One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

Detention center, visiting room.

Through the thick explosion-proof glass, the iron door was pushed open, and Wang Daqiang walked in blankly.

At the guard's prompting, he slowly sat down on the iron chair and mechanically picked up the telephone receiver. When he raised his empty eyes and saw that the person sitting across the glass was Jiang Shou, dressed in ordinary sportswear, Wang Daqiang was jolted.

"Master Jiang... Master Jiang?!"

A flicker of emotion stirred in Wang Daqiang's lifeless eyes. His face was filled with surprise, then his eyes instantly reddened, and his hand holding the receiver trembled uncontrollably.

He never imagined that in his most desperate moment, when his family was destroyed, he was abandoned by everyone, and he was locked in this iron cage, the first person to come to see him would be this young abbot with whom he had only met once.

"Boss Wang, you look much worse than when I last saw you." Jiang Shou picked up the receiver, looked at the haggard man on the other end, and sighed.

"Master Jiang...I...I regret it!"

A simple opening line shattered Wang Daqiang's last psychological defenses. This chubby man in his thirties, who had built his business from scratch, covered his face and wept uncontrollably through the glass.

Over the next ten minutes, Wang Daqiang intermittently recounted to Jiang Shou the human tragedy that had occurred in the past few days.

It turned out that ever since Jiang Shou visited his house last time and broke the deadly evil spirit in the master bedroom, Wang Daqiang had finally been able to get a few good nights' sleep.

Once he got a good night's sleep, his mind, which had been foggy from the malevolent energy, became completely clear.

As a businessman who rose from humble beginnings to build such a large building materials business, he was definitely not stupid. Once he regained his senses, recalling the ambiguous smile in Jiang Shou's eyes as he looked at his wife, Wang Xiaoyan, before he left that day, and all the flimsy excuses his wife had used to insist on changing the bedroom layout and placing a large potted cactus there…

Wang Daqiang couldn't help but feel suspicious.

Once the suspicion arose, he acted swiftly. He secretly took a few strands of his son's hair with the follicles still attached and sent them overnight to the city's identification center for an expedited DNA paternity test.

"Master Jiang, you have no idea..." Wang Daqiang's face was covered in tears and snot, his voice trembling, "That paternity test report was like a bolt from the blue! My son, whom I cherished like my own precious darling, isn't even mine!"

"I was sitting in the car, trembling with anger, holding that piece of paper, ready to go home and confront her." Wang Daqiang's eyes slowly reddened, and his breathing became heavy. "But as soon as I opened the door, I saw my mother... tumble down the stairs from the second floor, rolling all the way to my feet, motionless."

"Wang Xiaoyan stood on the stairs, pretending to scream and cry, saying that her mother hadn't stepped properly and had fallen down the stairs..."

Wang Daqiang's voice choked up as he spoke.

He didn't even bother to question his wife about the test results; he picked up his frail old mother and rushed to the county hospital like a madman.

Outside the emergency room, the doctor immediately issued a critical condition notice.

The elderly woman's fall resulted in extensive intracranial hemorrhage, compressing nerves and causing a severe brain hemorrhage. Because she was over seventy years old, her bodily functions were declining, and the mortality rate for craniotomy exceeded ninety percent.

The doctor's words were euphemistic, but the meaning was clear: it was basically possible to declare the patient to be in a vegetative state, or to tell the family to prepare for the worst.

The moment he received the critical condition notice, Wang Daqiang completely broke down and cried in the hospital corridor.

When he turned around, he saw Wang Xiaoyan standing to the side, still pretending to wipe away tears.

The humiliation of being cuckolded, coupled with the deep-seated hatred of his mother's murder, instantly ignited all of Wang Daqiang's rationality. He went completely berserk, grabbing a heavy stainless steel trash can from the hospital corridor and chasing after Wang Xiaoyan like a madman, relentlessly beating her until security guards held him down.

"Master Jiang, I don't regret hitting her! I wish I could kill her!" Wang Daqiang gasped for breath.

"I'm locked up here, and I don't care about my reputation, my assets, or being cuckolded. All I worry about is my mother's safety!"

Wang Daqiang raised his head, his eyes filled with desperate pleading: "She's still in the intensive care unit of the county hospital, her life hanging in the balance. My vicious wife absolutely cannot go to take care of her. I have a cousin, but I can't even call him, and I don't know if he can make it back from out of town..."

"Master Jiang!" Wang Daqiang slammed his head heavily against the table in front of him through the glass. "I know I don't have the face to beg you, but I really have no one I can trust here. I beg you... I beg you to have mercy and go to the hospital to check on my mother. As long as she has a breath left... I, Wang Daqiang, will serve you like a slave for the rest of my life!"

Looking at the humble man across the glass, Jiang Shou felt a pang of unease.

"Boss Wang, don't get agitated," Jiang Shou said gently. "It's fate that we've met. Don't worry, just stay inside. I'll go over to the hospital later to keep an eye on things for you. The old lady is a lucky person; don't wear yourself out."

"Thank you! Thank you, Master Jiang! I will never forget your great kindness!" Wang Daqiang held the receiver, tears welling up in his eyes again.

"Time's up!"

The police officer on duty knocked on the glass. The fifteen-minute visiting time passed in the blink of an eye.

Jiang Shou nodded, put down the receiver, stood up, and walked out of the visiting room.

Stepping out of the detention center's reception hall, the sunlight outside was somewhat dazzling.

Jiang Shougang was about to ride his tricycle when he was somewhat surprised to see Xia Qiu leaning against a police car by the door, holding a bottle of mineral water, seemingly waiting for him.

Seeing Jiang Shou come out, Xia Qiu straightened up and handed him an unopened bottle of mineral water.

"I just went to the public security brigade to check on Wang Daqiang's case," Xia Qiu said calmly. "It was a physical altercation caused by a marital conflict, an impulsive act when a person loses control of their emotions. The woman's injuries were assessed as minor, so it's going through the public security administration and punishment procedures. There shouldn't be any major problems; she'll be administratively detained for seven days."

Jiang Shou unscrewed the bottle cap, took a sip of water, and nodded in understanding. Then, he looked at Xia Qiu: "What about his accusation that his wife pushed the old lady down the stairs?"

Xia Qiu shook her head, her brows furrowing slightly: "There is no evidence."

"There were no surveillance cameras at the scene, only the statements of the parties involved. The woman insisted that the elderly man fell from the building on his own," Xia Qiu explained matter-of-factly. "Legally, we cannot classify it as intentional homicide based solely on the husband's one-sided emotional suspicion."

Jiang Shou remained silent for a moment.

He took two steps closer and described to Xia Qiu the feng shui layout of the bedroom he had seen at Wang Daqiang's house the day before yesterday, in detail.

"A beam looms overhead, a cactus is pointed at your forehead, and the windows are completely blocked by green plants." Jiang Shou looked into Xia Qiu's eyes, his tone calm but with a hint of coldness. "Captain Xia, these things together create what is scientifically called an oxygen-deficient environment and long-term psychological pressure."

"That woman had been plotting to kill him for a long time, wanting to slowly wear Wang Daqiang down in bed with this kind of subtle tactic. She had this very clear intention to harm him, so pushing the old lady downstairs was definitely not an accident."

After hearing these words, Xia Qiu unconsciously tightened her grip on the mineral water bottle.

Although she remained skeptical of the superstitious feng shui theories, Jiang Shou's explanation of "murder with a soft knife" based on basic scientific principles was indeed logically sound. A woman who meticulously planned to create an oxygen-deprived environment to murder her husband.

Having worked in criminal investigation for so many years, her intuition told her that Jiang Shou's deduction was very likely correct. Wang Xiaoyan was indeed a prime suspect.

However, intuition cannot be used to convict.

"Jiang Shou, I understand what you mean." Xia Qiu sighed, a hint of helplessness in his cold eyes: "This kind of criminal charge must not be filed based on subjective conjecture."

"Because in court, you can't expect the judge to convict her of intentional homicide based on a reason like 'she placed a cactus and ruined the feng shui.'" Xia Qiu looked into Jiang Shou's eyes, which were as clear as a mountain spring. "The only breakthrough now is if the old lady wakes up and makes the accusation herself."

"However..." Xia Qiu turned to look in the direction of the county hospital, "The feedback from the hospital is that the old lady's condition is not optimistic. In most cases, she won't wake up."