Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Triple Blossom Arcane Hall

Without saying another word, I rushed off and bought Bai Rushuang a huge bucket of popcorn, then picked up a large bottle of cola for her as well. She was delighted beyond measure and told me I was really something.

I laughed as I watched her stuffing handful after handful of popcorn into her mouth, then asked whether we could go look for her best friend now.

Bai Rushuang nodded her big eyes furiously and said, “Of course,” then took me into a taxi. In the end, we arrived at a place called the Three Flowers Arcane Hall.

“What kind of place is this?” I asked in confusion as I looked at the words above the entrance.

“To put it simply, it’s a flower shop. But in fact, it’s a metaphysical hall. A place that handles ghost-catching and exorcism!”

After going inside, I saw all kinds of flowers and herbs arranged throughout the shop, and the air was filled with a faint floral fragrance. At that moment, beside a flower stand in the shop, a young woman wearing a white tailored suit and a head of wine-red hair was holding a pair of scissors, concentrating on trimming the leaves and stems of the flowers.

The girl looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four, and she was beautiful too. She was even comparable to Bai Rushuang, though the aura they gave off was completely different. Bai Rushuang was the playful, cute, innocent type on the surface, though she was actually clever underneath. This girl, on the other hand, had a very elegant air about her, giving off the impression of a career woman with real presence.

“Since this is a flower shop, why not give it a fancier name? Why call it Three Flowers? There aren’t even just three kinds of flowers here.”

Bai Rushuang gave me a hard tap on the forehead and said that the name had nothing to do with there being only three kinds of flowers. Rather, her best friend had been born with Three-Flower Protection, and she was a true Maoshan orthodox inheritor.

I was startled, naturally knowing what Three-Flower Protection represented.

In truth, Three-Flower Protection also represented a kind of destiny pattern known as the Three-Flower Fate. Like the Nine Yin Fate or the Purple Star Fate, it was an extremely rare destiny pattern. It was said that someone born under the Three-Flower Protection must have been a great and virtuous benefactor, or a high monk of Buddhism, in a previous life, and only then would the Three-Flower Fate take shape in this life. What made this destiny pattern most special was that, in times of danger, three golden lotuses would appear within the body of its bearer, shielding them. Because of that, the Three-Flower Fate was also called Three-Flower Protection.

Although the Three-Flower Fate was not as outrageous as my Nine Yin Severed Veins, it was still unquestionably a top-tier Daoist prodigy. I had never expected to encounter someone with such a fate in this vast metropolis.

When she saw us, the girl put down the scissors in her hand at once and walked over with a smile. Bai Rushuang immediately shoved the popcorn and cola into my arms and rushed over to hug her.

“Yu-jie, I missed you so much.”

The girl pinched Bai Rushuang’s cheek in mock disgust and said, “You little brat, all you ever do is talk nonsense. If you missed me, why did it take you so long to come see me?”

Bai Rushuang bared her teeth and tugged her hand away. “Yu-jie, you’re hurting me,” she said, then added, “I’ve just been busy, haven’t I?”

The girl laughed then, and after sizing me up from head to toe, she said, “Busy dating? Impressive, Rushuang. You’ve only been in the big city for less than a year, and you’re already learning romance.”

Bai Rushuang’s face turned red at once, and I, too, felt somewhat embarrassed. I hurriedly introduced myself to the girl. “Hello, my name is Wu Dao. I’m Bai Rushuang’s friend.”

“Not her boyfriend?” the girl asked seriously.

For a moment I didn’t know how to answer. She burst out laughing and said she was only joking, then introduced herself as Qin Yu, Bai Rushuang’s best friend.

After getting acquainted for a while, we told Qin Yu why we had come. During that time, I also learned that Qin Yu had quite an impressive background. She was an inner disciple of Maoshan, and had specifically been sent down the mountain for three years of training. Though I had no idea exactly what her standing was within Maoshan, I guessed it certainly wasn’t low.

Afterward, Qin Yu took us to the second floor of the flower shop. The decor upstairs was completely different from downstairs. Below was a flower shop through and through, while upstairs was decorated like a feng shui and metaphysics salon.

Qin Yu sat down at the desk with her laptop in front of her, while Bai Rushuang and I sat on the sofa nearby. After I finished telling her everything that had happened earlier, her reaction was much the same as Bai Rushuang’s had been at first: she frowned lightly.

She also found it incredible that the same person could die twice within half a month. Even as a Maoshan disciple, she had never heard of such a thing. As for the soul-calling matter, Qin Yu said she might be able to give it a try. But her thoughts were similar to ours, and she told me not to get my hopes too high. After all, Han Qiang had already been dead for more than forty years, and there was a very good chance he was no longer even in the underworld.

I nodded, thanked Qin Yu first, then called Peng Li and asked him to have Peng Lei send me Han Qiang’s birth date and other information.

Very quickly, Peng Li obtained Han Qiang’s birth details from Peng Lei and sent them to my phone by text message.

I immediately told Qin Yu all of Han Qiang’s information. Then she got up, drew the curtains over the windows, switched off the lights in the room, and finally lit an ancient bronze lamp on her desk that glowed with a faint blue light.

Bai Rushuang explained that it was a soul-guiding lamp, a Maoshan magic treasure. If one wanted to summon a soul up from the underworld, this lamp had to be used. Only by using it would the underworld know that a Maoshan disciple was calling a soul with the lamp, and would then consider whether to accept the summons.

I nodded and said nothing more, simply sitting quietly with Bai Rushuang on the sofa and watching Qin Yu work her spell.

Soon, Qin Yu drew a soul-calling talisman before the soul-guiding lamp, then wrote Han Qiang’s birth details on another sheet of yellow paper. At that, a streak of blue Daoist fire rose from her fingertip. She lit the talisman and the yellow paper, then tossed them into an iron tray in front of the lamp.

Then Qin Yu formed hand seals and chanted, “Wandering soul drifting without rest, where may you remain? The three souls descend early, the seven spirits come forth...”

As the incantation rang out, I suddenly felt the temperature around me drop several degrees all at once, and it seemed as though bursts of chill wind were blowing in from outside the window. I shivered uncontrollably and pulled my clothes tight around me, yet still felt a bone-deep cold.

Qin Yu spent about ten minutes performing the soul-calling rite, and all the while the surrounding atmosphere remained eerily strange. It made one’s spine prickle with cold, and faintly, I even seemed to hear wailing and howling ghosts coming from within the room. Under the pale glow of the blue lamp, I could even make out dark shadows flickering across the walls.

I had been eagerly waiting for Han Qiang’s ghost to appear before me at that very moment, but to my disappointment, even after Qin Yu finished the ritual, I still did not see Han Qiang summoned.

At last, the blue flame atop the soul-guiding lamp went out. The temperature in the room gradually rose again, and the ghostly wailing that had sounded at first vanished without a trace.

Bai Rushuang quickly went to draw back the curtains, while Qin Yu used a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Then she cast me an apologetic look and said, “Wu Dao, it seems Han Qiang has already been reborn. I can’t bring his soul back up.”

I nodded and remained very grateful to Qin Yu, then said that if he had already been reborn, then even if the Grand Supreme Elder Lord himself came, he still would not be able to summon Han Qiang’s soul back.

“Not necessarily reborn,” Qin Yu said thoughtfully. “What if he’s become an underworld official in the netherworld? Actually, there is one more method we could try, though it may be somewhat risky, and the chances of success aren’t high. Even if Han Qiang really is serving as an underworld official, you’d still have less than a one-in-ten chance of finding him.”

My eyes lit up immediately. “What method?”

Finding Han Qiang was the only way to save my brother, so even if the odds were slim, I was willing to try.

Qin Yu nodded and said, “It’s actually not complicated. We use a soul-crossing technique to send you down there, to the underworld, and you bring Han Qiang back up.”