The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 3 Half Immortal
At this moment, a colleague passed by and threw a file bag to him: "Brother Fei, there's a delivery for you."

Qi Fei picked up the file bag casually, but the sending information on it made him alert all of a sudden. The express was sent from Sanwu Town, and the sender was not a name, but the word "answer".

He quickly tore open the bag and saw inside an anti-fraud manual issued by their police station.

The image of Zhong Kui leaving that day appeared in his mind, holding the manual with a sarcastic look on her face.

Qi Fei held the manual in one hand and the business card in the other. He suddenly smiled to himself and murmured, "Okay, okay, the code book, right?"

He looked at the number on the business card, opened the anti-fraud manual, and searched: 1-2-1, the first word on the second line of the first page. He was then a little disappointed. Unfortunately, it was still a number, that was the serial number "1". The next number he found was "1", and the third number was "2".

"120?" Qi Fei couldn't help but frown. This was different from what he expected. He thought it would be at least one sentence.

It took him a while to find all the corresponding information from the anti-fraud manual, but all the corresponding information were still numbers.

The good news is that the password is on the business card and the anti-fraud manual is the key book, so there is no problem.

The bad news is that the answer is still a confusing bunch of numbers.

"Brother Fei, are you so interested in doing math problems?" Wu Shanqiu walked up to him at some point and suddenly spoke, startling Qi Fei who was concentrating on solving the puzzle.

"No, Zhong Kui's business card is a code." Qi Fei pointed to the anti-fraud manual with circles and the small business card.

"Hmm?" Wu Shanqiu glanced at it, not understanding what was going on. She took out a package and handed it to Qi Fei. "Oh, by the way, I just went downstairs and there happened to be a package for you."

"Another one?" Qi Fei frowned, and sure enough, the sender's name was written: "The second answer."

He quickly tore it open, and a USB flash drive fell out. It seemed that this was the second hint Zhong Kui gave him.

Qi Fei quickly plugged the USB drive into the computer and opened it. There was only one picture inside, which was a world map.

"Map?" Qi Fei murmured, and looked at the two rows of numbers that were cracked. The first row was 2, and the second row was 120094491. He muttered: "30150197...120..." Suddenly he thought of something, picked up the pen and added a few decimal points between the numbers. He quickly entered this set of numbers into the computer and pressed the Enter key. When the result came out, he couldn't help but slap the table excitedly.

Wu Shanqiu leaned over to the computer screen and took a look. "Huh? This is a longitude and latitude? It's located near Sanwu Town."

"To be precise, it's Zizai Mountain next to Sanwu Town. Isn't it said that she lives in the nearby mountains? It seems this is her address." Qi Fei said, feeling unhappy about being led by Zhong Kui.

"Just write down clearly where you live. Why do you need so many passwords? It's not like you're doing underground work." Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but complain.

"Hmph, she seems to enjoy manipulating others. Anti-fraud manual...it looks like this business card was custom-made for us."

"What is her purpose for doing this?"

"Didn't she say that? Let me go find her." Qi Fei's eyes were bright, and it was obvious that Zhong Kui had aroused his great interest.

"Ah, Brother Fei, is she really interested in you?" Wu Shanqiu looked as if she was enjoying the show.

"Don't talk nonsense. The business card was prepared before she came. We didn't know each other at that time, so I have to find out what her intention was in doing this." Qi Fei packed up all his things, left as soon as he said he would, and went to drive alone.

The drive from Nancheng to Sanwu Town took over an hour. Qi Fei had been there several times, always on a case, but this time it was to meet a "half-immortal." He didn't follow the longitude and latitude Zhong Kui had given him directly up the mountain, but instead went to Sanwu Town first. He remembered Wu Shanqiu had told him that Zhong Kui had become quite famous in Sanwu Town in the past two years for his accurate fortune-telling skills. Out of professional habit, he had to visit and get to know this man first.

Sanwu Town is not big, so he just walked into a shop and asked, and sure enough, he knew Zhong Kui as soon as he mentioned it.

"Are you here for fortune-telling too?" the boss looked at Qi Fei and asked.

"Well, I heard it's very effective. Is it true?" Qi Fei said.

"Oh, of course not! No matter who it is, as long as she can tell the fortune, it doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, it will be very accurate. But, are you prepared enough?" The boss rubbed his fingers and made the gesture of counting money.

"Will it cost a lot of money?"

"It's very expensive, one visit alone. It'll cost you at least five figures. But everyone who's been says it's worth it! If you want to see someone who's passed away in your family, you have to go to her. I heard a woman whose husband had died went to her and knew it was her husband's ghost. She almost fainted from tears. There are many similar cases! You look so young, who in your family has passed away?"

After hearing this, Qi Fei tried hard not to roll his eyes, thinking that it was a different era now and people still believed in such feudal and superstitious things.

No matter how supernatural Zhong Kui behaves now, he would never believe that he can communicate with the dead.

"I think her place is hard to find. How can I drive up there?" Qi Fei asked himself without answering.

Unexpectedly, the boss showed a surprised expression: "Do you know where she lives?"

Qi Fei was also puzzled: "Why? You don't know?"

"No one knows where she lives."

"Then I'm curious, how did you find her to tell your fortune? For door-to-door service?"

The boss pointed outside and said, "Look, if you go west along this road for two intersections, you'll see a Wong Tai Sin temple. Inside, there's a black donation box. If anyone in our town wants to see her, they can put a packet of money in the box and write down what they want. If the money and the note are gone within seven days, it means she's willing to accept it. If the money is still there after seven days, it means she doesn't want to accept it."

"Don't you know where she is? What will happen if you answer the phone?"

"If she accepts the offer, then she will be waiting at Wong Tai Sin Temple at 7pm on the th of this month. Someone will come to pick her up, but she will be blindfolded and have earplugs plugged in on the way there and back. We only know that she lives in that mountain, but we don't know where exactly."

When Qi Fei heard this, he became more confused - Zhong Kui went to such great lengths to hide his residence, why would he reveal his exact location to him?

He followed the shop owner's instructions and went to Wong Tai Sin Temple.

It was a cloudy day, and it looked like it was going to rain.

The door of this small temple was open, but there was no one there. Qi Fei walked in and felt a chill down his spine, perhaps due to psychological factors.

A statue of Wong Tai Sin loomed large in the main hall, dressed as a fairy, but with a weasel's head, its features appearing menacing in the flickering candlelight. Qi Fei's hand rested on his pistol, and the statue's glass eyes seemed to suddenly turn towards him as he blinked. The candles on the altar popped, and the smoke formed the shape of an aged face in the air. "Qi Fei, you're here," an old woman's voice echoed from the deserted temple.

(End of this chapter)