One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

Jiang Shou sped into Qiyun County. His first stop was the wholesale street for incense, candles, and Taoist supplies near the City God Temple.

"Oh, Master Jiang, you're here to buy more goods again?" The same proprietress from last time greeted Jiang Shou warmly.

"Hmm, bring me some high-end stuff." Jiang Shoucai patted the counter with an air of importance. "Give me two stacks of your best quality yellow paper. And two ounces of the purest cinnabar. Oh, and pick out a top-grade mixed-hair brush for me, the kind with a tight, focused tip."

The proprietress quickly smiled and pulled out several exquisite wooden boxes from the bottom of the counter.

Jiang Shou picked it up and examined it. The yellow paper was indeed much tougher than the kind he had bought before, with a subtle sheen on the surface; the color of the cinnabar was also more subdued and pure. The talisman brush was also exquisitely crafted, with excellent weight distribution in his hand.

"How much?" Jiang Shou nodded in satisfaction. "One thousand five hundred and eighty in total." The proprietress pressed the calculator.

"Holy crap!" Jiang Shou's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "I only spent two hundred yuan on those before, and you've increased the price by more than seven times?!"

"Young Taoist priest, you get what you pay for." The proprietress pointed to the pen. "This pen alone costs eight hundred. It's made of top-quality wolf and sheep hair, purely handmade."

Jiang Shou gritted his teeth, then gritted them again, and... Although his heart was bleeding, the thought of the fluid, effortless feeling of drawing talismans made him reluctantly scan the code. "A skilled craftsman must first sharpen his tools. This is a significant early investment from Shouyi Temple, I'll bear it!"

After buying the equipment for drawing talismans, Jiang Shou went to the farmers' market and did a thorough search. Fresh vegetables, fruits, and various meats filled the back of his tricycle. Most importantly, he also bought a full gas cylinder from a liquefied gas station next to a grain and oil store.

"You can't cook anything with an induction cooker; it never gets the heat right." Jiang Shou lifted the heavy gas cylinder onto the truck bed with one hand, without even breaking a sweat. "If you want to keep Fatty Tiger's appetite, you have to use an open flame for stir-frying!"

……

It's 11:30 a.m. A hole-in-the-wall restaurant outside the seafood wholesale market.

Jiang Shou sat at the greasy folding table, skillfully rinsing the bowls and chopsticks with boiling water.

A moment later, Jiang's father, wearing waterproof rubber shoes and smelling of fish, lifted the plastic curtain and walked in, plopping down opposite Jiang Shou.

"Boss! Is the braised chicken ready yet? And another stir-fried pork kidney, and two bottles of iced Snow Beer!" Jiang Shou shouted to the kitchen.

Jiang Huaiyuan poured himself a cup of iced tea, looked Jiang Shou up and down a few times, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes. "Shou, you look much better lately." Jiang Huaiyuan looked at his son with some doubt. "When you first came back a few days ago, you were pale and thin, like a young man who had been staying up all night for half a month and was suffering from kidney deficiency. How come you look so... radiant and full of energy today?"

Hearing this, Jiang Shou felt smug. "Of course." Jiang Shou raised an eyebrow, picked up a piece of the freshly served plate of chicken and stuffed it into his mouth, boasting indistinctly, "I've already started cultivating the Dao, you know, living on the wind and dew? I absorb the pure energy of heaven and earth on Cuiwei Mountain every day, so I must have gotten a bit of immortal energy."

"Stop giving me that nonsense." Jiang Huaiyuan rolled his eyes at him, picked up a piece of chicken, and said, "Staying up in the mountains all the time isn't good. You need to go down the mountain more often. In the evenings, add more people nearby on your phone and chat with some girls on WeChat. Don't really become apathetic. Our Jiang family is counting on you to carry on the family line."

Jiang Shou chuckled and couldn't help but tease, "Old Jiang, judging from your tone, you're quite experienced, aren't you? Did you spend a lot of time browsing 'People Nearby' when you were guarding the fishpond alone at night?"

However, the "people nearby" search results on my phone in that remote mountain forest near the Taoist temple... I wonder if they're just alluring female ghosts or fox spirits?

"You little bastard! How dare you talk to me like that!" Jiang Huaiyuan almost choked on the half-mouth of beer he had just drunk. His old face turned red, and he grabbed a chopstick from the table, pretending to hit him.

"Okay, okay, you should eat your kidneys now, it'll help you recover." Jiang Shou quickly picked up a large mouthful of steaming stir-fried pork kidneys and stuffed it into his father's bowl.

The father and son devoured the food on the table in a flash.

Before leaving, Jiang Shou followed his father to the seafood stall, where he took a large net and scooped out more than a dozen lively fresh fish from the pond, putting them, along with the water, into a large white plastic bucket.

"Isn't there an abandoned pond next to the old well in the backyard? I'll go back and clean it up, and keep these fish in it so it'll be convenient to eat them." Jiang Shou carried the bucket to the car, and a fat orange figure suddenly flashed through his mind. "But... that gluttonous Fatty Tiger, he wouldn't sneak into the pond to catch fish while I was away, would he?" Just as he was thinking wildly.

"then."

Jiang Huaiyuan suddenly pulled a brand new set of keys from his pocket and threw it at Jiang Shou.

Jiang Shou instinctively caught it, looked down and saw it was a motorcycle key with a remote control attached.

"I bought a new three-wheeled motorcycle." Jiang Huaiyuan pointed to a brand-new blue three-wheeled motorcycle parked next to the seafood stall. The plastic film on the seat was still on. "You can take it. Give me back the old one. I'm not used to riding this new one. The clutch is too tight."

Jiang Shou looked at the new car that gleamed in the sunlight. Well, Old Jiang must have bought it because he felt sorry for his old, beat-up bike that rattled everywhere except for the horn, which was constantly bumping along the mountain roads.

"Thanks, Comrade Jiang." Jiang Shou chuckled and, without any pretense, emptied the cargo bed into the new truck.

……

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Jiang Shou rode his powerful new three-wheeled motorcycle, preparing to head back to Cuiwei Mountain.

However, just as the car was about to leave the county and arrive at a crossroads,

Jiang Shou's hand, gripping the handlebars, suddenly and inexplicably swerved to the left. The three-wheeled vehicle, which was supposed to go straight up the mountain, turned directly onto a main road leading to the center of the county town.

That main road was not the provincial highway leading back to Cuiwei Mountain, but the road leading to Qiyun County People's Hospital.

"I'm just going to take a look, definitely not to do a mission!" Jiang Shou twisted the accelerator, reassuring himself, "Anyway, I'm just killing time, so I might as well go and gather some information. After all, the divination for this 'Cold Season Decree' is written so bloodyly, I have to verify what exactly this 'soul separation syndrome' is, right?"

……

County Hospital, Inpatient Building.

The wards in the afternoon, especially the intensive care unit on the third floor, were much quieter than the noisy outpatient department downstairs. The window at the end of the corridor was open, and the sunlight slanted onto the floor.

Jiang Shou was carrying a black plastic bag containing two apples and a bunch of greens he had just bought at the farmers' market. He deliberately hunched over, feigning exhaustion as if a family member was visiting a patient, and slowly made his way up to the third floor.

Occasionally, family members would help patients in hospital gowns through the corridor as they struggled with rehabilitation exercises. A slightly plump nurse slowly pushed a cart full of IV drips past Jiang Shou. She glanced at him only once before looking away.

Jiang Shou carried the bag and slowly walked forward along the corridor, his gaze sweeping over each ward on both sides without making a sound.

Until the very end of the corridor.

A warning sign was posted on the wall: [Intensive Care Unit, No Loud Talking].

Jiang Shou stopped and peered into the intensive care unit through the thick, transparent glass window.

The ward was dimly lit. A middle-aged man lay on a stark white hospital bed. A thick ventilator tube was inserted into his mouth, an oxygen tube into his nose, and his chest was covered with numerous electrodes. The vital signs monitor beside the bed emitted a monotonous, cold "beep...beep..." sound.

The man's eyes were tightly closed, and his face was an eerie grayish-white, devoid of any sign of life.

Beside the hospital bed, a middle-aged woman with slightly disheveled hair sat on a plastic chair. Her eyes were red and swollen, clearly from recent crying. On a small stool at the woman's feet sat a little girl, about seven or eight years old, doing her homework while leaning over the edge of the hospital bed.

Jiang Shou looked at the man lying motionless on the bed, and a thought suddenly struck him.

Curiosity triumphed over reason. Jiang Shou took a deep breath, his mind sinking.

He mobilized the true essence in his dantian, extracted a tiny wisp of energy, and sent it rushing along the meridians towards his eyes!

"Buzz..."

The moment the true energy surged into his eyes, Jiang Shou felt a refreshing coolness in his eye sockets.

He immediately recalled the rudimentary formula for the "Qi Observation Technique" that he had memorized from "Guardian of Oneness: Introduction to the Three Arts" the night before, and stared intently at the man on the sickbed.

In an instant, the world in Jiang Shou's eyes changed!

With the enhancement of his true energy and the Qi-observation technique, the ordinary ward was filled with colors that were invisible to the average person. He could see a faint, continuous white halo of life emanating from the middle-aged woman sitting in the chair. The white light emanating from the little girl doing her homework was even purer and brighter.

This is the "soul light" that a normal living person should have!

however.

When Jiang Shou shifted his gaze to the man on the hospital bed wearing an oxygen tube, his pupils suddenly contracted!

No! On the man's body, apart from a faint, dim life force that indicated the body was still barely clinging to life, there was absolutely no trace of "soul light" that represented the existence of the soul!

This body is just a completely empty shell!

"It really is a case of the soul leaving the body..." Jiang Shou exclaimed inwardly.

Just as he was about to look away, his gaze unconsciously swept over the foot of the hospital bed.

Within the waning true energy field of the Qi Observation Technique, Jiang Shou saw something in shock...

In the shadows of the floor, a faint, dark gray-black "shadow" lurked, ready to vanish at any moment.

The shadow seemed to be struggling painfully to get closer to the body on the hospital bed, but it was firmly kept away by some invisible force.

"hiss--!"

Jiang Shou gasped, and goosebumps instantly broke out on his scalp.

"This...this is soul separation?! The soul lingers near the body, unable to return!!"

"Buzz..."

The cool sensation in my eyes receded like the tide, and the trace of true energy that had been mobilized to my eyes was completely exhausted.

The world before Jiang Shou's eyes instantly returned to normal. The hospital bed was still the same hospital bed, the woman was still crying, and the little girl was still doing her homework.

The gray shadow disappeared from his sight.

Everything seemed so normal, yet it exuded a chilling despair.