One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

"A very ominous sign?!"

Jiang Shou stared at those four words, gasped, and felt a chill run down his spine to the back of his head.

Since he obtained this Winter Solstice Token, he has never seen such an ominous divination text!

"A villa in the northern suburbs? Three murdered women? And one of them is going to turn into a vengeful ghost in red?!" Jiang Shou swallowed hard, his brows furrowing into a deep frown.

In folk tales and old men's notes, the words "red-clothed" often represent the most ferocious and troublesome vengeful ghosts! These spirits suffered great injustice and torment before their death, and after death, they transform into red-clothed vengeful ghosts, bloodthirsty and cruel.

"To convert them to enlightenment is a great merit..." Jiang Shou looked at the last sentence and felt a fierce internal struggle.

The allure of the words "great merit" was simply too great. He had just tasted the sweetness of breaking through his cultivation level, and if he could acquire this great merit, the branches in his dantian might actually blossom and bear fruit directly.

"Never mind, let's go to the northern suburbs and find out what's going on. This is a big order!"

Jiang Shou stuffed the 100,000 yuan in cash into his backpack and hopped on his new blue three-wheeled motorcycle.

"Let's go check out the situation in the northern suburbs first, and then deposit the money on the way." Jiang Shou twisted the throttle, and the three-wheeled motorcycle headed towards the northern suburbs of the county town, facing the morning breeze.

……

More than an hour later.

Jiang Shou parked his tricycle outside a high-end villa area in the northern suburbs.

The area boasts excellent greenery and is inhabited by the wealthy and powerful. Jiang Shou strolled along the auxiliary road on the outskirts of the villa district. Soon, his gaze settled on the largest, most secluded luxury villa at the far end of the area.

This villa, which should have been magnificent, was now adorned with glaring white banners hanging high outside its gate, and the courtyard was filled with wreaths. Several black luxury cars were parked at the entrance, and the people coming and going were all dressed in black suits, their expressions solemn, clearly indicating that a funeral was being held.

"Three women were murdered, and now they're holding funerals here? Is there any connection?"

Jiang Shou didn't approach rashly. He walked to a convenience store across the street, bought a bottle of mineral water, and casually handed a cigarette to an elderly sanitation worker who was sweeping the street at the entrance.

"Grandpa, why is that big villa across the street hanging white banners? It looks quite intimidating." Jiang Shou asked in a low voice while lighting the old man's cigarette.

The old man took a deep drag of his cigarette, looked around, and lowered his voice mysteriously: "Young man, you're not from around here, are you? That's the home of the secretary of the county's Political and Legal Affairs Commission!"

"The home of the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission?!" Jiang Shou's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes," the old man sighed, gossiping, "I heard that his only son, who's always causing trouble outside, overdosed on drugs...! They're holding a funeral for him right now, and a lot of bigwigs from the county have come to pay their respects."

Jiang Shou's hand, holding the mineral water bottle, froze in mid-air.

The son of the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission? Died of a drug overdose?!

Jiang Shou's mind raced: "But the divination of the year's cold clearly indicates that three women were murdered in this villa, and there's even a red-clad vengeful ghost about to take form..."

"Could it be... that the deaths of those three girls are related to the secretary's son who died from a drug overdose? That he killed them in this villa?!"

The thought of this possibility sent a chill down Jiang Shou's spine.

"No, this matter is too complicated."

Jiang Shou hid in the shadow of the convenience store's eaves, watching the villa from afar.

"The secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission is holding a funeral at home, surrounded by relatives and public officials. If I, a half-baked Taoist priest in a tracksuit, were to run over now and knock on the door, saying, 'Your house is hiding the ghosts of three murdered women…'"

Jiang Shou shuddered: "I bet before I can even finish speaking, I'll be pinned to the ground and taken away, and I might even get a couple of blows from the iron fist of materialism!"

Forcing our way in is definitely not an option; we won't even be able to get through the main gate.

Jiang Shou stroked his chin and paced back and forth in place.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind: "Just because I can't get in doesn't mean 'others' can't!"

Shen Xu is a pure spirit, invisible to ordinary people. Sending her in to infiltrate the villa at night to investigate and find out where the vengeful spirits of the three murdered women are trapped is a perfect, stealthy plan!

"That's settled then! The yang energy is too strong during the day, so Shen Xu can't get out. Let her work overtime tonight!"

Having made up his mind, Jiang Shou decided not to linger outside the villa area.

"Let's deposit this 100,000 yuan first to secure it. After that, I'll go to the seafood market and buy some top-quality thick-cut salmon and live shrimp for Fatty Tiger." Jiang Shou thought to himself as he turned on the accelerator. "This ominous omen is probably too much for me to handle on my own. I need to quickly win over the arrogant cat and deepen our revolutionary friendship. In case of danger, at least I can get a cushion... no, I mean, a helper."

……

Meanwhile, in the office of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Qiyun County Public Security Bureau.

The atmosphere was so oppressive it felt like it had frozen in time. Detective Captain Xia Qiu stood in front of a large whiteboard at the very front of the office.

Her once radiant face now bore an undeniable look of weariness. Deep dark circles clung to her eyes, and her hair was simply tied back with a hair tie, clearly indicating that she hadn't had a proper night's sleep for several consecutive nights.

Xia Qiu stared blankly at the whiteboard, a look of helplessness and anxiety on her face.

On the whiteboard, several large circles were drawn heavily with a glaring red marker.

In the center of these circles, three passport photos of young girls are magnetically attached. The girls in the photos are all smiling brightly, around twenty years old, in the prime of their youth.

However, below the photo, three place names and the date were written very prominently in red pen:

[Qixia Town, night of the 14th] [Near the No. 3 Middle School of the County, night of the 15th] [Shantytown in the East of the City, night of the 16th]

3 days!

For three consecutive days, three heinous cases of young women mysteriously disappearing occurred in Qiyun County, which is not a large county!

The entire county police bureau was under unimaginable pressure. The families of the people who reported the crime sat in the lobby of the police station every day, crying their hearts out. The leaders of the municipal bureau called several times a day to urge progress and issued strict orders to solve the case within a specified time.

However, these three cases seem to have been completely erased with extremely meticulous methods, leaving people with no clues!

"Team Leader Xia..."

Trainee police officer Sun Mingzhou, sporting dark circles under his eyes, walked in carrying a thick stack of case files. His voice was hoarse as he reported to his superior, "The traffic police and the Skynet surveillance team have checked the route again, but it still doesn't work."

Sun Mingzhou walked to the whiteboard and pointed to the first photo of the 22-year-old girl who had gone missing in Qixia Town.

"On the night of the 14th, a worker coming off his night shift in Qixia Town said he thought he saw an old black van without license plates parked near the scene of the incident. But after reviewing all the surveillance footage from the town and surrounding areas, we found that the black van completely disappeared into the blind spot after leaving the town and entering the county road!"

Sun Mingzhou scratched his head in despair: "Moreover, because it was too dark at night, the surveillance cameras couldn't capture the faces of the people in the driver's seat clearly. We can't even be 100% sure whether this black car was the vehicle used to kidnap that girl!"

Xia Qiu gritted her teeth and remained silent, her gaze shifting to the female office worker who had disappeared near the No. 3 Middle School in the county.

"What's even stranger is the incident on the 15th..." Sun Mingzhou swallowed, a chill creeping into his voice, "That road near the county's No. 3 Middle School, the surveillance cameras are usually working perfectly. But in the ten or so minutes that girl passed by on her way home from get off work, two key surveillance cameras on that road... suddenly broke down! They didn't capture anything!"

"Coincidence? There's no way it could be such a coincidence." Xia Qiu said coldly, her voice somewhat hoarse.

She stared at the three photos of young girls on the whiteboard, her hands gripping the edge of the desk so tightly that her knuckles turned white from the force.

"They have extremely strong counter-surveillance capabilities, are familiar with the blind spots of surveillance in the county, and their targets are very clear... all of them are young, single women."

Xia Qiu closed his eyes, repeatedly reorganizing and deducing the clues of the three cases in his mind, but faced with the cases that were like a quagmire, he still could not find any breakthrough.

"What kind of beast is this..." Xia Qiu suddenly opened his eyes and slammed his fist hard on the desk.

For the past two weeks, the cries of the missing girl's family members have been like a tight band around her neck, making it almost impossible for her to breathe...