This sudden turn of events stunned everyone. Gu Jun and Assistant Bai sat in the car, exchanging bewildered glances, both rendered speechless by the sheer visual shock.
After a long moment, Su Qingqing clapped her hands and strolled toward them with an air of complete composure.
Assistant Bai finally managed to snap out of it. A thousand words gathered at the tip of his tongue, only to condense into a single exclamation: “Holy crap!”
What he lacked in eloquence, he made up for with that one universal phrase.
Gu Jun stepped out of the car. He leaned against the door, removed his gold-rimmed glasses, crossed his long legs, and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it and took a deep drag.
He was naturally handsome and refined, and with the gold-rimmed glasses on, his aura was somewhat subdued, giving him a more scholarly appearance. Now, with the glasses off, his sharp brows and eyes were exposed, and even his smoking posture exuded an indescribable presence. Other men might look sleazy smoking, but he somehow made even that look elegant.
When Su Qingqing approached, Gu Jun exhaled a stream of smoke to the side. “Could you explain what just happened? You—”
Su Qingqing raised an eyebrow at his calm reaction, a flicker of respect in her eyes. “Impressive. Facing a scene like this and staying so composed. No wonder you carry the Purple Dragon True Qi—you’re destined for great things.”
Gu Jun said nothing.
Assistant Bai’s lips twitched twice, but in the end, he too remained silent.
He desperately wanted to say: Miss Su, you’ve probably misunderstood. Our President Gu only looks calm. He doesn’t usually smoke at all—even during business battles worth billions, he never needed a cigarette to steady himself.
So the fact that he’s smoking now means he’s nervous.
Su Qingqing waved her slender hand lightly in front of Gu Jun’s eyes, and instantly, the scene before him shifted.
On the other side of the road, the large truck that had been billowing white smoke now appeared to him as an entire vehicle shrouded in a mass of black mist.
“Black mist” wasn’t quite the right description. More accurately, it was a twisted, writhing dark aura tinged with purple, and everything in that area looked warped and distorted.
Su Qingqing said, “See that? Someone has set a trap for you. Call the police—when they arrive, have them focus on the autopsy. The driver behind the wheel has been dead for over two days. His Malevolent Aura was sealed into his body by a sorcerer using a forbidden Secret Method, propping him up to come after your life even in death.
But here’s the strange part—I couldn’t find any blood debt on your face. However, I did detect a trace of Baleful Aura on you that shares the same origin as that truck.
So there’s only one truth: you’ve been cursed and ambushed. Someone transferred the driver’s resentment and Malevolent Aura onto you, causing the driver to seek revenge on the wrong person.”
Su Qingqing was a practitioner of Xuanmen, and she operated strictly by the principles of cause and effect.
If a vengeful spirit came seeking retribution unrelated to her, she wouldn’t easily intervene. Because grievances have their sources, and debts have their debtors—even if a vengeful spirit’s revenge was wrong, once it descended to the underworld, the courts of the dead would pass judgment.
Those who dared to commit murder for gain had better be prepared to face karmic retribution in this life.
But she had carefully observed Gu Jun on the road earlier and found that, based on his facial features, he was a decisive and forceful man—yet he truly had no blood on his hands. Combined with their connection, and the fact that he carried an aura from the same world as hers, she had chosen to step in and save him.
Gu Jun stopped smoking. His expression was unreadable in the dissipating haze of smoke.
He confirmed once more, “So you’re saying a sorcerer used a forbidden Secret Method to harm me from behind the scenes, trying to take my life? This isn’t just ordinary bad luck?”
Su Qingqing gave him a strange look. “What were you thinking? Who on earth would be unlucky enough to end up in a situation like this?”
Gu Jun fell silent again, his quietness almost painful to witness.
Assistant Bai couldn’t hold it in any longer. He cleared his throat and said, “Ahem… Our President Gu seems to have been this unlucky since he was a child…”
So he’d grown accustomed to it—whenever something bizarre happened, he just assumed it was his innate constitution that made him so cursed.
Su Qingqing suddenly understood, and said with sympathy, “So you weren’t just recently targeted—you’ve been cursed since birth. Tsk. It’s a good thing you were born with the Purple Dragon True Qi. Your life force is strong enough to endure it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have survived to this day.”
By then, the white mist that had surrounded the car had fully dissipated.
Their car was parked by a small flowerbed not far from the Su family’s residential complex. They had been driving in circles around the flowerbed the whole time, but Assistant Bai had been blinded by the ghost and hadn’t realized it.
As for Su Qingqing, she had simply wanted to see what kind of mischief they were up to, and what kind of misfortune Gu Jun would encounter.
Gu Jun stubbed out his cigarette and looked at Su Qingqing with probing eyes. “Are you really just the adopted daughter of the Su family? How do you know all this?”
Su Qingqing gave her standard answer: “I’ve known since I was young. Learned it from a master. I just never used it before.”
If it were before, Gu Jun would never have believed it no matter what, but now he had seen it with his own eyes—there was no room for doubt.
He asked, “Why did you help me, and how should I thank you appropriately?”
Su Qingqing didn’t stand on ceremony either. She smiled brightly and extended one hand: “No need for anything too complicated to thank me. The fee for this is ten million, and that settles the karmic debt.”
She smiled very politely, with a business-like smile, even the curve of her lips at the corners was perfectly measured.
She wasn’t someone without common sense—in the entertainment industry, a single drama’s pay could easily reach tens of millions. She had saved two lives, so charging ten million was perfectly reasonable, right?
Gu Jun was stunned again. He knew Su Qingqing had been cast out of the Su family, and he had assumed she might want to use his influence to suppress the Su family or something like that. Instead, she had directly asked for money and so decisively declared they would owe each other nothing afterward.
He said to Assistant Bai, “Transfer the money to Miss Su.”
Su Qingqing took out her phone, smiled as she exchanged WeChat contacts with Assistant Bai, and also added Gu Jun along the way.
With a crisp “ding,” ten million landed in Su Qingqing’s account.
Looking at the ten million in her account, Su Qingqing’s smile toward Gu Jun finally became a bit more genuine.
She threw in a friendly tip: “Your current crisis has passed. As for the baleful aura on you, I can remove it right now.
But since we haven’t yet found out who’s behind this, I can’t guarantee your safety just yet.
I don’t have any talisman paper or such on me right now—the earliest I can have some is tomorrow. Once I’ve drawn them, I’ll contact you on WeChat and give you a few for free.”
“Then in the meantime, will I still be in danger?” Gu Jun asked.
“No, you won’t. The person who was harming you—their spell has already been broken by me. They’ll suffer considerable backlash, and I estimate they won’t be able to make a move against you for at least half a month. You can rest easy.
Once you have my protective charms, ordinary evil spirits and malevolent aura won’t be able to get near you either.
But I’ll only give you two talismans to start. Once both have been used up resisting evil spirits for you, you’ll need to buy more from me.
For a returning customer, I’ll give you a friendly price—the original 50,000 per talisman, but only 30,000 each for you.”
Su Qingqing held up three fingers, smiling with utter sincerity.
Assistant Bai: “…”
Was it just his imagination?
Why did he see the gleam of a shrewd merchant on Miss Su’s cool, strikingly beautiful face??