, and a white mist hung everywhere. Han Fengchen was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and the eerie wind chilled him to the bone, making him stomp his feet to keep warm.
Looking at Chu Mingjia, Xu Chen suddenly spoke up for some reason. “I don’t know where her house is.”
He thought that if they couldn’t find Lin Xiao’s old home, they could leave tonight.
He looked around, forcing himself to stay calm, but inside he was panicking. No one could stand here and not be afraid.
Han Fengchen was standing right next to him and was startled by Xu Chen’s sudden remark. He didn’t dare look up at him, since meeting his eyes would mean locking gazes with the baby girl behind his neck.
Han Fengchen said irritably, “Who asked you? Mind your own business.”
Xu Chen: “…”
Chu Mingjia looked at Lin Xiao’s birth date and time on her phone, made some calculations, and then led the group in a certain direction.
Among the people present, aside from Xu Chen, who couldn’t see anything, there was also the driver arranged by the production crew.
The driver didn’t want to go, but the thought of staying alone in the car scared him even more, what if he wasn’t the only one in there?
After thinking it over, he grabbed his flashlight and walked alongside Jiang Mao.
The driver lowered his voice and asked Jiang Mao, who was filming with his camera, “Mr. Jiang, aren’t you scared?”
Jiang Mao kept his eyes fixed on Chu Mingjia, who was walking ahead, and shook his head.
The driver asked again, “Um, do you have a talisman on you?”
Jiang Mao shook his head again.
The driver was about to ask another question when Jiang Mao cut him off. “The audience can hear you when you talk.”
The driver: “…”
The driver shut up. He muttered to himself, “It’s just a live-streamed show, do the celebrities really have to go this far?”
The other two groups of guests had long since finished their tasks and returned to the hotel to relax over some snacks.
But this group? Here they were, almost midnight, still exploring a mountain village.
Were they just bored, or was it a case of “ignorance breeds fearlessness”?
The village had few residents, and by now it was midnight, so no one noticed their arrival. In the distance, dogs were barking, but at this hour, that wouldn’t draw any attention. In a place like this, dogs barking like crazy in the middle of the night was perfectly normal.
The group walked all the way to the vicinity of Lin Xiao’s old home. The farther they went, the more uneasy Xu Chen felt. The Han family’s information network was so efficient that they had even managed to find Lin Xiao’s hometown in such a short time?
Just as he was wrestling with his shock and suspicion, he suddenly saw Chu Mingjia turn and head in the opposite direction.
Heading in the opposite direction from the Lin family home.
Xu Chen: “…”
Xu Chen breathed a sigh of relief.
Following her calculations, Chu Mingjia arrived at a field.
The field hadn’t been cultivated and was overgrown with weeds. Fearing snakes and insects, Chu Mingjia picked up a stick to clear a path.
Finally, she pointed her stick at a certain spot and said to Han Fengchen, “Dig there and see.”
Han Fengchen: “???”
Han Fengchen was instantly horrified, his hair standing on end. He stared at her in disbelief, gripping Chu Mingjia’s sleeve tightly and refusing to let go. “No, no, no way! I can’t do it! I don’t want to!”
Chu Mingjia looked at him with exasperation. “If you won’t do it, should I?”
Jiang Mao’s expression darkened. He hadn’t brought his apprentice today, so he simply shoved the camera into the driver’s hands. “Hold this.”
The driver: “Huh?”
Jiang Mao stepped forward, his eyes under the peaked cap fixed on Han Fengchen for a moment. Then he strode ahead, found a stick, and began digging.
The soil was damp and loose, making it easy to dig. This wasn’t just unsettling for those present—
The viewers in the live chat were utterly terrified.
【Holy crap, holy crap, this is intense! Help, I’m so scared!】
【Is this guy a cameraman? Why isn’t he afraid?】
【Guys, I’m covering my phone screen for now. You tell me when they dig something up!】
【Um, is this… is this legal?】
【Well, that depends on what they dig up.】
……
A few minutes later, Jiang Mao’s movements halted, and his brows furrowed deeply.
Chu Mingjia also sensed that something was wrong.
“Not here?”
Chu Mingjia frowned. “Did I miscalculate?”
No, Jiang Mao thought to himself. The Mountain Lord would never make a mistake. The problem must be with the way he was digging.
Jiang Mao moved to another spot and continued digging.
Chu Mingjia said, “No need to dig anymore. It’s not here.”
Only then did Jiang Mao stop.
Xu Chen, who had remained silent until now, asked nervously, “If it’s not here, then where is it?”
Chu Mingjia looked down at Lin Xiao’s information.
“I thought she was born during the Zi hour (11 p.m.–1 a.m.), but it turns out she was born during the Wu hour (11 a.m.–1 p.m.).”
Both were twelve o’clock. She had gotten it wrong.
Chu Mingjia turned and headed toward the direction of Lin Xiao’s old home. “I had the direction reversed earlier.”
She glanced at Xu Chen. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Xu?”
Xu Chen: “…”
Xu Chen’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. He didn’t dare look at Chu Mingjia. He had a nagging feeling that she knew everything, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, it was useless.
Soon, the group arrived in front of a tile-roofed house that had partially collapsed.
Xu Chen stared at the house as old memories flooded back.
Lin Xiao’s parents had originally lived here. But the master had said that to borrow luck effectively, it was best to set up the formation in the person’s ancestral home, only then would it work.
So Xu Chen, using his identity as her boyfriend, had encouraged Lin Xiao to rent a place in town and settled her parents there.
Where exactly Lin Xiao had rented, Xu Chen didn’t know.
Chu Mingjia walked up to the partially collapsed house and headed straight for the side that was still standing.
Inside was a mess, filled with sand, gravel, broken bricks, and overgrown with weeds.
But the moment she stepped in, she immediately recognized it. “A Soul-Sealing Formation.”
Jiang Mao tossed aside his stick and strode into the house, searching through the tangled weeds for something.
Meanwhile, the baby girl who had been quietly clinging to Xu Chen’s neck suddenly let out a piercing, shrill cry, so sharp and malevolent that it sent chills down everyone’s spine.
Han Fengchen turned deathly pale, trembling all over.
Chu Mingjia reached out, grabbed his arm, and patted him on the forehead. “Don’t be afraid. It’s okay.”
At that moment, the driver holding the camera also shuffled over, shaking. He lowered his voice and said, “Um… don’t you guys think the wind here is really strong? Kind of creepy.”
Han Fengchen gave a strained smile and said nothing.
As for Xu Chen, he heard the baby’s crying again, the same sound from his dreams. His hair stood on end. He watched Jiang Mao searching through the weeds, completely speechless.
After more than ten minutes of searching, Jiang Mao followed the formation and found sixteen “Tong Mei” coins. He silently walked over to Chu Mingjia and showed them to her.
The driver quickly turned the camera toward his hand.
Jiang Mao’s fingers were long, his palms wide and calloused. In the center of his palm lay sixteen copper coins.
The driver couldn’t help asking, “What are these?”
Chu Mingjia replied, “Tong Mei, copper coins that have passed through ten thousand hands and then been marked with virgin boy’s blood. Seventeen of them are needed to set up a Soul-Sealing Formation.”
Han Fengchen glanced at them. “But there are only sixteen.”
Chu Mingjia turned to look at the collapsed part of the house. “The last one might be over there.”
Jiang Mao grabbed Han Fengchen and went to move the bricks.
Xu Chen felt a chill run through his entire body. His legs were too weak to stand, so he could only crouch on the ground.
As for Chu Mingjia, she couldn’t stand the ghostly baby’s wailing any longer and went over to help move the bricks too.
Meanwhile, in the live stream, viewers immediately began sharing their knowledge:
【Holy crap, I’ve only ever heard of a Soul-Gathering Formation!】
【I asked a friend at a Taoist temple, copper coins that have passed through ten thousand hands carry heavy yang energy. Once marked with virgin boy’s blood, they can suppress yin energy. The trapped souls sealed in this formation can’t find a way out and will be imprisoned forever.】
【Is this for real? Seeing this, I really don’t think it’s scripted. There’s no trace of scripting at all.】
【Xu Chen’s face has completely changed. Look at him, he seems mentally unwell. Did he actually do this? Borrow his girlfriend’s luck, then seal her soul away out of fear of retaliation?】
【MD, what kind of ultimate scumbag is this?!】
……
Over an hour later, Jiang Mao finally found the seventeenth Tong Mei coin. The coin was pointing directly toward the entrance of a cellar.
Chu Mingjia stepped forward and pulled open the cellar’s iron door herself.
With a rusty creak, the iron door let out a dull, grating sound.
The terrified driver, his hair standing on end, brought the camera closer.
What an ordinary person could see was a square wooden box placed inside the narrow cellar, covered in incantations and plastered with talismans.
What an ordinary person couldn’t see was a woman in a white dress, curled up and lying in the cellar, her body bound in chains.
The woman was fast asleep, not breathing.
Han Fengchen’s hair stood on end at the sight.
Jiang Mao ignored the woman entirely and reached both hands into the cellar, lifting the wooden box out.
Han Fengchen nervously stammered, “D-d-don’t reach in there! What if there’s something, hey, hey, hey, don’t open it! Don’t open it! What if—”
With a thud, Jiang Mao had already pried the wooden box open.
Han Fengchen: “…”
And so, the millions of viewers in the live stream saw a funerary urn sealed with talismans, turned upside down inside the box.
A suppression talisman was also pasted on the bottom of the urn.
Chu Mingjia remarked, “I’ve heard that a coffin placed upside down prevents reincarnation. Turns out the same goes for a funerary urn.”
Xu Chen stared at her, his face pale. By now, he had already guessed the truth, but actually seeing these things with his own eyes was still hard to accept.
“Wh-what do you mean?” Xu Chen asked blankly. “What do you mean by ‘prevents reincarnation’?”
Chu Mingjia watched as Jiang Mao took the funerary urn down and sighed. “It means that Lin Xiao died before her time. Her fate and fortune were still intact. Someone wanted to absorb that fortune, so they used a Soul-Sealing Formation to trap her, then inverted it with a Four-Killing Formation to prevent her from ever reincarnating. That way, her fortune from this life would be continuously drained, and she wouldn’t become a vengeful spirit seeking retribution.”
Han Fengchen listened and burst out in fury, “Damn it! What kind of vile person would do something so heinous?!”
As he spoke, he turned to glare at Xu Chen, who had already collapsed to the ground, utterly shattered by the revelation.
The Lin Xiao that Chu Mingjia had encountered was incomplete. Part of her soul was sealed here, and because she had a ghostly baby, another part of her soul followed the child.
That explained why Lin Xiao couldn’t answer any questions, she likely didn’t even know she was dead.
And now, as the funerary urn was set upright and the talismans were removed, the woman who had been lying in the cellar suddenly vanished.
The ghostly baby that had been clinging to Xu Chen’s neck also stopped crying and disappeared somewhere.
Suddenly, fierce winds howled, and dark clouds gathered overhead.
Chu Mingjia immediately said, “All of you, get out! Now!”
Jiang Mao immediately grabbed the driver with one hand and Han Fengchen with the other, striding swiftly outside. Xu Chen, weak and unsteady on his feet, was a beat too slow. The other side of the house was swaying dangerously, on the verge of collapse.
Chu Mingjia turned back without hesitation, reached out, and pulled Xu Chen out.
With a thunderous crash, the remaining side of the Lin family’s old house collapsed completely.
The sight sent chills down the spines of everyone watching the live stream.
【What just happened? Xu Chen almost got buried under there.】
【Serves him right. Someone like him deserves to pay with his life.】
【Oh no, the funerary urn they just dug up is buried again. I hope it didn’t break.】
……
Han Fengchen said anxiously, “What about the funerary urn? It’s still in there!”
Chu Mingjia glanced at Xu Chen, who was sitting on the ground with vacant eyes, looking as if he had lost his soul. She knew that part of his living spirit had most likely already been taken.
This was the result of being haunted by a resentful spirit for a long time. The ghostly baby hadn’t been powerful enough on its own, but now with Lin Xiao added to the mix…
Xu Chen had brought this upon himself. He had damaged his own yin energy, and it served him right to face retribution. Lin Xiao’s grudge against him was far from resolved, so she wouldn’t leave anytime soon. But she hadn’t appeared, probably because she was afraid of Chu Mingjia and Jiang Mao.
“Never mind,” Chu Mingjia said. “This was her home to begin with. The formation is broken, and she’s free now. Let’s go.”
Han Fengchen still felt that something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Jiang Mao, however, glanced back once more at the threshold of the Lin family’s ancestral home.
The house had collapsed, but the threshold remained intact. The Mountain Lord surely knew this, that was why she had left Lin Xiao here. As long as the threshold stood, this was still the Lin ancestral home, protected by the feng shui and the blessings of the Lin ancestors. Lin Xiao could stay here safely for a long time.
As for when she would leave, that was her own business.
On the way back, Han Fengchen kept cursing Xu Chen.
“I never thought he could be such a person, betraying his own girlfriend! Back when he fell for Lin Xiao, was it because he knew her fate and fortune were good?”
Chu Mingjia sighed. “He didn’t know any of that. But he did indeed borrow Lin Xiao’s fortune.”
She paused, then emphasized, “Very little, actually. But soon, it will all have to be returned.”
Han Fengchen lowered his voice and asked, “Sis, um… what’s the deal with the little girl?”
The live stream audience desperately wanted to know too!
Even though they had watched in confusion, they had managed to piece together the general outline of the story.
Now they were all waiting for Chu Mingjia to explain.
Chu Mingjia explained, “The ghostly baby likely died while still in Lin Xiao’s womb, one body, two deaths. At the time, Lin Xiao might have only been a few months pregnant, not yet showing. The baby was too small and lacked energy, which was why it went unnoticed. As the baby grew, it naturally followed the bloodline and found its biological father.
Xu Chen has been having a run of bad luck lately, everything going wrong. He kept hearing a baby crying in his dreams and assumed Han Fengchen was targeting him, even suspecting Han Fengchen of raising a ‘little ghost.’ But in reality, his own guilty conscience brought about his downfall.
Xu Chen was manipulated by someone else. But if he had truly cared for Lin Xiao and harbored no ill intentions, he wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.
The deaths of Lin Xiao and her child are his karma. Whether in this life or the next, his fate will never be good again.”
The live chat exploded with a dense flurry of bullet comments.
Especially from Xu Chen’s fans.
【What?! Is what she said true? I don’t believe it, this has to be scripted! Brother will explain everything tomorrow!】
【Ha, look at him, drenched in cold sweat, too weak to stand. He looks like he’s about to wet himself from fear.】
【Trading a girl’s life for your fame and fortune, are you happy now, Xu Chen?】
【Get out of the entertainment industry, Xu Chen! Disgusting! He should be in prison!】
【Everyone’s cursing Xu Chen, but isn’t anyone noticing the biggest mystery here? Sister Chu said Xu Chen did borrow fortune, but only a little, yet Lin Xiao was sealed in her ancestral home, her fate and fortune constantly drained. So who exactly is the one draining her fortune?】
【Who else could it be? Obviously the person who set up the formation!】
【Woohoo, just a little bit made Xu Chen a top-tier star worth hundreds of millions. Imagine if someone took all of it. How well must that person be living now?】
……
This was destined to be a sleepless night.
Yesterday’s top idol was today’s public enemy. Everyone was cursing Xu Chen, some even tagging the police to arrest him.
But Lin Xiao’s death had been an accident, with no signs of foul play. At most, Xu Chen had consulted a Taoist master and tricked Lin Xiao into visiting her ancestral home. As for how the master performed the rituals and set up the formations, Xu Chen had no direct involvement in that, so he couldn’t be arrested for it.
At 2 a.m., Weibo crashed.
#XuChenScandal #XuChenBorrowingFortune #LinXiaoFortune trended on the hot search list, garnering millions of discussions in a short time.
After handling the matter, Chu Mingjia took Han Fengchen back to the hotel. No one paid any attention to Xu Chen. He sat alone, looking like a lost soul, he knew he was finished.
The moment they returned to the hotel, the executive director was already waiting. She spoke nervously, “Um, Miss Chu, Mr. Han… you didn’t complete tonight’s task, so you have to… stay in the special rooms.”
In other words, the haunted rooms.
Han Fengchen: “!!!”