PD -Chapter 119 Not Just One

I gave Shentu a sideways glance, but thinking about it carefully, what this woman said did make sense. We had indeed been overly dependent on detection equipment before.

I used to even feel quite proud of myself for combining Taoist techniques with modern advanced technology…

But ever since Tang Shanshan’s incident, I had gradually come to realize that the old saying—“you still need strong fundamentals to work iron”—wasn’t wrong at all.

So I had already started abandoning many of the tools I had modified before… such as the opportunistic Soul-Calming Ruler, and a series of auxiliary devices.

Later, when handling many cases, I consciously began to focus on developing my own spiritual power, and also started experimenting with many of the secret techniques in the Records of the Heavenly Mystery, techniques I had never used before.

During this period, not only had my spiritual power increased tremendously… but my control over it had also improved to an unprecedented level.

Now, even without a magnetic field detector, I could still open my spiritual perception network and probe areas with abnormal magnetic fields.

Earlier, I had asked Liu Xiaopeng to take out the detector partly as an excuse—using formaldehyde detection as a pretext so we could have a reason to come back later—but also to confirm whether my own perception was truly accurate.

“There’s a big problem in this house,” I sighed.

“Right, and it’s not just one problem,” said Shentu.

Liu Xiaopeng froze. “Why would so many sinister entities gather in that room?”

Shentu frowned slightly, thinking for a moment before saying, “The aura of malice and yin energy I sense is extremely ancient and heavy. It’s something old… and it may have existed there for a very long time.”

She glanced at Liu Xiaopeng before continuing, “Maybe… that child was right just now. It’s been in your house since you were little.”

Liu Xiaopeng frowned and looked out at the corridor-style apartment building, as if trying hard to recall his childhood memories.

After a long pause, he held his head and shook it. “I really can’t remember anything about this place… I only vaguely remember that my parents and I lived in Room 309.”

“Don’t be discouraged. We’ll figure it out,” I sighed, patting his shoulder.

Liu Xiaopeng stared out the window, lost in thought. After a while, he steadied himself and turned to me.

“We can’t just ignore that woman and her son, right? We have to help them.”

I thought for a moment, then took out a business card from the car’s glove compartment and handed it to him, telling him to give it to the woman in 309 and tell her to call us if anything happened.

Then I started the car, turning the wheel as I said, “First we need to get them out of there. Only then can we act freely… otherwise we’ll alert whatever’s inside and also make that woman suspicious of us.”

“Let’s grab a meal first and find a place to stay.”

With that, I drove out of the courtyard and had Liu Xiaopeng use his phone to book two hotel rooms through a nearby deal.

The hotel was about four kilometers from the apartment block. After arriving, we checked in quickly and ate a simple meal at a small restaurant nearby.

By evening, just as we were about to head back to the apartment, my phone suddenly rang.

I checked it—an unknown local number. I didn’t know anyone else here, so it had to be the woman from Room 309.

I paused with my hand still on the car door and looked at Liu Xiaopeng. He immediately understood what I meant.

This call definitely meant something bad had happened.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Is… is this Mr. Qiu?” came the trembling voice of the woman from 309.

“Something… something happened. Xiao Tong is missing!”

Her voice was shaking—she had clearly just been crying.

“Don’t panic, ma’am! We’re coming right now!” I said, motioning for Liu Xiaopeng and Shentu to get in the car, putting the call on speaker. “Did you search the building?”

The old-style apartment building had been renovated, but many residents had moved out, leaving several floors empty… so it was possible the child had wandered into an unlocked vacant room.

“I searched everywhere, up and down the entire building, but he’s not there!” she cried. “I just turned around to fold some clothes in the room, and he was gone from the living room!”

“Don’t worry, we’re on our way,” I said, slamming the accelerator. The car sped toward the apartment block.

We drove extremely fast and arrived in under ten minutes.

The door to Room 309 was open, and a group of elderly neighbors had gathered outside, helping search.

“Any luck finding the child?” we asked the tearful woman at the door as we pushed through the crowd.

She shook her head. “We’ve searched everywhere… nothing.”

I sighed, about to figure out how to start searching, when I noticed that Shentu, standing behind me, glanced into the room and walked inside on her own.

Frowning, I didn’t know what she was doing, but I followed her in.

Shentu walked straight into the cramped kitchen of 309, her gaze locking onto an old refrigerator beside the cabinet.

My heart tightened.

Don’t tell me…

Before I could react, she bent down and opened the fridge.

A child’s hand immediately came into view.

“Xiao Tong!” the woman screamed, rushing forward and pulling the child out of the refrigerator.

The child’s limbs were bluish from the cold, his face pale, his consciousness faint… if they had found him any later, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

“Hurry, take him to the hospital. Use our car!” Liu Xiaopeng said immediately, taking the child and grabbing a thick coat to wrap him up.

We rushed him to the nearest hospital, driving like the wind.

Fortunately, the weather wasn’t too cold. After arriving, the child soon regained consciousness, though he developed a fever from the prolonged exposure to the cold. The doctor gave him fever medicine, started an IV drip, and recommended overnight observation.

Perhaps due to the medication, the child soon fell asleep in the ward. While we went to get the medicine, we sent the woman away for a moment.

I was about to use my spiritual perception to enter Xiao Tong’s subconscious and investigate what had happened…

But Shentu suddenly grabbed my arm and stopped me.

I froze and looked at her, about to lose my temper, when she walked around to the other side of the bed.

The child was already asleep.

Shentu extended two fingers and slowly pressed them against his forehead…

And then I saw it—an extremely faint black-red spiritual energy began to swirl around the child’s head.

Above Shentu’s own head, a similar black-red glow also emerged, and within it, an image began to form.