After returning to Yanbei City, the first thing I did was ask Uncle Huzi to wire 100,000 yuan back to my hometown in Jiushan Village.
I was still in elementary school when Master took me in, but I've never forgotten the place that gave me life and raised me.
This was the first real money I'd earned since starting my cultivation under Master. And since I hadn't been able to stay with my parents and grandfather all these years, this was the only way I could show them some form of filial piety.
Back then, 100,000 yuan wasn't a small sum. To my family, it would've been a fortune. But I instructed Uncle Huzi to send the money anonymously—no name, no return address.
When Master took me away, he had given my family strict instructions: for ten years, we were not to see each other. They weren't allowed to contact me, and I couldn't visit them either.
No matter what—no reunion.
I still don't know why he made such a strange rule. I've thought about it many times. Maybe it's related to the "Eighteen Tribulations" fated in my destiny.
In my heart, my parents and grandfather remain frozen in time, still the way they looked when I was a child. But now, I'm all grown up. Maybe they've even begun to forget what I looked like.
Just two more years, and I can finally see them again.
When Uncle Huzi came back, he brought home bags of rice, flour, and cooking oil—stacking up enough to last months. The recent hardship we went through left a psychological scar on him, and now that we had money, he made sure we'd never go hungry again.
Helping the Zhang family move their ancestral graves had been filled with challenges, and I felt both mentally and physically drained.
The truth is, I just wasn't strong enough yet. If my master had handled things himself, none of this would've been so difficult.
That night, I went to bed early.
But not long after I fell asleep, the same strange dream came again—my high school classmate Li Na appeared once more.
This time, her entire body was soaked in blood, her clothes clinging to her as if she had just been dragged from water. She looked at me with eyes full of despair and whispered the same three words, over and over:
"Save me…"
It was the second night in a row.
I started to wonder if someone had cursed me like Zhang Yunliang.
When I woke up, daylight had already poured in through the windows, but the dream lingered with eerie clarity in my mind. Li Na's desperate expression, the tears streaking her cheeks—it all felt too real, as if it had truly happened.
Something wasn't right.
After breakfast, I planned to nap a bit more, but my phone wouldn't stop ringing.
It was a new phone—Uncle Huzi said I needed one to take on future clients more easily.
I had no idea who had added me to a high school group chat, but my notifications were blowing up.
I opened the app and found hundreds of unread messages. Most were classmates bragging about their exam scores and college plans—boring nonsense.
I was about to mute the group when one message caught my eye:
"Did you guys hear? Li Na died a few days ago!"
"When? Are you serious? Wasn't she just at Wang Zhaoyang's party?"
"Totally serious. I'm from her village—everyone here knows."
"How did she die? That's so sudden!"
"I heard she slit her wrists and died in her bathroom. By the time anyone found her, she was already cold."
I froze.
No wonder I'd been having that dream. No wonder she kept calling out to me.
I never had feelings for Li Na. She had pursued me once, sure, and she was pretty, but after she started dating Wang Zhaoyang, I put her out of my mind.
Still, something didn't sit right. If she really had taken her own life, why would her spirit appear in my dreams?
Unless... her soul couldn't rest.
With my training in the arcane and my unique spiritual constitution, I was especially sensitive to these things. Her appearance in my dreams had to mean something more.
Maybe her resentment was too deep to move on.
I immediately sent a private message to the classmate who broke the news.
"Liu Meng, is it true? Li Na really died?"
"Yeah, she was buried just yesterday. They laid her to rest in a little grove outside the village. It's so sad. And since her death, her family has been in chaos—neighbors keep hearing her cries from her old room, and her younger sister seems to be haunted too. It's a mess."
His message left me speechless. Why had she chosen to end her life like that? It didn't make sense.
A moment later, Liu Meng sent another message:
"Wu Jie, I heard your master is some Feng Shui King. You probably know how to deal with stuff like this, right? Li Na used to really like you. Maybe… you should come see for yourself?"
"Send me the address," I replied.
"Seriously? You'll come to the village?"
"I'll be there this afternoon."
Liu Meng quickly dropped a location pin, saying he'd wait for me at the village entrance. The place was on the outskirts of Yanbei, a rural-urban fringe—clearly not a wealthy area.
Li Na's family must not have had much.
I told Uncle Huzi what was going on, and he looked shocked. "You mean that girl we saw at the noodle shop with Wang Zhaoyang? She died?"
"Yeah. Slit her wrists. I've been dreaming about her for two nights now. She died unjustly. I think she's reaching out to me for help."
"How much are they paying?" Huzi asked.
I frowned. "Uncle, she was my classmate. You're seriously talking about money now?"
He shrugged. "You're the disciple of Feng Shui King Li Xuantong. You don't work for free, and we're not some kind of charity."
I snapped, "Can't I make a decision for myself?"
He chuckled, raising his hands. "Of course, young master. Your call."
A few hours later, we arrived by taxi at Li Na's village. Just as promised, Liu Meng was waiting at the entrance.
"Hey, old classmate! Good to see you again," he greeted cheerfully.
I didn't waste time. "What really happened to Li Na? Do you know why she would slit her wrists?"
He sighed. "Honestly? I don't know for sure. But I think it had something to do with Wang Zhaoyang. Maybe they had a big fight, and she couldn't take it anymore. But she definitely died at home. If you're thinking of blaming him, there's no proof. He wasn't even there."