Chapter Thirty-Six: Journey to Fengdu

After Lin Ran finished speaking, he turned and walked back into the house. By now, Fan Beixiao’s corpse poison should have been dispelled. The most urgent matter at hand was to quickly find Guo Ting’s wandering soul, as Lin Ran feared any further unexpected mishaps.

“Captain! That guy’s going too far! Just because he’s from the provincial capital, he thinks he’s all that! Bah, I say he’s nothing! Let the boys teach him a lesson!” The two policemen who had come with Li Feng were visibly irritated, their eyes blazing as they glared at Lin Ran’s retreating back.

“He’s a graduate of the advanced police academy, professionally trained—he could take on the two of you with one hand tied behind his back,” Li Feng replied coldly, casting them a sidelong glance. What they said was exactly what he had been thinking, but he knew they were in the wrong from the start. Li Feng’s gaze grew dark as he stared at Lin Ran’s back for a long time, his expression shifting uncertainly.

Back inside the house, Lin Ran found that Fan Beixiao had already emerged from the bathtub. Though his face was still a bit pale, he looked much better than before. The water in the tub had turned black, like a basin of filthy liquid—the poison had clearly been drawn out from Fan Beixiao’s body.

“Guo Ting still hasn’t woken up?” Fan Beixiao’s concern for Guo Ting wasn’t out of any personal affection, but because Lin Ran had entrusted her to him. He felt guilty for failing to protect her.

“Her soul has been captured. If we don’t retrieve her primary soul, she won’t wake up!” Lin Ran nodded gravely.

“Who did this? I’ll kill them!” Fan Beixiao exploded, his eyes bloodshot, nostrils flaring with rage.

“I don’t know for certain, but I have my suspicions. While I’m gone, you must protect her body at all costs. If anything happens to her physical form, there’ll be nothing more we can do. You understand how serious this is!” Lin Ran patted Fan Beixiao’s shoulder. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Fan Beixiao to come along, but of all people, he trusted him the most with Guo Ting’s safety.

“When are you leaving?” Fan Beixiao was clearly unwilling, wrestling with himself for a long moment before finally nodding.

“There’s no time to lose. We leave tomorrow—I need to make some preparations,” Lin Ran said, his eyes troubled as he looked at Guo Ting, still lying unconscious on the heated bed. He hadn’t told Fan Beixiao that if her primary soul wasn’t found within two cycles of seven days, there would be no chance left—fourteen days, no more.

So this time, no matter if it was a dragon’s lair or a tiger’s den, Lin Ran would go. Even if it meant entering the underworld itself, he would not turn back—all for a promise. A promise made between lovers.

By the time Lin Ran and Fan Beixiao returned to He City, it was already noon. Fan Beixiao placed Guo Ting in the best hospital in the city, refusing to leave her side for even a moment.

This incident made Lin Ran realize his own shortcomings—this time, he had to be perfectly prepared. Glutinous rice, black donkey hooves—he was now almost certain that the mysterious man was a corpse manipulator, so these things needed to be gathered in advance. If the opportunity arose, Lin Ran wanted to eliminate him. His intuition told him that this man would never let him go, and he was like a malignant tumor, always lurking in the shadows.

Fengdu, the Ghost City—everyone regarded it as a forbidden place, shrouded in countless bizarre tales. There was the story, for example, of a taxi driver who once picked up a woman in white.

It was after three in the morning, at the intersection just outside the crematorium’s main gate, when he saw a beautiful woman in a white dress and white mesh shoes hailing a cab. She said she wanted to go to the People’s Hospital.

Without thinking much of it, the driver picked her up. On the way, he joked around—after all, it was rare to have such a beautiful passenger so late at night, and his mood was good. Yet the woman remained silent throughout the ride. When his hand brushed hers as he shifted gears, he noticed her skin was icy cold.

He wondered if she was just underdressed for the chilly night, and didn’t give it much thought. He dropped her off beside the Wang Temple near the People’s Hospital. It was an old part of the city, with few streetlights, the darkness making everything hard to see.

The next morning, when he checked his earnings after breakfast, he found he was ten yuan short. Oddly, in the pocket where he kept the money, there was some blackened paper ash—like the remnants of burned offerings. He couldn’t figure it out and didn’t dwell on it.

Days later, while sharing drinks with other taxi drivers at the end of their shifts, one mentioned a ghostly encounter—how he’d picked up a woman in white and later found his fare had turned to ash. Only then did the first driver recall his own experience, which matched the story exactly. He thought back over all the strange details, and his face drained of color. Luckily, he hadn’t realized at the time—who knew what would have happened if he had.

In the book Lin Ran received from his third aunt, he found a passage about Ghost City: “Fengdu, the City of Ghosts. White-robed travelers, spirits of the night—none but mountain dwellers or sorcerers may enter after dark. A single misstep, and you are lost forever. Take heed! Take heed! Take heed!”

These few short lines made Lin Ran realize just how perilous Ghost City truly was. One wrong step, and you’re lost to the underworld for eternity—damned beyond redemption.