One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

Qixia Town, Qiyun County, Nanxi Lane.

The two-story self-built house of the Zhou family was filled with a suffocating sense of oppression and exhaustion.

Ten-year-old Zhouzhou was originally a notorious troublemaker in this alley, climbing trees to steal birds' nests and wading into the river to catch fish, and he was never home before mealtimes.

But now, this mischievous monkey seems to have had all its energy drained away.

It's been a full two weeks. During the day, Zhouzhou always sits on the sofa with a blank stare, staring at the corner of the wall.

No matter how the adults called him, he was slow to respond, as if he were listening to people through a layer of water. And at night, the situation was even more worrying. Every day around two or three in the morning, Zhouzhou would suddenly start trembling all over in his sleep, his heart beating frighteningly fast, and then he would wake up without warning, crying and screaming, his hands gripping the sheets tightly, his eyes filled with extreme fear, as if he had seen something extremely terrifying.

Zhouzhou's parents, Zhou Guodong and Lin Juan, have been extremely worried about this matter.

Two weeks ago, they took their child to the best tertiary hospital in Qiyun City. Blood tests, lab tests, brain CT scans... they did every possible examination.

After the results came out, the chief physician, who wore glasses, looked at the pile of test reports and his brows furrowed deeply.

"The child's vital signs are all normal. There's no inflammation, no infection, and no organic lesions." The chief physician took off his glasses, looked at the couple, and said, "Think carefully, has your child recently experienced any extreme fright? For example, did he experience any sudden terrifying event, or watch any extremely bloody or horrific videos?"

Zhou Guodong and Lin Juan looked at each other in bewilderment.

Lin Juan recalled with red eyes, "About two weeks ago, it was a weekend, and the weather was quite nice. Zhouzhou went to play in the wild woods behind the town with some boys from his class. Our Qixia Town is full of mountains and forests, and the children often go there, so we didn't pay much attention to it."

"When it was almost dinnertime, the chubby boy who went with him brought Zhouzhou back, his face pale. Zhouzhou was a little dazed and wouldn't say anything when we asked him. We checked him over from head to toe, and we couldn't even find a scratch!"

After listening, the doctor sighed and quickly wrote a few lines in the patient's medical record.

"That's right. The terrain in the mountains is complex. He might have accidentally seen some wild animal or encountered some sudden danger, causing the child to experience severe stress." The chief physician handed the medical record to Zhou Guodong. "Medically, this is called an acute stress reaction. I'll prescribe some calming and brain-boosting oral liquid and mild sedatives. Don't send the child to school yet; take him home to rest for a few days, spend more time with him, and he'll get better gradually."

However, the chief physician's diagnosis and expensive Western medicine did not bring any hope to this family on the verge of collapse.

Zhouzhou still wakes up in the middle of the night every day, crying three or four times a night. At its worst, she cries until she can't breathe and her little face turns purple!

Western medicine was not working, and the grandmother, who believed in Buddhism and Taoism, couldn't sit still any longer.

"This isn't an illness at all! It's because you bumped into something unclean in the mountains, and your soul has been lost!"

She secretly took the two thousand yuan she had saved for retirement and ran away to the extremely famous "Qiyun Temple" in the east of Qiyun County without telling her son.

The old Taoist priest there, seeing the generous amount of money she donated for incense, stroked his beard, took out a talisman that claimed to "protect the house and calm the spirit," and instructed her to paste it on the headboard of her child's bed when she got home.

After three days of applying the patches, Zhouzhou continued to cry as usual, with no effect whatsoever.

Grandma, unwilling to give up, inquired about a highly skilled monk in Qingzhi Mountain to the north. She insisted on going to the temple to invite the monk.

Zhou Guodong, an honest and upright businessman, also lost his temper and stubbornly refused: "Mom! Wasn't the two thousand yuan that the old Taoist priest from the east swindled from you enough? There are no ghosts or gods in this world! This is just psychological trauma for the child; he can't endure any more of that superstitious nonsense!"

But Zhou Guodong ultimately couldn't stop them. The old lady, together with her daughter-in-law Lin Juan, who was also desperate for a cure, took Zhouzhou to Qingzhi Temple while Zhou Guodong was out buying goods.

The monks at Qingzhi Temple didn't ask for that much money. Several monks wearing kasayas surrounded Zhouzhou, chanting the "Soothing Sutra" for a full half hour while striking a wooden fish.

The result was obvious. Amidst the extremely oppressive and noisy chanting, Zhouzhou, who was already extremely fragile, broke down on the spot, crying her heart out in front of the Buddha statue until her voice became hoarse.

When I got home that night, I was still terrified and cried incessantly.

……

"Oh, my dear grandson... what a terrible mess he's made..."

It was four in the morning in the master bedroom. Zhouzhou's grandmother sat on the edge of the bed, patting Zhouzhou's convulsing back with heartache, tears streaming down her face. Zhouzhou had just finished crying and was now curled up in the blankets, her small body still trembling uncontrollably.

Lin Juan sat beside her with red eyes, clutching a tissue tightly in her hand; she had already cried all her tears.

Zhou Guodong leaned against the door frame, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, his hair a mess like a bird's nest, and his eyes bloodshot.

"I'll book the tickets tomorrow," Zhou Guodong said through gritted teeth, his hoarse voice breaking the silence. "To the capital! The best children's hospital in the capital! We'll also consult with some specialists."

Lin Juan nodded, tears welling up in her eyes again. The whole family fell into a deathly silence once more, the only sound in the air being Zhouzhou's intermittent, heart-wrenching sobs.

……

It was early morning, just as dawn was breaking.

A thin layer of light gray mist still shrouded the sky above Qixia Town.

Grandma Zhouzhou didn't sleep all night. Feeling sorry for her grandson, she simply wrapped him up in a thin blanket and gently rocked him in the rocking chair in the yard, hoping to help him sleep a little more soundly.

Zhou Guodong stood in the corner of the courtyard, making a phone call to his brother-in-law: "Yes, the tickets are for tomorrow morning to Beijing. Keep an eye on the shop's business these next few days... The purchase invoices are in the drawer... Okay, thanks for your help."

In the kitchen, Lin Juan, her eyes red and swollen, was placing a kettle on the gas stove, preparing to make some hot milk for her child.

The entire Zhou family was shrouded in an extremely heavy gloom.

"Knock knock knock".

Just then, three knocks, neither too loud nor too soft, came from the large iron gate of the courtyard.

"Who is it so early in the morning?" Zhou Guodong hung up the phone, frowning slightly in annoyance. He walked over and pulled open the small latch on the iron gate.

"Squeak~~"

The door opened, and the first rays of morning light streamed in through the crack.

Standing outside the door was a young man who looked no more than twenty-five or twenty-six years old.

The young man wore a perfectly tailored, high-quality cyan Tai Chi robe. In the slightly chilly morning mist, he stood tall and straight, his demeanor clean and refreshing, the cuffs fluttering gently in the breeze, as if he had stepped out of an ancient painting.

Zhou Guodong froze, his pent-up morning grumpiness and irritability instantly choking him: "You...who are you looking for?"

Jiang Shou stood outside the door. He slightly raised his chin, his hands casually behind his back, and glanced through Zhou Guodong at Zhouzhou, who was being held in his grandmother's arms in the yard, her face pale.

"Amitabha Buddha."

Jiang Shou withdrew his gaze and said in a gentle tone, "I am Jiang Shou, the abbot of Shouyi Temple."

Under Zhou Guodong's astonished gaze, Jiang Shou smiled slightly: "Last night, I had a sudden thought and cast a divination. The divination pointed to this place, saying that a young child in the family has been frightened."