One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

"The divination results for this cold season are truly accurate and without any exaggeration."

That gray-black shadow huddled in the shadows at the foot of the bed was definitely the soul of the man on the hospital bed who had been frightened out of his body!

Jiang Shou withdrew his gaze and quietly retreated to the edge of the corridor. He dared not linger at the entrance of the intensive care unit, fearing that the woman inside, who was immersed in grief, would notice something amiss and mistake him for some kind of scheming villain.

Just then, an older woman carrying a thermos came out of a regular ward next door. She looked like she had just delivered food to a patient and was about to go downstairs.

Jiang Shou's eyes darted around, and he had an idea. "These middle-aged women who spend all their time in the hospital wards are definitely the intelligence hub of the entire inpatient department." He carried the plastic bag and followed the woman at a leisurely pace, preparing to find an opportunity to get closer to her downstairs.

Jiang Shou was walking down the stairs. Just as he reached the corner between the third and second floors, he suddenly heard a series of steady and powerful footsteps coming from below.

"Captain Xia, the head of neurosurgery at the county hospital made it very clear before that although Chen Sancan's cerebral cortex is not dead, it has suffered extremely severe stimulation, and there is no sign of him waking up anytime soon." The slightly younger male police officer following behind said with a hint of helplessness, "For the past two weeks, we've been running to the intensive care unit, but apart from disturbing the family's rest, we haven't gotten any information at all."

The policewoman leading the way didn't stop. "Zhao Meini's case has had a terrible impact. Right now, apart from a few blurry footprints at the crime scene, there are no substantial clues." Her voice was crisp and efficient. "This is the only breakthrough we have right now. Regardless of whether Chen Sancan wakes up or not, we have to come and check the situation. What if there's a miracle?"

police?!

Jiang Shou, who was walking up the stairs, suddenly felt a jolt in his heart and subconsciously stopped, looking down the stairs.

Two figures, a man and a woman, dressed in summer police uniforms, were seen walking side by side up the steps from the second floor.

The male officer walking on the outside looked like a young man with a buzz cut who had just joined the force, while the one walking on the inside, referred to as "Captain Xia," was a young female police officer.

Because he was standing at a high place looking down, and because the policewoman was wearing a police hat with the brim pulled down low, Jiang Shou couldn't see her full appearance at first glance.

But in the dim light of the stairwell, Jiang Shou's extremely sharp eyes still instantly caught sight of the delicate, straight nose under the brim of the hat, the naturally red lips, and the perfectly sculpted chin.

Of course, the most crucial factor is Jiang Shou's superior vantage point...

The light blue summer police shirt, which should have looked serious and stiff, was stretched taut on her with a breathtaking tension. The bulging curves beneath the uniform, as she climbed the stairs, even seemed to tremble with an astonishing tension, as if the buttons of the uniform were about to burst off at any moment.

Big.

That's freaking huge.

Jiang Shou felt his Dao heart, which should have been focused on cultivating a pure and desireless mind, shatter with that jump and sway.

"Amitabha Buddha... Do not look at what is improper, do not look at what is improper..."

Jiang Shou silently recited a Taoist name in his heart, and then... very sincerely, he secretly glanced at it a couple more times.

The two groups passed each other on the landing at the corner of the stairs.

Seemingly noticing Jiang Shou's somewhat strange gaze, the policewoman, who had been talking to her colleague with her head slightly lowered, suddenly looked up.

It was a bright and beautiful face with a pair of lovely peach blossom eyes, but her gaze was unusually sharp, and she glanced sharply at Jiang Shou.

Like a cold blade drawn from its sheath, it exudes a sense of scrutiny and oppression.

Their eyes met briefly in mid-air for a second.

"Whoa..."

Jiang Shou secretly marveled, but on the surface he pretended to be a nonchalant gentleman, even giving the policewoman a slight nod naturally. He then carried the plastic bag in his hand and continued walking downstairs at a leisurely pace.

The policewoman named Xia Qiu frowned slightly.

With her keen intuition honed over years of criminal investigation work, she clearly sensed something amiss in the young man's eyes as they brushed past her. But seeing him carrying vegetables and fruit, dressed like an ordinary family member visiting a sick relative, she assumed there was nothing unusual about him.

"Captain Xia? What are you looking at?" The male police officer behind her followed her gaze and looked down.

"It's nothing." Xia Qiu withdrew her gaze, her voice returning to its usual cool tone. "Let's go, to the intensive care unit."

Jiang Shou savored the fleeting glimpse he had just caught. "Wow... a small place like Qiyun County actually has such a beautiful policewoman? That figure, that aura, tsk tsk tsk."

After a moment of reflection, Jiang Shou didn't forget his business and quickened his pace, chasing after the elderly woman carrying the thermos as she walked out of the inpatient building.

……

"Auntie! Auntie, please wait a moment!"

Under the sycamore tree at the hospital entrance, Jiang Shou took three steps at a time and called out to the middle-aged woman in front of him familiarly.

The middle-aged woman stopped and turned around, looking at the extremely handsome young man in front of her with some confusion: "Young man, did you call me? Is there something you need?"

Jiang Shou put on a simple, honest smile, leaned closer, and lowered his voice: "Auntie, here's what happened. I just came from the countryside today to visit my uncle on the third floor. When I passed the intensive care unit, I heard the family member inside crying so terribly, and there was a little girl doing her homework by the bedside. I see you also came down from the third floor. Do you know who's lying in there? What happened? Why are they crying like that?"

Upon hearing this, and given Jiang Shou's deceptively handsome and harmless appearance, the woman's initially wary gaze instantly transformed into a burning desire for gossip. She let out a long sigh.

"Sigh, they're a pitiful family."

The woman looked around, then moved closer to Jiang Shou and said in a low voice, "The man lying on the hospital bed is called Chen Sancan. He's the third son of the Chen family in the eastern suburbs of our county. He usually works as a night shift security guard at the Da Zhou Porcelain Factory in the eastern suburbs."

"Security guards?" Jiang Shou raised an eyebrow.

"That's right! It's that dilapidated porcelain factory that's about to go bankrupt." The woman nodded, her tone becoming mysterious and chilling. "I heard that just two weeks ago, while Chen Sancan was on night shift, a truly horrifying murder occurred at the factory!"

The woman lowered her voice even further as she continued, "There was a female worker in the factory who was responsible for painting the porcelain, named Zhao Meini. She was murdered while on night duty in the factory!"

"Oh dear, what a tragedy! I heard she was stabbed more than a dozen times, and blood was everywhere. The most terrifying thing is... the woman's head was chopped off by the killer!"

The middle-aged woman's eyes showed fear as she said, still shaken, "They still haven't found Zhao Meini's head! You can imagine how ruthless that killer must be! The scene was so bad that several police officers vomited when they arrived!"

"A headless female corpse?!" Jiang Shou's pupils suddenly contracted, and he felt a chill run down his spine.

The phrase "blood splattered before them" in the poem "The Coldest Day of Winter" actually means this!

"Then how did Chen Sancan end up in the intensive care unit?" Jiang Shou quickly asked.

"He really had the worst luck imaginable," the old woman said, shaking her head regretfully. "Everyone guessed that when he was on patrol at night, it was pouring rain outside, with thunder and lightning. He was probably patrolling near that factory when a bolt of lightning struck, which is how he saw the headless female corpse on the ground!"

The old woman described it vividly, as if she had witnessed it herself: "Think about it, who wouldn't be scared half to death if they saw a headless dead body in the middle of the night? Chen San must have been terrified on the spot, trying to run away in a panic, but he lost his footing and tumbled down the iron stairs from the second floor!"

"When the day shift staff came to take over the next morning and found him lying at the bottom of the stairs, he was already unconscious."

Jiang Shou's heart skipped a beat. [Thunder roared in the night, blood splattered before him; a terrified soul fell, its spirit lost its place!]

Seeing Jiang Shou's shocked expression, the middle-aged woman's gossipy nature was somewhat satisfied. She continued with a sigh, "With him falling ill, their family has completely collapsed. There were four people in the family: an 11-year-old son, and the one you see in the hospital room is a 9-year-old daughter. His wife, the woman crying in the hospital room, had polio as a child, so her right leg is a little lame. She can't do heavy work and usually makes a living by doing odd jobs at home."

"The entire burden of this family rests on Chen San's shoulders! He's been lying in the intensive care unit for over half a month now, like a living dead person. The doctors have issued several critical condition notices, feeling there's little hope of him waking up. It's truly pitiful, with his two children still so young..." The woman said, her eyes reddening.

Jiang Shou felt a heavy, sour feeling in his heart. In this world, misfortune always seems to strike at the weakest point, and bad luck always seems to find those who are destined for misfortune.

The little girl doing her homework by the hospital bedside, and the woman with a limp who stubbornly held the whole family together. If Chen Sancan were to become a vegetable, this family would be completely ruined.

"Young man, didn't you see two policemen going upstairs when you went downstairs just now?" the old woman suddenly asked.

"I saw it." Jiang Shou nodded. "A man and a woman."

"So they're here to see Chen San." The old woman curled her lip. "Da Zhou Porcelain Factory is an old state-owned factory. Such a heinous murder has happened, and they haven't even found the victim's head yet. The higher-ups are under a lot of pressure. The police are hoping that Chen San will wake up so they can ask him if he saw what the murderer looked like that night."

The middle-aged woman scoffed and waved her hand with absolute certainty: "If you ask me, these policemen are just wasting their time! There's no way Chen San could have seen who the murderer is!"

Jiang Shou was taken aback: "Auntie, how can you be so sure?"

"Are you stupid!" The old woman had a shrewd look on her face, as if she had seen through the vicissitudes of life. "Think about it, if Chen San really saw the murderer's face, do you think the killer would let him go? He fell down the stairs and was unconscious. Wouldn't the killer take advantage of his unconsciousness to stab him in the heart and silence him? Killing one is the same as killing two, right?"

The woman seemed to realize her slip of the tongue, and quickly put her hands together in prayer, bowing towards the air: "Forgive me, forgive me... Amitabha, Bodhisattva, please don't be offended... Bodhisattva, please don't be offended!"

Jiang Shou stood under the sycamore tree at the hospital entrance, his mind flashing back to the pair of red and swollen eyes in front of the hospital bed, and the little girl quietly doing her homework on the edge of the bed.

A gentle autumn breeze blew by, and Jiang Shou stared blankly at the ground, where a few withered yellow leaves were swept up and fell...swirled up and fell again...