Chapter 67: Grand Feng Shui Layout

I pushed open the rusted iron gates. Parked in the wasteland behind the Jiangcheng Bus Company building sat an old-fashioned commuter bus.

It had to be older than me. A junkyard or a museum would have been a more fitting home for it than the transit depot.

"Open the doors. My things are on the bus." Accompanied by Route 14 squad leader Wang Wei, Yu Cheng and I walked right up to the spirit bus.

"Wait." Yu Cheng held Wang Wei back. "Before you go up there, I want you to explain exactly what's inside that suitcase. That way I can be sure it's the one you lost."

Staring at the Route 14 Bus sitting quietly before us, the terrifying scenes from last night flooded my mind again. I took a deep breath. "The Black Leather Suitcase contains two chargers, a camera, a spare Portable Encoding Stick, and a collapsible selfie stick."

"Why would you bring all those things onto a bus in the middle of the night?" Yu Cheng asked curiously.

"If I were you, I'd keep my mouth shut, because in this world, knowing too much is a great way to get yourself killed."

Yu Cheng choked on his words. He waved a hand, signaling Wang Wei to open the doors.

Clack!

Stepping inside and treading on the battered floorboards again, listening to the creaks and groans and smelling that rotten stench, my back was soaked in cold sweat before I knew it.

"What a night." Walking to the second row under the incredulous stares of Yu Cheng and Wang Wei, I pulled a Black Leather Suitcase from beneath the seat.

"It's actually there? Are you a man or a ghost?" Yu Cheng's legs went weak. Wang Wei didn't even stick around; he bolted straight off the bus.

Judging by their reactions, both of them were well aware of what was going on with the final Route 14 Bus.

I unzipped the suitcase and showed the two of them its contents. With every item they verified, their faces grew a shade paler.

"See clearly now? Last night, I was one of the passengers on this spirit bus."

The two remained silent for a long time before Yu Cheng finally recovered. "Tell me your name, and then I can tell you everything there is to know about the Route 14 Bus."

I lit a cigarette and sat down in the exact seat I had occupied all last night. "My name is Gao Jian. I'm listening."

Yu Cheng waved at Wang Wei through the window, dismissing him, before sitting down in the very seat the Red-Clothed Fierce Ghost had taken.

"The original route for the Route 14 Bus wasn't like this. It all started twenty years ago, when Jiangcheng underwent urban redevelopment to expand the new district."

"At the time, the project faced heavy opposition from the older generation, since Jiangcheng is a millennium-old city that has weathered countless storms and stood unshakable. The elders said a flood dragon was suppressed beneath Jiangcheng. Once the Grand Feng Shui Layout was broken and the dragon ascended to heaven, everyone in the city would suffer."

"Unfortunately, legends are just legends, and in the face of visible profit, no one cared. Several companies led by Jiangjin Real Estate spent fortunes to seize the city's redevelopment rights. Numerous ancient buildings were bulldozed, and many people whose families had lived in Jiangcheng for generations were forced to leave their ancestral homes and move into suburban apartment blocks."

"In the eyes of those businessmen, every inch of land represented money. They filled in the lakes and ravines, felled ancient trees, and erected high-rises everywhere. Within just a few years, Jiangcheng's thousand-year Grand Feng Shui Layout was completely destroyed."

"Humans act, heaven watches. I never believed in those things before, but you should know about it too—one day, over a decade ago, a massive explosion echoed from deep beneath Jiangcheng! Every person in Jiangcheng heard it, but no one knew where the sound came from."

"For nine straight days after that, Jiangcheng was swept by torrential storms. The Lanjiang Dam threatened to burst at any moment. The elders all said it was a Trapped Dragon Emerging from the Abyss—that the flood dragon suppressed beneath Jiangcheng for a thousand years was about to ascend to heaven!"

"Panic gripped the city. But on the tenth day, the torrential rain suddenly stopped. The sky was completely cloudless, as clean as a giant crystal."

"I don't know why the rain stopped, but ever since then, a lot of strange rules cropped up in Jiangcheng."

"The dozen most chaotic, dilapidated alleys in the Old Town District were forbidden from being arbitrarily demolished. The prison was relocated from the Southern Suburbs to Henshan in the north. Even the highway project between Xinhu and Jiangcheng, which had been approved long ago, was forced to stop, turning the space between the two cities into a real estate dead zone."

"The route for the Route 14 Bus changed starting then too. The terminus used to be Miyun Village, which is now Miyun Mansion."

"After the route was extended, fatal accidents started happening every year, but the entire company's operational status improved significantly."

Yu Cheng had kept these words suppressed in his heart for years without ever breathing a word to anyone. Now that he had opened up, they poured out of him.

"Before the previous manager stepped down, he warned us repeatedly that the Route 14 night bus must never be suspended. Even if we had to fill in and drive it ourselves, we absolutely had to run an empty bus on the nights of the Ghost Festival and the Lantern Festival."

"I don't know the specific reasons. If you really want to figure it out, go ask the old manager's family."

"What about the man himself?" I asked.

"Three days after he stepped down, he got into a car crash. Right on the Route 14 line..."

Yu Cheng's words sounded rather mystical, but I patiently listened to the end. My intuition told me everything he said was probably true.

"That's all I know," he said.

I finished my cigarette and stood up from the seat. "If you remember anything else in the future, you can come find me anytime. My name is Gao Jian, and I live on Ting Tang Road in Jiangcheng."

I picked up my suitcase and stepped off the bus. The matter of the Route 14 Spirit Bus wasn't perfectly resolved; this vehicle probably had some other connection to the Bridge No. 3 Crematorium.

"Eight Characters Divine Fiends, the Grand Feng Shui Layout, the trapped dragon ascending to heaven, the Two-Faced Buddha..." Everything I had experienced seemed completely unrelated, but they were actually caught in mutual cause and effect. In the dark, there was an invisible thread stringing them all together.

"Trying to make me a pawn is your biggest mistake!"

I returned to the Pinnacle of Happiness. The moment I walked through the door, Bai Qi pounced on me.

"Ow, ow! Let go!" I held him and walked inside. The guy was probably starving too; he just kept nuzzling into my chest.

"Don't rush. We'll call Old Liu and go out for a huge meal. We have to share our good fortune, right?"

I dialed Blind Liu's number, then ordered a huge table of food at a restaurant and waited for him.

"Old Liu! Over here!"

The restaurant waiter was about to kick out Blind Liu and his carrying pole before I hastily called out.

"Gao Jian, how the hell are you still alive? Where's the justice in that?" I had kindly helped him out of a jam, but the old blind man's first words upon meeting nearly made my wounds bleed from sheer anger.

"Bah! What do you mean, where's the justice in me being alive?"

Blind Liu circled me twice. "I see. The hexagrams weren't wrong. Your current state is basically identical to a dead man. You've already got half a foot in Yama's Hall."

He plucked a hair from my head and held it up to my eyes. "Look for yourself. The root has already turned white. You completely drained your whole body's vital essence last night, and you even lost Yang Lifespan."

I looked down. It was exactly as he said.

"Before you left last night, didn't I warn you about three things? Did you fail to follow one of them?"

"One of them?" Blind Liu was being far too modest. I hadn't followed a single one.

I gave Blind Liu a rough explanation of the process of inviting spirits to possess my body. He was the only professional I could rely on right now.

"Old Liu, do you think I can still be saved?"

"Daring to indiscriminately use an ominous talisman of unknown origins... I actually admire your vitality a little."

"You flatter me, you flatter me." I smiled apologetically through my thick skin. "How do you think I can replenish my drained vital essence? Should I buy some strong tonics?"

"External items only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. Right now, even if your vital essence recovers, your lost Yang Lifespan won't come back."

"Then what should I do?"

Blind Liu stared at me for a long time. Finally making up his mind, he drank the liquor in his cup in one gulp. "Why don't you follow me and cultivate the Dao?"

I had been harboring similar thoughts for a long time, just waiting for him to say those words. "Master above, please accept—"

"Don't call me Master," Blind Liu hastily stopped me. "You previously learned the unpassed secrets of the Miaozhen temple. From now on, you must call yourself Layman Profound Truth. Only then can you repay the karma of the Profound Truth Dao."

"Then why did you tell me to follow you in cultivating the Dao?"

"The universe of Daoist methods is vast and profound. All I can do is guide you through the gates. If there's ever anything you don't understand, you can find me at any time." Blind Liu kept his head lowered as he poured himself another cup of liquor. It was obvious he had hesitated for a long time before making this decision.

"If you lack an introductory mental mantra, you can also learn my Liu family's Post-Heaven Stage technique. But if you ever wish to truly enter the halls of mastery, you'll still have to visit the Miaozhen temple in person."

"Is there a need for so much hassle?" I pulled out my phone, copied down all the secret arts and treasures from the Underworld Live Show's Point Exchange List onto a piece of paper, and handed it to Blind Liu. "Don't worry about the cultivation methods. Just help me take a look and see which one of these is most suitable for me."

Blind Liu took the paper. After reading it for thirty seconds, his hands began to tremble uncontrollably. "A lone copy of the Plum Blossom Divination Arts, the Detailed Explanation of Profound Truth Dao Methods, Maoshan Daoist Arts, the Complete Encyclopedia of Talismans, the Five Ghosts Wealth Transporting Method..."

Halfway through reading, he suddenly slammed the paper face-down on the table. "No, I must be drunk!"