Chapter 535: Premeditated Murder

That night, at the Hua City Folk Culture Administration Bureau, Office No. 6.

Inside the room, the display shelves were filled with all sorts of strange bottles and jars. On the long metal table, an alchemical cauldron was continuously heating a dark red potion, while a glass vessel nearby was cold-brewing some kind of herb.

At the desk in the corner, An Qing propped her face with one hand and spun a pen with the other, sitting in a slightly slouched posture. Her lazy and alluring eyes swept back and forth across the computer screen.

On the screen was an application document, sent five minutes ago by a member of the special task force stationed at Hua City Central Hospital.

The general content of the application was that a Hua City University of Technology student named Jin Yecheng was suspected of encountering a haunting incident. They were applying to use an alchemical potion during treatment to clear residual psychic energy fluctuation.

For ordinary people like Jin Yecheng, who had come into contact with a haunting and survived, any alchemical potion needed during treatment had to be reported to An Qing.

“Mm, no problem…”

After confirming there was nothing wrong with the alchemical potion listed in the application, An Qing muttered to herself, put down her pen, moved the mouse, and clicked [Confirm] at the bottom right of the screen.

Other than being overly frightened and developing mild autonomic nervous dysfunction, Jin Yecheng hadn’t shown signs of Nocturnal Syndrome. He just needed to have the residual psychic energy fluctuation cleared and stay in the hospital for observation for a few days. There was no need for any strictly regulated medication.

“Knock knock knock–!” A series of knocks sounded at the door.

“Come in.”

An Qing responded, and immediately the office door was pushed open. Behind her came a soft “shh shh” sound.

“Operator Li and your dear junior sister really are close! Wherever you go, you push her around in a wheelchair. So, tell me, what brings you to me in the middle of the night?” An Qing teased.

That sound was from the wheelchair wheels–she recognized it. Earlier, Li Xuan had borrowed a wheelchair from her for Huá Sāng.

No response came from behind. Suspicion gradually appeared in An Qing’s eyes. She turned around, and the corner of her mouth twitched, “What the hell, who are you? Why are you sitting in Huá Sāng’s wheelchair?”

A man with a swollen face was sitting in the wheelchair, looking at her with a resentful gaze. The skin on his exposed arms and legs under his summer short sleeves was covered in large patches of redness and eczema.

A disheveled long-haired girl stood behind the man, her right hand wrapped in bandages, both hands gripping the wheelchair handles.

An Qing glanced oddly at the man, then at Huá Sāng, and probed, “Is this… your senior brother?”

Though she was asking the obvious, she really hadn’t expected that the wheelchair meant for Huá Sāng would end up being used by Li Xuan himself.

Huá Sāng nodded, “Mm, he needs treatment.”

An Qing rubbed her brow and sighed silently, “…” Such a gentle, ancient-style young man, now barely recognizable–of course he needed treatment.

“I can see that. Mm… Why don’t you wait in the lounge for a bit? I’ll call you when we’re done.”

Huá Sāng looked at Li Xuan, her gaze lingering on his swollen face. Only after he nodded did she look away and bow slightly to An Qing, “Sorry to trouble you.”

“If… if you need any help, just call me anytime. I’ve studied some Alchemy and healing spell formations, and I’ve read some medical books too.”

Her eyes lowered, her words earnest, as if she’d done something wrong and was desperately trying to make up for it.

Li Xuan, “…”

Please don’t help anymore–just go!

If you help again, I’m afraid I’ll die today.

Thinking this, Li Xuan hurriedly shot An Qing a pleading look.

An Qing gave a wry smile, shook her head at Huá Sāng, and said gently, “No need, just leave it to me. Go rest for a while, okay? After all, you just went through so much today.”

Huá Sāng hesitated for a few seconds, then nodded and quietly slipped out the door.

——–

“Click!”

With a soft sound, the office door closed again.

An Qing pulled up a chair and sat in front of Li Xuan. She casually took a pair of gloves from her white coat pocket, put them on, then reached out and gently patted his cheek, “Come on, stick out your tongue.”

“Wow, you’re really sick!”

“This one–this blister is the most textbook blister I’ve seen in all my years of medicine! Makes me want to cut it off and make a specimen.” Seeing the dense blisters on Li Xuan’s tongue, An Qing smiled.

Hearing this, Li Xuan shuddered. He knew this woman wasn’t joking–if he were a corpse, his tongue would probably already be in a specimen jar.

“Was this, like last time with the diarrhea, an accident?”

“Sigh!” Li Xuan sighed, “My junior sister didn’t mean it. She’s pretty pitiful too.”

An Qing pursed her lips and pressed, “By the way, with your junior sister’s Spirit Pattern problem being so serious, haven’t you reported it to the Great Pure Palace?”

“If this keeps up, you’re going to have a big problem!”

The recent outbreak of Nocturnal Syndrome had already left An Qing exhausted, and she was a bit worried that Huá Sāng’s abnormality would trigger a new epidemic.

From her observation, Huá Sāng had the potential to become a source of Nocturnal Syndrome contamination.

Li Xuan looked at An Qing and sighed silently. “Of course I asked, but my Shifu said that Junior Sister Huá Sāng had used psychic energy at high intensity before and never had this kind of reaction. No one knows what went wrong this time.”

“My Shifu also said that if the Headmaster is doing this, he must have his reasons, and told me not to worry about things I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, that one…” An Qing nodded thoughtfully, checked Li Xuan’s eczema again, got a general idea of his condition, then turned to the shelves, took down several ceramic jars of different colors, walked to the workbench, and began preparing to mix the potion.

Since, according to legend, even a catastrophe-class psychic like the Dark Emperor, who could glimpse the secrets of fate, said there was no problem, she could relax a little.

For now, it seemed that at worst, only Li Xuan was unlucky.

And even if it was just bad luck, no matter how severe the erosion, he’d recover completely in at most a month.

The office fell quiet again.

An Qing stood at the workbench, mixing several dried herbs together, carefully grinding them into powder, dissolving them with fire lizard tears, then setting them aside and starting to preheat the alchemy cauldron for heating.

“By the way, there’s a lead on the identities of those two guys we caught at the airport.”

“Oh?” Li Xuan frowned and asked, “Did you finally get them to talk? Don’t tell me it was that kid Lu Yibei who interrogated them?”

An Qing filtered the prepared potion, poured it into the alchemy cauldron, tilted her head, and asked, “Why do you think it was that kid who got the answers?”

The two of them stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then simultaneously held their foreheads, as if they’d both gotten the answer from the other.

“You know.”

That kid Lu Yibei, so good at making trouble, probably even a haunting couldn’t stand him! Li Xuan thought.

“All right, forget I asked.”

He really was talented. If he were in a bigger city with more staff, he could work at a psychiatric hospital, where his abilities would be put to better use–he might even become the director. An Qing thought.

“It wasn’t Lu Yibei who got the answers, but a brother organization in a neighboring country during their interrogation. They also caught psychics responsible for similar incidents. As for how they got the answers…” An Qing shrugged.

“There are all kinds of Spirit Patterns in this world, abilities are bizarre and unpredictable–someone always finds a way.”

“That’s true.” Li Xuan nodded. “So what did they find out? Do we know who’s behind it?”

“Nothing that specific.” As An Qing poured the boiling potion into a beaker, she explained, “They only learned that the recent attacks were all carried out by Miracle Order members. They seem to be looking for something.”

“No more concrete clues. Those guys’ memories were badly damaged–this was as much as they could get.”

“Miracle Order, huh? That’s a bit of a headache!” Li Xuan sighed.

“Who isn’t saying that!”

Although in the long run, the Miracle Order wasn’t as terrifying as the Eclipse Society, their methods meant their short-term destructiveness far exceeded the Eclipse Society.

It was like the difference between a sociopathic madman and a terrorist with advanced technology.

Li Xuan couldn’t even figure out what searching for something had to do with launching psychic energy attacks.

Among Miracle Order members, there was a saying–do as you please, and there will be miracles!

Their actions could never be judged by normal logic. If you could understand their thinking, you were probably already one of them.

At the workbench, An Qing added the final ingredient to the beaker, catalyzed it with psychic energy for a few seconds, and handed it to Li Xuan. “Here, drink this first.”

Li Xuan glanced at the alchemical potion An Qing had prepared, eyes wide as he looked at her, as if asking, “Are you sure?”

In that small beaker was half a cup of thick, glowing crimson liquid, steaming hot, looking just like magma.

“Of course! If you’re not feeling well, drink more magma!” An Qing nodded, teasing, “Aren’t you itchy all over with that eczema? In your case, it’s more practical to stop the itching before treatment.”

“……”

Li Xuan stayed silent, unmoved.

It itched, but he could still endure it.

Seeing this, An Qing tilted her head, gave a charming smile, stepped closer, leaned to his ear, and with red lips slightly parted, whispered, “Imagine a swarm of mosquitoes biting every knuckle of your fingers.”

“And then a little hand, holding a feather, gently scratching those mosquito bites, back and forth, back and forth… And just then, you touch something you’re allergic to, and that spot on your back you can’t reach starts to itch, and then…”

An Qing’s words made Li Xuan’s eczema flare up as if activated, the itching unbearable all over his body. He finally couldn’t take it, gritted his teeth, and said, “Stop, I’ll drink it!”

With that, he picked up the beaker, tilted his head back, and downed it in one gulp.

The next moment, he felt as if a blazing Thomas the Tank Engine had raced down his throat, and his face instantly turned as awful as a livestreamer who’d just eaten a black plum.

As it turned out, under An Qing’s “gentle persuasion,” no patient could refuse to take their medicine.

The night was deep and heavy.

Hua City University of Technology, main path of Gate No. 4.

Under the corrosion of the black mist, the already dilapidated small warehouse had three of its four walls collapsed, the exposed steel frames twisted and deformed, on the verge of collapse.

Within ten meters around the warehouse, all vegetation had died, turning into clumps of sludge; even the soil and rocks bore a scorched black color as if burned.

The black mist was not only corrosive but also had a burning property. Wherever it passed, there was no visible flame, but it left behind a trail of scorch marks.

It was like a severely degraded version of the Black Sun Fire Seed. After quietly observing for over an hour, Lu Yibei, considering Zhang Shuo’s status as a high-ranking member of the Eclipse Society, came to this conclusion.

Once the black mist diffused from the time capsule had completely dissipated, she observed for a while longer and directed the Paper Cicada Immortal to conduct some probing before she could temporarily confirm that the threat was gone.

“We can go out now. You all stay back, I’ll go take a look.”

Lifting the defensive spell formation, Lu Yibei climbed out of the pit, directing the headless senior sister and the little Haunting to retreat as she cautiously approached the small warehouse.

Inside the warehouse, on the scorched black ground, two time capsules were completely destroyed, their fragments scattered.

The time capsule belonging to the headless senior sister had its contents reduced to ashes long ago, while the one belonging to Hu Chuan had its fragments piled up in a small mound, as if something was pressed underneath.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei gave a mental command, and the Paper Cicada Immortal following behind her darted forward, fluttering and hopping, rummaging through the pile of fragments. Soon, they made a discovery.

Two Paper Cicada Immortals, twisting their tiny bodies, dragged out several pieces of the time capsule fragments and lined them up on the ground.

On the inner walls of those fragments, some distorted incantations could be vaguely seen.

Lu Yibei carefully distinguished them, but for the moment couldn’t discern anything crucial, so she took out her phone and photographed them for the record.

Immediately after, several Paper Cicada Immortals found a necklace, thin and finely crafted.

The necklace seemed to be pure gold, which was why it survived the corrosion of the black mist.

Two Paper Cicada Immortals, one on each side, carried the necklace over to Lu Yibei. She examined it closely and nodded thoughtfully.

This should be the gift Hu Chuan intended to give to the headless senior sister.

He bought this, he handled it, so it should be enough to complete the summoning ritual, Lu Yibei thought.

As she pondered, the Paper Cicada Immortals made a new discovery.

They dug out a small, entirely black figurine from the pile of fragments.

……

A group of white little figures surrounding a black one–what a strangely subtle scene!

It almost felt like the Paper Cicada Immortals might suddenly attack it…

Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly, controlled the Paper Cicada Immortals to disperse, then stepped forward to examine the pitch-black figurine closely, frowning.

She had thought the figurine had turned black due to the black mist’s corrosion, but upon closer inspection, she realized it was actually made from some kind of animal hair.

A slender, oily, dark red wooden pin was stuck in its chest, piercing through its body.

Poisoned Doll!

The term flashed through Lu Yibei’s mind, and she quietly glanced back at the headless senior sister, who was hiding under a peach tree, peeking.

Was the hair used to make the figurine the senior sister’s hair?

If it was, did Hu Chuan put it in from the start, or did he add it later?

Lu Yibei had seen psychic artifacts like the Poisoned Doll in The Midnight Tome and the knowledge of the Great Serpent God. Similar items existed in shamanic cultures around the world, and their purpose was almost always the same: to curse and kill a specific person.

If Hu Chuan had put a Poisoned Doll made from the senior sister’s hair into the time capsule from the beginning, then maybe he didn’t kill her on impulse at all, but rather…

Premeditated murder!

At this thought, a chill rose up Lu Yibei’s back.