Chapter Ninety-Seven: Going All In

My vomited blood stained the ground before me a vivid red. The pervasive chill numbed my whole body, and the chest pierced through by that ghostly claw throbbed with such agony that I could hardly breathe.

Zhuo Tianjiang's cry and Zheng Lanxuan's shouts grew distant and hazy, their echoes layering over one another, indistinct and unreal.

Even my vision blurred. The old ghost's hideous face seemed to shift into that of an ordinary man: wrinkles carved deep across his brow, his features tight with a frown, his cheeks gaunt and hollow. He looked like one of the oppressed common people of some long-gone age.

Those long, sharp claws seemed to drive a little deeper into my chest, but by then I was too numb to feel anything at all.

Was I going to die...

No. I still had one talisman.

With difficulty, I reached into my trouser pocket and took out the talisman paper I had never seen before, the one written by Wang Yue and carried here together with the others. Biting down hard, I gathered the last of my strength and slapped it toward the old ghost!

A shriek tore through the air. The old ghost was blasted backward at once. The long ghostly claws withdrew from my chest, and I no longer had even the faintest trace of strength left in my body. I fell backward. Through my blurred vision, I vaguely saw the old ghost turn scarlet, and I heard Zhuo Tianjiang's shocked cry in my ear.

I hit the floor, consciousness utterly gone, the world before me swallowed by darkness.

I slept as though for a very long time. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying in a hospital bed.

I sat up and looked around.

"Brother Luo! You're awake!"

I turned my head. Wang Yue was hurrying toward me from the side.

"You've been lying here for two days!" Wang Yue said.

Two days? Why was I in the hospital again? My head throbbed; my mind was a mess of confusion, everything in it knotted and impossible to sort out.

The ward door opened, and a female student and a handsome young man came in. I stared at them, and then it suddenly came back to me: Zheng Xiao and Zheng Lanxuan! Right. I had been stabbed through the chest by that old ghost's claw. What happened after that? Why was Zheng Xiao all right now?

The two of them came to the bedside. Zheng Xiao said, "Brother Luo, thank you."

"Hm? Oh." I still could not remember what had happened afterward, or how Zheng Xiao had recovered.

She looked at me, her expression touched with relief. "You not only saved my life, you also... untied the knot in my heart."

A knot in her heart? Had I really done that?

"Are you completely better now?" I asked.

Zheng Xiao nodded. "I'm fully recovered."

"Once that old ghost disappeared, Xiaoxiao was fine again," Zheng Lanxuan said.

The old ghost... disappeared? My mind only grew more muddled. It felt as though something very important had happened after that.

I said to Zheng Xiao and Wang Yue, "Could you two step out for a moment? I want to speak with Mr. Zheng alone."

They both nodded, left the room, and closed the door behind them.

I looked at Zheng Lanxuan and asked directly, "That night, after I blacked out, what happened?"

"Nothing much, really. After you pasted that powerful talisman paper on him, that old ghost went scarlet all over and turned into white smoke. Then everything returned to normal, and Xiaoxiao's symptoms vanished too. She rested for two days, and her body recovered by more than half," Zheng Lanxuan said.

"That powerful talisman paper?" I asked in confusion.

"The last one you used before you passed out. It wiped out the old ghost on the spot."

That final talisman was written by Wang Yue! That kid had been hiding his abilities all along. Even with his memory gone, he could still write a talisman that powerful, stronger even than Old Man Ma's, and it had simply erased that old ghost from existence. Just what kind of person was he?

"Oh, right. What did Xiaoxiao mean by the knot in her heart?" I asked.

Zheng Lanxuan shook his head. "I don't know. But after this happened, she became much more cheerful, and she doesn't seem to resist me as much as she used to."

Perhaps only Zheng Xiao herself knew what that knot had been.

"The payment for this time has already been transferred to you. I've also settled the fees for all the homework tutoring you've given Xiaoxiao over this whole period. Thank you for looking after her all this time," Zheng Lanxuan said suddenly.

The homework-tutoring fees? They had already been transferred to me? Had Xiaoxiao told him about my situation too? It seemed their father-daughter relationship had improved quite dramatically. Still, how had he gotten hold of my account information?

"How did you know my account?" I asked.

"Your shop manager told me."

Wen Zi! Of course. He was the only one who had the key to my place. Since Wang Yue was here, he must have come too. That rascal.

Zheng Lanxuan added, "I didn't know your rates, so I paid you according to Zhuo Tianjiang's standard. If it's not enough, I'll add more."

Zhuo Tianjiang's standard! Which level of his did he use? That was a con man's standard; no matter which tier it was, it was not money I ought to be taking!

I caught sight of the phone on the bedside table, reached for it at once, and opened the bank message. The moment I saw the amount, I was stunned.

I looked at Zheng Lanxuan and said seriously, "Mr. Zheng, I can't accept this money. I helped Xiaoxiao because we knew each other."

He patted my shoulder. "Then consider it payment for future coffee and homework tutoring."

At Wen Zi's coffee shop prices, even a lifetime of coffee wouldn't have covered that sum.

Zheng Lanxuan gave me no chance to argue and walked out of the ward.

My injuries were not serious, at least not according to the hospital examination. There were no pierced wounds in my chest, only a few dark bruises and the marks of a heavy blow.

I stayed in the hospital for several days. During that time, the girls also came to visit me. Zheng Xiao had not told them what had happened, only that I had been injured and hospitalized. That was for the best. If those little girls learned the truth and started treating me like some reclusive master, what then? I also gave them some good news: from that day on, whenever they came to the coffee shop with Zheng Xiao, their expenses would be completely waived, charged to my account.

My recovery was very slow. Even after I left the hospital, my chest would still ache from time to time at night. Injuries caused by ghosts were not the same as ordinary wounds, and I had no idea when it would fully heal.

I sat in the coffee shop, staring idly out the window. Because most of the customers were students, the place was rather quiet during class hours. Wen Zi had not come by either; I did not know where he had gone to wander.

I studied Wang Yue, who sat across from me. More than ten days had passed, and he still had not regained his memory. I had no idea when he would remember anything.

I glanced at An Zhennan, who sat nearby with a smile while sending messages, and asked, "What did you say to this kid last time to scare him so badly?"

At that, Wang Yue's face turned red all over again, as though he had recalled the previous conversation.

An Zhennan looked up at me with a hint of mystery and said, "Nothing much. Just that in this day and age, a lot of people are into his type."

"That was it?" I asked skeptically. If it were that simple, how could it have frightened him so much?

Seeing Wang Yue's flushed face, I asked no further. I did not want to subject the poor kid to a second round of damage.