After Ximen Lian finished his story, the middle-aged man abruptly stood up. He walked over to the windowsill and then waved for Ximen to join him. Once Ximen approached, the man pointed to a man in his thirties standing downstairs and said to Ximen, "Watch this man closely. See if you can tell what he's about to say."
With that, the man pulled out his phone, dialed a few numbers, and said into the receiver, "Wang Ziheng, say something casually toward the upper floor, but keep your voice down." As soon as he finished speaking, Ximen blurted out, "Director Qiu, wishing you good health!"
Director Qiu then redialed the number to confirm what had just been said. After verifying it, he looked up and gave Ximen one last glance. "I didn't expect you'd be the one to stumble into this gift," he muttered. Only later did Ximen learn that after he fainted from fright, he had somehow awakened his Heavenly Eye—and the ability to read lips was a side effect of that.
It was, as the saying goes, a two-for-one deal. But Ximen wasn't in the mood to appreciate such luck at the time. The mysterious Director Qiu seemed to know everything. Just as Ximen wanted to ask more, the middle-aged man had already turned to Summer Director and said, "Do as I instructed. The main entrance and the farewell hall must be rearranged within seven days. If anything comes up, contact that Xu guy—he knows how to reach me."
Without waiting for a reply, Director Qiu turned and made to leave. Seeing his last hope about to walk out the door, Ximen couldn't let go. He quickly stepped in front of the man to block his path. Summer Director hadn't introduced them properly, so Ximen didn't know how to address him. Judging from his age—clearly a bit older than Ximen's own father—he didn't think too much and stammered, "Uncle, please don't leave me to die like this! Since I've met you, you're the one who can save me. If you don't help me, I'll either be scared to death or spend the rest of my life in a psychiatric hospital!"
As he spoke, Ximen's knees gave out and he was about to kneel in front of Director Qiu. Before he could, the office door behind him swung open. Wang Ziheng—the man who had been flattering Qiu downstairs earlier—walked in. As if he hadn't seen Ximen or Director Summer at all, he went straight to Qiu's side and pulled out a half-burnt yellow talisman paper, handing it to him. "I checked. There was indeed an old lady cremated yesterday morning. The resentment is strong. Someone's in for a bad time..."
Ximen immediately followed up, "That unlucky soul... is probably me..." Though he had been annoyed with Wang Ziheng barging in unannounced, once he heard "an old lady was cremated yesterday morning," he instantly realized what Wang was referring to.
Director Qiu had already heard the events of that morning from Ximen, so Wang's report didn't surprise him. Glancing at the half-burnt talisman, Qiu looked again at Ximen and asked, "What exactly did you do to her? She just died and already holds that much resentment."
With that, he flicked the yellow paper from his fingers—it floated in a straight line and landed precisely in the ashtray on Director Summer's desk. The instant it touched the tray, it burst into flame with a flash. Director Summer instinctively took a step back, clearly uneasy about the burning talisman. He only stepped out from behind the desk once the yellow paper had burned completely into ash.
Watching the talisman turn to ashes, Director Qiu finally spoke to Summer: "Give me a full report on the deceased who was cremated yesterday morning—any religious beliefs, cause of death, whether any rituals were performed before or after her death. Other than the anomalies he mentioned, were there any other strange occurrences during cremation—any unusual sounds? Also, where is she buried now…"
Qiu rattled off his list of questions without pause and didn't even check if Summer was writing it down before turning and walking out the door. Though Ximen knew this meant Qiu was finally taking action on his behalf, he still didn't dare let the man out of sight before the matter was resolved. He trailed closely behind Director Qiu all the way to the parking lot.
Finally, Qiu turned around, looking a little exasperated. "You're not expecting me to go dig up her grave right now and scatter her ashes to avenge you, are you?"
After being terrified half to death the night before, Ximen clung desperately to someone like Qiu, a man who clearly had power. No way was he letting go that easily. Just as Ximen was tearfully begging Qiu to take him in as a disciple or at least not leave him behind, his phone suddenly rang.
It was Director Summer calling. After Qiu had fired off his long list of instructions, Summer had immediately begun investigating what he could. Since he didn't have Qiu's phone number, he called Ximen instead to relay the message: the old lady who was cremated yesterday morning had been buried directly in Longshan Cemetery, located in the outskirts of the city.
After hearing the cemetery location relayed by Ximen Lian, Director Qiu squinted thoughtfully for a moment before speaking to Ximen, who was still clinging to him like a leech: "I'm heading back to the capital first thing tomorrow. If you've got the guts, come with me to Longshan Cemetery tonight. I'll settle your issue before dawn."
The moment Ximen heard the words "go to a cemetery at night," he sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. Just last night, his window had been covered with countless black human-like shadows. The thought alone made his skin crawl. Now he was being asked to walk into a graveyard after dark? He was trembling just imagining it.
Director Qiu noticed Ximen's unease and sneered, "I've only got one night. After tonight, I might not return to your city for another ten years—if ever. What you're dealing with can't be solved by grabbing some random street-side fortune-teller."
As Qiu spoke, Wang Ziheng, standing beside him, began to grow impatient. He frowned and glanced at Ximen, but directed his words toward his superior. "Chief Gao expects us back by noon tomorrow. There's no need to waste time on this guy, is there? Qiu, just let him file a report. It'll end up on our desk anyway. Tell the folks in Section One to flag his case as priority when it comes through. The spirit's newly deceased—it won't stir up too much trouble."
Director Qiu shot him a glare. "By the time it reaches the Bureau through official channels, they'll be carting his cold corpse out the door." Then he scoffed and added, "So now a fresh ghost doesn't even register with you? Have you forgotten how you got into the Bureau yourself? If I'd gone through channels with your case back then, they'd be burning joss paper at your five-year memorial by now."
Wang Ziheng's face turned red at Qiu's words. He lowered his head, not daring to respond.
Ignoring him, Director Qiu fished out a small wax pellet from his breast pocket. He crushed it gently to reveal a dark-colored pill. Handing it to Ximen Lian, he said, "Swallow this pill with some baijiu. The stronger the alcohol, the better. This will temporarily suppress your Heavenly Eye—meaning, you won't see those… things for a while."
He paused, gave Ximen another glance, and said in a tone that brooked no argument: "Six o'clock sharp, I'll be waiting at Longshan Cemetery. If you're not there by ten past, go find someone else."
Naturally, Ximen Lian had no intention of leaving Qiu's side, not until the matter of the ghost was fully resolved. His plan was to stick to the man like glue.
But Qiu didn't give him the chance. He walked straight toward the black Audi parked outside. Wang Ziheng rushed ahead to open the door. Before Ximen could catch up, Qiu had already gotten into the car. With a click, Wang slammed the door shut—it locked immediately. No matter how Ximen tugged and yanked, the door wouldn't open.
"I told you—see you at the cemetery at six. What are you still whining about?" Wang said gruffly. He slid into the driver's seat, but before shutting the door, turned back one last time: "If you've got time, you might want to prepare a little for tonight."
That remark jolted Ximen. Prepare? "Prepare what?" he asked. But Wang didn't reply. He slammed the door and drove off, the car vanishing into the distance.
Ximen chased after it for a few steps, shouting, "Just tell me what I need to prepare! Is it so hard to say?!"
But the Audi was long gone. He gave up. He considered flagging down a taxi to follow them, but worried about offending Director Qiu further. In the end, after some hesitation, he hoisted the bag of salt he had been carrying and returned to Director Xia's office.
When Ximen walked in, Director Xia was standing beside his desk, puzzling over how to deal with the ash from the talisman that had burned earlier. As Ximen entered, a gust of wind followed him in, blowing the ashes completely out of the ashtray and scattering them across the floor.
"You ever heard of knocking?" Director Xia asked, exasperated. Then, seeing it was Ximen, his tone changed, his expression complex. "I thought you left with Qiu and that kid. You came back?"
"They told me to get ready." Ximen didn't bother with formalities. He dumped the half-full salt bag onto the couch across from Director Xia and slumped into a seat himself. "Director Xia, seriously—who are those two? Especially the older guy. What's their background? Did we owe them some huge favor or something?"
Initially, Director Xia had no intention of explaining. But Ximen persisted, badgering him relentlessly. And besides, Xia did feel somewhat guilty—after all, it was he who had dragged Ximen back to work in the middle of the night, which had ultimately led to this disaster. That lingering guilt loosened his tongue. After locking the office door, Director Xia finally said, "There's been too much strange stuff happening at the funeral home lately. A few of the old-timers think the feng shui around here has changed. I pulled some strings—a lot of strings—to get Director Qiu to come take a look."
To tell the truth, even Xia himself didn't fully understand Qiu's true background. He only knew that both Qiu and Wang were from some secretive institution in the capital. Years ago, the previous director of the funeral home had mentioned this mysterious agency in passing. At the time, Xia had laughed it off as myth or folklore. He never imagined such an organization might actually exist.
That old director had once been a middle school teacher before joining the Civil Affairs Department. During the Cultural Revolution, he had spent several years imprisoned in a cowshed. One of the Red Guards assigned to watch him was a former student, and as a result, kept a relatively loose eye on him. Locked up with him was an elderly Taoist priest from a local temple. With nothing better to do, the two would engage in heated debates about feng shui and metaphysics. Over time, the old director had developed a deep interest in geomancy, even forming some original theories of his own.
A few months back, that same old director returned to the funeral home to help send off the Taoist priest—who had finally "ascended" (though "ascension to the Pure Land" is a Buddhist concept, we'll borrow the phrase here). It was then that he noticed changes around the funeral home's feng shui. Due to nearby municipal construction, the surrounding energy had shifted. The place, already heavy with Yin energy, was showing signs of Yin convergence, with ghostly Qi condensing and refusing to dissipate. If left unchecked, it could become an extreme Yin location—a site of immense supernatural danger.
Unfortunately, while the old director could see the problem, he had no idea how to resolve it.
He told Xia about his findings. Xia, who trusted the old director's feng shui expertise, believed him completely—but still had no solution. In the end, the old director contacted a retired former police chief in another city, who then asked a local blind fortune-teller surnamed Xu to help pass on the request. And that's how Director Qiu and Wang Ziheng had been brought in.
Qiu had provided a method to break the negative formation, though its effects had yet to be observed. At the very least, it now seemed that thanks to their arrival, Ximen Lian might be the first to benefit.