“Father, you’re too kind.”
Fu Songcheng maintained a gentle, proper smile on the surface, but doubt rose in his heart.
These two NPC elders were simply too good to him.
Fu Songcheng couldn’t bring himself to warmly address two NPCs as elders—nor had he and Yu Huaiting bowed to the two NPCs during the wedding ceremony—yet they seemed utterly unconcerned.
“Songcheng, eat more of this red date and bird’s nest porridge. Nourish your body.”
The Old Madam personally picked up the serving chopsticks and ladled a bowl of porridge for Fu Songcheng.
“Eat mine.”
Yu Huaiting, not to be outdone, also piled food onto the plate before him.
Fu Songcheng looked at the food piled up like a small mountain before him and decided to probe a little.
He set down his chopsticks and spoke as if casually: “Thank you for your care, Father and Mother. Speaking of which, this morning Huaiting and I were walking in the courtyard and passed a secluded little side room. We saw it had a very heavy brass lock, and dust had gathered on the windows.”
“What is that room used for? Since it’s so close to our bedroom, shall we have someone clean it out?”
The moment his words fell, the air at the dining table seemed to freeze for an instant.
But only for an instant.
The Old Madam’s hand holding the chopsticks didn’t pause at all—she very naturally placed a piece of pastry into Yu Huaiting’s bowl and said with a smile, “This osmanthus cake is best eaten while it’s still warm.”
The Old Master raised his teacup for a sip and picked up the thread calmly: “Indeed. The weather’s turned cold these past few days, Songcheng. You’re dressed too thinly. Later, have the servants pick out a few bolts of good fabric from the storeroom and make you some thick autumn clothes.”
Changing the subject.
As if they hadn’t heard Fu Songcheng’s question about the “side room” at all.
Yu Huaiting, chewing his food, turned to the Old Master and Old Madam with a grin. “Thank you both. I think he looks quite good in white.”
Yu Huaiting had completely not taken the eerie atmosphere and Fu Songcheng’s probing seriously at all.
Fu Songcheng bit into the osmanthus cake, the sweet, cloying taste spreading through his mouth.
He looked at Yu Huaiting beside him, in a good mood, then at the two kindly smiling NPC parents opposite.
One breakfast—two living players, two NPCs—and it had actually produced a warm, harmonious feeling.
After the meal, the two took their leave of the main house.
Walking back along the covered corridor, Fu Songcheng’s expression gradually darkened, his brain racing.
“That side room is definitely problematic.”
Fu Songcheng lowered his voice and spoke to Yu Huaiting beside him.
Yu Huaiting said carelessly, “I think so too. Those two NPCs clearly don’t want us exploring there.”
Fu Songcheng glanced at him, a little surprised.
“Compared to the conflict with the opposing Lin residence, the contradictions inside the Yu residence seem even bigger. Everyone is tight-lipped about that locked side room.”
Fu Songcheng analyzed methodically. “As for the secret of that side room, the cleaning servant knows, the Old Master and Old Madam know, and the original Yu family young master should know too.”
“The only one who doesn’t know is the Young Madam.”
Fu Songcheng stopped walking, his eyes cold. “The more it’s like this, the more I want to know what secret is in there.”
“Then let’s just go in and look.” Yu Huaiting didn’t think much of it. “I’ll go smash the lock.”
“No.”
Fu Songcheng vetoed immediately. “Is the phrase ‘secret investigation’ even in your dictionary?”
He looked at Yu Huaiting helplessly. “Do you have any items that can sneak into a room silently, or pick locks?”
Yu Huaiting spread both hands and shook his head with perfect justification: “No. All my items are lethal. In instances, if I run into a door I can’t open, I just kick it in.”
Fu Songcheng: “…”
Fine.
The more Fu Songcheng thought about it, the more he felt what was in the side room was the key to breaking the game.
He couldn’t force his way in, but there was always a way to find out what was inside.
He thought of the feng shui and metaphysics books he’d read in the study.
“Let’s go. Back to the room.”
Fu Songcheng made a prompt decision.
After returning to the bedroom, Fu Songcheng immediately had Yu Huaiting go instruct the servants to prepare some things.
“Go ask for yellow paper, cinnabar, and a top-quality weasel-hair brush. Say I want to copy scriptures to pray for blessings for the deceased eldest daughter of the Lin family.”
Fu Songcheng made up an excuse on the spot.
The servants moved quickly. In less than fifteen minutes, everything was ready and delivered to the room.
Fu Songcheng spread the yellow paper flat on the round table and dipped the weasel-hair brush into the vivid red cinnabar.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, running through the “Soul-Guiding Formation” pattern recorded in that ancient text in his mind once more.
“What are you drawing? Warding off evil?”
Yu Huaiting leaned in beside him, staring at him curiously.
“Guiding souls.”
Fu Songcheng corrected him, opening his eyes, his gaze turning focused.
His wrist hovered above the paper as the brush tip touched down.
As the pattern grew more complex, Fu Songcheng’s brows knitted tighter and tighter.
The final stroke fell.
The pattern on the yellow paper was as neat as if printed, identical to what Fu Songcheng had seen in the ancient text down to the last detail.
The cinnabar was a piercing red, yet nothing changed.
“It failed.”
Fu Songcheng looked at the unresponsive talisman paper and drew a few more.
He had an excellent memory and could reproduce the talisman almost perfectly, but those talisman papers were just ordinary white paper with patterns on them, with no effect whatsoever.
After fiddling for a while, Fu Songcheng set the brush down on the inkstone, somewhat discouraged.
“What’s wrong?”
Seeing his expression, Yu Huaiting leaned in to comfort him. “Failed? If you’d really learned it in one morning, wouldn’t all those feng shui masters be out of work?”
A simple, blunt comfort—yet Fu Songcheng was still a little unconvinced.
He rarely experienced the feeling of failure. He didn’t understand—he’d drawn it flawlessly, so why wasn’t it working?
Yu Huaiting stared at the few discarded papers for a few seconds, then suddenly reached out and picked up the weasel-hair brush from the inkstone.
“Let me try.”
Fu Songcheng turned to look at him, propping his chin on one hand. “You know how to draw talismans?”
“Nope.” Yu Huaiting answered with perfect justification. He spread out a fresh sheet of yellow paper and dipped the brush in cinnabar with utter nonchalance. “But I watched you draw. Isn’t it just copying a gourd to draw a ladle? How hard can it be?”
“You need to be free of distracting thoughts…”
“My heart only has you in it. Does that count as a distracting thought?”
Yu Huaiting cut him off, tilting his head to glance at Fu Songcheng with a half-smile.
Fu Songcheng was caught off guard by the sudden bluntness, the base of his ears reddening imperceptibly. “Then let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Just watch.”
Yu Huaiting withdrew his gaze and looked at the tabletop.
He didn’t take a deep breath or adjust his posture with a hovering wrist like Fu Songcheng had. His grip on the brush was even a little casual—as if he were scribbling randomly on a wall.
The brush tip touched down.
Yu Huaiting’s wrist flipped rapidly, cinnabar dragging out sharp red streaks across the yellow paper.
He drew very fast, almost without pausing.
With a smack, Yu Huaiting tossed the brush onto the table.
Fu Songcheng looked closely.
The formation Yu Huaiting had drawn was even more casual than the man himself.
The lines were wild and crooked, and in some places the cinnabar had even smeared together.
By any measure, it looked like a piece of waste paper.
But the next instant, the atmosphere in the room changed.
In the originally quiet bedroom, a yin wind suddenly rose from flat ground.
The candle flames on the table wobbled violently a few times, then went out at once. The temperature plummeted, a bone-piercing chill shooting straight from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads.
On that crooked yellow paper, the cinnabar seemed to come alive, faintly radiating a ghostly aura that made the heart tremble.
It worked?
And the effect was astonishingly good.
Fu Songcheng stared at Yu Huaiting in shock.
“It actually works?” Yu Huaiting was a little surprised himself. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Fu Songcheng. “What now?”
Fu Songcheng suppressed the shock in his heart and quickly regained his composure.
He walked over to Yu Huaiting and softly recited two obscure incantations: “Soul returns to its place, the underworld opens the way. Repeat after me.”
Yu Huaiting nodded.
Following Fu Songcheng’s instructions, Yu Huaiting placed the ghost-qi-radiating talisman formation on the floor in the center of the room.
Then, he sat down cross-legged right in the middle of the formation with utter casualness.
“Soul returns to its place, the underworld opens the way.”
“Soul returns to its place, the underworld opens the way.”
Yu Huaiting closed his eyes and carelessly repeated the two incantations, without even any inflection—completely acting as a repeater.
Yet as he chanted, the yin wind in the room grew stronger and stronger.
The window lattice rattled under the wind, and the red wedding curtains flapped wildly.
Fu Songcheng stepped back half a pace, watching warily above the formation.
The air began to distort.
Black mist gathered from all directions toward the center of the formation, gradually condensing into a blurry human outline.
The black mist slowly dispersed.
A figure gradually surfaced in midair, suspended before Yu Huaiting.
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