Unlike Chu Mingjia, whom the residents didn’t trust and could only rely on fate for customers, the other two teams were thriving.
Both Master Wuchen and Li Zhende were genuine masters, and they had completed their tasks early and were ready to head back to rest.
On his way back, Master Wuchen had to cross a bridge. Xu Chen, following behind him, suddenly paused, his expression stiffening slightly.
Truth be told, Xu Chen was now a bit afraid of bodies of water.
Master Wuchen stood on the bridge and turned to look at Xu Chen. “Why have you stopped?”
Master Wuchen had a very stern demeanor. Xu Chen didn’t dare offend him, and he thought to himself, Following a master like this, surely I’ll be fine.
So he quickly caught up. “Coming.”
The moment Xu Chen stepped onto the bridge, he felt a sudden gust of cold wind hit him in the face. Before he could react, Master Wuchen, who was walking beside him, suddenly reached out and pressed firmly down on his shoulder.
Master Wuchen’s thin, bony hand gripped Xu Chen tightly, hard enough to make his arm ache.
Xu Chen felt a chill run down his spine. He swallowed nervously, looking at Master Wuchen with a mixture of tension and fear. “Master, wh-what is it?”
Behind them, Jiang Meng watched quietly, showing no reaction. But his assistant, Xiao Jiang, felt a creeping dread and silently edged closer to Jiang Meng.
Master Wuchen’s expression was solemn, his dark eyes intense. He turned to Xu Chen and asked sharply, “What have you done recently?”
Xu Chen: “…”
He looked at Master Wuchen, puzzled, not sure how to answer. After all, he had done plenty of things lately.
Master Wuchen continued, “Where did you provoke this kind of thing?”
Without waiting for Xu Chen to respond, Master Wuchen suddenly pulled a wooden ghost-beating rod carved with talismanic symbols from his satchel and swung it heavily behind Xu Chen.
The onlookers couldn’t tell what had happened, but Xu Chen felt it firsthand.
He realized that after Master Wuchen swung that rod, the air around him seemed to start flowing again. The cold, eerie presence that had been clinging to him like a shadow dissipated in an instant.
Xu Chen looked at Master Wuchen in astonishment and quickly said, “Thank you, Master Wuchen!”
Master Wuchen put away the ghost-beating rod, his brow slightly furrowed. He looked at Xu Chen, considering whether to perform a fortune reading for him to figure out what was going on, but then decided it wasn’t necessary.
Those things don’t cling to people for no reason. If they do, there must be a karmic cause. Master Wuchen shook his head and walked away.
Xu Chen, however, breathed a sigh of relief, though he felt deeply unsettled. So there really was a reason he had been having such bad luck lately.
Xu Chen thought back to what Chu Mingjia had said the first time she saw him: “Instead of blaming your misfortune on others, you’d better think long and hard about what shady things you’ve done.”
He thought of a certain person and broke out in a cold sweat.
But then he quickly shook his head inwardly.
No way. I already paid a huge sum to have it handled. There’s no way it could come back to haunt me.
It must be Han Fengchen!
A fierce, vengeful look flashed in Xu Chen’s eyes. One day, he would get his revenge.
Han Fengchen would never take his place!
The camera assistant whispered to Jiang Meng, “Master, what was Master Wuchen doing just now?”
Swining a stick through the air like that, it looked pretty scary.
And more importantly, why did Xu Chen thank him? Thank him for what? The camera assistant didn’t understand.
Jiang Meng turned his head, glanced at the river below the bridge, and didn’t answer.
Xiao Jiang had long since gotten used to Jiang Meng’s reticence. Seeing that he wasn’t going to respond, he started muttering to himself because he was feeling creeped out. Before coming, he had known this was a supernatural adventure show, but he never imagined it would be this intense!
If his master hadn’t said it would be fine and given him a protective charm before they left, he wouldn’t have dared to come.
The livestream audience was also getting a bit scared.
【What exactly did Xu Chen provoke? Why did both Mrs. Han and Master Wuchen say something about it? Is there a ghost clinging to his back?】
【Oh my god, oh my god, combine that with Master Wuchen’s swing just now, and I can picture it! Help!!!!】
【Xu Chen has stepped on others to climb up over the years. Who knows how many shady things he’s done behind the scenes? Only his fans, who have no eyes, keep praising him.】
【Remember when someone exposed him for domestic abuse against his girlfriend in the industry? Has everyone forgotten already?】
…
Although Xu Chen had a massive fan base, after these two incidents, many neutral observers felt that he must have done something shady and was now facing the consequences.
Of course, his fans still believed that it was simply a case of people being jealous of his fame and that someone had deliberately hired a master to target Xu Chen.
Xu Chen and Luo Mengmeng’s teams quickly completed their tasks and returned to the hotel.
Chu Mingjia could see that Han Fengchen didn’t want to stay in a haunted house, but there was nothing she could do. Even though she sat there, no customers had come their way.
The task ran from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
At 8:50, just as Chu Mingjia was packing up to head back to the hotel, a young woman in a white slip dress approached from a distance.
She was beautiful and young, but her face was pale, and her expression was panicked and helpless, as if she were so desperate that she would try anything. Suddenly, she turned her head and looked toward Chu Mingjia.
Chu Mingjia paused mid-motion while packing up. She raised an eyebrow. Was fate coming again?
She looked up at the young woman and, at the same time, reached over and patted the dejected Han Fengchen. “See? Business has arrived.”
Han Fengchen followed her gaze and saw the young woman as well.
Livestream audience: 【? What business? What are they looking at?】
【I thought I was the only one not seeing anything. Damn, what are they looking at? There’s nothing in the camera frame!】
…
The young woman saw Chu Mingjia and Han Fengchen and immediately ran over, her eyes red. Choking back tears, she asked Chu Mingjia, “Master, you tell fortunes, don’t you? Could you come to my house and look at my child?”
Chu Mingjia narrowed her eyes slightly and looked the young woman up and down. “What’s wrong with your child?”
The woman cried, “She was fine earlier, she went out to play. But when she came back, she collapsed. It’s been two hours now, and she’s getting weaker and weaker. No matter how I call her, she won’t wake up.”
Han Fengchen frowned. “Then you should take her to the hospital—”
Chu Mingjia pressed her hand on Han Fengchen’s, signaling him to stop talking.
Han Fengchen awkwardly shut his mouth.
Chu Mingjia picked up her phone, put on her hat, and said to the young woman, “Let’s go. Where do you live?”
The young woman immediately walked ahead to lead the way.
Chu Mingjia looked thoughtfully at the young woman’s back, her expression peculiar.
Han Fengchen whispered, “Are you really not going to tell her to take her child to the hospital?”
Chu Mingjia turned to look at Han Fengchen, seeming to want to say something but hesitating, afraid of scaring him. In the end, she decided to say nothing and instead instructed him, “Mind your own business. Stay close to me and don’t wander off.”
Han Fengchen was more than willing to comply. He immediately pressed himself against Chu Mingjia. “Don’t worry! I’d tie myself to you with a rope if I could.”
Chu Mingjia: “…”
As Chu Mingjia and Han Fengchen walked down another street, occasionally exchanging a few words, the two cameramen following them were completely baffled. Thinking about how Chu Mingjia had warned Xu Chen earlier and had just helped a boy find his lost sister, the two cameramen had no doubt about Chu Mingjia’s abilities.
And precisely because they had no doubt, they were now very nervous.
The two cameramen exchanged a glance. One continued filming, while the other pulled out his phone and, with trembling hands, called Director Zhang. “Director, um… have you watched Mrs. Han’s livestream?”
Director Zhang’s voice also sounded a bit tense. “I’ve seen it.”
The cameraman swallowed hard, glanced at Chu Mingjia and Han Fengchen walking ahead, and lowered his voice. “Director, um… could we switch to Jiang Meng? I can’t handle this.”
Zhang Song: “…”
All these cameramen had sworn up and down that they’d be fine when they came, but now that something was actually happening, every single one of them was unreliable!
Still, Zhang Song couldn’t really blame them. He looked at Han Fengchen’s livestream, hung up the phone, stepped out of his temporary office, and asked his assistant, “Is Xu Chen’s team back yet?”
The assistant nodded. “They were the first ones back.”